tidaldb/docs
jordan a6f663f002
Some checks failed
ci/woodpecker/push/woodpecker Pipeline failed
harden: validate embeddings before the WAL, fix the reseed-latch leak, run every test suite
Fixes the two defects a malformed probe exposed on the live cluster, plus the
coverage gap that let a stale assertion survive the same day it was falsified.

TASK 17 — validate before the WAL append. A 128-dim vector against a 1536-dim
slot was appended to the WAL FIRST, then validated, then answered 500 — so an
already-durable, unapplicable record shipped to both followers, halted both
receivers, and put shard 1 into a quorum-write outage. Validation now runs before
the append and returns 400 via invalid_input; nothing enters the log.
`storage::vector::validate_dimensions` is now the single comparison, replacing an
inline duplicate of the same rule in lifecycle/ops.rs:57-62 — two copies of a
dimension check drift, and the apply-path copy is the one that halts replication
when it disagrees.

The receiver's halt-vs-skip decision is now explicit instead of "halt on
anything". A record whose failure is deterministic and node-independent (schema
width) is skipped, counted on blobs_apply_failed_total and ERROR-logged, so the
frontier advances; a record that could become applicable after a binary upgrade
(unknown batch kind, capability skew) still halts, because skipping那 would
silently drop replicated data. Both branches are proven reachable by tests.

TASK 18 — the reseed latch outlived its discharge. A node hosting 3 shard groups
latched a marker per group but discharged on a single seqno, so two latches meant
permanent 503 on a node whose every shard read lag 0 — it hit all three pods
during the roll and each needed a manual delete. Gaps are now tracked per group
in a ReseedGapSet and cleared on evidence about themselves; a REFUSED
reseed_self_restart re-evaluates every 15s instead of waiting for a latch that
never arrives. /health's cause ladder was also lying: it printed "joiner boot not
yet converged" for a node whose groups had all converged, because the fallback
asserted a state it never tested. It now names the outstanding gaps, gained the
decommissioned-by-signal arm that is_ready checked but the ladder did not, and
its terminal arm says "reason unavailable" rather than inventing one.

COVERAGE — 14 of 23 integration suites were run by NO pipeline. Not theoretical:
cluster_routes still asserted the wire fabrication removed hours earlier
(applied_events == 0 with a lag derived from it) and nothing caught it because
nothing ran it. cluster_sharding (dense-rank, /sharded/* opt-in), vector_search
(distance contract) and cluster_poison_embedding (task 17's own gate) were in the
same position, so those guards would have rotted identically. Every suite now has
a runner: 8 in-process ones in a new `fast-suites` push step (measured 71s, runs
FIRST so a cheap failure precedes the 6.5-min gate), 6 multiproc ones in the
nightly. All 23 scheduled; all 4 never-before-run heavy suites verified passing
before being scheduled.

Also fixes cluster_chaos.rs:329, which the nightly's FIRST EVER run caught 13
minutes in — it demanded an unreachable peer report worst-case lag, i.e. it
required the fabrication task 04a deleted.

Verified: fmt clean; clippy 72 vs 73 baseline (one FEWER, zero added, measured on
touched trees at 431340f); lib 2115 passed; all 8 fast suites green;
cluster_chaos 5, cluster_sharding 5, cluster_poison_embedding 1,
cluster_cross_shard_reads 2, cluster_graph_persistence 1, cluster_multiproc 5,
cluster_e2e 2; doc-guard OK.
2026-08-31 00:46:00 -06:00
..
guides feat(cluster): separate operator authority from data-plane access 2026-08-22 00:57:01 -06:00
legal feat(m12): multi-vector user preference modeling + ANN candidate-gen 2026-06-23 09:52:36 -06:00
ops harden: restore CI verification, remove four wire-level fabrications, instrument the 401 path 2026-08-30 20:55:58 -06:00
planning harden: restore CI verification, remove four wire-level fabrications, instrument the 401 path 2026-08-30 20:55:58 -06:00
profiling fix(m12p6): 6-bug k3s 3-shard cluster repair (rc8+rc9) 2026-06-16 22:34:21 -06:00
research feat(m12): multi-vector user preference modeling + ANN candidate-gen 2026-06-23 09:52:36 -06:00
reviews feat(m11): observability+ops (m11p8) + perf-sweep wave 2 T2 2026-06-13 09:17:49 -06:00
runbooks harden: validate embeddings before the WAL, fix the reseed-latch leak, run every test suite 2026-08-31 00:46:00 -06:00
specs docs(m12): refresh API, specs, ops, and roadmap to the shipped M12 reality 2026-06-23 21:39:55 -06:00
content-strategy.md feat: complete Milestone 5 — full-text search, RRF fusion, and creator search 2026-02-21 23:53:16 -07:00
personal-briefing-beachhead.md feat: M0p1 runtime skeleton, M0p2 tooling & diagnostics, m1p4 signal ledger 2026-02-20 20:32:00 -07:00
README.md docs(m12): refresh API, specs, ops, and roadmap to the shipped M12 reality 2026-06-23 21:39:55 -06:00
roadmap-to-cluster.md feat(m11): sharding × replication + rebalancing (m11p6 L3-L5) 2026-06-13 18:23:43 -06:00

tidalDB Engineering Docs

The engineering documentation home. Top-level product docs (VISION, USE_CASES, SEQUENCE, ARCHITECTURE, API, QUICKSTART, CODING_GUIDELINES, thoughts) live at the repository root; everything below is the deeper engineering record.

This and the repo root are the two canonical doc homes. There is intentionally no per-crate doc mirror (no tidal/docs/). Edit the canonical file, never a copy.

Component specs — specs/

The authoritative component specifications (status: Implemented, M0M12).

# Spec # Spec
00 Architecture overview 08 Query engine
01 Storage engine 09 Ranking & scoring
02 Entity model 10 Feedback loop
03 Signal system 11 Schema
04 Relationships 12 Cold start
05 Cohorts 13 Concurrency
06 Text retrieval 14 Scale architecture
07 Vector retrieval

Planning — planning/

Code reviews — reviews/

Guides — guides/

Task-oriented, build-an-app docs (complements the root QUICKSTART.md and API.md):

Operations — ops/ and runbooks/

Research — research/

ANN (1, 2) · Tantivy (1, 2) · Signal ledger (1, 2) · WAL · Type system · Tooling & diagnostics · Enterprise-readiness risks

Profiling — profiling/

Hotspot analysis · Scale baselines · Signal memory · Signal rollup eval · Social scale · Tantivy merge tuning · USearch tuning

Strategy

Content strategy · Personal-briefing beachhead