# DS4 Context Engine 0.3.0-alpha.4

Status: published prerelease on 2026-09-02; tag `v0.3.0-alpha.4`.

This coordinated prerelease improves model-callable `context_persistence` guidance and categorical validation diagnostics, and removes routine successful compaction lifecycle events from normal `info` output. It preserves strict persistence confirmation, canonical Pi JSONL semantics, privacy-safe egress, compaction validation, and Pi fallback behavior.

## Fixed

- Describes the valid parameter set for every `context_persistence` action in the tool guidance and public action matrix.
- Distinguishes a known action with an inapplicable field as `unsupported-parameter` and a missing action-required field as `missing-required-parameter`.
- Keeps validation failures categorical: rejected field names and values are absent from current results, sanitized history, diagnostics, and logs.
- Continues to reject the output-only egress sentinel before action-specific validation, including when it appears in an otherwise inapplicable field.
- Emits routine `compaction.summary_graph_prepared` and `compaction.summary_graph_committed` lifecycle events only at `debug` instead of the default `info` level.
- Preserves actionable compaction fallback, failure, persistence, and reconciliation events at `warn`; the proactive-threshold TUI notice remains user-visible because it explains why automatic compaction started.

## Compatibility and persistence

The flat tool schema, fourteen actions, `ds4-context-persistence-tool-v1`, and `ds4-context-persistence-result-v1` identifiers are unchanged. The new validation categories are metadata-only and do not add a write path or alter confirmation requirements.

Pi JSONL remains canonical and append-only. All model-callable writes still require fresh local UI confirmation and fail closed without UI or canonical persistence. SQLite remains a disposable projection. Schema 15, migrations 1–15, `ds4-context-config-v1`, and `runtime-adapter-v1` are unchanged. Strict compaction validation and fallback to Pi default compaction are unchanged.

## Package/version policy

The coordinated version is `0.3.0-alpha.4` for:

```text
ds4-context-core
ds4-context-reference-adapter
ds4-context-engine
```

Both adapters depend exactly on `ds4-context-core@0.3.0-alpha.4`. The packages were published manually under the explicit npm `alpha` dist-tag while `latest` remains `0.2.0`. GitHub Actions remains validation-only with OIDC and package-write permissions denied.

## Validation evidence

Local candidate verification on Node.js `26.5.1`:

- `npm ci`: passed.
- `npm run check`: 64 files and 290 tests passed.
- Focused persistence coverage: action-field guidance, unsupported/missing parameter categories, egress-sentinel priority, metadata-only failures, and sanitized historical diagnostics passed.
- Focused compaction coverage: successful lifecycle events are absent at `info`, present at `debug`, and fallback remains `warn`.
- `npm run quality:compare`: candidate quality `0.9875` versus baseline `0.808156`.
- `npm run schema:context-persistence`: 1,266 bytes and 317 estimated tokens; below the 1,500 absolute and 320 relative limits.
- `npm run latency:check -- <exact ds4-context-core@0.1.2>`: passed with ratio `0.923285`, at or below `1.10`.
- `npm run pack:check`: verified core (203 files), reference adapter (7 files), and Pi adapter (61 files) in a clean consumer.
- `npm pack --dry-run --json` for all three packages: passed with the same bounded inventories.
- The committed candidate was replayed from detached clean checkout `6fcf514`; `npm ci`, the 64-file/290-test suite, quality, schema, package verification, tarball review, and `git diff --check` passed.
- `git diff --check`: passed.
- Protected CI, compatibility golden, Pi fixture, migration, canonical Pin/Memory, and persistence result-contract files: unchanged.

- `npm run registry:check -- 0.3.0-alpha.4`: passed against all three exact published versions; `alpha` resolves to `0.3.0-alpha.4` and `latest` remains `0.2.0` for every package.

Exact registry verification passed before the annotated tag and GitHub prerelease were created.

## Documentation

- [`../CONTEXT_PERSISTENCE_TOOL.md`](../CONTEXT_PERSISTENCE_TOOL.md)
- [`../COMPACTION.md`](../COMPACTION.md)
- [`../PRIVACY.md`](../PRIVACY.md)
- [`../RELEASING.md`](../RELEASING.md)
- [`0.3.0-alpha.3.md`](0.3.0-alpha.3.md)