Stop a quiet producer vetoing a noisy one in the same wave

Both boilers on the house had been unable to switch on since the Node-RED
transition, and the reason was here rather than in their logic: the command
reached `boiler.water_boiler` and stopped, because `dmx.switches` never ran.

A wave orders nodes by a dependency count, and two things decremented that
count only on success:

- a node that published nothing — rate limited, unchanged, or failed — never
  freed its consumers. `dmx.switches` reads both boilers through `rbe` nodes,
  so the kitchen one being unchanged, which it is nearly always, held the main
  one's command back. The encoder ran about four times an hour, and only when
  the lights happened to change in the same wave.
- a node that could not run at all never freed them either, permanently.
  `plugs.pump_run` waits on a watering pulse that only exists at 02:00, so
  every wave it appeared in took its consumers out with it.

Freeing a consumer is not the same as running it: `untouched` already refuses
to run anything whose inputs nothing refreshed, and that is the accurate test.
The dependency count is ordering, not permission.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01C5H4uLCCpsbipL1R7WKCee

backend/fluksio/flow/pipeline.py

@@ -1277,9 +1277,23 @@ class Pipeline:
                         progressed = True
                         continue
                     if check_ready and not self._is_node_ready(n, state):
-                        if n.synchronous:
+                        # Completed, not merely passed over: a later trigger may
-                            # Not ready now; a later trigger may make it ready.
+                        # still make it ready, but not running is not the same
-                            skipped.add(n)
+                        # as blocking. Whatever it last published is in state,
+                        # and a consumer reading that alongside something this
+                        # wave *did* publish has every right to run on the pair.
+                        #
+                        # Passing over it held that consumer for the whole wave,
+                        # and a node that can never be ready — an input nothing
+                        # has ever published — took its consumers out for good.
+                        # On this house `plugs.pump_run` waits on a watering
+                        # pulse that only exists at 02:00, and it sits upstream
+                        # of `dmx.switches`: every boiler, plug and appliance
+                        # command reached its own message and stopped there,
+                        # reaching the DMX universe only in the occasional wave
+                        # the pump node happened not to be part of.
+                        complete(n)
+                        progressed = True
                         continue
                     if replay and entry_id and self._already_done(entry_id, n):
                         # Its side effect happened on an earlier delivery; its
@@ -1301,17 +1315,23 @@ class Pipeline:
 
                 for n in completed:
                     result = node_futures.pop(n).result()
-                    # A node returning nothing (rate limiting, an error) stops
+                    # Before the decrement: a consumer freed by this node is
-                    # propagation along its branch.
+                    # judged on what it just published.
-                    if result is not None:
+                    if result is not None and fresh is not None:
-                        # Before the decrement: a consumer freed by this node
+                        fresh.update(result)
-                        # is judged on what it just published.
+                    # Decremented whatever it returned. A node that published
-                        if fresh is not None:
+                    # nothing — rate limited, unchanged, or failed — has not
-                            fresh.update(result)
+                    # *blocked* its consumers; it has merely given them nothing
-                        for consumer in edges[n]:
+                    # to read, and `untouched` above is the accurate test of
-                            if consumer in target_nodes:
+                    # that. Holding the count instead made a quiet producer
-                                in_degree[consumer] -= 1
+                    # veto a noisy sibling: `dmx.switches` reads both boilers
-                        submit_ready(executor)
+                    # through report-by-exception nodes, so the kitchen one
+                    # staying silent — which is almost always — kept the main
+                    # boiler's command from ever reaching the DMX universe.
+                    for consumer in edges[n]:
+                        if consumer in target_nodes:
+                            in_degree[consumer] -= 1
+                    submit_ready(executor)
 
         if self._node_pool is not None:
             # The execution service owns a long-lived pool; building one per

backend/tests/flow/test_pipeline.py

@@ -206,3 +206,150 @@ def test_only_advisory_codes_are_flagged_advisory():
 
     assert hook.advisory is True
     assert cycle.advisory is False
+
+
+def test_a_producer_that_cannot_run_does_not_strand_its_consumer():
+    """One wave, two producers of one consumer, and one of them never ready.
+
+    The house's shape: a battery reading wakes the boiler arbiter and the
+    watering-pump trigger in the same wave, and the DMX encoder reads both. The
+    pump waits on a pulse that only exists at 02:00, so it is never ready — and
+    passing over it used to leave the encoder unreachable, which put every
+    boiler and plug command into its message and no further.
+    """
+    ran = []
+
+    power = make_node(
+        "cerbo", "power", lambda params: {"batt_v": 50.3}, provides=[spec("batt_v")]
+    )
+
+    def arbitrate(batt_v, params):
+        ran.append("boiler")
+        return {"boiler_on": 1.0}
+
+    boiler = make_node(
+        "arbiter",
+        "boiler",
+        arbitrate,
+        requires=[spec("power.batt_v")],
+        provides=[spec("boiler_on")],
+    )
+
+    # Woken by the same wave; `pump_for` has never been published.
+    pump = make_node(
+        "pump_run",
+        "plugs",
+        lambda batt_v, pump_for, params: {"pump": 1.0},
+        requires=[spec("power.batt_v"), spec("plugs.pump_for")],
+        provides=[spec("pump")],
+    )
+
+    def encode(boiler_on, pump, params):
+        ran.append("encoder")
+        return {"dmx_boiler": boiler_on}
+
+    encoder = make_node(
+        "switches",
+        "dmx",
+        encode,
+        requires=[spec("boiler.boiler_on"), spec("plugs.pump")],
+        provides=[spec("dmx_boiler")],
+    )
+
+    pipeline = Pipeline(nodes=[power, boiler, pump, encoder])
+    pipeline.state["plugs.pump"] = 0.0
+
+    power.inject()
+
+    assert ran == ["boiler", "encoder"]
+    assert pipeline.state["dmx.dmx_boiler"] == 1.0
+
+
+def test_a_quiet_producer_does_not_veto_a_noisy_sibling():
+    """Two report-by-exception producers, one consumer, and only one with news.
+
+    The house reads both boilers into one DMX encoder through `rbe` nodes. The
+    kitchen boiler is unchanged almost always, so it returns nothing — and
+    while that held the encoder's dependency count up, the main boiler's
+    command reached its message and got no further.
+    """
+    ran = []
+
+    power = make_node(
+        "cerbo", "power", lambda params: {"batt_v": 50.3}, provides=[spec("batt_v")]
+    )
+    water = make_node(
+        "water_changed",
+        "boiler",
+        lambda batt_v, params: {"water_boiler": 1.0},
+        requires=[spec("power.batt_v")],
+        provides=[spec("water_boiler")],
+    )
+    # Unchanged, so its rbe publishes nothing this wave.
+    kitchen = make_node(
+        "kitchen_changed",
+        "boiler",
+        lambda batt_v, params: None,
+        requires=[spec("power.batt_v")],
+        provides=[spec("kitchen_boiler")],
+    )
+
+    def encode(water_boiler, kitchen_boiler, params):
+        ran.append("switches")
+        return {"dmx_water_boiler": 255.0 if water_boiler else 0.0}
+
+    encoder = make_node(
+        "switches",
+        "dmx",
+        encode,
+        requires=[spec("boiler.water_boiler"), spec("boiler.kitchen_boiler")],
+        provides=[spec("dmx_water_boiler")],
+    )
+
+    pipeline = Pipeline(nodes=[power, water, kitchen, encoder])
+    pipeline.state["boiler.water_boiler"] = 0.0
+    pipeline.state["boiler.kitchen_boiler"] = 0.0
+
+    power.inject()
+
+    assert ran == ["switches"]
+    assert pipeline.state["dmx.dmx_water_boiler"] == 255.0
+
+
+def test_a_consumer_of_only_quiet_producers_still_does_not_run():
+    """The other half of it: freeing a consumer is not the same as running it.
+
+    Nothing it reads was refreshed, so it must stay put — otherwise every wave
+    would re-run the whole graph on values it has already seen.
+    """
+    ran = []
+
+    power = make_node(
+        "cerbo", "power", lambda params: {"batt_v": 50.3}, provides=[spec("batt_v")]
+    )
+    quiet = make_node(
+        "changed",
+        "boiler",
+        lambda batt_v, params: None,
+        requires=[spec("power.batt_v")],
+        provides=[spec("water_boiler")],
+    )
+
+    def encode(water_boiler, params):
+        ran.append("switches")
+        return {"dmx_water_boiler": 255.0}
+
+    encoder = make_node(
+        "switches",
+        "dmx",
+        encode,
+        requires=[spec("boiler.water_boiler")],
+        provides=[spec("dmx_water_boiler")],
+    )
+
+    pipeline = Pipeline(nodes=[power, quiet, encoder])
+    pipeline.state["boiler.water_boiler"] = 0.0
+
+    power.inject()
+
+    assert ran == []