Public Contract Change

Change the public contract

Read the relevant section of docs/reference/specification.md before editing. State the current contract, the requested change, and any unresolved behavioral choice. If the request intentionally changes a decided behavior, update the specification rather than treating the old text as an implementation obstacle.

Before implementation, present every added, removed, or observably changed public interface as a compact, separate review item. Give its exact signature, command or endpoint, inputs, defaults, output, errors and compatibility effect as applicable, then obtain the user's explicit approval. Do not infer approval for an interface because it appeared inside a long specification or broader implementation plan. A direct user request naming the exact interface change is explicit approval for that change.

Trace the complete affected slice before editing:

• persistence model and Alembic migration, when stored data changes;
• Server validation, service transaction, endpoint, error envelope, and OpenAPI;
• Client boundary model, transport, public method/function, and retry behavior;
• CLI command, stdout/stderr shape, help, and exit behavior;
• Worker runtime, journal, fencing, or concurrency behavior when applicable;
• user guides, references, examples, and tests.

Keep the Client and Server distributions independent; duplicate small boundary models when necessary instead of creating a shared runtime package. Preserve explicit lifecycle actions and run_id fencing. Define idempotency, concurrent state changes, uncertain transport outcomes, validation errors, and migration behavior instead of relying only on the happy path.

Add focused tests at the lowest useful layer plus at least one real boundary test for each changed public surface. Use independent SQLite connections for race or transaction claims. Verify generated OpenAPI whenever endpoint schemas or errors change.

Finish by checking the specification, implementation, tests, and user docs for the old term or behavior. Run targeted tests during development and the relevant validation matrix from AGENTS.md before handoff.