robust-first

# Robust-First > *"Survive first. Be correct later."* --- ## What Is It? **Robust-First** is Dave Ackley's principle: systems should prioritize **survivability** over **correctness**. A system that crashes when confused is useless. A system that limps along incorrectly but keeps running can be repaired. --- ## The Philosophy Traditional computing: ``` IF error THEN crash "Fail fast and loud" ``` Robust-first computing: ``` IF error THEN repair_locally AND continue "Stay alive and heal" ``` --- ## Core Principles ### 1. Never Crash ```yaml # WRONG if missing_field: raise Error("Field required!") # RIGHT if missing_field: log_warning("Field missing, using default") field = reasonable_default ``` ### 2. Local Repair Don't wait for global consistency. Fix what you can, where you are: ```yaml # Found inconsistency character.location: room-A room-A.occupants: [not including character] # Local repair room-A.occupants.append(character) log: "Repaired: added character to room-A occupants" ``` ### 3. Degrade Gracefully When resources are limited, do less but keep working: ```yaml # Full capability - semantic search - syntax highlighting - auto-complete - error detection # Degraded (low memory) - basic search only - plain text - manual completion - errors on save only ``` ### 4. Redundancy Important state exists in multiple places: ```yaml # Character location recorded in: - character.yml → location field - room/ROOM.yml → occupants list - session-log.md → movement events # If one is corrupted, recover from others ``` --- ## The Movable Feast Machine Dave Ackley's [Movable Feast Machine](https://www.cs.unm.edu/~ackley/mfm/) (MFM): - Computation spread across unreliable substrate - No global clock, no central control - Elements repair themselves and neighbors - Errors are **normal**, not exceptional MOOLLM inherits this: - Files can be corrupted — repair from redundancy - Schemas can drift — reconcile gracefully - Context can overflow — summarize and continue - Tools can fail — retry or work around ### MOOLLM *is* a Movable Feast Machine for text More than an analogy — it's the architecture. MOOLLM is a robust, non-deterministic, LLM-driven MFM whose substrate is a **hierarchical filesystem of 1-D text samples**, addressed by **URL pointers** that drill directory → file → structure *inside* a file. - The LLM is the moving feast: it lands, reads its neighborhood, acts. - The MFM diffuses atoms across a grid; MOOLLM diffuses attention and edits across a repo. - The git log is the clock. State lives in files, redundantly — a crashed run resumes. - The default gesture is to **refer, not move**: add a pointer plus metadata, tagged as many times as useful, rather than relocating. It *can* move (rename/reorganize dirs, package/unbundle archives, drive git, run scripts, compose skills) — but pointing is cheaper and more robust than moving. The **neighborhood** is laid out by `yaml-jazz` convention, not left to chance: - **Big-endian naming** (most-significant-part-first: `2026-07-09-pixie-thread`, `cam6-dendrite-heat-01`) makes the *sorted directory listing itself the locality* — related samples become adjacent neighbors, so the head lands where the meaning already clusters. This is the MFM's spatial locality, reconstructed from lexical order. - **Grouping conventions** — directories as advertisements, filenames as K-lines — decide which samples share a neighborhood. A directory listing *is* the index the head reads on arrival. - The neighborhood is then read at multiple resolutions via the **Semantic Image Pyramid**: `GLANCE.yml → CARD.yml → SKILL.md → README.md`. It's a mipmap for text — coarse before fine, and never load a lower level without first loading the level above it. The moving feast zooms in only as far as the task needs. `palmhoo` is the clearest specimen: a directory that contextualizes internal and external objects at many granularities, continuously refactored and rearranged as it grows on demand — robust-first computing applied to a knowledge base instead of a chip. --- ## Anti-Fragility Beyond robust — **anti-fragile**: | Fragile | Robust | Anti-Fragile | |---------|--------|--------------| | Breaks under stress | Survives stress | Gets stronger from stress | | Crash on error | Handle error | Learn from error | | Rigid schema | Flexible schema | Schema evolves from errors | When something goes wrong, **capture the lesson**: ```yaml # Error occurred repair_log: - issue: "Character teleported without movement event" repair: "Added movement event retroactively" lesson: "Always log movements before updating location" # Next time: system knows to check this ``` --- ## MOOLLM Application ### Self-Repair Demon A background process that: 1. Scans for inconsistencies 2. Attempts local repairs 3. Logs what it fixed 4. Escalates what it couldn't See: [self-repair/](../self-repair/) ### POSTEL for Errors When encountering malformed input: 1. Try to parse anyway 2. Infer missing parts 3. Flag assumptions 4. Continue working See: [postel/](../postel/) ### Never Delete Instead of deleting, archive: - Corrupted files → `.archive/corrupted/` - Old versions → `.archive/versions/` - Failed attempts → `.archive/failed/` Recovery is always possible. --- ## Example: Corrupted Room ```yaml # room/ROOM.yml has parse error Traditional response: "Error: Invalid YAML at line 42" [System halts] Robust-first response: "Warning: ROOM.yml has syntax error" "Attempting recovery..." "- Loaded last known good state from git" "- Merged recent changes from session-log.md" "- Flagged line 42 for manual review" [System continues with recovered state] ``` --- ## Dovetails With ### Sister Skills - [self-repair/](../self-repair/) — Checklist-based healing - [postel/](../postel/) — Charitable interpretation ### Kernel - [kernel/self-healing-protocol.md](../../kernel/self-healing-protocol.md) — Full specification --- ## Protocol Symbols ``` ROBUST-FIRST — Survive over correct NEVER-CRASH — Always keep running REPAIR-DEMON — Background fixer BEST-EFFORT — Do what you can NEVER-DELETE — Archive, don't destroy ``` See: [PROTOCOLS.yml](../../PROTOCOLS.yml#ROBUST-FIRST)