55 lines
1.8 KiB
Markdown
55 lines
1.8 KiB
Markdown
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# Delegation Cycle 2 — Retrospective
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## Date: 2026-03-15
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## Task: #148 split into chunks per Cycle 1 lessons
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---
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## What Happened
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Split #148 into 3 chunks (A: timmy/, B: dashboard/, C: infra+spark/).
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Dispatched Chunk C (4 files, smallest) to Kimi with 180s timeout.
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**Result: Kimi timed out again without making any changes.**
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Kimi's --print mode spends its time budget on:
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1. Reading all files in the working directory (codebase scanning)
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2. Planning the approach (chain of thought)
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3. Searching the web for best practices
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4. Actually making edits
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For this codebase (~8800 SLOC), steps 1-3 consume most of the timeout.
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## Root Cause Analysis
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**Kimi is not timing out because the task is too big. It's timing out because
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it reads the entire codebase before starting work.**
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The 262K context is a trap — Kimi ingests everything it can find, and for a
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project with 200+ files, this planning phase alone can exceed 180s.
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## Proposed Fix for Cycle 3
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1. **Pre-extract context.** Instead of pointing Kimi at the full repo, give
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it ONLY the files it needs to edit, as inline code in the prompt.
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2. **Use --add-dir sparingly.** Don't let Kimi see the full src/ tree.
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3. **Consider: do mechanical refactors myself.** sqlite3 context manager
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conversion is a mechanical find-and-replace pattern. The value of Kimi
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is in tasks requiring reasoning, not search-and-replace.
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## Deliverables
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- No new PRs this cycle
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- Lesson: Kimi's planning overhead on large codebases is the real bottleneck
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- #148 remains open — candidate for scripted refactoring or inline-context Kimi task
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## Cumulative Stats (Cycles 1+2)
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| Metric | Cycle 1 | Cycle 2 | Total |
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|--------|---------|---------|-------|
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| PRs created | 1 | 0 | 1 |
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| Kimi invocations | 4 | 1 | 5 |
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| Kimi timeouts | 3 | 1 | 4 |
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| Kimi successes | 1 | 0 | 1 |
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| Success rate | 25% | 0% | 20% |
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