ConfigKit/docs/roadmap/remediation.md

Sequence Implementation Review Remediation

Status: findings 1–17 are complete. The algorithm audit below identifies six additional open findings, numbered 18–23. This record introduces no new release gate.

Reviewed commit: 0be7cdb00eff576fda6b30c0600b2134d4e2e086. Implementation range: bc6b977..0be7cdb. Authority: the sequence roadmap and implementation plan preserved at d0a605a:docs/roadmap/sequences.md and d0a605a:docs/roadmap/implementation.md, ADR 0017, and ADR 0018.

The public facade, shared identity/composition machinery, scoped policies, identified-record inheritance, post-decode CLI phase, and final registered identity validation are present. The findings below concern remaining correctness, contract-alignment, documentation, and scaling gaps.

Validation on the reviewed commit:

• ./scripts/check.sh passed with Go 1.26.10 on Linux.
• go test -race ./... passed.
• Public-API probes outside the repository reproduced findings 1–9. The probes used labeled byte sources, defaults, and an in-memory filesystem; they did not change implementation files or use external services.
• Finding 10 follows directly from the maintained text; finding 11 follows from the prefix-scan loop, not a timing comparison or performance threshold.

Validation after the initial remediation: ./scripts/check.sh and go test -race ./... passed with Go 1.26.10 on Linux. The original public-API probes for findings 1–9 now demonstrate the required corrected behavior.

Validation after integration remediation: the everyday check, full race suite, and local documentation/public-boundary checks passed with the same toolchain. The original and follow-up public-API probes demonstrate corrected behavior for findings 1–9 and 12–15, including unrelated underlay payload at an old version index. The accumulated-copy correction is verified by code inspection and ownership regressions; the contract corrections are verified against the implemented operations and replay. Each additional finding has its own completion record and commit.

P1 denotes the highest-priority correctness issue here; P2 denotes normal-priority work needed to complete the selected behavior. Preserve the agreed scope while fixing these issues. In particular, do not resolve failures by restricting valid identity fields, requiring repeated declarations, changing merge semantics, or adding limits.

1. Preserve Retained Explicit Values In Nested CLI Mapping Assignments — P1

Status: [x] Complete.

Completion: override metadata now reads the actual target subtree through one shared lookup. Ordinary/layered regressions preserve retained values, including zero and false, their explicit origins, and absence-based resolver behavior. Verified go test ./internal/engine -run 'Override|CLI' -count=1 and ./scripts/check.sh.

Owner: applyDecodedOverrides, especially lines 59–60 and the presence/origin update helpers.

The helpers receive the complete configuration projection as existing, but interpret it as the subtree at the override path. A partial nested mapping therefore treats retained input children as absent and drops their presence and origins. fillDefaultOrigins subsequently labels those retained values as defaults.

Reproduction: load the following into ordinary nested Go structs:

settings:
  nested:
    a: 1
    b: 2

Apply an override at [settings] with value map[string]any{"nested": map[string]any{"a": 3}}. The typed value of b initially remains 2, but Metadata.Lookup([settings,nested,b]) reports Explicit: false and a default origin. Calling Default for that field in application resolution then changes the explicitly supplied 2 to the fallback value. This violates presence-based defaulting, not merely presentation.

Required remediation: use the actual existing target subtree when updating presence/origins, preserving retained descendants and removing genuinely replaced ones. Keep override batches detached and preserve the selected post-decode order. Add regressions for nested partial mappings, retained zero/false values, metadata, and an absence-based resolver default that must not overwrite retained input.

2. Read Upsert Origins At Input Paths And Write Them At Output Paths — P2

Status: [x] Complete.

Completion: sequence origin copying now separates incoming and effective paths for precedence and inheritance. A regression covers reordered matches, appended records, composite origins, and actual resource reads from distinct declaring directories. Verified focused origin/inheritance/overlay/provenance tests, go test -race ./internal/engine, and ./scripts/check.sh.

Owners: applyOverlaySequenceEvidence, particularly lines 369 and 381, and the analogous sequence-origin copying in inheritance_collection.go.

The overlay helper supplies an output-index path to an origin lookup whose keys are still incoming-index paths. When those positions differ and another incoming record occupies the output index, metadata takes that other record's source location. The same defect was reproduced through mapping-sibling inheritance; its helper uses the same single-path copying pattern.

Reproduction: an underlay supplies IDs [a,b]; the main source declares key: id and supplies [b*,a*]. The result is correctly [a*,b*], but the value origin for final a* is the source line of b*, and vice versa. In the probe the two value lines were 7 and 9; final index 0 incorrectly reported line 7 instead of 9. With separately authored records this can select a different source/context.

Required remediation: use the operation's input-to-output projection for origin subtree reads as well as writes. Preserve composite contributing origins, not just node-location fallbacks. Test reordered upserts and appended records with distinct source files/locations, including nested fields, inheritance operations, and declaring resource contexts.

3. Apply Tier Sequence Operations To Historical Contributions — P2

Status: [x] Complete.

Completion: per-source history now composes strict item projections with the tier operation, including nested application prefixes and local sequence replay. Regressions cover all three operations, multiple peers, retained records, removed fields, source attribution, and a subsequent overlay without a false decoding event. Verified focused history tests, go test -race ./internal/engine, and ./scripts/check.sh.

Owner: applyOverlayWithCollectionPolicy, lines 76–84, and existing sequence-history projection/replay.

For composed tiers, applications is nonempty. This branch appends the tier's original strict-composition applications without incorporating the newly computed precedence sequence descriptors. Replay consequently performs a whole-list replacement or strict append rather than the actual cross-tier upsert/append. The later decoding reconciliation conceals the mismatch by attributing a structural combination to typed defaults/decoding.

Reproduction: lower [a,b] and higher [b*,a*] correctly yield [a*,b*]. Explain([items]) instead shows the main contribution producing [b*,a*], then a decoding event reordering it to [a*,b*] with the reason "applied retained defaults and canonical typed decoding". No decoder performed that reordering.

Required remediation: project each retained per-source application through the tier's selected operation while keeping peer composition distinct from tier precedence. Do not collapse authored sources or fake decoding events. Cover upsert, append, unmatched retained records, reordered matches, removed fields, multiple higher-tier peers, and a subsequent selected overlay. Replay should agree with structural assembly before real decoding reconciliation.

4. Reproject Nested Source Destinations After Cross-Tier Item Movement — P2

Status: [x] Complete.

Completion: layered assembly projects incoming source destinations and version classification evidence with the same item assignments used for values/history. Earlier contributions retain their historical coordinates, physical identities and contexts. Main/underlay regressions cover reordered upserts, append, replace, nested helpers, and source-local version evidence. Verified focused destination, origin and source-version tests, focused race coverage, and ./scripts/check.sh.

Owners: projectAcquiredDestinations and the sequence-operation handoff in assembleLayeredInput.

Source destinations are projected while composing their own tier, but are not reprojected when that tier's records move to accumulated-list positions. Nested helper source records can therefore point at a different final record.

Reproduction: lower items contains [a,b]. Main imports a single b record with placement: sequence-item into [items]; that record imports a helper mapping supplying its value. Upsert retains a at index 0 and places the higher b at index 1. Sources() nevertheless reports the surviving helper's destination as /items/0, its tier-local position, rather than /items/1.

Required remediation: carry the sequence operation's projection through nested source-destination/evidence updates at precedence boundaries. Keep physical source identity and passive resource contexts unchanged, and preserve historical meaning for displaced contributions rather than relabeling them as survivors. Test a retained lower record followed by an imported higher record, reordered matches, and nested helpers. Check version-evidence projection where applicable.

5. Honor Identity Reset On Actual Inheritance Replacement — P2

Status: [x] Complete.

Completion: inheritance resolves identity against actual child-value presence, discarding parent YAML identity for an explicit replacement while preserving agreement for retained values and authoritative application constraints. Added policy-state and public-load regressions for changed/unkeyed/non-sequence replacements, application agreement/conflict, and mode-only/append/upsert cases. Verified focused inheritance tests and ./scripts/check.sh.

Owners: inheritanceCollectionResolution and mergeInheritanceCollectionPolicies, especially lines 79–80 and 121.

These paths reconcile the parent's YAML identity before accounting for actual replacement, and treat the parent's collection as retained even when the child supplies a replacing value. This is stronger than the selected identity lifetime and differs from source-tier replacement.

Reproduction:

configkit:
  sequences:
    - destination: [base, items]
      key: id
    - destination: [child, items]
      key: name
      mode: replace
base:
  items:
    - id: a
      value: parent
child:
  extends: base
  items:
    - name: b
      value: child

Loading fails with sequence.conflict at /child/items. It should succeed: actual whole-sequence replacement may discard the parent's YAML identity and establish name. Authoritative application constraints must still apply.

Required remediation: distinguish actual replacement from a mode-only declaration before identity agreement and transfer. Test a changed key, replacement with no new key becoming unkeyed, permitted non-sequence replacement, and an agreeing or conflicting application registration. Preserve rejection of identity changes without a replacement value and during append/upsert.

6. Enforce Collection Operations Beneath Newly Added Ancestors — P2

Status: [x] Complete.

Completion: copying a mapping now visits nested collection operations with absent lower values, preserving ordinary ancestor removal and whole-record semantics. Incoming record-owned policy transfers through the same operation. Regressions cover absent/empty/null ancestors, identity and kind failures, empty and valid initialization, and later inheritance using an imported item's nested identity. Corrected an older test that deferred the required error until a later tier. Verified focused merge/collection/inheritance tests, focused ownership race coverage, and ./scripts/check.sh.

Owners: mergeRecursiveMappings and mergeOverlayMappingsWithCollectionPolicy.

When an incoming ancestor mapping is absent below, the recursive merger clones the entire subtree and invokes only its ancestor-level added hook. Nested collection resolutions are not visited. This bypasses their operation rules; the subsequent declaration-only policy update does not replace those checks.

Reproduction: combine a lower {} with this main tier:

configkit:
  sequences:
    - destination: [group, items]
      mode: append
group:
  items:
    - id: a

Loading succeeds despite append having no identity definition. Placing the same sequence directly at [items] correctly fails. The validity of an operation must not depend on whether an enclosing mapping already existed.

Required remediation: account for applicable nested collection policies when adding/copying an ancestor subtree, including owned-policy transfer. Test absent and present enclosing mappings, append/upsert without identity, explicit empty lists, invalid non-sequence contributions, and valid identified initialization. Do not turn this into a general path-existence or shape constraint: ordinary ancestor replacement/removal retains its documented meaning.

7. Validate Final Typed Identity Fields As Payload, Not Directives — P2

Status: [x] Complete.

Completion: shared identity lookup now distinguishes structural records from effective payload/reference mappings. Final validation includes literal extends fields while structural source checks still exclude actual directives. Facade regressions cover defaults and recorded resolution, string/null components, and duplicate rejection. Verified those regressions and existing structural identity and inheritance coverage through ./scripts/check.sh.

Owners: validateFinalSequenceIdentities and newSequenceMappingIndex.

The final validator reuses structural record lookup, which excludes every extends entry. At this phase there is no structural processing: typed defaults and application resolution can produce ordinary payload with that literal name. The roadmap expressly distinguishes structural-control exclusion from final typed-payload validation; this reuse introduces an extra restriction.

Reproduction: a defaults-only Catalog with Items []map[string]any containing {"extends": "application-data"}, registered with SequenceIdentityAt(Keys("items"), "extends"), fails with a missing identity field at /items/0/extends, even though the effective field is present.

Required remediation: distinguish structural-payload lookup from final payload lookup. Preserve rejection when a source tries to use an actual consumed directive as identity. Test final fields supplied by defaults and recorded resolution, including a null component, without adding a broader name ban.

8. Retain Nonfatal Main-Version Diagnostics In Layered Loads — P2

Status: [x] Complete.

Completion: layered assembly returns nonfatal main-version diagnostics on success and alongside later failures; the shared caller stops only for errors. Regression coverage verifies ordinary/layered warning parity, exactly one checker call, and warnings retained with later structural or decoding errors. Verified through ./scripts/check.sh, including existing source-version ordering coverage.

Owner: assembleLayeredInput, lines 143–152.

The moved default-mode version-check call returns its diagnostics only when they contain errors. Warning-only diagnostics are discarded. Ordinary loading still retains the same warnings.

Reproduction: a VersionRule.Check that calls validation.Warning(Keys("version"), "test warning") and returns nil yields one version.warning through ordinary Load, but zero diagnostics through LoadLayered with the same main input and default source-version mode.

Required remediation: carry warnings from the single main-tier check into the shared diagnostic accumulator on successful layered loads. Preserve checker ownership, invocation count, and the selected acquisition/composition ordering. Add ordinary/layered parity and warning-plus-later-error regressions.

9. Identify Conflicting Application Registrations In Diagnostics — P2

Status: [x] Complete.

Completion: definition validation retains original one-based registration positions and names both positions in each overlap diagnostic. No input path or new public diagnostic structure is invented. A mixed-selector regression verifies multiple conflicts even after an earlier invalid registration is skipped. Verified registration/facade coverage through ./scripts/check.sh.

Owner: compileSequenceIdentityPolicy, lines 119–128.

Incompatible dynamic overlaps produce only a generic options.invalid message, an empty configuration path, and no related information. Neither registration is identified. The roadmap requires definition-time errors to identify the conflicting registrations without inventing a concrete input destination.

Reproduction: register collections -> AnyMappingKey -> items using id, and collections -> foo -> items using name. Even with NoSource, the error is only "overlapping sequence registrations must use the same identity fields". With multiple registrations the caller cannot identify the conflicting pair.

Required remediation: retain original registration positions and identify both in safe definition diagnostics, for example through positional message context. No new public diagnostic structure is required solely for this. Test mixed exact and dynamic registrations and multiple conflicts, without asserting complete English wording or exposing identity values.

10. Remove Stale Public Contract Descriptions — P2

Status: [x] Complete.

Completion: the public definition comment now describes final registered-identity validation and its shape/lifetime boundaries. Selected-overlay prose explicitly separates ordinary replacement from collection policy and links to the canonical operation/presence tables. Verified against the implementation, local-link tests, and git diff --check; no runtime behavior changed.

Owners: Definition.SequenceIdentities, lines 18–21, and the selected-overlay contract.

The exported definition-field comment still says registrations do not validate identities introduced by defaults, CLI, or callbacks. Final validation is now implemented and the registration constructors correctly document it.

The selected-overlay table and following paragraph also still unconditionally describe sequences as atomic replacements and [] as clearing. A later paragraph describes collection operations, but does not make the earlier unconditional claims accurate: identified collections infer upsert, and [] then contributes no records rather than clearing.

Required remediation: make the symbol comment describe its implemented final guarantee and boundaries, and qualify the overlay table/paragraph for collection policy. Link to the canonical collection tables rather than duplicating them. Keep YAML-only enforcement distinct from registered final validation.

11. Remove The Quadratic Prefix Scan In Item Policy Projection — P2

Status: [x] Complete.

Completion: assigned sequence ranges now supply item offsets directly. Handoffs without a range lazily accumulate prefix lengths, visiting each preceding contribution once rather than rescanning every prefix. Regression coverage keeps inline and policy-less contributions in the correct positions with complete, partial, or absent ranges. Existing ownership/placement tests remain intact. Verified focused item-policy tests, ./scripts/check.sh, go test -race ./..., and inspection of the remaining error-only prefix-scan callers. No new benchmark fixture or performance threshold was needed for this bounded change.

Owner: projectNestedCollectionPolicies, especially line 968; the scanned helper is priorSequenceLength in the same file.

For every item with local collection policy, the loop scans all preceding contributions to calculate itemIndex, then overwrites that result when the already-indexed sequence range is available. For N such items this performs 0 + 1 + ... + (N-1) contribution visits, excluding path lookup costs, despite the common case already having the exact assigned index. This is introduced quadratic work in the feature's independently authored-record path.

Required remediation: use the existing assigned range first. If a genuine fallback is necessary, maintain per-destination prefix lengths in one pass rather than rescanning every prefix. Preserve scope and ordering semantics; do not add limits, pooling, or a new public cache. Keep ownership/placement regressions and add a representative many-item/local-policy benchmark only if needed to exercise the path. A wall-clock threshold is not required.

Integration Audit Baseline And Scope

Reviewed commit: 8d40983271de5239312eb0a2896737be88c5abdc.

This follow-up reviews the interaction of collection policy, identified-record inheritance, dynamic registrations, and post-decode CLI assignment with existing source placement, source-version checking, typed decoding, inspection, resource contexts, and ownership boundaries. The accepted ADRs and current configuration contract remain the authority; the findings require integration corrections, not additional consumer restrictions or new feature choices.

Validation:

• ./scripts/check.sh and go test -race ./... pass with Go 1.26.10 on Linux.
• Isolated public-API probes outside the repository reproduce findings 12–15. They use labeled byte sources and an in-memory filesystem, with no external services, real credentials, or repository implementation changes.
• Finding 16 follows from the per-item deep-copy loop; no timing claim or performance threshold is needed. Finding 17 follows from maintained contract text that contradicts the implemented collection operations.
• Positive comparisons include sequence-valued identity replacement, ancestor retirement through source tiers, quoted versions after item movement, and an append overlay that preserves the main record's version.

12. Complete Identity Retirement Across Replacement Shapes — P2

Status: [x] Complete.

Completion: source composition and inheritance now prepare eligible lower policy from actual replacement paths before agreement. Removed identity and record state cannot constrain a new pending key or reappear in later inheritance. Shared mode selection preserves explicit-mode persistence and authoritative registrations. Regressions cover null/scalar/mapping/list replacement, ancestor removal with a new key, reintroduction, and retained/application-constrained conflicts. Verified focused retirement/inheritance tests, engine ownership race coverage, and ./scripts/check.sh.

Owners: resolveStrictCollectionPolicies, especially its sequencePresent reset condition; mergeInheritanceCollectionPolicies; and ancestor-replacement handling in applyInheritanceScopeTemplates.

Policy agreement and retirement still treat some actual replacements as retained collections. This has three observable effects under the same selected lifetime rule:

1. Source precedence accepts a replacement sequence with a new YAML key, but rejects the equivalent replacement by null or a scalar. For example, a lower tier declaring key: id for [items] with items: [{id: old}], followed by a main tier declaring key: name, mode: replace with items: null, fails with sequence.conflict at /items. Replacing null with 42 also fails; replacing it with [{name: new}] succeeds. Null/scalar replacement should discard the lower identity and retain the newly declared key as pending policy, subject to the application's schema and constraints.

2. Removing an ancestor while declaring a new pending key for its removed descendant fails before the replacement occurs. A lower group: {items: [{id: old}]} with key id, followed by group: null and a root declaration of key name for [group, items], fails at /group/items. The analogous base/child inheritance case fails at /child/group/items. The old collection is being removed rather than retained.

3. Inheritance can resurrect removed identity even without a conflicting new declaration. This input fails with a missing id at /grandchild/group/items/0/id:

   configkit:
     sequences: [{destination: [base, group, items], key: id}]
   base: {group: {items: [{id: old}]}}
   child:
     extends: base
     group: null
   grandchild:
     extends: child
     group: {items: [{name: new}]}
   

   The same remove/reintroduce operations through source tiers succeed. The inherited descendant identity remains in policy state after its enclosing mapping is removed, so the grandchild incorrectly receives the old key.

Required remediation: account for actual value and ancestor replacement before deciding which lower identity participates in agreement, and retire removed descendant/record-owned state during inheritance as during source precedence. Retained inheritance templates must not reestablish discarded identity later. Preserve authoritative application constraints, independently owned mode persistence, pending declarations, and rejection of key changes when values are genuinely retained. Cover direct non-sequence replacement, ancestor removal with a new pending key, and removal followed by reintroduction across both contexts. Do not require repeated keys or narrow permitted null/scalar shapes to avoid these cases.

13. Keep Metadata History In Post-Decode CLI Order — P2

Status: [x] Complete.

Completion: metadata history is assembled from the pre-CLI source view, with CLI events appended separately; inheritance is projected before CLI and resolution. Effective fields still describe post-CLI values. Regressions verify chronological origins and resolver dependencies for ordinary/layered mapping and record inheritance, including equal-valued assignments. Verified history/override coverage and ./scripts/check.sh.

Owners: historyWithInheritance and the source/CLI metadata handoff in preparePostDecodeOverrideContext.

The value explanation follows the new lifecycle, but Metadata.History still inserts inheritance after stored CLI changes. historyWithInheritance splits only at LayerResolution, reflecting the former CLI-before-inheritance order. The reconstructed source view can also append an authored source origin after the CLI event.

Reproduction: load base: {value: parent} and child: {extends: base, value: authored}, then override [child, value] with "cli". The final value and Metadata.Lookup correctly report CLI provenance. Explain reports source → inheritance → CLI. Metadata.History instead reports source → CLI → source → inheritance and ends with a source/inheritance origin. This violates chronological metadata history and disagrees with the effective origin and the value explanation.

Required remediation: assemble metadata history in the implemented source, inheritance, CLI, and resolution order, preserving the real origins and dependencies of those events. Cover ordinary/layered loading, mapping and record inheritance, equal-valued CLI writes, and a later recorded resolver change at the appropriate existing test owners. Do not impose a new exact event-count or message-format contract.

14. Carry Main-Version Coordinates Through Sequence Movement — P2

Status: [x] Complete.

Completion: the effective version rule now follows the main declaration through strict placement, tier combination, and inheritance without changing source-local checker/evidence paths. Underlay and overlay ownership checks use assigned record positions, including whole-record removal; integer conversion remains confined to the actual main header. Regressions cover mounted/indexed paths, appended and matched records, integer/string parity, unrelated version payload, imported underlay claims, and inheritance. Corrected an older ownership fixture to target the actual matching main record. Verified source-version regressions, ./scripts/check.sh, and go test -race ./internal/engine.

Owners: effectiveSourceVersionRuleForPlacement, the main-tier projection handoff in assembleLayeredInput, and use of the effective rule in executeLoadRequest.

Source destinations and version-evidence sensitivity paths follow item movement, but the rule used for integer-version decoding retains the original item index. Consequently an accepted integer header can fail decoding after an otherwise valid upsert placement.

Reproduction with the public API:

• Main input is id: main and version: 4, placed as one sequence item at Keys("items").
• A lower input contributes the sequence item id: lower at the same destination.
• Register identity id for [items], select SourceVersionModeIfPresent, and use VersionRule.Path = Keys("version") with an accepting checker.
• Decode into records with ID string and Version string.

The checker accepts 4 exactly once. Upsert places the main record at index 1, but decoding fails with decode.type at /items/1/version. The integer-to-string exception is still tied to /items/0/version. Quoting the identical version as '4' succeeds. A source-local indexed header path, without item placement, reproduces the same problem when its record moves during upsert.

Required remediation: carry the main declaration's effective coordinates through the existing item projections into decoding and audit the associated ownership protection handoffs for the same stale-coordinate assumption. Preserve source-local checker/evidence paths, checker invocation count, main-only ownership, and the narrow integer-to-string exception. Cover moved existing and newly appended main records, integer/string parity, and protection of the actual main header after movement. Do not prohibit supported indexed paths or mounted main records as a workaround.

15. Exclude Parent Identity From Inherited History Payload — P2

Status: [x] Complete.

Completion: retained record-inheritance operations now exclude parent identity from their payload and origin projection. Replay preserves the child's own identity before taking field, record, sequence, or root snapshots, without inventing inheritance events for retained identity fields. Regressions cover single and compound identities, explicit child provenance, ordinary inherited payload, and the parent's original history. Verified inheritance/inspection coverage, ./scripts/check.sh, and go test -race ./internal/engine.

Owners: inheritance operation construction in applyInheritanceScopeTemplates, appendInheritanceExplanation, and transferred-origin projection in inheritance_history.go.

Identified-record value construction excludes the parent's identity fields, but the retained history operation still supplies the complete parent record and its identity origins to the older mapping-inheritance replay machinery.

Reproduction:

configkit:
  sequences: [{destination: [items], key: id}]
items:
  - id: base
    value: parent
  - id: child
    extends: {id: base}

The effective child ID and origin are correct. However, Explain(Keys("items").Index(1).Key("id")) reports child → base → child, attributing the intermediate value to an inheritance operation and the parent's ID location. Metadata.History likewise claims an inherited parent-ID contribution. That identity is expressly excluded from inherited payload; it was never an applied value at the child path.

Required remediation: make history replay and transferred-origin projection use the same identity exclusion as value construction. Preserve the child's authored identity and presence, ordinary inherited payload history, and the parent record's own source history at its original path. Cover compound identities and identity fields alongside inherited payload at both record and ancestor queries; keep the existing inspection API and sensitivity behavior.

16. Avoid Deep-Copying Accumulated Item Policies Per Record — P2

Status: [x] Complete.

Completion: item projection now takes one owned policy copy per destination, updates that local state incrementally, and stores it once after projection. Incoming scopes still cross detached ownership boundaries. Inspection confirms that accumulated record scopes are no longer deep-copied per item; no timing threshold or benchmark campaign was needed. Existing stable-index, sparse-range, fallback-offset, and ownership coverage passes, with a new regression for interleaved destinations, distinct record owners, and sibling/cross-load mutation independence. Verified focused item-policy tests, ./scripts/check.sh, and go test -race ./....

Owners: projectNestedCollectionPolicies and its use of copying collectionPolicyScope.at / set helpers in collection_policy_state.go.

The prefix-scan correction in finding 11 is present, but a separate quadratic cost remains on the same independently authored-record path. For every imported item with local policy, at deep-clones the destination's accumulated record order and every retained record's nested scope. After adding one owner, set deep-clones the growing policy again. With N fixed-size item-local policies at one destination, this copies approximately 1 + 2 + ... + N retained scopes, even when every assigned sequence range is available.

This follows directly from the loop and cloneCollectionPolicy; no busy-host timing comparison is required. It is an integration cost from reusing detached read/write helpers within private incremental construction, rather than from the required final ownership copies.

Required remediation: construct each destination's owned record-policy state without repeatedly cloning all earlier records, retaining necessary copies at ownership boundaries. Preserve record ordering, distinct owners, sparse assigned positions, fallback offsets, and cross-load detachment. Reuse the existing item policy and ownership tests; add allocation/scaling evidence only where useful. Do not introduce public caches, pooling, new caps, or performance thresholds.

17. Reconcile Legacy Sequence-History Contract Text — P2

Status: [x] Complete.

Completion: metadata and explanation prose now describe history through the selected collection operation, assigned item positions, and displaced payload. The text distinguishes sequence snapshots and atomic diffs from append/upsert combination and links to the canonical operation tables. Whole-record upsert, existing queries, and sensitivity guarantees are unchanged. Verified against replay/combination code, local documentation-link tests, and git diff --check; the unchanged runtime is covered by the preceding everyday and full race checks.

Owner: the metadata/provenance and explanation sections of docs/config.md.

The metadata section still says that a later tier supplying a sequence records replacement at the sequence path and that history does not imply identity-based merging across tiers. That describes the former unconditional replacement model, not the implemented append/upsert history or the collection operation tables in the same document. The explanation paragraph about atomic sequences also needs review so readers can distinguish snapshot/diff granularity from collection combination semantics.

Required remediation: describe history for the selected collection operation and link to the canonical operation tables. Preserve the existing atomic sequence snapshot/diff behavior and whole-record upsert semantics; correcting the prose does not authorize recursive record-field merging, a new query API, or broader history guarantees.

Algorithm Audit Baseline And Scope

Reviewed commit: c73daf891d0f29c96f7026bdabcccb571f44a751. Feature baseline: 4f941f8ba4c9a9ed0afa87b07fe6ba29f131d1c6.

This audit examines the sequence identity/operation, scoped-policy, inheritance, inspection, and post-decode CLI algorithms, including the completed corrections above. The intervening discovery roadmap commits add no implementation to audit. The accepted scheduler, deterministic ordering, exact numeric normalization, selector trie, and deliberately pairwise registration-overlap validation remain selected design choices; they are not findings here.

Evidence and validation:

• Code inspection establishes the complexity of findings 19–23 on bounded-depth inputs with linear-sized results. Required result/history copies and genuinely growing inheritance output are excluded from the alleged excess work. Bounds describe internal operations, not new public performance guarantees.
• An isolated public-API probe reproduces finding 18 using an in-memory filesystem, without external services or real credentials.
• Temporary tests supplied through a Go overlay, outside the repository, checked all 768 combinations of append/upsert/replace over the 16 unique-ID lists drawn from three IDs. Stable ordering, duplicate rejection, and whole-record payload replacement agreed with an independent reference calculation.
• A structural overlay test confirmed that 4, 8, and 16 one-item contributions retain 10, 36, and 136 reverse-index cells respectively in indexSequenceRanges. These are representation counts, not timing or real-world benchmark results.
• go test ./internal/engine -run 'Sequence|Collection|Inheritance|Override|SourceVersion|Metadata|History' -count=1 passed with Go 1.26.10 on Linux. Passing existing tests does not cover the incorrect selector scope or establish efficient growth.

The following are focused corrections within the selected model. This review changes only the remediation record.

18. Match Application Registrations In Effective Item Coordinates — P2

Status: [x] Complete.

Completion: pending item/helper scopes now compose their local YAML policy without reinterpreting global mapping-only application selectors below a sequence index. The enclosing composer still enforces the actual outer collection constraint. Updated the old unit test to exercise that boundary and added ordinary/layered facade regressions for exact/dynamic unused selectors, nested helpers, and missing outer identities. Verified the facade regressions and ./scripts/check.sh.

Owner: composePendingItems in imports.go, especially its local composeDocumentsWithCollectionPolicy call; the current TestPendingItemCompositionAppliesApplicationIdentityConstraints in item_policy_test.go also needs review.

Pending item/helper documents are composed in item-local coordinates while the unchanged global application selector policy is supplied to their composer. A registration for root [prompts] therefore also constrains an unrelated [items, 0, prompts] collection before placement. This contradicts complete, effective-destination matching and makes an otherwise unused registration reject valid configuration. Application selectors do not traverse sequence indexes.

Reproduction: main imports item.yml with destination [items] and placement sequence-item. The item contains id: outer and prompts: [{text: payload}]. Loading succeeds without a registration; adding only SequenceIdentityAt(Keys("prompts"), "id") fails with compose.invalid at /items/0/prompts/0/id, although no root prompts collection exists.

Required remediation: separate item-local YAML policy from application matching in effective coordinates, including nested helper scopes. Preserve applicable outer collection constraints without reinterpreting global selectors as local ones. Add ordinary/layered regressions for unused root and dynamic selectors alongside imported item-local collections. Correct tests that pin the accidental scope; do not change selector meaning or require consumers to remove valid rules.

19. Avoid Dense Global-Position Storage For Sparse Item Projections — P2

Status: [x] Complete.

Completion: contiguous composition ranges and their origin contributions retain arithmetic offset lookup. Scattered projections use independently cloned sparse maps in both directions; unprepared range queries no longer allocate indexes. Audited the shared projection/history callers for batch preparation. Added structural coverage for many one-item ranges, widely separated assignments, and absent coordinates. Existing upsert, history, version, and ownership tests pass, along with ./scripts/check.sh and go test -race ./internal/engine.

Owners: newSequenceItemProjectionIndex in sequence_projection.go, indexSequenceRange / projectedCompositionOrigins in compose.go, and contribution indexing in history.go.

The reverse projection slice is sized to maxOutput + 1, even for one incoming item assigned to a late assembled position. indexSequenceRange materializes these indexes for ordinary contiguous append ranges too. With N one-item sources contributing to one sequence, reverse slices retain 1 + 2 + ... + N cells. Initialization time and simultaneously retained auxiliary storage are therefore quadratic despite only N actual mappings. Origin/history projection constructs the same representation through additional callers. Finding 16's policy-copy correction does not remove this independent cost.

Required remediation: retain arithmetic start/end lookup for contiguous ranges and use storage proportional to actual mappings for scattered positions, such as a sparse reverse map. Audit shared callers and avoid rebuilding equivalent indexes inside item queries. Preserve bidirectional lookup, absent positions, upsert replacement evidence, ordering, and detached results. Verify the representation on many one-item sources and noncontiguous upserts; add no timing threshold or collection-size limit.

20. Remove Full Metadata Scans Per CLI Replacement Leaf — P2

Status: [x] Complete.

Completion: presence and origin removal now visits only the known replaced pre-CLI subtree. Partial mappings still retain omitted fields and their metadata. Added broad-mapping coverage with escaped keys, explicit zero/false values, empty-list replacement, null pointers, retained siblings, and deleted descendant metadata. Existing nested CLI and typed-ownership regressions and ./scripts/check.sh pass.

Owners: updateOverridePresence, deletePresencePathSubtree, and updateOverrideOrigins in override_decode.go.

Every replaced scalar or subtree scans all presence keys, then all origin keys, to find matching prefixes. A single partial-mapping override updating N scalar children in an N-field configuration performs quadratic map-entry visits. This does not require N CLI sources or growing historical output: the same effective maps remain approximately N entries throughout the update.

Required remediation: delete affected entries by walking the already known existing subtree, or use one batch-local prefix index where needed. Retain necessary copies at ownership boundaries without rescanning unrelated paths for each leaf. Preserve retained explicit zero/false values, removal of replaced descendants, null/kind changes, origin attribution, and detached loads. Use the existing nested CLI and ownership regressions plus focused broad-mapping coverage; do not change override semantics or impose batch limits.

21. Localize Inheritance Policy Work To The Relevant Scope — P2

Status: [ ] Open.

Owners: inheritancePolicyScopeAtPath in inheritance.go, graph preparation in inheritance_schedule.go, and policy handoff/retirement in inheritance_walk.go.

Scope localization scans every entry in the supplied policy table for each definition. Mapping graph preparation also clones the full supplied table, and the walker passes its global table to each independent scope and scans that table again during replacement. For S scopes or siblings and P unrelated collection policies, these paths perform repeated S-by-P work and copies.

For example, N independent mapping groups can each contain a constant-sized base/child extends base pair and one YAML collection declaration beneath its base. Input, expanded values, and relationship evidence remain linear in N, but each group's graph/localization visits or clones the other groups' policies. This is separate from necessary expansion along a genuinely growing parent chain and from the selected dependency scheduler.

Required remediation: partition or index policies by semantic scope once and carry the relevant state through traversal, including efficient descendant retirement as inheritance introduces or removes destinations. Clone owned in-scope state rather than unrelated global state. Preserve record owners, pending declarations, mode lifetime, destination-local registration matching, and independent templates. Verify wide independent groups and nested item scopes; do not replace the agreed scheduling algorithm or add global caches.

22. Index Fallback Location Lookup During Effective Projection — P2

Status: [ ] Open.

Owner: documentWithMetadataLocations in override_context.go, using nearestDocumentLocation in validation.go.

The new effective-projection walk calls the unindexed nearest-location helper for each field lacking a real origin location, often once for its mapping entry and again for its value. Each call starts at the fallback root and linearly scans mapping entries. With N authored root fields and N different default-only root fields, each default's failed lookup scans all N authored keys: quadratic work for linear-sized input and output. The shared lifecycle calls this path even without CLI assignments or a resolver.

Required remediation: share an indexed fallback lookup or traverse corresponding containers together while carrying the nearest available location. Existing documentLookup / mapping-index machinery can support bounded-depth lookups without repeated wide scans. Preserve nearest-ancestor fallback, source IDs, synthetic locations, secret-reference diagnostics, and publication ownership. Exercise mixed authored/default-only broad mappings; do not weaken attribution or skip needed location attachment to avoid the work.

23. Index Repeated Collection-Policy Document Lookups — P2

Status: [ ] Open.

Owners: mergeOverlayMappingsWithCollectionPolicy in overlay.go and mergeInheritanceCollectionPolicies in inheritance_collection.go.

These routines loop over collection policies/declarations and call plain documentAtPath for each destination. That helper linearly searches every mapping on the path. N independent collections below N sibling mapping keys therefore cause quadratic mapping-entry searches when checking which lower policies the incoming tier touches. The inheritance parent/child lookups and retained-value declaration checks have the same pattern. YAML declarations alone can establish these policies; the deliberately pairwise application-registration overlap check is not involved.

Required remediation: reuse a document lookup built once for each stable input tree, or use the already collected claims where their scope is sufficient. Index a mutated result only after its value-changing phase, rather than retaining a stale lookup. Preserve absent destinations, non-sequence pending declarations, literal key/index distinctions, retirement, and error locations. Verify broad independent collections across precedence and inheritance; no new public cache, shape requirement, or performance gate is needed.