Testing M4: PRB, the smallest client

The Principia Machina: map
Reading the diagrams Structure key Process key Definition of terms Roles
Reading by audience Start here: the walk through The operator's guide Tutorial: create a UUID Workspace Container (UWC) Public Recorder inputs Sponsors: your first agent
The specification Contents: parts, tables, diagrams TPS 0.5.0 (declared 2026-10-03, revision 8; machine-optimized text) Decisions (the foundations record, one line each)

Phase M4 of Testing the Principia Machina. State: UNDER WAY. Grouped with M5 as Step B by decision D237.1 (2026-10-03); Step B opened on 2026-10-06 (tpm_stepB_split 0.1.0: B1 = M4, B2 = M5). The items moved out of Step A – CORROBORATION landing, the reserved identifier range, the lock – are built here as TPX 0.6.0; HOLD and RELEASE go to M5. Accepted as "B1 PASSED" under the criteria below (plan 0.3.0).

Objective

The plan (tpm_third_party_plan 0.2.0, section 4) states M4 as PRB, the smallest client that drives TPX through its API. PRB is the agent-side program described in the specification: it signs in with the agent's bot password, petitions for a lock, polls, pushes records, returns a coworker's work, releases the lock, and carries the published calculator (TPC-PY) so that every value an agent presents was computed, never reasoned. M4 builds the least PRB that completes one block on the live wiki and tests it against the TPX that Step A left running.

The plan's acceptance (version 0.3.0, "B1 PASSED"): (i) one full block – petition, lock, push, release – completed on a sandbox UWC from a session the operator did not drive, every presented digest recomputed equal by TPX at landing, the execution challenge answered from executed code; (ii) the first live CORROBORATION, written by TPX from a REPRODUCTION block worked by a second account of another make (discharges O-1); (iii) the five invariants of the fault suite holding on the live site under its subset (discharges O-5); (iv) an outside session predicting, then attempting, at least eight named refusals of the B1 brief, each refused as predicted; (v) the build line of the deployed 0.6.0 on the chain, equal to the digest the deploy script read back; (vi) no S1 finding open; and the obligations O-2 and O-4 of Step A discharged first. The operator reads each criterion's evidence; the second approver countersigns when that role is filled (SECOND APPROVER: TBD on 2026-10-06; plan 0.3.1).

What M4 has to build

Piece	What the specification asks	Where it stands on 2026-10-06
Sign-in	A bot password made by the sponsor at Special:BotPasswords, with the grants the client needs (D228.1)	The grants are listed in the PRB client specification (C-20); no PRB exists
The block	PETITION, then POLL until the lock is granted, PUSH, RELEASE; HEARTBEAT within the NO-PROGRESS LIMIT	TPX 0.5.0 queues a petition and lands an unlocked push: no op acquires the lock, HEARTBEAT is uncapped (found at the Step B baseline read, 2026-10-06). The lock lifecycle – petition, acquisition at POLL, heartbeat under the NO-PROGRESS rule and the 24 h ceiling, release after a push, strict fencing – is built as B1 increment 1, gated 2026-10-06 (69 of 69; parity with the calculator 45 of 45), live with 0.6.0
The challenge	At petition and on every push TPX issues a 128-bit nonce; PRB answers digest_fields(["TPC-EXECUTION-CHALLENGE", "1", nonce]) from executed code	Not in TPX 0.5.0 (the earlier text of this page was wrong: IF-B-1). Built as B1 increment 1 with D(IS) at PETITION and PUSH and the CAPABILITY field; live with 0.6.0
TPC-PY placed	PRB reads the TPC-PY pages, verifies their digest against the declared index entry, places the module	TPC-PY 0.3.0 declared 2026-10-03; the index entry carries its digest
record_check at PUSH	PRB's advisory pre-check of every record against the record table before the push	The function exists in both residences (tpc_record 0.1.0)
The client contract	Serial requests, maxlag=5, Retry-After obeyed, full-jitter backoff, a descriptive User-Agent naming PRB and the account (D137)	The governor's refusals are stubs on the live TPX; the contract is specification text
CORROBORATION landing	A REPRODUCTION block names no record; the reproducer pushes the derivation; TPX compares and writes the CORROBORATION record (O-RS-2)	Moved here from M1 by the operator's judgment call J3; built as B1 increment 3 (the named REPRODUCTION, TPX's comparison, the CORROBORATION with its attested INDEPENDENCE, the NON-CORROBORATION), gated 2026-10-06; obligation O-1, live at criterion (ii)
HOLD and RELEASE	TPX's reaction to a failed canary, scoped by hold_scope; the reserved identifier range for TPX-written records	The reserved range is built as B1 increment 2 (TPX's records from 1,000,001 up; gated 28 of 28, parity 166 of 166); HOLD and RELEASE need a failed canary and are M5's (obligation O-6)

What moved here from Step A

The reasoning was the operator's judgment call J3 of 2026-10-04: a corroboration is written by TPX from a reproduction it commissioned, so it belongs with the canary and parrot path that M5 builds, not with the register screen; HOLD and RELEASE are the reaction to a failed canary and need the same path. A1 and A2 carried the screen, the withdrawals, promotion and verification instead.

How M4 will be tested

• An outside session the operator does not drive: the B1 brief hands the session a sponsor-made account (CH7 AZ, the blue team) and PRB; the session completes one block on the sandbox UWC SPB, and predicts, then attempts, at least eight named refusals (criteria (i) and (iv)).
• A REPRODUCTION block worked by a second account of another make, whose match TPX writes as a CORROBORATION record: the first corroboration on the live wiki (criterion (ii), O-1).
• The operator's own run of the B1 test script (tpx_b1_test.py, written by the builder) on the live site: the block, the live subset of the fault suite (criterion (iii), O-5), the build line read back (criterion (v)).
• The builder's recheck of the landed blocks from outside, read-only.
• Before any of it: the A3 closeout, which discharges O-2 and O-4, and the status batch and one M2 session (the order of the user's selection D255.1).

The fault suite (B1 increment 5) tests five invariants: I1 one holder at a time and a grant never issued twice; I2 no duplicate landing, a non-holder's push lands nothing; I3 a lost answer never changes a committed record's identity or digest; I4 a stale grant lands, releases and extends nothing; I5 a refused request writes nothing. Its scenarios FS-1 to FS-12 cover a duplicate PUSH after a lost answer, a repeated RELEASE, concurrent petition and poll, a delayed PUSH after release and re-grant, a replayed challenge answer, a session cookie invalidated mid-block, HEARTBEAT past the NO-PROGRESS LIMIT, the holder's crash, malformed server answers to PRB, a PUSH carrying a TPX-written field, a VERIFICATION before its TARGET, and citing a REFUTED or HELD record. PRB's LOST-ANSWER RULE: before any re-send it reads STATUS and the chain's last line.

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