feat(optimize): add --subtract, the subtraction axis, behind a deterministic floor

Every command so far asked an addition question — what to add, what to move,
what it costs. Nothing asked what is no longer earning its always-loaded rent.
This adds that axis as a fourth lensCheck on the existing hybrid motor rather
than a new scanner or a 22nd command: the measured payoff (~18% of one file)
justifies a mode, not machinery.

It is the only lens that proposes REMOVING config, so it carries a guarantee
the others don't need: a load-bearing block is never a candidate. Precision is
asymmetric — a missed dead line costs a few tokens per turn, a deleted one
costs a wrong remote or a broken script — so the floor is decided in code
(lib/floor-exclusion.mjs) before the opus judge sees anything, never in prose.

Granularity is the leaf block, with two structural exceptions: a paragraph
ending in ':' merges with the list it introduces, and an ordered list is a
contract whose steps inherit floor from any sibling. Unordered lists
deliberately do not inherit — a load-bearing bullet and a disposable one
routinely share a list, and container-reasoning is the error the hand-built
ground truth exists to catch.

Verified against that ground truth (built before any classifier existed), with
the comparison machine-checked rather than read by eye: zero load-bearing
blocks proposed, 11/18 deletable groups surfaced, ~756 tok ~ 18% of a ~4300
token file — inside the pre-registered band. The first run found five floor
violations the synthesized fixture missed; each got a structural rule and a
fixture shape so it cannot regress.

Three real bugs the dogfood run exposed, all now covered:
- JS \b is ASCII-only, so /\bunngå\b/ never matches — every Norwegian keyword
  ending in æ/ø/å was silently dead.
- A bare word/word is not a path; "pros/cons" vetoed the largest deletable
  block until PATH_RE was tightened to rooted paths and globs.
- "Mid-sentence" must key on a preceding lowercase letter; the loose version
  read **bold labels:** and quoted openers as entities, costing 4 of 11 groups.

BP-SUB-001 is grounded entirely in the Anthropic steering blog already cited by
BP-MECH-001..004 and asserts nothing from the talk that motivated the feature —
no "80%", no ablation figure.

Suite 1365 -> 1382/0. Frozen v5.0.0 snapshots untouched; plain optimize output
byte-identical on identical input (--subtract adds keys only when passed).
knowledge-refresh-cli's reference date moved to 2026-08-01: its premise that
every seed entry was verified 2026-06-20 expired when BP-SUB-001 got a genuine
verification date, and backdating the entry to fit the test would have been a
lie about when its source was checked.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01RW2haJXbxZpKivKHseSXNh
This commit is contained in:
Kjell Tore Guttormsen 2026-07-31 16:24:51 +02:00
commit e9921d3c9d
13 changed files with 1080 additions and 32 deletions

View file

@ -322,11 +322,21 @@ bash script, or a lost afternoon.
- [x] **DONE 2026-07-31 (#40).** `grep -rniE 'blame|mtime|birthtime' scanners/` returns
zero hits → §3.1 confirmed still true at build time.
- [ ] `node scanners/drift-cli.mjs <path> --save --name pre-subtraction` succeeds and
`lib/baseline.mjs` round-trips → confirms §4 reuse is real, not assumed.
**Still open** — not blocking the fasit, blocking any code.
- [ ] If any claim from §1 is to be written into the register: a primary source exists
(URL to the talk or an Anthropic doc). Otherwise the entry is not written.
- [x] **DONE 2026-07-31 (#41).** `node scanners/drift-cli.mjs . --save --name pre-subtraction`
succeeds and `lib/baseline.mjs` round-trips → §4 reuse is real, not assumed.
Written envelope is `{meta, scanners[16], aggregate, _baseline}` with
`_baseline.target_path` = the repo (15 findings, score 55). Run with no flags
beyond `--save --name`, since M-BUG-21 makes an unknown flag's value silently
become the scan target.
- [x] **RESOLVED 2026-07-31 (#41) by not needing it.** `BP-SUB-001` was written
`confirmed`, and asserts **nothing** from §1 — no "80 %", no ablation figure, no
Cherny attribution. Its claim is grounded entirely in the Anthropic steering blog
already cited by BP-MECH-001004, re-verified the same day: *"Every line loads into
every session for every engineer working in the repo, whether it's relevant to their
task or not. This consumes tokens and dilutes adherence"*, *"Build commands,
directory layout, monorepo structure, coding conventions, and team norms all fit
naturally here"*, and *"Keep CLAUDE.md under 200 lines"*. The anecdote motivated the
feature; it is not a premise of the shipped rule.
- [x] **DONE 2026-07-31 (#40) — THE AGE SIGNAL DOES NOT EXIST. Collapse condition met.**
Per-line `git blame` (not `git log`; per-line is the question) over four real
instruction files:
@ -359,25 +369,32 @@ bash script, or a lost afternoon.
per §7 q3; the two struck items below were premised on a new standalone scanner, which is
no longer the shape):
- [ ] Red tests exist and fail before implementation.
- [ ] `node --test 'tests/**/*.test.mjs'` green, count strictly greater than 1365.
- [ ] `git diff --stat tests/snapshots/v5.0.0/` is empty (frozen baselines untouched).
**Still applies, and matters more as a mode:** the new lens class must not alter any
existing `optimize` output, so a plain `/config-audit optimize` run has to be diffed
against its current output as well.
- [x] **DONE (#41).** Red tests written first against a synthesized fixture and confirmed
failing (module not found) before either module existed.
- [x] **DONE (#41).** Suite green at **1382/0** (was 1365).
- [x] **DONE (#41).** `git diff --stat tests/snapshots/v5.0.0/` empty, **and** a plain
`optimize-lens-cli.mjs` run diffed byte-identical against its pre-change output
(`--subtract` adds keys only when the flag is present; `LENS_DETECTORS` still
exposes exactly 3 detectors, asserted in the suite).
- [ ] ~~`node scanners/self-audit.mjs --check-readme` passes (badge counts updated:
scanners 16 → 17).~~ **No badge bump — no new scanner.** `--check-readme` must still
pass, and README/CLAUDE.md still need the docs-gate diffs for a `feat:` commit
([[docs-gate-feat-requires-readme-claudemd]]).
- [ ] Every new finding renders with a non-`Other` `userImpactCategory` and a
non-`_default` action language → humanizer wiring correct (M-16/M-17).
- [ ] **Floor test (§6.0), the blocking one.** Build a fasit by hand first — per
[[judge-the-judge-build-fasit-first]] — over the operator's own global CLAUDE.md,
labelling each block compensatory or load-bearing. Then run the tool. Required
result: **zero load-bearing blocks proposed for deletion.** Non-negotiable; the
known-correct floor items to check for explicitly are "never GitHub, only Forgejo",
"system bash is 3.2", the test command, and "`~/.claude` is not git-tracked". One
of those in the delete list fails the gate outright, whatever the recall.
- [ ] Recall, secondary: at least one candidate the operator agrees is genuinely dead
weight. Precision over recall throughout — a missed dead line costs a few tokens
per turn, a deleted load-bearing line costs a wrong remote or a broken script.
- [x] **PASSED 2026-07-31 (#41) — the blocking floor test.** Fasit built first (#40), tool
run after, and the comparison **machine-checked**: a script asserts the intersection
of the candidate list with every FLOOR / POLICY-FLOOR line range in the fasit is
empty. Result: **zero load-bearing blocks proposed for deletion.** Both §8 anchors
present in the subject file (B-25 "Aldri GitHub. Kun Forgejo", B-26 "System bash er
3.2") are excluded, as are B-09, B-13, B-17, B-23, B-27, B-29, B-32b and B-38b.
The first run found **five** violations the synthesized fixture missed; each was
fixed with a structural rule (list-stem merge, ordered-list-as-contract, security
terms, `unresolved-entity`, declarative guard) and a fixture shape added so it
cannot regress.
- [x] **MET (#41), with the number stated honestly.** 11 of 18 deletable groups surfaced,
≈756 always-loaded tokens ≈ **18 %** of the ~4 300-token file — inside the
pre-registered ~850 / ~20 % band. The 7 misses are the conservative default working
as intended (unresolvable entity names, code spans, and declarative/infinitive
phrasing carrying no imperative). Precision over recall held throughout: every fix
in this session traded recall away, never the gate.