Optimization Hunt

Coordinates optimization attempts: captures baselines, implements changes, invokes review, and records all outcomes.

Role: Coordinator and Recorder

Hunt is the coordinator and recorder — it captures baselines, implements changes, hands off to review, and records all outcomes.

Hunt does NOT:

• Run post-change benchmarks (review does this)
• Make pass/fail decisions on optimizations (review does this)

Hunt DOES:

• Record all verdicts and outcomes in .claude/skills/lading-optimize-hunt/assets/db.yaml after review returns

Phase 0: Pre-flight

Run /lading-preflight.

Phase 1: Find Target

Run /lading-optimize-find-target.

It returns a YAML block with 6 fields: pattern, technique, target, file, bench, fingerprint - Print it out.

Phase 2: Establish Baseline

CRITICAL: Capture baseline metrics BEFORE making any code changes.

Identify the Benchmark Target

Use the bench and fingerprint fields from find-target's output — they are repo-relative paths ready to use:

BENCH=<bench field without extension>   # e.g. from "lading_payload/benches/syslog.rs" use "--bench syslog"
PAYLOADTOOL_CONFIG=<fingerprint field>  # e.g. "ci/fingerprints/syslog/lading.yaml"

Stage 1: Clear previous benchmarks

Clear any previously captured baselines so stale data cannot contaminate this run.

rm -f /tmp/criterion-baseline.log /tmp/baseline.json /tmp/baseline-mem.txt
rm -rf target/criterion

Stage 2: Micro-benchmark Baseline

Run only the benchmark for your target:

cargo criterion --bench "$BENCH" 2>&1 | tee /tmp/criterion-baseline.log

Stage 3: Macro-benchmark Baseline

Use the matching fingerprint config:

cargo build --release --bin payloadtool
hyperfine --warmup 3 --runs 30 --export-json /tmp/baseline.json \
  "./target/release/payloadtool $PAYLOADTOOL_CONFIG"

./target/release/payloadtool "$PAYLOADTOOL_CONFIG" --memory-stats 2>&1 | tee /tmp/baseline-mem.txt

Baseline captured. These files will be consumed by review:

• /tmp/criterion-baseline.log — micro-benchmark baseline
• /tmp/baseline.json — macro-benchmark timing baseline
• /tmp/baseline-mem.txt — macro-benchmark memory baseline

CRITICAL: All benchmarks must complete before continuing.

Phase 3: Implement

Make ONE change. Keep it focused and minimal.

Before proceeding, ALL changes must pass:

ci/validate

No exceptions. If ci/validate fails, fix the issue before continuing.

If ci/validate repeatedly fails on a pre-existing bug (not caused by your change), document it and stop.

Phase 4: Hand Off to Review

Run /lading-optimize-review with the target fields as positional arguments:

/lading-optimize-review <bench> <fingerprint> <file> <target> <technique>

Where:

• <bench> — benchmark name from find-target's bench field, without path or extension (e.g. trace_agent)
• <fingerprint> — repo-relative path from find-target's fingerprint field
• <file> — repo-relative path from find-target's file field
• <target> — function name from find-target's target field
• <technique> — technique from find-target's technique field

It returns a YAML report. Print it out.

Phase 5: Recording

After review returns its YAML report, record the result. Every outcome MUST be recorded.

Step 1: Write the Report

Write review's YAML report verbatim to .claude/skills/lading-optimize-hunt/assets/db/<id>.yaml. Do not modify, reformat, or add to the report content — it is the authoritative record from review.

Step 2: Update the Index

Add an entry to .claude/skills/lading-optimize-hunt/assets/db.yaml following the format in .claude/skills/lading-optimize-hunt/assets/index.template.yaml.