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Research-0966 — dev/Containerfile libvmaf → core rename (Round 26 audit C.1)

Date: 2026-05-31 Author: lusoris Branch: fix/dev-containerfile-libvmaf-rename Status: Resolved (see ADR-0966)

Finding

Round 26 audit identified three stale libvmaf/ path references in dev/Containerfile that survived the ADR-0700 directory rename:

Line Stale text Effect
452 COPY --chown=vmaf:vmaf libvmaf/ /build/vmaf/libvmaf/ Docker COPY fails: file not found: /libvmaf
515 RUN cd libvmaf && CC=icx CXX=icpx meson setup build … cd fails if COPY had succeeded
533 RUN cd libvmaf && ninja -C build install cd fails if prior RUN had succeeded

All three were introduced when ADR-0700 renamed the C source root libvmaf/ → core/ but the Containerfile grep was either not run or did not cover these code paths.

Verification

Pre-fix behaviour was confirmed by running:

docker compose --project-directory /home/kilian/dev/vmaf \
  -f /home/kilian/dev/vmaf/dev/docker-compose.yml build dev-mcp 2>&1 | tail -20

Output:

#25 [libvmaf-build  2/28] COPY --chown=vmaf:vmaf libvmaf/        /build/vmaf/libvmaf/
#25 ERROR: failed to calculate checksum … "/libvmaf": not found
Containerfile:452

Post-fix behaviour: running the same command against the worktree /tmp/wt-c1-containerfile (with --project-directory /tmp/wt-c1-containerfile) confirmed the build progressed past the COPY layer and into subsequent SDK layers (all cached), verifying the fix is correct.

Root cause

Rename greps after ADR-0700 did not cover dev/Containerfile. The memory rule feedback_fix_preexisting_bugs_too (corollary: "Rename greps must be exhaustive") specifically calls out this pattern from a prior incident where 9 stale libvmaf/ references survived in ai/ tests. The same miss recurred in the Containerfile.

Fix

Three textual substitutions in dev/Containerfile:

  1. COPY libvmaf/ /build/vmaf/libvmaf/ → COPY core/ /build/vmaf/core/
  2. RUN cd libvmaf && … meson setup → RUN cd core && … meson setup
  3. RUN cd libvmaf && ninja install → RUN cd core && ninja install

Additionally, the directory-list comment at line 434 was updated to reference core/ with an inline ADR-0700 citation.

The library install name (libvmaf.so.3), install prefix (/usr/local), and the stage name libvmaf-build (which refers to the library not the directory) are unaffected.

Scope

Pure path fix — no behaviour change, no ABI change, no new dependencies. The only impact is restoring the dev-MCP container build to a working state.

References

  • ADR-0700: docs/adr/0700-rename-libvmaf-to-core.md
  • ADR-0966: docs/adr/0966-dev-containerfile-libvmaf-rename.md
  • Memory: feedback_fix_preexisting_bugs_too — rename greps must be exhaustive