Reliability research#7
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Deep-dive notes on a reliability stack for self-hosted LLM tool calling — guardrails, compaction, synthetic respond tool, ablation, and eval significance — captured as next-steps.md for replication on our stack.
Empirical results from the IEEE preprint — compounding-error math, 8B+framework parity with frontier, backend hidden-variable swings, compaction strategy table, and replication takeaways. Companion to next-steps.md.
…l framework, and BFCL integration Three additions from a fuller read of the ADR directory: the _resolve_service lesson on why strict backends need a soft-error type, the five-tier diagnostic eval framework (lambda → ablated lambda → stateful → ablated stateful → stateful+strict), the information_loss future scenario concept, and the BFCL integration architecture as external validation.
…on caveat, and related-work section From the author's HN-thread discussion: per-guardrail impact ranking (retry nudges 24-49pt, error recovery ~10pt, rescue + compaction no eval signal but kept for production), 97-config coverage figure, and comparison to Instructor / LangChain / DSPy / Outlines / tool_choice=any explaining why they stack rather than substitute.
…and JSONL row schema Three operational additions: --reasoning-budget 0 workaround for post-2026-04-10 llama.cpp builds on reasoning models (silent hangs); production observability wiring patterns for on_message / on_compact / on_chunk callbacks with logger + Prometheus + alerting examples; and the JSONL row schema for resumable batch eval including the per-run identity/outcome/mechanics/history fields plus the rig provenance field for multi-rig datasets.
…rdrails)
Implements the in-loop reliability guardrails from the IEEE preprint / next-steps
specs so cheaper, smaller models reach near-frontier completion rates on
multi-step tool workflows. Auto-enabled for weak-tier models and any model in the
sampling-defaults table; frontier models pay near-zero cost.
What's new (each gated by the auto-enable rule in reliability-config.ts):
- Synthetic Respond tool — gives small models a structured terminal action so
the loop never has to disambiguate text vs. tool call. Auto-injected on the
wire only for weak-tier / known small-model deployments; single-Respond
batches short-circuit to text-done.
- Message tagging — every conversation append carries a MessageType
(system_prompt / user_input / tool_call / tool_result / reasoning /
text_response / step_nudge / prerequisite_nudge / retry_nudge /
context_warning / summary). Stripped at the wire boundary.
- Tiered 3-phase compaction — deterministic text manipulation, no LLM call.
P1 drops nudges + truncates tool_results to 200 chars; P2 also drops
tool_results; P3 drops reasoning + text_response. keep_recent=2 iteration
boundaries. LLM-summary path stays as a Phase-4 emergency fallback.
- ResponseValidator + Nudge — stateless validator emits structured retry /
unknown-tool / step / prerequisite nudges with three-tier escalation for
premature-terminal attempts.
- StepEnforcer + tool prerequisites — opt-in via requiredSteps / terminalTools
on AgentOptions; declared ToolDefinition.prerequisites validated at
registry-build time. StepEnforcementError / PrerequisiteError on exhaustion.
- ToolResolutionError — new tool-author exception type ("valid request, no
data") with softError tagging; the hard-error counter only bumps on
non-resolution throws, letting models fumble 8+ wrong-key lookups within
the iteration budget while still bailing on real bugs.
- Context threshold warnings — once-per-session-per-threshold transient
"context filling up" / "nearly full" injection at 65% / 80% with re-arm on
drop.
- Reasoning fold + think-tag utilities ([THINK] / <think>) for future wire
serialization.
- Per-model sampling defaults map (Ministral / Qwen3 / Granite 4 / Gemma 4)
with strict / non-strict policy.
- Per-call sampling overrides on every provider (Ollama, Anthropic, all
OpenAI-compat via shared adapter). New ChatOptions fields: topP, topK,
minP, repeatPenalty, presencePenalty, recommendedSampling.
- Anthropic synthetic tool_result for unpaired tool_use (load-bearing for the
step/prereq nudge path) + tool_choice="any" exposed via
ChatOptions.forceToolCall (auto-enabled on weak-tier Anthropic models).
- Backend context discovery via API — Ollama /api/show, llama-server /props.
- Observability events — step-nudge, prerequisite-nudge, step-completed,
context-warning, respond-stripped; compaction event now carries
phase: 0|1|2|3|4.
Out of scope (API-only constraint): ServerManager / launch flags / nvidia-smi
/ multi-slot / proxy server / ablation framework / eval harness.
Test coverage: 1260 unit tests (+80) across 11 new test files. Full plan in
~/.claude/plans/recursive-stargazing-truffle.md.
CI lint flagged five rules after the reliability-stack commit. All behavior-preserving extractions: - run-agent.ts: split the runAgent generator under the 300-line cap by extracting fireUserPromptSubmit, handleNoToolCallsBranch, detectRespondShortCircuit, emitEnforcerObservability, resolveChainPointer, captureChainPointer, maybeInjectContextWarning, settleCleanBatch, isHardErrorBudgetExhausted, and hasAnyPrereqs. Replaced an inline import() type annotation with the proper type-import (consistent-type-imports rule). - shared.ts: pulled resolveSampling's repetitive conditional ladders into mergeDefaults / mergeOverrides helpers backed by a single ChatOptions→ResolvedSampling field map; complexity drops well below the cap. - anthropic.ts: extracted anthropicExtras(sampling, forceToolCall, hasTools) so both the streaming and non-streaming params builders stay under the per-method complexity cap. - ollama.ts: extracted ollamaOptions(model, maxTokens, sampling) used by both chat() and chatNoStream(); same intent. Tests still green (1260 unit + 48 e2e, 4 PTY skipped). No public API changes.
Applies fixes from the branch review at
~/.claude/plans/humming-bubbling-lollipop.md.
- providers: thread `providerName` through buildChatBody so the
per-model sampling-defaults diagnostic INFO line fires for OpenAI-
compat providers too (openai, cerebras, llamacpp, groq, openrouter,
vercel, mistral, workersai, copilot, googleaistudio, opencodezen).
Defaults already applied silently — only the log was missing.
- docs: move research notes off the repo root.
next-steps.md → docs/reliability/next-steps.md
next_steps_paper.md → docs/reliability/paper-findings.md
Updates 19 in-source `next-steps.md §N` references to the new path.
- tiered-compact: `changed` is now cumulative across P1/P2/P3 via a
running OR. Previously returned only the final phase's delta, so
a P1-only mutation followed by no-op P2 falsely reported
`changed=false` to callers (logging-only impact, but misleading).
- anthropic: flush `pendingToolUseIds` on *any* plain-message
boundary in `splitMessagesForAnthropic`, not just user-role. The
conversation grammar never produces consecutive assistant runs
today, but the guard hardens against future regressions (summary
injection, mid-turn rewrites) that could leak unpaired tool_use
to the wire — Anthropic 400s on that shape.
- tools/types: codify the `ToolResult` flag matrix as a doc comment.
Enumerates the 7 reachable combinations and the mutual-exclusion
rules (softError ⊕ hardError, both imply success=false, etc.).
- tests (+23): three new suites/sections.
* resolveSampling three-tier merge chain (8 cases) — instance
defaults → per-model table → per-call overrides precedence,
camel→snake field mapping, recommendedSampling on unknown
model is a no-op.
* autoEnableForModel tier gating (5 cases) — weak/medium/strong
paths, sampling-profile override of tier, forceToolCall only
fires for weak-tier Anthropic.
* tiered-compact (3 cases) — cumulative `changed` after multi-
phase run, tool_call ↔ tool_result pairing across P2, metadata
preservation through all phases.
No public API changes (buildChatBody gains an optional field).
1283 unit tests pass (+23). No production behavior change beyond
the diagnostic-log and Anthropic flush hardening above.
Implements the punch list from the reliability-research review: - Anthropic: tests for the unpaired tool_use → is_error tool_result shim. - Recovery state: per-pipeline clone + deterministic merge to eliminate the read-modify-write race in parallel Delegate batches. - ChatOptions.thinking tri-state (true/false/'auto') with resolver, ThinkingNotSupportedError, and inline <think>/[THINK] discard path for Ollama's leak case. Tag-parsing helpers moved to src/utils/ to honour the providers→core architecture boundary. - Ollama native↔prompt auto-downgrade: per-model tool-mode cache via getModelInfo, prompt-mode preamble + history downgrade (tool→user, assistant.tool_calls→<tool_call> JSON). - Typed Nudge.meta so observability events no longer regex-parse the rendered template. - resolveSampling rejects instance-level seed (per-call only per §17) and gains immutability tests. - Threshold-warning re-fire integration test across turns. - Comment clarification on per-call vs batch-level hard-error reset. Unit suite: 1289 → 1320 tests, all passing.
Splits the tool-mode/sampling/thinking branches out of `chat` and `chatNoStream` into a private `buildChatRequest`, and the chunk→ ChatChunk shaping into a free `mapOllamaChunk`. Brings both methods back under the eslint complexity cap (25) after the prompt-mode auto-downgrade landed.
The strict test tsconfig (tsconfig.test.json) enforces all fields on ToolDefinition; the unit-only `tsx --test` run elides this check, so the missing discriminator only surfaced in CI.
Punch list from the second branch review:
- anthropic: emit a `tool-result-orphan` diagnostic provider-log entry
when a `tool_result.tool_call_id` doesn't match any pending
`tool_use` in `splitMessagesForAnthropic`. Anthropic 400s on that
shape anyway; the log shortens the diagnostic path from "opaque
400" to "exact id that went unmatched".
- text-tool-parser: case-insensitive tool-name matching with
canonicalisation. Small models routinely lowercase ("read" vs
"Read"); the validator's unknown-tool check and the registry's
`get()` are both case-insensitive, but the parser was stricter and
silently dropped lowercase calls before either could see them.
Now the parser does the same case-fold and rewrites the name to
the registered canonical form so downstream consumers (which
assume exact case) stay happy. Applied to the <tool_call> tag,
Hermes-style <function=...> tag, and bare-JSON fallback paths.
- nudges: remove unused `RESPOND_TOOL` re-export (no callers).
- docs: replace the misleading "Aim: reproduce this on our own
stack" preface in next-steps.md with a status block clarifying
that the file is upstream research notes from the IEEE preprint
+ Python framework, not the TS implementation. Add a small
section→file map so readers know which `src/` paths actually
implement each §N anchor referenced from doc-comments.
- doc-comment refs: normalise two shorthand `next-steps.md §N`
comments to the full `docs/reliability/next-steps.md §N` path
(shared.ts, think-tags.ts) so every reference in `src/` uses the
same form.
Tests (+8): five new parser cases covering lowercase tag/bare/
Hermes-tag and the still-rejects-truly-unknown guarantee; three
new cases under `runToolCalls — parallel Delegate batches >
StepEnforcer + parallel Delegate` pinning that the shared
StepEnforcer correctly records all successful siblings (and skips
failed ones) while recovery state is cloned per-pipeline.
Unit suite: 1324 → 1332 tests, all passing.
- format: prettier --write across the branch's reliability surface (docs/, src/core/agent/, src/providers/, tests). Pure whitespace / line-wrapping; the codebase's prettier config is the source of truth. - knip: drop `export` from five symbols that were never imported externally: ReliabilityError (still extended by the three subclasses in the same file), DEFAULT_KEEP_RECENT (sole caller is in the same file), NudgeKind + NudgeMeta (used inside `Nudge`), and ThinkExtractResult (return type of an exported function — callers infer it). Also drop the stale `type ThinkExtractResult` re-export from reasoning.ts. - run-agent: prettier reformat bumped `runAgent` to 306 lines, over the eslint max-lines-per-function cap (300). Extract `buildStepEnforcer(options, toolRegistry)` to bring it back under; pure behaviour-preserving extraction of the conditional StepEnforcer construction block.
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