Make the wiki history check mandatory before stability-classify (fix kotkan/claude-plugin-inference-arbitrage#17)

bin/stability-classify only ever reads the local filesystem snapshot store
(by design, no bin/ script holds wiki credentials), but SKILL.md step 4b
documented seeding it from the wiki as a conditional "if the store is cold"
aside. That made a cold-but-not-actually-empty local cache indistinguishable
from a genuine first audit: both silently emit stability: unchecked and file
unstable candidates, as observed on the 2026-07-30 anxious run.

- bin/stability-classify: add a required --wiki-checked {empty,imported}
  flag; hard-error when the store is empty and the flag is omitted, instead
  of silently degrading to unchecked.
- tests/stability.test.sh: (g) no flag on an empty store errors, (h)
  --wiki-checked=empty behaves as before, (i) --wiki-checked=imported after a
  real `audit-snapshot import` runs the gate normally against the imported
  history.
- skills/offload-audit/SKILL.md: step 4b now fetches the wiki's
  Data/<target>/snapshots.jsonl and runs `audit-snapshot import`
  unconditionally (it dedupes by run_id, so this is safe every run) before
  invoking the gate.
- Bump plugin.json to 0.6.3.

.claude-plugin/plugin.json

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
 	"name": "inference-arbitrage",
-	"version": "0.6.2",
+	"version": "0.6.3",
 	"description": "Audits a Claude Code plugin's definitions and usage transcripts to find steps that should be a deterministic script instead of raw LLM inference, and files the well-evidenced ones as issues on the target repo.",
 	"author": {
 		"name": "oleks"

bin/stability-classify

@@ -48,6 +48,26 @@ nothing to compare against. It files normally, marked
 of history would contradict FR-2.4 — a target with no history stays auditable on
 its own terms — and would make the first audit of every plugin file nothing.
 
+AN EMPTY LOCAL STORE IS NOT THE SAME CLAIM AS AN EMPTY WIKI
+-------------------------------------------------------------
+This script only ever reads the local filesystem mirror of the store — by
+design, no `bin/` script holds wiki credentials (see `audit-snapshot`'s
+docstring). That means an empty `--store` is ambiguous: it might be a genuine
+first audit (FR-2.4), or it might just be a cold local cache sitting in front
+of real wiki history nobody imported yet (kotkan/claude-plugin-inference-
+arbitrage#17). The two look identical to `find_prior` but are not the same
+fact about the target, and only the caller — who can read the wiki — knows
+which one is true.
+
+So when the store is empty, `--wiki-checked` is mandatory: `empty` asserts the
+caller checked the wiki page `Data/<target>/snapshots.jsonl` and it genuinely
+has no history (or the target truly is new), so `unchecked` is correct;
+`imported` asserts the caller ran `audit-snapshot import` first — in which case
+the store would no longer be empty and this path would not be taken at all.
+Omitting the flag on an empty store is a hard error: it turns the SKILL.md
+step 4b instruction to check the wiki first from a doc-only aside into
+something the gate itself refuses to skip past.
+
 The prior window is the most recent snapshot that contains this candidate by
 FR-5.2 identity (issue > signature hash > slug), not merely the most recent
 snapshot: a candidate that sat out one window is still comparable against the
@@ -232,6 +252,13 @@ def main():
     ap.add_argument("--signatures", help="JSON {candidate_id: [tool signature, ...]}")
     ap.add_argument("--issue-map", help='JSON {candidate_id: "owner/repo#N"}')
     ap.add_argument("--exclude-run", help="run_id to treat as not-yet-recorded (tests, re-runs)")
+    ap.add_argument("--wiki-checked", choices=["empty", "imported"],
+                    help="required when the local store is empty for this target: 'empty' "
+                         "asserts the wiki was checked and genuinely has no history; "
+                         "'imported' asserts `audit-snapshot import` already ran. Without "
+                         "this, an empty store is ambiguous between a genuine first audit "
+                         "(FR-2.4) and a merely cold local cache in front of real wiki "
+                         "history (kotkan/claude-plugin-inference-arbitrage#17).")
     ap.add_argument("--json", action="store_true", help="compact single-line JSON")
     args = ap.parse_args()
 
@@ -239,6 +266,17 @@ def main():
     history = [s for s in load_snapshots(args.store, args.target)
                if s.get("run_id") != args.exclude_run]
 
+    if not history and args.wiki_checked is None:
+        sys.exit(
+            "error: the store has no history for this target and --wiki-checked was not "
+            "given. This is ambiguous: it may be a genuine first audit (FR-2.4), or it may "
+            "just be a cold local cache in front of real wiki history "
+            "(kotkan/claude-plugin-inference-arbitrage#17). Check the wiki page "
+            f"Data/{args.target}/snapshots.jsonl first, then either pass "
+            "--wiki-checked=empty (the wiki genuinely has no history for this target), or "
+            "run `audit-snapshot import` to seed the store and re-run with "
+            "--wiki-checked=imported.")
+
     result = gate(doc, history,
                   load_json(args.scan) if args.scan else {},
                   load_json(args.signatures) if args.signatures else {},

skills/offload-audit/SKILL.md

@@ -109,27 +109,53 @@ complete including the overrule case) lives in that script.
 ## 4b. Check the evidence against the previous window
 
 The second hard gate (FR-4.5, rubric §5b). It runs on every audit, before
-anything is filed, and its output **replaces** `classified.json` downstream:
+anything is filed, and its output **replaces** `classified.json` downstream.
+
+**First, unconditionally — not just when the store looks cold — fetch the
+wiki's copy of this target's history and seed the local store from it.** The
+local store this gate reads is a filesystem-only mirror (no `bin/` script
+holds wiki credentials); it never talks to the wiki itself. That means a store
+that is empty *locally* is not evidence the target has no history — it may
+just be a cache nobody has seeded on this machine yet, and treating the two as
+the same thing is exactly the bug behind
+kotkan/claude-plugin-inference-arbitrage#17: a candidate silently filed as
+`unchecked` when real prior-window history existed on the wiki all along.
+`import` dedupes by `run_id`, so running this every time is safe and
+idempotent — there is no "if cold" branch to reason about:
+
+```bash
+Agent(subagent_type="cluster:gitea-agent", prompt=
+  "wiki_read Data/<name>/snapshots.jsonl on kotkan/claude-plugin-inference-arbitrage
+   (or the target's own repo, per how this target's store is organized). If the page
+   exists, save its content to a local file and report the path. If it does not
+   exist, say so plainly.")
+
+# if the page existed:
+$IA/bin/audit-snapshot import --target <name> --snapshots <fetched snapshots.jsonl>
+```
+
+Then run the gate:
 
 ```bash
 $IA/bin/stability-classify --classified classified.json --target <name> \
-    --scan scan.json > stable.json
+    --scan scan.json --wiki-checked <empty|imported> > stable.json
 ```
 
+`--wiki-checked` is mandatory whenever the local store turns out empty for
+this target: pass `empty` if the wiki fetch above genuinely found no page (or
+no history), or `imported` if it did and you ran `audit-snapshot import`. The
+script hard-errors if the store is empty and this flag is omitted — the wiki
+check is no longer a documentation aside the gate quietly trusts you did.
+
 It matches each `file` candidate against the most recent prior snapshot that
 recorded it (FR-5.2 identity) and downgrades any whose `measurement_strength`
 changed, or whose share crossed the 2% filing threshold, between the two
 windows. **Use `stable.json` for steps 5 and 6.** Never file from
 `classified.json` once this has run.
 
-If the store has no history for this target — a first audit — every candidate
+If the store has no history for this target even after the wiki fetch above —
-comes back `stability: unchecked` and files normally. That is the FR-2.4
+a genuine first audit — every candidate comes back `stability: unchecked` and
-outcome, not a failure. If the store is cold but the wiki has history, seed it
+files normally. That is the FR-2.4 outcome, not a failure.
-first, or the gate has nothing to check against:
-
-```bash
-$IA/bin/audit-snapshot import --target <name> --snapshots <fetched snapshots.jsonl>
-```
 
 ### 4b-i. A downgrade is a finding against *this* plugin
 

tests/stability.test.sh

@@ -76,6 +76,8 @@ json.dump({
     "candidates": [{
         "candidate_id": "synth/skill/step",
         "skill": "synth:skill",
+        "position": "llm-over-script-digest",
+        "boundary_confidence": "high",
         "signature_hash": "slugonly",
         "measurement_strength": strength,
         "measurement": {"invocations": 10, "offload_value": 500000,
@@ -141,9 +143,11 @@ print('  ok   stability names the window it was checked against')
 # --------------------------------------------------------------------------
 echo "== (c) no prior snapshot -> files normally, unchecked (FR-2.4) =="
 # An absence of history is not evidence of instability. A first audit of a
-# target must still be able to file.
+# target must still be able to file. The caller must still assert the wiki
+# was checked (kotkan/claude-plugin-inference-arbitrage#17) -- see (g)/(h).
 classified "$tmp/c.json" measured 0.12
-$BIN --classified "$tmp/c.json" --target synth --store "$tmp/store-empty" >"$tmp/c.out.json"
+$BIN --classified "$tmp/c.json" --target synth --store "$tmp/store-empty" \
+	--wiki-checked=empty >"$tmp/c.out.json"
 check "verdict" "$(field "$tmp/c.out.json" synth/skill/step verdict)" "file"
 check "stability" "$(field "$tmp/c.out.json" synth/skill/step stability)" \
 	"unchecked — no prior window to compare"
@@ -215,4 +219,51 @@ assert d['summary']['to_file']==0, d['summary']
 print('  ok   nothing is left to file from that window')
 " || fail=1
 
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------
+echo "== (g) empty store, no --wiki-checked -> hard error (kotkan/claude-plugin-inference-arbitrage#17) =="
+# The bug: a cold local cache and a genuinely history-free wiki look identical
+# to this script, which only ever reads the filesystem. Without an explicit
+# assertion from the caller, refuse rather than silently degrade to unchecked.
+classified "$tmp/g.json" measured 0.12
+if $BIN --classified "$tmp/g.json" --target synth --store "$tmp/store-empty-g" \
+	>"$tmp/g.out.json" 2>"$tmp/g.err"; then
+	echo "  FAIL expected non-zero exit, got success" >&2
+	fail=1
+else
+	echo "  ok   exits non-zero"
+fi
+if grep -q "wiki-checked" "$tmp/g.err"; then
+	echo "  ok   error names --wiki-checked"
+else
+	echo "  FAIL error does not mention --wiki-checked: $(cat "$tmp/g.err")" >&2
+	fail=1
+fi
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------
+echo "== (h) empty store, --wiki-checked=empty -> unchecked, as today =="
+# The caller checked the wiki and it really is history-free; behavior matches (c).
+classified "$tmp/h.json" measured 0.12
+$BIN --classified "$tmp/h.json" --target synth --store "$tmp/store-empty-h" \
+	--wiki-checked=empty >"$tmp/h.out.json"
+check "verdict" "$(field "$tmp/h.out.json" synth/skill/step verdict)" "file"
+check "stability" "$(field "$tmp/h.out.json" synth/skill/step stability)" \
+	"unchecked — no prior window to compare"
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------
+echo "== (i) empty store seeded via a real import, --wiki-checked=imported -> gate runs normally =="
+# After `audit-snapshot import` seeds the store from a wiki-fetched
+# snapshots.jsonl, the store is no longer empty, so the gate compares against
+# the imported history exactly as if it had been local all along.
+store=$tmp/store-import-i
+mkdir -p "$store"
+prior "$tmp/seed-i" thin 0.0
+IMPORT_BIN=../bin/audit-snapshot
+$IMPORT_BIN --store "$store" import --target synth \
+	--snapshots "$tmp/seed-i/Data/synth/snapshots.jsonl" >/dev/null
+classified "$tmp/i.json" measured 0.12
+$BIN --classified "$tmp/i.json" --target synth --store "$store" \
+	--wiki-checked=imported >"$tmp/i.out.json"
+check "verdict" "$(field "$tmp/i.out.json" synth/skill/step verdict)" "boundary-question"
+check "downgraded" "$(gatefield "$tmp/i.out.json" downgraded)" "1"
+
 exit "$fail"