Tianyi Cui
e6fad266a6
Define the in-file RFC contract in docs/rfc/README.md § The file format: the header block (`# RFC: <title>` plus a dateless Status enum cross-checked against the lifecycle folder), the per-lifecycle body skeleton (a Problem opener everywhere; Proposal/Alternatives considered/ Acceptance criteria/Risks in proposed/; present-tense Decision/ Consequences with proposal-era headings banned in implemented/; the frozen proposal shape in rejected/), and a mandatory Alternatives considered section with a date-fenced grandfather comment for pre-format RFCs whose alternatives are not reconstructible from the record. Enforce it with a new doc-sync gate, scripts/verify-rfc-format.ts, and normalize all 112 RFCs to it: ~15 Status-line spellings collapse to the enum, 29 Context openers become Problem, the 39 legacy-format XXX debt markers are resolved and banned from reappearing, proposal-era sections in implemented RFCs are rewritten to shipped reality (including the web/fs/subagent seam RFCs' migration plans and test checklists, closing the doc-tiers deferred-work item on the web seam), every RFC gains an Alternatives considered section or the grandfather comment, and the bilingual pair is re-mirrored and re-recorded. Move the generated index tables out of README.md into a fully generated docs/rfc/INDEX.md — gen-rfc-index now writes the whole file, and verify-rfc-classification checks its freshness and rejects index-shaped rows in the curated README — which makes room for the format contract to live in the README front door instead of a separate FORMAT.md. The decision record, and the first RFC written in the new format, is docs/rfc/implemented/process/2026-07-05-uniform-rfc-format.md.
42 lines
6.1 KiB
Markdown
42 lines
6.1 KiB
Markdown
# RFC: Prune dead methods from the persistence seam
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Status: implemented
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> **Implementation note (scope narrowed from the original proposal).** This RFC proposed pruning dead methods from BOTH the persistence seam (`SessionPersistence.has()`/`.delete()`) and the bash seam (`BashExecutor.get()`/`.list()`). Only the **persistence** removal shipped. The bash `get()`/`.list()` removal was reverted before merge: each is a one-line accessor over the executor's already-tracked `tasks` map, and removing them forced `dsh-tool-bash`'s tests onto a ~35-line `onTaskDone`-based completion-tracking harness to replace the one-line `ctx.bash.get(id)` lookup — the migration cost dwarfed the surface removed. Per the [AGENTS.md "RFCs are proposals, not golden truth"](../../../../AGENTS.md) principle, that friction is evidence the method earns its keep (a test harness IS a consumer that programs against the seam), so `get()`/`list()` stay. The bash-seam analysis below is retained for the record but was NOT acted on; `BashTaskId`-branding those methods lands in the [branded-ids RFC](../architecture/2026-06-20-branded-ids.md) instead. The persistence removal stands: `has()`/`delete()` had only contract-test callers and no test-ergonomics cost to remove.
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## Problem
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A capability seam ([interface / implementation / consumer](../../implemented/architecture/2026-06-13-capability-seams.md)) carries abstract methods that no consumer calls. The seam exists to let implementations and consumers evolve independently — but a method no consumer programs against is not a seam, it is speculative surface every implementation must still implement and test.
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### `SessionPersistence.has()` and `.delete()`
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The abstract service declared its operations beyond create/append: `load`, `list`, `has`, `delete`. Production consumers of `ctx.sessionPersistence` use only two: the agent-loop resume path calls `load()` ([packages/core/agent-loop/src/index.ts:176](../../../../packages/core/agent-loop/src/index.ts)), and the ACP bridge calls `list()` for `session/list` ([packages/ui/acp/src/index.ts:494](../../../../packages/ui/acp/src/index.ts)). Grepping every `sessionPersistence.*` / `persistence.*` use across `packages/*/src` and `examples/` finds no `has(` and no `delete(` on the service. The `.has(`/`.delete(` calls in `packages/ui/acp/src/index.ts` are on the in-memory `SessionStore` and a local `Set` of loading ids, not persistence. The only callers of `has`/`delete` were the contract suites and per-backend specs.
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`has()` was not just unused — it was the most intricate branch in the shared coordinator: a tracked-vs-untracked dual-probe (`loadLive(id, cwd)` for a live-tracked session vs `loadStored(id)` for an untracked one) with a multi-line rationale. `delete()` dragged the `deleteStored` backend hook that every backend had to implement. This is the [drop-mutable-session-summary](../../implemented/simplification/2026-06-19-drop-mutable-session-summary.md) pattern: a contract test exercised both, but no shipping code asks "is this session persisted?" or removes one.
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## Decision
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The methods nothing consumes are removed — from the abstract seam, the implementation, and the contract/spec suites that existed only to exercise them:
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- `SessionPersistence.has()` / `.delete()` are gone: the abstract declarations, the coordinator's `has`/`delete`/`deleteCore`, and the `PersistenceBackend.deleteStored` hook (jsonl + sqlite each implemented `deleteStored` only to satisfy the hook — those implementations went too). The backends are the [dual-backend](../../implemented/architecture/2026-06-14-session-persistence.md) design and otherwise out of scope; removing a hook they implemented for no consumer is part of removing the hook, not a backend redesign.
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- Every doc and source-comment reference is updated to the surviving four-method, `list()`-only contract — not only literal `has(`/`delete(`/`deleteStored` spellings but `{@link has}`/`{@link delete}` JSDoc links and "six public methods" counts — across the seam and backend READMEs, [docs/architecture.md](../../../architecture.md), the [session-persistence](../../implemented/architecture/2026-06-14-session-persistence.md) and [write-coordinator](../../implemented/architecture/2026-06-18-shared-persistence-write-coordinator.md) RFCs, and the coordinator/backends JSDoc.
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## Alternatives considered
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### Why not keep them as "the seam should be complete"?
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The instinct that a persistence seam "should" offer delete is real — and it is exactly the speculative-completeness the pre-release stance warns against ([AGENTS.md](../../../../AGENTS.md): optimize for the correct foundation, not for hypothetical callers you do not have). `delete()` is one method to re-add the day a consumer needs it: a session-management UI that deletes old sessions will want it — add it then, designed against that UI's real needs (soft-delete? cascade? confirmation?), not guessed now.
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Re-adding a seam method with a live consumer is cheap and better-designed than the speculative version, because the consumer pins the contract. Carrying it unused means every implementation (and every future backend) must implement and test a method that does nothing.
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## Verification
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`has`/`delete`/`deleteStored` are gone from the persistence seam, impl, and contract suites with no new dead exports; the remaining operations (`create`/`append`/`load`/`list`) are untouched, with ACP `session/list` and crash-recovery behaving identically; and the seam README and `docs/architecture.md` list only the surviving methods.
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## Consequences
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- **`delete()` is the kind of operation a product eventually wants.** True — but "eventually" is the point. Deleting it now and re-adding it against a real consumer is strictly better than shipping a guessed contract. The dual backends each shed a `deleteStored` impl, which is a bounded edit in otherwise-out-of-scope packages.
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- **Low coupling.** The removal is confined to the persistence seam + impl + tests; no cross-package consumer references the removed methods, so there is no ripple beyond the docs.
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Modest size, but it converts the seam from "what an implementation must provide for nobody" back to "exactly what a consumer uses."
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