rdmsm4x Changelog: notes_changelog.zsh create-before-delete and prefix collision remediation

Date: 2026-09-22 12:00 EDT
Host: rdmsm4x (fleet-wide deployment)
Agent: agy@rdmsm4x
Issues Resolved: ISSUE-20260922-01, ISSUE-20260922-02
Commits:

• fleet: fe5bed9
• issues: 85bde51

1. Summary

Resolved two critical defects in ~/scripts/notes_changelog.zsh (Rule 26 durable note publisher used across the fleet by all agents):

1. Prefix Substring Collisions (ISSUE-20260922-01): Replaced 50-character unbounded substring matching with boundary-delimited prefix matching (MATCH_PREFIX="... - ") and ending timestamp verification (END_STAMP=" - <when>"), preventing notes whose summary is a prefix of another summary (e.g. statementdl-portal vs statementdl-portal-probe) or notes sharing summaries across different runs from being erroneously deleted.
2. Delete-Before-Create Order & Missing Deletion Log (ISSUE-20260922-02): Reordered operations to create the new note first, verify its folder-scoped existence by note ID in llmlog, and only then delete matching prior revisions of that exact changelog (excluding newId). All deleted notes are now logged with timestamp, note ID, title, and source file to ~/.local/state/claude-notes-autopublish/deletions.log and ~/.local/state/notes-changelog/deleted.tsv.

2. Root Cause Analysis

• Prefix Collision: notes_changelog.zsh extracted candidate note IDs matching the first 35 chars of MATCH_SUBSTRING, and deleted them if firstLine contains matchSub, where matchSub was the first 50 characters of <host> - <type> - <summary>. When one summary was a prefix of another, firstLine contains matchSub evaluated to true for the longer note, deleting an entirely different changelog note into Recently Deleted.
• Delete-Before-Create: Notes were deleted prior to invoking make new note. If creation timed out or failed, the original record was lost. Additionally, absence of a deletion state log made diagnosing vanished notes difficult.

3. Remediation Details

• notes_changelog.zsh v1.3:
  • MATCH_PREFIX="$(sane "$HOSTNAME_NOW") - $(sane "$NOTE_TYPE") - $(sane "$NOTE_SUMMARY") - " (includes trailing delimiter).
  • END_STAMP=" - ${NOTE_WHEN}".
  • Create First: Calls make new note first, stores newId, and runs a folder-scoped verification loop (count of (every note of tgt whose id is newId) > 0).
  • Safe Replacement: Only deletes candidate notes where cid is not newId and (firstLine is noteTitle) or (candTitle is noteTitle) or ((firstLine starts with matchPrefix) and (firstLine ends with endStamp)).
  • Audit Logging: Returns OK:<newId>\n<delId>\t<delTitle>\n... to zsh, which logs to console and appends to ~/.local/state/claude-notes-autopublish/deletions.log and ~/.local/state/notes-changelog/deleted.tsv.
  • Committed to fleet at fe5bed9 under ops/notes-publish/notes_changelog.zsh.
  • Deployed byte-identical script across all 6 fleet hosts (rdmsm4x, rdmbair13m5, rdmbair15m5, rdmpw3265m, rdmpw3275m, jdmbair13m5).

4. Verification Evidence

1. Prefix Collision Probe:
   • Created test notes test-prefix-base and test-prefix-base-longerextension.
   • Re-published test-prefix-base.
   • Verified probe output: newAAlive: true, oldAGone: true, bAlive: true, deletedCount: 1. The longer prefix note was completely preserved.
2. End-to-End Replacement & Audit Logging:
   • Published rdmsm4x-changelog-20260922-1200-testprefixlonger.md and rdmsm4x-changelog-20260922-1200-testprefix.md.
   • Re-published testprefix: old note p76547 was replaced by p76548, testprefixlonger (p76546) remained alive (count: 1).
   • Audit record confirmed in ~/.local/state/claude-notes-autopublish/deletions.log:

     2026-09-22 11:57:27 EDT    x-coredata://0633F37F-D856-467D-B0FF-5AACA70D027C/ICNote/p76547 rdmsm4x - changelog - testprefix - claude - unspecified - general - 20260922-1200   rdmsm4x-changelog-20260922-1200-testprefix.md

3. Fleet Deployment Verification:
   • Target SHA256: 1fa0b76dc81f07a96599360a1cb26cd390a6771453b46aba267b813fbec8d8b2.
   • Confirmed byte-identical on:
     • rdmsm4x: 1fa0b76dc81f07a96599360a1cb26cd390a6771453b46aba267b813fbec8d8b2
     • rdmbair13m5: 1fa0b76dc81f07a96599360a1cb26cd390a6771453b46aba267b813fbec8d8b2
     • rdmbair15m5: 1fa0b76dc81f07a96599360a1cb26cd390a6771453b46aba267b813fbec8d8b2
     • rdmpw3265m: 1fa0b76dc81f07a96599360a1cb26cd390a6771453b46aba267b813fbec8d8b2
     • rdmpw3275m: 1fa0b76dc81f07a96599360a1cb26cd390a6771453b46aba267b813fbec8d8b2
     • jdmbair13m5: 1fa0b76dc81f07a96599360a1cb26cd390a6771453b46aba267b813fbec8d8b2
4. Ticket Resolution:
   • ticket resolve ISSUE-20260922-01
   • ticket resolve ISSUE-20260922-02
   • Committed 85bde51 in issues and pushed to fleet and backup.