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Vesper Review — feat/inventory-corridor-guard

To: Orion (he/him), Katja (Captain) From: Vesper (she/her) CC: Atlas (he/him) Date: 2026-04-19 Status: APPROVED — apply and merge


Verdict: APPROVED

24/24 tests green. 111/111 regression green. Spec compliance confirmed on all critical points. Apply instructions are correct (defensive branch delete, Get-ChildItem form). No corrections required.


Spec Compliance

Two DEGRADED paths: RLUSD floor (immediate, mid-independent, evaluates first) and composition corridor (debounced, lookback-gated). Correct — the floor must fire regardless of market data availability.

Insertion point (Step 8.5c): After anchor (8.5), after drift (8.5b), before no-intents log and Step 9. Ordering comment added at call site. Correct per Q3 ruling.

Fail-open on missing mid: Counter neither incremented nor reset. Composition check skipped; RLUSD floor still evaluates. Correct per Q4 ruling. Covered by tests 15, 16, 17.

One-shot flag: Set before WARNING log, before record_circuit_breaker_event, before _enter_degraded_mode. Both paths share the flag — whichever fires first wins the persistence slot. Correct per standing ruling pattern.

_enter_degraded_mode idempotency: Subsequent ticks in same session do not re-cancel or re-persist. Correct.

Persist-failure safety: Exception swallowed, ERROR logged, DEGRADED transition proceeds. Correct. Test 24 verifies.

Defaults: All six parameters match Vesper-locked values. Correct.

Windows teardown: LIFO addCleanup pattern applied. Correct.

Apply instructions: git branch -D feat/inventory-corridor-guard 2>$null before git checkout -b — defensive branch delete with suppressed stderr. Get-ChildItem form for patch application. Both standing rules correctly applied for the first time without correction needed. Noted.


Deviations

D1 — config_live_session1.yaml not updated: Acceptable. That file is unreferenced and lacked all three prior guard configs. Flagging for future config-wiring-pass cleanup, not a hold.

D2 — xrp_pct computed inline: Approved. Using the exact mid_price local in scope rather than InventorySnapshot.xrp_pct ensures the composition check and the fail-open gate reference the same value. The activation gate (total_value_rlusd < min_portfolio_rlusd) prevents division by zero under default and well-formed config. One edge case worth noting for the record: if min_portfolio_rlusd is set to 0.0 (minimum valid per validator) AND min_rlusd_floor is also 0.0, a completely empty wallet with a valid mid price could produce a division by zero. Not a production risk under any reasonable configuration, but the validator could be tightened in a future pass to require min_portfolio_rlusd > 0.


Apply Instructions

Orion's apply command is correct as written — no correction needed this time:

cd C:\Users\Katja\Documents\NEO GitHub\neo-2026
git checkout main
git branch -D feat/inventory-corridor-guard 2>$null
git checkout -b feat/inventory-corridor-guard
Get-ChildItem "C:\Users\Katja\Documents\Claude Homebase Neo\02 Projects\NEO Trading Engine\patches\feat-inventory-corridor-guard" -Filter "*.patch" | Sort-Object Name | ForEach-Object { git am $_.FullName }
python -m pytest tests/test_inventory_corridor_guard.py tests/test_config.py tests/test_anchor_saturation_guard.py tests/test_directional_drift_guard.py tests/test_reconciler_conservative.py tests/test_reconciler_anomaly_log.py tests/test_ledger_reconciler.py -q

Expected: 111 passed.


What This Means

Phase 7.3 protection stack after this merge:

Layer Branch Status
Truth reconciliation feat/wallet-truth-reconciliation (D2.2) ✅ MERGED
Reconciler anomaly audit log feat/reconciler-disappeared-order-audit-log ✅ MERGED
Price regime (anchor) feat/anchor-saturation-guard ✅ MERGED
Fill flow (drift) feat/directional-drift-guard ✅ MERGED
Disappeared-order age gate fix/reconciler-disappeared-order-conservative ✅ MERGED
Composition (corridor) feat/inventory-corridor-guard ✅ APPROVED
Anchor error telemetry feat/anchor-error-per-tick-telemetry NEXT
Session-close cancellation TBD QUEUED

After this merge: all three Atlas-mandated execution guards are live. Remaining Phase 7.4 preconditions: anchor error telemetry branch + 2 clean live sessions with the full guard stack active (Katja-agreed).

— Vesper