ADR-0015: AISME Phase 7 — Synaptic Relay Wiring & Pathway Configuration¶

1. Context¶

Phases 1 through 6 of AISME developed specialized cognitive subsystems: homeostatic regulation, free-energy scoring, Hopfield associative memory, neural manifold distance, predictive self-modeling, and continuity evaluation. Phase 7 integrates these decoupled components into Spector's core RecallPathway and RememberPathway execution pipelines via composable synaptic relays.

2. Problem Statement¶

Individual cognitive kernels remained isolated without an end-to-end wiring harness. Hardcoding relay execution order would violate Spector's modularity principles, while uncoordinated relay chaining risks compounding query latencies. We need a declarative, zero-overhead pipeline wiring architecture.

3. Decision Drivers¶

• Declarative Pipeline Sequencing: Order of synaptic relay execution must be configurable per tenant namespace.
• Zero Allocation on Hot Paths: Relay execution must pass mutable RecallSignal and IngestSignal handles without creating intermediate wrapper objects.
• Fail-Safe Bypass: If any experimental cognitive relay fails or exceeds its latency SLA, the pipeline must fail-open to standard vector retrieval.
• Strict Latency Budget: Cumulative relay pipeline overhead must remain < 0.25ms at 10K candidates.

4. Considered Options¶

Option 1: Java Reflection & Dynamic Invocation¶

• Description: Configure pipeline stages via reflection using class names specified in properties.
• Advantages: Fully decoupled dynamic loading.
• Disadvantages: High invocation overhead, lack of compiler type-safety, and issues with native image compilation.

Option 2: Pre-Compiled Direct Relay Chain (Selected)¶

• Description: Implement a statically typed, array-indexed pipeline runner executing pre-compiled relay chains: $\(\text{Input} \xrightarrow{\text{Transduce}} \text{HomeostaticBias} \xrightarrow{\text{Scan}} \text{ManifoldDistance} \xrightarrow{\text{HopfieldAssociator}} \text{FreeEnergyRerank} \rightarrow \text{Output}\)$ Configured declaratively in spector-config using immutable builder records.

• Advantages: Zero reflection overhead; branch-predicted sequential execution; JIT inlining; sub-microsecond step transitions.

• Disadvantages: Adding new relays requires registering them in the canonical relay catalog.

5. Decision Outcome¶

Chosen Option: Option 2 (Pre-Compiled Direct Relay Chain).

Positive Consequences¶

• End-to-end cognitive memory execution in < 0.5ms.
• Clean separation of concerns between individual relay logic and pipeline orchestration.
• Declarative configuration via spector-config property trees.

Negative Consequences & Trade-offs¶

• Modifying relay sequence requires updating the pipeline configuration builder.

6. Pros and Cons of the Options¶

7. Implementation Plan¶

1. Phase 1: Define SynapticRelay interface with process(Signal) contract in memory/spector-memory/pathway/relay.
2. Phase 2: Implement canonical relay pipeline sequence in RecallPathway.
3. Phase 3: Add declarative configuration properties in spector-config under spector.memory.pathway.relays.
4. Phase 4: Validate end-to-end integration with JMH micro-benchmarks.

8. Code Reference & Verification¶

• Primary Module(s): memory/spector-memory, nucleus/spector-config
• Key Packages: com.spectrayan.spector.memory.pathway.relay, com.spectrayan.spector.config.pathway
• Classes: SynapticRelay.java, RecallPathway.java, PathwayPipelineBuilder.java, PathwayConfig.java
• Verification Tests: SynapticRelayWiringTest.java, EndToEndPathwayIntegrationTest.java