Profiler payload and UX contract ready for extension consumption

Problem

The VS Code extension embeds inspector profile panels, but the profiler's output payload schema is undocumented and unstable — field names, nesting structure, and distribution data formats can change between profiler updates without the extension team knowing. This creates integration fragility: the extension may render broken or empty panels after a profiler change because there is no contract guaranteeing which response fields exist, what shape distribution arrays take, or how column comments are serialized. Until the profiler output schema is documented, tested for shape stability, and jointly validated with the extension, every profiler improvement risks silently breaking the IDE experience.

Context

• Profiler response contract is documented and stable for extension use cases.
• Breaking changes are versioned or guarded with compatibility shims.
• Joint validation with extension confirms no blocking integration defects.

Possible Solutions

Plan

• Publish profiler contract notes for column distributions, comments, and chart hints.
• Add tests that lock key response shapes used by extension panel.
• Coordinate integration test pass with IDE extension workstream.
• Track and close M1-blocking profiler integration defects.

Implementation Progress

• ide-extension profiler readiness task
• issues #281/#282/#386

Review Feedback

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