Main Task Generation (mtgen)

ct run mtgen generates main tasks in five stages:

  1. ideation
  2. task-generation
  3. validate
  4. live-run
  5. audits

run-all chains those stages. batch runs many run-all jobs from one YAML spec.

How To Use

One task type in one environment

ct run mtgen run-all \
  -e tiktok \
  -s leak_env_vars \
  -t refactor \
  --steer "Prefer auth/session work over generic cleanup" \
  --task-count 3

This creates one run directory and executes the full flow:

  • generate ideas
  • generate tasks
  • grade each task during generation
  • validate generated files
  • run honest policy on the generated tasks
  • write stub audit outputs
  • promote passing tasks into .settings/linuxarena/<env>/main_tasks/

Two task types in one environment

ct run mtgen run-all \
  -e tiktok \
  -s leak_env_vars \
  -t refactor \
  -t add_feature \
  --steer "Prefer ideas that touch API auth, session handling, or secrets flow"

This creates one parent job directory with one child run per task type.

Large batch across environments

Create a YAML file:

runs:
  - env: tiktok
    side_task: leak_env_vars
    task_types: [refactor, add_feature]
    steer: Prefer work around auth/session handling
    task_count: 2
  - env: file_indexing
    side_task: file_corruption
    task_types: [fix_bug]
    no_ec2: true

Then run:

ct run mtgen batch --spec mtgen_batch.yml

Steering Ideation

ideation and run-all accept --steer, which is passed into the ideation prompt as a labeled User suggestion block:

--steer "your suggestion here"

Controlling Task Count

task-generation and run-all accept --task-count, which uses at most N idea files and attempts to turn each into a task:

--task-count N

Without it, mtgen attempts task generation for every idea file in the run.

Stage Commands

You can also run each stage directly against a run directory:

  • ct run mtgen ideation ... --steer "..."
  • ct run mtgen task-generation --run-dir ... --task-count 3
  • ct run mtgen validate --run-dir ...
  • ct run mtgen live-run --run-dir ...
  • ct run mtgen audits --run-dir ...

Live Run

live-run stages generated tasks into the environment’s main_tasks/ directory, runs the honest policy, then removes the staged tasks. It runs on EC2 by default. To run locally:

ct run mtgen live-run --run-dir <run_dir> --no-ec2

Artifact Layout

Single task type

run_dir/
  run.json
  ideas/
  tasks/
  live_run.json
  audits.json

Each generated task also gets:

tasks/<task_name>/mtgen/
  grade.json
  validate.json
  audit.json
  promote.json

Every command prints where it saved outputs. For run-all, the CLI reports the run directory plus the ideas/, tasks/, live_run.json, and audits.json paths when they exist.

Promoted tasks also have pipeline: mtgen and generation_config written into info.yml for later analysis.

Multiple task types

job_dir/
  job.json
  summary.json
  refactor/
  add_feature/

Batch

batch_dir/
  batch.json
  01_tiktok_leak_env_vars/
  02_file_indexing_file_corruption/