Question
Given a list of integers and an integer k, return the k most frequent values, ordered from most frequent to least frequent. When two values occur the same number of times, the smaller value comes first. You may assume k is at least 1 and at most the number of distinct values. Example: nums = [4, 1, 4, 2, 2, 4], k = 2 gives [4, 2] — 4 appears three times and 2 appears twice, so 1 (seen once) misses the cut.
top_frequent(nums: list[int], k: int) → list[int][[4,1,4,2,2,4],2]out[4,2]State your approach and its time/space complexity out loud before you optimize. Handle the edge cases (empty input, duplicates, overflow), and say why you chose this over the brute force. Green tests are the floor, not the grade.
Vibe coding: describe the solution in plain language (or narrate it) and the coach grades your approach. Generating runnable code from your description is coming next.