Every Loop Has a Cap

Anvil may iterate, but no loop becomes an unbounded promise. Repeating modes carry hard max_rounds or max_legs values. Each seat turn gets bounded retries with backoff; a contestant that stays dead becomes withdrawn, and the remaining field continues.

Degradation is explicit rather than fatal by default. An Arena reduced to one surviving artifact becomes decided-by-default; a field with no artifact aborts. A judge that remains dead after bounded retries is replaced by a fresh random draw from the remaining participants. If the replacement pool empties, ballots that already landed still count, so the bench may continue with one judge; if nobody can produce a judgment, the run aborts.

Relay's leg cap and every round cap belong to the mode contract and trail. A “no meaningful improvement” declaration can end Relay early, while a hard cap prevents any quality threshold from extending it forever.

Rematch is not another hidden retry. Dad creates a fresh linked run explicitly, preserving the finalized or aborted predecessor and its full trail. Abort remains the general live-run exit and never deletes the failed history.

Bound the attempt, then record the degradation. Empty-field abort, withdrawal, single-judge continuation, decided-by-default, and fresh rematch are distinct outcomes.

Code

Bounded failure paths·python

MAX_ROUNDS = 3


def resolve(artifacts, ballots):
    """Every ending has a name. None of them is "quietly failed"."""
    if not artifacts:
        return "aborted:empty_field"
    if len(artifacts) == 1:
        return "decided_by_default"        # and recorded as such
    if not ballots:
        return "aborted:no_judgment"
    return "decided"


def run_rounds(field, judge):
    trail = []
    for rnd in range(1, MAX_ROUNDS + 1):   # the cap is inside the loop
        field = [a for a in field if judge(a)]
        trail.append({"round": rnd, "survivors": len(field)})
        if len(field) <= 1:
            break
    return field, trail


assert resolve([], []) == "aborted:empty_field"
assert resolve(["A"], []) == "decided_by_default"
assert resolve(["A", "B"], []) == "aborted:no_judgment"

survivors, trail = run_rounds(["A", "B", "C", "D"], lambda a: a < "C")
print(survivors, trail)

Every Loop Has a Cap

Every Loop Has a Cap

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