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SKERNEL-102 · Establish the machine contract

Write a durable replacement without exposing a half file

Practice briefBugFoundational

A crash between truncation and write leaves the agent configuration empty.

Focused work estimate
1h 30m + prerequisites
Priority in the scenario
Medium
Engineering practice
Filesystem durability · Atomic replacement

Estimated field mix

  • Systems programming60%
  • Storage systems40%

Field percentages are editorial estimates of the ticket's engineering focus. They total 100%; they are not measured time, proficiency scores, or ownership evidence.

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Project context

A fictional local agent watches generated inbox files and schedules bounded processing. Direct system calls are scattered across the code, mishandle interrupted operations, and make tests platform-dependent. Build a Rust OS adapter with temporary fixture directories; no kernel module, elevated privilege, or production host modification is required.

Setup prerequisites

  • System calls
  • File descriptors
  • Monotonic clocks

Preceding work

No earlier ticket is required. Complete the project setup above.

Acceptance criteria

  • Write to a unique file in the destination directory
  • Flush file content before atomic replacement where the platform supports it
  • Document directory durability and unsupported-platform behavior

Implementation constraints

  • Preserve permissions intentionally and reject symlink destination surprises.

Verification to include

  • Replace an existing fixture and observe either old or complete new content.
  • Interrupt before rename and confirm the destination remains unchanged.

Deliverables

  • Atomic-replace adapter and interruption cases

Rollout and recovery

Retain backups only under an explicit bounded retention policy.

Value of the work

For the engineer: Practice OS error semantics, partial I/O, portability and deterministic abstraction boundaries.

For the team: Review host-facing code whose retries, resource limits, and platform differences are explicit before packaging it as a local agent.

Evidence boundaries

Outcome Evidence: Tests, patches, and runbooks are requested deliverables. They become Outcome Evidence only through a qualified Mission and immutable Evidence IDs.

Ownership Evidence: Independent adaptation must be observed under a declared verification policy and cite immutable Evidence IDs. Completing a planning ticket establishes no Ownership Evidence.