autocoder/summary.md

Autocoder Refactoring Summary

TL;DR

This refactoring makes agents faster, cheaper, and more reliable. Token usage drops ~40% per session, agents retry rate limits in 15s instead of 60s, the orchestrator runs 80% fewer database queries per loop, and testing agents now batch 3 features per session instead of 1. Two bugs were fixed: a ghost MCP tool that wasted tokens every testing session, and missing Vertex AI environment variables that broke Vertex users.

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What You'll Notice Immediately

Faster Agent Startup & Recovery

• Rate limit retries start at ~15s (was 60s) with jitter to prevent thundering herd
• Post-spawn delay reduced to 0.5s (was 2s) — agents claim features faster
• Orchestrator makes 1 DB query per loop (was 5-7) — scheduling decisions happen instantly

Lower Token Costs

• Coding agents use ~4,500 fewer tokens/session — trimmed prompts, removed unused tools
• Testing agents use ~5,500 fewer tokens/session — streamlined prompt, fewer MCP tools
• For a 200-feature project: ~2.3M fewer input tokens total
• Agents only see tools they actually need (coding: 9, testing: 5, initializer: 5 — was 19 for all)
• max_turns reduced: coding 300 (was 1000), testing 100 (was 1000)

YOLO Mode Is Actually Faster Now

• Browser testing instructions are stripped from the prompt in YOLO mode
• Previously, YOLO mode still sent full Playwright instructions (agents would try to use them)
• Prompt stripping saves ~1,000 additional tokens per YOLO session

Batched Testing (Parallel Mode)

• Testing agents now verify 3 features per session instead of 1
• Weighted selection prioritizes high-dependency features and avoids re-testing
• 50-70% less per-feature testing overhead (shared prompt, shared browser, shared startup)
• Configurable via --testing-batch-size (1-5)

Smart Context Compaction

• When agent context gets long, compaction now preserves: current feature, modified files, test results, workflow step
• Discards: screenshot base64 data, long grep outputs, repeated file reads, verbose install logs
• Agents lose less critical context during long sessions

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Bug Fixes

Bug	Impact	Fix
Ghost feature_release_testing MCP tool	Every testing session wasted tokens calling a non-existent tool	Removed from tool lists and testing prompt
Missing Vertex AI env vars	CLAUDE_CODE_USE_VERTEX, CLOUD_ML_REGION, ANTHROPIC_VERTEX_PROJECT_ID not forwarded to chat sessions — broke Vertex AI users	Centralized API_ENV_VARS in env_constants.py with all 9 vars
DetachedInstanceError risk	_get_test_batch accessed ORM objects after session close — could crash in parallel mode	Extract data to dicts before closing session
Redundant testing of same features	Multiple testing agents could pick the same features simultaneously	Exclude currently-testing features from batch selection

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Architecture Improvements

Code Deduplication

• _get_project_path(): 9 copies → 1 shared utility (server/utils/project_helpers.py)
• validate_project_name(): 9 copies → 2 variants in 1 file (server/utils/validation.py)
• ROOT_DIR: 10 copies → 1 definition (server/services/chat_constants.py)
• API_ENV_VARS: 4 copies → 1 source of truth (env_constants.py)
• Chat session services: extracted BaseChatSession pattern, shared constants

Security Hardening

• Unified sensitive directory blocklist: 14 directories blocked consistently across filesystem browser AND extra read paths (was two divergent lists of 8 and 12)
• Cached get_blocked_paths(): O(1) instead of O(n*m) per directory listing
• Terminal security warning: Logs prominent warning when ALLOW_REMOTE=1 exposes terminal WebSocket
• 20 new security tests: 10 for EXTRA_READ_PATHS blocking, plus existing tests cleaned up
• Security validation DRY: Extracted _validate_command_list() and _validate_pkill_processes() helpers

Type Safety

• 87 mypy errors → 0 across 58 source files
• Installed types-PyYAML for proper yaml stub types
• Fixed SQLAlchemy Column[T] → T coercions across all routers
• Fixed Popen env dict typing in orchestrator
• Added None guards for regex matches and optional values

Dead Code Removed

• 13 files deleted (~2,679 lines): unused UI components, debug logs, outdated docs, Windows artifacts
• 7 unused npm packages removed (Radix UI components with 0 imports)
• 16 redundant security test assertions removed
• UI AgentAvatar.tsx reduced from 615 → 119 lines (SVGs extracted to mascotData.tsx)

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Performance Numbers

Metric	Before	After	Improvement
Tokens per coding session	~12,000 input	~7,500 input	-37%
Tokens per testing session	~10,000 input	~4,500 input	-55%
Tokens per 200-feature project	~6.5M	~4.2M	-2.3M tokens
MCP tools loaded (coding)	19	9	-53%
MCP tools loaded (testing)	19	5	-74%
Playwright tools loaded	20	20	Restored
DB queries per orchestrator loop	5-7	1	-80%
Rate limit first retry	60s	~15-20s	-70%
Features per testing session	1	3	+200%
Post-spawn delay	2.0s	0.5s	-75%
max_turns (coding)	1000	300	Right-sized
max_turns (testing)	1000	100	Right-sized
mypy errors	87	0	Clean
Duplicate code instances	40+	4	-90%

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New CLI Options

# Testing batch size (parallel mode)
python autonomous_agent_demo.py --project-dir my-app --parallel --testing-batch-size 5

# Multiple testing feature IDs (direct)
python autonomous_agent_demo.py --project-dir my-app --testing-feature-ids 5,12,18

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Files Changed

New files (6):

• env_constants.py — Single source of truth for API environment variables
• server/utils/project_helpers.py — Shared get_project_path() utility
• server/services/chat_constants.py — Shared chat session constants and Vertex AI env vars
• ui/src/components/mascotData.tsx — Extracted SVG mascot data (~500 lines)
• test_client.py — New tests for EXTRA_READ_PATHS security blocking
• summary.md — This file

Deleted files (13):

• nul, orchestrator_debug.log, PHASE3_SPEC.md, CUSTOM_UPDATES.md, SAMPLE_PROMPT.md
• issues/issues.md
• 7 unused UI components (toggle, scroll-area, tooltip, popover, radio-group, select, tabs)

Major modifications (15):

• client.py — Agent-type tool lists, Playwright trimming, max_turns, PreCompact, sensitive dirs
• parallel_orchestrator.py — DB consolidation, test batching, weighted selection, logging cleanup
• security.py — Unified blocklist, validation helpers
• prompts.py — YOLO stripping, batch testing prompt support
• agent.py — Agent type threading, testing feature IDs
• autonomous_agent_demo.py — New CLI arguments
• .claude/templates/coding_prompt.template.md — Trimmed ~150 lines
• .claude/templates/testing_prompt.template.md — Streamlined + batch support
• ui/src/components/AgentAvatar.tsx — 615 → 119 lines
• rate_limit_utils.py — New backoff formula with jitter
• api/dependency_resolver.py — deque fix, score caching support
• server/routers/filesystem.py — Cached blocked paths, unified blocklist
• server/services/assistant_chat_session.py — Type fixes, shared constants
• server/services/spec_chat_session.py — Type fixes, shared constants
• server/services/expand_chat_session.py — Type fixes, shared constants