Outcome & Attribution

Outcome

The outcome object captures the trace-level result and the confidence of the signal that set it:

Outcome fields are split by execution_context. Devtime agents (code-editing) use committed as the primary reward proxy. Runtime agents (action-trajectory / RL) use terminal_state and reward.

Devtime example:

{
  "outcome": {
    "success": true,
    "signal_source": "deterministic",
    "signal_confidence": "derived",
    "description": "Test passes after fix",
    "patch": "unified diff string",
    "committed": true,
    "commit_sha": "def789abc..."
  }
}

Runtime example:

{
  "outcome": {
    "terminal_state": "goal_reached",
    "reward": 1.0,
    "reward_source": "rl_environment",
    "signal_confidence": "derived"
  }
}

Fields

Committed as a Quality Signal

For devtime agents, a trace that results in a commit is higher-signal than one abandoned or reverted. The commit hash gives a deterministic anchor for replaying the patch and comparing later revisions.

For runtime agents, terminal_state and reward serve the equivalent role — ground truth from the environment.

Attribution

The attribution block records which files and line ranges were produced by the agent trace.

{
  "attribution": {
    "experimental": false,
    "revision": {
      "vcs_type": "git",
      "revision": "def789abc..."
    },
    "unaccounted_files": ["build/generated.ts"],
    "files": [
      {
        "path": "src/parser.ts",
        "conversations": [
          {
            "contributor": {
              "type": "ai",
              "model_id": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-20250514"
            },
            "url": "opentraces://trace/step_2",
            "ids": {
              "anthropic": "msg_01xyz"
            },
            "related": [
              {"type": "plan", "url": "opentraces://t/plan_3"}
            ],
            "ranges": [
              {
                "start_line": 42,
                "end_line": 55,
                "content_hash": "murmur3:9f2e8a1b...",
                "change_type": "modification",
                "original": {
                  "start_line": 42,
                  "end_line": 54,
                  "content_hash": "murmur3:abc123..."
                },
                "contributor": {
                  "type": "human",
                  "id": "alice"
                }
              }
            ]
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Attribution fields

AttributionConversation fields

AttributionRange fields

How Attribution Is Constructed

Attribution is built deterministically by a three-layer pipeline (plan 041):

1. PostToolUse hook — fires after each Edit/Write, reads the file from disk, and records the exact post-edit lines plus a murmur3: hash. Highest confidence.
2. Unified diff, when no hook event is present, the trace's diff is parsed to recover ranges. Medium confidence.
3. str.find fallback — last-resort textual match of tool output back to the file. Low confidence, always marked experimental: true.

These feed a common resolver that emits Agent Trace-compatible attribution records and, where possible, pins them to a specific commit via attribution.revision and the trace's git_links.

GitLink and the Evidence Tiers

A GitLink (entries in TraceRecord.git_links) records one commit this trace contributed to, annotated with how strong the evidence is.

{
  "git_links": [
    {
      "vcs_type": "git",
      "revision": "def789abc...",
      "repo_url": "https://github.com/org/repo",
      "branch": "main",
      "tier": "tool_emitted",
      "commit_reachable": true,
      "content_alive": true
    }
  ]
}

Evidence tiers

Consumers filter by tier to build training subsets of the desired signal quality. The four tiers, strongest to weakest:

Lifecycle: Provisional vs Final

TraceRecord.lifecycle gates when a trace is safe to treat as revision-anchored:

• "provisional", captured at trace end. git_links may be empty or speculative.
• "final" — the opentraces setup git post-commit hook has correlated this trace to at least one commit and pinned attribution.revision. Promoted exactly once; never downgraded.

Dataset consumers that want only revision-anchored traces should filter on lifecycle == "final" and then on git_links[].tier.

The Bridge

This field bridges trajectory (process) and attribution (output):

• conversation.url links each attributed range back to the step that produced it
• content_hash is a short stable hash for tracking attribution across refactors
• Traces that produce no code changes have attribution: null

Why Embed, Not Link

Embedding keeps the record self-contained. An opentraces record can say "here is the full conversation that produced these lines, including the reasoning, tool calls, and final diff."

Reserved RL Fields

The schema leaves room for:

• token ID sequences for RL training
• token log probabilities
• step-level reward annotations