Externalize Working Memory

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 05:00:16 +0100

Part 3 — Give Intelligence a Runtime

The step that didn’t finish

A process was reviewing a paragraph. It had compiled its context, recorded the call’s manifest, and sent the request. While the provider was still working on it, the process died.

The standard recovery is familiar: restart, find the step that didn’t finish, and run it again. Someone did exactly that in this chapter’s experiment, on a copy of the dead process’s files, and the step re-ran to completion.

Retries Are Side Effects Too

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 05:00:22 +0100

Part 4 — Make It Safe and Verifiable

The line that may already be there

Constructed scene. An adapter appends one line to a file. The process dies before the completion is recorded. On restart the ledger shows no completed result — but the file has changed.

Three responses are available, and two of them lie. Appending again may write the line twice. Writing a success record by hand manufactures evidence for an effect nobody observed. Saying “unknown” is the only honest answer, and it is also the least actionable one. The question that matters is narrower than “what do we do?” It is: what evidence would justify another append?

Recovery on Programmer.ie: Modern AI programming

Externalize Working Memory

The step that didn’t finish

Retries Are Side Effects Too

The line that may already be there