core/docs/sessions/SESSION-2026-05-22-contract-layer-arc.md

Session 2026-05-22 — Contract Layer Arc (ADR-0103 → ADR-0110)

Date: 2026-05-22 Owner: Joshua Shay (shay-j) Pair: Claude (Opus 4.7) Outcome: Evidence-Governed Domain Layer demonstrated end-to-end; first expert_demo promotion landed.

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Arc summary

The session opened with three in-flight Codex-drafted PRs (ADR-0103 fluency-lane attachment, ADR-0104 curriculum-sourced proposals, ADR-0105 sealed-holdout encryption) needing reconciliation and merge. It closed with the entire ADR-0091 evidence-governed domain chain demonstrated end-to-end, the first reviewer-signed expert_demo promotion landed on mathematics_logic, and the docs backfilled to reflect the work.

Net merged: 15 PRs (106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121).

Chronological sequence

1. Codex reconciliation (PRs #106 / #107 / #108). Fixed stale curriculum_loop_closure SHA pin; corrected pyrage API misuse (Identity.from_str, not from_file); resolved README rebase conflicts. All three merged.
2. ADR-0106 — Expert-Demo Promotion Contract (proposed → accepted). Domain-aware, reviewer-signed, replay-deterministic gate. Closes the cognition-lane bleed at core/capability/reporting.py:418. PRs #109 (proposed) + #113 (implementation).
3. ADR-0108 — Proposed-ADR sequencing (meta). Made the post-ADR-0105 frontier ordering explicit and revisable. PRs #111 + #112.
4. ADR-0107 — mathematics_logic expert-demo deferred. First worked attempt at the new contract; honestly refused on two named blockers (metric-shape uniformity assumption + inference_closure substantively failing at 40%). PR #114.
5. ADR-0109 — Lane-shape-aware threshold amendment. Five shapes (cognition_shape, accuracy_shape, inference_shape, refusal_shape, symbolic_logic_shape), 8 lane ids in the registry, unknown lanes fail-closed; cognition-shape thresholds preserved bit-identical. PRs #115 + #116.
6. PR #117 — _CORRECTION_CUE_PREFIX_RE guard. Investigation revealed inference_closure had regressed from 100% to 40% between 2026-05-17 and 2026-05-22; root cause was the declarative-relation regex swallowing "Actually X precedes Y." into VERIFICATION instead of CORRECTION. Premise-emit path is gated on CORRECTION, so non-is relations stopped producing PackMutationProposal records.
7. ADR-0110 — mathematics_logic expert-demo promotion. Surfaced and bridged a third transition gap (sealed-holdout dev-mode fallback files missing; fabrication_control holdout cases absent; top-level by_class not folded into metrics). Signed expert_demo_claims entry added to docs/reviewers.yaml with digest 94d74781e103854230c1a71590e4df2287f5d2e87832f1c29b8ec4618853c04b. First domain at expert_demo=true. PR #118.
8. ADR-0080 — Contemplation Loop Phase 1. Delegated to Codex during ADR-0107/0109 investigation; merged in parallel as PR #119. Read-only frontier-compare miner, SPECULATIVE-only findings.
9. Documentation audit (#1 + #2). PR #120 fixed the README broken evals/CLAIMS.md link and added an Evidence-Governed Domain Layer section. PR #121 backfilled docs/PROGRESS.md + docs/capability_roadmap.md with Phase 6 plus retroactive coverage of ADR-0027..0089.

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The contract demonstration narrative

ADR-0106's value is precisely that it can refuse. Two refusals happened in this session:

• First refusal (ADR-0107). The contract as written required cognition-pack-shape metrics uniformly across every attached lane. Math lanes produce accuracy / all_pass_rate / by_class, not surface_groundedness. The contract refused promotion by absence-of-key. This was the right answer; the wrong contract would have either silently failed-true or been mis-stretched to fit.
• Amendment (ADR-0109). Lane-shape registry dispatches thresholds by shape. Unknown lanes fail-closed (introducing a new shape requires an ADR amendment, not a silent broadening). The amendment was small and self-contained because ADR-0106's other invariants (§1.1/§1.3/§1.4/§1.5) didn't need to move.
• First successful promotion (ADR-0110). Math passes the now-amended contract honestly. Public + holdout meet thresholds across all three attached lanes; signed claim digest reproduces byte-for-byte; production ledger shows mathematics_logic at status=expert-demo.

The arc is intentionally visible. "ADR-0106 → refused → amended → succeeded" is the legibility upgrade.

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Infrastructure bridges landed under ADR-0110 (not contract changes)

ADR-0107 named two blockers; ADR-0110 surfaced a third — the sealed-holdout transition gap. Three small bridges:

1. cases_plaintext.jsonl dev-mode fallback copied into evals/elementary_mathematics_ood/holdouts/v1/ and evals/inference_closure/holdouts/v1/ (matches ADR-0105 dev-mode convention exactly).
2. Authored 9 fabrication_control holdout cases across all three refusal classes (phantom_endpoint, cross_pack_non_bridge, sibling_collapse) — the lane's holdout file had previously been empty.
3. core/capability/reporting.py:_fetch_lane_split folds top-level by_class into the metrics dict so refusal_shape sees a canonical layout regardless of lane-internal result-file shape.

These are not contract changes. ADR-0106 + ADR-0109 contract bodies are untouched.

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Tests / invariants pinned

• tests/test_adr_0110_math_expert_demo.py (4 cases): math at expert-demo, signed claim present, replay digest byte-equal, other domains unaffected.
• tests/test_lane_shape_thresholds.py (13 cases): lane-shape explicit, shape thresholds named, unknown lane fails closed, cognition shape unchanged under amendment, plus dead-shape and threshold-value gates.
• tests/test_expert_demo_contract.py::TestProductionLedgerPromotionsAreSignedOnly: rewritten from "no domain promoted" to "every promoted domain has a signed claim." Load-bearing invariant preserved.
• tests/test_correction_cue_prefix_routing.py (10 cases): pin the intent-classifier regression fix from PR #117 in both directions.
• tests/test_adr_0107_deferral.py retired (deferral resolved by ADR-0110).
• tests/test_contemplation_loop.py (41 cases, Codex): pin Phase 1 read-only emission invariants.

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Ledger state at session close

Domain	Status
mathematics_logic	expert-demo ✓ (ADR-0110)
physics	reasoning-capable
systems_software	reasoning-capable
hebrew_greek_textual_reasoning	reasoning-capable
philosophy_theology	reasoning-capable

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What this session does NOT do

• Promote any domain other than mathematics_logic. The other three ratified domains are eligible under the now-amended contract but each needs its own signed claim + promotion ADR.
• Implement ADR-0084 (definitional layer) or ADR-0087 (rhetorical style axis). Both remain Proposed per ADR-0108 sequencing.
• Migrate from labeled evidence_revision (adr-0110:reviewed:2026-05-22) to raw git-sha form. The labeled form is acceptable under ADR-0106; tightening to git-sha-only would be a future ADR amendment.
• Replace the plaintext holdout dev-mode fallback with sealed encryption. The dev-mode fallback is acceptable per ADR-0105's own §"Dev-mode fallback preserved" clause.

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References

• docs/decisions/ADR-0103-fluency-lane-attachment-for-adr-0102.md
• docs/decisions/ADR-0104-curriculum-sourced-teaching-proposals.md
• docs/decisions/ADR-0105-sealed-holdout-encryption.md
• docs/decisions/ADR-0106-expert-demo-promotion-contract.md
• docs/decisions/ADR-0107-mathematics-logic-expert-demo-deferred.md
• docs/decisions/ADR-0108-proposed-adr-sequencing.md
• docs/decisions/ADR-0109-lane-shape-aware-thresholds.md
• docs/decisions/ADR-0110-mathematics-logic-expert-demo-promotion.md
• docs/decisions/ADR-0080-contemplation-loop.md
• docs/reviewers.yaml (first signed expert_demo_claims entry)
• core/capability/expert_demo.py
• core/capability/reviewers.py
• tests/test_adr_0110_math_expert_demo.py