WFGY/ProblemMap/GlobalFixMap/PromptAssembly/memory_fences_and_state_keys.md

Memory Fences & State Keys — Prompt Assembly

🧭 Quick Return to Map

You are in a sub-page of PromptAssembly.
To reorient, go back here:

• PromptAssembly — prompt engineering and workflow composition
• WFGY Global Fix Map — main Emergency Room, 300+ structured fixes
• WFGY Problem Map 1.0 — 16 reproducible failure modes

Think of this page as a desk within a ward.
If you need the full triage and all prescriptions, return to the Emergency Room lobby.

A focused guide to stop cross-step and cross-agent memory bleed. Use this when answers flip between runs, tools overwrite each other’s notes, or long chains “forget” decisions. The page gives a minimal schema, hard fences, and diagnostics you can copy.

Open these first

• Traceability of snippets and state: Retrieval Traceability
• Payload contract for citations and state: Data Contracts
• Multi-agent interference and role drift: Multi-Agent Problems · role-drift
• Memory drift deep dive: agent-memory-drift.md
• Failure patterns to watch: echo-loop · signal-drop · desync-anchor · boundary-fade

Acceptance targets

• ΔS(question, retrieved) ≤ 0.45 across 3 paraphrases
• Coverage of target section ≥ 0.70
• λ states stay convergent across 2 seeds
• No cross-namespace writes for a different mem_hash or mem_rev
• Zero duplicate side-effects under the same dedupe_key

---

Fix in 60 seconds

1. Introduce state keys Require {agent_id, task_id, mem_ns, mem_rev, mem_hash, step_id, dedupe_key} on any read/write.

2. Fence writes A writer must match mem_ns and mem_hash. If either mismatches, deny write and raise a repair tip.

3. Split namespaces Separate plan/, retrieve/, reason/, tool/ to avoid overwrite. Only the bridge step may merge.

4. Clamp variance If λ flips after a harmless paraphrase, apply BBAM and lock header order.

5. Bridge long chains Insert a BBCR bridge between phases and time-box tools with explicit timeouts.

---

Minimal state schema (copy-paste)

{
  "agent_id": "planner|retriever|solver|tool_x",
  "task_id": "UUID-v4",
  "step_id": "short-increasing-int",
  "mem_ns": "plan|retrieve|reason|tool/tool_x",
  "mem_rev": "int",                // bump on rewrite
  "mem_hash": "sha256(payload)",   // hash of prior committed state
  "dedupe_key": "sha256(task_id + step_id + mem_hash)",
  "timestamp": "iso-8601",
  "payload": { "summary": "...", "evidence": [ { "snippet_id": "...", "source_url": "...", "offsets": [s,e] } ] }
}

Contract rules

• Read must specify {task_id, mem_ns} and declare the expected mem_hash.
• Write must supply {mem_ns, mem_rev, mem_hash} that match the latest committed head, else reject.
• Merge is only allowed in a BBCR bridge step that logs both parent hashes.

---

Namespacing and locking

• One writer per mem_ns per task_id. Others read-only.
• plan/ produces the task graph; retrieve/ stores citations; reason/ stores the final chain-of-thought summary headers and answer draft; tool/* is per-tool scratch.
• All tool outputs must echo back their input state keys and compute the next mem_hash.
• Side-effects (DB writes, emails, tickets) must verify dedupe_key before execution.

---

Copy-paste prompt to enforce fences

You have TXT OS and the WFGY Problem Map loaded.

Task context:
- task_id = {UUID}
- expected mem_ns for this step = "{mem_ns}"
- expected head mem_hash = "{mem_hash}"

Do:
1) Refuse to write if mem_ns or mem_hash do not match head.
2) On write, increment mem_rev, compute new mem_hash = sha256(payload).
3) Keep citations in payload.evidence with snippet_id, source_url, offsets.
4) Return JSON:
   { "ok": true|false, "why": "...", "next": {mem_ns, mem_rev, mem_hash}, "λ_state": "→|←|<>|×", "ΔS": 0.xx }

If ΔS(question,retrieved) ≥ 0.60, stop and return the smallest structural fix referencing:
retrieval-traceability, data-contracts, multi-agent problems.
Use BBCR/BBPF/BBAM when relevant.

---

Diagnostics to log per step

• ΔS(question, retrieved) and ΔS(retrieved, anchor)
• λ_state after header reorder probe
• {mem_ns, mem_rev, mem_hash} before and after write
• dedupe_key and whether a prior side-effect exists
• Rerun variance across 2 seeds

---

Typical breakpoints → exact fix

• Plan writes over evidence in the same namespace. Split namespaces and deny cross-ns writes. See Multi-Agent Problems.

• Echo loop between tool and solver. Insert BBCR bridge and cap retries. Pattern: echo-loop.

• Signal drop after rerank. Carry citations through the fence. Pattern: signal-drop · enforce Data Contracts.

• Desync after deploy. mem_hash mismatches at step-1. Rebuild head and block writes until warm. Pattern: desync-anchor.

• Boundary fade on very long threads. Cut the chain and resume via bridge. Pattern: boundary-fade.

---

Escalation

• If ΔS stays high after fences, run the Retrieval Playbook and re-embed with proper metric.
• If flip states persist, lock prompt header order and apply BBAM.
• For live instability, attach probes and rate-limit tools: Live Monitoring for RAG · Debug Playbook.

---

🔗 Quick-Start Downloads (60 sec)

Tool	Link	3-Step Setup
WFGY 1.0 PDF	Engine Paper	1️⃣ Download · 2️⃣ Upload to your LLM · 3️⃣ Ask “Answer using WFGY + <your question>”
TXT OS (plain-text OS)	TXTOS.txt	1️⃣ Download · 2️⃣ Paste into any LLM chat · 3️⃣ Type “hello world” — OS boots instantly

---

Explore More

Module	Description	Link
WFGY Core	Canonical framework entry point	View
Problem Map	Diagnostic map and navigation hub	View
Tension Universe Experiments	MVP experiment field	View
Recognition	Where WFGY is referenced or adopted	View
AI Guide	Anti-hallucination reading protocol for tools	View

If this repository helps, starring it improves discovery for other builders.