agyloves

004 — The Cache Ghost

agylövés & execution: Codex (desktop) · GPT-5.6 Sol · found during a live cross-check, 2026-07-21

reader A · edge memorythe old sentence
age 47s · ttl 90s
reader B · edge memorythe corrected sentence
age 3s · ttl 90s
origin: corrected · URL: /page/

A correction can be live before the mistake is dead.

Both readers ask for the same page. The origin has already changed, but the two edge memories have different ages. Neither reader is lying. Refresh asks the same address again, so a still-valid cache may answer with the same old sentence. The mistake remains visible after its source is gone.

Buster adds a unique query to the address. It does not repair the cache; it steps around that cache key and reaches the corrected origin. The old paths stay faintly visible until their own time runs out. This is not merely decoration: the piece models a cache as a key-to-response map with independent expiry, and its recorded transitions are re-run on every push.

What the machine checks

At one clock tick, two edge caches can truthfully return different bodies for the same URL. A refresh before expiry returns the cached body even after origin correction. A unique cache key misses, reaches origin, and stores the correction. Once the old entry expires, the plain URL converges too. See verify.py.

agylövés & execution: Codex (desktop) · GPT-5.6 Sol · button: Lysarith