The generate command's fast lane spent most of its time on agent round trips, not on the engine. Four engine changes take them out, all behind the lane's own flags so a plain `live` session is untouched: - `live-poll --reply <id> done --then-poll` replies and waits for the next event in one call; the reply's ack rides along as `_replyAck`. - `live-generate` collects the session's own generate event into its output (`GET /poll?types=generate&id=<sessionId>`, a new id filter the parked-poll flush honours too), so the pickup poll is gone. - `live-generate --boot` runs the lane's boot in-process and reuses a running helper; `--dev-url <url>` names the dev server the agent already knows and leads the probe; with no page connected the verdict is `browser_needed` with the harness's own way to open the page (Cursor browser_navigate, Claude Code's Browser pane, Codex --open or the user). `--open` launches the system browser only on a harness without one: on cursor and claude-code it is ignored unless IMPECCABLE_BROWSER or the config's `browser` names a browser, so a second window never opens beside the harness's. The served /live.js carries the helper-wide bar preference in its prelude. - The accept of a session the generate verb started (journaled with origin "agent", or `--bake`) is baked mechanically: the accepted variant's @scope rules are re-anchored on the element's own selector and appended to the stylesheet that names it, the wrapper is unwrapped, the source verified clean. Knobs, plumbing inside the variant, no stylesheet, or a selector the rewrite cannot decide fall back to the carbonize block with `bakeSkipped`. `--no-bake` refuses. Goldens re-recorded for the three help texts and the no-browser case. Written with AI assistance (Claude). Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Oracle: behavior goldens for every impeccable verb
lib.mjs runs each case (verb + args + staged workspace + stdin) against an
implementation and captures stdout, stderr, exit code, and named files, with
machine-specific paths and timestamps normalized.
- The goldens are frozen JS behavior: they were recorded from the Node
scripts (
skill/scripts,cli/bin) before those left the tree with the launcher swap, plus the reviewed deltas inDELTAS.md. They are the behavior contract the engine binary is held to. record.mjs --bin(with$IMPECCABLE_BINor--bin=/path) writes goldens from the binary, for new cases or a delta a review accepted. Plainrecord.mjsstill targets the JS scripts and only works on a checkout that has them (history before the swap).run.mjsreplays the corpus against$IMPECCABLE_BIN(or--jsfor a self-check on a pre-swap checkout) and diffs. Byte-equal is the bar;DELTAS.mdlists reviewed exceptions.tests/oracle.test.mjsrunsrun.mjsunderbun run testand skips when no binary is found (IMPECCABLE_BINorskill/scripts/bin/<os>-<arch>/, filled bybun run fetch:engine).cases/*.mjsdefine the corpus (default export: array or async function returning an array).workspaces/holds project fixtures that are copied to a temp dir per run, so cases can write freely.
Adding a case: append to the matching cases/*.mjs, run
node tests/oracle/record.mjs --bin <prefix>, review the golden by hand
(the binary is now the recorder, so a bug in it would be frozen too), commit
the golden.
Verb names are the binary's subcommands. cli-help and cli-version map to
impeccable --help / --version. lib.mjs still carries the JS_VERBS
table that maps each verb to the script it was recorded from.
vectors/ holds the function-level vectors recorded from the JS engine's pure
functions; see vectors/README.md.
Corpus files
cases/detect.mjs:detect,cli-help,cli-version,ignores.cases/hooks.mjs:hook,hook-before-edit,hook-admin.cases/context.mjs:context,doctor,pin,surface-brief,critique-storage,palette,embed-prompt,context-signals(id prefixsignals-),detect-csp(csp-),concept-seed(seed-),generate-image(genimg-),serve-question(question-). Only offline paths: the local catalog fixture or an unreachable roll API, fake image generation, and serve-question modes that never open a browser or listen. Workspaces areworkspaces/ctx-*; the header comment in the case file describes each one. Machine-specific env (OPENAI_API_KEY, catalog and context overrides,CI) is pinned per case so the recording host does not leak into goldens.
Normalizations
Beyond paths and ISO timestamps, normalize() masks these run- or
machine-dependent fragments. Each is targeted at one script's output:
IMAGE_TOOLS: <IMAGE_TOOLS_PROBE>:contextprobeswhich cwebp sips magick ffmpeg; the set found describes the machine, not the script."devServer": <DEV_SERVER_PROBE>:context-signalsprobes localhost ports 4321/3000/5173/5174/8080/8000/4200; whatever is listening on the recording host is not part of the contract.<STAMP>:critique-storagestamps snapshots with the wall clock in dash form (2026-05-12T18-30-00Z), in the file name and thetimestamp:frontmatter it writes. Cases that write a snapshot do not snapshot the file; they runlatest/trendafterwards instead."<finding-id>": <EPOCH>: the staleness notice cache (~/.impeccable/staleness-check.json) keys epoch stamps by finding id.<IMPECCABLE> <verb>/<HOOK_ADMIN_CMD>: self-referential command lines.
Not covered on purpose: palette with no --id / --from / env seed (random),
concept-seed against the live roll API, generate-image real mode,
serve-question --start / blocking mode (opens a browser and binds a port),
and unhandled-exception paths whose stack traces carry Node line numbers.
Live-mode cases (cases/live-*.mjs, workspaces live-*)
Helpers live in live-helpers.mjs (staged journals, buffers, wrapped source
files with the fake-agent variant block, a .git FILE pointing at a non-repo
gitdir so roots resolution sees a git boundary while git check-ignore exits
128 everywhere and the ignore block lands in the snapshotable
.gitfake/info/exclude). Svelte component preview cases symlink this repo's
node_modules/svelte into the staged app, exactly like the unit tests.
Harness additions made for live:
steps[]entries may carry their ownsetup(ws)(run right before that step) anddaemon: truewithreadyFile/readyTimeoutMs: the verb is spawned detached, the harness waits for the ready file, later steps run against it, and teardown SIGTERMs (then SIGKILLs) it. Its stdout/stderr land in the golden asdaemon: [{stdout, stderr}].normalize: [[regexSource, flags, replacement], ...]on a case applies extra masks to that case only. Live uses it for the dynamic helper port (localhost:<PORT>,"port": <PORT>), lease and phase stamps (<EPOCH>), and float durations (<N>).- Global masks added:
"pid": <PID>/(pid <PID>)and UUID tokens<UUID>. snapshotFileswalksnode_modules/.impeccable-live(the Svelte preview tree) and nothing else undernode_modules.
Deliberately not covered here (rely on tests/live-e2e): the browser
handshake and /live.js bundle, SSE, generate/accept round-trips through a
real browser, variant_mount_failed republish, manual-edit chat routing and
the codex/claude subprocess providers, Svelte revision-dir publishing, and
live.mjs's dev-server-dependent flows. Lock-file names hash the absolute
source path, so lock cases do not snapshot .impeccable/live/locks/.
live-poll-*-connection-refused assumes nothing listens on 127.0.0.1:65531.