neuron-tai/.scratch/distributed-gguf-runtime/evidence/DGR-017/README.md

DGR-017 evidence — superseded backlog cleanup

Completed: 2026-07-16 Branch: ralph/distributed-gguf-runtime Planning checkpoint before cleanup: 81b1fa6 Authority: .scratch/distributed-gguf-runtime/prd.json

Outcome

The old DGR-001…016 completion claims and active artifacts were reconciled against the live branch. No old pass state transferred to the new implementation roadmap.

The active packages/ and tests/ trees were restored exactly to origin/master. The branch therefore no longer exposes a nominal GGUF startup path backed by unimplemented transport methods, a protobuf-only native scaffold, or isolated synthetic scheduler/cache/failure modules as if they were a working distributed GGUF runtime.

Classification and disposition

Retained

• Accepted ADRs and repository research, including docs/research/colibri-implementation-audit.md.
• The authoritative 55-story roadmap DGR-017…071 and its generated issue specifications.
• The real public-relay smoke benchmark, moved with provenance to legacy-public-relay-smoke-benchmark.json.
• Git history containing the complete superseded implementation/reference work.

Removed from the active tree

• Legacy issue specifications DGR-001…016 and their stale/blocked/synthetic evidence directories.
• The nonfunctional gguf_backend startup path whose gRPC execution methods raised not-implemented errors.
• Synthetic/reference-only boundary, Hot KV, scheduler, failure, recipe, ownership, and native-protocol modules that were not a real llama.cpp Shard runtime.
• The protobuf round-trip-only native scaffold, placeholder llama.cpp patch, generated bindings/build workspace, and associated tests.
• Tracker/admission/source modifications coupled to that superseded scaffold.

Confirmed absent and still required

• Real standalone C++ gRPC Shard worker.
• Exact pinned llama.cpp manifest and verified patch stack.
• Range-aware GGUF tensor ownership and real ranged execution.
• Real Shard-local llama.cpp KV/V4 auxiliary state.
• DeepSeek V4 boundary adapter and ranged parity.
• Real multi-machine DeepSeek V4 alpha or beta acceptance.

These remain passes: false in DGR-018…071.

Before-cleanup baseline

Command:

.venv-rocm/bin/python -m pytest -q \
  tests/test_performance_contract.py tests/test_native_shard_protocol.py \
  tests/test_gguf_ownership.py tests/test_boundary_adapter.py \
  tests/test_hot_kv_state.py tests/test_gguf_backend.py \
  tests/test_batch_scheduler.py tests/test_failure_semantics.py \
  tests/test_llama_worker_build.py tests/test_node_admission.py \
  tests/test_node_capability.py tests/test_tracker_capability_admission.py

Result:

216 passed, 2 skipped, 1 failed, 1 warning

The failure was a synthetic capability-test helper KeyError: 'compatibility_fingerprint'. The warning was a pre-existing heartbeat-thread SystemExit warning.

Cleanup verification

Source equality

Command:

git diff --quiet origin/master -- packages tests

Result:

packages_tests_match_origin_master=yes

The staged cleanup removes approximately 15.3k obsolete source/test/evidence lines from the active branch.

Cleanup-relevant regression suite

Command:

.venv-rocm/bin/python -m pytest -q \
  tests/test_node_admission.py tests/test_node_capability.py \
  tests/test_tracker_capability_admission.py \
  tests/test_kv_cache_distributed.py tests/test_real_distributed_inference.py

Result:

119 passed, 2 skipped, 1 warning in 15.90s

The warning is the same pre-existing heartbeat-thread SystemExit warning.

Known origin/master limitations

The wider routing run produced 210 passed, 2 skipped, 4 failed, 1 warning. Each failure reproduced individually while packages/ and tests/ matched origin/master exactly:

• test_tracker_models_endpoint_lists_registered_hf_repo_and_short_name_alias
• test_torch_node_applies_tracker_load_shard_directive
• test_shard_heal_cycle_surviving_node_covers_dead_peers_gap
• test_a_node_with_an_unusable_precision_covers_no_layers

They are recorded as pre-existing baseline defects and were not repaired or hidden by this cleanup story.

Dependency handoff

DGR-018 and later stories must start from the cleaned upstream-equivalent runtime tree. Reuse concepts from superseded commits only by explicitly porting the smallest verified slice under the new story’s contracts, tests, and evidence gates. Git history is provenance, not completion evidence.