Environments, and why the analysis broke six months later

1 · Learn the move · Cognitive verifier

The analysis that ran in March and crashes in September did not decay - its environment drifted. A package updated, a default changed, and your script now runs against a different toolchain with the same name. Interrogate what the analysis depends on, sub-question by sub-question: Which interpreter version? Which packages does the script import - directly, and through them? Which versions are installed? Where is any of that recorded? The honest answers usually end at "nowhere," which is the finding. Then the repair: an environment file generated from your real, working installation - conda env export or pip freeze, run by you, where it works - never from the model's memory of typical versions, which describes a fiction. The file lives in the repo next to the script it protects, and future-you rebuilds the March toolchain in one command.

Verify my analysis environment by sub-questions, one at a time: (1) which interpreter and version does [script] actually run under - and what command proves it; (2) which packages does it import, directly and transitively - derive the direct list from the script text I paste; (3) which versions are installed - give me the command to run, and build the environment file ONLY from the output I paste back, never from typical versions; (4) where is this recorded - and if the answer is nowhere, produce the file, name it, and state where it lives in the repo. Finish with the one-command rebuild instruction and what it does and does not guarantee.