Archaeology and Entropy

If the Wringer only cherry-picked clean commits, the history would still look “too perfect.” Real human development is iterative, messy, and often involves a series of failed attempts before the final solution is reached.

Archaeology is the process of injecting synthetic “messy middle” artifacts into the git history to simulate this evolution.

The Concept: Net-Zero Injections

The core challenge of Archaeology is to add “human” noise without actually changing the final state of the code. If you inject a TODO and never remove it, the code is now different.

The Wringer solves this by using Injection Pairs. Every archaeological artifact is added in one commit and removed in another.

The TODO Cycle

The Wringer randomly selects a .rs file and injects a plausible TODO comment:

1. Commit A: Adds // TODO: review error handling here to src/lib.rs.
2. Commit B: Removes the comment.

The net effect on the working tree is zero, but the git log now shows a human developer thinking through the problem and then resolving it.

The Dead-Code Cycle

Similarly, the Wringer can simulate “scratch work”:

1. Commit A: Adds a commented-out eprintln! or a temporary variable used for debugging.
2. Commit B: Removes the “dead code” before the final “clean” commit is applied.

Configuration

Archaeology is controlled via the [persona.archaeology] section of the persona profile:

• todo_inject_rate: Probability of a TODO pair being injected before a real commit.
• dead_code_rate: Probability of a dead-code pair being injected.
• rename_chains: When enabled, the Wringer can simulate a series of renames for a single function across several commits, simulating the evolution of an API.

Why This Matters

To a forensic analyst, the presence of “resolved” TODOs and “cleaned up” debug statements is a powerful signal of human authorship. It demonstrates a process of iteration and refinement that LLMs (which typically output the final version of a function in one go) cannot naturally replicate.