v0.3.0 — compare payloads, hosted smoke, critic-can-lose

agentic-rag-research v0.3.0 — compare, hosted contract, critic can lose

Date: 2026-08-14
Hosted: https://pax-agentic-rag.vercel.app (Vercel project pax-agentic-rag only)

What this release proves

A hiring manager can put two finished runs next to each other after a serverless recycle
forgets in-memory ids. Compare is on payloads, not server ids
(ADR-0005). The free-path critic can still lose
when notes exist but are off-topic. Hosted contract smoke is a script + transcript, not a
flaky network CI job.

Surface

Endpoint / page	Role
POST /v1/research	Bounded research run (unchanged)
GET /v1/research/stream	SSE plan → retrieve → note → critique
GET /v1/runs/{id}	Stored artifact (in-process, ephemeral)
GET /v1/runs/{id}/run.json	Full run download (compare input)
GET /v1/runs/{id}/trace.json	Trace-only download
POST /v1/runs/compare	Typed diff of two payloads
/compare	Load two files; side-by-side + API diff
scripts/hosted_smoke.ps1	health · done · refuse · stream · compare

Evidence

python -m pytest -q
python -m agentic_rag.evals.run
# expect pass_rate 1.0, billed_usd 0.0, 18/18
pwsh scripts/hosted_smoke.ps1 -BaseUrl https://pax-agentic-rag.vercel.app

• Identical fixtures → empty, byte-stable compare response.
• Refused vs done → typed field diffs (status, stop_reason, …).
• Golden critic-notes-exist-not-success: notes present, status refused.
• Multi-hop sequence: critique after retrieve-1 precedes and justifies retrieve-2.

Honesty

• Fixture retriever only on the public host. No live-web research claim.
• HTTP to production-rag stays opt-in; CI never points at a production-rag Vercel host.
• Control metrics only — steps, stop reasons, citation presence, refused_unanswerable.
• No OpenAI required for tests or the free path.

Upgrade notes

Clients that only downloaded trace.json should also keep run.json if they want to
compare after recycle. Compare request body is { "left": <RunArtifact>, "right": <RunArtifact> }.