{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp09_archetype_breadth150_20260804","cell_id":"buffering__computer_science","arm":"BREADTH_PROBE_ONE_SHOT","candidate_id":"buffering__computer_science__P1","proposal_index":1,"version":0,"title":"Version-Aware Surge Buffer for Repository File-Event Storms","problem":"In a large repository, bulk checkouts, generated-file updates, and branch switches can emit thousands of filesystem change events faster than an incremental analysis daemon can validate affected files. Directly dispatching every event creates overlapping analysis jobs, saturates CPU and memory, and delays or interrupts fresh diagnostics even though the daemon could process the changes after the burst subsides.","actors":["Developer receiving interactive diagnostics","Filesystem watcher producing change events","Incremental analysis daemon consuming invalidations","Repository tooling owner operating the daemon"],"observable_state":"Watcher-event arrival rate temporarily exceeds the daemon's measured drain rate; concurrent analysis jobs and memory use spike; event age and diagnostic latency rise; multiple queued events refer to file versions that have already been superseded.","consequence":"The daemon becomes unresponsive or is terminated, and developers lose timely diagnostics for the repository state they are actually editing.","affected_objective":"Preserve continuous, bounded-latency delivery of diagnostics for current repository versions during transient file-event bursts without representing queued work as processing capacity.","intervention":"Insert a bounded, observable, version-aware surge queue between the filesystem watcher and the analysis dispatcher. Admit events with file identity and observed content version, hold them during bursts, and drain them at the daemon's sustainable concurrency. Before release, expire events whose versions are no longer current; reserve queue capacity for interactive edits; and, on overflow, reject bulk-origin events with an explicit full-rescan-required signal rather than silently losing them.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"Variable producer flow","domain_realization":"Bursty filesystem change events from checkouts, generators, and interactive edits"},{"archetype_element":"Constrained consumer","domain_realization":"Incremental analysis daemon with finite CPU, memory, and safe concurrency"},{"archetype_element":"Boundary and indirection","domain_realization":"Watcher submits versioned invalidation records to an intermediary instead of launching analysis directly"},{"archetype_element":"Bounded temporary holding capacity","domain_realization":"A queue with fixed item and byte limits holds pending invalidations only until dispatch, expiration, or overflow"},{"archetype_element":"Defined release behavior","domain_realization":"A dispatcher drains records at measured safe concurrency, prioritizing interactive edits and validating versions before release"},{"archetype_element":"Safe overflow behavior","domain_realization":"Bulk events are rejected with a visible full-rescan-required marker while protected interactive capacity remains available"},{"archetype_element":"Observability and failure visibility","domain_realization":"Operators expose occupancy, oldest-event age, drain rate, expirations, overflow count, and duration above a high-water mark"}],"mechanism_mapping":[{"mechanism_slug":"producer_consumer_queue","role":"Decouples instantaneous watcher-event production from the analysis daemon's finite service rate while preserving records for later processing.","counterfactual_removal":"Without the queue, each watcher event immediately competes for analyzer resources, so a transient event storm again produces overlapping work and resource saturation."},{"mechanism_slug":"surge_queue","role":"Provides explicitly bounded capacity sized for transient event bursts rather than permanent excess workload.","counterfactual_removal":"Without surge capacity, events must be processed, blocked, or rejected at arrival time, so short bursts cannot be smoothed even when average analysis capacity is adequate."},{"mechanism_slug":"expiration_or_staleness_threshold","role":"Drops a held invalidation only when its recorded file version has been superseded, preventing obsolete work from consuming drain capacity.","counterfactual_removal":"Without version validation, stale events can occupy the buffer and delay diagnostics for the current repository state."}],"causal_chain":["Bulk repository operations produce file events faster than the analyzer can safely consume them.","The bounded queue absorbs the temporary difference between event arrival and analysis service rates.","Fixed admission limits prevent unbounded memory growth, while reserved interactive capacity protects critical flow.","The dispatcher releases valid events only at sustainable analyzer concurrency.","Version checks expire superseded work before it consumes analysis capacity.","As the burst ends, service rate exceeds arrival rate and the queue drains.","Diagnostics continue for current versions without immediate analyzer overload; persistent mismatch remains visible through queue-age and overflow signals."],"baseline":"The watcher directly launches or submits analysis for every observed change, leaving the analyzer's executor as an implicit and poorly governed backlog with no explicit version expiration, protected capacity, or designed overflow response.","nearest_rivals":["Debouncing watcher events for a fixed interval: delays dispatch but does not bound accumulated work or adapt release to consumer capacity.","Rate limiting event admission: caps arrivals but may discard reconstructive information instead of retaining a transient mismatch for later service.","Backpressure to filesystem producers: asks generators or watcher sources to slow down, which may be impossible for external checkouts and does not itself preserve already emitted events.","A full repository rescan after every burst: reconstructs state but replaces incremental continuity with repeated expensive global work.","Caching prior diagnostics: reuses results when inputs match but does not manage the timing mismatch for newly changed files."],"remaining_contrastive_claim":"The candidate's distinguishing claim is that explicit bounded holding, current-version validation, capacity-governed drainage, protected interactive admission, and visible overflow can convert a transient watcher/analyzer rate mismatch into managed delay; the claim is not that waiting, debouncing, dropping, caching, or slowing producers alone provides this structure.","authority_safety":{"decision_authority":"The repository tooling owner may configure and test the watcher-to-analyzer dispatch path; developers retain authority over whether generated or bulk changes may trigger a later full rescan.","authorized_first_step":"Run an offline trace replay against a queue simulator and a non-production analyzer instance using recorded event timestamps, file identities, versions, and measured service times.","excluded_actions":["Deploying the queue to production","Silently discarding events without a version or overflow reason","Increasing analyzer concurrency beyond its existing tested limit","Allowing the buffer to modify repository files","Suppressing occupancy, age, expiration, or overflow telemetry"],"halt_rollback":"Stop the replay if the analyzer exceeds its existing CPU or memory ceiling, current-version events are lost, or event ordering violates analyzer requirements; discard the simulator state and retain the unchanged direct-dispatch production path."},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"If sustained edit-induced analysis demand equals or exceeds service capacity after bursts end, occupancy will not drain; buffering would only delay and obscure a capacity or workload-design failure.","problem_falsifier":"Timestamped traces show that watcher arrival rate does not exceed safe analyzer service rate during the observed failures, or failures occur before any event backlog forms.","intervention_falsifier":"Under representative replay bursts, the bounded queue either fails to prevent analyzer resource-limit breaches, loses current-version invalidations, does not drain within the accepted delay window, or increases current-diagnostic tail latency beyond the predefined limit relative to direct dispatch.","risks":["Buffer bloat and excessive diagnostic latency","Hidden persistent analyzer under-capacity","Incorrect version checks expiring necessary work","Overflow forcing frequent full rescans","Priority inversion between bulk and interactive changes","Starvation of bulk-origin changes","Memory exhaustion from large event metadata","Event reordering violating analyzer assumptions","Adversarial or accidental event floods exhausting bounded capacity"]},"next_evidence_step":"Replay one bounded corpus consisting of a normal editing interval and one recorded bulk-change burst through direct dispatch and candidate queue configurations. Predefine queue item and byte limits, maximum event age, protected interactive share, analyzer concurrency, and overflow behavior; compare peak analyzer memory and CPU, current-version event loss, occupancy and drain time, overflow count, and median and tail current-diagnostic latency. Treat the result only as evidence about this trace and configuration.","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","diversity_from_prior_proposals":"No other experiment candidates or cells were inspected. This one-shot candidate is derived solely from the supplied buffering archetype and computer-science domain card.","revision_record":{"parent_version":null,"progress_targets_addressed":["Initial one-shot breadth candidate"],"conceptual_changes":[],"operational_changes":[],"evidence_changes":[],"claim_changes":[]}}