# The Execution Plan

**Planner:** Opus 5 · 2026-07-27 · verified at `forgejo/main` @ `ed06dd64`
**Governs:** everything in `30-gap-register.md` (G-1…G-20) and `31-hindrance-audit.md` (H-1…H-12), sequenced by `40-assessment.md` §6.
**Method:** `docs/conceptualizing_engineering_mastery.md` — scrub → **delete** → simplify/enforce → accelerate → automate last. Nothing is automated that Waves 0–3 have not proven.
**Status:** Wave 0 in progress. Waves 1–4 and Tracks A–E are PROPOSED and unstarted.

---

## 0. Seven corrections to the assessment, found while sizing and executing this plan

The assessment's authority rests on its self-correction chain — *"nothing in the chain was ever caught by re-reading documents"* (§8). Planning it produced seven more, all caught by reading code, workflows, and the ADRs' own supersession banners. Four of them change planned work: two change the design of the highest-leverage mechanical item, one **deletes a Wave-3 PR** because the work already shipped, and one **halves the severity** of a claim this plan made in its own first draft.

| # | Corrects | Effect on the plan |
|---|---|---|
| N-1 | G-5/G-7 "no suite contains any `l10` test" | scan artifact; G-7 respecified |
| N-2 | G-5 "nothing runs its pins" | pins run twice a day; severity lowered |
| N-3 | *(new)* local gate ≠ CI gate | G-7 gains a second pin; **severity lower than this plan first stated** |
| N-4 | G-5 "the soak has never produced an artifact" | **the soak was run**; the debt is the artifact, not the run |
| N-5 | G-10 "SERVE blocked by the 16-premise cap" | **the cap was removed 2026-07-26**; PR-13 withdrawn |
| N-6 | *(new)* H-8 has a fourth instance, in the code | strengthens R-3 toward "incomplete flag set" |
| N-7 | G-8 "seventeen capability flags" | the real number is 28 of 32; G-8 grows |

### N-1 · "No suite contains any `l10`/`always_on` test" is a scan artifact — the same artifact class caught twice before

`TEST_SUITES["full"] = ("tests/",)` — a **directory**, not `.py` literals. Every test file in the repository is therefore trivially "in a suite," and a scan that reads only quoted `.py` names reports orphans that aren't. This is the third appearance of this exact artifact (Phase 4 caught `formation 0`; the same shape produced this claim).

**The true statement:** the five `tests/test_l10_*.py` files appear in **no curated suite tuple** — they are reachable only through `full`.

### N-2 · The L10 pins are not unrun — they run post-merge and nightly

CI does not invoke `core test --suite` at all. It runs raw pytest with marker filters:

| Workflow | Trigger | Selector | Covers L10? |
|---|---|---|---|
| `smoke.yml` | every PR push (**secondary observability**, AGENTS.md §CI/CD — *not* the merge gate) | 8 path patterns → 13 files | **no** |
| `full-pytest.yml` | post-merge on `main` | `-m "not quarantine and not slow"` | **yes** |
| `nightly-full-pytest.yml` | cron `0 2 * * *` | `-m "not quarantine"` | **yes** |

No `tests/test_l10_*.py` file carries `quarantine` or `slow`. **They execute twice a day.** G-5's "nothing runs its pins" is wrong and must be amended to "**nothing runs its pins on any pre-merge gate**" — real, but a different severity.

### N-3 · The local pre-push gate and the CI observability run have diverged — 10 files — *and the first draft of this plan overstated it*

`TEST_SUITES["smoke"]` = **23** files. `smoke.yml` = 8 patterns expanding to **13** files. Ten files are in the local gate and not in CI:

```
test_audit_ledger_r7            test_cli_runner_contract      test_pack_draft_serve_boundary
test_workbench_deduction_provenance   test_prior_surface_deduction_binding
test_negation_survives_articulation   test_adr_status_governance    test_adr_index
test_volume_honesty             test_curriculum_polarity
```

*(This plan's first draft said 27 vs 13. The 27 was a regex artifact — comment prose inside the tuple matched as paths. The delta of 10 was correct; the tuple size was not. Recorded because a plan that corrects the assessment must correct itself by the same standard.)*

**The severity is lower than first stated, and the reason matters.** AGENTS.md §CI/CD Runner Architecture is explicit: *"The `.github/workflows/*.yml` files … are secondary observability only — never a substitute for local gates."* The merge gate **is** the in-worktree run, and the in-worktree run is the superset. Eight of the ten files carry comments saying they belong "on the pre-push gate" — which is exactly where they are. Under doctrine, **nothing is unguarded.**

Two things are still true and worth fixing:

1. **Two independent places assert the parity.** The audio block in `core/cli_test.py` says it is listed explicitly "so the local-first pre-push gate (AGENTS.md protocol) **equals** the CI gate rather than silently narrowing it" — read narrowly (about the six audio files) accurate, read as a statement about the smoke suite, false. And `scripts/hooks/pre-push` — the automation of the AGENTS.md protocol — opens by describing its own step 1 as "the `smoke` suite — **exact CI-gate parity**." It is not: 23 files against 13. The claim appears twice, in the enforcement tooling, which is the strongest evidence available that the drift was never intended.
2. **The real exposure is the push that skipped the local gate.** CI is the only *automatic* check on a push made from a cloud session, another machine, or an agent that did not run the worktree gate. For those pushes, ADR-0265's denial pin, the ADR-governance pins, volume honesty, and curriculum polarity run nowhere before merge.

**Consequence for G-7.** The meta-check as written in the register ("every test file belongs to ≥1 suite") is **already satisfied and would ship green while proving nothing** — a hollow gate by the Third-Door criterion. The correct mechanism is two pins:

1. **Gate parity** — `smoke.yml`'s path set must equal `TEST_SUITES["smoke"]` (a failing test when they drift). This is the pin that would have caught N-3.
2. **Curated-suite membership** — every `tests/**/test_*.py` belongs to ≥1 suite **other than `full`**, or to a registered exclusion list with a reason.

**Measured cost of parity:** the 10 files are **429 tests in 46s** on this Mac — which is the same hardware the Act runner executes on (`ubuntu-latest:host` = native macOS host). So the parity cost is a measured 46s, not an estimate. See R-14.

### N-4 · The L10 soak **has** been run — 5000 beats, all four gates pass. The debt is the artifact, not the run.

`evals/l10_always_on/contract.md` §"The measured result" records a **5000-beat soak with a reboot at beat 2500**, landed 2026-07-19 in `aed273b1`: all four predicates pass, `versor_condition` flat at `1.389e-07` across all 5000 beats, vault bounded at 6 entries, convergence at beat 1 with a 4999-beat tail at rest, reboot resuming the same life with derived learning intact.

G-5's *"the soak has never produced an artifact"* is therefore wrong as stated. What is **exactly** true, and is the real and unchanged debt:

- the result lives as **prose in a contract file** — no committed machine-readable report, no run SHA, no rerun path;
- `deterministic_digest` is computed by `report.py` and **pinned nowhere** — the contract's own last line says *"Pin it once the lane is trusted so a regression flips it,"* and it never was;
- **no cadence** rules the lane.

That is the assessment's own maintenance-contract failure mode operating on the assessment's own frontier: a recorded prose result with no pinned digest **is testimony, not evidence**. PR-11 gets *cheaper* (the run is known to pass at 5000 beats) and *sharper* (its deliverable is the committed artifact + the pinned digest + the cadence, not the discovery of whether it holds).

### N-5 · G-10's blocker was removed on 2026-07-26 — by the ADR the register cites

G-10 says curriculum SERVE is "fully blocked by one engineering item," the 16-premise compilation cap, with authority "engineering (scoping)." ADR-0264 §4.1 carries a banner directly under its heading:

> **SELF-SUPERSEDED by this ADR's own R5, discharged 2026-07-26. The heading is no longer true of the running system.** … R5 removed that: compilation is query-scoped, so a family of any size answers. With the cap gone, **four bands would earn SERVE the moment a ledger is sealed** — `physics·causal`, `systems_software·causal`, and `philosophy_theology·{modal,contrast}`.

**Query-scoping already landed.** The register quoted a superseded heading past its own correction banner. What survives — and is now the *whole* of the throughput frontier's blockage — is the sentence the same banner ends on: *"The binding constraint is now the outcome-mix ruling (§5, recorded as open and still open)."* A band clears θ_SERVE on non-commitments alone (`conservative_floor(660,660) = 0.990046`); max entailed volume in any band is **9**.

**Effect on the plan: PR-13 is withdrawn** — the work exists. R-8 is no longer one ruling among fourteen; it is the single item gating an entire frontier, and four bands are queued behind it.

### N-6 · H-8 has a fourth instance, and it is in the code itself

`core/config.py`'s docstring for `accrue_realized_knowledge` states: *"the production L10 process enables it alongside `persist_session_state`."* The docstring for `consolidate_determinations` states the same about *"accrue_realized_knowledge + persist_session_state."* The production flag set — `CONTINUOUS_LIFE_CONFIG_FLAGS` at `chat/always_on_daemon.py:45-49` — contains `persist_session_state`, `consolidate_determinations`, `strict_identity_continuity`, and **not** `accrue_realized_knowledge`.

Two flags' own documentation asserts a production configuration the production configuration does not have. This is H-8's failure mode located inside the source, one layer below the documents, and it moves R-3's evidence decisively: F-6 reads as an **incomplete flag set**, not intended dormancy. Dormancy remains a coherent ruling — but it would now require correcting two docstrings that say otherwise.

### N-7 · The flag count is 28 of 32, not seventeen

`RuntimeConfig` is a single frozen dataclass with **32 boolean fields: 28 default `False`, 4 default `True`** (`allow_cross_language_recall`, `use_salience`, `discourse_planner`, `deduction_serving_enabled`). The assessment's "seventeen capability flags default off" understates the built-and-dark surface by eleven.

Whether all 28 are *capability* flags or some are policy/deployment flags is precisely the classification PR-5's register must make — which is the finding: **nothing in the repository currently distinguishes them**, which is why two counts of the same set differ by eleven.

---

## 1. The unit of work

Every item below is one PR unless marked otherwise. Standing discipline, unchanged:

- **Worktree first** — `git worktree add ../core-wt-<slug> -b <branch>` off `forgejo/main`; never share a working directory with a parallel agent.
- **Local gate before push** — `uv run core test --suite smoke -q` **in the worktree**, plus the PR's own new pins; `[Verification]:` line in the PR body naming the SHA and the command.
- **Base and diff against `forgejo/main`**, never local `main`.
- **Merge is Shay's** — green PRs sit until explicit merge authorization. Merge-commit, not squash, for stacked work.
- **Merge then clean up** — remote branch, local branch, and worktree deleted in the same motion.
- **Cleanup as you find** — unambiguously dead code adjacent to a change goes out with that change.
- **Scope size, not clock time** — S (one file, one pin), M (a subsystem or a doc + pins), L (cross-cutting or a new mechanism), XL (design invention).

Two categories of work are **not** mine to complete: rulings (Shay) and ADR ratifications (Shay). The plan's job is to make each of those cost one line — everything a ruling needs is prepared before it is asked for.

---

## 2. Wave 0 — Scrub & rule

**Goal:** convert fourteen open questions into fourteen settled constraints in a single review pass, so every later wave stops branching on unknowns.

### PR-0 · The ruling packet — `docs/assessment/50-rulings.md` · **M**

One document, one decision per section: the evidence (already in the cards, verified at `ed06dd64`), the **options**, my **recommendation with reasoning**, and **the exact diff that follows from each choice** so ruling is a one-word reply. Nothing in it is a recommendation to reverse a ratified decision.

| # | Ruling | Register | Recommendation carried in the packet |
|---|---|---|---|
| R-1 | CR-3 efferent action — deferred or out of telos | G-12 | **Explicitly deferred**, with the entry criterion named; the alignment posture is stronger stated than silent |
| R-2 | CR-4 temporal self-location — the stance on "now" | G-13 | Ship as a paragraph in the soak contract *before* the soak is re-run, so G-5 doesn't answer it by accident |
| R-3 | The F-6 accrual flag — bug or intended dormancy | G-6/H-6 | Decide the **set**, not the flag. N-6 moves this to **incomplete flag set**; dormancy stays coherent but now costs two docstring corrections |
| R-4 | Flag profiles — one-shot / eval / continuous-life | G-8/H-6 | Adopt the `CONTINUOUS_LIFE_CONFIG_FLAGS` pattern as the general mechanism; rule profiles as units. Scope is **28 flags**, not 17 (N-7) |
| R-5 | Identity enforcement authorization bar | G-11 | State the evidence that would authorize live refusal; scoring-without-blocking stays honest only while the path exists |
| R-6 | Non-text ingest — entry criterion or deferral | G-17 | Deferral **with** the falsification bench named as the standard the track must meet when it moves |
| R-7 | Register supersession — this directory vs `docs/gaps.md` + ratchet | H-9 | Supersede both; migrate the 7 OPEN ratchet items into G-5; mark the originals historical |
| R-8 | **Curriculum outcome-mix** — now the sole blocker of the throughput frontier (N-5) | G-10 | Options with measured consequences; four bands are queued behind this one ruling. Content policy, not engineering |
| R-9 | Soak **evidence standard** + cadence | G-5/N-4 | Commit the artifact and pin the digest (the contract's own unmet instruction); a ruled manual-plus-recorded cadence beats a cron line that silently doesn't run while the Mac sleeps |
| R-10 | PR #138 disposition | G-2/G-3 | **Merge it.** Measurement-only, no serving change; the fabrication *fixes* stay held. Its inventory is the baseline for the widening program |
| R-11 | Do the fabrications get a defensive gate before their fix ADR | G-2 | Offer "refuse to hold a reading outside the verified inventory" as an interim posture; wrong=0-or-refuse says yes, cost says measure first |
| R-12 | The two ratified-ADR record amendments — ADR-0146 (daemon) and ADR-0252 ("34 organs") | G-15/H-8 | Exact drafted text for both, in the packet. Neither changes a decision; both stop the record contradicting the code |
| R-13 | Wilson re-count authorization — accept that licenses may be demoted | H-1/G-19 | **Authorize.** A demotion is the mechanism working; the exposure is *already pinned in-repo* (`test_volume_honesty.py`), so this ruling is about applying it, not discovering it |
| R-14 | Gate-parity direction — raise CI to the local suite, or lower local to CI | N-3 | **Raise CI**, at a measured cost of 46s / 429 tests on the runner's own hardware. Honest framing: defense-in-depth for pushes that skipped the local gate, not a hole |

### PR-1 · The record amendments that need no ruling · **S**
The assessment directory's own corrections (N-1…N-7 applied to `30-gap-register.md`, `31-hindrance-audit.md`, `40-assessment.md`, including N-3 entered as **H-12**), the correction note on `docs/research/architecture-assessment-verification-2026-07-25.md`, and the stale Draft banner on `MIND-PHYSICS-BLUEPRINT.md`. **The two ratified-ADR amendments are deliberately *not* here** — they are drafted in full inside R-12 and land the moment that ruling comes back, because editing a ratified ADR is Shay's authority even when the edit changes no decision.

### Track A opens here (see §6) — the §5 experiment does not wait for Wave 1.

**Wave 0 exit:** every G/H entry has either a settled ruling or a named owner-wave. No later item is blocked on an unasked question.

---

## 3. Wave 1 — Delete

*The best part is no part. Small wave, disproportionate effect: after it, the code stops telling readers things that aren't true.*

### PR-2 · Delete the decoration · **S** · H-2
`DriveGradientMap` construction at `chat/runtime.py:716` and the class; `InhibitionMask`/`InhibitionOperator` exports from `core/physics/__init__.py`. Their *intents* are preserved in writing first: drive → the CR-2 design brief (G-4), the mask → the CR-1 ADR (G-14). **Verification:** the sabotage test in reverse — full `smoke` plus the deduction and cognition suites must be byte-identical before and after; a deletion that changes a surface means the object was not decoration and the PR is abandoned.

### PR-3 · Retire the dead instruments · **S** · H-9
`docs/gaps.md` → historical banner pointing at `30-gap-register.md`; substrate-liveness ratchet → historical, 7 OPEN items migrated into G-5; the phantom `L12` stratum dropped from the local map generator. Per R-7.

---

## 4. Wave 2 — Simplify & enforce

*Convert doctrine into failing tests. Every item here makes a guarantee mechanical that is currently maintained by attention.*

### PR-4 · Gate parity + curated-suite membership · **M** · G-7 + N-3 — **highest-leverage mechanical change in the repository**
Two pins in a CI-gated test file:
1. `smoke.yml`'s path set == `TEST_SUITES["smoke"]`, parsed from the workflow file — fails on drift in either direction.
2. Every `tests/**/test_*.py` is in ≥1 suite **excluding `full`**, or in `SUITE_EXCLUSIONS` with a one-line reason.
Then the remediation the pins demand: add the 10 missing files to `smoke.yml` (R-14, +46s measured) and assign every genuine orphan. **Verification:** each pin demonstrated red before green (delete a path from `smoke.yml`, confirm failure).

### PR-5 · The flag-default register · **M** · G-8/H-6
`docs/specs/flag_register.md`: all **28** default-off flags plus the 4 default-on — current default, deliberate-posture vs accumulated-hesitancy, **what evidence flips it**, and named profiles (one-shot / eval / continuous-life) per R-4. Declared in the table, not the call site (ADR-0263 Rule 5). A pin asserts the register lists exactly the flags `core/config.py` defines — so a new flag cannot land unregistered. Includes the F-6 accrual resolution from R-3 and the N-6 docstring correction.

### PR-6 · Failing pins for three doctrine-level prohibitions · **M** · G-9
(a) no-approximate-recall — a pin that fails if a cosine/ANN ranker is substituted on the recall path; (b) a bypass pin — governance not merely working when called, but *unbypassable*; (c) safety-pack non-swappability mechanically enforced. Each demonstrated red-then-green; a law with a pin that cannot fail is a hollow gate.

### PR-7 · The M2 trust-boundary table · **M** · H-7
Formation's six-boundary standard written for `ingest/gate.py` in `runtime_contracts.md`. **Documentation first** — the table's job is to expose real deltas at the surface facing untrusted user text; hardening PRs follow only where deltas are real, and are separate PRs.

### PR-8 · Materialise the typed refusal · **M** · H-3/G-20 — *needs a small ADR (the ADR-0024 chain reserved the seam)*
`InnerLoopExhaustion`'s reason/region/rejected-attempt evidence reaches `ChatResponse.refusal_reason` and a minimal honest served surface, instead of `""`. **Verification:** a refusing turn serves a non-empty, typed, replayable refusal, and `trace_hash` behavior is unchanged for non-refusing turns.

### PR-9 · Count the swallow · **S** · H-11
A telemetry field on the turn/idle accrual result when `_accrue_in_turn`'s broad guard fires. **Behavior unchanged by construction** — the backstop stays; it stops being invisible.

### PR-10 · Extend declared precedence to the composer arms · **L** · H-4 — *refactor ADR*
Lift `core/cognition/surface_resolution.py`'s declared-precedence pattern to arm selection in `chat/runtime.py`. **Do this while one arm is live** — the cost triples after the next three arms. Carries an in-code prospective sabotage note in the `surface_resolution.py` style. **Verification:** byte-identical serving on the full deduction + curriculum + register lanes; this refactor may not change a single served surface.

**Wave 2 exit:** every doctrine in AGENTS.md that this assessment found unenforced is enforced by a test that has been observed failing.

---

## 5. Wave 3 — Accelerate the evidence loops

*Carry built machinery to verdict. This is where the assessment's cultural finding — "this project finishes machinery and defers ceremonies" — gets reversed.*

### PR-11 · The L10 soak to a **committed** artifact · **M** · G-5/N-4
The run is known to pass at 5000 beats (N-4). The deliverable is therefore the ceremony the machinery never got: re-run at the contract's long horizon, **commit the report**, **pin the `deterministic_digest`** so a regression flips it (the contract's own unmet closing instruction), schedule per R-9, and promote the H1–H4 holds/bites pins into a curated suite (which PR-4 makes visible). If a hold *bites* at a longer horizon than 5000 beats, that is the highest-value result in this wave and it stops the wave.

### PR-12 · The Wilson re-count · **L** · H-1/G-19 — *ADR amendment (0175/0263 lineage), authorized by R-13*
Distinct-evidence counting at the seal boundary: a replay refreshes, never increments. Declared in the ledger schema. Then re-count the 25 ratified bands and **apply the demotions honestly** — 21 fall short, a number already pinned in `test_volume_honesty.py` "in BOTH directions," so that pin moves in the same PR. Expect served capability to shrink. **Verification:** the re-count is a pinned computation, not a spreadsheet; the demoted bands' licenses are revoked in the same PR.

### ~~PR-13 · Curriculum query-scoping~~ · **WITHDRAWN** · N-5
Shipped as ADR-0264 R5, discharged 2026-07-26. The 16-premise cap does not exist in the running system. G-10 is re-scoped to R-8 alone.

### PR-14 · The earning ledger · **M** · G-10
`chat/data/curriculum_serve_ledger.json` exists and is an *earning* ledger, under R-8's outcome-mix ruling. Four bands qualify the moment it is sealed (N-5). Depends on PR-12 (counting basis) and on R-8 — **no longer on any engineering prerequisite**.

### Track B · The fabrications and the widening — *gated, see §6*
G-2's fix lands only under its ratified ADR (R-11 may add an interim defensive gate first). G-3's widening program is **shape-dependent on Track A's verdict** and does not start before it.

---

## 6. The five frontiers as tracks

Waves are hygiene and enforcement. The frontiers are the project. Track A runs **in parallel with Wave 0**, because it is execution-authorized already and everything else gets cheaper once it returns.

### Track A · **Run ADR-0252 §5 to a verdict** · G-1/H-10 · **L** · *leverage 1 in the whole assessment*
The scaffolding exists on two branches — `rnd/structure-mapping-experiment` @ `fc9d0c14` (feasibility doc + 214-line experiment script) and `rnd/sme-experiment-v2` @ `bed29a09` (corpus extractor with the `holdout_dev/v1` scope pin + single-pair probe). **Both worktrees are pruned from disk; both branches survive locally and on `forgejo`.** Nothing needs re-deriving.

Protocol: reconstruct one worktree from `rnd/sme-experiment-v2`; state the GO/NO-GO criterion **in writing before running** (the ADR's §5 conformance bar, not a criterion chosen after seeing results); extract the corpus; run the probe; run the full experiment; write `docs/research/sme-experiment-verdict-<sha>.md` with the criterion, the run, the numbers, and the verdict; bring it to Shay for ratification.

**A well-controlled NO-GO is full credit by the ADR's own terms** and is the cheapest possible outcome — it retires the §6 build authorization question permanently and redirects the widening program. This item has been mispriced as math-lane housekeeping (H-10); it governs the comprehension paradigm for everything.

### Track B · **The reading** · G-2 → G-3 · **XL**
Sequenced and gated: merge #138 (R-10) → fabrication ADR + ratification → the two known mutations land → **then** widen from 19, in whatever shape Track A's verdict dictates. G-16's latent defect class in `_inflect_predicate`'s aspect arms must be cleared *by* the widening program, not after it. This is the intelligence frontier and the largest capability gap to the telos.

### Track C · **The chooser** · G-4 · **XL** · *the only frontier requiring genuine invention*
Deliverable order: a design brief (what may an agenda rank, what governs it, what forbids it from becoming a goal-seeking optimizer under the alignment posture) → ADR → implementation. Deliberately **last** to start and never automated into the daemon until Wave 2's enforcement and the F-6 resolution exist. Wave 1 deletes its decoration precisely so the design starts from an honest empty seat.

### Track D · **The proof of life** · G-5/G-6/G-13 · covered by PR-11 + R-2/R-3/R-9. Cheaper than the assessment priced it (N-4): the run passed; the ceremony is owed.

### Track E · **The throughput** · G-10/H-1/G-19 · covered by PR-12/PR-14 + R-8. **Now a single ruling wide** (N-5): the engineering blocker was discharged 2026-07-26, and four bands are queued behind the outcome-mix ruling alone.

---

## 7. Dependency graph

```
Wave 0 (rulings) ──┬─→ Wave 1 (delete) ──→ Wave 2 (enforce) ──→ Wave 4 (automate)
                   │                            ↑                      ↑
                   ├─→ Track A (§5 verdict) ────┼──→ Track B (widen)   │
                   │        (starts NOW)        │         ↑            │
                   ├─→ PR #138 merge ───────────┴─────────┘            │
                   ├─→ Wave 3 (evidence: soak, re-count, ledger) ──────┤
                   └─→ Track C (chooser design) ───────────────────────┘
```

Hard gates, non-negotiable:
- **Track B widening ⟸ Track A verdict.** Widening under the wrong paradigm is the most expensive possible mistake in this plan.
- **Track B fixes ⟸ the fabrication ADR.** Standing instruction; serving-path truth behavior is ratification territory.
- **Wave 4 ⟸ F-6 resolved (R-3) *and* Track C exists.** An always-on process consolidating an empty set is the mastery framework's "garbage at high speed," and CORE came within one flag of it.
- **PR-14 ⟸ PR-12 and R-8.** A ledger built on the old counting basis would have to be rebuilt; a ledger sealed without the mix rule licenses four bands on non-commitments.

---

## 8. Risks, stated before they are incurred

| Risk | Where | Mitigation |
|---|---|---|
| **The re-count demotes served capability** | PR-12 | This is the mechanism working, pre-authorized by R-13. The alternative — licenses the evidence never supported — is the exact failure the architecture exists to prevent. Report demotions as a headline, not a footnote. |
| **A soak hold bites past 5000 beats** | PR-11 | Stop the wave and report. A bitten hold is the most valuable result available; the harness was built to produce it. N-4 lowers the probability, not the value. |
| **Deleting decoration removes something live** | PR-2 | Byte-identical output across three suites before/after; abandon on any delta. |
| **Gate parity slows the observability run** | PR-4 | Measured: +46s / 429 tests on the runner's own hardware. If unacceptable, the ruling is which pins are *demoted*, made explicitly rather than by drift. |
| **The composer refactor changes a served surface** | PR-10 | Zero-delta requirement on the live lanes; the refactor is structural or it is abandoned. |
| **Track A returns an ambiguous verdict** | Track A | Criterion written **before** the run. Ambiguity is then a NO-GO by default, not a re-run with a new bar. |
| **Sealing a ledger licenses four bands on non-commitments** | PR-14 | Blocked on R-8 by construction; the mix rule is the license's precondition, not its follow-up. |
| **The plan itself decays** | all | Every PR body carries `[Verification]:` with a SHA; every card touched gets its `verified_at` bumped. A stale `verified_at` is testimony, not evidence — the N-4 finding is exactly this failure caught in-flight. |
| **Scope creep into Track C** | Track C | It stays a design brief until Waves 0–2 are closed. Invention is the one thing here that cannot be rushed by discipline. |

---

## 9. Definition of done

The arc closes when:

1. Every G-1…G-20 entry is CLOSED, or DEFERRED-WITH-RULING with the ruling recorded in-register.
2. Every H-1…H-12 entry is resolved, relocated to its better home, or explicitly accepted with a reason.
3. ADR-0252 §5 has a recorded verdict and the §6 question is settled either way.
4. A **committed** L10 soak artifact exists with a **pinned `deterministic_digest`**, and its pins run on a ruled cadence.
5. `smoke.yml` and `TEST_SUITES["smoke"]` are mechanically identical, and no test file hides in `full`.
6. The flag register exists and lists all 32 `RuntimeConfig` booleans, with no flag in `core/config.py` unlisted.
7. No document **and no docstring** in the repository contradicts the code at a load-bearing point.
8. Every card in `docs/assessment/` carries a `verified_at` no older than the last arc that touched its layer.

**What does *not* close with this arc:** the widening program (G-3) and the chooser (G-4). Those are the next arc, and they should be entered with the registers clean, the paradigm decided, and the evidence loops turning — which is precisely what this plan buys.

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*Sequenced per `docs/conceptualizing_engineering_mastery.md`: scrub, delete, simplify, accelerate, automate last. Nothing above optimizes a thing that Wave 1 might delete, and nothing above automates a loop that Wave 3 has not proven turns. Seven corrections in §0 were found by reading code, workflows, and ADR supersession banners — none by re-reading the assessment.*