Temporal Delta Compression

Temporal Delta Compression

Temporal delta compression reduces repeated terminal observations, not terminal execution.

The sequence

For an eligible large terminal result in balanced or aggressive mode:

1. the terminal command executes normally;
2. the exact current output is stored and verified in the vault;
3. Token Terminator finds the previous baseline for the same temporal identity;
4. it builds a unified diff or compact no-change receipt;
5. the candidate is accepted only if it is strictly smaller than the current raw output;
6. previous/current exact artifacts named by an accepted delta are protected from automatic GC.

The first observation usually establishes a baseline and is not reduced by the temporal path.

Identity

Temporal state includes command/workspace information and the configured scope:

• session keeps baselines within a session;
• workspace allows reuse across the same workspace identity.

The implementation still executes the command on every observation. A stale cached terminal result is not substituted for live execution.

Failure behavior

Missing baselines, missing artifacts, storage failures, malformed arguments, small results, or non-smaller deltas simply disable the temporal optimization for that result.

Async parity

v0.5.1 routes AsyncRuntime through the same temporal semantics as the synchronous runtime. The async façade retains cancellation-aware RTK subprocess behavior while avoiding a separate, divergent optimization policy.