Root Node Status Explained | Generated by AI
Now I have the full picture. Here’s what’s actually happening:
The root node IS correctly ACTIVE + PASS — that means it passed evaluation and is ready to expand. The “PASS” badge is result_state, not the overall status. The node is healthy.
Why only one node: The root gets added to the frontier, then the expansion loop runs. It calls _extract_child_contexts(root_problem_context) which synthesizes child contexts from route_options. At step_index=0 with no selected_route_family, it creates one child per route option, capped by route_surface_budget (= max_children_per_expansion, default 4).
The real issue is the budget. After building the root, expansions_used = 0. But then the loop runs and building the root itself counts as the expansion. With expansion_budget = 8 and the root taking significant model calls, the frontier expansion starts — but kimi-k2 is slow, so those 8 slots might be exhausted building just the root + a few nodes before they render.
What to do: click “Run Next Step” with a larger number (e.g. 4) in the budget input. Each click expands the frontier further. The route branches (dependency, constraint, invariant, scaling) should appear as children of the root after the next run. The tree only grows when you explicitly add budget after run_on_create finishes.