AIxCC cyber reasoning systems, self-improving harness methods (GEPA, DGM,
Self-Harness, SkillOpt, AHE), vulnerability-dataset pitfalls and CWE taxonomies,
and routing/regression-control literature. The design changes they force:
coarse verifier-aligned families instead of fine CWE, multi-label routing with
an unknown class, pair-wise outcomes with a directional-bias index, K-run
reliable-change tests, a per-class seed-noise floor as the regression budget,
a no-regression acceptance rule with ties rejected, structural edits over prose
edits, a proposer blind to the holdout, and verifier code and gold labels
outside every editable surface.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01T7XD7x5KonMdmGRkp63EQG
Measured 2026-09-06 on the vibe-py holdout: the existing tool hunter, with no
learning, scores 12/14 pair-correct (Youden +0.857, no leaks) once detection
and silence are keyed on the labeled class and function and the byte-identical
twins are excluded; the overlay scores 5/14 on the same rows. The published
hunter number (0/17, Youden -0.588) was a scoring artifact: the scorer wanted
the literal CWE id in the finding text and the prompt never asked for it.
The brief proposes an auto-classifier as the routing key, one evolved hunter
configuration per class, a class-aware scorer with unscorable denominators,
the split enforced by construction, and the HarnessX evolve loop with per-class
attribution as the round primitive. Raw measurements are committed under
reports/measurements.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01T7XD7x5KonMdmGRkp63EQG
Six task groups in the design's migration order: closed facts and
obligation shapes; operations, siblings, declared policy, dominance
protocol and the checker; MAP wiring, reports, ranking and hunter intent;
corpus harvest mode, labels, leave-one-out and relabeling; the
obligations lever; validation. All 44 acceptance criteria covered; no
task waits on the unimplemented upstream specs (path-aware evaluation
enters through the Dominance protocol and an optional PathRecord input).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01T7XD7x5KonMdmGRkp63EQG
Requirements approved by the maintainer in session. Design: closed
obligation facts (operations and dischargers), obligation shapes as a
second family in the mechanism store, sibling-set consistency and an
optional declared policy as the policy sources, a Dominance protocol
with an order-based default so the checker works function-local before
reachability and guard dominance land, findings at suspicion carrying
consistency_violation / declared_policy_violation / function_local as
data, reports, manifest and ranking fields, handler_context harvest
mode, leave-one-out per obligation kind, and an obligations lever with
pending policy clauses under the existing gate. All 44 acceptance
criteria traced.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01T7XD7x5KonMdmGRkp63EQG
Absence bugs as obligations rather than flows: obligated operations and
discharger kinds as closed facts, obligation shapes learned from trusted
pairs, the application's policy recovered from sibling-handler
consistency and an optional declared policy file, path-aware evaluation
with a function-local degraded mode, honest rungs below proof, an
`obligations` improve lever under the holdout gate. Depends on
reachability-flow-model and guard-dominance-regime; the roadmap marks
reachability as the critical path for two consumers.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01T7XD7x5KonMdmGRkp63EQG
- tasks.md: all tasks checked; rounds 1-6 recorded with RED evidence,
measured leave-one-out and admission numbers, and the recorded design
deviations.
- spec.json: completed 2026-09-05.
- roadmap: corpus-seeded-mechanisms marked completed; the loop is closed
end to end (export -> improve admits under the holdout clause -> scan
searches -> reports name the mechanism).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01T7XD7x5KonMdmGRkp63EQG
Review rounds 3-5 remediations (Req 5, 7).
- ousast improve resolves candidates from the target's calibration dir,
then the working directory's (where `mechanisms export` writes), and
admits into <target>/.openultrasast/calibration/mechanisms.jsonl,
where a scan of that target reads; --mechanism-candidates,
--mechanism-store, --no-mechanisms; --dry-run redirects the store to
scratch; accepted rounds print admit/retract <id>.
- run_improvement threads the store paths; RoundOutcome carries the
mechanism edits; reverted mechanism keys are blocked outright; a
no-gain admission is rejected as mechanism_no_gain; a retraction may
name an admitted record that left the candidate set.
- leave-one-out forwards variant-search degradations and pins the
containment and label rules; mechanisms export defaults to the
candidates file so it never re-admits a tombstone.
- design §Lever rewritten to the implemented gate; README and docs show
export -> improve -> scan.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01T7XD7x5KonMdmGRkp63EQG
Task 4.2 (Req 5.3, 5.4, 5.5).
- propose_mechanism_edits: retract admitted records that leak on a
holdout fixed side; admit a candidate only when a trial store holding
it alone recovers a currently missed holdout pair without leaking.
- run_round(mechanism_candidates=, mechanism_store=): validates, applies
after the rule gate passed, re-scores the holdout pairs per profile with
variant search (evaluate_mechanism_profiles), and rejects with a
byte-for-byte revert on mechanism_leak, profile_regression or
mechanism_no_gain; the journal records each mechanism edit with its
pair provenance and the metrics before and after.
- The rule gate and its per-profile clause are unchanged.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01T7XD7x5KonMdmGRkp63EQG
- variant_search.search_tree skips a malformed store row with a
variants_store_row_invalid degradation instead of aborting the scan;
a hit on a demoted or flowless overlay record is never merged (test).
- seed.pair_lessons is the one shape derivation shared by the exporter
and leave-one-out; labels pass line and sink together; pairs without a
labeled function are reported as no_labeled_function.
- config parses [variants].max_mechanisms with the shared int helper.
- regress.candidate.hotspot_from_finding is the one zero-score hotspot
helper for forced inventory and variant findings.
- design synced (SearchResult, hits_to_findings summaries, candidate.py).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01T7XD7x5KonMdmGRkp63EQG
Task 2.3 (Req 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 6.2).
- [variants] enabled / max_mechanisms config; MAP runs variant search
after the overlay in standard and deep scans only, appends the variant
findings, rewrites overlay.json with merged ids, and the manifest
records mechanisms_searched, files_searched, findings and
merged_into_overlay.
- REGRESS: variant findings join the candidate list after the promotions
as zero-score hotspots, under the existing safety check and cap.
- Spec notes for group 2 and the design synced (variant_search.py,
seed.py, derive_shape signature).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01T7XD7x5KonMdmGRkp63EQG
Task 1.1 (Req 2.1-2.4). Spec approved by the maintainer in session.
- semantic/variants.py: Shape (language, sink trailing name, arity,
source positions and kinds, closed guard kind, mechanism id) with a
stable text-free key; derive_shape finds the labeled sink call site in
the vulnerable FileIR, traces argument identifiers through binds to a
fact source, a parameter or a container read, and classifies the guard
the fixed side added from the labeled function's added statements
against a closed set (none when unknown). No path, line or literal
enters a shape; a constant-only call teaches nothing.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01T7XD7x5KonMdmGRkp63EQG
- tasks.md: round-12 verdict and the decision to assemble the redaction
test's example key at runtime and rewrite the unpushed series so no
commit carries a contiguous key literal; two dated notes marked as
superseded by tasks 8.1 and 8.4.
- roadmap: the folded inventory-vs-overlay Youden item is checked.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01T7XD7x5KonMdmGRkp63EQG
- tasks.md: all tasks checked; the two escalations are closed (5.1 by the
Req 10 pointer rows, 5.3 by the Req 9 review tiers); round 11 recorded
with the carry-forwards for corpus-seeded-mechanisms and
overlay-ir-completeness.
- roadmap: measured state after tiers and pointer slices (vibe-py 115,
agent-vfc 59, gates byte-identical to pre-spec); pair-corpus-honesty
marked completed.
- spec.json: completed 2026-09-05 after eleven review rounds.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01T7XD7x5KonMdmGRkp63EQG
Task 8.4 (Req 10.6, 5.1).
- harvest.merge_recipes appends recipes by name and never rewrites
existing rows.
- vibe-py/build_recipes.py --pointers: the 40 LLM-generated repositories
without a license become vendored = false rows (80 pairs, agent,
seeded) appended to recipes.toml; unlicensed human repos stay skipped.
- agent-vfc/build_recipes.py --from ... --pointers [--cache]: unlicensed
agent-authored fixes become title-tier pointer rows whose function
label is derived from the cached excerpt (30 added from a fresh
662-candidate search); TOML booleans rendered correctly.
- catalogs regenerated: vibe-py 115 rows (35 vendored + 80 pointer),
agent-vfc 59 (29 + 30); no excerpt is vendored for any pointer row.
- `pairs --slice vibe-py --pointers` scores both provenances (human 35,
agent 80); the default run skips 80 pairs with pointer_pair_skipped;
suite and gates unchanged. README/docs name the nightly command.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01T7XD7x5KonMdmGRkp63EQG
Task 8.3 (Req 10.1-10.5).
- pairs.py: catalog rows with vendored = false carry their harvest recipe
and no excerpts; evaluate_catalog harvests them into
OPENULTRASAST_PAIR_CACHE (default ~/.cache/openultrasast/pairs) only
when `pairs --pointers` or OPENULTRASAST_PAIRS_NETWORK=1 allows the
network, otherwise records pointer_pair_skipped (a failed fetch is
pointer_pair_fetch_failed with detail); a warm cache never scores
without the switch. select_vendored for tests and gates.
- harvest.py: materialize_pointer harvests into the cache without the
license requirement (nothing is redistributed); redaction applies.
- catalog_gen.py: emits pointer rows with recipe fields; training
manifests skip them.
- pair_gate and improve/evolve.evaluate_profiles score vendored pairs
only; cli `pairs --pointers`; .gitignore covers the cache path.
- tests: loader, skip/degradation, cache hit, fetch failure, warm cache
with network off, profile gate exclusion, harvest and generator paths;
conftest keeps every test offline whatever the shell exports.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01T7XD7x5KonMdmGRkp63EQG
Two engine specs drafted after the pair-corpus baseline, awaiting owner
approval before implementation:
- corpus-seeded-mechanisms: structural shapes derived from trusted pairs,
export, variant search merged with overlay flows, leave-one-out
measurement, and a closed `mechanisms` lever for the improve loop.
- reachability-flow-model: call graph over FunctionIR, reachability from
entry points to sinks, hunter client preferring HarnessX (task 4.1b).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01T7XD7x5KonMdmGRkp63EQG
Harvest 176 isolated vuln-vs-fix functions (109 CVEs, 352 training rows)
into benchmarks/pairs/vfc with provenance and a JSONL training manifest.
Score the slice as an honesty dashboard (ousast pairs --slice vfc);
keep the pair gate on the local fixtures only.
Add openultrasast[semantic] with official grammar wheels and one CST walker
into FileIR. quick stays extra-free. Host CLI is not overlay-ready. Default CI
stays extra-free; a semantic job runs pytest -m semantic.
Regex inventory stays the proposer. MAP attaches promote/demote/unadjudicated/coverage
from intra-file taint (tree-sitter when a grammar parses, Python ast as last resort).
Deep sandboxes promotions only, ordered by the existing heuristic ranker plus optional
OpenRouter mechanism recall. The SAST pair slice scores overlay outcomes; the stage-1
detection gate and local pair gate stay inventory-only.
