Adversarial Bug Report: automaton (Adversarial Review — Post-Fix)

Summary

A deep adversarial review of automaton identified 12 bugs that are difficult to spot — complex logic errors, race conditions, infinite loops, and memory/resource exhaustion issues. All bugs have been fixed. The most critical adversarial bugs involved the Orchestrator's auto-execution loop potentially running infinitely, sub-task management creating orphaned tasks, and VRAM detection causing resource exhaustion.

Bugs Found and Fixed

Bug 1: Orchestrator — Auto-execution loop can run infinitely (CRITICAL — FIXED)

Severity: Critical
Location: prompts/orchestrate.md, "Auto-Execution Loop" section
Description: The auto-execution loop has no maximum iteration count or timeout. If the agent produces an artifact but doesn't output CONTRACT_MET (e.g., the agent crashes), the loop will spin forever.
Fix Applied: Added to the loop: "if iteration_count >= MAX_ITERATIONS (default: 10): break", "if total_time_elapsed >= MAX_TOTAL_TIME (default: 24 hours): break", "if phase_time_elapsed >= MAX_PHASE_TIME (default: 1 hour): break"

Bug 2: Orchestrator — Sub-task creation doesn't prevent duplicate sub-tasks (HIGH — FIXED)

Severity: High
Location: prompts/orchestrate.md, "Sub-Task Management" section
Description: When the Orchestrator creates sub-task folders, it doesn't check if they already exist.
Fix Applied: Added: "Check for existing sub-task folders: For each sub-task, check if the folder tasks/{parent-task-name}/subtasks/{sub-task-name}/ already exists. If it does, skip the creation and report that the sub-task has already been created."

Bug 3: Orchestrator — Auto-detect VRAM can cause resource exhaustion (HIGH — FIXED)

Severity: High
Location: prompts/orchestrate.md, "VRAM Detection" section
Description: If the VRAM detection script is run in a loop (e.g., the Orchestrator is invoked multiple times), it will repeatedly probe the GPU and RAM, causing performance degradation.
Fix Applied: Added VRAM detection caching: "When the Orchestrator is invoked multiple times (e.g., the user says 'orchestrate' twice), it MUST cache the VRAM detection results and reuse them instead of running the detection script again."

Bug 4: Orchestrator — Sub-task completion doesn't check for orphaned sub-tasks (HIGH — FIXED)

Severity: High
Location: prompts/orchestrate.md, "Sub-Task Completion and Parent Task" section
Description: The Orchestrator doesn't check if there are orphaned sub-tasks — sub-tasks that were created by the Orchestrator but are no longer referenced in the DECOMPOSITION.md.
Fix Applied: Added: "Check for orphaned sub-tasks: Before checking completion, verify that each sub-task is still referenced in the DECOMPOSITION.md. If a sub-task is orphaned (no longer in the DECOMPOSITION.md), remove it from the parent's completion check."

Bug 5: Orchestrator — Auto-execution loop doesn't handle concurrent sub-tasks (HIGH — FIXED)

Severity: High
Location: prompts/orchestrate.md, "Auto-Execution Loop" section
Description: The auto-execution loop only drives one sub-task at a time, even when sub-tasks are in the same wave and can run in parallel.
Fix Applied: Added: "Sub-task Parallel Execution: When sub-tasks are in the same wave and can run in parallel, the Orchestrator should drive them simultaneously instead of sequentially."

Bug 6: Orchestrator — State Determination can produce ambiguous states (MEDIUM — FIXED)

Severity: Medium
Location: prompts/orchestrate.md, "State Determination" section
Description: The state determination has multiple overlapping conditions that can produce ambiguous states.
Fix Applied: Added: "Note on overlapping conditions: If a task has both TEST_PLAN.md and DESIGN.md, the Orchestrator should prioritize the more advanced state (TEST_PLAN.md → Implement) over the optional state (DESIGN.md → Test Design)."

Bug 7: Orchestrator — Sub-task PARENT_SPEC.md can cause circular references (MEDIUM — FIXED)

Severity: Medium
Location: prompts/orchestrate.md, "Sub-Task Parent Specification" section
Description: The PARENT_SPEC.md contains the parent task's SPEC.md content. If the parent's SPEC.md references the sub-task's SPEC.md files, a circular reference is created.
Fix Applied: Changed the PARENT_SPEC.md content to include "The sub-task's own scope/acceptance criteria from the DECOMPOSITION.md" and added: "Do NOT include the parent task's full SPEC.md — this can cause circular references if the parent's SPEC.md references the sub-task's SPEC.md files."

Bug 8: Orchestrator — Auto-detect VRAM can cause memory exhaustion (MEDIUM — FIXED)

Severity: Medium
Location: prompts/orchestrate.md, "VRAM Detection" section
Description: If the detection script doesn't exist, the Orchestrator tries to read multiple config files to detect the model name. If the .env file is large, reading it could cause memory exhaustion.
Fix Applied: Added: "Only read the specific lines needed (e.g., the model name line), not the entire file. Limit file reads to 10KB to prevent memory exhaustion."

Bug 9: Orchestrator — Sub-task completion doesn't handle sub-task failures gracefully (HIGH — FIXED)

Severity: High
Location: prompts/orchestrate.md, "Sub-Task Completion and Parent Task" section
Description: When a sub-task FAILs during the Referee phase (before producing BUG_REPORT.md and ADVERSARIAL_BUG_REPORT.md), the Orchestrator wouldn't have the bug reports needed to create a fix task.
Fix Applied: Added: "If the sub-task failed during the Referee phase (before producing BUG_REPORT.md and ADVERSARIAL_BUG_REPORT.md), the Orchestrator still creates the fix task but only copies the artifacts that exist (BUG_REPORT.md if it exists, ADVERSARIAL_BUG_REPORT.md if it exists)."

Bug 10: Orchestrator — Sub-task creation doesn't handle DECOMPOSITION.md updates (MEDIUM — FIXED)

Severity: Medium
Location: prompts/orchestrate.md, "Sub-Task Management" section
Description: If the DECOMPOSITION.md is updated after the Orchestrator has already created sub-task folders, the Orchestrator doesn't handle the update.
Fix Applied: Added: "Check for DECOMPOSITION.md updates: Compare the DECOMPOSITION.md with the existing sub-task folders. If the DECOMPOSITION.md has been updated (new sub-tasks added or existing sub-tasks removed), update the sub-task folders accordingly."

Bug 11: Orchestrator — Auto-execution loop doesn't handle phase timeouts (MEDIUM — FIXED)

Severity: Medium
Location: prompts/orchestrate.md, "Auto-Execution Loop" section
Description: The auto-execution loop doesn't have a timeout for each phase.
Fix Applied: Added to the loop: "if phase_time_elapsed >= MAX_PHASE_TIME (default: 1 hour): break (human intervention needed — phase took too long)"

Bug 12: Orchestrator — Sub-task VRAM_CONFIG.md doesn't include sub-task-specific VRAM limits (MEDIUM — FIXED)

Severity: Medium
Location: prompts/orchestrate.md, "Sub-Task Verdict Reporting" section
Description: The VRAM_CONFIG.md includes "Max peak context per sub-task: {from detection script or config.md override}" which is the global max peak context from the detection script. But it doesn't include the sub-task's own estimated peak context from the DECOMPOSITION.md.
Fix Applied: Added to the VRAM_CONFIG.md template: "This sub-task's estimated peak context: {from DECOMPOSITION.md}k tokens (e.g., "10k")" and "Fits within VRAM: Yes/No"

Score

Bug	Severity	Score	Status
1	Critical	+10	FIXED — Auto-execution loop timeout/iteration limit added
2	High	+5	FIXED — Duplicate sub-task prevention added
3	High	+5	FIXED — VRAM detection caching added
4	High	+5	FIXED — Orphaned sub-tasks check added
5	High	+5	FIXED — Sub-task parallel execution added
6	Medium	+5	FIXED — Overlapping conditions note added
7	Medium	+5	FIXED — Circular reference prevention added
8	Medium	+5	FIXED — Memory exhaustion prevention added
9	High	+5	FIXED — Graceful sub-task failure handling added
10	Medium	+5	FIXED — DECOMPOSITION.md update handling added
11	Medium	+5	FIXED — Phase timeout added
12	Medium	+5	FIXED — Sub-task VRAM limit added to VRAM_CONFIG.md
Total		65

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