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Expose trace progress and per-record truncation for bounded highlight recovery #68

Description

@kylebernhardy

Outcome

Expose bounded trace progress and per-record truncation state so consumers can recover highlight batches without discarding completed records, and can distinguish truncated highlights from incomplete match analysis.

The current response-wide complete: false behavior is documented; this requests a recovery capability, not removal of resource limits. A consumer currently has to reject the batch or retry smaller batches. Splitting cannot recover a single record that exceeds the span ceiling.

Independent reproduction — observed

Reproduced without Harper, application data, or the earlier Harper patch:

Input to traceMatches({ text: 'needle', mode: 'any' }, records) Observed result
Three records a, b, c, each containing "needle " repeated 600 times complete: false; a: 600 spans, b: 424 spans, c: omitted
Each of those records traced alone Each is complete with 600 spans
One record containing 1,100 repetitions complete: false, 1,024 spans; retrying as a singleton cannot remove this limit
Same oversized record, snippets enabled with one 32-character fragment Same incompleteness and 1,024 spans

Executed with Node.js 24.16.0 on macOS arm64 and installed @harperfast/fulltext 0.5.0, native ABI 8 / query API 3. The portable script below was executed against that installed package; a fresh registry installation was not tested. A separate Rust reproduction confirmed the batch and singleton results against current-main source, whose manifest is 0.6.0; this is source-build evidence, not a claim about a released 0.6.0 artifact.

Standalone public-API reproduction with assertions

In a separate consumer directory with Node.js 24:

npm init -y
npm install --ignore-scripts @harperfast/fulltext@0.5.0
# Save the following as repro.mjs, then:
node repro.mjs
import assert from 'node:assert';
import { mkdtemp, rm } from 'node:fs/promises';
import path from 'node:path';
import { openNativeFullTextIndex, runtimeInfo } from '@harperfast/fulltext/native';
const parent = process.cwd();
const root = await mkdtemp(path.join(parent, 'highlight-independent-'));
const record = (id, n) => ({ id, fields: { title: 'needle '.repeat(n) } });
const describe = (result) => ({ complete: result.complete, records: result.records.map(r => ({ id: r.id, spans: r.values.reduce((n, v) => n + v.spans.length, 0) })) });
let index;
try {
 index = await openNativeFullTextIndex({path: path.join(root, 'index'), indexId: 'highlight-repro', generation: '1', fields: [{name: 'title'}], analyzer: 'english@2', positions: true, surfaceTerms: true, limits: { indexingThreads: 1, searchThreads: 2, writerMemoryBytes: 15_000_000, maxQueuedCommands: 16, maxQueuedBytes: 1_048_576, maxBatchBytes: 1_048_576 }});
 const query = { text: 'needle', mode: 'any' };
 const input = [record('a', 600), record('b', 600), record('c', 600)];
 const batch = describe(await index.traceMatches(query, input));
 assert.strictEqual(batch.complete, false);
 assert.deepStrictEqual(batch.records, [{id:'a',spans:600},{id:'b',spans:424}]);
 const singles=[];
 for (const row of input) singles.push(describe(await index.traceMatches(query,[row])));
 assert(singles.every(r=>r.complete && r.records[0].spans===600));
 const singleton = describe(await index.traceMatches(query,[record('large',1100)]));
 assert.strictEqual(singleton.complete,false); assert.strictEqual(singleton.records[0].spans,1024);
 const fewerFragments = describe(await index.traceMatches(query,[record('large',1100)],{snippets:true,maxFragmentsPerValue:1,fragmentLength:32}));
 assert.deepStrictEqual(fewerFragments,singleton);
 const output = { runtime: await runtimeInfo(), batch, singles, singleton, fewerFragments, note:'No Harper runtime or application data used; trace input supplied directly through public native API.' };
 console.log(JSON.stringify(output,null,2));
} finally { await index?.close({mode:'rollback'}); await rm(root,{recursive:true,force:true}); }

Cause and ownership — source verified

  • The native protocol limits one trace to 100 records, 1 MiB of source and 1,024 returned spans.
  • Native tracing shares the span budget across records and exposes one batch-wide completeness flag. Returned records can include a truncated record; missing records do not identify a safe retry boundary.
  • The wrapper generates snippet fragments after native tracing. Lowering maxFragmentsPerValue does not reduce native trace spans.
  • Documented limits also distinguish the token-analysis ceiling. An incomplete empty trace must not be interpreted as proof of no match.

Kris raised native recovery in Recover incomplete full-text highlight batches. That closed, unmerged Harper mitigation discards incomplete batches and recursively splits them; it still rejects an incomplete singleton. Fulltext should own trace progress/truncation; the consumer should own source projection, request deadlines/cancellation and its response policy. This issue does not reopen or implement the Harper change.

Proposed direction and verification

Proposed contract, with final API shape still to design:

  1. Report an unambiguous input-progress boundary, including processed nonmatching records, or equivalent per-input status. Consumers must not infer progress from the IDs of returned matches.
  2. Identify span/output truncation separately from incomplete source analysis, at the appropriate record/value granularity. Do not relabel a partial trace as fully complete.
  3. Retain completed-record output and retry only unprocessed input. When a single record cannot fit, expose bounded partial-highlight status or an explicitly bounded within-record continuation rather than forcing the same failing retry forever.
  4. Preserve existing byte/span/token limits and the consumer's original deadline/cancellation budget.

Observed prototype results: a disposable, test-only native prototype retains the existing production trace_matches implementation unchanged and adds a separate diagnostic method. Its record-atomic progress variant defers a boundary record to the next batch; an oversized first record returns bounded spans with explicit truncation status. Five focused Rust tests pass:

  • Baseline batch and oversized-singleton reproduction.
  • Recovery of all 1,800 spans from the three 600-match records in three calls; each completed record is emitted once. Boundary-record analysis can be repeated; the prototype is not zero-rework and does not guarantee one additional call.
  • Oversized singleton consumes one input record, returns 1,024 spans, flags span truncation and does not claim full trace completeness.
  • Processed no-match input advances progress; analysis-limited input remains explicitly unknown/incomplete, including an empty result when needle follows the token ceiling.
  • An already expired deadline still returns E_TIMEOUT.

cargo test --locked --offline with the prototype: 56 passed, 1 ignored, plus zero doc tests. Focused tests were rerun after formatting: 5 passed. This verifies the bounded scenarios above, not a production-ready fix or an end-to-end Harper integration.

Exact test-only prototype patch and reproduction instructions

Apply this diagnostic patch to the pinned main commit in a disposable checkout. It changes no production method and is not a proposed merge-ready patch. With Rust 1.90.0 and the locked dependencies available:

cargo test --locked highlight_issue_ -- --nocapture
cargo test --locked
diff --git a/src/engine.rs b/src/engine.rs
index d805b83..bf444c6 100644
--- a/src/engine.rs
+++ b/src/engine.rs
@@ -4685,4 +4685,304 @@ mod tests {
 		};
 		assert_eq!(error.code, "E_INCOMPLETE_CREATE");
 	}
+	fn highlight_issue_fixture() -> (Engine, SearchRequest) {
+		let mut cfg = config();
+		cfg.identity.surface_terms = true;
+		let engine = Engine::open(RamDirectory::create(), &cfg).unwrap();
+		let request = SearchRequest {
+			expression: expression("needle", SearchMode::Any, vec!["description".to_owned()]),
+			candidate_ids: None,
+			filter: None,
+			offset: 0,
+			limit: 10,
+			exact_total: true,
+			budget_milliseconds: 30_000,
+			traversal: false,
+			after: None,
+		};
+		(engine, request)
+	}
+	fn highlight_issue_record(id: &str, n: usize) -> TraceRecord {
+		TraceRecord {
+			id: id.to_owned(),
+			fields: vec![("description".to_owned(), vec!["needle ".repeat(n)])],
+		}
+	}
+	fn highlight_issue_counts(result: &TraceResult) -> Vec<(String, usize)> {
+		result
+			.records
+			.iter()
+			.map(|r| (r.id.clone(), r.values.iter().map(|v| v.spans.len()).sum()))
+			.collect()
+	}
+	#[test]
+	fn highlight_issue_baseline_batch_and_singleton() {
+		let (engine, request) = highlight_issue_fixture();
+		let records = [
+			highlight_issue_record("a", 600),
+			highlight_issue_record("b", 600),
+			highlight_issue_record("c", 600),
+		];
+		let batch = engine.trace_matches(&request, &records, None).unwrap();
+		assert!(!batch.complete);
+		assert_eq!(
+			highlight_issue_counts(&batch),
+			vec![("a".to_owned(), 600), ("b".to_owned(), 424)]
+		);
+		for row in &records {
+			let result = engine.trace_matches(&request, std::slice::from_ref(row), None).unwrap();
+			assert!(result.complete);
+			assert_eq!(highlight_issue_counts(&result)[0].1, 600);
+		}
+		let singleton = engine
+			.trace_matches(&request, &[highlight_issue_record("large", 1100)], None)
+			.unwrap();
+		assert!(!singleton.complete);
+		assert_eq!(highlight_issue_counts(&singleton)[0].1, 1024);
+		println!("BASELINE batch=a:600,b:424,c:omitted; individual=600 complete; oversized=1024 incomplete");
+	}
+	#[test]
+	fn highlight_issue_prototype_progress_preserves_completed_records() {
+		let (engine, request) = highlight_issue_fixture();
+		let records = [
+			highlight_issue_record("a", 600),
+			highlight_issue_record("b", 600),
+			highlight_issue_record("c", 600),
+		];
+		let mut offset = 0;
+		let mut seen = Vec::new();
+		let mut calls = 0;
+		while offset < records.len() {
+			let result = engine.probe_trace_progress(&request, &records[offset..], None).unwrap();
+			assert!(result.next_record > 0);
+			assert!(result.states.iter().all(|(_, spans, analysis)| !spans && !analysis));
+			seen.extend(highlight_issue_counts(&result.trace));
+			offset += result.next_record;
+			calls += 1;
+		}
+		assert_eq!(
+			seen,
+			vec![("a".to_owned(), 600), ("b".to_owned(), 600), ("c".to_owned(), 600)]
+		);
+		assert_eq!(calls, 3);
+		println!(
+			"PROTOTYPE progress: 3 calls, 1800 spans, completed records emitted once; not a one-extra-call guarantee"
+		);
+	}
+	#[test]
+	fn highlight_issue_prototype_singleton_truncation_is_explicit() {
+		let (engine, request) = highlight_issue_fixture();
+		let result = engine
+			.probe_trace_progress(&request, &[highlight_issue_record("large", 1100)], None)
+			.unwrap();
+		assert_eq!(result.next_record, 1);
+		assert!(!result.trace.complete);
+		assert_eq!(result.states, vec![("large".to_owned(), true, false)]);
+		assert_eq!(highlight_issue_counts(&result.trace)[0].1, 1024);
+		println!("PROTOTYPE singleton: bounded1024 spans; explicit span truncation; source analysis not truncated");
+	}
+	#[test]
+	fn highlight_issue_prototype_no_match_and_analysis_unknown_are_distinct() {
+		let (engine, request) = highlight_issue_fixture();
+		let unmatched = TraceRecord {
+			id: "none".to_owned(),
+			fields: vec![("description".to_owned(), vec!["stone trail".to_owned()])],
+		};
+		let result = engine
+			.probe_trace_progress(&request, &[unmatched, highlight_issue_record("a", 1)], None)
+			.unwrap();
+		assert_eq!(result.next_record, 2);
+		assert_eq!(result.states.len(), 2);
+		assert!(result.trace.complete);
+		assert_eq!(highlight_issue_counts(&result.trace), vec![("a".to_owned(), 1)]);
+		let unknown = TraceRecord {
+			id: "unknown".to_owned(),
+			fields: vec![(
+				"description".to_owned(),
+				vec![format!("{}needle", "x ".repeat(MAX_TRACE_TOKENS_PER_VALUE))],
+			)],
+		};
+		let result = engine.probe_trace_progress(&request, &[unknown], None).unwrap();
+		assert!(!result.trace.complete);
+		assert!(result.trace.records.is_empty());
+		assert_eq!(result.states, vec![("unknown".to_owned(), false, true)]);
+	}
+	#[test]
+	fn highlight_issue_prototype_preserves_deadline() {
+		let (engine, request) = highlight_issue_fixture();
+		let deadline = Some(Instant::now() - std::time::Duration::from_millis(1));
+		let error = match engine.probe_trace_progress(&request, &[highlight_issue_record("a", 1)], deadline) {
+			Ok(_) => panic!("expired deadline accepted"),
+			Err(error) => error,
+		};
+		assert_eq!(error.code, "E_TIMEOUT");
+	}
+}
+
+#[cfg(test)]
+struct ProbeTrace {
+	trace: TraceResult,
+	next_record: usize,
+	states: Vec<(String, bool, bool)>,
+}
+#[cfg(test)]
+impl Engine {
+	fn probe_trace_progress(
+		&self,
+		request: &SearchRequest,
+		records: &[TraceRecord],
+		deadline: Option<Instant>,
+	) -> Result<ProbeTrace> {
+		check_deadline(deadline)?;
+		if let Some(candidate_ids) = &request.candidate_ids {
+			for id in candidate_ids {
+				validate_record_id(id)?;
+			}
+		}
+		for record in records {
+			validate_record_id(&record.id)?;
+		}
+		let clause = match &request.expression {
+			SearchExpression::Clause(clause) => clause,
+			_ => {
+				return Err(FulltextError::invalid(
+					"traceMatches does not support boolean expressions",
+				))
+			}
+		};
+		let selected = self.selected_fields(&clause.fields)?;
+		self.require_surface_fields(&selected)?;
+		let selected_names = selected.iter().map(|field| field.name.as_str()).collect::<HashSet<_>>();
+		let candidates = request
+			.candidate_ids
+			.as_ref()
+			.map(|ids| ids.iter().map(String::as_str).collect::<HashSet<_>>());
+		if candidates.as_ref().is_some_and(HashSet::is_empty) {
+			return Ok(ProbeTrace {
+				trace: TraceResult {
+					complete: true,
+					records: Vec::new(),
+				},
+				next_record: records.len(),
+				states: Vec::new(),
+			});
+		}
+		let plan = self.trace_plan(clause)?;
+		let mut complete = true;
+		let mut remaining_spans = MAX_TRACE_SPANS;
+		let mut response_bytes = 3usize;
+		let mut matched_records = Vec::new();
+		let mut next_record = 0usize;
+		let mut states = Vec::new();
+		let mut analyzed_source_analyzer = self.index_analyzer.clone();
+		let mut surface_source_analyzer = self.surface_index_analyzer.clone();
+		for (record_index, record) in records.iter().enumerate() {
+			check_deadline(deadline)?;
+			if remaining_spans == 0 {
+				complete = false;
+				break;
+			}
+			if candidates
+				.as_ref()
+				.is_some_and(|candidates| !candidates.contains(record.id.as_str()))
+			{
+				next_record = record_index + 1;
+				continue;
+			}
+			let mut seen_fields = HashSet::new();
+			let mut pending_values = Vec::new();
+			let mut found = HashSet::new();
+			let mut record_span_budget = remaining_spans;
+			let mut record_truncated = false;
+			let mut record_analysis_truncated = false;
+			for (field, source_values) in &record.fields {
+				if !seen_fields.insert(field.as_str()) {
+					return Err(FulltextError::invalid(format!("duplicate trace field {field}")));
+				}
+				if !self.field_lookup.contains_key(field) {
+					return Err(FulltextError::invalid(format!("unknown trace field {field}")));
+				}
+				if !selected_names.contains(field.as_str()) {
+					continue;
+				}
+				for (value_index, value) in source_values.iter().enumerate() {
+					check_deadline(deadline)?;
+					let (spans, terms, spans_truncated, analysis_truncated) = self.trace_value(
+						&plan,
+						value,
+						record_span_budget,
+						deadline,
+						&mut analyzed_source_analyzer,
+						&mut surface_source_analyzer,
+					)?;
+					record_truncated |= spans_truncated || analysis_truncated;
+					record_analysis_truncated |= analysis_truncated;
+					found.extend(terms);
+					if spans.is_empty() {
+						continue;
+					}
+					record_span_budget = record_span_budget.saturating_sub(spans.len());
+					pending_values.push((field.as_str(), value_index as u32, spans));
+				}
+			}
+			if record_truncated && !record_analysis_truncated && next_record > 0 {
+				complete = false;
+				break;
+			}
+			next_record = record_index + 1;
+			states.push((
+				record.id.clone(),
+				record_truncated && !record_analysis_truncated,
+				record_analysis_truncated,
+			));
+			complete &= !record_analysis_truncated;
+			if plan.record_matches(&found) {
+				complete &= !record_truncated;
+				if pending_values.is_empty() {
+					continue;
+				}
+				let record_header_bytes = 6usize.saturating_add(record.id.len());
+				let mut record_bytes = 0usize;
+				let mut values = Vec::new();
+				for (field, value_index, spans) in pending_values {
+					let value_header_bytes = 10usize.saturating_add(field.len());
+					let available = MAX_SEARCH_RESPONSE_BYTES
+						.saturating_sub(response_bytes)
+						.saturating_sub(record_header_bytes)
+						.saturating_sub(record_bytes);
+					let byte_limited_spans = available.saturating_sub(value_header_bytes) / 8;
+					let keep = spans.len().min(remaining_spans).min(byte_limited_spans);
+					if keep < spans.len() {
+						complete = false;
+					}
+					if keep == 0 {
+						continue;
+					}
+					values.push(TraceValueMatch {
+						field: field.to_owned(),
+						value_index,
+						spans: spans.into_iter().take(keep).collect(),
+					});
+					remaining_spans -= keep;
+					record_bytes = record_bytes.saturating_add(value_header_bytes + keep * 8);
+				}
+				if values.is_empty() {
+					continue;
+				}
+				response_bytes = response_bytes.saturating_add(record_header_bytes + record_bytes);
+				matched_records.push(TraceRecordMatch {
+					id: record.id.clone(),
+					values,
+				});
+			}
+		}
+		Ok(ProbeTrace {
+			trace: TraceResult {
+				complete,
+				records: matched_records,
+			},
+			next_record,
+			states,
+		})
+	}
 }

Acceptance criteria and remaining qualification

  • Add native and public Node-API regressions for the reproduction, completed/nonmatching input progress, exact-limit boundaries, oversized records and multi-value/multi-field text.
  • Qualify response-byte exhaustion and mixed token/span truncation; the diagnostic prototype has not established correct status for those paths.
  • Specify whether each reason permits retry, bounded partial highlights, or an explicit failure; incomplete match analysis must never become a false negative or complete: true.
  • Preserve source offsets, ordering and duplicate-free completed output; ensure progress or a terminal status on every resumable response.
  • Update the protocol/ABI and TypeScript contract compatibly, retain resource bounds, and test deadline/cancellation across recovery calls and shutdown.
  • Measure trace calls, repeated analysis, bytes and latency against splitting on representative batches. No performance improvement is claimed from the diagnostic tests.
  • Qualify a consumer integration that retains completed records and handles a single oversized record without a generic 500 solely for explicitly permitted highlight truncation. Any fail-closed behavior for incomplete match analysis must remain explicit.
  • Keep Boolean-expression tracing in Support Boolean search expressions in match tracing and snippets; it is a separate capability.

Evidence review

A tools-denied public Gemini 2.5 Pro CLI second reader checked this draft against the supplied public source, observed reproduction output, diagnostic patch and Rust test logs; it reported no unverifiable claims or contradictions. This was a static document/evidence review, not an independent execution or a production-fix review.

Tracking

Parent: Epic: Extend fulltext search capabilities beyond the initial wrapper API. Proposed type: Feature; priority P3 because this extends a documented bounded API and has no committed roadmap/release allocation. Effort: High, covering the native protocol, wrapper contract and subsequent consumer qualification. No milestone or assignee requested; no customer data or security incident involved.

Comment generated by kAIle (GPT-6); posted via @kylebernhardy.

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