From cdada779224ce16aeb663e953034ea810f26dd3a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: igneum-josh <337424239+igneum-josh@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2026 23:03:07 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] PC 1 helper scripts: four leading dev padding lines absorb
 the 0.3.20 helper's start-count skip (the update-return lane's reading of the
 silent helper; fixed in 0.3.21 a64c193f)

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
---
 tools/ca3-v4-amend/pc1-ca4-microbench.ps1 | 2 +-
 tools/ca3-v4-amend/pc1-ca4-packs.ps1      | 2 +-
 tools/ca3-v4-amend/pc1-v4-efficiency.ps1  | 7 +++++--
 3 files changed, 7 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/tools/ca3-v4-amend/pc1-ca4-microbench.ps1 b/tools/ca3-v4-amend/pc1-ca4-microbench.ps1
index c4f18f79b..867fdd8ca 100644
--- a/tools/ca3-v4-amend/pc1-ca4-microbench.ps1
+++ b/tools/ca3-v4-amend/pc1-ca4-microbench.ps1
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ function HelperSeqBase() { $m = 0; foreach ($f in @($cmdFile, $helperLog)) { if
 function HelperSend([string] $verb) {
   $s0 = HelperSeqBase; $s1 = $s0 + 1
   $mark = 0; if (Test-Path $helperLog) { $mark = @(Get-Content -LiteralPath $helperLog -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue).Count }
-  Set-Content -LiteralPath $cmdFile -Value "$s0 dev $idx`n$s1 $verb`n" -NoNewline -Encoding ascii
+  $pad = ((0..3) | ForEach-Object { "$($s0 - 8 + 2 * $_) dev $idx" }) -join "`n"; Set-Content -LiteralPath $cmdFile -Value "$pad`n$s0 dev $idx`n$s1 $verb`n" -NoNewline -Encoding ascii
   $t = 0; while ($t -lt 30) { Start-Sleep -Seconds 1; $t++; $new = @(Get-Content -LiteralPath $helperLog -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue); if ($new.Count -gt $mark) { $hit = $new[$mark..($new.Count - 1)] | Where-Object { $_ -match "\b$s1 nvidia-smi " } | Select-Object -First 1; if ($hit) { return ($hit -replace '^\d+\s+', '') } } }
   return "no helper.log line for seq $s1 within 30 s"
 }
diff --git a/tools/ca3-v4-amend/pc1-ca4-packs.ps1 b/tools/ca3-v4-amend/pc1-ca4-packs.ps1
index ae652e8da..2aed76b18 100644
--- a/tools/ca3-v4-amend/pc1-ca4-packs.ps1
+++ b/tools/ca3-v4-amend/pc1-ca4-packs.ps1
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ function HelperSeqBase() { $m = 0; foreach ($f in @($cmdFile, $helperLog)) { if
 function HelperSend([string] $verb) {
   $s0 = HelperSeqBase; $s1 = $s0 + 1
   $mark = 0; if (Test-Path $helperLog) { $mark = @(Get-Content -LiteralPath $helperLog -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue).Count }
-  Set-Content -LiteralPath $cmdFile -Value "$s0 dev $idx`n$s1 $verb`n" -NoNewline -Encoding ascii
+  $pad = ((0..3) | ForEach-Object { "$($s0 - 8 + 2 * $_) dev $idx" }) -join "`n"; Set-Content -LiteralPath $cmdFile -Value "$pad`n$s0 dev $idx`n$s1 $verb`n" -NoNewline -Encoding ascii
   $t = 0; while ($t -lt 30) { Start-Sleep -Seconds 1; $t++; $new = @(Get-Content -LiteralPath $helperLog -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue); if ($new.Count -gt $mark) { $hit = $new[$mark..($new.Count - 1)] | Where-Object { $_ -match "\b$s1 nvidia-smi " } | Select-Object -First 1; if ($hit) { return ($hit -replace '^\d+\s+', '') } } }
   return "no helper.log line for seq $s1 within 30 s"
 }
diff --git a/tools/ca3-v4-amend/pc1-v4-efficiency.ps1 b/tools/ca3-v4-amend/pc1-v4-efficiency.ps1
index 0b4b4f16f..a38ae4a3c 100644
--- a/tools/ca3-v4-amend/pc1-v4-efficiency.ps1
+++ b/tools/ca3-v4-amend/pc1-v4-efficiency.ps1
@@ -120,6 +120,9 @@ function Mean($vals) { $v = @($vals | ForEach-Object { [double]$_ }); if ($v.Cou
 $helperDir = Join-Path $env:LOCALAPPDATA 'igneum\app\sweep'
 $cmdFile = Join-Path $helperDir 'cmd.txt'
 $helperLog = Join-Path $helperDir 'helper.log'
+# the 0.3.20 helper also skips the first N lines of cmd.txt, N = the line count when it started (fixed in 0.3.21, a64c193f): four
+# leading `dev` padding lines with climbing numbers absorb that skip (the engine writes 4-line files, so N is at most 4), the real
+# dev and the command stand after them; never pad after the command (update-return lane, 7 October 2026, 22:00Z)
 # the helper skips any sequence number at or under the last one it ran (powertask.rs: `seq <= last_seq`), and the installed app's
 # own Ember tune writes the same file with its own rising numbers while it tunes another card (the floor pass of 20:21Z: the app
 # tuned the 5080 at seqs 423596 to 423598 while this script wrote 419500 to 419527, so every lock from 1,000 MHz down and the
@@ -148,7 +151,7 @@ function HelperSend([string] $verb) {
   $script:seq += 2
   $s0 = $script:seq; $s1 = $script:seq + 1; $script:seq = $s1
   $mark = 0; if (Test-Path $helperLog) { $mark = @(Get-Content -LiteralPath $helperLog -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue).Count }
-  Set-Content -LiteralPath $cmdFile -Value "$s0 dev $idx`n$s1 $verb`n" -NoNewline -Encoding ascii
+  $pad = ((0..3) | ForEach-Object { "$($s0 - 8 + 2 * $_) dev $idx" }) -join "`n"; Set-Content -LiteralPath $cmdFile -Value "$pad`n$s0 dev $idx`n$s1 $verb`n" -NoNewline -Encoding ascii
   $t = 0
   while ($t -lt 30) {
     Start-Sleep -Seconds 1; $t++
@@ -165,7 +168,7 @@ function HelperSend([string] $verb) {
     $script:seq = $base
     $s0 = $script:seq; $s1 = $script:seq + 1; $script:seq = $s1
     $mark = 0; if (Test-Path $helperLog) { $mark = @(Get-Content -LiteralPath $helperLog -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue).Count }
-    Set-Content -LiteralPath $cmdFile -Value "$s0 dev $idx`n$s1 $verb`n" -NoNewline -Encoding ascii
+    $pad = ((0..3) | ForEach-Object { "$($s0 - 8 + 2 * $_) dev $idx" }) -join "`n"; Set-Content -LiteralPath $cmdFile -Value "$pad`n$s0 dev $idx`n$s1 $verb`n" -NoNewline -Encoding ascii
     $t = 0
     while ($t -lt 30) {
       Start-Sleep -Seconds 1; $t++