match_image now sources character references from character_prototype via a
per-character in-process cache (_load_prototypes) that reloads ONLY the
characters whose ccip_prototype_state.updated_at advanced — no request-path
rebuild, so the per-accept ~4s stall is gone once the store is populated. Cold
start (store empty pre-first-refresh) falls back to the legacy on-the-fly
reference build, so character suggestions work immediately post-deploy and the
background refresh populates the store within ~15 min. Match math + grounding
are unchanged; existing tests exercise the legacy fallback, and a new test
covers matching from the populated prototype store.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01CDgx8bQS5YrGRK76v8HUnM
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