Question
People stand in a row and scores[i] is the i-th person's performance score. You hand out bonus tokens under two rules: everyone gets at least one token, and anyone whose score is strictly higher than an immediate neighbor's must receive more tokens than that neighbor. Return the minimum total number of tokens required. Example: scores [1, 0, 2] needs 5 tokens (2, 1, 2).
min_total_tokens(scores: list[int]) → int[[1,0,2]]out5State 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.