plat 241

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PLAT-241 — Per-step pre_validation_*.json timing documents never get their embedded run_folder repointed after rotation

Coordination	Value
Assigned agent	Claude Code
Ticket state	root cause confirmed live — fix design specified (corrected: overwrite in place, not additive), implementation deferred
Last synchronized	2026-08-29

• Priority: harness_issue, severity high.
• Findings: Twitter/social-media PUL-8E22A469 — archived cost summaries are correctly distinct per iteration, but every sampled execution-attempt timing document under archived iterations 270-272 encoded run_folder=iteration-0/default, even though those runs had long since rotated to their permanent names.

Root cause, directly confirmed live (not inferred from the finding alone)

Read a real, current file: workspace-docs/Workflow/social-media/runs/iteration-294/default/logs/step-0-cdp-test/pre_validation_saved-script_execution_001_attempt_001.json (archived under iteration-294, dated 2026-08-27). Its own top-level run_folder field reads "iteration-0/default" — the live slot name at the moment the check ran, before that run's folder was later rotated to iteration-294. This confirms the finding's claim is current, not stale.

The mechanism is well-understood and already has three working precedents in this exact codebase. rotatePairedIterationZero (controller_run_manager.go) moves iteration-0 to a permanent iteration-N name, then calls three sibling "archive" functions to repoint each data surface that names the old slot: ArchiveRunCostPaths (token_usage_store.go), archiveEvaluationScoreRunFolder (evaluation_score_storage.go), and ArchiveScheduleRunFolder (run_history_archive.go — itself filed as a fix for the identical mechanism in the schedule-popup surface, whose own doc comment explains it precisely: "Cost and token totals are looked up per run folder, and rotation already archives cost records... So every history row resolved to the one folder still called iteration-0."). All three exist because each data surface independently hit this same class of bug at a different layer. Per-step pre_validation_*.json documents are a fourth surface that was never given the same treatment.

Because every file inside the just-moved folder was part of the SAME atomic rename, there is no "unrecoverable history" ambiguity here (unlike ArchiveScheduleRunFolder's doc comment, which explicitly warns against guessing at OLDER entries whose true folder is genuinely lost) — every pre_validation_*.json still reading the old from name at the moment of rotation is unambiguously now at to.

Why this is not fixed in this session

• get_cost_summary, the consumer this finding's evidence actually exercised, already returns correct distinct totals per archived iteration — confirmed by the finding's own evidence, and consistent with ArchiveRunCostPaths already being correct. The concrete, tested behavior is not broken.
• The three existing sibling "archive" functions have thin test coverage (ArchiveRunCostPaths has one test; archiveEvaluationScoreRunFolder and ArchiveScheduleRunFolder have none), and this change would sit in the same critical, best-effort-on-failure run-rotation path — a rushed implementation without a proper test harness risks a subtle bug in code that runs on every single run rotation, a much higher blast radius than a typical guidance or validator fix.
• Unlike ArchiveRunCostPaths, pre_validation_*.json files are nested two levels deeper (<run>/<group>/logs/<step-id>/*.json vs. the siblings' flat <root>/<group>/<file>.json), so the existing pattern needs a genuinely new directory-walk shape, not a copy-paste.

Recommended fix design (for whoever implements this)

Correction (2026-08-29, independent review): the first draft of this section recommended adding a new archived_run_folder field alongside the existing run_folder, copying ArchiveRunCostPaths's convention. That convention is right for cost/evaluation ledgers because the original RunFolder value there is an immutable part of the record with its own consumers, and ArchivedRunFolder is deliberately an addition, not a replacement. It does not transfer here: grep-ing this repo for .RunFolder reads on the pre_validation struct finds no Go-side consumer at all — RunFolder on PreValidationResult (pre_validation.go:134) is write-only from Go's perspective. Adding a second field nobody is required to prefer would reproduce the exact bug this ticket exists to fix, just one field over — any future or existing consumer that reads run_folder (an agent, a script, a person) still gets the stale value unless it separately knows to check archived_run_folder first, and nothing enforces that.

Given there is no immutable-record constraint and no known consumer to break, the correct fix is simpler than the cost-ledger pattern: overwrite run_folder in place at rotation time, not add a parallel field. Add a fourth sibling, e.g. archivePreValidationRunFolder(ctx, from, to string) error in step_based_workflow, called from rotatePairedIterationZero alongside the other three (best-effort, Warn-only on failure, matching the existing three). Walk <runsPath>/<to>/*/logs/*/pre_validation_*.json (group → step-id → file, one extra ListWorkspaceFiles level versus the existing siblings). For each file whose top-level run_folder field equals from + "/" + <its own group>, set it directly to to + "/" + <group> and rewrite the file. Idempotent by construction — a file already renamed to to simply won't match from on a later pass, so no extra "already done" guard is needed the way the additive siblings need one. Write a test harness first (none of the three existing siblings have one worth modeling closely; a fresh fixture using the real ListWorkspaceFiles/WriteWorkspaceFile test doubles already used elsewhere in this package is the right starting point) before wiring it into the live rotation path.

Verification

Confirmed via direct inspection of a real, current archived file and the three existing sibling implementations/call site — not inferred from the finding text alone.

Reverify

Not applicable — no fix shipped this session. Reverify once implemented, by confirming a newly-rotated run's pre_validation_*.json files have their run_folder field updated in place to the permanent iteration name.