# Marchwarden — Project Context

## What This Is
A network of agentic research specialists (MCP servers) coordinated by a
principal investigator (PI) agent. Educational project learning agents, MCP,
and agent composition.

## Current Project State

| | |
|---|---|
| **Phase** | Phases 0–2.5 complete; V1 shipped. Next: Phase 3 (stress testing) or Phase 5 (arxiv-rag) |
| **Last worked on** | 2026-04-08 |
| **Last commit** | `af79358` — Merge PR #36: per-step durations in trace and operational logs |
| **Branch** | `main` (clean) |
| **Tests** | 123 passing |
| **Blocking issues** | None |

## Key Files

| File | Purpose |
|---|---|
| `researchers/web/models.py` | Research Contract v1 Pydantic models + `DEPTH_PRESETS` |
| `researchers/web/tools.py` | Tavily search + URL fetch with content hashing |
| `researchers/web/trace.py` | JSONL trace logger + step-duration tracking + structlog mirror |
| `researchers/web/agent.py` | WebResearcher — inner agentic loop |
| `researchers/web/server.py` | FastMCP server wrapping the researcher |
| `cli/main.py` | CLI: `ask` / `replay` / `costs` |
| `obs/__init__.py` | Structured operational logger (structlog) |
| `obs/costs.py` | Cost ledger + price table |
| `Makefile` | `make install` / `test` / `ask` / `costs` / `clean` |
| `Dockerfile` + `scripts/docker-test.sh` | Reproducible test environment |

## Architecture

- **Researcher** = MCP server exposing `research(question) -> ResearchResult`
- **ResearchResult** = answer + citations (with raw_excerpt) + categorized gaps +
  discovery_events + open_questions + confidence + confidence_factors + cost_metadata + trace_id
- **Agent loop** = Claude tool-use loop (plan→search→fetch→iterate) + synthesis step
- **Trace** = JSONL audit log per research call at `~/.marchwarden/traces/`

## Conventions

- API keys live in `~/secrets` (not `.env`)
- Wiki is at `docs/wiki/` (local git clone, not MCP — wiki MCP is buggy)
- All merges via Forgejo API (claude-code user can't merge via MCP)
- One branch per concern, merge via PR, delete branch after

## Session Log

| Session | Date | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2026-04-08 | Project creation, naming, contract design, Phase 0 + Phase 1 complete (81 tests) |
| 2 | 2026-04-08 | Phase 2 (CLI shim) + Phase 2.5 (logging + cost tracking) shipped; V1 ships; depth presets; docker test env; per-step duration tracking; arxiv-rag scoped as M5.1; Phase 3/4/5/6 milestones populated (123 tests) |

## What's Next

**Recommended next session: Phase 3 (Stress Testing & Calibration)** before Phase 5, since stress tests will likely tighten the contract before a second researcher has to implement it.

- **Phase 3:** Issue #44 (M3.1 single-axis stress tests) → #45 (M3.2 multi-axis) → #46 (M3.3 confidence calibration)
- **Phase 5 alternative:** Issue #38 (M5.1.1 arxiv-rag ingest pipeline). New deps: pymupdf, chromadb, sentence-transformers, arxiv. Design lives at [wiki/ArxivRagProposal](https://forgejo.labbity.unbiasedgeek.com/archeious/marchwarden/wiki/ArxivRagProposal).

Open milestones in Forgejo: Phase 3 (3 issues), Phase 4 (3 issues), Phase 5 (8 issues including arxiv-rag tracker), Phase 6 (2 issues).