Collapsed-history images now carry who-said-what AND when, instead of leaving
the model to reconstruct it from a flattened, role-ambiguous blob (which led it
to resurface the opening turn as if it were the live request).
- Turn-index recency anchor: each collapsed turn serializes as <user t="N"> /
<assistant t="N"> with an ABSOLUTE turn index (larger N = more recent), so the
model can tell turn 1 from turn 60. Absolute (never "N ago"/"i of total") so
frozen chunks stay byte-identical and keep hitting the prompt cache. Mirrored on
the GPT path. (history.ts, openai-history.ts, openai.ts)
- colorByRole: role tags are tinted via a parallel "slot string" carried from
serialize time (structure-through), replacing the parse-back that miscolored a
body quoting a literal <tag>. (render.ts, history.ts)
- neutralizeSentinel: a pre-existing ↵ (U+21B5) in content is swapped to ⏎
(U+23CE) in render-prep so reflow packs newlines instead of bailing to a raw,
unpacked render — common when the content is about pxpipe itself. Render-only;
originals preserved. (render.ts, transform.ts, history.ts, openai-history.ts)
- Per-model GPT vision/render profiles, retunable via PXPIPE_GPT_PROFILES,
behavior-identical to the old hardcoded values. (gpt-model-profiles.ts)
Review fixes folded in:
- Banner intro/outro consolidated to a single source of truth; the GPT path now
aliases the Anthropic constant instead of byte-copying it (can't drift).
- slotCopyBody neutralizes literal slot markers to a width-equivalent control
char (U+0003), not a space the minifier would strip and misalign.
459 tests pass; tsc clean.
Collapse old conversation history into rendered PNG sections so the model
reads a compact image instead of re-billed text, while preserving prompt
caching and tool-call behavior. Measures real vs compressed token/cost.
Core:
- GPT history collapse (openai-history.ts): append-only, o200k token-length
sectioning. Sections seal only at a tool-closed boundary (open call-id set
empty), so a function_call and its function_call_output never split across
the collapse cut. Fixes the OpenAI 400 "No tool call found for function
call output with call_id ..." that hit long Responses-API sessions.
- Anthropic cache contract (history.ts): append-only per-chunk rendering;
cache_control markers are preserved/moved, never added; chunk boundaries
align with caller marker seams for byte-stable prefix caching.
- GPT image budget (openai.ts): detail:'original' for gpt-5.x, flagship
vision-multiplier fix, patch cap; schema-strip preserves real descriptions.
- Savings accounting (openai-savings.ts): cached_tokens + vision-token basis.
Model scope (applicability.ts):
- Default imaged scope = claude-fable-5 + gpt-5.6.
- gpt-5.5 and claude-opus-4-8 stay opt-in: same pipeline, but they degrade
reading dense imaged history (gist drift), so silently imaging them by
default is wrong. Promotion is gated on an OCR/recall threshold.
Dashboard: GPT + Anthropic rendering, per-family model toggles, persisted
metrics, thumbnail-expired session UI, reflow/newline handling.
Tests: cache-alignment (GPT + Anthropic), history sectioning + tool-boundary
invariants, savings, dashboard, sessions/restart-restore. 452 passing.
The history image sits after the slab in prefix order, but the single cache
breakpoint was anchored on the slab. So the largest block — the ~141k-token
history image — only cached when the caller's roaming downstream marker happened
to land after it. When it didn't, the whole history image re-created at the 1.25x
cache_create rate every turn instead of amortizing into 0.1x reads. On a warm
session that turned a real compression win into a net loss (the "411% more"
the dashboard correctly surfaced).
Fix is pure relocation: move pxpipe's single breakpoint from the slab onto the
LAST history image (which sits after the slab), so slab + history cache as one
stable prefix — created once, then read. Marker count is unchanged: pxpipe still
never ADDS a marker (Task #21), it only moves the caller's existing one. When no
slab imaged, the history path keeps its own relocation.
- transform.ts: relocateAnchorToHistoryImage on the collapse-success branch
- history.test.ts: two old "history carries no marker" invariants upgraded to
assert the relocation (last history image carries it; exactly one marker total)
replay() rebuilt RecentRow from the JSONL but never set
session_saved_so_far_delta, img_id, or contextHistory — so after a restart
old rows showed "-" in Saved and had no Details link, while live rows did.
Live update() does all three; replay() now matches.
- replay() sets session_saved_so_far_delta (baselineInputEff - actualInputEff,
same cache-weighted math as live) so the Saved column survives a restart.
- replay() rebuilds the Context Map breakdown from persisted fields
(baseline_tokens, bucket_chars, image_count, usage) with a synthetic
nextImageId, and sets img_id/img_ids so the Details link resolves.
- The PNG ring is in-memory and not restorable; restored entries carry
imageIds:[] and a `restored` flag, and the Details panel shows
"thumbnails expired when the proxy restarted" instead of dead <img>s.
- +2 replay tests (restart-restore.test.ts).
376 tests pass; typecheck + build clean.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01RV8uiMYNhrAdTUzJ9fkpcp
The session hero computed (1 - sent / raw_count_tokens_baseline) — the same
cache-blind math just removed from the Details panel. It priced the all-text
baseline at full rate, ignoring that most of it would have been cheap
cache-reads, so a warm net-loss session showed a big "fewer tokens" win up top
while Details/Saved showed a loss. Two panels, one session, opposite signs.
- renderSessionSummaryFragment now reads baselineInputWeighted /
actualInputWeighted (the same cache-weighted pair as Details + the Saved
column) instead of rawActualTokens / rawBaselineTokens.
- Headline is input-only; dropped the output-on-both-sides lumping (output is
never "sent" and only dampened the %).
- Honest labels: "effective tokens … after normal cache discounts"; still no $
assumptions (0.1x/1.25x are token multipliers, not $/Mtok).
- types.ts: corrected stale field comments (raw fields are math-drawer only).
- +4 hero tests pinning direction to the weighted pair and that output can't
move the headline %.
374 tests pass; typecheck + build clean.
The Details panel divided the raw count_tokens baseline by sent tokens
(cache-blind), over-claiming "X% smaller" even when the cache-aware row
showed a net loss — the two panels could flatly contradict each other.
- dashboard.ts: feed baselineInputEff/actualInputEff/haveBaseline into
ContextMapData (same weighted pair the recent row uses); push after
the eff-tokens are computed so the breakdown matches.
- fragments.ts: headline divides weighted baseline by weighted actual,
says "bigger" on a net loss, with a clarifying sub-line; no savings
claim when the baseline probe did not resolve.
- +4 tests (context-map.test.ts) pinning headline direction to the row.
370 tests pass; typecheck + build clean.
- Generalize isPxpipeSupportedGptModel to the GPT-5 family (gpt-5, 5.x,
-mini/-nano), default-on; [variant] tags stripped.
- OpenAI render switches to the 768px portrait strip (GPT_STRIP_COLS=152)
so the API's mandatory shortest-side->768 downscale never shrinks our
5px glyphs; downscale-free in both tile and patch regimes.
- Add OpenAI vision-token cost model (resolveVisionCost/openAIVisionTokens)
and rewire the Chat Completions profitability gate to use it instead of
the Anthropic 750px/token model.
- Add transformOpenAIResponses for the /v1/responses (Responses API) shape
used by Codex: instructions + input items + flat tools -> rendered
input_image parts; wire it into the proxy (was passthrough before).
- Tests: +12 (gate family, vision-token math incl. downscale path, chat +
responses transforms). 366 passing; Anthropic path unchanged.
README intentionally not updated (GPT OCR fidelity unverified until tested).
- keepSharp: caller predicate pins exact-match-critical blocks (IDs, hashes,
paths) as text, overriding the chars/token heuristic. Reported via
info.keptSharpBlocks. Never forces imaging; throwing predicate = false.
- emitRecoverable: optional recovery map (block -> original text + provenance)
so a stateful caller can re-inject or re-fetch imaged content. The recover
half of the fidelity contract; documented mitigation for lossy recall.
- edge/Workers-safe: process.env read is typeof-guarded; @napi-rs/canvas moved
to devDependencies (atlas is build-time only, runtime PNG encoder is pure-JS).
- comments: trimmed ~1,640 lines of essay/derivation/changelog narration across
src/ (transform.ts -73%), keeping one-line rationale; deep math points to docs/.
- New exports/types in index.ts + library.ts; +12 tests (keep-sharp, recoverable).
Build clean; 354/354 tests pass.
Tokens are the durable invariant; the dollar figure is a pricing-dependent
consequence that evaporates if Anthropic reprices.
- README: headline + intro now lead with input-token reduction; the
~59-70% end-to-end bill is demoted to a downstream effect 'at current
Fable list prices', with the dollar math pointed to the FAQ
- dashboard: stop claiming Claude's replies are 'never compressed' (false
for any session past keepTail) — scope to latest messages + live output
server.close() waits for open connections to drain, so it never finishes while
the dashboard tab polls every 2s or while an SSE response is mid-stream - the
first Ctrl+C printed 'shutting down' but the process never exited.
Drop idle keep-alive sockets immediately, force-close anything still streaming
after a 1.5s grace, and make a second Ctrl+C an instant hard exit.
Full rewrite of src/dashboard/fragments.ts (CSS + render functions + page
shell). Server JSON contracts, htmx endpoints, element IDs, and test-pinned
strings are all preserved.
- Light theme with flame-orange accent (no dark mode)
- One plain-language hero answer on top; all cc=1.25 + cr*0.10 formulas and
counterfactual diagnostics moved behind a 'Show the math' drawer
- Image vs Text Breakdown panel: 'Became an image / Stayed as text' tabs plus
an Image + Source inspector showing the verbatim text behind each page
- Recent table gains a color-coded 'Sent as: image/text' column
- Wide tables (#frag-recent, #frag-stats) and the latest-image inspector
(#frag-latest) scroll inside their card instead of pushing the border out
- "How your context works" panel: per-request token flow (as-text -> real) plus
the exact-char bucket breakdown of what became images and a gallery of every
rendered page, opened via a "view" link on each recent-requests row.
- "compress models" chips are the union of a catalog (Fable 5, Opus 4.8/4.7,
Sonnet 4.6, Haiku 4.5), the PXPIPE_MODELS env scope, and the active scope, so
any env-enabled model stays toggleable (off <-> on); runtime-only override.
- Opus is OFF by default (Fable-5-only scope); opt-in via env or the chips.
Fixes from the code review:
- contextHistory cap aligned to the recent table (was 30 < 50, so older "view"
links silently showed the latest request's breakdown); an evicted or
unrecorded request now shows an explicit "no longer available" message.
- the session headline phrases a net loss as "N% more tokens" instead of
rendering a garbled "-7% fewer tokens".
Per-turn and per-session savings are the real baseline_eff - actual_eff with no
floor: a net-losing turn (cache_create-heavy image rewrite that costs more than
the text prefix it replaced) now reports the real loss instead of a fabricated
0. Updates baseline.ts and the caller comments that claimed a >=0 clamp the code
never applied -- the negative is intended and covered by tests/sessions.test.ts.
Fable 5 / Opus 4.8 accept up to 2576px / 4784 visual tokens per image, but a
request with >20 images (pxpipe always sends many) is held to the stricter
<=2000px/side rule, so the real ceiling is ~1932x1932 (1928x1928 = 69x69 = 4761
tokens). MAX_HEIGHT_PX 1568->1932; dense tool/history pages now render at
DENSE_CONTENT_COLS=384 / DENSE_CONTENT_CHARS_PER_IMAGE=92160 (1928x1928 full
page) -- fewer image blocks at the same OCR-validated 5x8 cell. The static slab
is unchanged (313 cols / 1573x1280).
Also fixes a regression the code review caught: the break-even gate,
truncateForBudget, and estimateImageCount predicted against the slab geometry
(313 cols / 159 rows) while the dense renderer emits 384 cols / 240 rows, so
large tool_results were truncated far earlier than the 10-image cap required --
silently dropping output that would have rendered. A per-page char budget is
threaded through the prediction chain (defaults to READABLE so the slab and unit
tests are byte-identical) plus a denseGateGeometry helper, so the gate prices the
same page the renderer actually produces.
- applicability: isPxpipeSupportedModel reads PXPIPE_MODELS (comma-sep,
default claude-fable-5 only) and strips bracket/variant tags like [1m];
Opus becomes opt-in with no code change. Default behavior unchanged.
- FINDINGS: Opus 4.8 re-test - arithmetic 98/100 (-2pp), verbatim 6/15
(was 93/100, 0/15): improved but still taxed -> default stays Fable-only.
- FINDINGS + eval/glyph-matrix/sweep: root cause of the read tax is per-glyph
RESOLUTION, not font shape (confusions scale with px and vanish by 10x16).
Opus needs ~4x glyph area to read reliably; the 1568px ceiling makes that
break-even, so there is no profitable Opus operating point.
New docs/CACHING_AND_SAVINGS.md explains the two things that keep coming up:
1. How pxpipe stays aligned with Anthropic's prompt cache when it images the
static prefix: split static/dynamic blocks first (keep drifting <env> etc.
as cheap text, never imaged), then relocate (never add) the caller's
cache_control onto the last image so the breakpoint anchors at the end of
the stable slab. Covers the cache-friendly splice, the symmetric
anti-flapping burn term, and the horizon-amortized history-collapse gate.
2. How savings are measured without double-counting the cache discount: both
the real request and a count_tokens counterfactual of the original body are
priced with identical cache rates at the same moment, so the discount
cancels in the difference and only the token reduction survives.
Also reconcile the priorWarmTokens JSDoc in transform.ts: the burn term is
applied undivided, matching all three gate call sites and the symmetric
priorWarmImageTokens doc. The '/ N' was stale (the per-turn gate has no
horizon to divide by; the horizon scales the lifetime cost, not the burn).
- src/dashboard/fragments.ts: server-side HTML fragment renderers reusing the
same JSON payloads (HTML and JSON surfaces can't drift)
- node.ts/dashboard.ts: /fragments/<name> routes (header, session-summary,
recent, latest, sessions, stats, toggle) with htmx polling + Alpine for
local state; toggle is a POST-returning-fragment htmx swap
- vendored htmx 2.0.4 + Alpine 3.14.9 in src/dashboard/vendor.ts (offline,
single-file npm package, no CDN)
- deleted Svelte components/stores/bundle build step; dropped svelte/vite
devDeps; build is now just tsc + esbuild
- tests: +5 fragment contract tests (routing, toggle state, HTML escaping of
source text, 404) - 339 total
- PXPIPE_PROVIDER=cloudflare-ai-gateway + PXPIPE_GATEWAY_BASE_URL derive both
family routes ({base}/anthropic, {base}/openai) from one configurable base
- PXPIPE_GATEWAY_HEADERS injects auth headers (JSON or k=v;k2=v2) on every
upstream request incl. count_tokens probes
- OpenAI paths drop /v1 to match gateway shape; Anthropic paths unchanged;
unknown paths pass through on the family route; streaming untouched
- no hardcoded hostnames; tests use fake gateway URLs/tokens (14 new)
- ImageEntry carries sourceText (capped 64KiB upstream in transform.ts)
- new GET /api/image-source[?id=N] endpoint
- LatestPng gains a 'view source text' toggle so the operator can see
the exact text -> image conversion side by side
The runtime kill switch reset to ON on every restart, silently re-enabling
the lossy text->image path (which also broke extended-thinking turns).
Default compressionEnabled to false: off on startup, survives restart;
only an explicit dashboard toggle turns it on.
Widen the model gate to /^claude-opus-4-(?:[7-9]|[1-9]\d)(?:-|$)/ (Opus 4.7
and newer; previously 4.6/4.7). Wire isPixelpipeSupportedModel into the proxy
boundary in proxy.ts — the proxy previously gated on economics only and
ignored the model, so it compressed 4.8 traffic despite the docs claiming a
4.6/4.7 scope. Unsupported models now pass through with reason
'unsupported_model'.
Update public-api tests to the 4.7+ spec (320/320 pass).
Correct the docs to live measurement: reverse the POSTMORTEM "dead" verdict
(pixelpipe is a lossy gist-compressor saving ~68% on real dense Claude Code
traffic; the verbatim 0/15 needle finding stands as a caveat, not the
verdict), rewrite README Status/Limitations, and add a correction pointer to
the eval README. Original POSTMORTEM body preserved below the correction.
BREAKING CHANGE: Opus 4.6 and older are no longer supported.
Verbatim-risk guard (skip imaging unique IDs/hashes/exact values) still pending.
Router was calling dashboard.servePng() with no argument, so every per-id
thumbnail URL fell back to 'latest image' and all N thumbs on a row
rendered the same PNG. Forward the parsed id from the query string.
Pixelpipe now always uses the full 1568px canvas (cols=313) and packs up
to 50,000 chars per image. The multi-column code path and the
shrink-to-content path are no longer used by transform.ts - both were
sacrificing token savings on dense content to make sparse content marginally
more readable, and the readability gain wasn't real (the renderer's
output was unreadable in either layout once the content was actually dense).
Key changes:
- READABLE_CHARS_PER_IMAGE: 6_000 -> 50_000
- DEFAULT_COLS: 100 -> 313 (full 1568px / 5px cell)
- shrinkColsToContent() is now a no-op (returns cols unchanged)
- MinToolResultChars / MinReminderChars default to 50k (was 6k)
- transform.ts always renders single-column at full canvas
Practical impact: a 6 KB tool_result that previously rendered as 4 narrow
508x488 pages (1324 image tokens, 86% of text cost) now renders as 1
full-canvas 1568x488 page (~331 image tokens, 22% of text cost) - 4x
more savings on the same content with no quality change.
Rebuilt dist/. Tests: 315/315 pass.
SessionSummary: divide saved_$ by baseline_input_$ (was actual_input + output,
which produced 719% on cheap sessions). Math now matches the user-stated
analogy: baseline=10, actual=5 -> saved=5, 50%.
RecentRequests: stamp full imagePngs[] in TransformInfo so each rendered PNG
gets a ring-buffer id. Row shows a strip of 28px thumbs (one per image)
instead of a single 'view' button, so multi-image requests are visible at
a glance. Thumbs are <button>-wrapped for keyboard accessibility.
The system slab's break-even gate was estimating image cost at the full
configured cols width while the renderer was shrinking the canvas to the
longest wrapped line. Gate and renderer now agree: shrink once up front,
pass the shrunk cols to both evalCompressionProfitability and
renderTextToPngsMulticol.
Two fixes to the image-cost prediction that gates compression:
1. **Content-aware image cost.** The old gate used a fixed
`TOKENS_PER_IMAGE_SINGLE_COL = 2500` constant per image, modelling
every tool_result block as a full 1568px canvas. The renderer
actually produces images sized to the wrapped line count, so a
5,000-char tool_result becomes a ~80px-tall image costing ~54 tokens,
not 2,500. Result: the break-even for small blocks was over-estimated
by ~50x and the gate rejected anything below ~10k chars even though
image-form was cheaper.
Replace `estImages × effectiveTokensPerImage(numCols)` with a single
content-aware `imageTokensCost(text, cols, numCols, imageCountCap)`
that mirrors the renderer's height math:
`tokens = (rows + 1) × overhead + fullImageRows × perRow`, derived
from the cold-miss anchor and applied row-proportionally for partial
final images. Calibrated against N=33 production cold-miss
measurements (median multiplier 1.05, mean 1.32 — high-image case is
~1.05x of the documented `width × height / 750` rate).
2. **Width-shrinking on per-block paths.** For per-block call sites
(tool_result, reminder) the renderer now narrows the canvas width to
the longest wrapped line via `shrinkColsToContent`. Multi-col
layouts already pack tightly; this captures the single-col savings
that were previously paying for whitespace. The gate threads
`shrinkWidth` through to `evalCompressionProfitability` /
`isCompressionProfitable` / `isCompressionProfitableAmortized` so
the prediction matches what the renderer will actually produce.
System-slab and history-collapse paths pass `shrinkWidth=false` —
they fill the configured canvas deliberately.
Knobs removed: `MinToolResultChars` and `MinReminderChars` now
default to 0 (let the math decide). The TransformOptions fields are kept
for env-override observability but no longer set a floor in production.
`isCompressionProfitable` / `evalCompressionProfitability` /
`isCompressionProfitableAmortized` are now string-only at the public
API; the numeric-length fallback is gone (it under-counted images and
silently leaked net-losing compressions through).
Tests: gate-flap and history.test updated for the new physics, but 24
tests in render.test.ts still assert the OLD over-estimation as truth
(e.g. "5,000 chars is not profitable", "7000 chars stays as text").
They need to be deleted or have their expected verdicts inverted — left
for the next session to finish the rewrite cleanly. Typecheck passes.
Measured impact: the production tail's $1.43 flap is gone and per-block
tool_result/reminder content is now genuinely compressed when it would
save tokens, not just when it crosses the (wrong) 10k-char threshold.
Add per-path actual-billed cost counters to the dashboard alongside the
existing counterfactual baseline. The compressed-vs-passthrough split
sums what each code path actually cost on real traffic, partitioned by
`info.compressed`, with no probe gating or counterfactuals. Surfaces
sample counts in the UI so operators can judge sufficiency rather than
having the dashboard auto-claim significance.
Headline math also switched to share-of-all-paid-spend (counterfactual
denominator bounded at 100%) so the slice number never lies when
pixelpipe didn't run on every request. Regenerated dashboard-bundle.
The previous patch divided savings by all-rows ACTUAL spend, which is
not bounded — pixelpipe shrinks the denominator, so a single big
cold-miss compressed request showed '280% saved'. That's nonsense:
you can't save more than you would have paid.
Correct denominator is what the user WOULD have paid with no pixelpipe:
measured rows contribute their cache-aware baseline, unmeasured/probe-
failed/passthrough rows contribute their actual (pixelpipe either
didn't run there, or we can't measure the counterfactual, so actual ≈
baseline). Bounded at 100% by construction.
- Totals: rename allActualInputWeighted role to diagnostic only, add
allBaselineEquivalentWeighted as the headline denominator input.
- update(): when haveBaseline, add baselineInputEff to the counterfactual
pool; otherwise add actualInputEff. Output × 5 unchanged on both sides.
- serveStats(): pctAllSpend = saved / (allBaselineEquiv + allOutput).
- types.ts + StatsHeader.svelte: surface all_baseline_equivalent_weighted,
rewrite the explainer math.
Single-request smoke (the case that surfaced the bug): saved=397k
input tokens, baseline_equivalent≈400k, output_equiv tiny → ratio ≈
99% saved, which is honest (one cold-miss compressed turn on an
otherwise empty session).
The 'share of total bill saved' headline divided savings by
baseline_input_weighted, which only accumulated on rows where the
count_tokens probe succeeded AND the request had upstream usage. Every
passthrough turn, every probe-failed turn, and every flap-polluted
untransformed turn was excluded from the denominator. That's a
cherry-pick: it answers 'did pixelpipe help on the rows where it ran'
instead of 'did pixelpipe move my real bill'.
Track allActualInputWeighted / allOutputWeighted ungated on probe
success (any request with a usage block contributes), expose
saved_pct_of_all_spend on /proxy-stats, and rewrite the headline card
to use it. Numerator is still measured-rows-only because that's the
only place we have a counterfactual baseline; you can't fabricate
savings for rows where the probe failed. But the denominator now
matches the user's actual bill.
The legacy saved_pct_of_total_bill stays on the wire for back-compat
(marked deprecated in types.ts). The headline card no longer reads it.
Card flips color: positive % stays green, negative % goes red, because
flap-driven net losses are real and should be visible.
Production data (ocproxy claude-opus-4-7, 2026-05-23 09:19–09:21) showed
three-turn sessions still flapping AND paying cache_create on every
turn despite the symmetric burn shipped in 0cfe08a:
09:19 APPLIED cc=156k cr=6.7k $0.99 cold start
09:20 declined cc=181k cr=0 $1.23 FLIPPED to text
09:21 APPLIED cc=156k cr=6.7k $1.01 FLIPPED back to image
The slab gate's gateEval said image was profitable by 154k margin at
the flip turn, but applied=0 — the slab gate had decided to stay in
image mode, then the history-collapse gate (which got hardcoded 0 for
priorWarmTokens AND priorWarmImageTokens) flipped the verdict.
Wire o.priorWarmTokens + o.priorWarmImageTokens through to both
history-collapse call sites so the symmetric anti-flapping burn
applies to every gate that can change the session's bill shape, not
just the slab. Foundational follow-through on the same fix.
Production data (ocproxy Opus 4.7, 2026-05-22 23:15–23:44) showed the
slab break-even gate ping-ponging between text and image modes within a
single session, paying cache_create on whichever side it just flipped
away from. Two flips in 30 minutes cost ~$0.71 + ~$0.40 of avoidable
cache_create on a single conversation.
Root cause: priorWarmTokens was asymmetric. It penalised compressing
when the un-rewritten text path was warm, but did not penalise
decompressing when the rewritten image path was warm. Per-turn cost
favored flipping; the flip forced cache_create on the new side; next
turn flipped back.
This change adds the symmetric counterpart:
text→image flip: warm text invalidated → burn applied to IMAGE side
(existing behavior, priorWarmTokens)
image→text flip: warm image invalidated → burn applied to TEXT side
(NEW, priorWarmImageTokens)
Once a session commits to a mode, staying in that mode is cheaper than
flipping by the burn cost. Mode changes only happen when the per-turn
delta exceeds the burn, which is exactly when the flip is actually
worth the cache_create. Foundational fix — no thresholds.
Observability:
- New exported `evalCompressionProfitability()` decomposes the slab
gate's evaluation into imageTokens, textTokens, burnImageSide,
burnTextSide, and verdict. Same constants and helper as the gate
itself, no drift risk.
- New `TransformInfo.gateEval` field stamps that decomposition into
every applied or not_profitable event so hosts can persist the verdict
margin and prove flap-prevention efficacy from telemetry.
Back-compat:
- New params default to 0; single-arg callers behave identically.
- 315 existing tests unchanged; +7 new tests pin the new semantics
(back-compat, asymmetric ⇒ symmetric, both-sides-warm cancellation,
eval verdict matches gate verdict, burn term math).
The reflow-inimage finding (commit bb9c231) made 5×8 viable, so
DEFAULT_CELL_W_BONUS / DEFAULT_CELL_H_BONUS reverted to 0 — but many
comments and the README still said 7×10 was production.
Touched:
- README.md — eval table, density bullet, sweep narrative,
cell-pitch section, measurement header,
Limitations section
- src/core/render.ts — RenderStyle docstring + cell-bonus docstrings
+ multicol intro comment
- src/core/transform.ts — TransformOptions.reflow docstring, DEFAULTS
comments (minReminderChars floor rationale,
maxImagesPerToolResult cap, reflow gate
rationale, anchor scaling formula, LINES_PER_IMAGE
worked example)
No code behavior changed — every constant still resolves through CELL_W /
CELL_H, and the eval harness still overrides the cell via cellWBonus /
cellHBonus when comparing variants. The 5×8 production path is what was
already shipped on 81550f6 (reflow + grayscale + L1/L2 harness) and
bb9c231 (reflow-inimage).
Steven Chong