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FabledScribe/tests/test_retrieval_miss_route.py
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bvandeusenandClaude Opus 5.5 4fb53b844d
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refactor(mcp): _INSTRUCTIONS orients the workflow, not a rulebook (#4389)
Spike #4389 read the spec, Claude's docs and a dozen servers: the field is
for how the tools fit together, and the field runs ~600-1,600 characters.
Ours sat at the 2,048 cap as a keyword index that also carried stance.

- JUDGE, REPORT and MISSED leave the index. They fire mid-work, not at
  session start; using-scribe and reporting-back state them in full, and
  `placement`/`report_back` cue reporting in-band. No skill text changes.
- The rest is rewritten as plain practices (1,503 chars) and keeps every
  session-start marker the ownership registry pins.
- INSTRUCTIONS_BUDGET 2000 -> 1600; the three index markers are dropped
  from the registry; the miss-route index test now checks that the index
  keeps what_might_apply and stays off the route.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-24 07:50:34 -04:00

158 lines
6.8 KiB
Python

"""A recognized retrieval miss has a route, and the route is ordered (#4133).
WHY THIS EXISTS
Milestone 416 built the tuning loop across steps 4 and 6 — `retrieval_surfaces`
to read a dial, `tune_retrieval` to move one with its argument attached,
`migrate_retrieval_floor` to carry it across a model change — and then measured,
on 2026-09-17, that `retrieval_tuning_history` returned **zero events**. Not one
call, ever.
The cause was not a tool being wrong. The three tools appeared on NO instruction
surface: not the skills, not the hooks, not the MCP `_INSTRUCTIONS`. They were
classified in `server.py`'s read/write lists and named nowhere a session would
read them. The operator's decision for #4102 — *"the model should be the thing
handling it 9 times out of 10"* — could not begin to happen.
So this file guards a ROUTE, not a behaviour: that a session which notices a
rule missed the moment it governed has somewhere written down to take it.
WHY THE ORDER IS THE LOAD-BEARING PART
`test_the_record_comes_before_the_dial` is the test that matters here, and it is
positional on purpose. Both halves of the route are individually reasonable —
read the telemetry, move the floor — and stated in either order they read as a
menu. They are not a menu. A rule's `when_to_apply` IS the text its score is
computed against, so a miss is evidence about that text first; a floor is one
number governing every record on the surface and cannot tell a badly-worded
trigger from a genuinely distant one.
Measured on this install, which is why the order is asserted rather than
suggested: rule 1 "`dev` is home" scored 0.6515 and ranked 5th for the moment it
governed, behind three rules that RESTRAINED the same act. Every percentile said
"lower the floor" — and at 0.60 the arm delivered those three restraints and
still not rule 1. Rewriting the trigger to lead with the symptom put the same
rule 1st at 0.7130. The dial-first path was available, statistically supported,
and wrong.
"""
from __future__ import annotations
import pathlib
import re
ROOT = pathlib.Path(__file__).resolve().parents[1]
SKILL = ROOT / "plugin/skills/using-scribe/SKILL.md"
# The three tools that shipped with no route to them. Named together because
# the gap was all three at once, and a partial fix would leave the loop broken
# at whichever step lost its pointer.
TUNING_TOOLS = ("retrieval_telemetry", "update_rule", "retrieval_surfaces",
"tune_retrieval")
def _skill() -> str:
return SKILL.read_text()
def _instructions() -> str:
src = (ROOT / "src/scribe/mcp/server.py").read_text()
match = re.search(r'_INSTRUCTIONS = """(.*?)"""', src, re.S)
assert match, "server.py no longer defines _INSTRUCTIONS as a literal"
return match.group(1)
def test_the_route_names_every_tool_it_depends_on():
"""The measured gap: machinery with no instruction surface pointing at it."""
text = _skill()
missing = [t for t in TUNING_TOOLS if t not in text]
assert not missing, (
f"using-scribe no longer names {missing}. These tools reach a session "
f"through this skill and nowhere else — when they were named on no "
f"surface at all, the tuning loop logged zero events in its lifetime."
)
def test_the_record_comes_before_the_dial():
"""THE GUARD. Stated in the wrong order, the route becomes a menu.
Positional rather than a presence check, because presence is exactly what
a reordering preserves. Asserted on first occurrence: what a reader meets
first is what they act on.
"""
text = _skill()
read_records = text.index("retrieval_telemetry")
fix_trigger = text.index("update_rule(when_to_apply")
move_dial = text.index("tune_retrieval")
assert read_records < move_dial, (
"the route reaches tune_retrieval before retrieval_telemetry. Reading "
"the refused records is the step that separates a real miss from a bar "
"doing its job — a percentile cannot, and has been measured pointing "
"the wrong way."
)
assert fix_trigger < move_dial, (
"the route reaches tune_retrieval before update_rule. A miss is "
"evidence about the trigger first: rewording one trigger changes one "
"rule's reach, while moving a floor changes every record on the surface."
)
def test_the_route_says_what_a_floor_costs_that_a_trigger_does_not():
"""The REASON for the order, not just the order.
Without it the ordering is arbitrary and the first session under deadline
will invert it. The asymmetry is the whole argument: one trigger against
every record on the surface.
"""
text = " ".join(_skill().split()).lower()
assert "take it to the record first and the dial second" in text
assert "changes one rule's reach" in text
assert "changes what every record on" in text
def test_a_session_can_notice_its_own_miss():
"""Both noticers, or the route only ever fires when the operator complains.
The self-noticed case is the one that scales — it does not need somebody
watching — and it is the one a surface written only around operator
feedback silently omits.
"""
text = " ".join(_skill().split()).lower()
assert "either noticer" in text
assert "reached for a rule nobody offered you" in text
# Both directions too: a rule that never arrives and one that always does
# are the same misjudgment, and they point at different dials.
assert "either direction counts" in text
def test_writing_a_new_record_asks_what_already_covers_the_moment():
"""The create path is retrieval-affecting, and nothing said so.
A second record on one moment splits a single budget between two claims,
and when the copies differ in force the softer one teaches a session that
binding guidance is optional. `what_might_apply` rather than `search`
because a bar is exactly what lets the existing record hide.
"""
text = " ".join(_skill().split()).lower()
assert "ask what already covers that moment" in text
assert "what_might_apply" in text
assert "no bar" in text
def test_the_route_stays_off_the_index():
"""`_INSTRUCTIONS` is the only surface every MCP client gets (decision #4027).
It carried a one-line MISSED pointer to this route until #4389, which found
the index was being used as a rulebook: a missed rule is noticed mid-work,
not at session start, and the spec asks server instructions for the
workflow across tools, not stance. using-scribe states the route (the tests
above pin it); the index keeps what_might_apply, the tool that opens it.
Whitespace-flattened before matching: the block is hard-wrapped, so a
phrase straddles a line break the moment anything before it changes length
(#4103).
"""
text = " ".join(_instructions().split()).lower()
assert "what_might_apply" in text
assert "take it to the record first" not in text