@stonyx/orm 0.3.2-beta.16 → 0.3.2-beta.160

package/dist/orm-request.js

@@ -1,10 +1,283 @@
+/**
+ * REST request handling and access enforcement for @stonyx/orm.
+ *
+ * ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ * THE `access()` CONTRACT: `access(request, { model, operation })`
+ * ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ * `auth()` calls your predicate with TWO arguments. The second is the access
+ * CONTEXT -- the structural facts about the request, which the framework
+ * already holds and which you should read INSTEAD of parsing anything:
+ *
+ *   context.model     The model this route was mounted for, as a model name:
+ *                     kebab-case, exactly as declared under
+ *                     `config.orm.paths.model` and keyed in the store --
+ *                     `'owner'`, `'animal'`, `'phone-number'`. NOT the
+ *                     pluralised, dasherized, mount-prefixed ROUTE name. It is
+ *                     read from the OrmRequest instance, fixed at mount time,
+ *                     and no request can influence it.
+ *
+ *   context.operation The operation being authorised. Exactly one of the four
+ *                     verbs `'read'`, `'create'`, `'update'`, `'delete'` --
+ *                     no second vocabulary ON THIS PATH, and never an HTTP
+ *                     method name like `'GET'`. These are the same four
+ *                     strings the permission-array return shape is written in
+ *                     (`['read', 'create']`), because both come from the one
+ *                     `methodAccessMap` below.
+ *
+ *                     NOT the hook vocabulary. `HookContext.operation`
+ *                     (`src/hooks.ts`, documented under "Hook Context Object"
+ *                     in the README) carries `'list' | 'get' | 'create' |
+ *                     'update' | 'delete'` on an identically-named key of an
+ *                     identically-shaped context object, and the access
+ *                     vocabulary collapses `list` and `get` into `'read'`. For
+ *                     one `GET /animals/1` a hook sees `'get'` and `access()`
+ *                     sees `'read'`, so a predicate cannot tell a collection
+ *                     read from a record read. `AccessOperation` makes
+ *                     `operation === 'get'` a compile error for a TypeScript
+ *                     consumer, because a predicate that stops matching falls
+ *                     through to the permission array -- the misreading is
+ *                     fail-open shaped.
+ *
+ *                     `undefined` when the dispatched method has no entry in
+ *                     that map. Express delivers `HEAD` to the `GET` handler,
+ *                     so this is reachable. It is left undefined rather than
+ *                     defaulted on purpose -- a fabricated `'read'` would turn
+ *                     an unclassified request into an authorised one. Treat
+ *                     `undefined` as "not classified" and deny.
+ *
+ * So a consumer writes `if (model === 'owner' && operation === 'read')`. There
+ * is no string to parse, no variant to miss, and no way to fail open through a
+ * URL shape nobody anticipated.
+ *
+ * WHAT THE CONTEXT DOES NOT TELL YOU: WHICH SURFACE. It names the model and
+ * the verb, not the route. Measured over the live router, six surfaces produce
+ * one identical context:
+ *
+ *     GET /owners                          { model: 'owner', operation: 'read' }
+ *     GET /owners/gina                     { model: 'owner', operation: 'read' }
+ *     GET /owners/gina/pets                { model: 'owner', operation: 'read' }
+ *     GET /owners/gina/relationships/pets  { model: 'owner', operation: 'read' }
+ *     GET /owners/archived                 { model: 'owner', operation: 'read' }
+ *     GET /owners/gina?include=pets        { model: 'owner', operation: 'read' }
+ *
+ * So a rule that depends on the SUB-PATH still needs `request.path` -- which is
+ * mount-relative and query-free, and is the one read of argument one the
+ * warning below sanctions. This repo's own fixture has such a rule: its
+ * `/archived` deny cannot be expressed from the context alone, and a predicate
+ * migrated to context-only would silently drop it, turning a deny into an
+ * allow.
+ *
+ * THE RELATED-RESOURCE HALF OF THAT SENTENCE IS NOW OUT OF DATE AND IS
+ * CORRECTED HERE RATHER THAN DELETED. Both relationship route families resolve
+ * the RELATED model's own access class and ask it
+ * `{ model: <related>, operation: 'read', recordId: null }`
+ * (abofs/stonyx-orm#232), so those surfaces no longer serve another model's
+ * records under `model: 'owner'` unexamined. What the context still gives no
+ * signal of is WHICH related record is being asked about -- `recordId` is
+ * `null` there and `request.params` names a record of a different model. See
+ * `AccessContext.recordId` in ./types/orm-types.ts for the full statement of
+ * that limit. `?include=` is still unfiltered and is abofs/stonyx-orm#233 /
+ * #235.
+ *
+ * SUPERSEDED 2026-09-01 BY abofs/stonyx-orm#236/#237, AND KEPT FOR THE
+ * CONSTRAINT IT STATES RATHER THAN AS A DESCRIPTION OF THE CODE. The context
+ * now also carries `recordId` -- the DECODED route-parameter id, see
+ * `AccessContext.recordId` in ./types/orm-types.ts -- so the fixture's
+ * `/archived` deny IS expressible from the context alone, and the shipped
+ * sample no longer reads `request.path` at all. Retiring this wording WITH the
+ * measurement that retires it, rather than by deletion, is
+ * abofs/stonyx-orm#238.
+ *
+ * `record` IS NOT IN THIS CONTEXT, deliberately. `auth()` runs after route
+ * matching but BEFORE any handler executes (`@stonyx/rest-server`
+ * `src/request.ts:58-60`), so nothing has been fetched yet -- supplying a
+ * record would force a pre-fetch on every request, a second store hit and an
+ * ordering change in the middle of an authorization path. It is also
+ * unnecessary: the FUNCTION return shape already is the per-record hook. Return
+ * `(record) => boolean` and the handlers apply it to every record the request
+ * touches. Auth-time and record-time are separate decision points.
+ *
+ * THE SECOND ARGUMENT IS ADDITIVE. JavaScript ignores extra arguments, so an
+ * existing `access(request)` predicate keeps working exactly as before. The
+ * warning immediately below is therefore still live: `request` is still
+ * argument ONE, and reading it is still how predicates fail open.
+ *
+ * To reach ANOTHER model's predicate -- e.g. to check an animal while servicing
+ * an owners route -- use the boot-time registry:
+ *
+ *     const predicate = Orm.instance.getAccess('animal');
+ *     if (!predicate) return deny;
+ *     const verdict = predicate(request, { model: 'animal', operation: 'read' });
+ *
+ * `undefined` means NO PREDICATE COULD BE RESOLVED for that name -- which
+ * includes the case where the model has an access class that failed to load,
+ * because `setup-rest-server.ts` catches a load failure, warns, and publishes
+ * whatever partial map it had. It does NOT mean the model is unrestricted.
+ * Treat it as DENY, the same way `operation === undefined` is treated above.
+ *
+ * PASSING THE CONTEXT MAKES A MODEL-CORRECT ANSWER POSSIBLE. It does not make
+ * the answer model-correct on its own -- the resolved predicate has to READ it.
+ * Measured against an ARITY-1 predicate, on a request express dispatched to
+ * `GET /owners/angela`, asked about ANIMALS:
+ *
+ *     getAccess('animal')(ownersRequest, { model: 'animal', operation: 'read' })
+ *       ->  record => record.id !== 'angela' && record.id !== 'restricted'
+ *
+ * That is the OWNERS filter, and it returns `true` for animal 21 -- the record
+ * hidden on every animal surface. Under a mount that predicate recognises
+ * neither way it is worse: it falls through to
+ * `['read', 'create', 'update', 'delete']`, a full CRUD grant. Either way the
+ * context was supplied and the answer is not the animal answer, and it is wrong
+ * in the GRANTING direction, because that predicate is arity-1 and identifies
+ * its collection from the request. (Asserted on a live dispatch by AC9 in
+ * test/integration/orm-test.ts, against a deliberately arity-1 predicate.)
+ *
+ * This repo's own sample access class has since been MIGRATED to read the
+ * context (abofs/stonyx-orm#222), so `getAccess('animal')` here now answers
+ * with the animal filter. That is not true of a consumer tree: an arity-1
+ * predicate keeps working -- the second argument is additive -- and the caller
+ * has no supported way to tell which kind it got. The boot-time arity warning
+ * that surfaces one is abofs/stonyx-orm#221.
+ * So: pass the context, and do not treat a resolved predicate's answer as
+ * model-specific until that predicate has been migrated to read the context.
+ *
+ * ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ * DO NOT RECONSTRUCT THE REQUEST PATH INSIDE `access()`.
+ * ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ * You do not have to. `auth()` below hands your predicate the ACCESS CONTEXT as
+ * argument two, and `context.model` already names the collection -- see the
+ * contract section above. Argument ONE is still the raw transport artifact, and
+ * everything from here to the end of this banner is the record of what happened
+ * when predicates worked the collection out from it. IT IS HISTORY, NOT
+ * GUIDANCE: do not write any of it into a new predicate. Every attempt to
+ * identify the collection by parsing the request target has failed OPEN. Five
+ * distinct variants of the same three-line example have now been found, each
+ * after the previous was fixed, by five different people:
+ *
+ *   1. `request.url` is mount-relative under `RestServer.mountRoute`, so a
+ *      prefix match against it is ALWAYS false.
+ *   2. `request.originalUrl` carries the query string, so an anchored equality
+ *      check misses `/owners?filter[age]=30`.
+ *   3. The router is a bare `express()` (`caseSensitive: false`) while a
+ *      hand-written matcher is case-SENSITIVE, so `GET /OwNeRs/angela` walks
+ *      past it. Router-side: abofs/stonyx-rest-server#47.
+ *   4. Under a configured `ORM_REST_ROUTE` a hard-coded `/owners` matches
+ *      nothing -- environment-specifically, which is worse.
+ *   5. HTTP/1.1 permits an ABSOLUTE-FORM request-target. Express routes on
+ *      `parseurl(req).pathname`, but `originalUrl` is the raw target, so
+ *      `GET http://anything.example/owners/angela` reaches the handler with
+ *      `originalUrl === 'http://anything.example/owners/angela'`. A `/owners`
+ *      prefix match is false, `access()` falls through to whatever it returns
+ *      last, and the record comes back in full. It walks past a hard
+ *      `return false` deny the same way.
+ *
+ * The fix is not a sixth rule, and it is not a better string to match. It is to
+ * stop identifying the collection at all: read `context.model`. That is a claim
+ * about IDENTIFYING THE COLLECTION, not about the sample as a whole -- the
+ * `/archived` SUB-PATH rule is still a string match, and abofs/stonyx-orm#228 is
+ * a sixth spelling that gets past it.
+ *
+ * SUPERSEDED 2026-09-01 BY abofs/stonyx-orm#236/#237: the `/archived` rule is
+ * no longer a string match against the request target -- it compares the
+ * decoded `recordId` the framework supplies -- and abofs/stonyx-orm#228 is
+ * CLOSED. Retirement of this wording: abofs/stonyx-orm#238.
+ *
+ *   An intermediate revision of the sample read `request.baseUrl` -- the mount
+ *   Express ACTUALLY MATCHED. That closed all five variants (no query string,
+ *   not mount-relative, unaffected by absolute-form, already carrying the
+ *   configured `ORM_REST_ROUTE` prefix), but it was a transport artifact
+ *   standing in for a structural fact and the sample no longer does it.
+ *   `context.model` IS the structural fact, so variants 1, 2, 4 and 5 are
+ *   unconstructible against a migrated predicate rather than handled.
+ *
+ *   VARIANT 3 SURVIVES, and is deliberately not in that list. It is the general
+ *   shape "a hand-written matcher normalises differently from the router", and a
+ *   migrated predicate still runs one string comparison for any SUB-PATH rule --
+ *   in the shipped sample, the `/archived` deny. That comparison folds case but
+ *   does not decode, so `GET /owners/%61rchived` steps past it. See the
+ *   normalisation paragraph below and abofs/stonyx-orm#228.
+ *
+ *   SUPERSEDED 2026-09-01 BY abofs/stonyx-orm#236/#237. Variant 3 lived in that
+ *   one string comparison, and the comparison is gone: the sample compares the
+ *   decoded `recordId`. Left standing rather than edited because the same
+ *   "variant 3 survives" wording sits at four sites -- this header, README.md
+ *   twice, and test/sample/access/global-access.ts -- three of which SHIP, so
+ *   retiring one of four leaves the shipped copies contradicting each other.
+ *   Retiring all four WITH their measurement is abofs/stonyx-orm#238.
+ *
+ * ONE READ OF ARGUMENT ONE SURVIVES, AND IT MUST: `request.path`. It is
+ * mount-relative and query-free, and it is for rules that distinguish SUB-PATHS
+ * beneath the mount. The context names which model and which verb, NOT which
+ * route, so the sample's `/archived` deny cannot be expressed from the context
+ * alone and a context-ONLY rewrite would silently turn that deny into an allow.
+ *
+ * SUPERSEDED 2026-09-01 BY abofs/stonyx-orm#236/#237: NO read of argument one
+ * survives in the shipped sample. `recordId` names WHICH RECORD the route was
+ * addressed to, so the `/archived` deny is expressible from the context alone
+ * -- and it still must not be dropped; expressible is not optional. Retirement
+ * of this wording: abofs/stonyx-orm#238.
+ *
+ * NORMALISE THE WAY THE ROUTER DOES, AND CASE-FOLDING ALONE IS NOT THAT. The
+ * sample lower-cases before comparing, because a matcher stricter than the
+ * case-insensitive router can be stepped around. That closes the case gap only.
+ * Express sets `request.path` from the RAW, UNDECODED pathname while the router
+ * DECODES `:id`, so `GET /owners/%61rchived` reaches a `path === '/archived'`
+ * comparison as `/%61rchived` and walks past the deny. That gap is live in the
+ * sample and is tracked as abofs/stonyx-orm#228; the `.toLowerCase()` is not a
+ * complete normalisation recipe. Compare record ids at their real case.
+ *
+ * DO NOT FOLLOW THE PARAGRAPH ABOVE. SUPERSEDED 2026-09-01 BY
+ * abofs/stonyx-orm#236/#237, and flagged here rather than merely dated because
+ * it is an INSTRUCTION, not a stale observation. `.toLowerCase()` on the access
+ * path was measured WRONG IN BOTH DIRECTIONS AT ONCE: with a distinct owner
+ * seeded at `ARCHIVED`, `GET /owners/ARCHIVED` was a false DENY on the wrong
+ * record and `GET /owners/%41RCHIVED` a false ALLOW on that same record. A
+ * record id is a VALUE, not a literal route segment, and express's
+ * `case sensitive routing` governs literal segments only. Compare
+ * `context.recordId` AS IT ARRIVES: do not case-fold it, do not decode it, do
+ * not derive it from `request.path`. `AccessContext.recordId` in
+ * ./types/orm-types.ts is the contract and says "Do NOT case-fold it"; the same
+ * published tarball ships both files, and THIS paragraph is the one that is
+ * wrong. Retiring it WITH its measurement is abofs/stonyx-orm#238.
+ *
+ * `?? ''` is not a defence. It converts an absent request target into an empty
+ * string, which matches no collection, which falls through to the permission
+ * array -- a total grant. An input you cannot identify must DENY, and that
+ * applies to BOTH arguments: since #202 the guard and the read can sit on
+ * different objects, and a guard on argument two does not protect a read of
+ * argument one. The sample returns `false` for an absent `model` AND for an
+ * absent or non-string `request.path`, rather than falling through either way.
+ *
+ * SUPERSEDED 2026-09-01 BY abofs/stonyx-orm#236/#237 as to WHAT is guarded --
+ * the principle is unchanged. The sample no longer reads `request.path`, so it
+ * returns `false` for an absent `model` AND for an absent `recordId`
+ * (`undefined`, the one spelling `auth()` never produces). Retirement of this
+ * wording: abofs/stonyx-orm#238.
+ *
+ * THE REAL FIX IS abofs/stonyx-orm#202: `access()` should receive the model,
+ * the operation and the record. Prefer the array shape (`['read']`) or `false`
+ * until #202 lands; the function shape is what requires any matching at all.
+ *
+ * The enforcement gates in this file (GATE 0/1/2, the create rollback, the
+ * per-handler `isDenied` re-checks) are correct independently of that -- they
+ * enforce whatever predicate you return. The stopgap is the part where YOU have
+ * to work out which predicate to return.
+ *
+ * AND A PREDICATE IS NOT A GUARANTEE THAT A HIDDEN RECORD CANNOT BE MODIFIED.
+ * It is evaluated against the record the route is ADDRESSED TO, on that model
+ * only. A write to a DIFFERENT collection can still re-parent a hidden record
+ * and de-hide it -- abofs/stonyx-orm#207, which is blocked on #202 and #196.
+ * See `### Known limitations` in README.
+ */
 import { Request } from '@stonyx/rest-server';
 import Orm, { store, createRecord, updateRecord } from '@stonyx/orm';
 import { camelCaseToKebabCase } from '@stonyx/utils/string';
 import { getPluralName } from './plural-registry.js';
 import { getBeforeHooks, getAfterHooks } from './hooks.js';
 import config from 'stonyx/config';
-import { isOrmRecord } from './utils.js';
+import log from 'stonyx/log';
+import { isOrmRecord, NO_FREE_ID_ERROR } from './utils.js';
+import { interpretAccess, createLinkageFilter } from './access-verdict.js';
 const methodAccessMap = {
     GET: 'read',
     POST: 'create',
@@ -48,16 +321,120 @@ function getBaseUrl(request) {
     const host = request.get('host');
     return `${protocol}://${host}`;
 }
+/**
+ * The ONE coercion from a caller-supplied id to the key the store holds it
+ * under. Every id-bearing surface in this file goes through it, and none has a
+ * copy: `getId()` (URL params), `normalizeBodyId()` (JSON body), and the
+ * post-create `context.record` lookup in `_withHooks`.
+ *
+ * WHY IT IS SHARED RATHER THAN DUPLICATED. `getId()` and `normalizeBodyId()`
+ * each had their own arithmetic, and they disagreed: `parseInt(id)` versus
+ * `parseInt(id, 10)`. On a hex-shaped id that is a two-record difference --
+ *
+ *   GET  /animals/0x2391          -> record 9105   (getId    -> parseInt('0x2391')     = 9105)
+ *   POST /animals {"id":"0x2391"} -> lookup under 0 (normalize -> parseInt('0x2391',10) = 0)
+ *                                 -> a MISS, so the duplicate check was skipped and
+ *                                    createRecord OVERWROTE 9105 in place, answering 200
+ *
+ * -- a narrower form of the raw-versus-normalised divergence that the body-id
+ * normalisation was added to close, reintroduced by the fix for it. Two
+ * coercions that must agree cannot be kept in agreement by review; they have to
+ * be one function. Pinned by assertion 43.
+ *
+ * The third copy was found later and in a quieter place: `_withHooks` populated
+ * `context.record` for `create` with `isNaN(id) ? id : parseInt(id)` -- this
+ * function's body, inlined verbatim, feeding `store.get`. It was equivalent on
+ * every input reachable there, which is exactly what the two that DID diverge
+ * looked like until someone tried a hex id.
+ *
+ * SHARING IT IS NOT THE SAME AS IT BEING RIGHT EVERYWHERE. On a model declaring
+ * `id = attr('string')` a numeric-looking id is filed under the STRING key, so
+ * this coercion resolves `'9107'` to `9107` and the post-create lookup misses:
+ * `context.record` is `undefined` for an after-`create` hook. Inherited -- the
+ * inlined copy computed the same thing -- and NOT fixed here, because picking
+ * the right coercion needs the model's declared id type, which is the same
+ * structural information abofs/stonyx-orm#202 is about. Filed as
+ * abofs/stonyx-orm#209 and pinned by assertion 50, so closing it turns a test
+ * red rather than passing silently.
+ *
+ * `parseInt` and not `Number`, deliberately, and the anchor is NOT `getId`.
+ * It is `src/transforms.ts:7` -- `number: (value) => parseInt(value as string)`,
+ * also radix-less -- because that transform is what actually produces the store
+ * KEY a record is filed under. `getId` merely agrees with it. They differ from
+ * `Number` on `'1e3'` (1 vs 1000) and `'9105.5'` (9105 vs 9105.5), so switching
+ * this function to `Number` would make the lookup key disagree with the landing
+ * key on those shapes.
+ *
+ * THE CHANGE THAT WOULD BREAK THIS: adding a radix to `transforms.number`
+ * (`parseInt(value, 10)`). That is a one-word edit in a file with no connection
+ * to authorization, it would silently reopen the hex divergence in the other
+ * direction, and this comment would still read as correct. Assertion 45 pins
+ * the transform's radix-less shape directly, so that edit turns a test red
+ * rather than shipping.
+ *
+ * The reason `parseInt` is safe here is the `isNaN` gate in front of it:
+ * `parseInt('9105h')` is `9105`, and truncating a partially-valid id into a
+ * DIFFERENT VALID key is exactly how a collision lookup gets skipped. The gate
+ * rejects it as a string instead, so nothing is ever truncated. That gate, not
+ * the parser, is the load-bearing half -- assertion 43 pins it.
+ */
+function coerceId(id) {
+    if (isNaN(id))
+        return id;
+    return parseInt(id);
+}
 function getId(params) {
     const id = params.id;
     if (!id)
         return '';
-    if (isNaN(id))
+    return coerceId(id);
+}
+/**
+ * Normalise a caller-supplied BODY id to the key the store will hold it under.
+ *
+ * `getId()` above is params-shaped: it takes `{ id?: string }` off the URL,
+ * where the value is always a string and a falsy one means "no id". A JSON body
+ * id is neither -- it can arrive as a number, and `0` is a legitimate id that
+ * `getId()` would flatten to `''`.
+ *
+ * WHY THIS EXISTS AT ALL. createHandler used to look the collision up with the
+ * RAW body value while every other surface normalised through `getId()`. The
+ * store is a Map keyed by the coerced value, so `store.find(model, '21')` misses
+ * the entry held under `21` and the duplicate check is skipped by typing the id
+ * as a string. On `dev` that silently overwrote the colliding record and
+ * answered 200; combined with the denied-create rollback added for #190 it
+ * became an unauthenticated DELETE of any id. Normalising here is half of that
+ * fix -- see the rollback in createHandler for the other half.
+ *
+ * It shares `coerceId` with `getId` so the two surfaces cannot drift apart
+ * again, and differs from `getId` in exactly ONE place, below.
+ */
+function normalizeBodyId(id) {
+    // Non-strings pass through untouched: a JSON body id can arrive as a number,
+    // and `getId`'s falsy-flatten must NOT apply to it -- `0` is a legitimate id
+    // and `getId` would turn it into `''`. (assertion 30 sweeps id `0`.)
+    if (typeof id !== 'string')
         return id;
-    return parseInt(id);
+    // THE ONE DIVERGENCE FROM `getId`, and it mirrors rather than contradicts it:
+    // `getId` maps a falsy param to `''`, and `''` is the only string a body can
+    // carry that means "no id" -- `createRecord` treats it as absent and assigns a
+    // server id. Coercing it instead would make it address a real slot, because
+    // `parseInt('')` is `NaN` and a record CAN be held under `NaN` (a truthy but
+    // non-numeric id such as `'   '` survives `assignRecordId`'s falsy guard and
+    // then NaNs in the id transform). So `POST {"id":""}` would answer 409 against
+    // an unrelated record it never named. Pinned by assertion 44.
+    //
+    // Note what is deliberately NOT special-cased here any more: whitespace.
+    // `id.trim() === ''` used to short-circuit `'   '` as well, which made the
+    // body surface DISAGREE with the URL surface -- `getId({id:'   '})` is `NaN`,
+    // so `'   '` addresses the NaN slot on every other route while the collision
+    // lookup missed it. Same class of bug as the hex divergence above.
+    if (id === '')
+        return id;
+    return coerceId(id);
 }
 function buildResponse(data, includeParam, recordOrRecords, options = {}) {
-    const { links, baseUrl } = options;
+    const { links, baseUrl, linkage } = options;
     const response = { data };
     // Add top-level links
     if (links) {
@@ -70,7 +447,53 @@ function buildResponse(data, includeParam, recordOrRecords, options = {}) {
         return response;
     const includedRecords = collectIncludedRecords(recordOrRecords, includes);
     if (includedRecords.length > 0) {
-        response.included = includedRecords.map(record => record.toJSON?.({ baseUrl }));
+        // LINKAGE, NOT MEMBERSHIP -- and the distinction is the whole reason this
+        // line is one story's and the line above it is another's
+        // (abofs/stonyx-orm#235 and #233 respectively).
+        //
+        //   - WHICH RESOURCES REACH THIS ARRAY is decided by
+        //     `collectIncludedRecords` on the line above. That is MEMBERSHIP, it is
+        //     #233's, and it is deliberately untouched here: a hidden owner is
+        //     still a member of `included` after this change. Pinned green by
+        //     `[GUARD] #235 X1` so that #235 cannot close #233 incidentally.
+        //   - WHAT A RECORD ALREADY IN THIS ARRAY MAY NAME in its own
+        //     `relationships.*.data` is LINKAGE -- the same question #234 answers
+        //     for the primary document -- and that is what the `linkage` option
+        //     below decides. Before it, `GET /animals/1?include=owner,owner.pets`
+        //     filtered the primary document's `owner.data` to `null` and then
+        //     handed back eight PERMITTED animals in `included` each naming
+        //     `{"type":"owner","id":"angela"}` -- angela's whole `pets` set,
+        //     `[1, 3, 7, 10, 11, 15, 17, 20]`. `included` itself is NINE
+        //     resources there: those eight animals plus the hidden owner, whose
+        //     membership is #233's and not an animal. Neither #233 nor #234
+        //     closes that.
+        //
+        // THE FILTER IS THE CALLER'S, PASSED IN, NOT BUILT HERE. Both call sites
+        // already hold one for the primary document, and sharing it is what keeps
+        // the per-type verdict cache and the per-(type, id) decision cache alive
+        // across the primary document AND the sideload -- one verdict resolution
+        // per type for the whole response, pinned by `[GUARD] #235 C1`. Building a
+        // fresh filter here would resolve the consumer's `access()` once per
+        // included record instead.
+        //
+        // `linkage` IS OPTIONAL IN THE TYPE AND IS NOT OPTIONAL IN PRACTICE.
+        // Stating it precisely because the opposite claim stood here in an earlier
+        // draft of this change: BOTH of this function's callers supply a filter
+        // (`getCollectionHandler` and `getSingleHandler`, the only two), so the
+        // `undefined` branch has no live caller in this module today. It is
+        // optional so that omitting it degrades to the PRE-#234 document rather
+        // than to a denial -- `Record.toJSON` reads an ABSENT option as "no verdict
+        // was supplied" and emits linkage in full.
+        //
+        // WHAT IT MUST NEVER BE HANDED IS A NON-FUNCTION. `toJSON` does NOT read a
+        // non-function as absent: `Object.prototype.toString.call(linkage)` must be
+        // `'[object Function]'`, and anything else -- `null`, an `AsyncFunction`,
+        // and INCLUDING the primitive `true` -- DENIES every relationship on the
+        // document and logs once. `toJSON({ linkage: true })` emits `null` linkage.
+        // So do not "simplify" this to a boolean, and do not make it default to
+        // `true`: both spellings look like "allow everything" and mean the exact
+        // opposite (abofs/stonyx-orm#224).
+        response.included = includedRecords.map(record => record.toJSON?.({ baseUrl, linkage }));
     }
     return response;
 }
@@ -187,6 +610,39 @@ function createFilterPredicate(filters) {
         return String(current) === value;
     });
 }
+/**
+ * A function-style `access` return is a per-record predicate, and it is only
+ * meaningful if every surface that can hand a record to a caller consults it.
+ * Before #190 exactly one of seven did.
+ *
+ * Enforcement is deliberately post-fetch. `access` returns an opaque JS
+ * predicate and `store.findAll(model, conditions)` accepts only an equality
+ * conditions object that the SQL drivers translate to a WHERE clause, so
+ * query-layer enforcement would require a breaking change to the published
+ * `access` contract. That belongs in #197, not in a security patch. Six of the
+ * seven surfaces fetch by primary key anyway, so this costs exactly one row.
+ */
+function isDenied(filter, record) {
+    if (typeof filter !== 'function')
+        return false;
+    // A predicate that throws is treated as a denial. Unguarded, a throw escapes
+    // to express's default handler, which answers 500 (with a stack trace outside
+    // NODE_ENV=production) while a missing id still answers 404 -- so a
+    // record-dependent throw re-separates "hidden" from "does not exist" and
+    // hands back the oracle this whole change exists to close.
+    try {
+        return !filter(record);
+    }
+    catch (error) {
+        // Denied, but not silently. A consumer predicate that throws on every
+        // record turns the whole collection into a 404 wall, and with no
+        // diagnostic that is indistinguishable from an empty database. `stonyx/log`
+        // is the module convention (see setup-rest-server.ts); optional-call
+        // because a consumer may not have configured the log types.
+        log.error?.(`[@stonyx/orm] access filter threw for model -- denying. ${error instanceof Error ? error.message : String(error)}`);
+        return true;
+    }
+}
 export default class OrmRequest extends Request {
     model;
     access;
@@ -210,37 +666,168 @@ export default class OrmRequest extends Request {
             if (queryFilterPredicate)
                 recordsToReturn = recordsToReturn.filter(queryFilterPredicate);
             const baseUrl = getBaseUrl(request);
-            const data = recordsToReturn.map(record => record.toJSON?.({ fields: modelFields, baseUrl }));
+            // ONE filter per REQUEST, not one per record: it carries the per-type
+            // verdict cache and the per-(type, id) decision cache, and both are
+            // worthless if it is rebuilt inside the map. Measured on this exact
+            // surface with no `include=`: 48 linkage entries collapse to 7 distinct
+            // (type, id) pairs.
+            const linkage = createLinkageFilter(request);
+            const data = recordsToReturn.map(record => record.toJSON?.({ fields: modelFields, baseUrl, linkage }));
             return buildResponse(data, request.query?.include, recordsToReturn, {
                 links: { self: `${baseUrl}/${pluralizedModel}` },
-                baseUrl
+                baseUrl,
+                // THE SAME filter object the primary documents above were serialized
+                // with, deliberately: it carries the caches, and rebuilding one here
+                // would re-resolve every type (abofs/stonyx-orm#235).
+                linkage
             });
         };
-        const getSingleHandler = async (request) => {
+        const getSingleHandler = async (request, { filter }) => {
             const record = await store.find(model, getId(request.params));
             if (!record)
                 return 404;
+            // 404, never 403: the status for "exists but filtered out" must be
+            // identical to "does not exist", or the fix trades an authorization
+            // bypass for a narrower existence oracle.
+            if (isDenied(filter, record))
+                return 404;
             const fieldsMap = parseFields(request.query);
             const modelFields = fieldsMap.get(pluralizedModel) || fieldsMap.get(model);
             const baseUrl = getBaseUrl(request);
-            return buildResponse(record.toJSON?.({ fields: modelFields, baseUrl }), request.query?.include, record, {
+            const linkage = createLinkageFilter(request);
+            // `buildResponse` IS given the filter now (abofs/stonyx-orm#235), and it
+            // is the SAME object the primary document is serialized with -- one
+            // verdict per type for the whole response, sideload included.
+            //
+            // The boundary that remains, so the next reader does not have to derive
+            // it: this closes what a record already in `included` may NAME. WHETHER a
+            // resource appears in `included` at all is MEMBERSHIP and it is
+            // abofs/stonyx-orm#233's -- a hidden owner is still a member here.
+            // Neither question closes the other.
+            return buildResponse(record.toJSON?.({ fields: modelFields, baseUrl, linkage }), request.query?.include, record, {
                 links: { self: `${baseUrl}/${pluralizedModel}/${request.params.id}` },
-                baseUrl
+                baseUrl,
+                linkage
             });
         };
-        const createHandler = async ({ body, query }) => {
+        const createHandler = async (request, { filter }) => {
+            // BOUND, not destructured (abofs/stonyx-orm#235). `HandlerFn` has always
+            // delivered the request as argument one; this handler simply discarded
+            // the binding, which is why its response document named ids every read
+            // surface withholds. `createLinkageFilter` needs the live request and
+            // there is no signature change involved in giving it one.
+            const { body, query } = request;
             const { type, id, attributes, relationships: rels } = (body?.data || {});
             if (!type)
                 return 400; // Bad request
             const fieldsMap = parseFields(query);
             const modelFields = fieldsMap.get(pluralizedModel) || fieldsMap.get(model);
-            // Check for duplicate ID
-            if (id !== undefined && await store.find(model, id))
-                return 409; // Conflict
+            // GATE 0 -- the POST existence oracle.
+            //
+            // The duplicate check runs before the filter and `store.find` sees hidden
+            // records, so POST leaks existence through its STATUS. A previous revision
+            // filtered the collision status (403 when the colliding record is denied,
+            // 409 when it is visible) and that is NOT sufficient, because the status
+            // of a create is a third outcome. With a payload the caller is permitted
+            // to create -- the normative case for a per-tenant filter, and the case an
+            // attacker picks -- all three are distinguishable in ONE request per id:
+            //
+            //   POST /animals {id:22,   owner:'gina'} -> 403   a HIDDEN record has this id
+            //   POST /animals {id:9500, owner:'gina'} -> 200   this id is FREE
+            //   POST /animals {id:8,    owner:'gina'} -> 409   a VISIBLE record has this id
+            //
+            // Filtering only the collision status narrows that to callers who cannot
+            // create a record they are allowed to see. It does not close it.
+            //
+            // It cannot be closed while a caller both chooses the id and learns
+            // whether the create succeeded: a successful create must answer
+            // differently from a refused one. So when a per-record filter is in force
+            // the caller does not get to choose the id at all. The refusal is
+            // UNCONDITIONAL and happens BEFORE any store lookup, so no status, and no
+            // lookup cost, can depend on whether that id exists. 403 -- the same
+            // status as a denied create -- so the two cannot be separated either.
+            //
+            // BOTH HALVES OF THAT ARE PINNED, because both were once asserted here and
+            // pinned by nothing:
+            //
+            //   status  -- assertion 22 sweeps payload x id x id-type, plus `null`.
+            //   latency -- assertion 41 asserts NO `store.find` is issued on this
+            //              path. Moving the refusal to after a lookup and returning
+            //              the same 403 left the suite green while re-opening a
+            //              hit-versus-miss timing difference on every id-bearing POST,
+            //              which is what would turn #197 from a ~0.06ms post-fetch
+            //              residual into a live timing oracle on create.
+            //
+            // AND THE GUARANTEE IS ONLY AS WIDE AS THE CHANNELS IT COVERS. It reads on
+            // the `id` member of the resource object, so it holds only while that is
+            // the ONLY way a caller id can reach `createRecord`. It was not: the
+            // relationships loop below re-admitted one under `key === "id"` and the
+            // gate never fired. Both strips -- `attributes.id` and `relationships.id`
+            // -- are therefore part of THIS gate, not tidiness, and assertion 39 pins
+            // them. Adding a third channel without a strip re-opens the oracle.
+            //
+            // Scoped to function-style `access` because that is exactly the population
+            // the oracle exists for: with no per-record filter there are no hidden
+            // records, and 409 discloses nothing GET /:id does not already.
+            //
+            // RESIDUALS, stated rather than implied.
+            //
+            //   - a caller can still learn that a collection HAS a per-record filter
+            //     (403 rather than 409/200 for an id-bearing POST). That discloses a
+            //     configuration fact, not a record.
+            //   - this gate is about ids arriving on THIS model's create route. It
+            //     says nothing about a write to ANOTHER collection: a `POST /owners`
+            //     carrying `relationships: {pets: {data: {id: 21}}}` -- or
+            //     `attributes: {pets: [21, 22]}`, which never enters the
+            //     relationships loop at all -- re-parents hidden animal 21 onto an
+            //     owner the caller may write, which changes the very field the
+            //     animals predicate reads and DE-HIDES it. Blocking that needs animal
+            //     21 checked against the ANIMAL model's predicate while servicing an
+            //     OWNERS route, i.e. cross-model access resolution: abofs/stonyx-orm
+            //     #207, blocked on #202 (`access` receives the model structurally)
+            //     and #196 (setup-rest-server discards the model->predicate map at
+            //     boot). NOT closed here, and no comment in this file may say it is.
+            //
+            // See README `### Known limitations`.
+            if (id !== undefined) {
+                if (typeof filter === 'function')
+                    return 403; // Forbidden
+                // `normalizeBodyId`, not the raw value: a string-typed id misses the
+                // store's numeric key, which skipped this check entirely.
+                const existing = await store.find(model, normalizeBodyId(id));
+                if (existing)
+                    return 409; // Conflict
+            }
             const { id: _ignoredId, ...sanitizedAttributes } = attributes || {};
-            // Extract relationship IDs from JSON:API relationships object
+            // Extract relationship IDs from JSON:API relationships object.
+            //
+            // `key` comes VERBATIM from the request body, so `id` is stripped here for
+            // exactly the same reason it is stripped from `attributes` on the line
+            // above -- and it must be, or GATE 0 is walked around by moving one field:
+            //
+            //   POST /animals {"id":21, ...}                    -> 403  GATE 0 fires
+            //   POST /animals {"relationships":{"id":{"data":{"id":21}}},
+            //                  "attributes":{"owner":"gina"}}   -> 200  BYPASS
+            //
+            // Top-level `id` stayed `undefined`, so GATE 0 never fired and the
+            // collision lookup never ran; `createRecord` took its last-entry-wins
+            // branch, overwrote hidden record 21 in place and reset its `owner` to a
+            // value the caller chose -- de-hiding it permanently. That is #190 itself,
+            // on the create surface. Pinned by assertion 39.
+            //
+            // The `id` member of the resource object is now the ONLY channel a caller
+            // id can arrive on FOR THIS MODEL'S OWN CREATE ROUTE, which is what makes
+            // GATE 0's guarantee checkable rather than merely asserted. It is not a
+            // statement about the record's reachability in general -- a relationship
+            // write on another collection reaches it without ever touching this
+            // handler (abofs/stonyx-orm#207). INHERITED from `dev`, which carries this
+            // loop verbatim; the general form -- the loop accepts any key, not just
+            // `id`, so a body key that is not a declared relationship is still
+            // mass-assigned -- is abofs/stonyx-orm#204.
             if (rels) {
                 for (const [key, value] of Object.entries(rels)) {
+                    if (key === 'id')
+                        continue;
                     const relData = value?.data;
                     if (relData && relData.id !== undefined) {
                         sanitizedAttributes[key] = relData.id;
@@ -248,16 +835,163 @@ export default class OrmRequest extends Request {
                 }
             }
             const recordAttributes = id !== undefined ? { id, ...sanitizedAttributes } : sanitizedAttributes;
-            const created = createRecord(model, recordAttributes, { serialize: false, _skipAutoPersist: true });
+            // Slot count BEFORE the write. `createRecord` writes to the store before
+            // the predicate can run, and the rollback below must be able to prove the
+            // slot it removes is one THIS REQUEST created. Identity alone cannot
+            // prove it: when `assignRecordId` lands on an occupied id, `createRecord`
+            // mutates the existing OrmRecord IN PLACE, so `store.get(...) === record`
+            // is true for a record the request did not create. The map's size is the
+            // only O(1) signal that distinguishes an insert from an overwrite.
+            const slotsBefore = store.get(model)?.size ?? 0;
+            // THE ONE `createRecord` FAILURE THIS ROUTE ANSWERS RATHER THAN
+            // PROPAGATES, and it is narrow on purpose.
+            //
+            // `assignRecordId` throws when it cannot derive a free store key for a
+            // server-assigned id. Unguarded that rejection is auto-forwarded -- there
+            // is no catch here, none in @stonyx/rest-server's dispatcher
+            // (dist/request.js:41-70), and express 5 hands it to its default error
+            // handler, which serialises the STACK, with absolute install paths and the
+            // internal module graph, to an unauthenticated caller outside
+            // NODE_ENV=production. That is the hazard :553-558 already names in this
+            // file, and every sibling refusal in this handler returns an integer
+            // status instead. So this one returns 409, matching the client-duplicate
+            // refusal at :713: the caller asked for a record and the collection has no
+            // id to give it.
+            //
+            // MATCHED ON THE SHARED PREFIX, not on a literal, and NOT by catching
+            // everything: `createRecord` also throws for "ORM is not ready", a
+            // read-only view and an unregistered model store, and turning any of those
+            // into a 409 would report a configuration fault as a conflict. Anything
+            // else is re-thrown unchanged.
+            let created;
+            try {
+                created = createRecord(model, recordAttributes, { serialize: false, _skipAutoPersist: true });
+            }
+            catch (error) {
+                if (!(error instanceof Error) || !error.message.startsWith(NO_FREE_ID_ERROR))
+                    throw error;
+                // Not silently. A collection that can no longer assign an id is a
+                // configuration fault (a non-injective id transform), and a bare 409
+                // with no diagnostic is indistinguishable from an ordinary duplicate.
+                log.error?.(`[@stonyx/orm] ${error.message}`);
+                return 409; // Conflict
+            }
             const record = isOrmRecord(created) ? created : null;
             if (!record)
                 return 500;
-            return { data: record.toJSON?.({ fields: modelFields }) };
+            const createdNewSlot = (store.get(model)?.size ?? 0) > slotsBefore;
+            // 403 here, NOT 404. The oracle argument does not apply to create: there
+            // is no pre-existing record whose existence could leak, the caller
+            // supplied the attributes, and 404 on a mounted collection route is
+            // indistinguishable from "model not mounted" -- a genuinely different
+            // failure a developer needs to diagnose.
+            //
+            // The rollback is not optional. createRecord writes to the store BEFORE
+            // the predicate can run, so returning 403 alone would leave the record
+            // behind: a worse bug than the bypass being fixed.
+            if (isDenied(filter, record)) {
+                // ROLL BACK BY IDENTITY, NEVER BY ID. `store.remove(model, record.id)`
+                // on its own is a write primitive keyed by a value the caller may have
+                // supplied: with the raw-id collision bypass above, a denied
+                // `POST {"id":"21"}` answered 403 and DELETED hidden record 21 -- an
+                // unauthenticated deletion primitive across the whole id space, created
+                // by adding a rollback to a lookup that could be skipped.
+                //
+                // Both conditions are required and neither implies the other:
+                //   createdNewSlot -- the store grew, so this request inserted rather
+                //                     than overwrote. SURVIVOR AS OF #203, AND THAT IS
+                //                     WHAT THIS NOTE IS FOR. It used to be killable:
+                //                     `assignRecordId` returned last-INSERTED + 1, so a
+                //                     server-assigned id could land on an occupied slot,
+                //                     `createRecord` updated in place, and removing this
+                //                     half turned access-filter-enforcement-test.ts
+                //                     assertion 31 red. #203 closed that: the
+                //                     server-assigned path now walks past occupied keys,
+                //                     so no create reaching here can overwrite. Measured
+                //                     -- delete `createdNewSlot &&` below: `dev` gives
+                //                     55 pass / 1 fail with assertion 31 RED, this tree
+                //                     gives 56 pass / 0 fail, GREEN.
+                //                     KEPT ANYWAY, AND NOT FOR THE OLD REASON. Without
+                //                     it a denied create becomes `store.remove` on a key
+                //                     the caller may have influenced, which :815-820
+                //                     records as having been an unauthenticated deletion
+                //                     primitive across the whole id space. BECOMES
+                //                     KILLABLE AGAIN the moment any caller-supplied id
+                //                     can reach `createRecord` from this handler --
+                //                     which is exactly what has-many.ts:65 and
+                //                     belongs-to.ts:45 already do for ANOTHER model's
+                //                     store (abofs/stonyx-orm#207), and what a third
+                //                     un-stripped id channel would do for this one
+                //                     (#204). Do not delete it on the strength of #203
+                //                     being closed; that is the reasoning :862-867 warns
+                //                     about, one level up.
+                //   identity       -- the slot still holds the object we just created,
+                //                     so nothing between createRecord and here replaced
+                //                     it. Deleting this half SURVIVES the suite, and it
+                //                     is kept anyway. WHY IT IS REDUNDANT: there is no
+                //                     `await` anywhere between `slotsBefore` and
+                //                     `store.remove` -- the whole window is synchronous,
+                //                     so it is atomic under Node's event loop; before-
+                //                     `create` hooks run BEFORE the handler
+                //                     (`_withHooks` runs its hook loop ahead of
+                //                     `await handler(...)`), and a consumer predicate
+                //                     inside `isDenied` runs AFTER `createdNewSlot` is
+                //                     computed and cannot flip it. That is a property of
+                //                     THIS function, not of GATE 0 -- an earlier note
+                //                     credited GATE 0, which was both wrong (a caller id
+                //                     reached createRecord through the relationships
+                //                     loop, #204) and the wrong kind of reason: a guard
+                //                     justified on code sixty lines upstream gets
+                //                     silently re-armed when that code moves.
+                //                     SO IT BECOMES REACHABLE IF AN `await` IS
+                //                     INTRODUCED HERE, which is the change a future
+                //                     editor would actually make. Stated here rather
+                //                     than by reference: `docs/` is not in `files`, so
+                //                     a pointer into it resolves to nothing for anyone
+                //                     who installed this package. README carries the
+                //                     consumer-facing half.
+                if (createdNewSlot && store.get(model, record.id) === record) {
+                    store.remove(model, record.id, { _skipAutoPersist: true });
+                }
+                return 403;
+            }
+            // The filter is built HERE, per invocation, and never hoisted into the
+            // OrmRequest constructor where the other per-mount values live: a verdict
+            // cached across requests answers a second caller with the first caller's
+            // authorization (src/access-verdict.ts says so at the constructor an
+            // implementer would reach for).
+            //
+            // AND IT IS BUILT AFTER `createRecord`, AFTER THE ROLLBACK WINDOW AND
+            // AFTER `isDenied`, so the record is in its final form at the call. The
+            // filter is lazy per type and per (type, id), so it cannot observe a
+            // pre-write state even if it were built earlier.
+            //
+            // `fields` is passed here and NOT in `updateHandler`: the two handlers
+            // are asymmetric on purpose (`updateHandler` has no `fieldsMap` in
+            // scope), and a single copy-pasted wiring would drop it from one of them.
+            return { data: record.toJSON?.({ fields: modelFields, linkage: createLinkageFilter(request) }) };
         };
-        const updateHandler = async ({ body, params }) => {
+        const updateHandler = async (request, { filter }) => {
+            // Bound rather than destructured, for the reason given in
+            // `createHandler` above (abofs/stonyx-orm#235). `PATCH /animals/1`
+            // returned 200 naming angela seconds after `GET /animals/1` returned
+            // `owner.data: null` for the same record -- one HTTP verb apart.
+            const { body, params } = request;
             const found = await store.find(model, getId(params));
             if (!found || !isOrmRecord(found))
                 return 404;
+            // Checked BEFORE any attribute is applied. 404 rather than 403 for the
+            // same reason as GET /:id -- 403 would disclose both that the record
+            // exists and that this caller specifically is excluded.
+            //
+            // NOT redundant behind GATE 1, and not defence in depth either: GATE 1's
+            // verdict is computed BEFORE the before-hook loop runs, and a before-hook
+            // is a published extension point that can change the answer -- by
+            // mutating the record, or against a predicate that closes over
+            // per-request state. This is the only re-evaluation after that window.
+            // Pinned by assertion 32; deleting it turns a 404 into an applied update.
+            if (isDenied(filter, found))
+                return 404;
             const record = found;
             const { attributes, relationships: rels } = (body?.data || {});
             if (!attributes && !rels)
@@ -277,6 +1011,19 @@ export default class OrmRequest extends Request {
             if (rels) {
                 const relUpdates = {};
                 for (const [key, value] of Object.entries(rels)) {
+                    // The same missing key filter as createHandler's, and as the
+                    // attribute loop directly above -- which already had it, while this
+                    // loop did not. A PATCH carrying
+                    // `relationships:{"id":{"data":{"id":9101}}}` reached `updateRecord`
+                    // and RE-KEYED the record: the object held under store key 9102 then
+                    // reported id 9101, so a visible record claimed a hidden record's
+                    // identity on every surface that reads `record.id` rather than the map
+                    // key. Gated by GATE 1 on the addressed record, so it is store
+                    // corruption rather than a filter bypass -- but it is the same one-line
+                    // omission two handlers apart. Pinned by assertion 40; INHERITED from
+                    // `dev`; abofs/stonyx-orm#204.
+                    if (key === 'id')
+                        continue;
                     const relData = value?.data;
                     if (relData && relData.id !== undefined) {
                         relUpdates[key] = relData.id;
@@ -286,10 +1033,40 @@ export default class OrmRequest extends Request {
                     updateRecord(record, relUpdates, { _skipAutoPersist: true });
                 }
             }
-            return { data: record.toJSON?.() };
+            // No `fields` and no `baseUrl`, both unchanged: `updateHandler` has no
+            // `fieldsMap` in scope, and adding `baseUrl` would put `links` on a
+            // document that has never carried them -- an unrelated behaviour change.
+            // #224 AC6's "emits `data: []` WITH links" is a statement about the READ
+            // surfaces; on these two handlers a filtered relationship and a
+            // genuinely-empty one are both a bare `{ data }`, which is what makes
+            // them indistinguishable here too.
+            return { data: record.toJSON?.({ linkage: createLinkageFilter(request) }) };
         };
-        const deleteHandler = ({ params }) => {
-            store.remove(model, getId(params));
+        const deleteHandler = async ({ params }, { filter }) => {
+            // Coerced ONCE. `getId(params)` was evaluated twice here -- once to find
+            // the record and once to remove it -- and a coercion evaluated repeatedly
+            // is a coercion that can be edited in one place and not the other, which
+            // is the defect `coerceId` exists to prevent.
+            const recordId = getId(params);
+            const record = await store.find(model, recordId);
+            // BEHAVIOUR CHANGE (#190): a DELETE of a record that never existed
+            // returned 204 before this change. It now returns 404, matching the
+            // denied case below. This is deliberate and load-bearing -- if a denied
+            // delete returned 404 while a missing one returned 204, the pair would be
+            // a perfect existence oracle and the whole fix would be worthless.
+            // Returning 204 for a denied delete was rejected instead: it falsely
+            // reports success for a request that changed nothing.
+            if (!record)
+                return 404;
+            // Re-evaluated after the before-hook loop, exactly as in updateHandler --
+            // GATE 1 decided before the hooks ran. Pinned by assertion 33; deleting it
+            // turns a 404 into a destroyed record.
+            if (isDenied(filter, record))
+                return 404;
+            // Removed by the id of the record actually fetched, not by re-deriving it
+            // from the params a second time: the record the filter tested and the
+            // record removed are then provably the same one.
+            store.remove(model, record.id, { _skipAutoPersist: true });
             return 204;
         };
         // Wrap handlers with hooks
@@ -314,9 +1091,63 @@ export default class OrmRequest extends Request {
             };
         }
     }
-    // Wraps a handler with before/after hook execution
+    // Wraps a handler with before/after hook execution.
+    //
+    // ===========================================================================
+    // TWO AUTHORIZATION GATES, AND EVERY EXECUTOR SITS BEHIND ONE OF THEM (#190)
+    //
+    // The defect this function was fixed for is NOT "a delete persists past a
+    // 404". It is that _withHooks has SEVERAL executors downstream of the
+    // handler, and originally the handler's response gated none of them. Three
+    // exist today:
+    //
+    //   1. sqlDb.persist          -- issues real SQL against the backing store
+    //   2. the after-hook pipeline -- the PUBLISHED consumer extension point;
+    //                                a cascade delete, a webhook, a search-index
+    //                                purge. `context.recordId` and
+    //                                `context.oldState` are populated for it.
+    //   3. Orm.db.save()          -- a full serialize-and-write of the store
+    //
+    // Gating them one at a time is how this keeps regressing, so the rule is:
+    // compute denial ONCE at each point where it becomes knowable, and keep every
+    // executor downstream of a gate. If you add a fourth executor to this
+    // function, it goes below GATE 2 or it is a security bug.
+    //
+    // GATE 1 (pre-handler) is required because before-hooks and `context.oldState`
+    // run/are built BEFORE the handler can consult the filter. Without it a denied
+    // DELETE still handed the hidden record's full contents to consumer code.
+    // GATE 2 (post-handler) covers everything the handler's status can reach.
+    // ===========================================================================
     _withHooks(operation, handler) {
         return async (request, state) => {
+            // `|| {}` so this function behaves like the relationship routes below,
+            // which declare `state` with a `= {}` default. It is unkillable through
+            // the rest-server dispatcher, which always passes `getState(req)`; it is
+            // listed as such in the guards-redundant-by-construction table rather
+            // than left silently unkillable, and it defends the WHOLE function (the
+            // context, the snapshot and the handler call all read `callState`) rather
+            // than one destructure that the next line would throw past anyway.
+            const callState = (state || {});
+            // ---------------------------------------------------------------------
+            // THE AUTHORIZATION SNAPSHOT. Read ONCE, here, before any consumer code
+            // can run.
+            //
+            // `callState` is the object `auth()` planted the filter in, and it is
+            // also handed to every before-hook as `context.state` -- a published,
+            // WRITABLE extension point. So `state.filter` is an INPUT to the
+            // authorization decision, not only an output channel, and re-reading it
+            // after the hook loop lets a consumer hook disarm the filter:
+            //
+            //   beforeHook('get', 'animal', ctx => { delete ctx.state.filter })
+            //     -> GET /animals/21 turned 404 into 200
+            //     -> GET /animals    turned 20 records into 22
+            //
+            // GATE 1 already used this snapshot, so writes held; the READ handlers
+            // re-destructured `filter` from the live bag and did not. Everything
+            // downstream now reads `filter` from here, and the handler is handed
+            // `handlerState` below -- never `callState`.
+            // ---------------------------------------------------------------------
+            const { filter } = callState;
             // Build context object for hooks
             const context = {
                 model: this.model,
@@ -325,11 +1156,35 @@ export default class OrmRequest extends Request {
                 params: request.params,
                 body: request.body,
                 query: request.query,
-                state,
+                // Deliberately the LIVE object: `redirect` and `pipe` are read back off
+                // it by @stonyx/rest-server after the handler returns, so hooks must be
+                // able to write to it. What must not happen is the authorization
+                // decision reading it back, which is what the snapshot above prevents.
+                state: callState,
             };
             // Capture old state for operations that modify data
             if (operation === 'update' || operation === 'delete') {
                 const existingRecord = await store.find(this.model, getId(request.params));
+                // GATE 1 -- pre-handler. This record fetch already happened for
+                // oldState, so the check is free.
+                //
+                // Returning here rather than letting updateHandler/deleteHandler
+                // produce the same 404 is the point: everything between here and there
+                // is an executor the caller is not authorized to reach.
+                //   - context.oldState is a deep copy of the HIDDEN RECORD'S CONTENTS.
+                //     Building it and handing it to a before-hook discloses exactly what
+                //     the filter exists to hide.
+                //   - context.recordId is populated for delete BEFORE the handler runs,
+                //     which is the same shape as the sqlDb landmine one layer up:
+                //     `afterHook('delete', ctx => cascadeDelete(ctx.recordId))` destroys
+                //     children behind a correct 404.
+                //   - a before-hook may return a value and short-circuit, which would
+                //     otherwise return a response without the filter ever executing.
+                //
+                // 404, not 403, for the same reason as getSingleHandler: the status for
+                // "exists but filtered out" must equal "does not exist".
+                if (existingRecord && isDenied(filter, existingRecord))
+                    return 404;
                 if (existingRecord) {
                     // Deep copy the record's data to preserve old state
                     context.oldState = JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(existingRecord.__data || existingRecord));
@@ -347,10 +1202,49 @@ export default class OrmRequest extends Request {
                 }
             }
             // Execute main handler
-            const response = await handler(request, state);
-            // Persist to SQL database for create/update (delete is handled by store.remove auto-persist)
+            // The handler receives the SNAPSHOT, never the live bag. `filter` is
+            // assigned LAST so it wins over anything a before-hook wrote to
+            // `callState.filter` -- including a `delete`, which the spread would
+            // otherwise carry through as an absent key. Every other key a hook adds
+            // is still visible to the handler; only the authorization input is
+            // pinned.
+            const handlerState = { ...callState, filter };
+            const response = await handler(request, handlerState);
+            // Set context.record for update BEFORE persist so SQL drivers can read it
+            if (operation === 'update' && response?.data) {
+                context.record = store.get(this.model, getId(request.params));
+            }
+            // GATE 2 -- post-handler. A denied or failed handler returns a bare status
+            // integer, and no executor below may run for one.
+            //
+            // `>= 400` deliberately covers every failure status, not just the
+            // authorization ones: a 400 (POST with no `type`) and a 409 (duplicate id)
+            // are equally requests in which nothing happened, and a persist or a
+            // cascade hook for one of them is just as wrong.
+            // `Number.isInteger` is a TYPE guard, not a behaviour guard, and it is
+            // unkillable TODAY: the only non-integer a handler in this file can
+            // return is a `{ data, links }` object, and `{} >= 400` is `false` by JS
+            // coercion, so dropping it changes no reachable outcome. It is kept
+            // because `>=` coerces rather than rejects, and the shapes it coerces
+            // are not obvious -- `[500] >= 400` is TRUE, so a handler that one day
+            // returned an array would have every response read as a denial. Listed
+            // as an equivalent mutant rather than left to read as coverage; it
+            // becomes killable the moment a handler returns anything array-like or
+            // numeric-string-like.
+            const denied = Number.isInteger(response) && response >= 400;
+            // EXECUTOR 1 -- SQL persistence, for all write operations.
+            //
+            // `response` is passed to sqlDb.persist below, but it is dropped at the
+            // driver boundary: _persistDelete(modelName, context) never receives it
+            // and guards only on context.recordId -- which _withHooks set above,
+            // BEFORE the handler ran. Without this gate a correct 404 still issues
+            // DELETE FROM ... WHERE id = ? on every SQL backend.
+            //
+            // No file-backed test can observe that, because Orm.instance.sqlDb is
+            // null in file/directory mode. See the stubbed-sqlDb assertions in
+            // test/unit/access-filter-enforcement-test.ts.
             const sqlDb = Orm.instance.sqlDb;
-            if (sqlDb && (operation === 'create' || operation === 'update')) {
+            if (sqlDb && WRITE_OPERATIONS.has(operation) && !denied) {
                 await sqlDb.persist(operation, this.model, context, response);
             }
             // Add response and relevant records to context
@@ -364,22 +1258,44 @@ export default class OrmRequest extends Request {
             else if (operation === 'create' && response?.data && (response.data.id)) {
                 // For create, get the record from store using the ID from the response
                 const responseData = response.data;
-                const recordId = isNaN(responseData.id) ? responseData.id : parseInt(responseData.id);
-                context.record = store.get(this.model, recordId);
-            }
-            else if (operation === 'update' && response?.data) {
-                context.record = store.get(this.model, getId(request.params));
+                // `normalizeBodyId`, not a copy of its body. This line WAS
+                // `isNaN(id) ? id : parseInt(id)` -- `coerceId` inlined verbatim, a
+                // third coercion feeding a store lookup, sitting under a docblock that
+                // said neither surface had a copy. Equivalent on every input that can
+                // reach this truthy-guarded branch (`21`->`21`, `'21'`->`21`,
+                // `'angela'`->`'angela'`; `''` and `0` cannot reach it), so this is a
+                // de-duplication rather than a behaviour change -- and that is the
+                // point: the two that disagreed were equivalent on every input anyone
+                // checked, too.
+                context.record = store.get(this.model, normalizeBodyId(responseData.id));
             }
             else if (operation === 'delete') {
                 // For delete, the record may no longer exist, but we have oldState
                 context.recordId = getId(request.params);
             }
-            // Run after hooks sequentially
-            for (const hook of getAfterHooks(operation, this.model)) {
-                await hook(context);
+            // EXECUTOR 2 -- the after-hook pipeline. This is the published consumer
+            // extension point (`afterHook` is exported from @stonyx/orm and from
+            // ./hooks), so it is the executor with the widest possible blast radius:
+            // a cascade delete, a webhook, a token revocation, a search-index purge.
+            //
+            // BEHAVIOUR CHANGE (#190): after-hooks no longer fire for a request that
+            // failed. Previously `afterHook('delete', ...)` ran with a populated
+            // context.recordId on a 404, so a consumer cascade destroyed children for
+            // a request that deleted nothing. Firing a hook named "after<operation>"
+            // for an operation that did not occur is a booby trap, and the denied case
+            // is unreachable-before-#190 while the missing case is inherited debt --
+            // both are closed by the same gate. `context.response` therefore only ever
+            // carries a success status into a hook.
+            if (!denied) {
+                for (const hook of getAfterHooks(operation, this.model)) {
+                    await hook(context);
+                }
             }
-            // Auto-save DB after write operations when configured
-            if (config.orm.db.autosave === 'onUpdate' && WRITE_OPERATIONS.has(operation)) {
+            // EXECUTOR 3 -- file/directory autosave. Ungated this let an
+            // unauthenticated caller force a full serialize-and-write of the entire
+            // store on every DELETE of any id, with no record touched: amplification
+            // rather than corruption, but the same root cause and the same fix.
+            if (config.orm.db.autosave === 'onUpdate' && WRITE_OPERATIONS.has(operation) && !denied) {
                 await Orm.db.save();
             }
             return response;
@@ -391,21 +1307,119 @@ export default class OrmRequest extends Request {
             // Dasherize the relationship name for URL paths (e.g., accessLinks -> access-links)
             const dasherizedName = camelCaseToKebabCase(relationshipName);
             // Related resource route: GET /:id/{relationship}
-            routes[`/:id/${dasherizedName}`] = async (request) => {
+            //
+            // These generated routes are not wrapped by _withHooks, which is why they
+            // were the least obvious two of the seven unguarded surfaces in #190.
+            // They are still dispatched by @stonyx/rest-server as
+            // `handler(req, getState(req))`, so `state` -- and therefore the filter
+            // planted by auth() -- has always been available here; it was simply
+            // never declared or read.
+            routes[`/:id/${dasherizedName}`] = async (request, { filter } = {}) => {
                 const record = await store.find(model, getId(request.params));
                 if (!record)
                     return 404;
+                // Filtering the PARENT: a caller who may not see the record may not see
+                // what it is related to either.
+                if (isDenied(filter, record))
+                    return 404;
                 const relatedData = record.__relationships[relationshipName];
                 const baseUrl = getBaseUrl(request);
+                // ONE FILTER, TWO JOBS, AND abofs/stonyx-orm#232 IS THE SECOND ONE.
+                //
+                // As LINKAGE (#234) it decides which ids the emitted documents may NAME
+                // in their own `relationships.*.data`. As MEMBERSHIP (this issue) it
+                // decides whether the related record is served here AT ALL -- the
+                // related resource is PRIMARY data on this route, so there is no
+                // linkage-consistency question to answer separately.
+                //
+                // Until #232 this route filtered only the PARENT, so a record its own
+                // model's predicate hides was served in full from another model's
+                // route, at ZERO query parameters. Measured on dev @ 8dda5d6:
+                //
+                //     GET /owners/angela          -> 404
+                //     GET /animals/1/owner        -> 200, owner:angela, full attributes
+                //     GET /traits/2/tag           -> 200, a model NO access class
+                //                                    claims, on a collection that has
+                //                                    no mounted route at all
+                //
+                // ARGUMENT ONE IS THE LIVE REQUEST, NOT A DERIVED ONE. A fabricated
+                // request addressing the RELATED resource was the original design and
+                // it is dropped: #241 removed the shipped fixture's read of argument
+                // one, so a fabricated value changes nothing it could observe.
+                // `createLinkageFilter` is also a published public export
+                // (src/index.ts) whose resolution granularity is per TYPE; supplying a
+                // per-RECORD request would mean widening it, which takes a consumer
+                // `access()` from ~2 calls to ~7 on a plain `GET /animals`. That is a
+                // separate, consumer-visible story.
+                //
+                // GUARDED BY OWN-PROPERTY IDENTITY, NOT BY THE #234 AC13 PIN. That pin
+                // (test/unit/linkage-verdict-test.ts, `strictEqual(seen[0].request,
+                // READ_REQUEST)`) calls `createLinkageFilter` DIRECTLY, so it pins the
+                // function's pass-through and constrains no call site -- an earlier
+                // revision of this comment cited it for this decision and was wrong.
+                // `Object.create(request)` here measured 1015 / 0 with nothing red.
+                // test/integration/orm-test.ts, `#232 AC9`, now asserts that the object
+                // the predicate is handed OWNS `params` (`Object.hasOwn`) and has
+                // nothing request-shaped behind it on the prototype chain. A derived
+                // request inherits `params` -- so it satisfies every value assertion
+                // there -- and reds on those two. Measured: with the derived request in
+                // place, 1014 / 1, and that one is this guard.
+                //
+                // THE RESIDUAL THAT FOLLOWS FROM THAT IS DISCLOSED, NOT PAPERED OVER.
+                // `recordId` is `null` here and the request names a record of a
+                // DIFFERENT model, so a consumer predicate can express a model-level or
+                // a request-level deny for a related resource, but NOT a per-record
+                // one. README.md and docs/usage-patterns.md say so; a ledger assertion
+                // in test/unit/relationship-route-access-test.ts keeps them saying it.
+                const linkage = createLinkageFilter(request);
+                // FAIL CLOSED ON A RECORD WHOSE TYPE CANNOT BE NAMED. `isLinkable` is
+                // keyed on the model name; without one there is no predicate to ask,
+                // and an unidentifiable input must never be the permissive path.
+                const isLinkable = (r) => {
+                    const type = r.__model?.__name;
+                    return typeof type === 'string' && type !== '' && linkage(type, r);
+                };
                 let data;
                 if (info.isArray) {
-                    // hasMany - return array
+                    // hasMany - return array, MINUS the members this caller may not see.
+                    // Dropped, never errored: the result is byte-identical to a genuinely
+                    // empty relationship, so this route is not an existence oracle.
                     const related = Array.isArray(relatedData) ? relatedData.filter(isOrmRecord) : [];
-                    data = related.map(r => r.toJSON?.({ baseUrl }));
+                    data = related.filter(isLinkable).map(r => r.toJSON?.({ baseUrl, linkage }));
                 }
                 else {
-                    // belongsTo - return single or null
-                    data = isOrmRecord(relatedData) ? relatedData.toJSON?.({ baseUrl }) : null;
+                    // belongsTo - return single or null. A DENIED target is `data: null`,
+                    // BYTE-IDENTICAL to a relationship that is genuinely empty, for the
+                    // same reason the hasMany branch above drops rather than errors: this
+                    // route must not be an existence oracle for the RELATED record.
+                    //
+                    // THE OTHER SPELLING WAS 404 AND IT WAS MEASURED AS A DISCLOSURE.
+                    // Unauthenticated, zero query parameters, one request each, on `tag`
+                    // -- the model with no route mounted at all, which is exactly what
+                    // #240 AC5 exists to protect:
+                    //
+                    //     GET /traits/1/tag  [ABSENT]  -> 200  application/json  len 68
+                    //     GET /traits/2/tag  [DENIED]  -> 404  text/plain        len  9
+                    //
+                    // and `GET /traits/1` and `GET /traits/2` both report
+                    // `relationships.tag = {"data":null}` byte-identical modulo the id,
+                    // because #234 closed THAT oracle deliberately. A 404 here would let
+                    // a caller ask which of those two nulls was a denial. Under
+                    // `data: null` the pair closes completely: 200/200, same
+                    // content-type, same content-length, bodies identical modulo the
+                    // parent id the caller put in the URL. It opens nothing -- `links`
+                    // are entirely parent-derived, there is no `meta` and no counts.
+                    //
+                    // This is also what README.md's module-wide rule already demanded:
+                    // every status on a record route must be identical for filtered-out
+                    // and does-not-exist. The route now CONFORMS to that rule rather than
+                    // carving an exception out of it.
+                    if (!isOrmRecord(relatedData))
+                        data = null;
+                    else if (!isLinkable(relatedData))
+                        data = null;
+                    else
+                        data = relatedData.toJSON?.({ baseUrl, linkage });
                 }
                 return {
                     links: { self: `${baseUrl}/${pluralizedModel}/${request.params.id}/${dasherizedName}` },
@@ -413,23 +1427,99 @@ export default class OrmRequest extends Request {
                 };
             };
             // Relationship linkage route: GET /:id/relationships/{relationship}
-            routes[`/:id/relationships/${dasherizedName}`] = async (request) => {
+            //
+            // NO `linkage` FILTER FROM abofs/stonyx-orm#235, AND THAT IS A SCOPE
+            // BOUNDARY RATHER THAN AN OVERSIGHT -- abofs/stonyx-orm#232 OWNS THIS
+            // ROUTE, and PR #247 is IN FLIGHT against it in this same sprint. If you
+            // are reading this after #247 landed, the filtering below is #232's and
+            // this note records why it was never #235's to add.
+            //
+            // The three sites #235 does own -- `buildResponse`'s `included`, and the
+            // two write handlers, `POST /:models` and `PATCH /:models/:id` -- all
+            // reach the filter through `record.toJSON()`, which is where the
+            // `linkage` OPTION is applied.
+            //
+            // The related-resource branch above ALSO passes a `linkage` filter, and
+            // it is NOT one of those three: it is abofs/stonyx-orm#234's code and
+            // predates this change. `git diff 8dda5d6..HEAD -- src/orm-request.ts`
+            // leaves that branch byte-unchanged.
+            //
+            // This branch builds its `{ type, id }` objects BY
+            // HAND and never calls `toJSON` at all, so the `linkage` option cannot
+            // reach it -- whatever this route filters, it has to filter itself, which
+            // is precisely why doing so is a separate change with a separate owner.
+            //
+            // It is also a DIFFERENT QUESTION. Everywhere #235 touches, linkage is
+            // metadata ABOUT a document. Here the linkage IS the primary data, so
+            // dropping an entry is a MEMBERSHIP decision about what this route
+            // serves -- the same class as abofs/stonyx-orm#233 and #196, not the
+            // class #234/#235 close. That is why it is absent from #224 §2a's
+            // seven-site inventory.
+            //
+            // MEASURED, so the next person does not re-derive it. Against this
+            // branch's baseline of 1011/0, wiring `createLinkageFilter` into the
+            // belongsTo branch below takes the suite to 1009/2, reddening
+            // `[GUARD] #235 X2` and the
+            // `GET /animals/:id/relationships/owner returns relationship linkage`
+            // test -- the latter is #232's own reproduction, not a regression.
+            //
+            // THE BASELINE IS QUOTED WITH THE RESULT BECAUSE AN EARLIER REVISION OF
+            // THIS COMMENT SAID 993/2 AND SHIPPED IT. This file lands in consumers'
+            // `node_modules`, so a wrong number here is a wrong number in the
+            // published package. 993+2 = 995 is the DEV baseline, carried over from
+            // a branch on which `[GUARD] #235 X2` does not exist. A pass/fail pair
+            // with no baseline beside it cannot be checked by reading, which is how
+            // it survived three artifacts and a review; the qualitative claim was
+            // right the whole time and only the count was wrong.
+            //
+            // `[GUARD] #235 X2` in test/integration/orm-test.ts pins the OWNERSHIP
+            // BOUNDARY here rather than this route's current answer, so that it
+            // survives #247 landing. Read its comment before changing it.
+            routes[`/:id/relationships/${dasherizedName}`] = async (request, { filter } = {}) => {
                 const record = await store.find(model, getId(request.params));
                 if (!record)
                     return 404;
+                if (isDenied(filter, record))
+                    return 404;
                 const relatedData = record.__relationships[relationshipName];
                 const baseUrl = getBaseUrl(request);
+                // THE ONE READ SURFACE THAT DOES NOT GO THROUGH `toJSON()`. It builds
+                // `{ type, id }` BY HAND, which is why #234's linkage filter never
+                // reached it and why this half belongs to abofs/stonyx-orm#232 rather
+                // than to #234: on this route the linkage IS the primary data of an
+                // opt-in request, so filtering it changes the route's MEMBERSHIP
+                // semantics, not the ids named inside somebody else's document.
+                //
+                // DELIBERATELY NOT STATED AS A COUNT. README.md's Consumer Contracts
+                // section enumerates the surfaces on which the framework resolves a
+                // verdict and hands it to `toJSON()`, and that enumeration GROWS --
+                // abofs/stonyx-orm#235 adds the two write handlers and the `included`
+                // records. This route is not on that list under any count, because it
+                // never calls `toJSON()`: whatever it filters, it filters here. A
+                // number written into this comment would be false the next time that
+                // list changes, and the README already carries the enumeration.
+                //
+                // Same filter, same argument-one decision, same residual as
+                // `/:id/{relationship}` above -- read the block there.
+                const linkage = createLinkageFilter(request);
+                const isLinkable = (r) => {
+                    const type = r.__model?.__name;
+                    return typeof type === 'string' && type !== '' && linkage(type, r);
+                };
                 let data;
                 if (info.isArray) {
                     // hasMany - return array of linkage objects
                     const related = Array.isArray(relatedData) ? relatedData.filter(isOrmRecord) : [];
                     data = related
                         .filter((r) => Boolean(r.__model))
+                        .filter(isLinkable)
                         .map(r => ({ type: r.__model.__name, id: r.id }));
                 }
                 else {
-                    // belongsTo - return single linkage or null
-                    if (isOrmRecord(relatedData) && relatedData.__model) {
+                    // belongsTo - return single linkage or null. A DENIED target is
+                    // `data: null`, indistinguishable from a genuinely empty one -- see
+                    // the measured oracle in the `/:id/{relationship}` block above.
+                    if (isOrmRecord(relatedData) && relatedData.__model && isLinkable(relatedData)) {
                         data = { type: relatedData.__model.__name, id: relatedData.id };
                     }
                     else {
@@ -445,31 +1535,135 @@ export default class OrmRequest extends Request {
                 };
             };
         }
-        // Catch-all for invalid relationship names on related resource route
-        routes[`/:id/:relationship`] = async (request) => {
-            const record = await store.find(model, getId(request.params));
-            if (!record)
-                return 404;
-            // If we reach here, relationship doesn't exist (valid ones were registered above)
-            return 404;
-        };
-        // Catch-all for invalid relationship names on relationship linkage route
-        routes[`/:id/relationships/:relationship`] = async (request) => {
-            const record = await store.find(model, getId(request.params));
-            if (!record)
-                return 404;
-            return 404;
-        };
+        // Catch-alls for invalid relationship names. Every valid relationship was
+        // registered above, so reaching either of these means the relationship does
+        // not exist and the answer is 404 regardless of the record.
+        //
+        // These deliberately carry NO access check and no store lookup. An earlier
+        // revision of #190 added `if (isDenied(filter, record)) return 404` here for
+        // symmetry with the seven real surfaces, but both branches returned 404, so
+        // the guard was unobservable by construction -- a mutation deleting it
+        // survived the entire suite because no test that could distinguish it can
+        // exist. Unkillable code in an authorization diff reads as coverage and is
+        // not, so it is gone; skipping the lookup also removes the timing difference
+        // between an existing and a missing parent.
+        //
+        // IF THIS ROUTE EVER RETURNS ANYTHING OTHER THAN A CONSTANT 404, it becomes
+        // the eighth surface and must filter the parent first, exactly like
+        // `/:id/{relationship}` above.
+        routes[`/:id/:relationship`] = async () => 404;
+        routes[`/:id/relationships/:relationship`] = async () => 404;
         return routes;
     }
     auth(request, state) {
-        const access = this.access(request);
-        if (!access)
-            return 403;
-        if (Array.isArray(access) && !access.includes(methodAccessMap[request.method]))
+        // A consumer `access()` that throws is a DENIAL, matching `isDenied` one
+        // layer down. Unguarded it propagates to express's default handler, which
+        // answers 500 -- and the documented sample itself can throw
+        // (`request.originalUrl.split(...)` when originalUrl is absent), so the
+        // failure mode is reachable by following the docs.
+        // -------------------------------------------------------------------------
+        // #202 -- hand the consumer the STRUCTURAL facts, not just the transport.
+        //
+        // Both members are already in hand here. `model` is `this.model`, the name
+        // setup-rest-server mounted this route for; `operation` is the SAME
+        // `methodAccessMap` lookup the permission-array branch at the bottom of
+        // this method performs, so the predicate form and the array form cannot
+        // answer differently about the same request.
+        //
+        // NEITHER IS DERIVED FROM THE REQUEST TARGET, and that is the whole point.
+        // Deriving `model` here from `request.baseUrl` (or from the mounted route
+        // name, or from `getPluralName(this.model)`) would move all five fail-open
+        // variants listed in this file's header OUT of the consumer and INTO the
+        // framework, where every consumer inherits them at once. `this.model` is
+        // assigned once at mount time and no request can influence it.
+        //
+        // `operation` is left UNDEFINED for a method with no entry in
+        // `methodAccessMap`, rather than defaulted. Express delivers HEAD to the
+        // GET handler, so an unmapped method really does reach this line; a
+        // `?? 'read'` here would hand the consumer a fabricated authorisation fact
+        // and turn an unclassified request into an authorised one. Undefined is
+        // the honest answer.
+        //
+        // `record` is deliberately absent -- see `AccessContext` in
+        // src/types/orm-types.ts. Nothing is fetched at this point and adding a
+        // lookup here would put a store read in the middle of an authorization
+        // path. The function return shape below IS the per-record hook.
+        //
+        // -------------------------------------------------------------------------
+        // #236 -- `recordId`, the DECODED route-parameter id, for the same reason.
+        //
+        // WHICH RECORD is the third structural fact the framework already holds and
+        // the consumer was left to re-derive, and re-deriving it failed OPEN. The
+        // documented sample compared `request.path` -- the RAW, undecoded pathname
+        // -- against a literal `/archived`, while the router DECODES `:id`. So
+        // `GET /owners/%61rchived` walked past the deny and was dispatched as the
+        // record `archived`: 200 with the record in full, and DELETE answered 204
+        // with the record destroyed, unauthenticated. Four spellings measured, all
+        // four through; 255 non-canonical spellings of that 8-character id decode
+        // to the same key, so this was never a deny-list of one.
+        //
+        // TWO CONSUMER-SIDE NORMALISATIONS WERE MEASURED WRONG IN OPPOSITE
+        // DIRECTIONS, which is the argument for doing it once, here.
+        // `.toLowerCase()` case-folds a route-parameter VALUE on the axis that
+        // governs literal SEGMENTS: with a distinct owner seeded at `ARCHIVED`,
+        // `GET /owners/ARCHIVED` was a false DENY on the wrong record and
+        // `GET /owners/%41RCHIVED` a false ALLOW on that same one.
+        // `decodeURIComponent(request.path)` decodes THEN splits while the router
+        // splits THEN decodes, so it over-denied `/owners/archived%2fx` -- 403 for
+        // a genuinely distinct record. Failing closed there was luck, not design.
+        //
+        // `getId(request.params)` AND NOT `request.params.id`, for exactly the
+        // reason `operation` is a `methodAccessMap` lookup: it is the SAME single
+        // coercion the store lookup one layer down performs, so the predicate and
+        // the dispatch cannot disagree about which record a request addresses.
+        // The raw string would reintroduce that divergence on hex-shaped ids --
+        // `GET /animals/0x2391` looks up record `9105`.
+        //
+        // NOTHING HERE PARSES THE REQUEST TARGET EITHER. `request.params` is what
+        // the router matched, so a mount prefix, an absolute-form target, a query
+        // string or a case-varied mount cannot move this value -- the same
+        // guarantee `model` carries, by the same means.
+        //
+        // `null` and not `undefined` on a collection route, so the KEY IS ALWAYS
+        // PRESENT -- the rule `operation`'s own docblock already establishes. A
+        // context reaching a predicate WITHOUT the key therefore did not come from
+        // here; it was hand-assembled by a caller resolving the predicate through
+        // `Orm.instance.getAccess()`, and that absence stays deniable only because
+        // `auth()` never produces it.
+        // -------------------------------------------------------------------------
+        const context = {
+            model: this.model,
+            operation: methodAccessMap[request.method],
+            recordId: request.params && 'id' in request.params ? getId(request.params) : null,
+        };
+        let access;
+        try {
+            access = this.access(request, context);
+        }
+        catch (error) {
+            // Same reasoning as `isDenied`: fail closed, but say so. An `access()`
+            // that throws denies EVERY request to the collection, and a silent 403
+            // wall is the hardest possible thing to diagnose from the outside.
+            log.error?.(`[@stonyx/orm] access() threw for model "${this.model}" -- denying. ${error instanceof Error ? error.message : String(error)}`);
+            return 403; // Forbidden
+        }
+        // THE READING OF THE RETURN SHAPE LIVES IN ONE PLACE (#234).
+        //
+        // It used to be inline here, and it was the only copy, which was fine while
+        // `auth()` was the only thing that had to ask. It is not any more: the
+        // linkage path has to ask model X's predicate about model X's records while
+        // servicing a request routed to model Y, and a second inline copy of these
+        // six branches would be a second authorization vocabulary -- one that can
+        // drift, and that reviewers would have to notice had drifted. The branch
+        // order in `interpretAccess` is this block, moved, not rewritten.
+        const verdict = interpretAccess(access, methodAccessMap[request.method]);
+        if (!verdict.granted)
             return 403;
-        if (typeof access === 'function')
-            state.filter = access;
+        // The function return shape is the per-record hook, and `state` is the
+        // whole transport for it: @stonyx/rest-server memoises one state object per
+        // request and hands the same one to `auth()` and to the handler.
+        if (verdict.filter)
+            state.filter = verdict.filter;
         return undefined;
     }
 }