Deep Closeout: CLI Mirror Shadow Testing

Context & Motivation

Before fully transitioning Discord request handling from the existing debate/direct-execution path to the CLI mirror streaming approach, we needed to run both in parallel to evaluate CLI mirror’s real-world performance and catch any bugs.

The CLI mirror approach provides 1.5s streaming updates with visible tool calls in Discord threads — a significantly better UX than the current batch-response model.

What Was Built

Every fresh request in #requests now also fires a shadow run through #cli-mirror (fire-and-forget). Both the existing debate/direct path and the CLI mirror streaming path execute simultaneously.

Key Details

Shadow mirrors don’t count against activeJobs concurrency limits
Thread names suffixed with (mirror) for easy identification
Metrics source tagged as cli-mirror-shadow
Only fresh requests mirrored (not session resumes/replies)
Fire-and-forget: if the mirror fails, the original request still completes

Architecture

User posts in #requests
    |
index.js request handler
    |-- [fire-and-forget] mirrorRequestToCliMirror() --> #cli-mirror thread (streaming)
    |                                                     --> 1.5s polling, tool call display
    |
    +-- [awaited] existing path (debate/handleRequest) --> #requests reply (batch)

Decisions

Fire-and-forget shadow rather than replacing the existing path — zero risk, easy to remove
No concurrency tracking for shadows — prevents false blocking of real requests
Only fresh requests — session continuity (–resume) is path-specific

Files Changed

src/bot/cliMirror.js — Added mirrorRequestToCliMirror() (+128 lines)
src/bot/index.js — Shadow trigger in request handler (+8 lines)

Open Items

Monitor resource usage (two Claude processes per request during testing)
Compare quality and latency between both paths
Once satisfied, remove shadow and switch #requests to CLI mirror as primary

Repo: centralDiscord | Commit: faff71f