# r34 HF Astropy reference-cache correction — 2026-10-14

This is the retained 14 October Astropy-maintenance record. Its baseline hash, validation and verifier identify that revision. The current full r34 archive retains this correction and includes [workflow reliability](workflow-reliability.md) and [Assistant consolidation](assistant-consolidation.md). Use the [current package verification command](r34-validation.md#delivered-package-identity) for the latest archive.

Baseline full release SHA-256: `3efc7ec755a0b1558c047fd86191c1014295a1ff3f6eff9efe88b563fd2dfb29`.

## Correction

The native HF worker sets `XDG_CACHE_HOME=/work/cache`. Astropy 7.1.1 attempts
creation of a legacy-to-XDG cache symlink when `/work/cache/astropy` is absent.
The worker's existing confinement correctly rejects that operation and Astropy
reports `CacheMissingWarning` with `PermissionError`.

The monitor now creates a regular `/work/cache/astropy` directory before launching
the restricted process. Existing checks reject a symbolic link, file or other
non-directory at each path component. The syscall and filesystem restrictions
are unchanged. This does not suppress warnings or change Astropy dependencies.

## Execution and data behavior

Every run still executes its requested calculations. This change creates an
empty per-attempt directory for reference-data cache metadata; it does not cache
simulation outcomes, reuse prior outputs, share user data, modify ephemeris
freshness rules, refetch frozen snapshots, or change occultation checks.
The existing native-job cleanup removes the working directory contents after
an attempt. Shared scientific calculations, standalone execution and Docker
execution are unchanged.

## Validation and release evidence

Only targeted tests are rerun: actual Astropy with PF's existing seccomp filter,
legacy-warning reproduction and corrected-directory behavior, unsafe-path
rejection, worker/confinement tests, and release-receipt/schema integrity checks.
The command receipt and JUnit records in `validation_r34_astropy_cache_fix/`
report exact executed counts and skips. Historical validation remains unchanged.
These checks are not a full scientific regression or a live HF deployment test.

Verify the complete extracted release:

```text
python release_tools/package_r34_astropy_cache_fix.py verify --package
```

## HF patch

The scientific HF Job loads `pf_hf_native/runner.py` from the pinned private
code archive. Therefore the small patch updates both that archive and matching
controller files/manifests and code pins. A controller-only upload is insufficient.
The runtime image does not need rebuilding. The patch reconstructs the new code
archive from the previous local code archive without extracting the full release.
Use the patch's included Windows deployment guide and preserve existing backups.