A batch over a folder is a draft per record

Context

ADR-162 runs a bulk editor action as N ordinary runs inside one backend request and stops at 20 records, because a request can time out. It named the way past the cap: move the loop onto the queue, a separate decision. ADR-234 made a queue that does not run in the caller, and ADR-235 made the alternative text come from the image. What is left is the scope: a folder of two hundred images, a section of a site, and a scheduler that goes through them without anybody opening a page.

The guided tours of this project hold to the rule that nothing is saved without confirmation. A scheduled batch has nobody present, so it has to say where it stands on that rule.

Decision

A batch is still N ordinary runs. Everything ADR-162 derives from that holds: N turns, N digests, N verdicts, one catalogue call per record. Only the loop moves, from run() to defer().

It is a draft, per record. A batch writes nothing. Each run ends at its tool call, which suspends for approval (ADR-134), so the generated text stands on an approval card and the field keeps its value until somebody approves that card. That is the rule of the tours, kept: nothing is saved without confirmation. There is no direct-write switch. A declared write is approved whatever the configuration says (ADR-202), and a batch verdict is what ADR-133 refuses, so a switch would have to reverse both for a surface that writes to many records at once.

Whose rights. A writing tool acts for a person and refuses a service account. The page queues under the editor's own frozen actor, as every background run does (ADR-234). nrllm:editor-action:batch needs --user, an active backend user whose rights the runs have and who finds the cards in their inbox. It is never _cli_, whose admin flag says nothing about who asked. A user disabled after the batch was queued yields no acting user, and the run fails.

The catalogue asks whether the actor may use the default configuration through ConfigurationResolver::actorMayUse(), not through the ambient user: on the command line that would be _cli_, and everyone would pass.

The image is read in the worker. A queued request names its file in imageFileUid. Scaling two hundred images inside a request is the timeout this record leaves behind, and two hundred data URIs in the run table are a queue full of copies. The worker reads the image as the acting user, through the same gate (ADR-235), so a file that moved or a right that went away is decided when the run starts. A run whose image cannot be sent fails, because no model should describe an image it does not have.

A repeated batch is harmless. The origin of a run is batch:<tool>:<table>:<uid>, per record. A record is skipped when it has a run that is open or ended in a decision: approved, rejected, or declined by the model. A person who said no must not get the same card on every schedule, and an image approved as decorative holds an empty text on purpose. A run that failed, was cancelled, ran out of budget or was cut short says nothing about the record, so the record is tried again. A decision lasts as long as its run is kept.

A record is also skipped when it holds a value in any field a vision action fills: the prompt asks for all of them, so a file with one written would get a proposal to replace it. A file with a description and no title therefore stays as it is. A field switched off is not counted. A daily schedule picks up what arrived since, and a batch never overwrites a text. The --only-empty option adds a column to that check. A decision covers the record for that action: a second batch of the same action with another --only-empty column skips what the first one decided.

A queued run on a page reads the page. A run has only the writing tool it was started for, so the prompt carries the text of the page and its content elements, read when the batch is queued. A vision run has its image instead.

A second bound. EditorActionBatchPlanner::MAX_BACKGROUND_RECORDS is 100 open runs of one action. It is not about timeouts. It bounds the cards an action hands an approver, the second constraint ADR-162 named, and it is the number of cards the inbox shows, oldest first. Open runs count, so a daily schedule does not stack cards faster than somebody decides them. What the scope holds beyond it is reported and picked up by the next batch. A record the catalogue refuses takes no place, or a folder that starts with documents would never reach its images.

Consequences

• A folder of 100 images is 100 cards, each decided on its own. That is the price of ADR-133, and it is the reason the bound exists. With a full inbox a later card of another action stays out of view until older ones are decided. An installation that wants this to be less work needs a different approval unit, which is its own decision.

• A scheduled batch needs a user who reads an inbox, and something that works the queue: nrllm:agent:work or a consumer.

• A run in the queue carries a request, not an image. A run waiting for approval does carry it, in suspended_state, until it settles (ADR-235).

• The cost estimate of the batch page does not count the image, as for the synchronous page.

• The budget stops a batch per user in the sweep, and the runs stay queued (ADR-234).

• A page tree is read with the acting user's page permissions. A folder is listed with the rights of the process and filtered per file as the acting user.

Alternatives considered

Direct write behind an explicit opt-in. It would make a scheduled run finish a folder unattended, and it is what a large archive would want. It needs a write path outside the tool loop, since a tool write always suspends, and it would save generated text under an editor's name without that editor seeing it. Left to a decision of its own, with an approval unit to match.

A proposal table holding the generated texts. A list an editor works through in one view is a better surface for 100 texts than 100 cards. It is a second place that holds a pending write, with its own lifecycle, next to the suspended run that already does.

Revisit when

• Measured use shows approvers giving up on the cards.

• ADR-133 is reopened for a verdict over several runs.