poimen/tasks/T8.5-embedded-mode-smoke.md

T8.5 — Embedded-mode smoke

Field	Value
Phase	P8 — Operability
Size	S — under 1 day
Status	Not started
Flags	parallel-ok
Spec	inlined below
Blocks	—

Goal

A fresh crate does cargo add, runs one workflow, and gets durability and grading with zero infrastructure.

Facts (inlined — no spec read needed)

• Embedded mode is a first-class product, not a test harness. A user must be able to cargo add this, run an agent, and get durability and grading with zero infrastructure.
• That constraint is what keeps the ports honest. If this breaks, the ports have leaked — something in the default path now requires Postgres, an object store, or a broker.
• Embedded mode is redb for log and state, a redb table for blobs, and in-process coordination.
• Defaults ship working: a user who wants the built-in behaviour writes no code. The smoke test is the proof of that claim.
• parallel-ok: this gates nothing and can be built alongside the rest of P8.

Steps

1. Create the smoke test as a separate crate outside the workspace, depending on the published crate surface only. Inside the workspace it can reach internals and prove nothing.
2. Depend on the default feature set. No features = ["postgres", ...].
3. Define one small workflow in YAML, register a stub model provider and one verifier.
4. Run it: spawn with a TaskId, execute, verify, grade with the default PairwiseSequential (first run yields Ungraded { NoReference }; a second run on the same TaskId grades).
5. Assert no network listener is opened and no external service is contacted.
6. Run it in CI on every change to the default path.

Acceptance

• A fresh crate with no infrastructure records, verifies and grades a run.
• If this breaks, the ports have leaked.

Verify

Harness: a crate outside the workspace, depending on the published crate by version or path with default-features = true and nothing added. That location is the test — inside the workspace it can reach internals and proves nothing.

Integration test — smoke-crate/tests/it_embedded_smoke.rs:

1. cargo add the framework (or a path dependency with default features only).
2. Define one small YAML workflow, register a stub model and one verifier.
3. Spawn with a TaskId, execute, verify, grade. Assert the run reaches a terminal state and produces a Score — the first run legitimately yields Ungraded { NoReference }.
4. Second run on the same TaskId: assert Score::Relative, proving the whole default grading path works with no infrastructure.
5. Assert no network listener is opened and no external host is contacted — run under a network-denied sandbox if the CI supports it, otherwise assert on an instrumented socket layer.
6. Assert no Postgres, object store or broker dependency is pulled in: check cargo tree for the distributed-only crates and assert absent.
7. Assert the process exits cleanly and the redb file is readable afterwards.
8. Run this in CI on every change to the default path, not nightly.

Command: cargo test --manifest-path smoke-crate/Cargo.toml

False pass:

• The smoke crate living inside the workspace. It compiles against internals and stays green while the published API is unusable — which is the exact leak this test exists to detect.
• Enabling a non-default feature to make it build. That is the leak, papered over; the failure is the finding.
• Step 4 omitted: a first run that returns Ungraded is trivially reachable without a working grading path.

Traps

• Writing the smoke test inside the workspace with access to pub(crate) items. It then passes while the public API is unusable.
• Enabling a non-default feature to make it pass. That is the leak, papered over.

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Background (not required to do this task): rust-agentic-sys.md §1, §7 · rust-agentic-task.md