v0.21 cycle: working state, order of work

[mtklein]

The ledger for v0.21. Predecessor: #241 (v0.20, shipped 2026-09-21 as Off the Leash).

What this release is (owner, Mon 2026-09-21)

The last World-of-Balance-only release, polished as if it might be marked v1.0 or be the project's final release. Hard release requirement: an absolutely empty open issues list at tag time. Whole-week priority; maximum effort and parallelism authorised.

Gates, in order, none skipped

1. Every issue in this milestone closed -- fixed and merged, or superseded/invalid with a stated reason (never "deferred").
2. Full chain regeneration on the final ROM, then a fresh, honest, end-to-end WoB playthrough (the standing release criterion: fluid, minimal game-overs, labs at every retry site), with audit_fenix / supplies / equipment / chests green.
3. Ombudsman + critic on the release and its notes; bare ninja green from a clean git tree (not ninja -t clean, which deletes tracked generated files).
4. Release notes in play terms; tag; push; GitHub release; verify.

Wave 1 (Mon) -- disjoint files, parallel

• wt/retaliate-scope Umaro's Throw, Storm and Charge arms carry no retaliation dump #237 AI-scripted characters bank BP with nothing to spend it on #238 (ot6_boost.asm / Ot6Retaliate + tests)
• wt/bestow-confirm Bestow is greyed at 0 BP but has no confirm twin: committing it still eats the turn #232 (ot6_cmdmenu.asm + test)
• wt/harness-faults battle_assassinate times out driving toward Shadow's divine #239 battle_slots is seed-fragile inside the reel drive, and visual_f1 pins the luck visual_f2 just lost #240 battle_bushido fails at seed shift 6 on main: a single A edge against a window the battle may have taken away #229 (the four test files; no lib edits)
• wt/driver-status The fight driver stands still under Stop: Brainpan's Smirk leaves the party with no plan for 600+ ticks #224 + fight half of Promote generator-local mechanic reads into the lib: Vanish/Image, Condemned, dialog choices, party swap, Zombie cure #190 (lib/ot6.lua)
• wt/field-lib field half of Promote generator-local mechanic reads into the lib: Vanish/Image, Condemned, dialog choices, party swap, Zombie cure #190 (lib/ot6_field.lua + callers)
• wt/audit-fenix audit_fenix counts only revives that landed: bag consumption and failed revives go uncounted, and custom boss drivers log no [death] lines #220 (audit_fenix.py + custom boss drivers)
• wt/run-sh-race Cold-cache emulator provisioning races: parallel generate edges exit 2 with "shared test emulator missing" #242 (run.sh provisioning)
• wt/dejargon-docs De-jargon the codebase: replace coined/evocative terms with plain industry-standard names #243 docs-only pass (code/comment pass runs last)
• coordinator: copy_if_changed rename (configure.py / savestate_ninja.py / compose.py)

Wave 2 (as wave 1 merges) -- the serialized driver work + decisions

• Multi-part monsters are not modelled: Number 128's blades, the Air Force's pods and Speck #189 multi-part monsters, Tactical driver: pick the Fighter by weapon class against the target's key #161 fighter-by-weapon-class (lib/ot6.lua, after driver-status)
• The bag has MP in it and the harness cannot see it: no MP restorative in fieldCare, and the route never buys one #231 MP restorative + Tinctures (lib/ot6_field.lua + route, after field-lib; shape per owner)
• Route: strip Mog's gear before the Moogle defense ends #143 strip Mog's gear (lands with the chain regeneration the ROM fixes force anyway)
• Boosted Rage has no price and no grey: an unaffordable boosted Rage is refused with no warning #225 boosted Rage price/grey (design choice per owner)

Last

• De-jargon the codebase: replace coined/evocative terms with plain industry-standard names #243 code/comment de-jargon pass over the merged tree, then gate 2 onward.

[mtklein]

Kickoff, Mon 2026-09-21. Wave 1 launched as eight worktree agents on disjoint files: wt/retaliate-scope (#237 #238), wt/bestow-confirm (#232), wt/harness-faults (#239 #240 #229), wt/driver-status (#224 + fight half of #190), field-lib (field half of #190), wt/audit-fenix (#220), wt/run-sh-race (#242), wt/dejargon-docs (#243 docs). Coordinator's unit, the copy_if_changed rename, landed as b31f8e0. #146 closed as superseded by #236; #241 closed. 17 open, all in v0.21.

Finding worth recording: #225's premise is already gone -- 0ba4265 (2026-09-17 16:39, 80 minutes after #225 was filed) made Rage's price flat at 8 (its own option 3). Residual for the owner: a Gau under 8 MP who picks Rage still loses the turn to the silent fizzle; flat price means a command-level MP grey + confirm refusal is the exact fix, not a per-row price drawer.

[mtklein]

Progress: wt/dejargon-docs merged as 93827c6 (26 docs, prose only, reviewed line by line; #243 stays open for the code/comment pass). The 'ninja -t clean' trap that cost the first v0.20 qualification is now documented at its source (94b8eec: the TLM skill's release step and configure.py's header). #143 (strip Mog's gear) launched as wt/mog-gear -- gen_moogle.lua is unowned by wave 1, and its acceptance is one state regeneration plus a savestate-reader assertion. Eight agents running; box is ~4x oversubscribed (load ~59 on 14 cores), so no more launches until wave 1 lands.

[mtklein]

wt/field-lib merged as ff443cb (#190 field half): field care now cures Zombie (Revivify row), and the cure picker's target gate -- which had been the heals' $C2 mask -- now skips only the dead, which also revives the petrify row that had been dead code. field_zombiecure suite with negative controls; merged-tree checks green (state_writes, playthrough_honest, the new suite); evidence retained at build/attempts/wt-field-lib/. The dialog-choice and party-swap halves of #190 turned out to be already on main since 09-17 (84c01ee, bd560c3). Two findings routed: raiseDecision must not Fenix a zombie (#220, ot6.lua queue) and the route buys no Revivify (#231).

[mtklein]

wt/run-sh-race merged as bc3a86e; #242 closed (real cause was check-then-lock, not stamp visibility; 1040-worker cold reproduction green after the fix; new shared_emulator selftest).

[mtklein]

#143 (wt/mog-gear, 76135d7): the strip works and meets its acceptance (menu availability measured in play; pike+shield in the bag on moogle_cleared and worldmap_narshe by the no-emulator reader tools/check_mog_gear.py; verdict unchanged; 8/8 shifts), but a bare-handed Mog makes the Marshal a coin flip for his squad: P2 loses on shifts 35 and 42 where the pre-strip generator won on attempt 1, confirmed by same-seed A/B. Not merging a coin flip: the agent is measuring two levers on the same 8 shifts -- Mog's Dance in marshalFight, or sending the armed squad first -- and commits the one that restores the attempt-1 win rate. Every agent branch holding commits is now pushed to origin (mog-gear, harness-faults, bestow-confirm, audit-fenix, driver-status).

[mtklein]

wt/driver-status merged as 070e4b3: #224 and #190 closed. Stop stalls 5 -> 1 on the same 12 seeds; four new suites with controls. Note for the ot6.lua queue: newFightDriver is at Lua's 200-local ceiling, so a structural split runs before #189 and #161. fc_alcove/wor_landing regenerate with the chain.

[mtklein]

wt/bestow-confirm merged as 56595b6; #232 closed. First ROM change of the cycle: the chain regenerates on main (batched with wt/retaliate-scope's ROM change when it lands, so the world regenerates once).

[mtklein]

wt/harness-faults merged as 0d01935; #240 and #229 closed; #239 stays open on a design call (Assassinate resolves before the doubled breaking hit, so the divine needs a body that survives its own break). New issue filed for M.fleeBattle's solo-survivor deadlock (ot6.lua queue). Evidence retained at build/attempts/wt/harness-faults/.

[mtklein]

#143 measured on both levers and held, not merged: an armed MOG wins the Marshal 8/8; bare-handed he is a coin flip on the weak-wave seeds under every lever tried (7/8, 7/8, and one seed loses the whole defense). Root cause is upstream (between-wave care addresses the active party, not the squad that fought, and the bag's 2 Tonics sit under the reserve floor of 4). Owner's call between dropping the strip, a half-strip, or accepting a rare retry. Branch pushed; evidence retained at build/attempts/wt/mog-gear/.

[mtklein]

Mon, later. Owner rulings landed: #225 grey Rage under 8 MP (wt/rage-grey launched); #239 Shadow's divine fires on the breaking hit, once per battle, never a boss (wt/assassinate-break launched); #231 Tinctures/Elixirs as Tonic/Potion analogues, field care learns the MP band plus tents and inns with a measured cost-benefit (wt/mp-supply launched, holding on ot6_field.lua until wt/mog-gear releases it); #143 strip MOG only after his squad's waves and give the Marshal to P1/P3 (wt/mog-gear continued). Numbering stays v0.21; a v0.x release is promoted to v1.0 retroactively when it is fun, solid, and we are confident of long-term .srm compatibility. An account rate limit killed wt/retaliate-scope, wt/driver-split and wt/audit-fenix mid-run; all three resumed from their transcripts with worktrees intact. The three harness-faults suites re-ran green on main's Bestow ROM (build/attempts/main-qual/2026-09-21-harness-faults-on-main.log, NINJA_EXIT=0).

[mtklein]

wt/driver-split merged as 821b811: newFightDriver 196 active locals -> 4, proven by a token round trip (47 functions, 147 declarations equal) and three byte-identical regenerations; the merged ot6.lua is byte-identical to the reviewed branch file. ot6.lua is free: launching #245 (three fight-driver fixes) + #189 (multi-part monsters) as the next unit, #161 after. wt/audit-fenix merged as 6092649 (#220 closed; #246 filed).

[mtklein]

#246 launched (wt/whelk-boost): measure whether boost applies in the Magitek opening and what killed the member at f+321; if it can be spent, the tutorial driver spends it (boost-Fight default) and audit_boost shows 0 deaths holding >= 3 BP. Owner ruling: sprint and wait -- no throttling for the account limit; resume what dies. Seven agents running: retaliate-scope, mog-gear, rage-grey, assassinate-break, mp-supply, driver-multipart, whelk-boost. main's early chain is regenerating in the background (the 13 changed generators staled kolts_cave's ancestors); it is stopped before any merge.

[mtklein]

Merged-tree check on main (build/attempts/main-qual/2026-09-21-driver-split-on-main.log, NINJA_EXIT=0, 0 FAILED): south_figaro, kolts_pool and kolts_cave regenerated on the thirteen changed generators (#220's death watches) and the Bestow ROM (#232) -- PASS (frame 104469), PASS (frame 867), PASS (frame 14428) -- and battle_vanish, battle_doom, battle_stopwindow green on the split driver (821b811) on top. First proof that the merged tree plays a real stretch of the route.