v0.7.0rc1 — salience tier Phase 1 + capture attention Phase A

[0.7.0rc1] - 2026-05-22

Fixes

• build_standing_set.py exemplar bias — added declarative-posture
  patterns. The pre-fix CONSTRAINT_EXEMPLARS list leaned heavily
  imperative ("never," "always," "must," "default to"). Surfaced
  2026-05-22: against the real prod vault the auto-selected top-10
  was 100% engineering rules — career / lifestyle / posture
  constraints spanning multi-year load-bearing facts (runway,
  recruiter posture, start-date framing, job-search mode) did not
  surface despite being equally durable, because the user encodes
  them declaratively ("Brian's stance," "current preference,"
  "passive/selective mode") rather than imperatively. Added 10
  declarative-posture exemplars representing the same constraint
  class in declarative shape. Exemplar list 22 → 30; imperative /
  declarative split now roughly balanced. ROADMAP audit-finding
  follow-up per feedback_audit_findings_become_roadmap_followups.
  Operator should re-run scripts/salience_phase0.sh snapshot && scripts/salience_phase0.sh score to verify the bias fix surfaces
  career-context memories alongside the engineering rules in the
  top-10.

Features

• Salience tier Phase 1 — first-class standing-context recall
  (default-off, soak-gated). Memories explicitly promoted via
  memory_promote are injected into every <mnemon-context>
  envelope on every prompt, regardless of query similarity. The cap
  is the contract: default 15, hard ceiling 20. Plan:
  private/mnemon-salience-tier-plan-260521.md.
  • Reframed validation gate (2026-05-22). Phase 1 IS the
    validation. Earlier plan called for a synthetic A/B against the
    Phase 0 env-var-flagged form before committing to schema +
    tooling. Reframed because the injection mechanism is identical
    between the two forms — an A/B of the gated env-var path
    carries no marginal information once Phase 1 ships gated behind
    STANDING_TIER_ENABLED=false. Operator promotes ~5 career-
    context memories, flips the flag, observes ≥1 week soak for
    runway-style under-weighting recurrence vs absence. Per
    feedback_phase_gated_soak_consumer_must_be_ready: ship the
    substrate gated, flip activation at a separate milestone.
  • Schema migration: documents.tier TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT 'situational' via _migrate_tier(). Index idx_documents_tier
    on live rows for the cap-count probe + search exclusion filter.
    Additive + harmless if STANDING_TIER_ENABLED stays off.
  • Store.promote_to_standing(id) + demote_to_situational(id)
    • list_standing() + standing_tier_status(). Promote
      raises StandingTierCapReached at the runtime cap,
      StandingTierProvenanceRejected when source_client is in
      STANDING_TIER_BLOCKED_SOURCE_CLIENTS (Layer 4 composition —
      hook-sourced memories cannot be promoted; operator-explicit
      gesture only), and StandingTierError on missing /
      invalidated docs. Idempotent re-promote returns True; demote
      of a situational doc returns False (no-op).
  • Store.search_bm25 + Store.search_vector gain
    include_standing: bool = False keyword param. Standing-tier
    docs excluded from ranked retrieval by default — they're
    injected unconditionally already; ranking them too would
    double-count and crowd the situational signal. Threaded through
    search.search() so the higher-level entry respects the
    invariant.
  • MCP tools: memory_promote(id), memory_demote(id),
    memory_list_standing() — both stdio (server.py) and
    Streamable HTTP (server_remote.py reuses the same mcp
    object). 14 → 17 registered tools.
  • CLI: mnemon standing list / promote <id> / demote <id>.
    mnemon status gains a Standing tier: N/CAP line.
  • build_context integration: when STANDING_TIER_ENABLED
    (config constant OR MNEMON_STANDING_TIER_ENABLED env override,
    accepting 1/true/yes/on), build_context calls
    memory_list_standing via the remote client in a single
    round-trip and renders the result as the "Standing context"
    sub-section ahead of "Situational recall." Phase 0 env-var path
    (MNEMON_STANDING_TIER_FILE → standing.json → standing-rendered.md
    cache) is preserved as fallback so operators retain a
    per-session override mechanism.
  • Composability invariants (all preserved):
    • Layer 0 (is_well_shaped) — capture rejection runs before
      anything reaches the standing-tier promotion path
    • Layer 1 envelope — standing block sits inside the same
      <mnemon-context> data-marking + nonce as situational
    • Layer 4 (HOOK_SOURCE_CONFIDENCE_CEILING + provenance) —
      hook-sourced memories cannot be promoted; explicit
      StandingTierProvenanceRejected rejection
    • rc16 source_key upsert — unchanged; tier orthogonal
    • Capture attention Phase A — recurrence_count accretes
      against canonical situational memories; standing-tier
      promotion is operator-gated on top of that signal
  • Soak gates for flipping default-on: (a) ≥1 week with the
    flag on; (b) observed reduction in runway-style under-weighting
    recurrence on real career-strategy conversations; (c) zero
    spurious-injection complaints from operator review of every
    promoted memory.
  • 22 new tests in tests/test_standing_tier.py covering: promote
    success / cap-rejection (cap=2 in test, 3rd raises) /
    hook-sourced rejection / invalidated rejection / missing rejection
    / cap respects invalidated (freed slot reclaimable) / demote
    round-trip / demote idempotent on situational / demote frees cap
    slot / list_standing ordering + content / search excludes by
    default / search includes when requested / build_context
    flag-off no-fetch / flag-on memory_list_standing call /
    env-var truthy value parsing. Suite 814 → 836 passing
    (test_server_remote.py tool-count assertions bumped 14 → 17).

Schema

• documents.tier TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT 'situational' —
  additive migration in _migrate_tier() after the existing
  _migrate_recurrence_count. Index idx_documents_tier scoped to
  live rows for cap-count + search-filter queries.

• Capture attention Phase A — recurrence-weighted memory convergence
  (default-off, soak-gated). When a new save's content is semantically
  close to ≥2 prior memories spanning distinct sessions, capture
  attention preserves the new memory + inserts 'restates' relations
  to each cluster member + boosts the canonical neighbor's confidence

  • increments the canonical's new recurrence_count column. The
    cluster of restatements stays discoverable; the load-bearing signal
    accretes on the canonical; MMR diversity at recall naturally
    suppresses near-duplicates without us dropping them at capture.
    Plan: private/mnemon-capture-attention-plan-260522.md. Driver: the
    2026-05-22 finding that load-bearing facts stated across many
    sessions land as fragmented memories rather than a single canonical
    assertion (the operator was implicitly substituting for a missing
    mechanism).
  • SOTA invariant: preserve+relate+boost, never skip-the-save.
    Earlier draft considered "boost canonical + skip the new save"
    as the auto-apply path — rejected because each restatement
    carries different framing and discarding it throws away the very
    signal the recurrence detector is honoring. The institutional
    pattern is preserve the data, link via relations, accrete the
    importance signal — operator-reviewed merge is Phase C of the
    plan, not Phase A's job.
  • Embedding-only (no LLM dependency). Same SOTA-for-public-
    release-constraint logic that drove build_standing_set.py's
    embedding-based scorer (the roadmapped LLM-judge opt-in P2 item
    composes as an advanced mode but isn't required).
  • Feature flag CAPTURE_ATTENTION_ENABLED default-off through
    soak. Two acceptance criteria to flip default-on (per plan
    §"Soak acceptance criteria"): (1) boost_rate ≤ 0.25 over a 7-day
    window measured via mnemon attention-status; (2) ≥80% precision
    on a 20-canonical manual review.
  • correction_of parameter on Store.save() (forward-compat
    for salience-tier Phase 2 promotion signals). When set, capture
    attention is skipped — operator explicit gesture beats automated
    recurrence detection.
  • mnemon attention-status CLI — soak monitor: boost-rate
    ratio over 7 days, recurrence-count distribution, top-10
    canonicals, last-10 'restates' relations audit trail.
  • scripts/calibrate_capture_threshold.py — data-tuned
    threshold selection. Samples N pairs from the operator's vault
    snapshot, prompts for same/different tagging, computes
    precision-recall at {0.70, 0.75, 0.80, 0.85, 0.90}, recommends
    the precision-leaning sweet spot. Persists tagged pairs to
    tests/fixtures/capture_attention_pairs.json for regression
    locking.
  • Failure mode: named exception + WARN swallow. Embedder /
    vecstore unavailability raises CaptureAttentionUnavailableError
    from apply_capture_attention(); Store.save() catches +
    logger.warnings + continues (the new memory is saved; only the
    recurrence-boost side effect is skipped). Acceptable swallow per
    feedback_no_silent_fails category (b) — secondary observability
    hung off a primary save path that records the failure.
  • Composes with the existing layered defenses unchanged.
    Capture attention runs AFTER Layer 0 (is_well_shaped rejects
    scaffolding before the path is reached) + AFTER Layer 4 ceiling
    (HOOK_SOURCE_CONFIDENCE_CEILING clamp survives the boost).
    'restates' is a new relation type — doesn't collide with the
    existing 'supersedes' / 'contradicts' / 'related'.
  • 13 new tests in tests/test_capture_attention.py covering: the
    preserve-everything invariant, feature-flag-off no-behavior-
    change, distinct-sessions trigger, same-session no-trigger,
    threshold respected, hook ceiling, user uncapped, pinned-canonical
    selection, correction_of override, fail-loud on embedder
    unavailability, schema migration idempotency. Suite 801 → 814
    passing.

Schema

• documents.recurrence_count INTEGER NOT NULL DEFAULT 0 —
  additive migration in _migrate_recurrence_count(). Pre-existing
  rows get count=0 and recurrence detection starts forward from the
  next save. Harmless if CAPTURE_ATTENTION_ENABLED stays off.