[Avicennasis]

One fail-closed change on the packer, with a test that runs without a model or a GPU.

strata_pack.py build: an occupied --out is refused before anything is written

build() did out_dir.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True) (tools/strata_pack.py:207) and then wrote experts.bin (:229, through pack_layer.build, which opens it "wb"), dense.bin, embd.bin and manifest.json over whatever the directory held, with nothing said. A --out pointed at a finished pack - this tool's, or iq_pack.py's, whose dense.bin and experts.bin share names with this tool's - was overwritten in place, and a build that stopped partway left the old manifest.json describing the new, half-written files.

Now a manifest.json, index.txt or native_experts.txt in --out stops build before it opens the GGUF or writes a byte, naming the directory and the file, and returns 1 like the other refusals in build:

$ python tools/strata_pack.py build --gguf /nonexistent/m-00001-of-00002.gguf --out /tmp/sr6-cli.9RfT/pack --skip-hash
/tmp/sr6-cli.9RfT/pack already holds a pack (manifest.json is there) - refusing to build; delete the directory or pass another --out
exit 1

Those three are the files the engine reads a pack's identity from (src/core/expert_source.cpp:2289, the fingerprint), so "holds a pack" means the same thing to the tool and to the engine. experts.bin on its own does not count: build writes manifest.json last, so experts.bin without it is a build that did not finish, and it is rebuilt as before. An empty or absent directory proceeds as today. There is no resume to keep - pack_layer.build has no sidecar and rewrites experts.bin from the start - so none was invented. (The same rule in Swiftlet #41 and Colibri 41b4544: the manifest-equivalent is refused, and only an explicit install sidecar resumes.)

Where this meets setup: setup.py:3503 re-runs build when index.txt or experts.bin is missing from the pack directory. An interrupted conversion (no manifest.json yet) is rebuilt as before. A directory with a finished pack and no index.txt (pack_index.py interrupted after build finished), or with experts.bin deleted by hand, now stops setup at this message instead of rewriting the directory; deleting it and running setup again is the way through, and is what the rewrite did to it anyway. setup.py is not touched.

Test: tools/test_shards.py (python -m unittest tools.test_shards), with the GGUF reader replaced by a sentinel so "went on into the build" is observable without the model's shards: each of the three markers is refused with the path and the file named and the directory's contents untouched; an empty and an absent directory go on into the build; experts.bin without manifest.json goes on too.

What I ran, and where

Linux x86_64 (Ubuntu 24.04, AMD Ryzen 7 5800X - no AVX-512, no NVIDIA GPU), Python 3.12.3. Nothing under src/ is touched, so nothing was built.

• python -m unittest tools.test_shards: 10 tests OK (the 7 from setup: name a missing or short shard with its numbers; verify reads back the manifest sha256 #92 plus 3). Against main's tools/strata_pack.py with the same test file: 3 errors - every marker subtest, because the build goes on into the GGUF (the sentinel raises) instead of returning 1.
• python -m unittest tools.test_calibrate: 14 OK.
• git diff --check clean.

Branch is on 99f3dbd (0.1.38); happy to rebase if it has moved by the time you look.

[Niko1221]

Fixed in 0.1.40: strata_pack build refuses an output directory that already holds a pack, naming the file. build --force rebuilds into it, and setup passes --force when it rebuilds a pack that lost its index.txt or experts.bin.