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interactive-story/backend/app/attempts.py
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Parth e7d75c3b05 Rewrite Python comments in Google developer documentation style (#12)
* Rewrite comments in Google developer documentation style

Rewrite the comments and docstrings across the backend core modules so they
read plainly. The previous prose was accurate but dense and figurative, which
made it slow to skim.

Applies the Google developer documentation style guide: short sentences, active
voice, present tense, American spelling, and no metaphors, idioms, or
rhetorical asides. Replaces em-dash chains with separate sentences.
2026-08-26 15:37:25 +05:30

284 lines
12 KiB
Python

"""Phase 14, SP4: the attempts at one turn.
A retry used to rewrite the AI action in place and append the discarded attempt
to a JSON list on the same row. Seven separate bugs came from that arrangement.
The row's `text` duplicated one entry of a repeating group, `variant_count`
duplicated its length, and every reader that touched the story during a retry
had to be told to ignore the row.
Now an attempt is a node. A retry writes a sibling at the same `(branch_id,
depth)` and marks it live. The previous attempt stays as it was written, at the
same coordinate, with `live = False`. Nothing is duplicated, so nothing can
diverge.
Two invariants hold the arrangement together, and this module is the only place
that maintains either one:
* Exactly one sibling in a group is live. `lineage.Path.clause` selects on it, so
the other attempts are invisible to every read of the story, and none of those
reads has to know that attempts exist.
* The assembled prompt is stored once per turn, on the live sibling. A
`context_snapshot` is about 163 kB of prompt that every attempt at a turn
shares, plus a few hundred bytes that differ, listed in `ATTEMPT_KEYS`. Giving
each sibling its own copy would make a retry a permanent multiplier on the
largest column in the database, which is what the JSON list was invented to
avoid. The prompt therefore moves with the live flag, and a superseded sibling
keeps only its own slices.
Ordering inside a group comes from `variant_index`, which is an explicit ordinal
rather than `created_at`. Two attempts made in the same second still have to page
in the order they were made, and the migration that split the old JSON lists had
to state the order rather than reconstruct it.
"""
import copy
from sqlalchemy.orm import Session, undefer
from . import models
from .context import lineage
# The slices of a context snapshot that belong to one attempt rather than to the
# turn. They are the world-state delta the attempt proposed and what the engine
# did with it, the script report, the model's literal reply, and the endpoint's
# token accounting. Each attempt is its own API call, and a retry is the call
# most likely to read the prompt back out of cache. Everything else in a snapshot
# is the prompt, which is assembled once per turn.
ATTEMPT_KEYS = ("world_state", "script", "raw_output", "usage")
# ------------------------------------------------------------------ reading
def group(db: Session, action: models.Action) -> list[models.Action]:
"""Returns every attempt at `action`'s turn, oldest first.
The query keys on the parent rather than on the coordinate (SP9). The two
agree until an attempt is forked onto its own branch. That attempt keeps its
parent but leaves the `(branch, depth)` its siblings are still at, so a
coordinate would report it as the only attempt at its turn, showing `1/1`
where the player should see `1/3`.
The parent also nests groups correctly without extra work. Attempts under C1
and attempts under C2 share a depth, and until one of them forks they share a
branch. Only the parent separates them, which is what makes a pager under C2
read `2/2` rather than count C1's three as well.
There are two fallbacks, and both mean the row predates the key being asked
about. A node with no branch is a pre-tree row that no path contains, and a
node with no parent is a pre-SP9 row the backfill could not place. Under the
rule each was written with, both are the only attempt at their turn.
"""
if action.branch_id is None or action.depth is None:
return [action]
if action.parent_id is None:
# This row is pre-SP9, and the coordinate is the key those rows were
# written under. A root node also reaches this branch and is genuinely
# alone, because nothing is an attempt at the opening of a story.
return (
db.query(models.Action)
.filter(
models.Action.adventure_id == action.adventure_id,
models.Action.branch_id == action.branch_id,
models.Action.depth == action.depth,
models.Action.parent_id.is_(None),
)
.order_by(models.Action.variant_index, models.Action.id)
.all()
)
return (
db.query(models.Action)
.filter(
models.Action.adventure_id == action.adventure_id,
models.Action.parent_id == action.parent_id,
)
.order_by(models.Action.variant_index, models.Action.id)
.all()
)
def on_branch(rows: list[models.Action], node: models.Action) -> list[models.Action]:
"""Returns the attempts in `rows` that are on `node`'s own branch.
`group` reports which attempts belong to this turn, and since SP9 that spans
branches. An attempt forked onto its own line is still an attempt at the same
turn, which is the reason for keying on the parent.
Deletion is the one caller that must not follow a group across branches. An
attempt on another branch is reachable through that branch and belongs to the
story someone is telling there. Removing it because a turn was undone here
would delete a line nobody asked about. The same parent and the same branch
together are the coordinate, which is what every attempt at this turn meant
before a fork could move one out of it.
"""
return [row for row in rows if row.branch_id == node.branch_id]
def live_in(rows: list[models.Action]) -> models.Action | None:
for row in rows:
if row.live:
return row
return None
def preceding(
db: Session, adventure: models.Adventure, node: models.Action
) -> models.Action | None:
"""Returns the node the story tells immediately before `node`.
This reads "before this turn" as a fact about the path rather than as a
snapshot taken from inside the turn, which is what makes the after-snapshots
sufficient on their own. The query undefers both of them, because the only
reason to fetch this row is to restore what it left behind.
"""
if node.depth is None:
return None
return (
db.query(models.Action)
.filter(
models.Action.adventure_id == adventure.id,
lineage.path_of(db, adventure).clause(models.Action),
models.Action.depth < node.depth,
)
.options(
undefer(models.Action.state_after),
undefer(models.Action.world_state_after),
)
.order_by(models.Action.depth.desc(), models.Action.id.desc())
.first()
)
# ------------------------------------------------------------------ writing
def restore_state(adventure: models.Adventure, node: models.Action | None) -> None:
"""Restores the script state and world state that `node` left behind.
A NULL snapshot means leave the live state as it is, never reset it. Rows
written before SP4 that the migration could not derive an outcome for carry
NULLs, and overwriting a running adventure's state with an empty dict would
be worse than doing nothing.
"""
if node is None:
return
if isinstance(node.state_after, dict):
adventure.script_state = copy.deepcopy(node.state_after)
if isinstance(node.world_state_after, dict):
adventure.world_state = copy.deepcopy(node.world_state_after)
def snapshot_outcome(adventure: models.Adventure, node: models.Action) -> None:
"""Records on `node` the state of the adventure now that the node has played."""
state = adventure.script_state if isinstance(adventure.script_state, dict) else {}
world = adventure.world_state if isinstance(adventure.world_state, dict) else {}
node.state_after = copy.deepcopy(state)
node.world_state_after = copy.deepcopy(world)
def roll_back_before(
db: Session, adventure: models.Adventure, node: models.Action
) -> None:
"""Rewinds the shared state to what it was before `node` was played."""
restore_state(adventure, preceding(db, adventure, node))
def add_attempt(
db: Session,
adventure: models.Adventure,
previous: models.Action,
replacement: models.Action,
) -> None:
"""Places `replacement` next to `previous` as the newer attempt at that turn.
The placement is done here rather than through `tree.place_action`, which
would read the depth from the legacy `index` and move the head. A sibling is
not a new turn. It is another attempt at the turn the head is already on.
"""
replacement.branch_id = previous.branch_id
replacement.depth = previous.depth
# Copy the parent rather than resolve it from the path. An attempt belongs
# to the turn it is an attempt at, and that is what `group` keys on.
# Resolving it here would ask which node is live one depth back. That is the
# same node right now, and it stops being the same node once the story forks
# away from this turn.
replacement.parent_id = previous.parent_id
replacement.live = True
# Use the end of the group rather than one past `previous`. The two match
# only when `previous` is the newest attempt. Switch a three-attempt turn
# back to attempt 1 and retry, and `previous.variant_index + 1` collides with
# attempt 2. `renumber` then breaks the tie by id and places the new attempt
# between attempts 2 and 3, so the pager walks the attempts in an order they
# were not made in. `group` returns oldest first, and `replacement` is not in
# it yet.
siblings = group(db, previous)
replacement.variant_index = 1 + max(
(s.variant_index for s in siblings if s.variant_index is not None),
default=previous.variant_index or 0,
)
previous.live = False
# The replacement was assembled with a fresh snapshot, so the prompt for
# this turn is now the one it carries. The superseded attempt keeps only the
# slices that were its own.
keep_own_slices(previous)
def make_live(
db: Session, adventure: models.Adventure, node: models.Action
) -> list[models.Action]:
"""Makes `node` the attempt the story tells, and restores its outcome.
Returns the group, renumbered, so that a caller reporting on it does not read
it twice.
"""
rows = group(db, node)
previous = live_in(rows)
if previous is not None and previous is not node:
hand_over_the_prompt(previous, node)
for row in rows:
row.live = row is node
restore_state(adventure, node)
renumber(rows)
return rows
def renumber(rows: list[models.Action]) -> None:
"""Refreshes the group-shape cache that the page response reads.
`variant_count` is 0 rather than 1 for a turn nobody retried, because the
pager asks whether there is anything to page through, and for a single
attempt the answer is no.
"""
count = len(rows) if len(rows) > 1 else 0
for i, row in enumerate(rows):
row.variant_index = i
row.variant_count = count
# ------------------------------------------------- the prompt, stored once
def keep_own_slices(node: models.Action) -> None:
"""Reduces `node`'s snapshot to the slices that are only its own."""
snapshot = node.context_snapshot
if not isinstance(snapshot, dict):
return
node.context_snapshot = {
key: snapshot[key] for key in ATTEMPT_KEYS if key in snapshot
} or None
def hand_over_the_prompt(giver: models.Action, taker: models.Action) -> None:
"""Moves the turn's assembled prompt from one attempt to another.
The caller runs this when the live flag moves, so that the row in the story
is always the row the Insights viewer can explain. Nothing is copied. The
prompt exists once before and once after, on whichever sibling is being read.
"""
held = giver.context_snapshot if isinstance(giver.context_snapshot, dict) else {}
shared = {k: v for k, v in held.items() if k not in ATTEMPT_KEYS}
if not shared:
return
keep_own_slices(giver)
own = taker.context_snapshot if isinstance(taker.context_snapshot, dict) else {}
taker.context_snapshot = shared | {
k: v for k, v in own.items() if k in ATTEMPT_KEYS
}