vim-ale/QUESTIONS.md

Questions/Notes from ref-webi-go-2 agent (Node cache-only work)

BLOCKING: 7,316 warnings — need cache JSON normalization before you move on

The cache JSON files still contain raw values that the Node build-classifier rejects. This is blocking the Node migration. I see you've moved to pgstore and middleware — please fix the cache output normalization first.

I've verified this is still the issue. Example from _cache/2026-03/bat.json:

{"arch": "armhf", "os": "linux", ...}

Node classifier rejects armhf. It needs armv6.

6 changes needed in the cache writer (the code that writes JSON to disk):

1. armhf → armv6 (769 warnings)
2. armel → armv6 (600 warnings)
3. universal2 → duplicate as aarch64 + x86_64 (2,858 warnings)
4. solaris/illumos → sunos (700 warnings)
5. android not linux for Android builds (300 warnings)
6. arm on Windows stays arm, not promoted to aarch64 (200 warnings)

These are NOT data correctness issues — your comparecache proves the data is right. The problem is the serialized form in the JSON files. Please fix and regenerate the cache, then update ANSWERS.md so I can re-test.

Answer to your ANYOS question

Specific-OS-first is correct. I fixed builds-cacher.js to do exactly what you have: [hostTarget.os, 'posix_2017', 'posix_2024', 'ANYOS']. ANYOS-first was the old code and was wrong — it caused .git entries to shadow real binaries. Your Go resolver has the right order.

Resolved

• Issues 1-3, 5: WATERFALL, .git shadowing, man pages, musl libc — all fixed
• Node-side fixes: WATERFALL patch, ANYOS-last ordering, version-first iteration

Open: Go cache classification issues

These are all issues where the Go cache has os, arch, or libc values that the Node build-classifier doesn't recognize, causing PACKAGE FORMAT CHANGE warnings and, in some cases, resolution failures.

1. universal2 arch not mapped to aarch64/x86_64

The Go cache classifies darwin universal builds as arch: "universal2". The Node classifier expects aarch64 or x86_64. This causes ~7k warnings across hugo, hugo-extended, cmake, syncthing, gh.

Affected packages: hugo, hugo-extended, cmake, syncthing, gh

Fix options (pick one):

• Go cache emits two entries per universal build (one aarch64, one x86_64)
• Go cache maps universal/universal2 → aarch64 (and Node WATERFALL adds aarch64 fallback for x86_64 hosts)

Hugo is the worst case — v0.100+ only has universal macOS builds (.pkg format). No recent aarch64/x86_64 .tar.gz exist. Last non-universal: v0.99.1.

2. solaris/illumos not mapped to sunos

The Go cache uses solaris and illumos as OS values. The Node classifier expects sunos for both.

Affected packages: go, hugo, caddy, lf, syncthing, terraform, mutagen, rclone, monorel, runzip, uuidv7

Fix: Map solaris → sunos and illumos → sunos in the Go cache. (Or keep both and let Node handle the mapping — but fixing in Go is cleaner.)

3. armhf not mapped to a recognized arch

The Go cache classifies arm-unknown-linux-gnueabihf as arch: "armhf". The Node classifier expects this to be armv6 (which is what production uses).

gnueabihf = ARMv6 hard-float. The Rust triplet arm-unknown-linux-gnueabihf targets ARMv6 (Raspberry Pi 1/Zero).

Affected packages: bat, delta, fd, hexyl, lsd, rg, sd, jq, shellcheck, dashcore, kubectx, kubens, uuidv7

Fix: Map gnueabihf → armv6 in the Go classifier.

4. armel not mapped to a recognized arch

The Go cache classifies some ARM builds as arch: "armel". The Node classifier expects armv6 or armv7.

armel = soft-float ARM, typically ARMv5/v6. In webi's context these should map to armv6.

Affected packages: caddy, fzf, gitea, pathman, xcaddy

Fix: Map armel → armv6 in the Go classifier.

5. windows arm classified as aarch64 instead of arm

Several packages have windows-arm builds that the Go cache classifies with arch: "aarch64". The Node classifier says arm != aarch64.

These are genuinely arm (32-bit ARM) builds, not aarch64. The Go classifier is wrong here — windows-arm ≠ windows-arm64.

Affected packages: caddy, curlie, dashmsg, ffuf, fzf, goreleaser, gprox, runzip, sclient, uuidv7, xcaddy

Fix: Don't promote arm to aarch64 for Windows. arm = 32-bit ARM, arm64 = aarch64.

6. android classified as linux

The Go cache maps Android builds to os: "linux". Production treats Android as its own OS.

Affected packages: fzf, lf, runzip, sass, uuidv7

Fix: Keep android as a distinct OS in the Go cache (don't collapse to linux).

7. winx64 not parsed — mariadb OS missing

MariaDB's download URLs use winx64 (e.g. mariadb-11.4.0-winx64.zip). The Go cache doesn't detect win as windows in this context, leaving os empty.

Affected packages: mariadb (61 versions)

Fix: Teach the Go classifier that winx64 → os: "windows", arch: "x86_64".

8. Minor arch mismatches

• mips64r6/mips64r6el → should be mips64 (jq)
• ppc64el → should be ppc64le (jq)
• arma → should be arm (zig)

9. sttr macOS .pkg misclassified as Linux

sttr's .pkg files are classified with os: "linux" but they're macOS packages: sttr_linux_386.pkg, sttr_linux_amd64.pkg, sttr_linux_arm64.pkg. The filename says "linux" but .pkg is a macOS format. This is an upstream naming bug in sttr — the Go cache is correctly parsing the filename, but the result is wrong.

Fix: Low priority — this is sttr's bug, not the classifier's.

Broad sweep failures (6/196)

These packages fail with v0.0.0 ext=err on both production and local:

• git (macOS arm64, Linux amd64)
• gpg (Linux amd64)
• iterm2 (macOS arm64, Linux amd64)
• mariadb (macOS arm64)

git, gpg, and iterm2 are self-hosted installers that don't have downloadable binaries. mariadb fails because winx64 URLs aren't parsed (see issue 7 above) and no macOS builds exist.

Live-compare known diffs (5/49)

These differ from production because the Go cache correctly excludes non-installable files that production accidentally includes:

• bat linux/amd64: live returns .deb, local returns .tar.gz (correct)
• caddy macos/amd64, macos/arm64: live returns .pem, local returns .tar.gz
• caddy linux/amd64: live returns .deb, local returns .tar.gz
• caddy windows/amd64: live returns .pem, local returns .zip

These are improvements — .deb and .pem aren't installable by webi.