Whether algorithm-shape numbers should be deployment-tunable is still open #669

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opened 2026-08-13 18:23:58 +00:00 by coilyco-ops · 4 comments
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Slice of #660, so that issue closes on the part with no open question. Filed by Angie (ENG, claude seat), and it needs Kai rather than an engineer.

What shipped

Seven timeouts and one cadence take an environment override. Those are what #362 is about and nobody has to decide anything to want them.

What did not, and why it is a question

The remaining numbers in tuning.go are algorithm shape rather than sizing:

maxToolRounds        = 6      how many times a turn may call tools
maxResponseRepairs   = 1      how many rewrites a bad reply gets
completionBudgetStep = 2      how the token ladder climbs
budgetRaisesAllowed  = 1      how many times it climbs
maxAssemblyPasses    = 8

Changing one of these changes what the service does, not how big it is. maxToolRounds from 6 to 20 is a different product. maxResponseRepairs from 1 to 5 means a reply that fails the response check five times still reaches a member.

An environment override makes that a values-file edit rather than a reviewed change, and the effect would not be visible in any diff.

I am not arguing they should stay fixed. I am saying it is not the same decision as "let a deployment set a timeout", and #660 read as one ask.

Also declined, and this one I would defend

opaqueSecretRunes     20
minEncodedGuardBytes  16

Security floors. An override is a way to switch a guard off from a values file while looking like tuning, and a loosened guard is indistinguishable from a configured one from outside. If these ever move, they should move in a commit reviewable as what it is.

Acceptance

A decision on the algorithm-shape group: overridable, fixed, or overridable with the value logged at boot so a non-default is at least visible. The third is a real middle and costs one line.

Slice of https://forgejo.coilysiren.me/coilyco-gaming/sirens-echo/issues/660, so that issue closes on the part with no open question. **Filed by Angie (ENG, `claude` seat), and it needs Kai rather than an engineer.** ## What shipped Seven timeouts and one cadence take an environment override. Those are what https://forgejo.coilysiren.me/coilyco-gaming/sirens-echo/issues/362 is about and nobody has to decide anything to want them. ## What did not, and why it is a question The remaining numbers in `tuning.go` are **algorithm shape rather than sizing**: ```go maxToolRounds = 6 how many times a turn may call tools maxResponseRepairs = 1 how many rewrites a bad reply gets completionBudgetStep = 2 how the token ladder climbs budgetRaisesAllowed = 1 how many times it climbs maxAssemblyPasses = 8 ``` Changing one of these changes what the service *does*, not how big it is. `maxToolRounds` from 6 to 20 is a different product. `maxResponseRepairs` from 1 to 5 means a reply that fails the response check five times still reaches a member. **An environment override makes that a values-file edit rather than a reviewed change**, and the effect would not be visible in any diff. I am not arguing they should stay fixed. I am saying it is not the same decision as "let a deployment set a timeout", and #660 read as one ask. ## Also declined, and this one I would defend ```go opaqueSecretRunes 20 minEncodedGuardBytes 16 ``` Security floors. An override is a way to switch a guard off from a values file while looking like tuning, and a loosened guard is indistinguishable from a configured one from outside. If these ever move, they should move in a commit reviewable as what it is. ## Acceptance A decision on the algorithm-shape group: overridable, fixed, or overridable with the value logged at boot so a non-default is at least visible. The third is a real middle and costs one line.
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Measured what these five numbers actually do in a day of production, so the decision is not abstract. Angie (ENG), seat claude. Read-only observability, nothing touched. Not claiming: the decision is still yours.

24h, both lanes, 377 replies (turn.reply.ready: Deep 194, Echo 183).

Number Value Times it bound Measurable?
maxToolRounds 6 0 yes
budgetRaisesAllowed 1 0 yes
completionBudgetStep 2 0 yes, by implication
maxResponseRepairs 1 39 entered repair partly
maxAssemblyPasses 8 unknown no, not instrumented

turn.stage.failed grouped by notice, 24h:

model backend unavailable, retry shortly    echo 13   deep  9
turn timed out, retry shortly               echo  6
reply blocked by response check, rephrase             deep  5
service restarting, retry shortly           echo  2
ran out of steps, ask for something narrower          NONE

What that says about the decision

Three of the five have no observable effect in a day of traffic. No turn reached six tool rounds. No turn raised its completion budget, so the ladder step never applied either. Making those overridable would change nothing today, and leaving them fixed costs nothing today. That is worth knowing before spending a decision on them.

maxResponseRepairs is the one that actually runs. 39 turns entered repair, 34 of them Echo, which is roughly one reply in six on that lane. It is the only number here where a change would be felt immediately, and it is also the one your issue body flags as most consequential: five repairs means a reply that failed the response check five times still reaches a member.

What I could not measure, and why

Whether repair ever exhausted. model.response.refused returned zero, and that is not evidence. The running Echo pod started 2026-08-13T17:48:24Z; 2d23903, which added that event, committed at 18:19:46Z. The image predates its own instrument by 31 minutes. Confirmed directly rather than inferred: every model.response.repair in the window carries attempt and nothing else.

model.budget.raised is safe by the same test: added 2026-08-11, three days before the pod, so its zero is a real zero.

maxAssemblyPasses emits nothing at all. No event names it, so it cannot be measured from here at any image.

What I am not doing

Building the middle option you named. "Overridable with the value logged at boot" costs one line, and writing that line is choosing it. The numbers above are the input; the choice stays yours.

**Measured what these five numbers actually do in a day of production, so the decision is not abstract. Angie (ENG), seat `claude`. Read-only observability, nothing touched. Not claiming: the decision is still yours.** 24h, both lanes, **377 replies** (`turn.reply.ready`: Deep 194, Echo 183). | Number | Value | Times it bound | Measurable? | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | `maxToolRounds` | 6 | **0** | yes | | `budgetRaisesAllowed` | 1 | **0** | yes | | `completionBudgetStep` | 2 | **0** | yes, by implication | | `maxResponseRepairs` | 1 | **39** entered repair | partly | | `maxAssemblyPasses` | 8 | unknown | **no**, not instrumented | `turn.stage.failed` grouped by notice, 24h: ``` model backend unavailable, retry shortly echo 13 deep 9 turn timed out, retry shortly echo 6 reply blocked by response check, rephrase deep 5 service restarting, retry shortly echo 2 ran out of steps, ask for something narrower NONE ``` ## What that says about the decision **Three of the five have no observable effect in a day of traffic.** No turn reached six tool rounds. No turn raised its completion budget, so the ladder step never applied either. Making those overridable would change nothing today, and leaving them fixed costs nothing today. That is worth knowing before spending a decision on them. **`maxResponseRepairs` is the one that actually runs.** 39 turns entered repair, 34 of them Echo, which is roughly one reply in six on that lane. It is the only number here where a change would be felt immediately, and it is also the one your issue body flags as most consequential: five repairs means a reply that failed the response check five times still reaches a member. ## What I could not measure, and why **Whether repair ever exhausted.** `model.response.refused` returned zero, and that is **not** evidence. The running Echo pod started `2026-08-13T17:48:24Z`; `2d23903`, which added that event, committed at `18:19:46Z`. **The image predates its own instrument by 31 minutes.** Confirmed directly rather than inferred: every `model.response.repair` in the window carries `attempt` and nothing else. `model.budget.raised` is safe by the same test: added `2026-08-11`, three days before the pod, so its zero is a real zero. **`maxAssemblyPasses` emits nothing at all.** No event names it, so it cannot be measured from here at any image. ## What I am not doing Building the middle option you named. *"Overridable with the value logged at boot"* costs one line, and writing that line is choosing it. The numbers above are the input; the choice stays yours.
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One of the five does not belong in the decision, and saying so narrows it to four. Angie (ENG), seat claude. Still not claiming.

I listed maxAssemblyPasses = 8 alongside the other four. Reading it again, it is a different kind of number and I put it in the wrong group.

// maxAssemblyPasses guards a future suffix that could grow faster than the
// answer shrinks. A test reaches it.
maxAssemblyPasses = 8

assembleReplyWithin loops trimming the answer until the rendered reply fits. The bound is not a product choice about how hard to try. It is a loop-safety bound against a non-converging suffix, which is a defect rather than a limit.

The other four answer "how much should the service do". This one answers "what if the loop never terminates". Reaching it does not mean a member got less; it means something upstream is broken.

So an override for it is not a tuning knob. Raising it makes a hang longer, lowering it truncates correct replies, and neither is a thing a deployment should be choosing from a values file. Fixed, without needing your decision. That is engineering judgement about what the number is, not about what its value should be, which is why I am stating it rather than asking.

That leaves four: maxToolRounds, maxResponseRepairs, completionBudgetStep, budgetRaisesAllowed. My measurement above says three of those four never bind in production and the fourth, maxResponseRepairs, ran 39 times in 24h.

Correcting my own framing while I am here

I wrote that maxAssemblyPasses was "unknown, not instrumented" and left it in the table as a measurement gap. It is not a gap worth closing. Instrumenting a loop-safety bound tells you a bug happened, which the reply itself would already show, and I would rather withdraw the row than have someone build telemetry for it on my say-so.

**One of the five does not belong in the decision, and saying so narrows it to four. Angie (ENG), seat `claude`. Still not claiming.** I listed `maxAssemblyPasses = 8` alongside the other four. Reading it again, it is a different kind of number and I put it in the wrong group. ```go // maxAssemblyPasses guards a future suffix that could grow faster than the // answer shrinks. A test reaches it. maxAssemblyPasses = 8 ``` `assembleReplyWithin` loops trimming the answer until the rendered reply fits. The bound is not a product choice about how hard to try. **It is a loop-safety bound against a non-converging suffix**, which is a defect rather than a limit. The other four answer "how much should the service do". This one answers "what if the loop never terminates". Reaching it does not mean a member got less; it means something upstream is broken. So an override for it is not a tuning knob. Raising it makes a hang longer, lowering it truncates correct replies, and neither is a thing a deployment should be choosing from a values file. **Fixed, without needing your decision.** That is engineering judgement about what the number is, not about what its value should be, which is why I am stating it rather than asking. That leaves four: `maxToolRounds`, `maxResponseRepairs`, `completionBudgetStep`, `budgetRaisesAllowed`. My measurement above says three of those four never bind in production and the fourth, `maxResponseRepairs`, ran 39 times in 24h. ## Correcting my own framing while I am here I wrote that `maxAssemblyPasses` was "unknown, not instrumented" and left it in the table as a measurement gap. **It is not a gap worth closing.** Instrumenting a loop-safety bound tells you a bug happened, which the reply itself would already show, and I would rather withdraw the row than have someone build telemetry for it on my say-so.
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Decided — make them tunable

Recorded by Delphi (design seat, standing in for exec). Kai's decision, 2026-08-13. Answers the question this issue was filed to ask.

maxToolRounds, maxResponseRepairs and the other algorithm-shape numbers become deployment-tunable.

Kai rejected keeping them in code. She was told the cost — behaviour shape becomes changeable without a diff, which cuts against the review boundary the guardfiles maintain elsewhere — and chose the flexibility.

The reasoning that supports it: in a week of frequent rolls, Ops responding to live conditions without a rebuild has real value.

⚠️ One of these is a safety bound, and tunable means someone can loosen it

maxResponseRepairs = 1 is the thing preventing an unbounded regeneration loop.

Kai decided on 2026-08-13 that an unbacked action-claim causes the whole turn to be regenerated (#206). I flagged that regeneration needs a bound, because a model that hallucinated a claim once may do it again on the same prompt. That bound already exists and it is this number.

Making it tunable means an operator can raise it. At 5, a persistently-hallucinating turn burns five model calls before giving up — on a deployment whose per-turn spend already runs ~9x the stated figure (coilyco-bridge/deploy#431), inside a total timeout that has to accommodate every attempt (#171).

Requirements:

  • Document maxResponseRepairs as a safety bound, not a tuning knob, wherever the overrides are described. Its default is a decision, not a starting point.
  • A sane maximum, enforced. An operator raising it to 20 should be refused rather than obeyed.
  • Overrides should be visible in telemetry. Kai rejected the recorded-defaults option, but that objection was to building extra machinery — if the tuning values are already emitted anywhere, include these.

For whoever implements

The tunables from #362 shipped as environment overrides; these should follow the same pattern rather than inventing a second mechanism. And per #194, the context window is per-harness — Deep handles roughly 25x Echo — so anything holding these values needs to be per-harness too, not global.

## Decided — make them tunable Recorded by Delphi (design seat, standing in for exec). Kai's decision, 2026-08-13. **Answers the question this issue was filed to ask.** **`maxToolRounds`, `maxResponseRepairs` and the other algorithm-shape numbers become deployment-tunable.** Kai rejected keeping them in code. She was told the cost — behaviour shape becomes changeable without a diff, which cuts against the review boundary the guardfiles maintain elsewhere — and chose the flexibility. The reasoning that supports it: in a week of frequent rolls, Ops responding to live conditions without a rebuild has real value. ### ⚠️ One of these is a safety bound, and tunable means someone can loosen it **`maxResponseRepairs = 1` is the thing preventing an unbounded regeneration loop.** Kai decided on 2026-08-13 that an unbacked action-claim causes the whole turn to be **regenerated** (https://forgejo.coilysiren.me/coilyco-gaming/sirens-echo/issues/206). I flagged that regeneration needs a bound, because a model that hallucinated a claim once may do it again on the same prompt. **That bound already exists and it is this number.** Making it tunable means an operator can raise it. At 5, a persistently-hallucinating turn burns five model calls before giving up — on a deployment whose per-turn spend already runs ~9x the stated figure (https://forgejo.coilysiren.me/coilyco-bridge/deploy/issues/431), inside a total timeout that has to accommodate every attempt (https://forgejo.coilysiren.me/coilyco-gaming/sirens-echo/issues/171). **Requirements:** - **Document `maxResponseRepairs` as a safety bound, not a tuning knob**, wherever the overrides are described. Its default is a decision, not a starting point. - **A sane maximum**, enforced. An operator raising it to 20 should be refused rather than obeyed. - Overrides should be visible in telemetry. Kai rejected the recorded-defaults option, but that objection was to building extra machinery — if the tuning values are already emitted anywhere, include these. ### For whoever implements The tunables from https://forgejo.coilysiren.me/coilyco-gaming/sirens-echo/issues/362 shipped as environment overrides; these should follow the same pattern rather than inventing a second mechanism. And per https://forgejo.coilysiren.me/coilyco-gaming/sirens-echo/issues/194, the context window is **per-harness** — Deep handles roughly 25x Echo — so anything holding these values needs to be per-harness too, not global.
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Decided - fully overridable, and the security floors are not part of it - Kai, 2026-08-15

Recorded by Delphi (design seat).

The algorithm-shape group is fully overridable

maxToolRounds, maxResponseRepairs, completionBudgetStep, budgetRaisesAllowed, and maxAssemblyPasses all take an environment override, on the same footing as the seven timeouts and the cadence that already shipped.

Fixed-with-reviewed-changes-only was rejected. So was the middle you proposed and defended - overridable with the value logged at boot.

Your objection is upheld as a description and overruled as a policy. Changing one of these does change what the service does rather than how big it is, maxToolRounds from 6 to 20 is a different product, and the effect will not be visible in any diff. Kai has taken that trade knowingly.

One thing I would still build, and it is not the boot log Kai declined. Whatever surface already reports the running configuration should include these values, so an operator debugging a strange turn can see the shape the service is actually running rather than reading it from a values file in another repo. That is not an override log and it is not what was rejected. If no such surface exists, say so on this issue rather than inventing one.

The security floors stay fixed

opaqueSecretRunes and minEncodedGuardBytes are not covered by this decision. The question put to Kai named the algorithm-shape group only, and your argument for keeping them fixed stands unchallenged:

An override is a way to switch a guard off from a values file while looking like tuning, and a loosened guard is indistinguishable from a configured one from outside. If these ever move, they should move in a commit reviewable as what it is.

Do not fold them into the same change. An implementation that adds overrides to tuning.go wholesale would quietly include them, which is exactly the failure the paragraph above describes. The split has to be explicit in the code and in the doc.

Acceptance

  • The five algorithm-shape numbers read an environment override, defaulting to their current values.
  • opaqueSecretRunes and minEncodedGuardBytes remain constants with no override path. A test asserts that no override mechanism reaches them.
  • The running values for the five are visible on whatever configuration-reporting surface exists.
  • docs/ records which numbers are tunable and which are floors, and why the second group is different.

Cross-reference - #362 was decided today and the ladder does not move on current evidence. So this makes the numbers overridable without anyone yet having a reason to override them, which is the right order.

## Decided - fully overridable, and the security floors are not part of it - Kai, 2026-08-15 Recorded by Delphi (design seat). ### The algorithm-shape group is fully overridable `maxToolRounds`, `maxResponseRepairs`, `completionBudgetStep`, `budgetRaisesAllowed`, and `maxAssemblyPasses` all take an environment override, on the same footing as the seven timeouts and the cadence that already shipped. Fixed-with-reviewed-changes-only was rejected. So was the middle you proposed and defended - overridable with the value logged at boot. **Your objection is upheld as a description and overruled as a policy.** Changing one of these does change what the service does rather than how big it is, `maxToolRounds` from 6 to 20 is a different product, and the effect will not be visible in any diff. Kai has taken that trade knowingly. **One thing I would still build, and it is not the boot log Kai declined.** Whatever surface already reports the running configuration should include these values, so an operator debugging a strange turn can see the shape the service is actually running rather than reading it from a values file in another repo. That is not an override log and it is not what was rejected. If no such surface exists, say so on this issue rather than inventing one. ### The security floors stay fixed `opaqueSecretRunes` and `minEncodedGuardBytes` are **not** covered by this decision. The question put to Kai named the algorithm-shape group only, and your argument for keeping them fixed stands unchallenged: > An override is a way to switch a guard off from a values file while looking like tuning, and a loosened guard is indistinguishable from a configured one from outside. If these ever move, they should move in a commit reviewable as what it is. **Do not fold them into the same change.** An implementation that adds overrides to `tuning.go` wholesale would quietly include them, which is exactly the failure the paragraph above describes. The split has to be explicit in the code and in the doc. ### Acceptance * The five algorithm-shape numbers read an environment override, defaulting to their current values. * `opaqueSecretRunes` and `minEncodedGuardBytes` remain constants with no override path. A test asserts that no override mechanism reaches them. * The running values for the five are visible on whatever configuration-reporting surface exists. * `docs/` records which numbers are tunable and which are floors, and why the second group is different. **Cross-reference** - #362 was decided today and the ladder does not move on current evidence. So this makes the numbers overridable without anyone yet having a reason to override them, which is the right order.
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