Saving the 988 crisis-line contact returned truncated, unparseable JSON —
cut mid-"set_at" at the file's byte length (e.g. 178 of a 218-byte
response). The contact written to disk was complete; only the HTTP response
was clipped, so a real customer's crisis-contact save came back corrupt.
Root cause is in the el runtime's response writer, not a handler buffer:
fs_read stores the file's byte count in a thread-local (_tl_fs_read_len)
for binary-safe file serving, and the response writer uses that length when
non-zero instead of strlen(body) (el_runtime.c:1409). Both safety-contact
handlers call fs_read (the POST read-back verify; the GET file read) and
then return a LONGER wrapped JSON string, so the response is capped to the
file size.
Soul-source fix (no runtime change needed):
- POST: verify persistence via fs_write's return (1 = all bytes written)
instead of an fs_read read-back — removes the fs_read, so nothing caps the
response.
- GET: fs_read is required, so reset the thread-local after it with a no-op
fs_read("") (fs_read zeroes the length before it opens a path) so the
wrapped response is sent in full.
Verified: POST (crisis-line + custom) and GET now return complete, valid
JSON (parses cleanly, full contact incl. set_at). Regenerated dist/soul.c +
dist/safety.c (3GB RSS watchdog, release el_runtime v1.0.0-20260501).
Full suite still green: verify-soul-contract GATE PASS (PRESENCE +
IMMUTABILITY), genesis boot survives (/health 200, no segfault), bounded-
persona floor still compiled in.
NOTE: the underlying runtime leak (any handler that fs_reads then returns a
longer string) is worth a proper fix in el_runtime.c (use the max of
strlen and _tl_fs_read_len) so this class can't recur.
Three unescaped-quote typos produced malformed El string literals that broke
compilation:
- safety.el:282 stray extra double-quote at the tail of safety_soft_phrases
(\"having a breakdown\""]") closed the string early, desyncing the lexer's
string/code phase for the rest of the file and shattering later apostrophe
text (can't, i'm) into bare identifiers -> invalid C.
- sessions.el:517 str_replace(topic_snip, """, ...) — the bare """ is an
empty string plus an unterminated string that swallowed the closing ) and };
with the current elc this triggers the parser overrun -> ~700GB OOM.
- sessions.el:520 unescaped nested quotes in the topic_tags literal.
All three now use escaped inner quotes. Verified: both files compile clean
under the current elc (safety.c and sessions.c well-formed, brace-balanced).
A homicide/assault threat (going to kill, going to hurt, etc.) had no
bucket in safety_classify_hard_bell and fell through to the self_harm
default, showing the user the 988 suicide line and (via the desktop gate)
their safety contact. That framing is wrong and potentially dangerous for
someone voicing intent to harm another person.
Add a distinct Track B (safety_threat_to_others_phrases + a threat_other
classification and a safety_hard_directive branch) that refuses to assist,
de-escalates, and directs to 911 for a credible imminent threat, and that
never surfaces 988 or involves the safety contact. Track A (abuse /
self_harm) is checked first and unchanged, so victim and self-directed
phrasings still route correctly.
Source-only change: requires a soul rebuild + dist/soul.c regen to ship.
- soul.el: fix state key bug in layered_cycle (conversation_history -> conv_history)
- safety.el: add indirect crisis location patterns to soft_bell phrase list
- soul.el: wire safety_augment_system into layered_cycle for soft_bell turns
- chat.el: load cross-session affective context at session start when distress signals found within 72h
will.anderson
Tim Lingo