Question
Children stand in a line, each with an integer rating. You distribute candies so that every child gets at least one candy and any child with a strictly higher rating than an adjacent neighbor gets strictly more candies than that neighbor. Return the minimum total number of candies needed. The line has at least one child; equal ratings impose no constraint between neighbors.
candy_distribution(ratings: 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.