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LLM Runtime Internals
internal/framework/llm is Notarius’s provider-independent structured
completion boundary. It adapts framework requests to PromptKit, bounds
provider calls, assembles registered prompt and schema assets, records selected
profiles, and redacts provider errors. The architectural boundary is defined in
Architecture; profile sources,
credentials, and concurrency settings belong in
Configuration and
Configuration.
Structured Completion Boundary
Modules and LLM-backed validators depend only on
contracts.StructuredLLMClient. A completion request supplies a prompt ID and
version, optional profile and session IDs, named input material, variables, and
a caller-owned decode target. The successful response returns the validated raw
structured bytes together with non-secret provider, model, profile, and token
metadata.
The caller owns the domain behavior: it chooses the prompt, prepares inputs, selects the private response schema, and interprets the decoded result. The adapter does not own source evidence, artifact conversion, normalization, or durable schemas. Those responsibilities remain with the module and its integration contract.
PromptKitClient validates the request target and prompt identity, maps each
named material to a PromptKit inline artifact while preserving its origin URI,
forwards session and profile selection, then prepares and runs the prompt. It
returns PromptKit’s validated raw bytes rather than re-encoding the decoded
target. An empty optional material is represented as one space so its named
input is retained by PromptKit.
An empty request profile lets the prompt select its configured default. The CLI prepares every explicitly selected binding profile before a run begins, so a missing explicit profile fails before stage execution. Calls record the profile actually selected by PromptKit; the recorder deduplicates non-secret profile identity, provider, and model values for manifest use.
Shared Provider-Call Limit
Production construction creates one PromptKit client and wraps it in one scheduled client. The scheduler has a fixed, positive permit limit, serves queued calls in FIFO order, and removes a queued call when its context is cancelled. A granted permit is released exactly once on every completion path.
The scheduled wrapper surrounds every CompleteStructured call, so concurrent
lanes, pipeline retries, and LLM-backed validators share the same provider-call
ceiling. This ceiling is independent of pipeline worker concurrency; changing
worker counts cannot exceed the configured LLM limit. The configuration field
and its effective default are owned by
Configuration.
Prompt And Schema Assets
An AssetRegistry collects prompt and schema filesystems from production module
families. It flattens registered roots into the PromptKit filesystems and
rejects invalid roots, unreadable assets, duplicate paths, and missing prompt
or schema files during preparation. The framework’s promptfs helper combines
module-owned prompt files with reusable domain fragments without making the
framework depend on D&D content.
Each LLM-backed module owns its prompt declaration, package-specific assets, and private response schema. Shared D&D wording is owned by the D&D shared asset package; the detailed D&D conventions are in D&D Module Internals. The mounted prompt assets used by a module also determine its prompt fingerprint. Schema loaders validate JSON, attach identity and digest metadata, make defensive copies, and expose diagnostics without raw schema bytes.
Private response schemas validate a model transport envelope. They are not the durable artifact schema and should not be documented as an external wire contract. Durable formats and compatibility rules remain in the integration contracts.
Prompt Maintenance And Backend Caching
Prompt message order and shared asset bytes are runtime behavior. Backend cache reuse depends on identical preceding roles, rendered bytes, and cache-control metadata—not merely equivalent meaning. Keep reusable shared assets byte-identical and preserve each prompt’s declared ordering and cache controls when editing it.
For sibling prompts that can reuse the same source material, order universal shared context first, request source material next, and module-specific suffixes last. Put a cache boundary at a reusable prefix that is useful to the backend. Redundant intermediate cache boundaries do not extend that reusable prefix and add no value.
Prompt-family owners may choose a different sequence when their inputs and reuse pattern differ. The D&D family’s extraction, scene-chunking, and NPC normalization policies are maintained in D&D Module Internals. Do not add tests that enforce prompt prose; prompt tests should verify the meaningful input placement and cache controls of the prompt being changed.
Validation, Repair, And Retries
PromptKit performs prompt rendering, provider execution, and the prompt’s
structured-output validation. The adapter reports an empty result, validation
failure, empty structured body, or decode failure as
ErrInvalidStructuredOutput, while retaining the returned raw bytes and debug
material when they exist. Provider failures remain operational errors rather
than output-validation failures.
Prompt-declared repair is executed within PromptKit’s structured-output flow. The current production D&D prompt manifests set repair attempts to zero. That setting does not replace pipeline retry behavior: a binding’s configured retry count reruns its stage attempt after an error or rejection, and an exhausted rejection is a recorded output rather than a provider error. The pipeline owns attempt lifecycle, validation chains, and retry diagnostics; see Pipeline Internals and the binding reference.
Observability And Redaction
When debug recording is enabled, the pipeline decorates the shared client. The wrapper records prepared prompt and response material, timing, selected profile and model, and call identifiers in the run’s debug bundle, including material available from a failed structured completion. For a successful completion, a debug-write failure is surfaced; when the completion already failed, its call error remains the result. Debug-bundle location, retention, and handling are operational concerns documented in Operations.
Run manifests receive selected profile summaries and component identities, not prompt, schema, source, reference, or response content. Provider error text is wrapped with prompt context and bearer credentials are redacted before it crosses the runtime boundary. Known-secret redaction is available to other runtime collaborators; it does not make prompt or response contents safe for general logging.
Failure Boundaries
- Construction fails for missing asset registries, mutually exclusive profile sources, invalid asset registration, or a non-positive scheduler limit.
- Preparation failures, unavailable explicit profiles, provider failures, and context cancellation propagate to the calling stage with context.
- Malformed or schema-invalid provider output is classified separately as invalid structured output so the module or pipeline can apply its own retry and rejection policy.
- Domain semantic checks, evidence decisions, and deterministic normalization run outside the provider adapter.
Focused Verification
Read the LLM adapter, scheduler, asset registry, schema loader, and redaction tests when changing this boundary. Prompt changes also require the owning module’s asset tests, and retry or debug changes require focused pipeline or CLI coverage. The focused runtime and D&D checks are:
go test ./internal/framework/llm/... ./internal/modules/dnd/...