Per J 2026-04-25: pathway_memory was append-only — every agent run added
a new trace, bad/failed runs polluted the matrix forever, no notion of
"this is the canonical evolved playbook." Ported playbook_memory's
Phase 25/27 patterns into pathway_memory so the agent loop's matrix
converges on best-known approaches per task class instead of bloating.
Fields added to PathwayTrace (all #[serde(default)] for back-compat):
- trace_uid: stable UUID per individual trace within a bucket
- version: u32 default 1
- parent_trace_uid, superseded_at, superseded_by_trace_uid
- retirement_reason (paired with existing retired:bool)
Methods added to PathwayMemory:
- upsert(trace) → PathwayUpsertOutcome {Added|Updated|Noop}
Workflow-fingerprint dedup: ladder_attempts + final_verdict hash.
Identical workflow → bumps existing replay_count instead of duplicating.
- revise(parent_uid, new_trace) → PathwayReviseOutcome
Chains versions; rejects retired or already-superseded parents.
- retire(trace_uid, reason) → bool
Marks specific trace retired with reason. Idempotent.
- history(trace_uid) → Vec<PathwayTrace>
Walks parent_trace_uid back to root, then superseded_by forward to tip.
Cycle-safe via visited set.
Retrieval gates updated:
- query_hot_swap skips superseded_at.is_some()
- bug_fingerprints_for skips both retired AND superseded
HTTP endpoints in service.rs:
- POST /vectors/pathway/upsert
- POST /vectors/pathway/retire
- POST /vectors/pathway/revise
- GET /vectors/pathway/history/{trace_uid}
scripts/seal_agent_playbook.ts switched insert→upsert + accepts SESSION_DIR
arg so it can seal any archived session, not just iter4.
Verified live (4/4 ops):
- UPSERT first run: Added trace_uid 542ae53f
- UPSERT identical: Updated, replay_count bumped 0→1 (no duplicate)
- REVISE 542ae53f→87a70a61: parent stamped superseded_at, v2 created
- HISTORY of v2: chain_len=2, v1 superseded, v2 tip
- RETIRE iter-6 broken trace: retired=true, retirement_reason preserved
- pathway_memory.stats: total=79, retired=1, reuse_rate=0.0127
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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