promptkit/docs/internal/runner.md

# Internal Runner

## Purpose

This document describes Promptkit's implemented internal orchestration. The
[architecture policy](../policy/architecture.md) owns dependency and consumer
boundaries. The [source and validation document](sources.md) owns configuration,
artifact, rendering, and validation behavior, while the
[model-client document](llm.md) owns generation behavior and failure
categories.

The runner remains under `internal/usecase` and is assembled by
`internal/engine`. Its concrete type is not part of the public API.
The [framework format reference](../formats.md) owns prompt, profile, schema,
and override semantics consumed by the runner.

## Collaborators

`Runner` coordinates narrow internal interfaces for captured prompt definitions
and resolved profiles, artifacts, rendering, model generation, and validation.
The internal engine supplies one engine-local run admitter and a generation
coordinator using the same capacity manager. Validation
plans and provider-facing schema metadata come from the validator's preparation
interface.
The internal engine supplies one default output repairer through the explicit
runner constructor, using the same coordinator as initial
generation. The no-repair runner constructor remains available for focused
internal callers and tests.

Each invocation carries its state in request, prepared-run, and result values.
The runner has no durable run or session store.

## Shared Prompt Selection

Ordinary preparation selects the full prompt definition and construction-time
hash. It retains its early request-ID check before direct-session
normalization. Referenced message content and static template syntax were
captured when the engine was built.

`InspectPrompt` selects captured metadata through an optional repository
capability, falling back to the full definition and existing hash resolution
for internal repositories without it. It returns owned metadata without
rendering templates or touching profile, artifact, schema, renderer, validator,
admission, or model collaborators. The root
[`Engine.InspectPrompt`](../../engine.go) GoDoc owns the public operation's
exact contract.

`InspectRequirements` uses the same metadata selection to resolve the
request-profile/default identity, then obtains the captured requirement
snapshot by the selected prompt ID. The analyzer receives only
those identity fields rather than an execution definition. It analyzes the
snapshot with the supplied caller variables and normalized direct-session
bypass; it does not resolve target readiness or enter the preparation
pipeline. Missing snapshot capability is a prompt-load failure rather than a
source fallback. The root
[`Engine.InspectRequirements`](../../requirements.go) GoDoc owns the public
operation's exact contract.

## Shared Profile Selection

The runner uses one profile-selection and target-resolution boundary for
ordinary preparation and exact profile inspection. Preparation first selects a
request profile or a prompt default; inspection begins with its required
explicit profile ID. Both use the captured, presence-aware target constructed
from the final effective profile and backend configuration. Request overrides
apply afterward; preparation checks endpoint and model completeness only after
those overrides. Inspection can report a partial profile without requiring a
runnable target. Neither path checks credential availability or performs prompt,
artifact, schema, rendering, admission, or model-client work. The root
[`Engine.InspectProfile`](../../engine.go) GoDoc owns the public operation's
exact contract.

## Smoke-Test Diagnostics

The separate `SmokeTester` in `internal/usecase` selects from the same captured
configuration snapshot and backend/profile collaborators as the runner. Explicit
profile selection takes precedence over prompt-default selection and a backend
diagnostic default; HTTP-only selection does not resolve a default inference
profile. Exact public selection rules belong to the root
[`Engine.SmokeTest` GoDoc](../../smoke_diagnostics.go).

Diagnostics do not call `Run`, `Prepare`, or the prompt preparation pipeline.
They do not render application messages, load application artifacts, use
application schemas, or inspect session templates. Private text and structured
cases and the structured case's schema remain internal to the diagnostic
operation; they are not entries in prompt/profile listings or inspection.
`InspectConfiguration` remains a separate, explicit operator-oriented view of
effective settings and source history. A diagnostic report may include selected
effective settings and identifiers, so consumers still apply their disclosure
policy.

The engine assembles the smoke tester with the runner's generation coordinator
and capacity manager. Inference holds the ordinary logical admission lease and
uses the same active permits, retries, timeout, and request evidence path as
generation. Reachability and authentication probes bypass generation capacity
and do not require a model. An engine with an injected `LLMClient` can run
inference diagnostics but has no built-in HTTP probe collaborator; HTTP-only
diagnostics report that limitation instead of falling back to another client.
The public GoDoc owns the caller-visible timeout, cancellation, report, and
transport semantics.

## Shared Preparation Pipeline

`Prepare` and `Run` share one private preparation pipeline split at the point
where a run can be assigned to its selected backend pool. The resolution phase
performs only the work needed to validate routing and admission:

1. validate the required prompt selection and normalize any direct session ID;
2. select the captured prompt definition and hash;
3. select the request profile or the prompt's default profile;
4. retain the profile's selected backend identity, when present;
5. apply explicit request overrides to its captured backend-completed target;
6. validate endpoint, model, numeric overrides, and credential requirements;
7. resolve and validate the effective output contract without loading its
   schema; and
8. retain the definition, source identities, effective settings, output
   contract, and preparation start time in invocation-local state.

The completion phase consumes that state without reloading the prompt,
profile, or backend:

1. create one operation-local validation plan and derive structured-output
   schema metadata from it when required;
2. load and hash input artifacts;
3. render messages and the prompt-defined session;
4. apply any direct session ID, then append already-normalized request messages
   after the rendered definition messages;
5. hash the effective rendered prompt; and
6. construct the prepared value and preparation timing.

`Prepare` runs both phases consecutively and never performs capacity admission.
`Run` performs backend admission between the phases. This structure preserves
one execution-precedence and error-ordering implementation while allowing a
full backend pool to reject work before expensive schema, artifact, and
rendering operations. `Prepare` discards the plan after returning its public
metadata. `Run` retains the plan through initial and repaired-output validation
and discards it when the operation ends. Prepared execution transfers the
completed preparation's owned message, input-hash, and copied-schema values
into its private payload, while deep-copying mutable provider extras and
creating an independent details snapshot. Claim completion or discard clears
the execution payload without removing the details snapshot.

The root facade's `Engine.ValidateRequest` uses the same complete preparation
path as `Prepare` and discards the resulting internal prepared value without
converting it into a public snapshot. It does not add a runner operation or
validator component; request conversion and public error mapping remain at the
facade boundary.

Pointer-based numeric overrides preserve an explicit zero. Invalid negative or
out-of-range values fail as invalid requests. Endpoint overrides do not change
the selected backend identity. Non-empty extra-parameter maps replace whole
lower-precedence maps. A direct API key takes precedence over environment
lookup; otherwise request, explicit profile, and backend environment-variable
names apply in that order. A profile requiring a direct key suppresses an inherited
backend environment name unless the request supplies its own name. Secret
values remain excluded from serialized metadata.

Reasoning overrides are tri-state: nil inherits the profile, a pointer to a
nonblank string trims and replaces it, and a pointer to a blank string clears
it. A nonblank direct session is normalized before prompt selection, bypasses
the prompt session template, and is applied after ordinary message rendering.
A blank direct value retains prompt-template behavior. The runner clears the
template only on a value copy of the definition, so the definition hash always
describes captured effective content while the rendered-prompt hash includes the
effective direct or rendered session and the complete effective message
sequence. The rendered-prompt hash uses a versioned, length-framed SHA-256
encoding of that session, every role and content value, and cache-control
presence and values; its hexadecimal value is opaque.

The configuration snapshot is read-only after engine construction. Concurrent
`Prepare` and `Run` calls copy their resolved targets and keep all invocation
state local.

## Run Flow

`Run` records its start time, performs the shared resolution phase, and asks
its `RunAdmitter` to reserve capacity for the effective backend ID. A nil
admitter is an internal unlimited fallback. After successful admission, `Run`
immediately defers the returned release function, performs the completion
phase, makes one initial generation call, builds the named output artifact,
and validates that artifact with the plan compiled during completion. Invalid
generated content remains a validation result; an inability to generate or
perform validation is an operational error.

When the public facade installs an invocation-local observation recorder,
ordinary `Run` reuses its run ID and carries it to the generation coordinator
through context. Prompt and profile identities are enriched only after their
respective resolutions succeed, before admission. The facade starts observation
before request conversion and emits its terminal event after public error
mapping and after the runner's deferred admission release. Preparation and
prepared execution follows the same terminal mapping after a successful claim;
invalid or discarded handles do not acquire an observer.

Validation preparation and execution honor cancellation at every
Promptkit-controlled boundary and do not publish a partial plan or result.
Schema reads are bounded and context-checked between chunks; JSON decoding,
schema compilation, and schema execution are checked immediately before and
after their synchronous calls. Promptkit does not move arbitrary filesystem or
JSON Schema work to background goroutines, so an already-blocked dependency
method must return before cancellation can take precedence over its outcome.

The admission lease covers completion-phase preparation, initial generation,
validation, every repair, and every exit. It bounds accepted work without
serializing preparation or validation behind the active-generation limit.
The coordinator separately acquires a FIFO active permit only around each
actual model attempt. It releases the permit before a transient retry wait.

After a failed `basic`, JSON, or JSON Schema validation with a positive frozen
budget, the installed repairer can make a bounded corrective call. Each request
starts with a fresh copy of the complete effective message sequence (the
configured prefix followed by the request suffix), includes only the latest
nonempty candidate as an assistant message, and appends one corrective user
message. Empty candidates omit that assistant message. The
correction carries validation diagnostics as JSON data bounded to 64 KiB; the
full diagnostics remain in the validation result.

Repair receives the effective execution target, explicit numeric-presence bits,
credential, backend identity, session ID, structured-output specification, and
frozen transient retry budget.
The same request constructor supplies those common fields to initial and repair
generation. The default repairer uses the same coordinator as initial
generation, so each repair reacquires the selected backend's active permit
while remaining inside its original admission lease. Repair never performs a
second bounded admission, and repaired outputs use the operation's existing
validation plan. The runner stops at the first valid candidate, sums completed
generation usage, reports calls actually started, and returns the final failed
validation result on exhaustion. A repair generation failure follows the
ordinary generation-error category rather than becoming a validation error.

A successful result includes the output artifact and raw output, validation
state, effective session ID, prompt and rendered-prompt hashes, selected
profile and backend, effective settings, input hashes, token usage, a generated
run identifier, and UTC timing. The same effective session reaches initial
generation and any repair attempt through the rendered prompt. The same
effective target and presence metadata, including backend identity and direct
credential during execution, reaches generation and every repair attempt.
Result usage is the field-wise sum of all five usage values from the initial
response and every completed repair response. Final raw output, artifact, and
validation state still come from the last candidate. A repair error returns no
partial run result or partial result usage, although the invocation-local
observer retains completed-attempt usage and reports it in the terminal event.

## Failure Categories

Package errors distinguish invalid requests, required profile selection,
credential failures, and prompt, profile, artifact, rendering, generation, and
validation failures. Wrapping preserves the package identities mapped by the
public facade and retains collaborator identities where they are part of the
internal contract.

Admission capacity exhaustion retains the internal capacity identity. At the
use-case boundary, the runner attaches the selected backend ID in an internal
typed error, and the root facade copies that value into the public
[`CapacityError`](../../capacity_error.go) without parsing diagnostic text. It
is not recategorized as an invalid request or generation failure, and no
partial result is returned. A context already done at admission retains its
context identity directly. Cancellation while waiting for an active generation
permit prevents client invocation when it wins the grant race; the model-client
boundary then preserves the context error through the generation-failure
category. Deferred release restores the admission lease on preparation,
generation, validation, repair, and cancellation failures.

Other context cancellation propagates through the invoked collaborator and is
classified by the owning operation. In particular, cancellation observed by
validation retains the context identity through the validation error category.
An overlong direct session is an invalid request before prompt selection, while
an invalid or overlong prompt session template remains a prompt-render failure.
An unknown selected backend, or a selected backend with no configured resolver,
is classified as a profile-load failure.

## Test Ownership And Changes

The [runner tests](../../internal/usecase/runner_test.go) own preparation order,
selection and override precedence, the two-phase boundary, early admission,
lease lifetime and release, direct-session resolution, schema-before-generation
behavior, hashing, generation and validation outcomes, backend propagation,
bounded repair progression, initial/repair request parity, cumulative usage,
shared initial/repair capacity, credentials and redaction, error categories,
artifact metadata, and timing. The
[capacity subsystem document](capacity.md) identifies the focused pool and
waiter tests. The [generation document](generation.md) owns attempt and retry
coordination tests.

Changes to orchestration should continue to use the existing package
interfaces, keep request state local to an invocation, and preserve the shared
resolution and completion pipeline. Source, renderer, validator, or
model-client contract changes belong first in their owning package and
document. The
[smoke selection tests](../../internal/usecase/smoke_selection_test.go),
[diagnostic orchestration tests](../../internal/usecase/smoke_tester_test.go),
and [private inference-case tests](../../internal/usecase/smoke_inference_test.go)
own diagnostic selection, report assembly, and inference findings.