bindings

Load this Skill before touching src/strata/bindings/ or python/strata/. It documents the file map, thread-local state design, and invariants such as wrapping every exported function in STRATA_CPP_TRY/CATCH and never releasing the GIL.

The bindings use _PyDict_SetItem_KnownHash, _PyDict_NewPresized, PyUnstable_Long_IsCompact/CompactValue, PyUnicode_IS_COMPACT_ASCII, and the internal dict keys-table layouts. These must be audited on every new CPython version, with the raw dict walk gated to 3.11-3.14.

The walk reads CPython's internal dict entry arrays directly, which are version-sensitive. probe_layout() builds witness dicts and compares raw walks against PyDict_Next at import; any mismatch disables that layout's fast path and falls back to PyDict_Next with identical output.

The previous implementation seeded the config map with "warn" without calling the setter, while g_cycle_policy started as Ignore, so reported and actual behavior disagreed until the first config.set. The fix seeds both consistently to "warn" and reads live policy variables.

No, the GIL is never released; all file I/O and parsing hold it. Instead, PyGcPause disables GC around bulk build and serialize operations, and thread safety comes from thread-local buffers, builders, and policy state.