Nine ADRs (0254, 0256-0263) were merged into main and left stamped Proposed.
Two carried an explicit ratify-on-merge predicate their own merge had already
discharged, and ADR-0256 governs deduction_serving_enabled, which was ratified
True on 2026-07-24 and is serving live traffic. So the governance record
asserted "not yet decided" about a decision already in force.
That is the asymmetry the assessment arc (#113) found one file over in
workbench/api.py: the honest path degrades, the stale record lies. An unwritten
ADR is a visible gap; a Proposed one that is actually in force is a false
statement.
Each stamp records the ACTUAL ratifying act -- "Accepted, ratified by Joshua
Shay via <merge> (<sha>, <date>)" -- derived from the commit that added the file
and verified an ancestor of main, not assumed. Merge authority is Shay's alone
(AGENTS.md: no merge automation), so the merge IS the ratifying act.
No ADR content changed. No flag changed. ADR-0262's stamp says so explicitly:
accepting it does NOT enable curriculum_serving_enabled, which stays False
pending ratified volume -- eleven bands re-measured today, still 24x-73x short.
tests/test_adr_status_governance.py pins two independent invariants in the
smoke (pre-push) suite:
1. A default-ON flag is not governed by a Proposed ADR. The flag -> ADR mapping
is DERIVED by walking core/config.py for `<name>: bool = True` and reading
ADR refs from the preceding comment block -- not a hand-written table, which
would be the same second-copy-of-a-closed-set defect ADR-0256's arc fixed.
2. A ratify-on-merge predicate cannot coexist with Proposed. Self-discharging:
the file being on main IS the merge having happened.
Plus a vacuity guard, because a derivation that parses zero flags would make
every other assertion pass on an empty set.
Registered two orphans found in passing: test_adr_index.py (5) and
test_ratification_ceremony.py (14) landed in #113 in NO curated suite, so 19
tests -- including the one mechanism that can move curriculum volume -- ran
only under `full`, which gates nothing. Fifth instance of this shape.
Deliberately NOT fixed, recorded in the research doc: the 312-file corpus has
27 unparseable status lines and draft/ratified/active variants. A closed-vocab
assertion would fail on ~35 pre-existing files and get muted, and a muted gate
reads as coverage.
[Verification]: smoke 555 passed in 137.73s (236 baseline + 314 + 5, +1.2s);
governance pin 314 passed in 1.18s standalone and MUTATION-CHECKED -- reverting
ADR-0256 to Proposed fails both invariants independently (2 failed/312 passed);
orphans 19 passed; ruff clean. Canonical Python 3.12.13, uv sync --locked.
Weekly-audit 2026-07-22, T13 decision (2) ruling (Shay). The Shadow Coherence
Gate hard-refused open-geometry surfaces even when the surface was pack-grounded
and the openness was a geometric-coherence residual the pack never claimed to
certify — a false refusal (the warmed "What is doubt?" case:
"To doubt means to think maybe not. pack-grounded (en_core_meta_v1)." was
replaced by "I cannot certify an answer: ... contract is open (goldtether_residual).").
Fix the reading, not the question: route open-geometry-but-pack-grounded
surfaces to a hedge arm (authoritative=False), discriminated purely by grounding
provenance (structural), never by question type. The query-type classifier
bypass was rejected as a fail-open cue-table (ADR-0252 / INV-34).
- core/cognition/surface_resolution.py: the decision lives INSIDE the gate.
Predicate: pack_grounded (grounding_provenance in {pack, teaching}) AND every
open token in {versor_condition, goldtether_residual}. The ¬hazard clause is
enforced structurally by that residual allowlist — any unrecognized open token
(where a genuine safety/harm/imperative hazard lands), non-pack grounding, or a
None assessment falls through to the unchanged fail-closed refusal. New
authority tag grounded_open_hedge; hedged=True; walk/compose folds suppressed.
- core/cognition/pipeline.py: thread grounding provenance into resolve_surface
(read once at the gate seam, reused for the OOV telemetry).
- docs/adr/ADR-0254: the serving-physics decision + fail-closed argument.
- tests/test_grounded_open_hedge_arm.py: RED->GREEN unit suite + real-data
warmed-session integration.
Genuine safety/harm hazards are unaffected: they ride separate axes
(SafetyVerdict refusal, logos-morph override) that supersede this surface.
[Verification]: hedge suite 15 passed; warmed_session lane pin + architectural
invariants 85 passed (155.8s); GSM8K wrong=0 preserved (16 passed, 3 skipped);
smoke 180 passed (131.65s), exit 0. worktree core-wt-hedge @ base 19847f90.
Shay