generated from coulomb/repo-seed
tegwick
1b6081cd88
Tighten _is_failed: exclude successful hub JSON responses (top-level no-error payloads) and file-read snapshots (numbered cat -n source lines) that were polluting error_snippets. JSON verdict classifies error vs success payloads directly. Cuts distinct fingerprints 444 -> 269 (~40%) over the real corpus with the top errors unchanged. Assessment caveat updated. 5 new tests; suite 102/102. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
145 lines
7.2 KiB
Markdown
145 lines
7.2 KiB
Markdown
# Infrastructure Friction Assessment
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*Generated 2026-06-07 from captured coding-session data (Helix Forge session
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memory), after the Detect-hardening pass ([AGENTIC-WP-0005]). First data-driven
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assessment of where our agentic coding sessions spend effort on plumbing rather
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than work.*
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## Method & data quality
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- **Corpus:** 72 sessions captured across Claude + Grok. A session-quality filter
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([detect/quality.py]) drops health-checks, smoke-tests, and interrupted runs
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(mostly `llm-connect` *"Say hello in one word"*). **27 are real coding sessions.**
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- **Caveat:** the 41 % that were filtered out had been mislabeled `abandoned` by
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the outcome heuristic and produced a *false-positive* "cross-flavor abandoned"
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pattern in the first catalog — now purged. Treat any pre-hardening finding with
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suspicion.
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- **Key framing:** all 27 real sessions ended in `success`. So the friction here
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is **cost/efficiency, not failure** — sessions get there, but pay an avoidable
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tax to do it.
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## The headline number
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Across the 27 real sessions, tool-call activity breaks down as:
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| Bucket | Share |
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|--------|------:|
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| shell (Bash / run_terminal) | 38.2 % |
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| edit | 30.2 % |
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| read | 12.9 % |
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| **State Hub MCP** | **10.3 %** |
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| **task-management plumbing** | **5.8 %** |
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| **schema-loading (`ToolSearch`)** | **1.5 %** |
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| other | 1.1 % |
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**~17.6 % of all tool calls in real coding sessions are coordination plumbing
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(hub + task + schema-loading), not touching the repo.** Per-session infra-overhead
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share: median **11.7 %**, p90 **26.1 %**, max **43.3 %** — it concentrates badly.
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## Ranked friction
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### 1. State Hub call volume — *highest cost, addressable*
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State Hub MCP is 10.3 % of all tool calls and dominates the worst sessions:
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| Repo (one session) | total calls | State Hub calls | overhead share |
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|--------------------|------:|------:|------:|
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| vergabe-teilnahme | 570 | **231** | 43 % |
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| activity-core | 488 | 98 | 23 % |
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| flex-auth | 236 | 35 (+27 task) | 29 % |
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| net-kingdom | 129 | 25 | 22 % |
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Root cause: many **fine-grained** calls — per-task status updates, per-event
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progress writes, repeated `get_domain_summary`. 231 hub calls in a single session
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is coordination overhead, not work.
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### 2. Schema-loading thrash (`ToolSearch`) — *low cost, near-zero-effort fix*
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**106 `ToolSearch` calls across 22 of 27 sessions (81 %).** The State Hub MCP
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tools are *deferred*, so nearly every session re-discovers and re-loads the same
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tool schemas before it can call them. This is pure overhead with no work value —
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and it is **exactly the CLI/MCP-interface friction hypothesized.**
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### 3. Task-management plumbing — 5.8 %
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`TaskUpdate` / `TaskCreate` / `todo_write` / `update_task_status`. Overlaps with
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(1); much of it is redundant status churn within a session.
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### 4. Tool thrash — *session-shape, watch only*
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11 sessions hammer a single tool 80–230× (usually Bash or Edit). Less an infra
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problem than a sign of missing higher-level tooling; low priority.
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### 5. Budget overrun — 3 sessions
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Token cost well above peers. Secondary; revisit once (1)–(2) are addressed.
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## Recommendations
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**The CLI/MCP-interface hypothesis is validated as a top-2 friction, not a minor
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issue.** Two high-ROI moves:
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- **A. A State Hub skill (highest ROI).** A skill (or a pre-loaded tool manifest)
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that (i) **front-loads the common hub tool schemas** so agents stop
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`ToolSearch`-ing for them — eliminates finding #2 almost entirely (81 % of
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sessions) — and (ii) **teaches batched writes** (sync N task statuses in one
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call, fewer progress events) to attack finding #1. Low effort, broad reach.
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- **B. Coarser hub operations.** Add bulk endpoints / a single "sync workplan
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statuses" op so a session doesn't make 200+ individual hub calls. This is the
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structural fix behind the skill's guidance.
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- **C. Measure the effect (Phase 4).** After A/B land, compare infra-overhead
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share on subsequent sessions against this baseline (median 11.7 %, p90 26.1 %).
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This is precisely what the Measure phase is for — the loop closes here.
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## Content-level root causes (error-body mining)
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*Added 2026-06-07 from [AGENTIC-WP-0006] — `build_digest` now mines normalized
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error fingerprints into the durable digest, and `sig_recurring_error` clusters
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them. This is the "why" the tool-mix view above could not see.*
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**26 of 27 real sessions hit at least one error.** Top recurring error
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fingerprints across the corpus (by # sessions affected):
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| # sessions | occ | flavors | top sample |
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|-----------:|----:|---------|------------|
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| **12** | 32 | claude | `<tool_use_error>File has not been read yet. Read it first before writing to it.` |
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| **6** | 13 | claude | `<tool_use_error>File has been modified since read …` |
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| **4** | 9 | **claude + grok** | `make: *** [Makefile:227: fix-consistency] Error 1` |
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| 3 | 21 | claude | `MCP error -32602: Invalid request parameters` |
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| 3 | 6 | claude | `Error calling tool 'update_task_status': 'title'` |
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| 2 | 6 | claude | `make: *** [Makefile:21: test] Error 1` |
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Reading:
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- **#1 — Edit/Write-before-Read (12/27 sessions, 8 repos).** The single most
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common error is agents trying to edit a file they haven't read into context.
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This is a *workflow* friction, highly addressable: a Read-before-Edit reflex in
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the agent instructions / a skill, or a harness affordance. (Observed live: the
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author hit this exact error twice while writing this workplan.)
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- **#2 — stale-read conflicts (6 sessions):** "File has been modified since read"
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— same family, a re-read-before-edit discipline fixes both.
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- **#3 — cross-flavor `make fix-consistency` failures (claude + grok, 3 repos):**
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the consistency tooling itself fails across flavors — a shared infra issue worth
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a look on the state-hub side (cf. [STATE-WP-0058]).
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- **State Hub MCP instability** (`-32602`, `update_task_status 'title'`) shows up
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in 3 sessions each — corroborates the plumbing-overhead story and the live MCP
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flakiness seen during this work (REST fallback used).
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**Fingerprint noise — mostly handled.** `_is_failed` now excludes successful hub
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JSON responses (top-level no-error payloads) and file-read snapshots (numbered
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`cat -n` source lines), which cut distinct fingerprints **444 → 269 (~40 %)**
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without touching the top entries. Residual low-value items remain in the long tail
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(bare structural lines like `{`, linter "N errors" summaries); the *top*
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fingerprints are real. Note several entries (`MCP error -32602`,
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`update_task_status 'title'`) reflect the State Hub MCP instability hit live during
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this work — genuine, if self-referential, friction.
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## What this assessment still can't see
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- ~~**Why** a session was expensive at the content level.~~ **Now addressed**
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(error-body mining, above), modulo the fingerprint-noise caveat.
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- Repeated *failed approaches* (as opposed to surfaced errors) — e.g. an agent
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silently retrying a wrong strategy without an error — are still invisible.
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- Grok/Codex are thin in the corpus (4 Grok, 0 Codex sessions), so cross-flavor
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friction claims are Claude-weighted for now.
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[AGENTIC-WP-0005]: ../workplans/AGENTIC-WP-0005-detect-hardening.md
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[AGENTIC-WP-0006]: ../workplans/AGENTIC-WP-0006-error-body-mining.md
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[STATE-WP-0058]: handed off to the state-hub repo worker
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[detect/quality.py]: ../session_memory/detect/quality.py
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