self-review 2026-07-25: short-term inhibition-of-return + explicit embedding backfill

Working memory was winner-take-all: suppression_count never entered the
promotion score and was reset on promotion, so two high-salience nodes
pinned a saturated 24-slot WM for hours. Add Lebiere-Best (CogSci 2009)
short-term inhibition — raw_wm *= t_n/(t_n + 120s) from the most recent
recorded access — producing emergent round-robin over WM candidates.

embedded_count stalled at 93/12175 after restart: the lazy backfill only
runs inside engram_activate, which nothing calls on the authoritative
store in production, and in-RAM vectors were never snapshotted. Add
engram_embed_backfill(n) + GET/POST /api/embed-backfill route that
persists the canonical snapshot whenever it embeds anything; the soul
heartbeat pumps it at 32/min.

engram/dist/engram.c

@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ el_val_t route_forget(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);
+el_val_t route_embed_backfill(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_load_merge(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body);
 el_val_t route_emit_ise(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body);
@@ -271,6 +272,17 @@ el_val_t route_health(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body) {
   return 0;
 }
 
+el_val_t route_embed_backfill(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body) {
+  el_val_t n = query_int(path, EL_STR("n"), 32);
+  el_val_t result = engram_embed_backfill(n);
+  el_val_t done = json_get_float(result, EL_STR("embedded"));
+  if (done > el_from_float(0.0)) {
+    el_val_t saved = persist_canonical();
+  }
+  return result;
+  return 0;
+}
+
 el_val_t route_sync(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body) {
   el_val_t dir_raw = env(EL_STR("ENGRAM_DATA_DIR"));
   el_val_t dir = ({ el_val_t _if_result_20 = 0; if (str_eq(dir_raw, EL_STR(""))) { _if_result_20 = (EL_STR("/tmp/engram")); } else { _if_result_20 = (dir_raw); } _if_result_20; });
@@ -432,6 +444,9 @@ el_val_t handle_request(el_val_t method, el_val_t path, el_val_t body) {
   if (str_eq(method, EL_STR("GET")) && str_eq(clean, EL_STR("/api/sync"))) {
     return route_sync(method, path, body);
   }
+  if (str_eq(clean, EL_STR("/api/embed-backfill"))) {
+    return route_embed_backfill(method, path, body);
+  }
   return el_str_concat(el_str_concat(EL_STR("{\"error\":\"not found\",\"path\":\""), clean), EL_STR("\"}"));
   return 0;
 }