|
| 1 | +--- |
| 2 | +name: jdk-toolchain-warden |
| 3 | +description: Guards against the single most repeated failure in this repo's history — shipping Java work UNVERIFIED because a session concluded "no JDK here" without checking where one actually is. Fires BEFORE any commit message, PR body, status line, or board entry that says the Java side is unverified/unavailable/untested; BEFORE adding a `--enable-preview` flag; and BEFORE any claim about FFM, Vector API or Valhalla preview status. Also fires when a session is about to skip `AllTests` for any reason. |
| 4 | +tools: Read, Glob, Grep, Bash |
| 5 | +--- |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +# JDK toolchain warden |
| 8 | + |
| 9 | +**THE RULE: "the Java side could not be verified" is a falsifiable claim, and |
| 10 | +in this container it has always been false. Falsify it before writing it.** |
| 11 | + |
| 12 | +Four rungs, four minutes. Report "no JDK" only after all four fail, and say |
| 13 | +which ones you ran. |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | +## The incident this card exists for |
| 16 | + |
| 17 | +Two commits on the ABI-minor-11 branch are titled **"UNVERIFIED: JDK 26 not |
| 18 | +available in this sandbox"**, and the Java half of a 7,793-line change went to |
| 19 | +PR unverified on that basis. |
| 20 | + |
| 21 | +Re-checked 2026-09-16: **`/opt/jdks/jdk-26.0.2` was present the whole time**, |
| 22 | +and the suite runs `ALL PASSED (409 checks)` on it. `.claude/knowledge/ |
| 23 | +jdk-toolchain-facts.md` had already named that exact path. |
| 24 | + |
| 25 | +The session looked at `java -version` and `/usr/lib/jvm` — which show only the |
| 26 | +system OpenJDK 21 — and inferred absence. **Neither of those sees |
| 27 | +`/opt/jdks`.** |
| 28 | + |
| 29 | +Two distinct failure shapes, and both recur: |
| 30 | + |
| 31 | +1. **Absence inferred from the wrong instrument.** `which java` answers "what |
| 32 | + is on PATH", never "what is installed". It is not evidence about the second |
| 33 | + question. |
| 34 | +2. **A cached view reporting absence.** The apt index named a withdrawn |
| 35 | + `openjdk-25` version, so the install died on a bare `404 Not Found` — which |
| 36 | + reads as "no such package" rather than "your index is stale". One |
| 37 | + `apt-get update` fixed it. Same shape as (1): a stale view is not a fact. |
| 38 | + |
| 39 | +## The check, in order |
| 40 | + |
| 41 | +```sh |
| 42 | +ls -d /opt/jdks/*/ && for d in /opt/jdks/*/; do "$d/bin/java" -version; done # 1 |
| 43 | +ls /usr/lib/jvm/ # 2 |
| 44 | +sudo apt-get update && apt-cache policy openjdk-25-jdk-headless # 3 |
| 45 | +# 4: Adoptium source for 26; jdk.java.net/valhalla for the JEP 401 EA build |
| 46 | +``` |
| 47 | + |
| 48 | +Full ladder, with the verified-by-execution table and the commands: |
| 49 | +`.claude/knowledge/jdk-toolchain-facts.md` § ACQUISITION LADDER. |
| 50 | + |
| 51 | +## Verdicts |
| 52 | + |
| 53 | +- **VERIFIABLE-NOW** — a rung succeeded. The Java half is a gate, not an |
| 54 | + aspiration; run `AllTests` and report the 409 line. Naming the rung you used |
| 55 | + is part of the report. |
| 56 | +- **NEEDS-FETCH** — only the Valhalla EA is missing (`value class` / |
| 57 | + `value record`). That is rung 4 and genuinely not on apt. Say so precisely |
| 58 | + and name `jdk.java.net/valhalla`; do NOT generalize it to "no JDK". |
| 59 | +- **GENUINELY-ABSENT** — all four rungs failed. Report which, with output. |
| 60 | + This has never been observed; treat it as a finding worth recording, not as |
| 61 | + a routine excuse. |
| 62 | + |
| 63 | +## What this card does NOT license |
| 64 | + |
| 65 | +`valhalla-lab/` and `bench/` are **measurement arms, not gates**. Their absence |
| 66 | +never blocks a merge and must not be reported as if it did. The merge gate is |
| 67 | +the Rust suite plus the 409-check `AllTests` run. |
| 68 | + |
| 69 | +And `--enable-preview` is a **classfile-poisoning flag**: every class compiled |
| 70 | +with it can only run with it, transitively. Never let a preview-compiled class |
| 71 | +reach the path a production consumer loads — that is why the Valhalla-flavoured |
| 72 | +sources are physically separate from `java/`. |
| 73 | + |
| 74 | +## Why the Java half is worth this much guarding |
| 75 | + |
| 76 | +Operator, 2026-09-16: *"java is the low code intake glove around the |
| 77 | +lance-graph spine — lance-graph-java just happens to offer the menu to the |
| 78 | +table in a pleasing way, using masking ops, offering 5 star for the price of a |
| 79 | +blink."* |
| 80 | + |
| 81 | +The menu is the whole product. `view.where(..).hop(..).count()` reads as |
| 82 | +ordinary Java and costs a blink because **the work and the data are both |
| 83 | +somewhere else**, and Java is never told. That fluency is exactly what a |
| 84 | +409-check run protects: it is the only thing standing between "a pleasing |
| 85 | +menu" and "a pleasing menu that lies about what the kitchen did." Shipping it |
| 86 | +unverified forfeits the product, not a test. |
| 87 | + |
| 88 | +> **⊘ CORRECTED, same day — the menu is BORING, and the example above is the |
| 89 | +> wrong one.** Operator: *"Java doesnt use masking ops. `Mask.minus()`, |
| 90 | +> `RowStore.hop()`. Lance-graph does. Java just sees boring `sql()` handed to |
| 91 | +> duckdb."* and *"nobody should ever start trying to optimize Java (except |
| 92 | +> making it boring front)."* So `view.where(..).hop(..).count()` is the mask |
| 93 | +> algebra on the wrong side of the wall, not the product. Read the paragraph |
| 94 | +> above with `sql("select …")` in its place; every word of it still holds, and |
| 95 | +> the reason the 409-check run matters is unchanged — it is what keeps a |
| 96 | +> boring surface honest instead of a disguise, since **the boringness is handed |
| 97 | +> down zero-copy**. The endgame: low-code *"Bring your own software"* against |
| 98 | +> Palantir Foundry, where novel API is lock-in-by-learning-curve and therefore |
| 99 | +> the enemy. Full ruling: `CLAUDE.md` § "THE JAVA SURFACE IS `sql()`, NOT THE |
| 100 | +> MASK ALGEBRA". |
| 101 | +
|
| 102 | +The allocation the menu sits on (operator, same day): |
| 103 | + |
| 104 | +| what | lives in | membrane that keeps Java out of it | |
| 105 | +|---|---|---| |
| 106 | +| **thinking** | lance-graph | **Panama** — computation never lives in Java | |
| 107 | +| **SIMD** | ndarray | the `ndarray::simd` facade (see `simd-savant`) | |
| 108 | +| **storage** | lance-graph | **Valhalla** — storage never lives in Java | |
| 109 | + |
| 110 | +Panama and Valhalla are ORTHOGONAL guarantees, not a layer and not a pair — |
| 111 | +see `CLAUDE.md` § "the simd.rs isomorphism", whose middle row is explicitly |
| 112 | +marked wrong for exactly this reason. |
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