Migration 38 left memories.embedding in place so a rollback could still find
the vectors. Production has since been verified reading from embedding_blob,
so migration 42 drops it: 4 MB of a 99.6 MB database holding nothing anyone
reads.
Removing it surfaced a live bug. Changing your embedding model is supposed to
throw the bank's vectors away and let the post-turn pass rebuild them, because
two models' vectors are not comparable. The settings route did that by nulling
memories.embedding -- correct until 38 moved the vectors, after which it
cleared the dead column and left the blob intact with `embedded` still true.
_embed_pending filters on `embedded IS FALSE`, so it never saw those rows and
the bank went on ranking against the old model's vectors permanently.
Nothing would have reported it. cosine returns 0.0 on a width mismatch, so a
different-width model scores every memory zero and retrieval returns whichever
rows happen to sort first; a same-width model scores plausible garbage.
The bulk clear now sets both columns. It stays a bulk UPDATE rather than going
through set_vector -- loading the rows is the cost that whole path exists to
avoid -- so set_vector's docstring now names it as the one caller that
legitimately writes those columns by hand. No cache invalidation is added:
clearing `embedded` drops the rows out of the catalogue query, and set_vector
evicts each entry as the re-embed puts it back.
test_embedding_blob.py now rebuilds the pre-38 schema by hand where it tests
the backfill, since create_all no longer produces the column it converts from,
and asserts 42 removes it at the end of a full bootstrap -- 38 reads that
column and 42 drops it, so an upgrade that reordered them would arrive with an
empty bank.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_017Dvvqn9ZDR4ixeFPHNbww7
Retrieval walked adventure.memories, so every turn loaded every row of the
bank with its vector attached -- 3.1 MB, 96% of everything a turn read. It
now asks SQL which memories are in play (an id and a flag per row), ranks
against vectors held in process, and fetches text only for the five it picks.
Two more callers were doing the same thing and the production SQL could not
see them: _evict_over_capacity walked the bank to count it, and _embed_pending
walked it to find the rows with no vector. Both are counts and filters the
database can do without sending anything back.
one turn 3,258.7 kB -> 723.4 kB cold, 122.3 kB warm
run_post_turn 3,139.1 kB -> 0.7 kB
Insights 3,223.7 kB -> 117.9 kB
Memories drawer ~3.1 MB -> 23.6 kB
A played turn is turn plus post-turn work: 6.4 MB down to 123 kB.
The cache needs no invalidation callbacks, which is what makes it safe. A
vector can only change through set_vector, which drops that one entry;
anything that removes a memory from play leaves the catalogue query, and
entries missing from the catalogue are dropped on the next read. So eviction,
deletion and pruning have nothing to remember to call.
memories.embedded joins the blob, for the same reason actions.variant_count
sits beside actions.variants: with the vector deferred, every "is this
embedded?" check would otherwise be a 6 KB lazy load, once per row.
Capacity drops 200 -> 80, on retrieval quality as much as cost -- ranking two
hundred memories to pick five buries the five. Eviction was measured at scale
first: trimming 100 to 80 costs 0.8 kB and reads no vectors.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_015CYEJKobJ2Re4Dv7qUoSA7
