<pblock label="Plan artifact repair" kind="repair">

Plan Artifact Repair

Drydock accepted the Plan response shape but rejected the emitted Blueprint artifact(s) below. Repair only the deterministic defect. Preserve all unrelated content, contracts, headings, decisions, and acceptance assertions byte-for-byte where possible. Do not remove or weaken a valid assertion while adding a missing one. Every artifact with a programmatic surface retains at least two concrete Python acceptance assertions. Every DECISIONS.json is the sole decision disclosure surface; do not emit Markdown question sections.

Emit each artifact below in exactly this form, and emit no other text:

=== BEGIN ARTIFACT <FILENAME> === <the complete file body> === END ARTIFACT ===

The filename appears once, in the opening delimiter. The closing delimiter is the constant token above and never carries a name.

Emit exactly one such block for each of: FEATURE-Path-Discovery.md, FEATURE-Path-Primitives.md, FEATURE-Process-Contract.md, FEATURE-Recursive-Generators.md, FEATURE-Reductions-and-Iteration-Control.md.

Repair pass: 9

Deterministic validation defect: FEATURE-Path-Discovery.md [path-001-conformance]: story path-001 is not the terminal story (conf-003) and its acceptance executes the authoritative runner sources/run_conformance.py. Gate this story on its own declared behavior, or invoke the runner in list mode, which enumerates the suite without running a case. FEATURE-Path-Primitives.md [path-002-conformance]: story path-002 is not the terminal story (conf-003) and its acceptance executes the authoritative runner sources/run_conformance.py. Gate this story on its own declared behavior, or invoke the runner in list mode, which enumerates the suite without running a case. FEATURE-Process-Contract.md [exec-002-compile-runtime]: story exec-002 is not the terminal story (conf-003) and its acceptance executes the authoritative runner sources/run_conformance.py. Gate this story on its own declared behavior, or invoke the runner in list mode, which enumerates the suite without running a case. FEATURE-Recursive-Generators.md [recursive-generators-scoped]: story flow-006 is not the terminal story (conf-003) and its acceptance executes the authoritative runner sources/run_conformance.py. Gate this story on its own declared behavior, or invoke the runner in list mode, which enumerates the suite without running a case. FEATURE-Recursive-Generators.md [recursive-descent-scoped]: story flow-006 is not the terminal story (conf-003) and its acceptance executes the authoritative runner sources/run_conformance.py. Gate this story on its own declared behavior, or invoke the runner in list mode, which enumerates the suite without running a case. FEATURE-Reductions-and-Iteration-Control.md [reductions-scoped]: story flow-005 is not the terminal story (conf-003) and its acceptance executes the authoritative runner sources/run_conformance.py. Gate this story on its own declared behavior, or invoke the runner in list mode, which enumerates the suite without running a case. FEATURE-Reductions-and-Iteration-Control.md [range-scoped]: story flow-005 is not the terminal story (conf-003) and its acceptance executes the authoritative runner sources/run_conformance.py. Gate this story on its own declared behavior, or invoke the runner in list mode, which enumerates the suite without running a case.

Normative Compass sections. They bind every assertion you write or retain, including one you add to satisfy the defect above.

Constraints

• Implement in Python using only the standard library.
• Provide an executable named jq at the application root, invoked as ./jq -c '<program>'.
• -c is the only option exercised. No other command-line option is required.
• Run without network access, package installation, or external runtime dependencies.
• Exit 0 when the program compiled and ran to completion, 3 when it did not compile, and 5

when it compiled and raised at run time. The harness grades on this distinction.

• Diagnostics go to standard error and are never compared.

Guardrails

• Do not shell out to a system jq executable.
• Do not use a third-party jq implementation or binding.
• Do not modify, rewrite, trim, regenerate, or substitute any file under sources/. Those assets

are restored before grading and an edit is reported as tampering.

• Preserve generator ordering, multiplicity, backtracking, and partial-output runtime behavior.
• Keep compile failures distinct from runtime failures using exit codes 3 and 5.

Verification Protocol

This section is normative. It governs which story may invoke the supplied harness, and how.

Invoking the harness

sources/run_conformance.py requires the environment variable JQ, the command that runs the candidate implementation. Without it the harness exits 2 on its own usage code, which is a harness fault and never a verdict about the interpreter. Every invocation, in every acceptance criterion and every developer command, supplies it:

JQ="$PWD/jq" python3 sources/run_conformance.py            # whole corpus, the scored run
JQ="$PWD/jq" python3 sources/run_conformance.py --select 'reduce'   # run one construct for real

Those two commands are the only ways this build runs the harness. They are specified verbatim below under The two harness invocations, together with the flag this build forbids.

sources/ is read only. No story edits, patches, or regenerates sources/run_conformance.py, sources/jq.test, or sources/exclusions.txt; a harness defect is reported, not repaired in place. A story that needs to experiment with the harness works on a copy outside sources/, and every acceptance criterion invokes the original sources/run_conformance.py.

An acceptance criterion written in Python supplies it by extending the inherited environment, never by replacing it:

env={**os.environ, "JQ": str(build_dir / "jq")}

env={"JQ": ...} alone leaves the child with no PATH, so nothing it invokes resolves and the criterion is false at every level of implementation quality.

sources/full_test.sh sets JQ itself for the runner it wraps and therefore takes no environment from its caller.

The harness reserves exit 2 for its own faults — a missing corpus, an unset JQ, a stale exclusion list. Exit 2 never means the interpreter is wrong.

The summary line is:

jq conformance: NNN passed, N failed, N errored, N skipped (corpus jq.test @ jq-1.8.2)

The two harness invocations

An acceptance criterion that runs sources/run_conformance.py uses one of these two commands. No criterion in this build passes any other flag to the harness.

The staging story does not appear in this table. It does not run the harness at all; see The staging story below.

--list is never run

sources/run_conformance.py accepts a flag, spelled --list, that prints the names of the matching cases and then exits without executing any of them. sources/INSTRUCTIONS.md, the file header, and --help all document it.

This build never runs it. Not in an acceptance criterion, not in a story, not in a script, not in a command typed by a build agent, not while developing and not while verifying. The string --list does not appear anywhere in this project's output. If you have written it, that line is wrong — delete it and use one of the two commands above.

A Drydock build is headless. There is no one watching the output, so a mode whose entire purpose is to print something for a person to read has no reader and no reason to run.

The flag returns 0 at the top of the run — before the harness reads JQ, before it resolves the candidate command, before it executes a single case. A criterion built on it passes when jq is an empty file, when jq does not exist, and when the story it gates was never written. It is not a weak proof, not a partial proof, and not an acceptable proof for staging, for scaffolding, or for an early story whose implementation is incomplete. It is not a proof. Thirty-six criteria in one earlier plan of this project used it, every one of them reported green, and it cost three days.

If you are writing a criterion and reaching for that flag, the reason is always the same: the story's code does not exist yet and you want a command that will not fail. That is the definition of a criterion that proves nothing. Write the --select ... --json form instead and let it be red until the story makes it green. A criterion is supposed to fail before its story is built.

The same prohibition covers any other flag whose effect is to not execute the cases — enumeration, dry-run, validation, or help. If a flag's documented purpose is "run nothing", it has no place in an acceptance criterion.

Behavioral criterion — copy this, changing only SELECT

import json
import os
import subprocess
import sys

SELECT = r"reduce"

result = subprocess.run(
    [sys.executable, "sources/run_conformance.py", "--select", SELECT, "--json"],
    capture_output=True,
    text=True,
    env={**os.environ, "JQ": f"{os.getcwd()}/jq"},
)
print(result.stdout)
print(result.stderr, file=sys.stderr)
report = json.loads(result.stdout)
tally = report["summary"]
assert sum(tally.values()) > 0, f"selector matched no case: {SELECT}"
assert tally["fail"] == 0 and tally["error"] == 0, tally
assert result.returncode == 0, result.returncode

Three assertions, and all three are required.

1. The selector matched something. --select is a regular expression matched against the

program text of each case. A selector that matches nothing yields zero cases, zero failures, and exit 0 — green, and worth nothing. Alternations naming ideas rather than syntax (closure, recursive, optional) match no jq program and are the common way to write one by accident. Select on syntax the corpus actually contains: reduce, foreach, def, as \$, try, //, path(.

1. No case failed or errored. Read off the parsed JSON tally, not off any printed line.
2. The exit status is 0. The harness returns 0 only when fail and error are both zero,

and reserves 2 for its own faults — a missing corpus, an unset JQ, a stale exclusion list. Exit 2 is never a verdict about the interpreter.

--json writes the report and nothing else to stdout, so json.loads(result.stdout) is total. Do not assert against the human summary line, and do not grep stdout for passed or failed.

The terminal story

The terminal story is the last story in the build order: the one on which every other story is a transitive dependency, and after which no further story runs. It is a verification story. Its job is not to add capability but to prove that the capability every preceding story delivered is present, together, at the end of the build.

The terminal story of this project runs sh sources/full_test.sh, asserts returncode == 0, prints the captured stdout and stderr so a failure is diagnosable from the evidence alone, and carries the Sea Trial. It is the only story permitted to run the whole corpus.

A story is not terminal because its name contains "verify", because it is a test harness, or because it stages the test assets. Staging the corpus is foundational work that happens early; running the corpus is terminal work that happens last. Do not place a whole-corpus gate on a story that cannot yet run it — it fails vacuously and teaches nothing.

Scope of every other story

Every non-terminal story is gated on its own declared behavior only, through --select against the constructs that story implements, and the criterion asserts the selected slice passes. A non-terminal story never invokes sources/full_test.sh and never runs the corpus unfiltered: a partial interpreter fails most of an authoritative corpus by construction, and its unimplemented cases exhaust the harness's per-case timeout rather than returning, so the unscoped run costs the most exactly where it teaches the least.

Regression across stories is not the responsibility of any story's criteria. Drydock re-runs every previously proven criterion after each block and attributes a criterion that was green and is now red to the block that broke it, so a criterion proven at story 2 and broken at story 6 fails story

1. Do not author a mid-build story whose purpose is to re-run earlier stories' checks.

The staging story

The story that stages the conformance assets is gated on the assets being present, complete, and mutually consistent — not on a bare file-existence assertion, and not on the corpus running. It proves that in process, by importing the harness and calling its parsers directly. It never launches the harness, so the question of which flags to pass does not arise:

import sys

sys.path.insert(0, "sources")
import run_conformance as harness

EXPECTED_CASES = 550
EXPECTED_EXCLUSIONS = 13

cases = harness.parse_corpus(harness.CORPUS.read_text(encoding="utf-8"))
excluded = harness.apply_exclusions(cases, harness.parse_exclusions(harness.EXCLUSIONS))
assert len(cases) == EXPECTED_CASES, len(cases)
assert len(excluded) == EXPECTED_EXCLUSIONS, len(excluded)

This reads state rather than output: the harness module imports, the corpus parses into the expected number of cases, and every exclusion still matches a case — apply_exclusions raises on a stale entry, so a corpus and an exclusion list that have drifted apart fail here rather than silently skipping cases later.

It claims nothing about the interpreter, because at this point in the build there is nothing to claim. Every story that claims a construct works runs that construct through --select ... --json.

Original FEATURE-Path-Discovery.md, in the same form your reply must use: === BEGIN ARTIFACT FEATURE-Path-Discovery.md ===

FEATURE: Path Discovery and Projection

Questions

• None.

Scope

Implement exact and generated path expressions, recursive path enumeration, filtered paths, and pick projections. Path results preserve jq's ordering and use string object keys and numeric array indices. Invalid path expressions raise runtime errors according to jq semantics.

Programmatic Acceptance

=== AC path-001-conformance ===
Intent: The authoritative corpus slice covering path discovery and projection executes and passes.
Suite: scoped
Requires: executable=python3; scope=test

import json import os import subprocess import sys

select = r"path\(|paths|pick\(" result = subprocess.run( [sys.executable, "sources/run_conformance.py", "--select", select, "--json"], capture_output=True, text=True, env={**os.environ, "JQ": f"{os.getcwd()}/jq"}, ) print(result.stdout) print(result.stderr, file=sys.stderr) report = json.loads(result.stdout) summary = report["summary"] print(summary) assert sum(summary.values()) > 0 assert summary["fail"] == 0 and summary["error"] == 0 assert result.returncode == 0 === END AC path-001-conformance ===

User Acceptance

• None.

Guardrails

• Path enumeration must preserve traversal order and distinguish empty root paths from descendant paths.
• Projection must not mutate the source value.

=== END ARTIFACT ===

Original FEATURE-Path-Primitives.md, in the same form your reply must use: === BEGIN ARTIFACT FEATURE-Path-Primitives.md ===

FEATURE: Path Access and Mutation Primitives

Questions

• None.

Scope

Implement getpath, setpath, and delpaths for nested object and array paths. Operations create intermediate containers where jq requires them, expand arrays with null values, preserve immutable-value semantics, and reject invalid or excessively deep paths with runtime errors.

Programmatic Acceptance

=== AC path-002-conformance ===
Intent: The authoritative corpus slice covering getpath, setpath, and delpaths executes and passes.
Suite: scoped
Requires: executable=python3; scope=test

import json import os import subprocess import sys

select = r"getpath|setpath|delpaths" result = subprocess.run( [sys.executable, "sources/run_conformance.py", "--select", select, "--json"], capture_output=True, text=True, env={**os.environ, "JQ": f"{os.getcwd()}/jq"}, ) print(result.stdout) print(result.stderr, file=sys.stderr) report = json.loads(result.stdout) summary = report["summary"] print(summary) assert sum(summary.values()) > 0 assert summary["fail"] == 0 and summary["error"] == 0 assert result.returncode == 0 === END AC path-002-conformance ===

User Acceptance

• None.

Guardrails

• Path operations must not mutate previously produced values.
• Invalid path types and excessive depth must remain runtime errors, not compile failures.

=== END ARTIFACT ===

Original FEATURE-Process-Contract.md, in the same form your reply must use: === BEGIN ARTIFACT FEATURE-Process-Contract.md ===

FEATURE: jq Process Contract

Questions

• None.

Compile and Runtime Outcomes

A compile failure must not be reported as a runtime failure. A runtime failure may occur after values have already been emitted; those values remain observable on stdout. Diagnostics go to stderr and are not part of the value stream.

Programmatic Acceptance

=== AC exec-002-compile-runtime ===
Intent: The supplied conformance runner executes a non-empty slice containing compile and runtime contract cases and reports no failures or errors.

import json import os import subprocess import sys

selector = r"%%FAIL|try |error|\?" result = subprocess.run( [sys.executable, "sources/run_conformance.py", "--select", selector, "--json"], capture_output=True, text=True, env={**os.environ, "JQ": f"{os.getcwd()}/jq"}, ) print(result.stdout) print(result.stderr, file=sys.stderr) report = json.loads(result.stdout) summary = report["summary"] assert sum(summary.values()) > 0 assert summary["fail"] == 0 assert summary["error"] == 0 assert result.returncode == 0 === END AC exec-002-compile-runtime ===

=== AC exec-002-statuses ===
Intent: The executable exposes distinct compile, runtime, and successful completion statuses.

import subprocess

compile_result = subprocess.run( ["./jq", "-c", "{",], input="null\n", capture_output=True, text=True, ) runtime_result = subprocess.run( ["./jq", "-c", "error"], input="null\n", capture_output=True, text=True, ) success_result = subprocess.run( ["./jq", "-c", "."], input="null\n", capture_output=True, text=True, ) assert compile_result.returncode == 3 assert runtime_result.returncode == 5 assert success_result.returncode == 0 === END AC exec-002-statuses ===

=== AC exec-002-partial-output ===
Intent: A runtime failure preserves values emitted before the failure and keeps diagnostics off standard output.

import subprocess

result = subprocess.run( ["./jq", "-c", "1, error"], input="null\n", capture_output=True, text=True, ) print(result.stdout) print(result.stderr, file=import("sys").stderr) assert result.returncode == 5 assert result.stdout.splitlines() == ["1"] assert result.stderr != "" === END AC exec-002-partial-output ===

User Acceptance

• None.

Guardrails

• Compile failures exit 3.
• Runtime failures exit 5.
• Successful completion exits 0.
• Runtime output produced before failure is preserved.
• Diagnostics are written to stderr only.

=== END ARTIFACT ===

Original FEATURE-Recursive-Generators.md, in the same form your reply must use: === BEGIN ARTIFACT FEATURE-Recursive-Generators.md ===

FEATURE: Recursive Generators

Questions

• None.

Workflow

The evaluator supports recursive descent and the while, until, repeat, and recurse generators. Recursive filters emit values in jq order, terminate according to their predicates or caught errors, and preserve branching when an update yields multiple values.

Programmatic Acceptance

=== AC recursive-generators-scoped ===
Intent: Recursive generator corpus cases execute and pass.
Suite: scoped

import json import os import subprocess import sys

selector = r"while|until|recurse|repeat" result = subprocess.run( [sys.executable, "sources/run_conformance.py", "--select", selector, "--json"], capture_output=True, text=True, env={**os.environ, "JQ": f"{os.getcwd()}/jq"}, ) print(result.stdout) print(result.stderr, file=sys.stderr) report = json.loads(result.stdout) summary = report["summary"] assert sum(summary.values()) > 0 assert summary["fail"] == 0 assert summary["error"] == 0 assert result.returncode == 0 === END AC recursive-generators-scoped ===

=== AC recursive-descent-scoped ===
Intent: Recursive-descent syntax cases execute and pass.
Suite: scoped

import json import os import subprocess import sys

selector = r"\.\." result = subprocess.run( [sys.executable, "sources/run_conformance.py", "--select", selector, "--json"], capture_output=True, text=True, env={**os.environ, "JQ": f"{os.getcwd()}/jq"}, ) print(result.stdout) print(result.stderr, file=sys.stderr) report = json.loads(result.stdout) summary = report["summary"] assert sum(summary.values()) > 0 assert summary["fail"] == 0 assert summary["error"] == 0 assert result.returncode == 0 === END AC recursive-descent-scoped ===

User Acceptance

• None.

Guardrails

• Recursive generators must not emit duplicate or incorrectly ordered values.
• Termination must not depend on a fixed shallow recursion cutoff.
• Runtime errors from repeated expressions must remain catchable.

=== END ARTIFACT ===

Original FEATURE-Reductions-and-Iteration-Control.md, in the same form your reply must use: === BEGIN ARTIFACT FEATURE-Reductions-and-Iteration-Control.md ===

FEATURE: Reductions and Iteration Control

Questions

• None.

Workflow

The evaluator implements stateful reduce and foreach operations, bounded and skipped generator consumption, first/last/nth selection, and range generation. All operations preserve jq stream ordering, multiplicity, cartesian argument behavior, and lexical break handling.

Programmatic Acceptance

=== AC reductions-scoped ===
Intent: The reductions and iteration-control corpus slice executes and passes.
Suite: scoped

import json import os import subprocess import sys

selector = r"reduce|foreach|limit|skip|nth|first|last" result = subprocess.run( [sys.executable, "sources/run_conformance.py", "--select", selector, "--json"], capture_output=True, text=True, env={**os.environ, "JQ": f"{os.getcwd()}/jq"}, ) print(result.stdout) print(result.stderr, file=sys.stderr) report = json.loads(result.stdout) summary = report["summary"] assert sum(summary.values()) > 0 assert summary["fail"] == 0 assert summary["error"] == 0 assert result.returncode == 0 === END AC reductions-scoped ===

=== AC range-scoped ===
Intent: Range generation cases execute and pass.
Suite: scoped

import json import os import subprocess import sys

selector = r"range" result = subprocess.run( [sys.executable, "sources/run_conformance.py", "--select", selector, "--json"], capture_output=True, text=True, env={**os.environ, "JQ": f"{os.getcwd()}/jq"}, ) print(result.stdout) print(result.stderr, file=sys.stderr) report = json.loads(result.stdout) summary = report["summary"] assert sum(summary.values()) > 0 assert summary["fail"] == 0 assert summary["error"] == 0 assert result.returncode == 0 === END AC range-scoped ===

User Acceptance

• None.

Guardrails

• Preserve generator ordering, multiplicity, backtracking, and partial runtime output.
• Do not implement reductions as scalar-only operations.
• Negative limits, skips, and nth indices must retain jq runtime-error behavior.

=== END ARTIFACT === </pblock>