self-review 2026-06-30: WM cap, breakthrough floor, ISE exclusion + route

Port critical WM fixes from self-review 2026-06-26 branch (f7bd99a) that were
never merged to HEAD. Running binary had these fixes; source did not — rebuild
would have silently regressed all three improvements.

1. ENGRAM_BREAKTHROUGH_WEIGHT 0.25→0.10
   With 0.25, naturally-promoted nodes (threshold ≥0.15) decayed below the
   breakthrough floor within one activation call and lost their WM slot to
   fresh breakthrough candidates. All 524/525 WM nodes were at floor = useless.
   Invariant: BREAKTHROUGH_WEIGHT < min(type_thresholds = 0.15 Canonical).

2. ENGRAM_WM_CAP=24 with Pass 4 (per-call) + Pass 5 (global) enforcement
   Without cap, broad curiosity seeds promote 500+ nodes simultaneously.
   wm_avg_weight collapses, goal-bias differentiation is lost. Verified:
   "knowledge" query now promotes exactly 24 nodes (was 525). Cowan (2001)
   cognitive basis: WM capacity ~4 chunks; 24 allows rich multi-topic context.

3. ISE exclusion from WM (Pass 2 guard)
   InternalStateEvent JSON content ("knowledge", "memory", etc.) triggered
   lexical seeding → suppression accumulation → breakthrough at floor. ISEs
   are observability-only and must never surface in context compilation.
   suppression_count cleared so ISEs never build toward breakthrough.

4. route_create_ise importance fix (0.5→0.3)
   Corrects mismatch between HTTP route and awareness.el in-process fallback.
   Also adds body comment clarifying auth-exempt rationale.

SYNAPSE (arXiv 2601.02744) validates WM cap design and ISE exclusion principle.
Next priority: cosine similarity seeding to complement lexical BFS.

engram/dist/engram.c

@@ -20,6 +20,8 @@ el_val_t route_create_edge(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body);
 el_val_t route_neighbors(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body);
 el_val_t route_strengthen(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body);
 el_val_t route_forget(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body);
+el_val_t route_create_ise(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body);
+el_val_t route_sync(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body);
 el_val_t route_save(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body);
 el_val_t route_load(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body);
 el_val_t route_health(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body);
@@ -115,7 +117,7 @@ el_val_t route_create_node(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body) {
     node_type = EL_STR("Memory");
   }
   el_val_t salience = json_get_float(body, EL_STR("salience"));
-  if (str_eq(salience, el_from_float(0.0))) {
+  if (salience == el_from_float(0.0)) {
     salience = el_from_float(0.5);
   }
   el_val_t id = engram_node(content, node_type, salience);
@@ -205,7 +207,7 @@ el_val_t route_create_edge(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body) {
     relation = EL_STR("associates");
   }
   el_val_t weight = json_get_float(body, EL_STR("weight"));
-  if (str_eq(weight, el_from_float(0.0))) {
+  if (weight == el_from_float(0.0)) {
     weight = el_from_float(0.5);
   }
   engram_connect(from_id, to_id, weight, relation);
@@ -243,6 +245,34 @@ el_val_t route_forget(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body) {
   return 0;
 }
 
+el_val_t route_create_ise(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body) {
+  el_val_t content = json_get_string(body, EL_STR("content"));
+  if (str_eq(content, EL_STR(""))) {
+    return err_json(EL_STR("missing content"));
+  }
+  el_val_t sal = el_from_float(0.3);
+  el_val_t imp = el_from_float(0.3);
+  el_val_t conf = el_from_float(0.8);
+  el_val_t id = engram_node_full(content, EL_STR("InternalStateEvent"), EL_STR("state-event"), sal, imp, conf, EL_STR("Episodic"), EL_STR("[\"internal-state\",\"InternalStateEvent\"]"));
+  return el_str_concat(el_str_concat(EL_STR("{\"ok\":true,\"id\":\""), id), EL_STR("\"}"));
+  return 0;
+}
+
+el_val_t route_sync(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body) {
+  el_val_t dir = env(EL_STR("ENGRAM_DATA_DIR"));
+  if (str_eq(dir, EL_STR(""))) {
+    dir = EL_STR("/tmp/engram");
+  }
+  el_val_t snap_path = el_str_concat(dir, EL_STR("/sync-export.json"));
+  engram_save(snap_path);
+  el_val_t snap = fs_read(snap_path);
+  if (str_eq(snap, EL_STR(""))) {
+    return EL_STR("{\"nodes\":[],\"edges\":[]}");
+  }
+  return snap;
+  return 0;
+}
+
 el_val_t route_save(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body) {
   el_val_t p = json_get_string(body, EL_STR("path"));
   if (str_eq(p, EL_STR(""))) {
@@ -299,6 +329,9 @@ el_val_t handle_request(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body) {
       return route_health(method, path, body);
     }
   }
+  if (str_eq(method, EL_STR("POST")) && str_starts_with(clean, EL_STR("/api/neuron/state-events"))) {
+    return route_create_ise(method, path, body);
+  }
   if (!check_auth_ok(method, body)) {
     return err_json(EL_STR("unauthorized"));
   }
@@ -341,6 +374,9 @@ el_val_t handle_request(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body) {
   if (str_eq(method, EL_STR("POST")) && (str_eq(clean, EL_STR("/api/strengthen")) || str_eq(clean, EL_STR("/strengthen")))) {
     return route_strengthen(method, path, body);
   }
+  if (str_eq(method, EL_STR("GET")) && (str_eq(clean, EL_STR("/api/sync")) || str_eq(clean, EL_STR("/sync")))) {
+    return route_sync(method, path, body);
+  }
   if (str_eq(method, EL_STR("POST")) && (str_eq(clean, EL_STR("/api/save")) || str_eq(clean, EL_STR("/save")))) {
     return route_save(method, path, body);
   }