README.md

@@ -165,7 +165,7 @@ mechanisms, both required:
   walk each: measured on ext4 with a warm cache over a 78,554-entry tree, 44 ms
   per walk against 3,126 ms for the `cp -al` they guard — about 2.8%.
 
-**What this does and does not guarantee.** Three separate claims, deliberately
+**What this does and does not guarantee.** Four separate claims, deliberately
 not collapsed into one:
 
 - **A publisher rotating a snapshot cannot tear a clone of it — by
@@ -174,12 +174,20 @@ not collapsed into one:
   consumer that resolved the old generation, and on timeout it defers the
   unlink rather than forcing it. On this path the consumer's own verification
   is a redundant second check, not the thing holding the guarantee up.
+- **Nor can the eviction pass — by the same construction.** A cache chosen for
+  eviction is renamed aside and only then re-examined for readers, so the scan
+  the unlink rests on happens strictly after that rename, exactly as the
+  publisher's does. A consumer that resolved the directory published its
+  marker before the scan and so cannot be missed; one arriving after the
+  rename cannot resolve the path at all and starts cold instead. A cache
+  claimed inside that window is put back under its own name, and one whose
+  name a concurrent seed has taken in the meantime is left aside and reclaimed
+  by a later pass once its readers drain. Until this was structural it was
+  merely policy — snapshots belong to protected refs, protected refs are never
+  eviction candidates — which is a property held by vigilance rather than by
+  construction.
 - **Every other way the source can change mid-clone is detected, not
-  prevented.** The eviction pass's reader check is check-then-delete, so a
-  consumer publishing its marker inside that gap is narrowed but not excluded
-  — unreachable today only because snapshots belong to protected refs and
-  protected refs are never eviction candidates, which is policy rather than
-  structure. A `seed-fallback-dir` pointing at a directory something else
+  prevented.** A `seed-fallback-dir` pointing at a directory something else
   writes has no interlock at all. There, the per-attempt verification is what
   stands between a torn read and a corrupt cache: the clone is retried
   (`CACHE_CLONE_ATTEMPTS`, default 4) and then **fails the job loudly** —
@@ -190,7 +198,10 @@ not collapsed into one:
   outright holds it until its marker passes `reader-stale-seconds`. The
   residual is capped at one deferred generation per publisher ref, and its
   real cost is close to inode count rather than byte count, since the
-  artifacts are hardlinked to whatever cloned them.
+  artifacts are hardlinked to whatever cloned them. A declined eviction is
+  bounded the same way: the cache stays, either under its own name or aside
+  awaiting the next pass, and is never unlinked under the job that claimed
+  it.
 
 **Eviction** runs three passes: caches for branches that no longer exist on
 origin are removed unconditionally; then, only if free space is under the
@@ -308,7 +319,7 @@ bash scripts/selftest.sh --fast   # fixture-only suites, no compiler
 | `hardlink-clone-selftest.sh` | that a build in a clone cannot mutate its source — with a control proving a raw `cp -al` does. Needs a real compiler. |
 | `seed-target-dir-selftest.sh` | seed-source preference, lock-file stripping, two jobs racing on one cache key, **and a seed racing a publisher's rotation of the source it is reading** — the race that actually truncates a tree |
 | `publish-snapshot-selftest.sh` | the atomic swap, that a live consumer survives a republish, and the publisher's side of the rotation race: deferred reclamation under a live reader, and its sweep once the reader is gone |
-| `prune-cache-selftest.sh` | liveness, protection, locking, eviction order, self-clear — against a real scratch `origin` |
+| `prune-cache-selftest.sh` | liveness, protection, locking, eviction order, self-clear, **and that a cache a job claims *inside* the check-to-unlink window survives it** — against a real scratch `origin` |
 | `restore-mtimes-selftest.sh` | the merge hazard and the watermark that closes it, including the two-jobs-one-namespace case. Needs a real compiler. |
 
 Every suite runs the actual script, not a reimplementation of its logic, and

scripts/prune-cache-selftest.sh

@@ -29,6 +29,15 @@
 #   9. OWN CACHE NEVER EVICTED by a sibling pass.
 #  10. SCOPED TO THE CACHE ROOT — a decoy outside it (standing in for another
 #      project's volume) is never touched.
+#  11. A LIVE READER MARKER PROTECTS A CACHE the same way a lock file does — a
+#      directory somebody is hardlink-cloning this instant is not a candidate,
+#      however dead and however tight the disk.
+#  12. AND SO DOES ONE PUBLISHED INSIDE THE CHECK-TO-UNLINK WINDOW, which is
+#      the property a check-then-delete eviction does NOT have. This is the
+#      one that fails against the pre-fix script.
+#  13. A DEFERRED EVICTION IS RECLAIMED, but not while its reader is live.
+#      Nothing else globs a dotted name, so an unswept one is disk lost for
+#      good on the volume whose whole problem is disk.
 set -euo pipefail
 script_dir=$(cd "$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")" && pwd)
 . "$script_dir/cache-lib.sh"
@@ -112,7 +121,7 @@ mk "snapshot-$LIVE" '2020-01-02'
 # evictable — which is what makes the ORDER the observable property here, not
 # what survives. Assert the eviction order directly from the log.
 run_prune "1000000 1000"
-order=$(grep -o "evicting \(target\|snapshot\)-$LIVE" "$scratch/log" | sed "s/evicting //")
+order=$(grep -o "evicted \(target\|snapshot\)-$LIVE" "$scratch/log" | sed "s/evicted //")
 [ "$(printf '%s\n' "$order" | head -1)" = "target-$LIVE" ] \
   || fail "expected target-$LIVE to be evicted before snapshot-$LIVE, got: $order"
 ok "target dirs are evicted before snapshots"
@@ -170,5 +179,59 @@ decoy="$scratch/other-project"; mkdir -p "$decoy/target-$DEAD"; touch "$decoy/ta
 run_prune "1000000 1000"
 assert_kept "$decoy/target-$DEAD" "a cache outside the cache root is never touched"
 
+echo
+echo "=== 11: a live reader marker protects a cache, like a lock file does ==="
+reset_cache
+date +%s > "$root/.reading-target-$DEAD-job1"
+run_prune "1000000 1000"
+assert_kept "$root/target-$DEAD" "a cache being hardlink-cloned right now survives both passes"
+assert_log "currently cloning it" "the reader is named in the log, not silently honoured"
+rm -f "$root/.reading-target-$DEAD-job1"
+
+echo
+echo "=== 12: a reader marker published INSIDE the check-to-unlink window ==="
+reset_cache
+# A consumer publishes its marker whenever it starts a clone, which can be at
+# any instant — including after the pass has checked for markers and before it
+# unlinks. That window is real time, not a theoretical interleaving: `du -sk`
+# on a multi-GB cache runs for seconds, and the pass runs one on every
+# candidate. It is reproduced deterministically here by making that very `du`
+# publish the marker, which places it strictly after the check and strictly
+# before the unlink — exactly where a check-then-delete eviction cannot see
+# it. The candidate must still be standing afterwards, with its contents
+# intact and nothing left renamed aside.
+mkdir -p "$scratch/bin"
+real_du=$(command -v du)
+cat > "$scratch/bin/du" <<EOF
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+for arg; do
+  case "\$arg" in */target-$DEAD) date +%s > "$root/.reading-target-$DEAD-racer" ;; esac
+done
+exec "$real_du" "\$@"
+EOF
+chmod +x "$scratch/bin/du"
+( PATH="$scratch/bin:$PATH"; run_prune "1000000 900000" )
+[ -e "$root/.reading-target-$DEAD-racer" ] || fail "the racing marker was never published — scenario 12 proves nothing"
+assert_kept "$root/target-$DEAD" "a cache claimed inside the eviction window is not unlinked"
+assert_kept "$root/target-$DEAD/blob" "the reprieved cache still has its contents"
+assert_log "restored, not evicted" "the reprieve is reported, not silent"
+[ -z "$(ls -d "$root"/.evicting-* 2>/dev/null)" ] || fail "an aside directory was left behind after the reprieve"
+ok "nothing left renamed aside once the eviction is declined"
+rm -f "$root/.reading-target-$DEAD-racer"
+
+echo
+echo "=== 13: a deferred eviction is reclaimed, but not under a live reader ==="
+reset_cache
+aside="$root/.evicting-target-$DEAD-9999"
+mkdir -p "$aside"; head -c 4096 /dev/zero > "$aside/blob"
+date +%s > "$root/.reading-target-$DEAD-job1"
+run_prune "1000000 900000"
+assert_kept "$aside" "a deferred eviction is not reclaimed while a job is still reading it"
+assert_log "deferring its reclamation again" "the continued deferral is reported"
+rm -f "$root/.reading-target-$DEAD-job1"
+run_prune "1000000 900000"
+assert_gone "$aside" "a deferred eviction is reclaimed once its reader is gone"
+assert_log "reclaiming deferred eviction" "the reclamation is reported"
+
 echo
 echo "prune-cache-selftest: ${pass_count} assertions passed"

scripts/prune-cache.sh

@@ -57,6 +57,11 @@
 #   actually-still-running job that somehow exceeds the threshold is visible
 #   in the log rather than silently losing its cache mid-build.
 #
+#   That exclusion is decided TWICE per eviction — once as the cheap filter
+#   that keeps a held directory out of the pass at all, and once after the
+#   directory has been renamed aside, which is the decision the unlink
+#   actually rests on. See evict_dir.
+#
 # Liveness is resolved by `git ls-remote --heads origin`, wrapped in a
 # timeout. A directory name cannot be inverted back to a branch name (the
 # sanitiser is lossy and the disambiguating suffix is a one-way hash), so this
@@ -93,34 +98,90 @@ is_protected() {
   return 1
 }
 
+# is_locked <dir> [name]
+#
+# `name` is the directory's own name for reporting and for the reader-marker
+# lookup, which matters when <dir> has been renamed aside for eviction: the
+# markers a consumer publishes are keyed on the name it resolved, not on
+# whatever the eviction pass has since called the directory.
 is_locked() {
-  local dir="$1" now lock_file lock_age locked=1 readers
+  local dir="$1" name="${2:-$(basename "$1")}" now lock_file lock_age locked=1 readers
   now=$(date +%s)
   # A directory being hardlink-cloned right now carries no .ci-lock-* of its
   # own — a snapshot has its locks stripped by construction — so the reader
   # markers are the only signal that unlinking it would truncate somebody's
   # in-flight clone. Today no reachable configuration prunes a snapshot (only
   # protected refs publish them, and protected refs are excluded from every
-  # pass), which makes this guard redundant *by policy*. It is here so that
-  # stops being the reason it is safe.
-  readers=$(live_reader_count "$ROOT" "$(basename "$dir")")
+  # pass), which makes this guard redundant *by policy* — evict_dir's second
+  # look is what stops policy being the reason it is safe.
+  readers=$(live_reader_count "$ROOT" "$name")
   if [ "$readers" -gt 0 ]; then
-    echo "  $(basename "$dir"): ${readers} job(s) currently cloning it — not a candidate"
+    echo "  ${name}: ${readers} job(s) currently cloning it — not a candidate"
     locked=0
   fi
   for lock_file in "$dir"/.ci-lock-*; do
     [ -e "$lock_file" ] || continue
     lock_age=$(( now - $(stat -c '%Y' "$lock_file") ))
     if [ "$lock_age" -lt "$STALE_LOCK_SECONDS" ]; then
-      echo "  $(basename "$dir"): held open by $(basename "$lock_file") (${lock_age}s old)"
+      echo "  ${name}: held open by $(basename "$lock_file") (${lock_age}s old)"
       locked=0
     else
-      echo "  $(basename "$dir"): ignoring stale lock $(basename "$lock_file") (${lock_age}s old > ${STALE_LOCK_SECONDS}s) — treating as abandoned"
+      echo "  ${name}: ignoring stale lock $(basename "$lock_file") (${lock_age}s old > ${STALE_LOCK_SECONDS}s) — treating as abandoned"
     fi
   done
   return "$locked"
 }
 
+# evict_dir <dir>
+#
+# Unlinks <dir>, or declines to and says why. Returns 0 only if the directory
+# is actually gone.
+#
+# The caller has already established that <dir> is a candidate, which is not
+# the same as establishing that it is still one at the instant of the unlink:
+# a consumer publishes its reader marker whenever it starts a clone, and the
+# `du` that measures the directory between those two points runs for seconds
+# on a multi-GB tree. Unlinking under a live clone truncates it silently —
+# `cp -al` never reports a subtree that was removed before it read the
+# parent's listing (see cache-lib.sh's reader-marker section).
+#
+# So the directory is renamed aside first and only then re-examined, which is
+# what makes the second look conclusive rather than merely closer to the
+# unlink. It is publish-snapshot.sh's rotation, and it rests on the same
+# ordering proof: a consumer publishes its marker BEFORE it resolves the
+# source path, so one that resolved this directory did so before the rename
+# and therefore published its marker before the scan below, which happens
+# strictly after that rename. A consumer arriving after the rename cannot
+# resolve the path at all and falls through to its own cold-start path — the
+# same safe degrade the publisher's swap window already produces.
+#
+# The rename disturbs nothing already in flight: it unlinks no entry and
+# leaves the source inode unchanged, which is precisely why the publish side
+# can rotate a snapshot out from under a live reader. A declined eviction
+# therefore costs a deferred eviction and nothing else.
+evict_dir() {
+  local dir="$1" name aside
+  name=$(basename "$dir")
+  aside="${ROOT}/.evicting-${name}-$$"
+
+  mv -T "$dir" "$aside" 2>/dev/null || {
+    echo "  ${name}: could not be set aside for eviction — skipped this pass"
+    return 1
+  }
+
+  if is_locked "$aside" "$name"; then
+    if mv -T "$aside" "$dir" 2>/dev/null; then
+      echo "  ${name}: claimed by a job while its eviction was in flight — restored, not evicted"
+    else
+      echo "::warning::prune: ${name} was claimed mid-eviction and its own name is occupied again — leaving $(basename "$aside") for a later pass to reclaim once its readers drain"
+    fi
+    return 1
+  fi
+
+  rm -rf "$aside"
+  return 0
+}
+
 # Directories oldest-first, target-* before snapshot-* (see the header).
 # The sort key is a rank digit followed by a zero-padded mtime, so the two
 # groups sort as blocks rather than interleaving by age. `.cache-last-used`
@@ -141,6 +202,28 @@ list_by_lru() {
   done | sort | cut -f2-
 }
 
+# Deferred reclamations from an earlier pass: a directory renamed aside for
+# eviction that could not be unlinked, because a job claimed it inside the
+# window and its own name was occupied again before it could be restored — or
+# whose run was killed between the rename and the unlink. Nothing below would
+# ever see one: every pass globs target-*/snapshot-*, which a dotted name does
+# not match. Left unswept it is permanently unreclaimable disk on the one
+# volume whose entire problem is disk.
+#
+# Safe under a concurrent pass mid-eviction for the reason evict_dir is: the
+# aside name only exists after that pass's rename, so a consumer that resolved
+# the directory published its marker before the count below.
+for aside in "$ROOT"/.evicting-*; do
+  [ -d "$aside" ] || continue
+  aside_name=$(basename "$aside"); aside_name="${aside_name#.evicting-}"; aside_name="${aside_name%-*}"
+  if [ "$(live_reader_count "$ROOT" "$aside_name")" -gt 0 ]; then
+    echo "prune: $(basename "$aside") is still being read — deferring its reclamation again"
+    continue
+  fi
+  echo "prune: reclaiming deferred eviction $(basename "$aside")"
+  rm -rf "$aside"
+done
+
 echo "=== pass 1: liveness (unconditional, not gated on free space) ==="
 declare -A live_ns=()
 LIVENESS_AVAILABLE=0
@@ -174,9 +257,9 @@ if [ "$LIVENESS_AVAILABLE" = "1" ]; then
     [ -n "${live_ns[$name]:-}" ] && continue
     is_locked "$dir" && continue
     dir_gb=$(usage_gb "$dir")
-    echo "::warning::pruning dead-branch cache ${name} (${dir_gb} GB) — no matching branch on origin"
+    evict_dir "$dir" || continue
+    echo "::warning::pruned dead-branch cache ${name} (${dir_gb} GB) — no matching branch on origin"
     summary_line "- pruned dead-branch cache \`${name}\` (${dir_gb} GB) — branch no longer exists on origin"
-    rm -rf "$dir"
     pruned_any=1
   done
   [ "$pruned_any" = "1" ] || echo "no dead-branch caches found"
@@ -207,9 +290,9 @@ for dir in "${LRU[@]}"; do
   [ "$FREE_KB" -ge "$THRESHOLD_KB" ] && break
   is_locked "$dir" && continue
   dir_gb=$(usage_gb "$dir")
-  echo "::warning::evicting $(basename "$dir") (${dir_gb} GB, LRU under disk pressure)"
+  evict_dir "$dir" || continue
+  echo "::warning::evicted $(basename "$dir") (${dir_gb} GB, LRU under disk pressure)"
   summary_line "- evicted \`$(basename "$dir")\` (${dir_gb} GB, LRU under disk pressure)"
-  rm -rf "$dir"
 done
 
 read -r TOTAL_KB FREE_KB <<< "$(read_df "$ROOT")"