ThothII/.superpowers/sdd/pgvector-task-3-report.md

Task 3 report — optional local pgvector profile

Status

Implemented and verified the local-vector Compose profile.

• vector-db uses pgvector 0.8.5 on PostgreSQL 16, pinned to the official multi-arch manifest digest.
• vector_data is a project-scoped named volume and is not shared with application data.
• database readiness gates the packaged one-shot vector-migrate job; core declares the migration completion dependency while remaining usable in the pre-existing external profile.
• bootstrap, migrator, reader, and writer identities are distinct. Bootstrap and migration credentials are supplied as Compose secrets; the application receives only reader/writer credentials.
• deploy/workspaces/local-vector.yaml selects pgvector_direct with separate reader and writer connections.
• the base loopback port binding, AUTH_MODE=none, and THOTH_PUBLIC_EXPOSURE=false defaults are unchanged.

Red/green evidence

The initial Compose contract did not list vector-db, as required by the brief. The first real smoke then failed migration 002 because bootstrap installed the vector extension in public. The bootstrap was corrected to create the vectors schema under the migration owner and install the extension there. A clean-volume rerun passed.

Verification

• ./scripts/local-vector-smoke.sh: PASS
  • isolated generated Compose project and credentials
  • clean migration plus idempotent status rerun
  • reader/writer privilege health
  • one-record upsert and similarity search
  • restart of both core and vector-db
  • persisted search result after restart
  • project-only volume cleanup
• ./scripts/test-container-deployment.sh: PASS
• ./scripts/test-backend-url-policy.sh: PASS
• docker compose --profile local-vector config --quiet: PASS
• harness: 477 passed, 5 deselected
• backend: 84 passed; TypeScript typecheck PASS
• frontend: 226 passed; TypeScript typecheck PASS
• git diff --check: PASS

Self-review / concerns

• Compose cannot make a dependency required only under one profile. The core dependency uses required: false so the established external profile does not activate local infrastructure; under local-vector, compose up --wait still fails if vector-migrate exits nonzero, and the smoke verifies that successful migration precedes the healthy stack.
• Reader/writer passwords are injected into core environment variables because Compose service attributes cannot be conditional by profile. Bootstrap and migrator credentials remain file-backed secrets and are never exposed to core.
• The smoke intentionally refuses the operator project name thothii and removes only its unique project namespace and volumes.

Follow-up hardening — credential reconciliation and cleanup ownership

Review findings were resolved in a separate follow-up:

• Replaced fresh-volume-only initialization with vector-reconcile, an idempotent one-shot that runs after database health and before vector-migrate. It authenticates with only the bootstrap admin secret, safely creates missing identities, reconciles role attributes and passwords on existing volumes, restores memberships/ownership, and leaves vector data untouched.
• The migrator is explicitly NOSUPERUSER NOCREATEDB NOCREATEROLE. Schema/database ownership is sufficient for all packaged migrations because reconciliation creates the two group roles first.
• The live smoke rotates migrator, reader, and writer secrets on the same populated volume, rejects the old reader credential, reruns migrations, recreates core with the new runtime credentials, and retrieves the record written before rotation and again after database/core restart.
• Smoke project names are no longer caller-controlled. Each run creates a unique namespace and ownership token. Containers, networks, and volumes carry the ownership label; preflight refuses any collision and cleanup verifies every discovered resource before down --volumes.
• Added a dynamic fake-Docker contract suite for caller override, collision, and mismatched cleanup labels, plus a real-Docker collision probe using a unique labeled volume.

Follow-up verification:

• ./scripts/local-vector-smoke.sh: PASS, including live secret rotation and persisted retrieval
• ./scripts/test-local-vector-smoke-safety.sh: PASS
• ./scripts/test-local-vector-smoke-live-collision.sh: PASS
• harness: 477 passed, 5 deselected
• backend: 84 passed; TypeScript typecheck PASS
• frontend: 226 passed; TypeScript typecheck PASS
• Compose security, backend URL, config, shell syntax, and diff checks: PASS

Remaining operational constraint: the bootstrap admin secret must continue to match the PostgreSQL bootstrap account stored in the volume. Runtime migrator/reader/writer rotation is supported without data deletion; bootstrap-account password rotation is a distinct database-administration operation.

Final hardening — bootstrap account rotation

The remaining operational constraint is now covered by scripts/vector-rotate-bootstrap-password.sh OLD_SECRET_FILE NEW_SECRET_FILE:

• It does not rely on POSTGRES_PASSWORD_FILE after initialization.
• It pre-stages the deployment-file replacement in the same directory, authenticates to the live database with the explicit old file, and changes only the authenticated bootstrap role.
• Passwords are passed as connection parameters and rendered with psycopg2 SQL composition, so shell and SQL metacharacters are not interpolated.
• A second connection must authenticate with the new password before the command succeeds. If that verification fails, the still-open old connection restores the old database password.
• Only after verified database login does an atomic rename replace the current deployment secret. Wrong-old authentication and verification failures leave deployment configuration unchanged.

Final live smoke evidence on one existing vector_data volume:

• wrong-old bootstrap rotation rejected; current deployment secret unchanged
• bootstrap password with quote characters rotated successfully
• old bootstrap login rejected and new login accepted
• vector-reconcile, packaged migrations, and core health passed afterward
• the vector record written before rotation remained searchable after rotation and after a further database/core restart

Final tests:

• ./scripts/test-vector-bootstrap-rotation.sh: PASS
• ./scripts/local-vector-smoke.sh: PASS with negative and positive live bootstrap rotation
• existing local-vector collision/safety and Compose deployment contracts: PASS