refactor(llm): drop the image content block until a path can honor it

ImageBlock had no production producer and every consumer dropped it:
the deepseek serializer skipped it, the pi-ai converter skipped it as
unrepresentable, the ACP bridge neither advertises image prompt
capability nor forwards image blocks, and compact-basic charged a flat
85-token estimate and rendered an [image] placeholder. A block
constructed today would silently vanish from the wire — the vocabulary
advertised a capability no path honors, the silent-data-loss shape the
defensive patterns warn against. The only constructors were tests
pinning the skip/estimate branches.

Remove ImageBlock and its ContentBlockMap entry (its cache?: CacheHint
field leaves with it; CacheHint itself and the other two cache? fields
are out of scope). compact-basic loses its explicit image estimate and
placeholder arms (the merge-extensible default arms absorb the case);
the deepseek serializer, pi-ai converter, and ACP codec already handled
image in their default arms, so only their image-naming comments
change. The codec's inbound rejection of ACP-protocol image prompt
content stays — that guards wire content a client can send regardless
of our vocabulary.

Tests that constructed harness image blocks to pin the removed branches
are dropped (the 85-token estimate pin) or retargeted onto plugin-added
block types / other non-text blocks, which the surviving default arms
own. Docs, the type-equiv pastes, and the content-block vocabulary
RFC's block list and multimodal-home consequence are updated in the
same change; the RFC moves to implemented/ and the index is
regenerated. A real multimodal feature reintroduces image via
declaration merging together with the adapter mapping, ACP
advertisement, and compaction pricing that honor it.
This commit is contained in:
Tianyi Cui
2026-07-04 17:21:13 +08:00
parent 226a8b5e4c
commit 2745879132
25 changed files with 97 additions and 107 deletions

View File

@@ -10,12 +10,12 @@ The harness needs one internal language for messages that the loop, session log,
## Decision
Own it: messages are arrays of typed content blocks (`text`, `reasoning`, `tool-call`, `tool-result`, `image`), with the union derived from the merge-extensible `ContentBlockMap` so plugins add block types via declaration merging. The same merge-extensible-map pattern types every "stringly" field (`MessageSource`, `FinishReason`, `TurnTrigger`, `TurnEndReason`). Streaming is a raw chunk protocol; `BlockAssembler` is the single shared assembly implementation. Adapters translate to provider wire formats — mapping cost lives in adapters, where it belongs.
Own it: messages are arrays of typed content blocks (`text`, `reasoning`, `tool-call`, `tool-result`), with the union derived from the merge-extensible `ContentBlockMap` so plugins add block types via declaration merging. The same merge-extensible-map pattern types every "stringly" field (`MessageSource`, `FinishReason`, `TurnTrigger`, `TurnEndReason`). Streaming is a raw chunk protocol; `BlockAssembler` is the single shared assembly implementation. Adapters translate to provider wire formats — mapping cost lives in adapters, where it belongs.
In-session context injection (`context/message`, `steering/message`) renders as tagged user-role envelopes (the system-reminder pattern) rather than a new role, so adapters carry zero burden. Live-adapter review has since validated the tagged-envelope rendering against current DeepSeek behavior; a future provider-specific mismatch should be handled in that adapter rather than by adding a new role to the canonical content vocabulary.
## Consequences
- Reasoning, prefill, cache hints, and multimodal content all have a home without provider contortions.
- Reasoning, prefill, and cache hints have a home without provider contortions. Multimodal content deliberately has NO core block type: the core set is limited to blocks every shipping path honors, and a multimodal feature adds its block type through the merge-extensible map in the same coordinated change that maps it in the adapters, surfaces it in the UI bridges, and prices it in compaction — see [the drop-image RFC](../simplification/2026-07-04-drop-image-content-block.md).
- Every adapter pays a translation cost; the first real adapters have since validated the streaming protocol, and new adapters should continue proving their provider-specific mapping in adapter-local tests.
- IDs that cross package boundaries are branded (`CallId`, `SessionId`, `AgentId`) — nominal typing at zero runtime cost.