OTP Supervision Audit

This document identifies all instances of unsupervised process creation (spawn, Task.start) within the core application logic (lib directory). Unsupervised processes are a major architectural risk as they are not part of a supervision tree, leading to a lack of fault tolerance and potential for silent failures.

1. Audit Findings

The following files contain calls to spawn, spawn_link, spawn_monitor, or Task.start that are not linked to a supervisor. These represent critical areas for refactoring to ensure proper OTP compliance and system stability.

• lib/mabeam/load_balancer.ex: 293
• lib/mabeam/coordination.ex: 912
• lib/mabeam/comms.ex: 311
• lib/mabeam/agent.ex: 643, 773
• lib/foundation/process_registry.ex: 757
• lib/foundation/application.ex.backup: 504, 509, 890, 895
• lib/foundation/application.ex: 505, 510, 891, 896
• lib/foundation/coordination/primitives.ex: 650, 678, 687, 737, 743, 788, 794
• lib/foundation/beam/processes.ex: 229

2. Analysis and Recommendations

The widespread use of unsupervised spawn and Task.start indicates a systemic departure from OTP best practices. These calls should be replaced with supervised alternatives.

• For long-running processes: These should be structured as GenServers or other OTP behaviours and started under a supervisor.
• For concurrent, short-lived tasks: These should be managed by a Task.Supervisor. This ensures that even temporary tasks are properly monitored and cleaned up.

Next Steps:

1. Prioritize Refactoring: The identified files should be prioritized for refactoring. The foundation and mabeam modules are the most critical.
2. Create a Task.Supervisor: A general-purpose Task.Supervisor should be added to the main application supervision tree to manage short-lived, concurrent tasks.
3. Update Developer Guidelines: The project’s developer guidelines should be updated to explicitly forbid the use of unsupervised spawn and Task.start in application code.