# Delegation Cycle 2 — Retrospective

## Date: 2026-03-15
## Task: #148 split into chunks per Cycle 1 lessons

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## What Happened

Split #148 into 3 chunks (A: timmy/, B: dashboard/, C: infra+spark/).
Dispatched Chunk C (4 files, smallest) to Kimi with 180s timeout.

**Result: Kimi timed out again without making any changes.**

Kimi's --print mode spends its time budget on:
1. Reading all files in the working directory (codebase scanning)
2. Planning the approach (chain of thought)
3. Searching the web for best practices
4. Actually making edits

For this codebase (~8800 SLOC), steps 1-3 consume most of the timeout.

## Root Cause Analysis

**Kimi is not timing out because the task is too big. It's timing out because
it reads the entire codebase before starting work.**

The 262K context is a trap — Kimi ingests everything it can find, and for a
project with 200+ files, this planning phase alone can exceed 180s.

## Proposed Fix for Cycle 3

1. **Pre-extract context.** Instead of pointing Kimi at the full repo, give
   it ONLY the files it needs to edit, as inline code in the prompt.
2. **Use --add-dir sparingly.** Don't let Kimi see the full src/ tree.
3. **Consider: do mechanical refactors myself.** sqlite3 context manager
   conversion is a mechanical find-and-replace pattern. The value of Kimi
   is in tasks requiring reasoning, not search-and-replace.

## Deliverables

- No new PRs this cycle
- Lesson: Kimi's planning overhead on large codebases is the real bottleneck
- #148 remains open — candidate for scripted refactoring or inline-context Kimi task

## Cumulative Stats (Cycles 1+2)

| Metric | Cycle 1 | Cycle 2 | Total |
|--------|---------|---------|-------|
| PRs created | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Kimi invocations | 4 | 1 | 5 |
| Kimi timeouts | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| Kimi successes | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Success rate | 25% | 0% | 20% |