Built-in persona base prompts move from inline DB text / base.md into
prompts/personas/<slug>.md — code-owned, PR-reviewable, drift-proof.
base.md / base_coordinator.md become personas/engineer.md / orchestrator.md.
Prompt source is now explicit in storage instead of inferred in app logic:
a new base_prompt_file column plus CHECK (base_prompt IS NOT NULL OR
base_prompt_file IS NOT NULL) — two nullable columns, never both empty.
Resolution is a coalesce (base_prompt else load(base_prompt_file)), frozen
into the workstream stamp at creation. base_prompt_file marks a persona as
built-in (code-only, un-archivable); an operator override on a built-in is
allowed and wins over the file. "Inherit the kind default" is a
workstream-creation act (is_default), not a persona-row state.
Migration 063:
- seeds reference their file (base_prompt NULL); no runtime file reads —
the backfill's frozen prompt text is inlined as a point-in-time snapshot
so migration history stays self-contained and reproducible.
- every existing workstream is stamped by kind (creative -> writer, else
the kind default), set-based (INSERT..SELECT via temp tables) with the
persona column added after the bulk writes to shorten its lock window.
Storage guards (both backends): operators must supply base_prompt;
built-ins can't be archived or have base_prompt_file set via the API;
clearing an operator persona's only source is rejected.
Follow-ups reviewed alongside (#756): soft-set visibility docstring scoped
to per-process; _apply_persona_snapshot / _current_persona_snapshot own the
stamp round-trip; spawn approval-header args (skill/name/target_node)
flattened+capped like persona; server-side tool injection generalized to
replace-only (client-def gated, incl. the xAI include forwarding). Seed
copy revised (researcher soft; de-costumed prose; engineer de-biased).
New test_schema_parity asserts create_all matches the alembic head.
Closes#683 groundwork; ruff + strict mypy clean, full suite green.
The rank guard now derives needs_approval through the real _prepare_tool
on a bash call under an allowlisting persona instead of scripting the
flag, and asserts the approval gate actually fires. The row-shape guard's
source-grep is replaced with behavioral collector tests driving both
ws_created lanes (poll-diff and SSE relay), plus a proxy-forward twin and
a saved-list value assertion that would catch positional column mix-ups.
Receiving-side stamping gets its first HTTP coverage: create with an
explicit persona under workstreams.create only (selection needs no
persona perm), kind-mismatch and unknown-name 400s, omitted-persona
default stamping, the 503 on a failed default lookup, and the clean-None
legacy lane. Resume adoption is pinned end to end: a corrupt target stamp
leaves the session fully intact, an MCP-on stamp is refused when the
client was persona-gated at construction, and an MCP-off stamp drops the
live surface (listeners deregistered, toolsets reset). Soft-set
tool_search expansion recomposes the prompt exactly once; legacy sessions
never recompose.
Compaction legs run real flows now: spill plus the recall-pointer variant
under memory-off with recall visible vs hidden, and a full stamp
surviving compaction-then-resume. Migration 063 gains the downgrade
config-cleanup case (stamps removed, creative_mode preserved) and the
conversion idempotency case (already-stamped creative rows don't crash
the upgrade).
RBAC coverage goes cross-perm: read-only and write-only principals hit
every verb (a wrong-perm-name regression in any handler is now visible),
archive and default-flip succeed through PATCH, persona.* strings
round-trip the role editors and the overrides overlay, and the production
route table is asserted directly (no DELETE registered). Endpoint/storage
fixtures move off migration-seed names; storage hardening tests cover the
size caps, corrupt-row reads, the TypeError-to-ValueError ordering, the
duplicate-name race mapping, and the single-default backstop. Shell
asserts pin the new picker surfaces and drop the last persona-as-kind
wording.
Adds the personas template shelf (#683): migration 063 creates the
personas table (tri-state tool_allowlist, per-kind is_default, archive
via enabled=0 — no hard delete) plus the workstreams.persona display
column, seeds the six launch personas (engineer/orchestrator as
zero-touch per-kind defaults; scribe/researcher/writer/executive as
curated envelopes), and grants persona.{create,read,write} to
builtin-admin following the 062 pattern.
Storage: list/get/get_by_name/get_default/create/update on both
backends, with the default-persona invariants (exactly one per kind,
single-kind, enabled, not archivable, demote-on-flip) enforced in the
storage layer and the JSON serialization shared via _utils so the
backends cannot drift.
Patrick Buckley