reliquary/docs/workpad/reports/2026-10-17-00-gremlins-mvp-cuts.md

Gremlins MVP: unrequested-surface calls

• Author model: claude-sonnet-5-5 · Date: 2026-10-17 · Branch gremlins-mvp @ cfeb1bf
• Source: phase review §2. The user ruled on the rows below: keep the useful ones, cut the rest, one-line reason each. This commit records the calls; the cuts follow in the next commit.

#	Item	Call	Reason
2	briefs/<J>.md: full prompt per job	keep	Debugging aid.
3	Ledger torn-last-line repair	keep	Protects the ledger after a hard stop.
4	In-process threading.Lock around ledger append	cut	Each spawn is its own process, so it guards nothing; the spec says "without locks".
5	MODEL_RE, aliases refused at init	keep	An alias would change the fingerprint and break cache hits; B1 asks for a full id.
6	EFFORTS choices, default high	keep	Trivial argparse guard.
7	Tool deny list (Bash(claude:*), git push/rebase/reset --hard)	keep	Headless unattended gremlins must not recurse or rewrite history.
8	SPIRE_GREMLIN_CHILD=1 in the child env	cut	Rider: the refusal it served was dropped, so it is leftover.
11	refused / model_refused status case	cut	Not in the spec's classify; the harness substitutes unlisted models silently, so error covers it.
12	Stream fields tracked and never read (init, msg_ids, _ids, events, turns)	cut	Never read.
13	mismatch in usage_from_result	cut	Rider: computed and never read.
14	wrote_only_5m	cut	Rider: never called.
16	NAME_RE on base/job names	keep	Names become file paths.
17	Note detection by mtime with 2 s slack	cut	Replace with a plain existence check of notes/<J>.md, since spawn refuses an existing job name (#20).
22	base_state in spawn output	cut	status reports warmth and cache reports the outcome.
23	init defaults cwd to the git toplevel	keep	cwd is in the fingerprint; a stable default avoids cache misses.
25	stderr to raw/<J>.err	keep	Cheap debugging aid.
26	Reader join timeout 10 s	keep	Without it an orphan holding stdout hangs the helper (spec §7 leftover).
28	Unused ss=None injection parameter in call.py	cut	Used by no caller.

Result

Premises checked in the code before each cut. Tests: uv run --no-project --python 3.12 python -m unittest discover -s tests gave 24 tests, OK (run twice).

File	Added	Removed
grm/stream.py	9	39
grm/call.py	4	4
grm/cli.py	2	4
grm/launch.py	1	1
Total	16	48

Net code: 32 lines removed (16 added, 48 deleted); no test was removed or changed (none existed only for a cut item).

Kept against the call

• #4 threading.Lock around ledger append: kept. Premise half true: in production each spawn is its own process, so no two threads of one process append. But with the lock removed test_store.test_parallel_appends_give_whole_lines (96 of 100 lines) and test_cli.test_parallel_spawns (2 of 3 ledger lines) fail, on every run. Appends from separate handles on Windows lose lines. The lock only makes those B3 tests pass in-process; across real processes the same race is unguarded either way (the review's open "Windows append atomicity" item). Cutting it would mean weakening two B3 tests, which the call forbids. Needs a decision: either keep the lock as is, or replace it with a cross-process append (for example a lock file or an msvcrt byte-range lock) in a separate change.

Notes on the cuts

• #12: session_id from the init event is now taken only while unset (self.session_id is None), which matches the old "first init wins" behaviour.
• #28: StreamState is now imported at the top of call.py instead of lazily inside the ss is None branch.
• #17: premise holds. spawn refuses an existing jobs/<J>.json (cli.py:255) and _execute writes that file before the call starts, so a note that exists afterwards was written by this job.
• #11: nothing outside stream.py read refused or model_refused (code, tests, SKILL.md, templates).
• #8, #13, #14, #22: no reader in code, tests, SKILL.md or templates. SKILL.md and templates mentioned none of the cut items, so they are unchanged.