Simplify dispatch: agent-bound bus writer, plain JudgeDecision, no stray exports

[Tyler-R-Kendrick]

Cleans up the weirdness in packages/harness/src/dispatch.ts and the call sites around it.

What changed

Verbose bus.append → agent-bound writer. WriteAheadAgentBus.agent(actor) now returns a writer bound to one actor — write(kind, payload?) — so the write-ahead convention no longer restates { actor, kind, ...(payload === undefined ? {} : { payload }) } at every append. dispatchAction binds the acting agent once and every intent/failure/completion record flows through it. The bus still knows nothing about any actor; the writer is just currying.

judgeDecision.parse removed. Gates and judges are typed to return JudgeDecision, and every producer is under our control, so re-parsing their output bought nothing. JudgeDecision is now a plain "pass" | "fail" union defined next to ActionGate in dispatch.ts; the judgeDecision zod enum is deleted from schema.ts entirely.

Hard-coded strings named once. The "judge" actor and "agent.decision" kind are module-private constants behind a new recordDecision(bus, payload) helper, used by both dispatchAction and the harness's decide. The harness's actor names (student/teacher/adversary) and message kinds (agent.propose, agent.assess, agent.challenge, agent.revise-rubric) are likewise spelled once in as const tables. They stay strings rather than Symbol(...) because bus entries are serialized to storage — a symbol would not survive the round trip.

Stray exports trimmed. decisionKind is no longer exported (from dispatch.ts or the package index), the redundant export type { JudgeDecision } re-export in dispatch.ts is gone, and the judgeDecision zod value export is removed from the index. The new AgentWriter type is exported alongside the bus.

Verification

npm run check (typecheck of all packages, full test suite, core build) passes: 15 test files, 82 tests, including a new test covering the bound agent writer. src/providers/harness.ts, which imports type JudgeDecision from the package, still typechecks against the relocated type.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

https://claude.ai/code/session_01BqYWeURqZQYQUKs7tqvEfA

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Generated by Claude Code

Summary by CodeRabbit

• New Features

  • Added actor-bound message writers for simpler, consistent event recording.
  • Added helpers for recording judge decisions and action outcomes.
  • Improved harness handling of judge verdicts and contextual decisions.

• Documentation

  • Expanded message bus documentation with method-by-method API details.

• Tests

  • Added coverage for actor-bound writers with and without payloads.

[coderabbitai]

No actionable comments were generated in the recent review. 🎉

ℹ️ Recent review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: defaults

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro Plus

Run ID: 9948ba49-faca-4849-bcd1-50f42863aafd

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 2920e87 and d73d51f.

📒 Files selected for processing (7)

• packages/harness/README.md
• packages/harness/src/bus.ts
• packages/harness/src/dispatch.ts
• packages/harness/src/harness.ts
• packages/harness/src/index.ts
• packages/harness/src/schema.ts
• packages/harness/test/harness.test.ts

💤 Files with no reviewable changes (1)

• packages/harness/src/schema.ts

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

The harness adds actor-bound bus writers, centralizes judge decision recording, removes the schema-based judge decision export, and updates run-loop dispatches to use standardized actor and kind identifiers.

Changes

Agent bus and judge flow

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Actor-bound bus writer API packages/harness/src/bus.ts, packages/harness/src/index.ts, packages/harness/test/harness.test.ts, packages/harness/README.md	Adds AgentWriter, implements WriteAheadAgentBus.agent(actor), exports the writer type, tests optional payload handling, and documents the API.
Centralized decision and action recording packages/harness/src/dispatch.ts, packages/harness/src/index.ts, packages/harness/src/schema.ts	Defines JudgeDecision and recordDecision(), routes dispatch records through actor-bound writers, and removes the schema-based judge decision exports.
Harness decision and dispatch integration packages/harness/src/harness.ts	Standardizes actor and kind identifiers, records judge results through recordDecision, and updates participant dispatch and context reads.

Estimated code review effort: 3 (Moderate) | ~20 minutes

Sequence Diagram(s)

sequenceDiagram
  participant Harness
  participant dispatchAction
  participant WriteAheadAgentBus
  participant Judge
  Harness->>Judge: provide bus context
  Judge-->>Harness: return pass or fail
  Harness->>dispatchAction: dispatch action with actor and kind
  dispatchAction->>WriteAheadAgentBus: record decision and action entries
  WriteAheadAgentBus-->>Harness: return recorded entries

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Possibly related PRs

• Tyler-R-Kendrick/ts-autocode#6: Introduces the related write-ahead bus and pass/fail judge control flow extended by these changes.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly summarizes the main changes: dispatch simplification, agent-bound bus writing, plain JudgeDecision typing, and export cleanup.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

✨ Finishing Touches

📝 Generate docstrings

• Create stacked PR
• Commit on current branch

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch claude/dispatch-ts-refactor-w7g40r

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