@ultimat3/action 21.0.0 → 22.1.0

package/CLAUDE.md

@@ -46,602 +46,172 @@ Owns the `action` + `mutator` primitives and their six projections. Tier 3.
 | `type-pins.ts` | compile-time assertions `tsc` checks — what the erased view projects, and why `client()` is not part of it |
 | `naming.ts`, `validate.ts`, `json-schema.ts`, `stable.ts` | pure helpers. `stable.ts` is the DOCUMENT serializer plus a re-export of core's `isJsonObject` — the hash form is `@ultimat3/core`'s `canonicalJson`/`fingerprint` |
 
-## Invariants
+## Invariants — execution and authz
 
-- **Every browser call goes through `@ultimat3/core`'s `clientTransport`, `As of 2026-09-22`.**
-  `client.ts` hands it the method, the URL (core's `actionPath`, the one path rule — `naming.ts`'s
-  `derivePath`/`pluralize`/`splitWords` are core's too, re-exported), body, headers, signal,
-  idempotency key, flight and this call's `retry`; the transport owns credentials, the JSON body,
-  the idempotency header, envelope decode, adoption into `pageClient().store`, the principal fence
-  and the terminal `fetch`. Only what the action alone knows rides in as hooks: `onResponse` (the
-  build-id check, `X_CONTRACT_DRIFT`) and `decodeError` (`RemoteActionError` for a body naming a
-  framework code; `undefined` otherwise, so the transport answers `X_CLIENT_TRANSPORT_FAILED` — the
-  same code a query gets for the same failure). `X_RPC_FAILED` / `RpcFailedError` stay registered
-  and exported — a shipped code never changes — and nothing in the framework throws them since
-  21.0.0.
-  `retry` is computed here — `{ attempts: 1 }` unless the call carries an idempotency key — so a
-  flight-wide retry never re-sends an unkeyed write.
-- **The record envelope is derived from the output schema, decided per ACTION, never per
-  response.** `carriesRecords(output)` is `@ultimat3/entity`'s `hasEntityRows`, evaluated once in
-  `toRoute`; an enveloped action answers `{ data, records }` under `x-ultimate-records: 1` even
-  when this call returned no row, so one operation has one wire shape and one OpenAPI schema. An
-  output with no entity row is byte-identical on the wire and in the spec — `record-wire.test.ts`
-  pins both, the bytes as `JSON.stringify(output)`. The envelope is HTTP-only: MCP, `.job()` and a
-  direct call still answer the bare output.
-- **`conflict` is `@ultimat3/core`'s `ConflictPolicy`, over ROWS.** `custom(merge)` builds
-  `{ kind: 'custom', merge(localRow, serverRow) }`; the output-shaped `CustomConflict`,
-  `Conflict<T>`, `strategyOf` and this package's `resolveConflict` are deleted (21.0.0) — core's
-  `resolveConflict` is the one resolver, and its `last-write-wins` compares the server's
-  `updatedAt` rather than preferring the local side. `strategyOf` survives as a private helper for
-  `describeMutator()`.
-- **`X_INPUT_INVALID` carries the rejections TWICE, and they are one value.** The flattened line
-  stays in `cause` — it is what an operator reads in a log and what a non-form caller sees — and
-  `meta.issues` carries the same list structured, so a client rebuilding a form knows WHICH field
-  each rejection belongs to instead of splitting a string on `'; '` and guessing. `validate.ts` is
-  the one caller that passes both, and `validate.test.ts` pins `cause` to
-  `formatIssues(issues).join('; ')`; the rendering deliberately does NOT happen inside
-  `InputInvalidError`, because that module is reachable from browser-safe `client.ts` and
-  `@ultimat3/schema` declares no `sideEffects`, so a value import of `formatIssues` there would drag
-  that package's whole barrel into every bundle holding the typed client.
-- **`toValidationIssues`, never a library's raw issues.** A conforming schema library's issue object
-  may carry members Ultimate's shape does not — including the rejected VALUE — and this list is
-  handed to an HTTP surface that returns it to the caller. Four members travel. The same rule on the
-  way back in: `issuesFromWire` REBUILDS each entry member by member rather than copying it.
-- **`X_OUTPUT_INVALID` keeps the line alone.** An output rejection is a server defect whose remedy
-  is a code change; no client can act on a per-field list, and shipping the handler's internal
-  projection to a caller is new surface for nothing.
-- **An `issues` list off the wire is all-or-nothing.** A partly-parsed list would DROP the entries
-  it could not read, and a caller that finds `meta.issues` uses it INSTEAD of `cause` — so a dropped
-  entry is a rejection the user never hears about. `MAX_WIRE_ISSUES` bounds it, because whoever
-  displays the list renders it into a DOM.
-- **`transition()` is a factory, not a primitive, and it decides nothing about the machine.** It
-  returns a `mutator`, so every projection is inherited rather than re-declared, and it holds no
-  legality rule: `X_STATE_TRANSITION_ILLEGAL`, `X_STATE_CONFLICT` and `X_STATE_UNDECLARED` are
-  `@ultimat3/entity`'s and propagate untouched. `from` is REQUIRED — it is the UPDATE's predicate,
-  which is what makes the refusal free; defaulting or inferring it is the lost update coming back.
-  `conflict: 'server-wins'` is fixed (the server is the half that refused), and `audit` is OFF
-  unless declared (`audit: true` with no sink is `X_AUDIT_SINK_MISSING` before the input parse, so
-  defaulting it on would hold the factory hostage to an unrelated decision).
-- Every surface goes through `invoke`: parse input, evaluate policy, handle, parse
-  output. Adding a second execution path is the one unforgivable change here.
-- **An explicit `ctx` is INSTALLED, never merely passed** (`As of 2026-08`). `invoke` entered
-  `runWithContext` only when `options.actor` was supplied; given `options.ctx` alone it called
-  `core(target, raw, options.ctx, options)` directly. So `guard()` decided about that actor while
-  everything reading the AMBIENT context — above all `@ultimat3/entity`'s tenant guard, which
-  derives from `tryUseContext()` and not from the ctx it is handed — saw a different identity, or
-  none: `writeAnywhere.job().invoke(input, ctxAsOrgA)` wrote a row naming org B while the identical
-  call under an ambient context was `X_TENANCY_ACTOR_MISMATCH`. Absent a `ctx` this reinstalls the
-  ambient one, a no-op on every path that already worked. The twin fix is `@ultimat3/query`'s
-  `asActor`, and `invoke-context.test.ts` asserts an EQUALITY between the three spellings of one
-  caller — ambient, `options.actor`, `options.ctx` — because three independent expectations are
-  exactly what let this ship.
-- The declaration never leaves `invoke.ts`. `defOf`/`stashDef` are internal and must
-  never be re-exported from `src/index.ts` — that absence is the enforcement, and
-  `index.test.ts` is what makes it one.
-- **`toRoute` sets `enforcedBy: 'handler'`, so the HTTP pipeline's authz stage stands down.**
-  `invoke` is the route's single evaluation and the only one holding the row `def.row` loaded;
-  a stage deciding first would decide the same policy from `row: null`, deny the row's own
-  author, and never reach the evaluation that had the row. `meta.policy` stays set — dropping
-  it would read as "this action is unguarded" in `x routes` and the manifest. `http.test.ts`
-  drives a row-level action over the real pipeline and counts the evaluations: exactly one.
-- **`meta.auth` is derived from a WALK of the policy tree**, never from the root combinator.
-  `def.policy.kind === 'allow'` answered `'required'` for `or(allow(), can('x:y'))`, so the
-  pipeline's `auth` stage 401'd an anonymous caller the policy itself ALLOWS — while the MCP tool
-  and the job handle let that caller through the same object. One policy, a different answer per
-  surface, which is the thing `enforcedBy: 'handler'` exists to prevent. `'public'` here is not
-  "unguarded": `invoke` still evaluates the policy for every call.
-  **`admitsAnonymous` is `@ultimat3/policy`'s** (`policy.ts`, beside `policyPermissions`) and
-  reaches this package through `policy-gate.ts` like every other authz question — never a copy
-  here. It cannot be one: `@ultimat3/query` needs the identical answer and is the same tier, so a
-  copy in either is a second answer for the other, and the walk is a property of the combinators
-  `policy.ts` declares. It is EXACT rather than heuristic — with `actor === null`, `can()`
-  short-circuits before its predicate and `allow()`/`deny()` ignore their arguments, so the tree
-  alone decides. `packages/policy/src/policy.test.ts` asserts it against
-  `policy.run({ actor: null })` itself, case for case; `http.test.ts` proves this projection reads
-  the answer, over the real pipeline.
-- **`stable.ts` holds the DOCUMENT form and NOTHING else, `As of 2026-08`.** `stableStringify` is
-  published as `openapi.json` by `serializeOpenApi` and re-read with `JSON.parse` by
-  `json-schema.ts`, so a non-finite number has to be `null` and a `Date` has to be its ISO string —
-  the bare token `NaN` would make a published spec unparseable. The HASH form left this file:
-  `canonicalJson` + `fingerprint` are **`@ultimat3/core`'s**, because `@ultimat3/query` and
-  `@ultimat3/realtime` each held their own copy of the identical function and all three are tier 3,
-  so no two of them could import each other and a copy in any was a second answer for the other
-  two. They had already diverged — query's had no `Date` branch, so every date window of a read
-  shared one cache key. Nothing about this package's keys moved: `fingerprint` is the same code at
-  the same width, `stable.test.ts` still pins the document duty (a `JSON.parse` of what it emits)
-  and now pins the byte-equality against core's form for an ordinary payload, which is what says no
-  idempotency record and no enqueued job moved.
-  **Why the hash form must be a separate function at all** — the reason that survives the move.
-  `NaN`, `±Infinity` and JSON `null` all encoded as `'null'` and `String(-0)` is `"0"`, so four
-  distinct inputs shared one `requestHash` (one caller handed another's stored response on replay)
-  and one job dedupe key. And three more values folded onto `{}`, the first of which `t.date`
-  produces on every parse: a `Date`, a `Map` and a `Set` have no own enumerable key, so
-  `Object.keys` was empty and the object branch rendered all three `{}` —
-  `fingerprint({ x: new Map([['a', 1]]) })` equalled `fingerprint({ x: new Set([1, 2]) })` equalled
-  `fingerprint({ x: {} })`, and an `idempotent: true` action taking `t.object({ at: t.date })`,
-  called twice under one key with two DIFFERENT dates, handed the second caller the first one's
-  stored response with no `X_IDEMPOTENCY_CONFLICT` and the handler run once. The two forms disagree
-  about all four exactly as they disagree about numbers: the document form is `JSON.stringify`'s own
-  rendering, and the hash form TAGS them — `Date(<epoch>)`, `Map(k:v,...)`, `Set(v,...)`. The tag is
-  not decoration: an untagged epoch is the same token a `t.number` field holding that epoch emits.
-  Map and Set entries are SORTED, as object keys are.
-- **`tagKeys` is `@ultimat3/cache`'s, not this package's — moved 2026-08.** `packages/action/src/tags.ts`
-  and `packages/query/src/tags.ts` were byte-identical, and both packages are tier 3, so neither can
-  import the other and a copy in either is a second answer for the other. `tagKey` went with it: it
-  was `serializeTag` under a second name with zero call sites. Same shape as `toBucket`. Never
-  restore a local one, and never reach for `@ultimat3/render`'s same-named `tagKeys` — that one
-  preserves declaration order and is a different function.
-- **`toBucket` is `@ultimat3/http`'s, not this package's — moved 2026-08.** http owns `Bucket` and
-  the limiter maths, and `@ultimat3/query` needs the identical conversion while being the same
-  tier as this package, so a copy in either is a second answer to "what does this limit mean" for
-  the other. It is re-exported from `src/index.ts` so an action file still reaches it through one
-  import, and it raises http's `X_RATE_LIMIT_INVALID`; `X_ACTION_RATE_LIMIT_INVALID` is gone with
-  the copy. Never restore a local one.
-- **`rateLimit:` reaches the limiter, not only the spec.** `toRoute` sets `meta.rateLimit` (the
-  bucket name) **and** `meta.rateLimitBucket` (`toBucket(name, def.rateLimit)`), and
-  `@ultimat3/http`'s `withRouteBuckets` registers the second under the first. Until 2026-08 only
-  the name was set, so `bucketFor` fell through to `default` — 120 burst / 2 per second for an
-  action that declared 5, with the declared numbers published in `x-ultimate.rateLimit` all the
-  same: looser in practice than what the author wrote, which is the dangerous direction. `toBucket`
-  is the **only** conversion between `{ limit, windowMs }` and `{ capacity, refillPerSecond }`, and
-  both projections that read the declaration call it, so the spec cannot publish a pair the limiter
-  refuses. http's `X_RATE_LIMIT_INVALID` covers all three checks, and the third is the one that is
-  easy to miss: the **computed** rate, not just the two declared halves. `windowMs: 0` is an
-  infinite refill, and so is `{ limit: Number.MAX_VALUE, windowMs: 1 }` — two finite positive
-  numbers whose division enforces nothing. `limit` must also be at least one whole token, or the
-  first caller is already refused and the endpoint is closed rather than limited.
-- **Everything `withIdempotency`'s `run` throws is treated as possibly-committed.** `guard()` and
-  `validateInput` both run before the gate (`invoke.ts`), so by the time `run` is called the only
-  things left are the handler and `validateOutput` — and the second throws *after* the first has
-  committed. The reservation is therefore SETTLED as a failure and the retry replays it under the
-  first attempt's own code; `release()` is reserved for a pre-handler failure, of which this gate
-  has none. Releasing there is what turned a rounding change in an `output:` schema into a second
-  charge: `X_OUTPUT_INVALID` dropped the record and the client's automatic retry re-ran a handler
-  that had already taken the money. A `settle` that itself refuses leaves the record **in flight**
-  for the same reason — a 409 the caller can act on beats a silent re-run. A store with no `fail`
-  slot gets the same fail-closed treatment. `idempotency-failure.test.ts` drives the
-  post-commit-throw path first, because that is the one that shipped.
-- **An idempotency record belongs to ONE CALLER, and a key that names no request is refused**
-  (`As of 2026-08`). The namespace was the action name alone, so `idempotencyKeyFor` filed every
-  caller's `k1` under one record: alice POSTed `charge`, bob POSTed `charge` with the same header
-  and was handed alice's stored response — and with a *differing* payload bob got
-  `X_IDEMPOTENCY_CONFLICT` instead, so any key he guessed was a key he could deny her. The key is
-  now `JSON.stringify([action, actor.kind, actor.id, actor.orgId ?? null, key])`, and the encoding
-  is a **JSON tuple, never a joined string**, for `readAuthority`'s reason: an actor id is app data,
-  so under `a:b:c` an id of `alice:x` with key `y` is the same record as `alice` with key `x:y`.
-  Separately, `req.header()` is `Headers.get()`, which answers `''` for `Idempotency-Key:` and
-  never `null` — so a blank header was itself a shared key. It is `X_IDEMPOTENCY_KEY_INVALID`, a
-  4xx raised before the handler, and **not** read as "no key": the quiet reading loses the retry
-  protection exactly when a client's key interpolation broke, and the double charge lands on the
-  client's own automatic retry. `@ultimat3/jobs` refuses an empty key at the enqueue for the same
-  reason and uses `assert` because *its* empty key is the app's declaration, not a caller's header.
-  What this does NOT close: an anonymous actor is one identity, so anonymous callers of a public
-  idempotent action still share a key space — nothing at this tier can tell two apart, and keying
-  on an IP or a cookie would break the retry the header exists to serve.
-- **The `idempotency-key` header also NAMES the write, on every action, idempotent or not.**
-  `http.ts` runs `invoke` inside `withWriteOrigin(writeDigest(key))` (`@ultimat3/core`), so the
-  rows the handler writes reach a channel's `records` frame carrying that digest, and the page
-  that sent the key recognises its own echo (see `packages/realtime/CLAUDE.md`). It is a label and
-  never a gate: a missing or blank header names nothing, and the blank-header refusal above still
-  belongs to `def.idempotent` alone. `http.test.ts`, "the write a request names".
-- **Both stores FENCE a settlement on the reservation `id` AND on `in-flight`**, as
-  `@ultimat3/jobs`' `SQL_ACK` fences on `id = $1 and state = 'running'`. A reservation whose window
-  lapsed is reclaimed by the next caller (`on conflict … do update`), so a straggler from the first
-  one used to overwrite a record it no longer owned and the next replay answered a retry with a
-  value produced for a different request. Postgres fences in SQL and returns `key`, so the no-op is
-  observable and logged; memory checks the id and status it holds. It is logged and never thrown —
-  a settlement is post-commit, so raising there would turn a durable write into the caller's error.
-  **The status alone was not enough**, which is why `settle(key, value, reservationId)` and
-  `fail(key, failure, reservationId)` carry the id: a reclaimed record is `in-flight` AGAIN, so a
-  straggler satisfied a status-only fence exactly and overwrote a LIVE reservation — and the
-  replacement's own settle was then fenced out. Public API, changed in the 8.0.0 major; callers
-  pass `reservation.record.id`, which `withIdempotency` already holds.
-- **A stored status is NARROWED, never cast.** `isIdempotencyStatus` decides, and an unknown word
-  is `X_IDEMPOTENCY_STATUS_UNKNOWN` at `toRecord`. `row.status as IdempotencyStatus` let one
-  through and `withIdempotency` has no branch for it: the record fell past `in-flight` and
-  `failed` and answered `{ value: null, replayed: true }` — "this already ran, here is its result"
-  — for a row nobody could read. The record was written by whatever build was deployed when the
-  first attempt ran, which on a rolling deploy is not this one. Same rule, same column shape, as
-  `@ultimat3/jobs`' `statusIn`.
-- **Where the idempotency records live is DECLARED, and refused at registration.**
-  `IdempotencyStore.scope` says what a driver provides; `configureIdempotency({ scope })` says what
-  the deployment requires; `assertIdempotencyScope` compares them inside `registerAction` — the
-  funnel every registration path shares, and one that necessarily runs before a route is mounted.
-  `'shared'` over a per-process store, or over a store declaring **no** scope, is
-  `X_IDEMPOTENCY_NOT_SHARED` before the socket opens. The exact shape of `assertRateLimitScope`
-  and `assertRouteBuckets`, and for the same reason: what cannot be shown to hold is not assumed
-  to hold. The default is `'process'`, because one process is the only thing a framework can
-  promise without being told — nothing here reads an environment to guess a replica count.
-- **The memory store is bounded, and the eviction order is part of the guarantee.** A key is
-  caller-supplied, so its cardinality is the write rate: unbounded, 500 idempotent writes a second
-  is 43M immortal entries a day. Expired records go for free (past the window a record answers as
-  a missing one); past the cap, **`in-flight` records are the last to go** — one of those is the
-  reservation that stops a concurrent duplicate from running the handler twice. That is the mirror
-  of `memoryRateLimitStore` evicting the fullest bucket first; never swap either for an LRU.
-- **`postgresIdempotencyStore` is the shipped shared store, and it must be CALLED.** A mechanism
-  built and never wired is the defect this package has shipped twice. It takes a structural
-  `PgExecutor` — the same shape `@ultimat3/jobs`' pg driver declares, satisfied by `Bun.sql` and by
-  a Tx — so there is no `action -> db` package edge and the app wires it:
-  `setIdempotencyStore(postgresIdempotencyStore({ executor: Bun.sql }))` then
-  `configureIdempotency({ scope: 'shared' })`, at boot, before `registerActions()`.
-  `SQL_IDEMPOTENCY_TABLE` is applied the way `SQL_JOBS_TABLE` is. The reservation is ONE statement:
-  a returned row always means this caller owns it, because the `do update` fires only for a row
-  already outside the window.
-- **`deprecated:` is a compat WINDOW and versioning is deliberately not here.** One declaration,
-  four projections: `Deprecation`/`Sunset` headers on every response *including the failures* the
-  handler raises, a `rel="successor-version"` link derived through `derivePath` (never a second URL
-  derivation), `deprecated: true` in the OpenAPI operation, and `deprecated_calls_total`. The
-  headers are rendered ONCE at projection, so a date that cannot become one is
-  `X_ACTION_DEPRECATION_INVALID` at mount rather than on the first request — the rule `toBucket`
-  follows. Running two versions side by side is two deployments behind one ingress (axiom 7); a
-  path prefix, a second registry or a version router would all be a ninth thing to maintain.
-  `deprecation.ts` is TWINNED in `@ultimat3/query`, because both are tier 3 and the shared home is
-  `@ultimat3/http` if it ever grows one — the same compromise `naming.ts` is ported under.
-- **The span wraps `execute` whole, and carries attributes.** It used to wrap `def.handle` alone
-  and set nothing, so `def.row()` — the loader a row-level policy needs — ran inside no span at
-  all: a 2s p99 reported 40ms and the missing 1.96s read as framework overhead. Attributes are
-  chosen for bounded cardinality (surface, actor KIND, outcome, booleans) with one exception, the
-  namespaced idempotency key, which is the single fact that joins a retry to the call it retries —
-  and is never a metric label. `telemetry.test.ts` asserts the EXTENT structurally, by reading
-  `currentSpan()` from inside `row:` and the policy predicate, not by timing: the test clock is
-  frozen.
-- **`policyCapability` is a display label and `policyPermissions` is what a report matches on.**
-  A composite renders as `and(post:publish, org:administer)`, which equals no permission string,
-  so `x policy list` matching on `capability` reported every non-trivially-guarded action's
-  permissions as *unenforced* — real grants shown as dead. `ActionDescriptor.permissions` is the
-  flattened list from `@ultimat3/policy`'s `policyPermissions`, published beside `capability` and
-  never instead of it. A `not()` clause contributes its inner permissions: the grant still
-  participates in the decision, so omitting it would be the false statement.
-- **Both clients inject `traceparent`.** `@ultimat3/core`'s `traceparent()` existed with no caller
-  in the repo, so every Ultimate-to-Ultimate hop began a fresh root trace on the far side. It is
-  set BEFORE the caller's own headers so an explicit one still wins, and an incomplete span context
-  (`spanId: ''`, which `currentSpanContext()` answers when a request context exists but no span
-  does) sends nothing rather than `00-<trace>--01`. In a browser there is no ambient context, so
-  a cross-origin call acquires no CORS preflight it did not already have.
-- **`ActionJobHandle` is not consumed by `@ultimat3/jobs`, and the file said it was until
-  2026-08.** The header read "`@ultimat3/jobs` consumes this shape, so enqueueing an existing
-  action costs zero rewriting" — a claim no code supports. `'action-job'` occurs in four places,
-  all inside this package (`job-handle.ts:16,30`, `job-handle.test.ts`, `facade.test.ts`), and
-  `isJobHandle` (`packages/jobs/src/job.ts:256`) requires `kind === 'job'` **and** membership of a
-  module-private `WeakMap` written only inside `job()` — so this is impossible in principle, not
-  merely unwired. `JobHandle` shares two members with it. What the shape actually gives: `.job()`
-  on the façade, `action:<name>` as a durable queue key, a payload-derived idempotency key, and an
-  `invoke` that runs the one execution path under `surface: 'job'` — so an app that owns a queue
-  can drive it by hand and still get the action's parse + policy. **The missing halves are
-  `tenant` and `retry`**, both required on `JobDefinition` with deliberately no default, so "zero
-  rewriting" was never reachable regardless of wiring. The bridge is one `job({ … })` call, and it
-  belongs in the app or at tier 4+: `action` and `jobs` are both tier 3. **It exists, `As of
-  2026-08`** — `agentJob()` in `@ultimat3/ai` (`agent-job.ts`), tier 4, which takes an `Action` and
-  nothing agent-specific and supplies the two missing halves as its own options. So "nothing in the
-  framework consumes it", which `job-handle.ts`'s header said until this was checked, is false: it
-  has one consumer, and an app writes the same three lines.
-- An action has no `.def`. Inside the package read it with `defOf(target)`; outside,
-  read the lifted `.input`/`.output`/`.policy`/`.mcp` or `describe()`.
-- **`AnyAction` projects every surface, `client()` excepted.** The registry answers in the erased
-  view — `listActions()`, `getAction(name)` — so a member missing from it is a projection the
-  registry cannot reach: `.job()` was absent until 2026-08 and `getAction('publishPost')?.job()`
-  was a type error against an object that has had the method since `facadeFor` bound it. `job()`
-  erases because `ActionJobHandle`'s members are method-syntax (bivariant parameters) and its
-  output erases to `unknown`; `ClientMethod` is a **function type**, so its input is
-  contravariant and `(input: unknown) => …` is a supertype of no concrete action's method. Both
-  halves are build errors in `type-pins.ts`, never a comment — and type claims go there, never in
-  a `.test.ts`, because `tsconfig.json` excludes tests and `tsc` never reads one.
-- **The client keeps the server's error code and marks it remote.** A `problem+json` failure
-  becomes `RemoteActionError` (`errors.ts`), which re-uses the code off the wire the way
-  `ActionDeniedError` re-uses the policy decision's — and then says so, because the browser
-  bundle never registered it: `name` marks it in a stack, `meta.origin: 'remote'` marks it in
-  `--json`, the overlay and the error reporter. **It never synthesizes a docs URL.**
-  a `…/errors/X_SIGNUP_CLOSED` invented for an app-declared code is a 404 dressed as
-  documentation; the link is the server's own `docs`/`type` when it sent an `http(s)` one, this
-  build's registered link when `hasErrorCode` knows the code, otherwise `ERROR_DOCS_URL`. Those
-  last two agree by construction now that core resolves every code to one URL — `hasErrorCode`
-  still separates them only for a package that declared its own `docs:`, which is why the branch
-  stays. The
-  code must be `X_SCREAMING_SNAKE` to be taken at all — `typeof code === 'string'` accepted `""`
-  from a gateway — and anything else is core's `X_CLIENT_TRANSPORT_FAILED` (it was
-  `RpcFailedError` until 21.0.0).
-  `docs` and `type` travel to `remoteDocs` as an ordered pair, not `docs ?? type`: preference is
-  not selection, and picking the preferred slot on presence alone let one `javascript:` string
-  bury a perfectly good `type` the same response had already offered.
-- **MCP exposure is read through `isMcpExposed` from `@ultimat3/core`, in all three places.**
-  `toMcpTools` builds the tool, `describeAction` publishes the manifest fact and
-  `toOpenApiOperation` publishes `x-ultimate.mcpTool` — the last two fail-opened (`?? true`,
-  `!== false`) until 2026-08, so an action with no `mcp` block was advertised as a tool by both
-  contract artifacts and refused by the only surface that could serve one. A contract that
-  disagrees with the runtime is worse than no contract; never spell the check inline again.
-- **An MCP tool's NAME is the export name verbatim, in all four places — `toToolName` is gone**
-  (`As of 2026-08`). The same three readers that fail-opened on exposure also *derived* the name:
-  `toToolName` snake_cased it for `toMcpTool`, for `x-ultimate.mcpTool` and for
-  `describeAction().mcp.tool`, while `@ultimat3/mcp` has only ever served
-  `primitive.mcp?.name ?? primitive.name`. So nine of the ten tool names
-  `examples/dummy/openapi.json` published — `publish_post`, `create_post`, … — were names
-  `tools/call` answers not-found for; the tenth, `summarize`, is single-word and so was already
-  its own snake_case form, which is why a count of the wrong names is not a count of the rows. The
-  DESCRIPTOR said the same: `x actions describe --json`, `x actions list --json`, the
-  `actions.describe` dev MCP tool and the `/_x` Routes panel all read `.mcp.tool`. **Not the app
-  manifest** — `ActionFact.mcp` is `{ expose, description? }` and `packages/manifest/src/sources.ts`
-  copies only those two, so `x.manifest.json` has never carried a tool name and `grep '"tool"'` on
-  either committed manifest finds none. Do not describe this defect as a manifest defect; the
-  manifest's stake in the `mcp` block is `expose`, which is the invariant above. `ActionMcp`
-  carries no `name:`, so
-  the verbatim name is the whole rule and there is nothing left to derive; the helper is
-  **deleted** rather than left exported, because a dead name-deriver is a second way to name a
-  tool. `mcp-tool.test.ts`'s "one name per action, on every surface" asserts the three strings are
-  one string AND that it is the verbatim name — the equality alone passes on the old behaviour,
-  where all three agreed on the wrong name. **Neither package derives a tool name any more**:
-  `@ultimat3/query` carried a same-named twin with the identical defect and deleted it in the same
-  change, so `packages/query/src/naming.ts` derives PATHS only and its `src/index.ts` exports no
-  such helper. Both are tier 3, so neither could import the other and each owned its own removal —
-  which is why the rule is restated in both `CLAUDE.md`s rather than shared.
-- **The post-commit bust never fails the write it followed.** `cache.invalidates` fans out once the
-  handler has committed, so `bustAfterCommit` — `cache-gate.ts`, the only caller of
-  `invalidateTags` here — absorbs a fan-out that refuses and answers `undefined`: an undeclared tag
-  (`X_CACHE_TAG_UNKNOWN`) must not turn a durable write into a failed action, and those entries
-  expire by TTL. One dead tier is not that case; `invalidateTags` already reports it in
-  `report.errors`. It logs through core's `logger`, never `ctx.logger` — an HTTP `Ctx` is a cast
-  request context that carries none — and never renders the tags, because reading a malformed
-  `invalidates` entry back is the second throw the guard exists to stop. **A replay skips the bust
-  entirely:** no handler ran, the first call already busted these tags, and re-purging the CDN and
-  re-queueing ISR per retry is work for a write nobody made.
-- **The policy contract test asserts `ActionDeniedError`, and it sends valid input to get there.**
-  It sent `{}` and accepted any `UltimateError` until 2026-08, so every action with a required
-  field failed `input:` before `guard()` ran and the assertion passed on `X_INPUT_INVALID` —
-  including one whose policy was `allow()`. `sampleInput` builds the payload from `input:`'s own
-  IR (required keys only) so the invocation reaches the policy; the class, not `X_FORBIDDEN`, is
-  the assertion, because `ActionDeniedError` re-uses the policy decision's code and `can()`
-  answers a null actor with `X_UNAUTHENTICATED`. **Only `X_INPUT_INVALID` becomes
-  `X_CONTRACT_DRIFT`** — it is the one code `invoke` raises before `guard()` is reached, and
-  `input:` is the one knob that answers it. Everything else keeps its own code and its own fix:
-  saying `X_OUTPUT_INVALID … before its policy decided` named a stage nothing had checked and
-  offered a fix that changes nothing, and it hid the `allow()` whose handler threw — the authz
-  escape this assertion exists to catch. A non-`UltimateError` (a `row:` loader's own
-  `TypeError`) is rethrown untouched too: its stack is the thing worth reading.
-  `contract-test.contract.test.ts` drives all three assertions against actions built to fail them.
-  **`X_AUDIT_SINK_MISSING` is the one code assertion 1 passes through as well**, for the same
-  reason: `auditSinkFor` runs *before* `validateInput`, so "the schema accepted garbage" is a
-  false statement about it and `tighten input:` is a fix that changes nothing. It is the only
-  refusal that precedes the parse — a second one is a design mistake, not a second entry here.
-- **The audit seam ships the mechanism and none of the row.** `audit: true` on a declaration
-  wraps `execute` — it never forks it — so a **denied** attempt is recorded, which is the whole
-  reason this lives in the framework: `guard` throws before `handle`, so nothing an app writes
-  around its own handler could ever see one. What reaches the sink is what `invoke` already holds
-  (`at` from `ctx.now()`, the name, the mutator brand, the surface, the whole `ctx`, the parsed
-  input, the namespaced idempotency key, `replayed`, the outcome, the failure code). What does
-  **not** ship, ever: an audit entity, a retention policy, a hash chain, a subject index, or an
-  opinion on what "who" means under impersonation — four apps model those four ways, so by axiom
-  8's own test they are business convention and shipping one makes three of them wrong.
-  **"a storage backend" was on that list until 2026-08-24 and is off it**, because the list was
-  answering a different question than it appeared to. What four apps model four ways is the ROW —
-  which of their own facts it carries, how long they keep it, whether it chains. Where the record
-  the FRAMEWORK already defines is put is not one of those: `x_audit`'s columns are the fields of
-  `AuditRecord` and nothing else, which is the same relationship `idempotency-postgres.ts` has to
-  `IdempotencyRecord` and `@ultimat3/http`'s `postgresRateLimitStore` to its `Bucket`. Leaving it
-  off meant the only sink that shipped was a ring that drops, so the shortest edit clearing
-  `X_AUDIT_SINK_MISSING` was `setAuditSink(memoryAuditSink())` — compliant in dev, silently
-  amnesiac in production, which `docs/idea/20-large-app-readiness.md` scores as **Ship**. An app
-  that wants columns of its own still writes its own sink; the seam is one method. `result` is absent for the same reason and one more: a handler's return is
-  reachable from the handler itself, so shipping it would be this package deciding a row carries
-  an after-image, which is `@ultimat3/admin`'s `diff` convention arriving one tier down.
-- **The audit vocabulary is `@ultimat3/admin`'s, shared by name and not by import.** `AuditOutcome`
-  is the same three words (`allowed | denied | failed`) and `AuditSink` the same noun; `admin` is
-  tier 5 and this is tier 3, so there is no edge to share them over. **Known duplicate**: admin's
-  `AuditSink` writes a fixed `AuditEntry` requiring an `AdminActor` and a `permission`, and it is
-  called only from `admin/crud.ts`, so an action outside `/admin` still produces nothing there.
-  Unifying them means lifting the vocabulary into `@ultimat3/core` — the only tier both reach —
-  and rebuilding `admin/audit.ts` on this seam. Not done here: `admin` is a shipped public API
-  and its `AuditEntry` is a different shape.
-- **The memory sink DROPS, and both halves of that sentence are enforced.** It was a plain array
-  with a `push` — the one memory implementation in the framework with no cap, beside five that
-  have one (`memoryRateLimitStore`, `MemoryIdempotencyStore`, `createLimiter`,
-  `createTotpReplayGuard`, `createMemoryEventBus`) — and a record pins a whole `Ctx`, so at 50
-  audited writes a second it is 4.3M immortal records a day and the pod OOMs holding the trail it
-  was retaining. It is now a ring at `DEFAULT_MAX_AUDIT_RECORDS`, evicting the OLDEST (the
-  direction `createMemoryEventBus` evicts in: refusing new writes would answer "nothing has
-  happened since" for a process that has been serving all day). `dropped` is what makes "it drops"
-  checkable in a running process instead of a sentence in a header — a non-zero count on a real
-  deployment is the sink saying it is the wrong one. A `maxRecords` of `0`, negative or `NaN`
-  falls back to the default: there is no spelling of "no bound", because that spelling was the bug.
-- **What a DURABLE sink may write down is decided in `audit-input.ts`, and it is two rules.**
-  A record's `input` is the PARSED input, which is exactly where a password, a bearer token or a
-  card number lives, so `postgresAuditSink` redacts it through `@ultimat3/core`'s `isRedactedKey`
-  — the SAME table `defineEnv({ secret: true })` extends, never a copy of the list, because a copy
-  is how a value that is `[redacted]` in a log line becomes plaintext in a table. `isSecret`
-  redacts by VALUE beside it, for a credential travelling under a harmless name. The second rule
-  is that the answer is always JSON-representable: a `bigint`, a `NaN`, a function and a cycle all
-  become a NAMED marker rather than a throw, because `auditSettled` turns a sink throw into a
-  failed invocation for a handler that has already committed — and because `JSON.stringify` over a
-  cycle takes ~4.6s in Bun 1.4 before it raises, so leaving the detection to the serializer stalls
-  the audited path either way. `toJSON` is never called: it is app code in the frame that owes the
-  caller a record.
-- **The `Ctx` is never walked, and never will be.** `createContext` spreads every installed
-  service ONTO the context object and an HTTP surface's value is a `RequestContext` carrying the
-  request's own `Authorization` and `Cookie`, so a projection that iterated it would write an
-  app's database clients and its caller's credentials into an audit table. `postgresAuditSink`
-  reads an allow-list of framework-owned fields (`requestId`, `traceId`, `locale`, `tz`,
-  `buildId`, `role`, and the actor's `id`/`kind`/`orgId`/`onBehalfOf`) and nothing else.
-  `failure.error` is not among them — the row keeps `failure.code`, because a throwable's stack is
-  worth reading and is not worth storing, and rendering one into a column is the trap
-  `renderThrowable` exists for.
-- **`x_audit` ships no purge, and it is the only framework table that does not.**
-  `x_idempotency` and `x_rate_limit` both ship one because a stale row there is meaningless; a
-  stale audit row IS the record, and "how long" is a legal answer that is seven years for one app
-  and thirty days for the next. Shipping a `delete` would be shipping one of those answers.
-- **`SQL_AUDIT_INSERT` is positional, so its parameter order is pinned by a test and not by a
-  type.** `audit-parity.test.ts` names every column once and compares both sinks' answer for every
-  string field with a DIFFERENT value per field — two columns holding the same word cannot catch a
-  slip, and a `locale` in the `tz` slot type-checks perfectly. Proven by mutation: the first draft
-  of that test did NOT catch a swapped `locale`/`tz` and was widened until it did.
-- **A sink may not silently swallow, and the two failure policies are deliberate opposites.**
-  `X_AUDIT_SINK_MISSING` is raised *before* the input parse, so an audited action nothing can
-  record refuses with no committed write behind it — there is deliberately no logger-backed
-  default sink, because a line nobody stores satisfies the declaration while recording nothing.
-  A sink that refuses an **allowed** record fails the invocation (`X_AUDIT_SINK_FAILED`), which
-  is the inverse of `cache-gate.ts`'s absorb-and-log: a dropped cache entry expires by TTL and
-  the stack heals itself, while nothing ever re-derives an audit row that was never written. It
-  is post-commit all the same, so the cause says the handler already committed rather than
-  implying a rollback. **Its `fix:` branches on `record.idempotencyKey !== null` — the
-  INVOCATION's fact, never the declaration's `idempotent`.** A retry replays instead of re-running
-  only when this call reserved a record, and `invoke` reads
-  `def.idempotent === true ? (options.idempotencyKey ?? null) : null`, so a non-idempotent action
-  and an idempotent one whose caller sent no header collapse to the same `null`. The unqualified
-  "retry with the same Idempotency-Key" told a caller to apply a committed write twice — an
-  axiom-4 violation dressed as a fix line. Requiring `idempotent: true` at declaration was the
-  other candidate and was rejected: it would not have made the message true (the header is still
-  the caller's), and it would force the idempotency store on every app that wants only an audit
-  trail — "which writes must be retry-safe" is the app's call, not this package's.
-  `meta.replayable` carries the same fact to `--json`, and `audit.test.ts` pins both branches so
-  the text cannot drift back. A sink that refuses a **denied or failed** record is logged as
-  `audit.sink.failed` and the original error still reaches the caller — `X_AUDIT_SINK_FAILED`
-  there would hide the `X_FORBIDDEN` and would answer a probing client differently depending on
-  whether the audit backend was up, which is an oracle.
-- **`auditSettled` sits outside the `catch`, not inside it.** Inside, its own
-  `X_AUDIT_SINK_FAILED` fell into the failure branch and wrote a *second* record saying the
-  action `failed` — for a handler that had committed. An audit trail lying about a write is
-  worse than no audit trail; `audit.test.ts` counts the records a refusing sink was offered.
-- **`auditOutcomeFor` is TOTAL, because both callers ask inside a `catch`.**
-  `error instanceof ActionDeniedError` runs a `Proxy`'s `getPrototypeOf` trap, and the two call
-  sites are `execute`'s span attribute and the one place the `failed` record is produced — so a
-  handler throwing such a value made the probe throw *from the frame holding the app's error*,
-  and the caller got a `TypeError` in place of its own throwable. It fails closed to `failed`: a
-  value that refuses to be examined is not evidence of a policy denial. Same rule as core's
-  `isThrownError` / `isUltimateError`, and the same defect `@ultimat3/http`'s `finalize.ts` and
-  `factsOf` carried; `audit.test.ts` asserts the caller's throwable by IDENTITY, which is the only
-  assertion that catches a replacement.
-- **`json-schema.ts`'s refusal names `introspect()`, never a `toJsonSchema` member.**
-  `SchemaProvider` declares no such member and `toJsonSchema()` calls `introspect()`
-  unconditionally, so the old `fix:` told a reader to implement an API that does not exist —
-  axiom 4 inverted, and invisible to `x verify`'s `errors` step, which checks a fix line's shape
-  and never whether the API it names is real. The guard is `normalizeJsonSchema`, exported from
-  the module for its own test and absent from `src/index.ts` exactly as `sortSchema` is; the
-  shipped `toJsonSchema` cannot reach it today (it returns an object literal on every path), so
-  the test drives the guard directly rather than pretending a converter can be swapped.
-- **A lookup table is read with `Object.hasOwn`, never with the index alone.** `IRREGULAR[word]`
-  in `naming.ts` and `BY_FORMAT[node.format]` in `sample-input.ts` both read the prototype chain:
-  `splitWords` lowercases, which keeps `toString` and `hasOwnProperty` out of reach, but
-  `constructor` is already lowercase and survived — so `pluralize('constructor')` answered the
-  `Object` FUNCTION where its return type says `string`, `derivePath('addConstructor')` mounted the
-  action at `/api/function Object() { [native code] }/add` and published that as its OpenAPI path
-  and `tags`, and a provider emitting `format: 'constructor'` put a function in the payload the
-  policy contract test invokes with. Both keys are caller- or provider-supplied, which is the whole
-  test for whether this applies. Same discriminator `packages/flags/src/subject.ts:75` uses.
-- App code reaches a projection through the action (`publishPost.tool()`), never through
-  `.def` and never by importing the projection function. `facade.ts` is where a new method
-  is bound; the projection itself keeps living in its own file.
-- A mutator projects the three names it was authored with — `.local`, `.server`, `.conflict` —
-  plus every action façade member, through `named()` and registration alike. No aliases: the
-  old `.applyLocal` is gone, not deprecated.
-- `mutator.server()` calls the action's own callable, so it lands in `invoke` like every other
-  surface. Reaching the declared `server` from there is the second execution path this package
-  exists to prevent. `.local()` is the one member that skips the core — it never leaves the
-  client, so there is nothing to authorize.
-- Registration names the action the app exported, in place — `import { publishPost }` is
-  projectable after boot. Naming an already-named action is the only case that twins.
-- `src/index.ts` re-exports `t` from `@ultimat3/schema` **verbatim**, so an action file imports
-  one package. Never wrap, spread or re-declare it: `t` delegates to `schemaProvider()` on every
-  access, and a copy would freeze the provider at import time. `index.test.ts` asserts identity.
-- `defineApi` is the app's registration call; `registerActions` is what it composes. It reaches
-  `@ultimat3/query`'s and `@ultimat3/jobs`' registries through core's registrar table
-  (`primitiveRegistrar('query' | 'job' | 'task')`), never a sideways import — and throws
-  `X_REGISTRAR_MISSING` rather than skipping a kind whose registrar is absent, because a silent
-  skip drops every primitive of that kind.
-- **`jobs` and `tasks` belong in the same call, for the same reason `queries` do.** The export
-  name becomes the job's durable queue key; a job module nothing hands over keeps `job()`'s
-  positional `anonymous-job-<n>`, on every queue row and in the manifest. A definition with its
-  own `name:` keeps it — that rule lives in `@ultimat3/jobs`, not here. Jobs register before
-  tasks: a task descriptor lists the jobs it enqueues by name.
-- `defineApi`'s returned maps are built from the **registrar's own results**, never from the
-  modules' exports. A feature module exports helpers next to its primitives; copying every export
-  would seat one in `Api['actions']` as a client method nothing serves, and let two modules'
-  same-named helpers overwrite each other with no `X_ACTION_DUPLICATE` to raise. The type does the
-  same filter, so `rpc<Api['actions']>()` offers only what registered.
-- `rpc` is the only name for the map-wide typed client. There is no `createClient` alias.
-- **Flight control is `@ultimat3/core`'s, and this package RE-EXPORTS it.** `client-flight.ts` and
-  `client-wire.ts` shipped here and in the other tier-3 client package as byte-identical copies —
-  288 and 85 lines — kept in step by a `client-twin.test.ts` in each. A test that makes drift LOUD
-  is not the same as a file that cannot drift, and this package's own thesis is that duplication is
-  the defect. Both files import nothing but tier 0, which was always the argument for where they
-  belong; the one blocker was `isJsonObject`, now `@ultimat3/core`'s `json-object.ts`, re-exported
-  from `./stable` here. `createClientFlight`, `DEFAULT_CLIENT_RETRY`, `isTransientFailure`,
-  `isSuperseded`, `ClientFlight`, `ClientFlightOptions`, `ClientRetry`, `FlightKeyOptions`,
-  `FlightPlan` and `WireAnswer` are all still importable from `@ultimat3/action` — the same names,
-  and now literally the same objects the other package exports. Never re-declare one here; the
-  fix for anything wrong with the pipeline is an edit in `packages/core/src/client-flight.ts`.
-- **Every mechanism underneath the flight is `@ultimat3/core`'s, the pipeline included.**
-  `createSingleFlight` for dedup, `createFence`/`isSuperseded` for supersession, `createFlightGate`
-  for the ceiling, `retry` + `backoffDelay` for the schedule, `isRetryableStatus` for the status
-  table, `X_TIMEOUT` for the deadline — and `createClientFlight`, which composes them. This package
-  declares NO new error code for any of it; never add a second curve, a second fence or a private
-  retry loop here, and `bun run flight-copies` is what says so.
-- **`isTransientFailure` INVERTS `retryDecision`'s unclassified default, and the inversion must
-  survive** (`As of 2026-08-23`). `retryDecision` sends a throw nobody classified again until the
-  attempts run out; `@ultimat3/ai` and `@ultimat3/db` each refused the executor outright over it.
-  The client keeps the executor and supplies a predicate instead: a declared
-  `retryable`/`retry-after`, plus a dispatch that produced no response at all (`fetch` rejecting
-  with a plain `TypeError`), and nothing else — a caller's own `AbortError` and a foreign value are
-  terminal. The loop is stopped by RESOLVING to a private sentinel rather than by throwing, so the
-  original value still reaches the caller unwrapped, which is the property `retry`'s own header
-  promises. It lives in `packages/core/src/client-flight.ts` now; the tests that pin it from this
-  side still drive it through this package's own client.
-- **`ClientFlight` is a TYPE inside `client.ts` and never a value.** That erasure is the entire
-  tree-shaking story: a caller who wants a plain typed call must not pay for the fence, the dedup
-  map or the retry loop. Never import `createClientFlight` for a VALUE from `client.ts` —
-  `ClientFlight` and `ClientRetry` are `import type` from `@ultimat3/core` and must stay that way.
-  **Measured, `bun build --target=browser --minify`, one entry importing from `@ultimat3/action`,
-  `As of 2026-09-22`:**
+- Every surface goes through `invoke`: parse input, evaluate policy, handle, parse output. A second
+  execution path is the one unforgivable change here.
+- **An explicit `ctx` is INSTALLED, never merely passed** — the ambient context (which
+  `@ultimat3/entity`'s tenant guard reads) must be the identity `guard()` decided about.
+  `invoke-context.test.ts` asserts ambient, `options.actor` and `options.ctx` are one caller.
+- The declaration never leaves `invoke.ts`: `defOf`/`stashDef` are never re-exported from
+  `src/index.ts` (`index.test.ts`). An action has no `.def`; outside, read `.input`/`.output`/
+  `.policy`/`.mcp` or `describe()`. App code reaches a projection through the action
+  (`publishPost.tool()`); new methods are bound in `facade.ts`.
+- **`toRoute` sets `enforcedBy: 'handler'`** — `invoke` is the one evaluation and the only one holding
+  the row `def.row` loaded; `meta.policy` stays set. `http.test.ts` counts exactly one evaluation.
+- **`meta.auth` comes from `@ultimat3/policy`'s `admitsAnonymous`** (a walk of the tree, via
+  `policy-gate.ts`), never the root combinator — never a copy here (`@ultimat3/query` needs the same
+  answer).
+- Authz goes through `enforce(surface, policy, { input, actor, ctx })`; a denial becomes
+  `ActionDeniedError`, keeping the policy's code. `policy-gate.ts` is the only RUNTIME edge to
+  `@ultimat3/policy` (`errors.ts`'s `import type { SurfaceDenial }` erases).
+- No policy at registration → `X_ACTION_POLICY_MISSING`. No exceptions, no flag.
+- **`registerAction` guards the derived PATH as well as the name** (`X_ACTION_PATH_DUPLICATE`; a
+  second index cleared by `resetRegistry`).
+- Registration names the action the app exported, in place. Naming an already-named action is the
+  only case that twins.
+- A mutator projects `.local`, `.server`, `.conflict` plus every action member — no aliases.
+  `mutator.server()` calls the action's own callable (lands in `invoke`); `.local()` never leaves the
+  client.
+- **`AnyAction` projects every surface, `client()` excepted** (`ClientMethod` is contravariant); both
+  halves are build errors in `type-pins.ts`.
+- **`defineApi` is the app's registration call**, reaching query/jobs/tasks through core's
+  registrar table (`X_REGISTRAR_MISSING`, never a silent skip). `jobs` and `tasks` belong in the same
+  call (the export name is the durable queue key); jobs register before tasks. The returned maps are
+  built from the registrars' results, never the modules' exports.
+- `src/index.ts` re-exports `t` from `@ultimat3/schema` **verbatim** (`index.test.ts` asserts identity).
+- **`transition()` is a mutator factory that decides nothing about the machine**: entity's three
+  codes propagate; `from` is REQUIRED (it is the UPDATE's predicate); `conflict: 'server-wins'` fixed;
+  `audit` off unless declared.
+- **A lookup table is read with `Object.hasOwn`** (`IRREGULAR` in `naming.ts`, `BY_FORMAT` in
+  `sample-input.ts`) — caller- or provider-supplied keys.
+
+## Invariants — the wire
+
+- **Every browser call goes through core's `clientTransport`**: `client.ts` hands it the method, the
+  URL (core's `actionPath`; `naming.ts` re-exports core's path helpers), body, headers, signal, key,
+  flight and `retry`. Only action-specific hooks ride in: `onResponse` (build-id check,
+  `X_CONTRACT_DRIFT`) and `decodeError` (`RemoteActionError`, else core's
+  `X_CLIENT_TRANSPORT_FAILED`). `X_RPC_FAILED` stays registered, thrown by nothing since 21.0.0.
+- **A retried mutation needs an `Idempotency-Key`**: without one `retry` narrows to one attempt,
+  silently (never a refusal). A fence never aborts a write (`abortable: false`), and `client.ts`
+  never calls `flight.keyFor`.
+- **The record envelope is derived from the output schema, per ACTION** (`carriesRecords` =
+  entity's `hasEntityRows`, once in `toRoute`): `{ data, records }` under `x-ultimate-records: 1` on
+  every answer. HTTP-only. An output with no entity row is byte-identical (`record-wire.test.ts`).
+- **`conflict` is core's `ConflictPolicy`, over ROWS**; `custom(merge)` builds
+  `{ kind: 'custom', merge(localRow, serverRow) }`; core's `resolveConflict` is the one resolver.
+- **`X_INPUT_INVALID` carries the rejections twice**: the line in `cause`
+  (`formatIssues(issues).join('; ')`, pinned by `validate.test.ts`) and `meta.issues` structured.
+  The rendering stays out of `InputInvalidError` (browser-reachable). **`toValidationIssues`** keeps
+  four members, never a library's raw issue (it may carry the value). `issuesFromWire` rebuilds
+  member by member, all-or-nothing, bounded by `MAX_WIRE_ISSUES`. **`X_OUTPUT_INVALID` keeps the line alone.**
+- **The client keeps the server's code and marks it remote** (`RemoteActionError`, `meta.origin:
+  'remote'`), only for an `X_SCREAMING_SNAKE` code. It never synthesizes a docs URL: the server's
+  `http(s)` `docs`/`type` (as an ordered pair), else this build's registered link, else
+  `ERROR_DOCS_URL`.
+- **Both clients inject `traceparent`** before the caller's headers; an incomplete span sends nothing.
+- `serializeOpenApi` output is byte-stable: sorted keys, sorted registry, no clock. `client.ts` stays
+  free of server imports.
+- **`stable.ts` holds the DOCUMENT form only** (`stableStringify` → `openapi.json`, re-read by
+  `json-schema.ts`). The HASH form is core's `canonicalJson`/`fingerprint` (injective: tags
+  `NaN`/`±Infinity`/`-0`, `Date`, `Map`, `Set`); `stable.test.ts` pins byte-equality for ordinary
+  payloads.
+- **`tagKeys` is `@ultimat3/cache`'s and `toBucket` is `@ultimat3/http`'s** (re-exported; raises
+  `X_RATE_LIMIT_INVALID`). Never restore a local copy; never use `@ultimat3/render`'s `tagKeys`.
+- **`rateLimit:` reaches the limiter**: `toRoute` sets `meta.rateLimit` AND `meta.rateLimitBucket`
+  (`toBucket`), which `@ultimat3/http`'s `withRouteBuckets` registers. The computed rate must be
+  finite and `limit` at least one token.
+- **`deprecated:` is a compat WINDOW** — headers on every response including failures, a
+  `rel="successor-version"` link via `derivePath`, `deprecated: true` in OpenAPI,
+  `deprecated_calls_total`. Rendered ONCE at projection (`X_ACTION_DEPRECATION_INVALID` at mount).
+  Twinned in `@ultimat3/query`.
+- **The span wraps `execute` whole** (including `def.row()`), with bounded attributes plus the
+  namespaced idempotency key (never a metric label). `telemetry.test.ts`.
+- **`policyCapability` is a display label; `policyPermissions` (`ActionDescriptor.permissions`) is
+  what a report matches on** (a `not()` clause contributes its permissions).
+- **MCP exposure reads core's `isMcpExposed`, in all three places** (`toMcpTools`, `describeAction`,
+  `x-ultimate.mcpTool`). **A tool's NAME is the export name verbatim everywhere** — `toToolName` is
+  deleted; `mcp-tool.test.ts` asserts one verbatim name across surfaces. `ActionFact.mcp` in the app
+  manifest carries only `{ expose, description? }`.
+- **`ActionJobHandle` is not consumed by `@ultimat3/jobs`** (`isJobHandle` needs `job()`'s private
+  map). `.job()` gives `action:<name>` as a queue key, a payload-derived idempotency key and an
+  `invoke` under `surface: 'job'`. The bridge is `agentJob()` in `@ultimat3/ai`, or an app's own
+  `job({ … })` supplying `tenant` and `retry`.
+
+## Invariants — flight control
+
+- **Flight control is `@ultimat3/core`'s, re-exported** — the same objects `@ultimat3/query`
+  exports. Fix the pipeline in `packages/core/src/client-flight.ts`. No new code, curve, fence or
+  retry loop here (`bun run flight-copies`).
+- **`isTransientFailure` INVERTS `retryDecision`'s unclassified default** (a caller's `AbortError`
+  is terminal). Must survive.
+- **`ClientFlight` is a TYPE inside `client.ts`, never a value.** Measured,
+  `bun build --target=browser --minify`, one entry importing from `@ultimat3/action` — **the ONE
+  table for these figures** (`packages/core/CLAUDE.md` points here):
 
   | Entry | before (HEAD `98d16d84`) | onto `clientTransport` | trace headers moved to core's outbound slot | As of 2026-09-23 |
   |---|---|---|---|---|
   | `rpc` | 18,097 B | 23,007 B | 18,119 B | 19,074 B |
   | `rpc` + `createClientFlight` | 23,903 B | 28,823 B | not measured | 25,197 B |
 
-  This is the ONE table for these figures; `packages/core/CLAUDE.md` points here. The slot column
-  is the `outbound-headers.ts` change (core's `traceHeaders()` left the browser path; its own
-  "before" read 23,164 B, the transport column re-measured on a later tree). The last column is
-  one entry importing `packages/action/src/index.ts` by path, same flags.
+  Net against the pre-transport figure: +977 B, about the envelope decoder's size.
+- **The `sideEffects` array is load-bearing**: `errors.ts` runs `registerErrorCodes` at import. Never `false`.
 
-  The 14,759 B this file used to quote does not reproduce on the tree it was checked against
-  (18,097 B); the numbers above are both measured the same way, same day. The growth is +4,910 B,
-  of which the envelope decoder is ~1,020 B (`decodeRecordEnvelope` added to a
-  `UltimateError`+`problemOf`+`traceHeaders` entry: 13,059 → 14,079 B). The rest is core's
-  transport graph — the scope fence, the dispatch module, and core's shared problem decoder, which
-  now answers a body with no framework code (`X_CLIENT_TRANSPORT_FAILED`) behind `decodeError`. That is OVER the plan's bound ("must not grow beyond the envelope decoder") and is
-  reported, not hidden. After the slot moved telemetry out, the net against the pre-transport figure
-  is +977 B (18,097 → 19,074 B, As of 2026-09-23), about the envelope decoder's size.
-- **The `sideEffects` array is what makes the barrel shakable, and it is load-bearing** (`As of
-  2026-08-23`). Declaring nothing meant a bundler had to assume every module ran at import, so
-  `import { rpc } from '@ultimat3/action'` was 43,104 B and `import { queryClient } from
-  '@ultimat3/query'` was 40,859 B — three times the deep-import cost, through the ONLY specifier
-  the `exports` map offers. The arrays are the ones `bun run scripts/side-effects.ts --explain
-  --json` measures, and they must stay that: `errors.ts` runs `registerErrorCodes` at import in both
-  packages, and query's `registry.ts` runs `registerPrimitiveRegistrar('query', …)` — drop either
-  and a bundled app loses its error titles or throws `X_REGISTRAR_MISSING`. Never `false`.
-- **A retried mutation is gated on an `Idempotency-Key`, and the gate is silent narrowing rather
-  than a refusal** (`As of 2026-08-23`). `CallOptions.retry` is honoured only alongside
-  `idempotencyKey`; without one the call is narrowed to a single attempt. A second POST with no key
-  is a second WRITE, and nothing at this seam can tell a lost answer from a lost request. A refusal
-  was the other candidate and was rejected: `retry:` may be set once on the flight for a whole
-  client, and turning every keyless call in an app into a thrown error would make the flight
-  un-installable. `client-flight.test.ts` pins both halves, and the header on every attempt.
-- **A fence never aborts a write, and `client.ts` never calls `flight.keyFor`.** The first because
-  closing a mutation's socket does not un-commit it — it only destroys the one chance the caller had
-  of learning whether it landed, so `abortable: false` is unconditional and the caller still gets
-  `X_SUPERSEDED` for the ANSWER. The second is how "a mutation may never join another mutation" is
-  enforced: there is no dedup path to reach from here, even with a principal installed.
-- **`registerAction` guards the derived PATH as well as the name.** `X_ACTION_DUPLICATE` only ever
-  asked about the name, so `archiveOrder` and `archiveOrders` — one route, by `pluralize`'s
-  deliberate "a trailing `s` is already plural" rule — both registered and both projected: the
-  router table seated whichever came last and the other was unreachable over HTTP while its
-  OpenAPI operation and MCP tool still advertised it. `paths` is a second index, cleared by
-  `resetRegistry` with the first, and the refusal is `X_ACTION_PATH_DUPLICATE`.
-- No policy at registration → `X_ACTION_POLICY_MISSING`. No exceptions, no flag.
-- `serializeOpenApi` output must be byte-stable: sorted keys, sorted registry, no clock.
-- `client.ts` stays free of server imports — it is bundled into the browser.
-- Authz goes through `enforce(surface, policy, { input, actor, ctx })` from
-  `@ultimat3/policy`; a returned denial becomes `ActionDeniedError`, which keeps the
-  policy's own code (`X_FORBIDDEN`, `X_UNAUTHENTICATED`) and carries the surface
-  denial. `policy-gate.ts` is the only file with a **runtime** edge to the policy package;
-  `errors.ts` also imports it, `import type { SurfaceDenial }`, which `verbatimModuleSyntax`
-  erases — so there is still exactly one place authz is evaluated.
+## Invariants — idempotency
+
+- **Everything `withIdempotency`'s `run` throws is treated as possibly-committed**: the reservation
+  is SETTLED as a failure and a retry replays it; `release()` is only for a pre-handler failure. A
+  `settle` that refuses leaves the record in flight. `idempotency-failure.test.ts`.
+- **A record belongs to ONE CALLER**: the key is
+  `JSON.stringify([action, actor.kind, actor.id, actor.orgId ?? null, key])` — a JSON tuple, never a
+  joined string. A blank header is `X_IDEMPOTENCY_KEY_INVALID` (4xx, before the handler), never "no
+  key". Anonymous callers still share one key space.
+- **The `idempotency-key` header also NAMES the write, on every action**: `http.ts` runs `invoke`
+  inside `withWriteOrigin(writeDigest(key))` so the page recognises its own `records` echo. A label,
+  never a gate.
+- **Both stores FENCE a settlement on the reservation `id` AND `in-flight`**:
+  `settle(key, value, reservationId)` / `fail(key, failure, reservationId)`. A fenced no-op is logged,
+  never thrown.
+- **A stored status is NARROWED** (`isIdempotencyStatus`; unknown is
+  `X_IDEMPOTENCY_STATUS_UNKNOWN`), never cast.
+- **Where records live is DECLARED and refused at registration**: `IdempotencyStore.scope` vs
+  `configureIdempotency({ scope })`, compared by `assertIdempotencyScope` in `registerAction`
+  (`X_IDEMPOTENCY_NOT_SHARED`). Default `'process'`.
+- **The memory store is bounded; `in-flight` records are the last evicted.** Never an LRU.
+- **`postgresIdempotencyStore` is the shared store** over a structural `PgExecutor` (no `action -> db`
+  edge); the reservation is ONE `insert … on conflict` statement. The CLI boot installs it.
+
+## Invariants — cache and audit
+
+- **The post-commit bust never fails the write** — `cache-gate.ts` (the only `invalidateTags` caller)
+  absorbs a refusing fan-out and logs through core's `logger`, never rendering the tags. A replay
+  skips the bust.
+- **The policy contract test asserts `ActionDeniedError` and sends valid input** (`sampleInput` from
+  the input IR). Only `X_INPUT_INVALID` (and `X_AUDIT_SINK_MISSING`, the one refusal before the parse)
+  becomes `X_CONTRACT_DRIFT`; everything else keeps its own code; a non-`UltimateError` is rethrown.
+  `contract-test.contract.test.ts`.
+- **The audit seam ships the mechanism and none of the row**: `audit: true` wraps `execute`, so a
+  DENIED attempt is recorded. No audit entity, retention, hash chain or "who" convention. The
+  vocabulary matches `@ultimat3/admin`'s by name (tier 5, no edge); admin's `AuditSink` is a known
+  duplicate that unifying would need core for.
+- **The memory sink DROPS** — a ring at `DEFAULT_MAX_AUDIT_RECORDS`, oldest first, counting `dropped`;
+  no spelling of "unbounded".
+- **A durable sink writes what `audit-input.ts` allows**: input redacted through core's
+  `isRedactedKey` (the table `defineEnv({ secret: true })` extends) plus `isSecret` by value, and
+  always JSON-representable (named markers, cycle detection; `toJSON` never called).
+- **The `Ctx` is never walked**: `postgresAuditSink` reads an allow-list (`requestId`, `traceId`,
+  `locale`, `tz`, `buildId`, `role`, actor `id`/`kind`/`orgId`/`onBehalfOf`) and keeps
+  `failure.code`, never the error.
+- **`x_audit` ships no purge**, deliberately. **`SQL_AUDIT_INSERT` is positional**, pinned by
+  `audit-parity.test.ts` with a distinct value per field.
+- **The two failure policies are opposites**: `X_AUDIT_SINK_MISSING` before the input parse (no
+  logger-backed default sink); a sink refusing an ALLOWED record is `X_AUDIT_SINK_FAILED`, whose `fix:`
+  branches on `record.idempotencyKey !== null` (`meta.replayable`); a sink refusing a denied or failed
+  record is logged (`audit.sink.failed`) and the original error still reaches the caller.
+- **`auditSettled` sits outside the `catch`**, and **`auditOutcomeFor` is TOTAL** (fails closed to
+  `failed`); `audit.test.ts` asserts the caller's throwable by identity.
+- **`json-schema.ts`'s refusal names `introspect()`** (`normalizeJsonSchema`, test-only export).
 
 ## Commands
 
@@ -649,3 +219,5 @@ Owns the `action` + `mutator` primitives and their six projections. Tier 3.
 bun test packages/action
 bun run typecheck
 ```
+
+Why each rule above is shaped the way it is: [`docs/history/action.md`](../../docs/history/action.md).

package/README.md

@@ -623,7 +623,7 @@ never a pass — the assertion says which code got in the way and names `input:`
 | `X_IDEMPOTENCY_NOT_SHARED` | `configureIdempotency({ scope: 'shared' })` over a per-process (or scope-less) store | install `postgresIdempotencyStore({ executor })` at boot |
 | `X_IDEMPOTENCY_REPLAYED_FAILURE` | a retried key replays a first attempt that failed and carried no framework code of its own | read the first attempt, then send a fresh key |
 | `X_IDEMPOTENCY_STATUS_UNKNOWN` | `x_idempotency.status` holds a word this build has no branch for — written by a newer deploy | finish the rollout onto the build that writes it, then reconcile those requests — never DELETE the rows, which frees the key to run an already-committed action a second time |
-| `X_CONTRACT_DRIFT` | client/server build skew, missing spec entry | reload / `x verify --contract` |
+| `X_CONTRACT_DRIFT` | client/server build skew, missing spec entry | reload / `x verify --only contract` |
 | `X_RPC_FAILED` | registered, thrown by nothing since 21.0.0 — a non-`problem+json` failure is core's `X_CLIENT_TRANSPORT_FAILED` now, as for a query | match `X_CLIENT_TRANSPORT_FAILED` instead |
 | `X_ACTION_UNREGISTERED` | projected before `registerActions()` ran | register at boot |
 | `X_AUDIT_SINK_MISSING` | `audit: true` and no sink installed — raised before the input parse | `setAuditSink(yourSink)` at boot |
@@ -645,6 +645,33 @@ cannot read is dropped whole rather than half-kept, leaving `cause` (which still
 rejection) as the answer. It is exported for the island that posts with a plain `fetch` and holds
 the body itself.
 
+### Error classes
+
+Every error class `src/index.ts` exports, for `instanceof` inside one process. Across a wire or
+a job boundary the class is gone and the `code` is what survives — match on that.
+
+| Class | Code | Declared in |
+|---|---|---|
+| `ActionDeniedError` | the policy denial's own code (`X_FORBIDDEN`, `X_UNAUTHENTICATED`, …), kept on `.denial` | `src/errors.ts` |
+| `ActionDeprecationInvalidError` | `X_ACTION_DEPRECATION_INVALID` | `src/errors.ts` |
+| `ActionDuplicateError` | `X_ACTION_DUPLICATE` | `src/errors.ts` |
+| `ActionForeignError` | `X_ACTION_FOREIGN` | `src/errors.ts` |
+| `ActionPathDuplicateError` | `X_ACTION_PATH_DUPLICATE` | `src/errors.ts` |
+| `ActionPolicyMissingError` | `X_ACTION_POLICY_MISSING` | `src/errors.ts` |
+| `ActionUnregisteredError` | `X_ACTION_UNREGISTERED` | `src/errors.ts` |
+| `AuditSinkFailedError` | `X_AUDIT_SINK_FAILED` | `src/errors.ts` |
+| `AuditSinkMissingError` | `X_AUDIT_SINK_MISSING` | `src/errors.ts` |
+| `ContractDriftError` | `X_CONTRACT_DRIFT` | `src/errors.ts` |
+| `IdempotencyConflictError` | `X_IDEMPOTENCY_CONFLICT` | `src/errors-idempotency.ts` |
+| `IdempotencyKeyInvalidError` | `X_IDEMPOTENCY_KEY_INVALID` | `src/errors-idempotency.ts` |
+| `IdempotencyNotSharedError` | `X_IDEMPOTENCY_NOT_SHARED` | `src/errors-idempotency.ts` |
+| `IdempotencyReplayedFailureError` | `X_IDEMPOTENCY_REPLAYED_FAILURE` | `src/errors-idempotency.ts` |
+| `IdempotencyStatusUnknownError` | `X_IDEMPOTENCY_STATUS_UNKNOWN` | `src/errors-idempotency.ts` |
+| `InputInvalidError` | `X_INPUT_INVALID` | `src/errors.ts` |
+| `OutputInvalidError` | `X_OUTPUT_INVALID` | `src/errors.ts` |
+| `RemoteActionError` | the code the server sent, verbatim — `meta.origin: 'remote'` | `src/errors.ts` |
+| `RpcFailedError` | `X_RPC_FAILED` | `src/errors.ts` |
+
 ## Boundaries
 
 Tier 3. Imports `@ultimat3/core`, `schema`, `cache`, `entity`, `policy`, `http`. Never imports

package/package.json

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "@ultimat3/action",
-  "version": "21.0.0",
+  "version": "22.1.0",
   "description": "The action primitive: one declaration projected to route, OpenAPI, client, MCP tool, job handle, tests",
   "license": "MIT",
   "type": "module",
@@ -34,11 +34,11 @@
     "test": "bun test"
   },
   "dependencies": {
-    "@ultimat3/cache": "21.0.0",
-    "@ultimat3/core": "21.0.0",
-    "@ultimat3/entity": "21.0.0",
-    "@ultimat3/http": "21.0.0",
-    "@ultimat3/policy": "21.0.0",
-    "@ultimat3/schema": "21.0.0"
+    "@ultimat3/cache": "22.1.0",
+    "@ultimat3/core": "22.1.0",
+    "@ultimat3/entity": "22.1.0",
+    "@ultimat3/http": "22.1.0",
+    "@ultimat3/policy": "22.1.0",
+    "@ultimat3/schema": "22.1.0"
   }
 }

package/src/deprecation.ts

@@ -75,8 +75,3 @@ export function renderDeprecation(
   };
   return { ok: true, headers, meta };
 }
-
-/** Set on a response that already exists, so a redirect and a problem document carry them too. */
-export function applyHeaders(response: Response, headers: Readonly<Record<string, string>>): void {
-  for (const [name, value] of Object.entries(headers)) response.headers.set(name, value);
-}

package/src/http.ts

@@ -8,7 +8,6 @@
 import { tagKeys } from '@ultimat3/cache';
 import {
   isMcpExposed,
-  isUltimateError,
   RECORDS_OPENAPI_HEADER,
   recordEnvelopeSchema,
   withWriteOrigin,
@@ -18,10 +17,10 @@ import type { Route, RouteMeta, UltimateRequest } from '@ultimat3/http';
 // `toBucket` is `@ultimat3/http`'s, not this package's: http owns `Bucket` and the limiter maths,
 // and `@ultimat3/query` needs the identical conversion while being the same tier as this one — so
 // a copy here would be a second answer to "what does this limit mean" for the read half.
-import { json, problem, redirect, takeRedirect, toBucket } from '@ultimat3/http';
+import { json, redirect, takeRedirect, toBucket } from '@ultimat3/http';
 import type { ActionRateLimit, AnyAction } from './action';
 import type { Deprecation } from './deprecation';
-import { applyHeaders, recordDeprecatedCall, renderDeprecation } from './deprecation';
+import { recordDeprecatedCall, renderDeprecation } from './deprecation';
 import { ActionDeprecationInvalidError } from './errors';
 import { actionName, defOf, invoke } from './invoke';
 import {
@@ -66,51 +65,50 @@ export function toRoute(target: AnyAction): Route {
   const enveloped = carriesRecords(target.output);
 
   const handler = async (req: UltimateRequest): Promise<Response> => {
-    if (sunsetting !== undefined) recordDeprecatedCall('action', name);
-    try {
-      // The pipeline already parsed and size-capped the body; parsing it again here
-      // would be a second, differently-behaved parser for the same bytes.
-      const raw = await req.bodyRaw();
-      const key = def.idempotent === true ? req.header(IDEMPOTENCY_HEADER) : null;
-      let replayed = false;
-      // The header NAMES the write whatever the declaration, idempotent or not: a page sends one
-      // with every mutation, and the `records` frames its rows produce carry the digest so that
-      // page can tell its own echo from somebody else's change (`@ultimat3/core`'s write origin).
-      const result = await withWriteOrigin(await writeOriginOf(req), () =>
-        invoke(target, raw, {
-          surface: 'http',
-          idempotencyKey: key,
-          onReplay: () => {
-            replayed = true;
-          },
-        }),
-      );
-      // The one thing an action's return value cannot say. `setRedirect()` inside the handler
-      // is how a `<form method="post">` gets an answer a browser follows — a `Location` on the
-      // 200 this used to always return is a header browsers ignore, so a JS-less form left the
-      // reader staring at `{"ok":true}`. Only this projection honours it: a redirect is an HTTP
-      // fact, and the MCP tool and the job handle share none of it.
-      const to = takeRedirect(req.ctx);
-      const response =
-        to !== undefined
-          ? redirect(to.location, to.status)
-          : enveloped
-            ? recordResponse(target.output, result)
-            : json(result);
-      if (key !== null) response.headers.set(REPLAYED_HEADER, replayed ? '1' : '0');
-      // On the failure path too, below: a client polling a deprecated endpoint that is currently
-      // 403ing still has to learn the endpoint is going away. Announcing it only on 200 hides the
-      // sunset from exactly the callers most likely to be stale.
-      if (sunsetting !== undefined) applyHeaders(response, sunsetting);
-      return response;
-    } catch (error) {
-      // Framework errors carry their own code, status and fix line; anything else is
-      // a bug and belongs to the server's error boundary, not to this route.
-      if (!isUltimateError(error)) throw error;
-      const response = problem(error);
-      if (sunsetting !== undefined) applyHeaders(response, sunsetting);
-      return response;
+    if (sunsetting !== undefined) {
+      recordDeprecatedCall('action', name);
+      // On the CONTEXT, before anything can fail: the pipeline's `response` stage merges
+      // `ctx.headers` into whatever answers — this handler's 200 and the `error-map` stage's
+      // problem or error page alike. A client polling a deprecated endpoint that is currently
+      // 403ing still has to learn the endpoint is going away.
+      for (const [header, value] of Object.entries(sunsetting)) req.ctx.headers.set(header, value);
     }
+    // No `catch`: an error — framework or not — takes the path every route's error takes. This
+    // used to answer `problem(error)` itself, so the `error-map` stage never saw it: no
+    // `onError`/`reportError` on a 5xx, no HTML error page or sign-in redirect for a browser, no
+    // `requestId`, no `Retry-After`.
+    //
+    // The pipeline already parsed and size-capped the body; parsing it again here
+    // would be a second, differently-behaved parser for the same bytes.
+    const raw = await req.bodyRaw();
+    const key = def.idempotent === true ? req.header(IDEMPOTENCY_HEADER) : null;
+    let replayed = false;
+    // The header NAMES the write whatever the declaration, idempotent or not: a page sends one
+    // with every mutation, and the `records` frames its rows produce carry the digest so that
+    // page can tell its own echo from somebody else's change (`@ultimat3/core`'s write origin).
+    const result = await withWriteOrigin(await writeOriginOf(req), () =>
+      invoke(target, raw, {
+        surface: 'http',
+        idempotencyKey: key,
+        onReplay: () => {
+          replayed = true;
+        },
+      }),
+    );
+    // The one thing an action's return value cannot say. `setRedirect()` inside the handler
+    // is how a `<form method="post">` gets an answer a browser follows — a `Location` on the
+    // 200 this used to always return is a header browsers ignore, so a JS-less form left the
+    // reader staring at `{"ok":true}`. Only this projection honours it: a redirect is an HTTP
+    // fact, and the MCP tool and the job handle share none of it.
+    const to = takeRedirect(req.ctx);
+    const response =
+      to !== undefined
+        ? redirect(to.location, to.status)
+        : enveloped
+          ? recordResponse(target.output, result)
+          : json(result);
+    if (key !== null) response.headers.set(REPLAYED_HEADER, replayed ? '1' : '0');
+    return response;
   };
 
   const meta: RouteMeta = {

package/src/invoke.ts

@@ -253,7 +253,10 @@ async function perform(
     if (outcome.replayed) options.onReplay?.();
     trace.replayed = outcome.replayed;
     wrote = !outcome.replayed;
-    value = outcome.value;
+    // A replay is parsed like a first call. The memory store hands back the live value and the
+    // postgres store `JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(v))` — a `Date` on the first call and a `string`
+    // on every retry served from Postgres — so the output schema is the one answer to its shape.
+    value = outcome.replayed ? validateOutput(def.output, outcome.value, name) : outcome.value;
   }
   // Only for a run that actually happened, and only through the gate. A replay ran no handler
   // and changed nothing the first call had not already busted — re-busting per retry re-purges

package/src/mutator.ts

@@ -7,8 +7,17 @@
 
 import type { ConflictPolicy, Ctx, Row } from '@ultimat3/core';
 import type { InferInput, InferOutput, StandardSchemaV1 } from '@ultimat3/schema';
-import type { Action, ActionCache, ActionDef, ActionDescriptor, ActionMcp } from './action';
+import type {
+  Action,
+  ActionCache,
+  ActionDef,
+  ActionDescriptor,
+  ActionMcp,
+  ActionRateLimit,
+  ActionRowArgs,
+} from './action';
 import { action, isAction } from './action';
+import type { Deprecation } from './deprecation';
 import { assertConflictClock } from './mutator-clock';
 import type { ActionPolicy } from './policy-gate';
 
@@ -71,13 +80,26 @@ export function custom<TRow extends object = Row>(
   return { kind: 'custom', merge: merge as unknown as (local: Row, server: Row) => Row };
 }
 
-export interface MutatorDef<TInput extends StandardSchemaV1, TOutput extends StandardSchemaV1> {
+export interface MutatorDef<
+  TInput extends StandardSchemaV1,
+  TOutput extends StandardSchemaV1,
+  TRow = unknown,
+> {
   readonly input: TInput;
   readonly output: TOutput;
-  readonly policy: ActionPolicy;
+  readonly policy: ActionPolicy<TRow>;
   readonly cache?: ActionCache;
   readonly mcp?: ActionMcp;
+  /** Same key, same meaning as an action's — a mutator IS an action. */
+  readonly rateLimit?: ActionRateLimit;
+  /** Same key, same meaning as an action's: `Deprecation`/`Sunset` on every response. */
+  readonly deprecated?: Deprecation;
   readonly idempotent?: boolean;
+  /**
+   * The row a row-level `policy` decides about — an action's `row`, and dropped on the way into
+   * the action until 2026-09-23, so such a policy received `row === null` and denied every call.
+   */
+  row?(args: ActionRowArgs<TInput>): TRow | null | Promise<TRow | null>;
   /**
    * Record every attempt through the installed `AuditSink`. Same key, same meaning as an
    * action's — a mutator IS an action, so it inherits the seam rather than getting a second one.
@@ -128,15 +150,21 @@ export interface Mutator<
   named(name: string): Mutator<TInput, TOutput>;
 }
 
-export function mutator<TInput extends StandardSchemaV1, TOutput extends StandardSchemaV1>(
-  def: MutatorDef<TInput, TOutput>,
-): Mutator<TInput, TOutput> {
-  const actionDef: ActionDef<TInput, TOutput> = {
+export function mutator<
+  TInput extends StandardSchemaV1,
+  TOutput extends StandardSchemaV1,
+  TRow = unknown,
+>(def: MutatorDef<TInput, TOutput, TRow>): Mutator<TInput, TOutput> {
+  const row = def.row;
+  const actionDef: ActionDef<TInput, TOutput, TRow> = {
     input: def.input,
     output: def.output,
     policy: def.policy,
     ...(def.cache === undefined ? {} : { cache: def.cache }),
     ...(def.mcp === undefined ? {} : { mcp: def.mcp }),
+    ...(def.rateLimit === undefined ? {} : { rateLimit: def.rateLimit }),
+    ...(def.deprecated === undefined ? {} : { deprecated: def.deprecated }),
+    ...(row === undefined ? {} : { row: (args: ActionRowArgs<TInput>) => row.call(def, args) }),
     ...(def.idempotent === undefined ? {} : { idempotent: def.idempotent }),
     ...(def.audit === undefined ? {} : { audit: def.audit }),
     handle: ({ input, ctx }) => def.server(ctx, input),