* feat(l10): autonomous idle frontier-contemplation — the always-on life learns on its own
Frontier survey move #2, path (c): give the always-on idle life a stream of experience via
SYMBOLIC intake (not the afferent→field seam, which is deferred pending a commensurability
ruling — docs/analysis/afferent-field-ingest-scope-2026-06-15.md). The idle heartbeat
converges (idle_tick drains a finite backlog + saturates is-a closure, then does nothing
forever); this makes it autonomously MINE its frontier with no user turn.
Reuse-heavy (the mechanism largely existed): a gated idle pass wires ADR-0080 contemplation
into the always-on loop.
- core/config.py: contemplate_frontier_during_idle (default off → no behavior change).
- chat/runtime.py: idle_tick pass 2b — when on, runs core.contemplation.run_contemplation()
(mines the checked-in frontier-compare reports) and persists a reviewable ContemplationRun
to <engine_state>/contemplation_runs/idle_<substrate_hash>.json. IDEMPOTENT per frontier
(an already-mined frontier is not re-persisted → the life converges, no churn) and MEMOIZED
per session (the static frontier is mined once, not re-read every beat). SPECULATIVE-only
(ADR-0080: ContemplationFinding.__post_init__ RAISES if not SPECULATIVE → wrong=0 by
construction; never ratified here — the HITL path is untouched). IdleTickResult gains
frontier_findings.
- chat/always_on.py: run_continuous did_work + HeartbeatRecord count frontier work, so the
heartbeat/soak convergence (H3) stays honest.
- core/cli.py: `core always-on --contemplate-frontier` (explicit learning-daemon mode) +
honest per-beat log ("+N findings").
Adversarial 3-lens review (wrong=0/convergence, determinism/trust-boundary, test-vacuity)
found 7; fixed the real ones: the MEDIUM torn-write (write_contemplation_run is now atomic
temp+os.replace — the indefinite-uptime daemon expects SIGKILL mid-write, and the skip-guard
would never repair a torn canonical file), the gitignore breadth (contemplation_runs/ at any
engine-state root), the 64-bit filename truncation (full substrate_hash), and the
re-mine-every-beat cost (session memoization). Deferred + documented: the shared
contemplation miner embeds absolute report paths in finding CONTENT — a portability wrinkle
that does NOT affect wrong=0/convergence/soak determinism (those key on the content-only
substrate_hash) and touches shared code + its test surface; a follow-up.
Tests (non-vacuous): 7 — off-by-default (no behavior change), mines-when-enabled,
findings-SPECULATIVE (wrong=0), converges-idempotent, heartbeat-mines-then-converges,
mines-once-per-session (memoization), atomic-no-orphan. 55 idle/contemplation/always-on +
96 invariants/contemplation + 28 smoke green; `core always-on --contemplate-frontier` mines
end-to-end. engine_state contemplation_runs are per-life runtime state (gitignored).
* fix(l10): isolate idle frontier pass + persist frontier_findings (#758)
Three review blockers on the autonomous idle frontier-contemplation pass:
1. Daemon isolation. idle_tick's pass 2b called run_contemplation /
write_contemplation_run bare inside the always-on loop (run_continuous
wraps idle_tick in nothing but an exit-checkpoint finally), so a malformed
frontier report or a transient FS fault would propagate out and KILL the
continuous life. Wrap the optional pass best-effort (the exit-checkpoint
boundary idiom): degrade to 0 findings + RuntimeWarning, leave did_work
untouched, let a later beat retry.
2. Durable did_work explanation. HeartbeatRecord carried frontier_findings
but serialize_report omitted it and AlwaysOnReport had no run total, so
lived_life.json could show did_work=true with facts=0/proposals=0 and no
persisted cause. Persist frontier_findings per-record + total_frontier_findings.
3. Honest HITL claim. The docstring/CLI/config said findings are "reviewable
via the HITL path", but the existing HITL queue + workbench reader scan
<repo>/contemplation/runs while the pass writes <engine_state>/contemplation_runs/.
Narrow the claim to "persisted reviewable artifact, not yet in the HITL
queue" (wiring that discovery is a follow-up).
Tests: 4 new non-vacuous regressions (mining-failure degrade, write-failure
degrade, always-on loop survives frontier failure, lived_life persists
frontier_findings) — all fail against the unpatched pass. 38 L10/always-on/
workbench tests green.
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