tldr-experts 0.3.1 → 0.4.0

package/CHANGELOG.md

@@ -1,5 +1,895 @@
 # Changelog
 
+## 0.4.0 — 2026-09-01
+
+### Changed
+
+- **Dependent epics share ONE integration branch (#57, owner decision 2026-09-01, option (a)).**
+  One-branch-per-epic assumes the epics are independent. Run `260829-scoring-leaderboard` planned
+  E2 (the API) with E3 and E4 (mobile) consuming it, and a downstream story's base — cut from its
+  own epic branch, itself cut from `main` — could not see the upstream epic's merged work. It broke
+  twice, and both times the host fast-forwarded the EPIC branches by hand: cross-epic surgery done
+  with a feature built for stale STORY bases (design §F.2), which collapses branches the owner may
+  have meant to merge separately. A run whose epics form a dependency chain now cuts a single
+  integration branch and the epics become labels.
+  - **Detected at PLAN time, from what the plan already says.** A story whose `depends_on` names a
+    story in another epic IS the chain. `validatePlan` reports the cross-epic edges it read
+    (`PlanReport.epicChain`, deduplicated per epic pair), and the `plan` gate check states the branch
+    model in its passing detail — `epics form a chain (E3→E2, E4→E2) → single integration branch
+    \`epic/<run-id>\`` or `independent epics → one branch each`. The owner never discovers it
+    mid-Build, which is the half of #57 that was not about branches at all.
+  - **`epic/<run-id>`, not a new namespace.** `EPIC_BRANCH_RE`, `watch`'s feature-slug extraction,
+    `ship`, `boundary` and the `--reuse-epic` guard are all keyed on the `epic/` prefix; an
+    `integration/…` branch would have changed every one of them to buy a word. The run id IS in the
+    name — unlike an ordinary epic branch, which is deliberately unscoped because an epic is the unit
+    a team merges — because an integration branch belongs to one run by definition.
+  - **One run-scoped epic worktree**, `_epic-<run>-integration`, because git will not check one branch
+    out in two worktrees. It is picked up by the `_epic-<run>-` prefix that the §2.8 src resolver and
+    the run-close cleanup (#16) already enumerate, so the lifetime decision from that change holds.
+  - **Backward-safe by an ABSENT key.** The Build executor records what it used in `run.yml`
+    (`build.branch_model: per-epic | integration`, additive and optional). A run.yml that names
+    branches and no model predates the key — the three closed runs, and any run mid-flight — and stays
+    `per-epic`, so it resumes on the branches it already cut rather than being re-pointed at one that
+    was never cut. A model, once written, is never rewritten.
+  - **Nothing else moved.** The dirty-tree refusal, the foreign-epic refusal and `--reuse-epic`, the
+    gated HEAD, `git merge --no-ff` into the epic worktree, and the story-base fast-forward all behave
+    exactly as before; only WHICH branch they name changes. `tldrx ship` needed no change: a chained
+    run claims one branch, so it opens one PR with no `--branch`, and an unchained multi-epic run still
+    asks which.
+  - The acceptance test is the leaderboard shape, passing: S1 in E1 writes a file, S2 in E2 depends on
+    it, and S2's worktree holds that file with **no `story.base_fastforwarded` event** — the base was
+    right when the developer was dispatched, not repaired afterwards. Red before the change (`Expected:
+    true, Received: false`).
+
+- **An epic worktree now lives for the RUN's lifetime, not the Build stage's (#16, owner decision
+  2026-09-01, option (a)).** The shipped half of #16 made a `file` src resolve against
+  `.tldrx/worktrees/<repo>/_epic-<run>-<epic>` before the working tree — and then `BuildSession.finish()`
+  removed that directory before the Build handoff was even written, so unless the operator had typed
+  `--keep-worktrees` a later Watch stage had nothing to resolve against and the fix bit only under a flag.
+  Cleanup moves to run CLOSE, which is what the checkout actually belongs to.
+  - **Watch citing epic-only code works by default.** Proved end to end rather than by construction:
+    `test/build-executor.test.ts` runs the real pipeline, then resolves a `[src: app:s1.txt:1]` against a
+    file the test first shows is committed on `epic/e1` and absent from the working tree.
+  - **Every close path takes them**, because a run does not only close one way: `tldrx next` closing the
+    last stage, `tldrx approve` signing the last gate, and `tldrx run cancel`. Without the last two the
+    change would have traded one leak for another — a cancelled run's checkouts used to be gone already,
+    because Build removed them on the way past.
+  - **`--keep-worktrees` keeps its meaning, one scope wider**: survive even the run close. It is
+    remembered on the run as `keep_worktrees:` (additive and optional; absent means clean up, which is
+    what every existing run.yml meant) because the flag is typed on the `tldrx next` that BUILDS and the
+    run is usually closed by a different command in a different process.
+  - Story worktrees are untouched: still removed the moment a story reaches `done` or `blocked`.
+
+- **The budget gate's three open policy questions are answered (#22, owner decision 2026-09-01).**
+  bb6204b wired the DATA — both economies, `attended_by`, `runSpend` — and deliberately changed no
+  verdict. These are the verdicts.
+  - **(a) An `attended_by: host` run is INFORMED, never DENIED, on metered dollars.** `tldrx next` on
+    such a run spawns nothing, so the estimate the gate was refusing against is spend that provably will
+    not happen. Both the PreToolUse hook and `tldrx next`'s own brake now say every number they would
+    have refused with, plus both economies, and allow. The event is `budget.warned`, not `budget.blocked`:
+    nothing was blocked, and recording a block that did not happen is the exact failure #22 was filed
+    about.
+  - **(b) A `host-tokens` ceiling is soft-enforced.** Under that economy the ceiling NUMBER is a
+    host-session token allowance, so accumulated declared `tokens:` against it is the one comparison in
+    the gate whose two sides share a unit. Crossing it WARNS and still allows. It stops only under the
+    explicit opt-in **`on_host_tokens_exceed: block`** in `budget.yml` — an enum beside `on_exceed`,
+    defaulting to `warn`, so every file written before the key existed keeps the behaviour it had. The
+    refusal never offers `tldrx budget raise`, which moves dollars and would send the operator at the
+    wrong number. (a) beats (b): the opt-in still never denies an attended run.
+  - **(c) `remainingWork` zeroes the developer share on an attended run**, mirroring `economy:
+    host-tokens`, because it is the same fact — the host session pays for those turns. Attendedness and
+    the phase economy were independent, so an attended run on a `metered-usd` phase still counted
+    developer turns against money this framework will never spend, on the brake and in `run estimate`
+    alike. Reviewer floors are untouched in both cases.
+
+### Added
+
+- **The documentation site speaks Spanish (`docs-site/es/`, phase 2).** All twelve English pages are
+  now mirrored under `/es/` at the same paths and translated into es-MX developer Spanish, and
+  `locales.es.themeConfig` carries the Spanish sidebar, nav, edit link and page chrome (outline,
+  prev/next, search modal, footer) rather than English chrome around Spanish prose. The placeholder
+  that phase 1 left at `/es/` is replaced by the translated landing page.
+  - **tldrx's own vocabulary stays in English where it is an identifier.** The stage names
+    (`What → How → Plan → Build → Watch`), `run`, `story`, `DoD`, `scope`, `handoff` and `workspace`
+    are the things you type or the files on disk, so they are not translated; each is glossed once in
+    Spanish where it first appears. `gate` is the one exception — it renders as **compuerta**, because
+    the phase-1 placeholder had already shipped that word to the live site.
+  - **Code blocks and command output are verbatim English** — a translated transcript would be a
+    transcript of a command nobody ran. The narration around them is translated.
+  - **Anchors were verified against the rendered HTML, not assumed**, because dead-link checking does
+    not see them. That mattered here: VitePress's slugifier strips accents but *keeps* `¿`, so
+    `## ¿Cómo lo detengo?` becomes `id="¿como-lo-detengo"`. The one heading that is linked to carries
+    an explicit `{#puedo-manejarlo-desde-claude-code}`. A sweep of the built site resolves all 5
+    anchor links across its 26 pages, 0 broken.
+  - **Release notes are deliberately not translated**: the page is generated from `CHANGELOG.md` at
+    build time, so a Spanish copy would drift. The `/es/` sidebar links the English page and says so.
+
+- **A public documentation site, written for people who have never seen tldrx (`docs-site/`, phase 1).**
+  A VitePress site deployed to GitHub Pages by `.github/workflows/docs.yml` on any push to `main` that
+  touches `docs-site/` or `CHANGELOG.md`. Twelve short English pages — a landing page, a Quickstart, one
+  page per concept (the five stages, files-as-state, gates, evidence, budgets), four guides and a
+  condensed CLI overview — plus a generated changelog and a Spanish placeholder. None of them is pasted
+  from `docs/`, which stays the agent-facing reference. Every command
+  and every block of output on the Quickstart was produced by running the real binary; nothing on the
+  site documents a flag that `--help` does not.
+  - **The changelog page is generated, never copied.** `docs-site/scripts/gen-changelog.ts` reads this
+    file at build time and emits one line per entry, so a release note reaches the website without
+    anybody maintaining a second copy of it. The generated page is gitignored for the same reason.
+  - VitePress dead-link checking is left ON and the build is green with it — proven by a probe, not
+    assumed: a deliberate link to a missing page failed the build with `1 dead link(s) found`. (Anchors
+    are NOT checked by it, so `#fragment` targets were verified against the rendered HTML by hand.)
+  - i18n is wired now, with the English content at the root and a Spanish placeholder under `/es/`, so
+    phase 2 is a matter of adding files rather than restructuring the site.
+  - `docs-site/` is excluded from the npm package (it is not in `files:`) and from `tsc --noEmit` (the
+    root tsconfig includes only `bin`, `src`, `test`) — measured: `npm pack --dry-run` still lists 52
+    files and none of them is under `docs-site/`.
+
+- **`tldrx learn` chapters 3-8 — the whole loop, played (#30, phase 2).** The tutorial now runs end to
+  end in about five seconds of real commands: **3** the gate (`approve --note`, and the record it writes
+  in `run.yml`), **4** one story built for real (How's `auto` gate closing itself over its seven
+  conditions, Plan's human gate, then a Build that cuts `epic/bulk-pricing`, spawns a developer in a
+  worktree, re-runs the story's `npm run test` DoD, commits, merges and spawns a reviewer), **5** a
+  genuinely red DoD and the three commands back from it (`story reopen`, `reject`, `budget raise`),
+  **6** an `agent` gate closed by `approve --as-agent` over a structured evidence note, **7**
+  `run attend host`, the refusal a bare `next` then gives, and the `next --prepare` / `next --commit`
+  pair actually run, **8** `cost --all`, `run estimate`, and the budget brake refusing a stage the
+  phase can no longer afford.
+  - Chapter 4's DoD is real, chapter 5's failure is real: the story's test script is `exit 0` until a
+    developer replaces it with a `node` test that then catches a wrong number — so the tutorial teaches
+    "a green DoD over an empty test proves nothing" by letting it happen rather than by saying it.
+  - Chapter 5 opens a second run, so `{run}` and `{runDir}` now expand in a step's `command` as well as
+    in a turn's writes, and mean **the newest run that is still open** — the same set `resolveRun` picks
+    from, so the placeholder and the CLI cannot disagree about which run a command means.
+  - Chapter 4's `prepare()` commits what `init` left untracked, because the Build executor refuses to
+    cut a branch from a dirty tree (measured: `?? .gitignore, ?? CLAUDE.md`, exit 2) — and the narration
+    teaches that refusal instead of hiding it.
+  - **Fixed: the toy repo now carries its own git identity.** Chapter 4's Build commits through the
+    framework's own executor, with whatever identity the machine has — so on a box with no global
+    `user.email` (a fresh laptop, a container, `ubuntu-latest`) `git commit` failed with `Author identity
+    unknown` and the chapter died three commands in. `makeSandbox` writes `user.email`, `user.name` and
+    `commit.gpgsign=false` into the sandbox repo's own config, on every open, so an older sandbox is
+    repaired too. The test pins it with `user.useConfigOnly` rather than an empty global config: git
+    guesses an identity from gecos and hostname and only fails where it cannot, so an empty config
+    passes on a laptop and fails in a container — which is exactly how this reached CI.
+
+- **`tldrx learn` — a playable sandbox tutorial that runs the REAL commands (#30, phase 1 of 3).**
+  A tutorial that runs the shipped binary can never drift from the shipped behaviour: every output the
+  learner reads is produced by the code, not written down by a doc author. `tldrx learn` scaffolds a
+  throwaway workspace (a four-file git repo with a `test` script that exits 0), then narrates, shows the
+  exact command, waits for Enter and RUNS it — `tldrx init`, `run new`, `next`, `answer` are the real
+  ones, against that sandbox.
+  - **Chapters 1 and 2 ship playable**: init (read the `workspace.yml` detection actually produced) and
+    the What stage (a question comes back, `tldrx answer` records it, it becomes `F001` in
+    `.tldrx/memory/facts.yml`). Chapters 3-8 from the issue are phase 2 and are DATA plus one
+    `assert()` — see the contract in `src/core/learn/Chapter.ts`.
+  - **It cannot spend money, by construction rather than by convention.** The sandbox writes its own
+    `claude` stand-in, names it in `TLDRX_CLAUDE_BIN` and puts it first on the child `PATH`, so neither
+    the spawn seam nor a bare `claude` on `PATH` can reach the real CLI. `test/learn.test.ts` proves it
+    the only way worth proving: it plants a booby-trapped `claude` that writes a marker file, plays both
+    chapters, and asserts the marker is absent AND the chapters completed — because a tutorial that
+    spawned nothing would pass a marker check for the wrong reason.
+  - **It cannot touch your work.** Everything is written under the sandbox directory (`~/.tldrx-learn`
+    by default, `--sandbox` to move it), and a sandbox that would sit inside a real tldrx workspace is
+    refused before a byte is written.
+  - **Files as state, like everything else**: `progress.json` in the sandbox is what makes a bare
+    `tldrx learn` resume, `--chapter <n>` jump (playing an unfinished prerequisite first), and `--reset`
+    start over. With no terminal on stdin the chapters play straight through rather than hanging at the
+    first prompt.
+  - The stand-in agent is scripted per chapter and is **fail-closed**: a prompt no turn matches exits 1
+    and names the turns it did have, so a hole in the tutorial is a loud failure rather than an
+    improvised answer. The `stream-json` writer moved from `test/fixtures/fakeStream.ts` to
+    `src/core/facilitator/fakeTranscript.ts` — beside `agentEvents.ts`, which reads that format — so the
+    tutorial's stand-in and the four test fakes cannot drift apart. The fixture re-exports it.
+
+- **`tldrx note <run> [--stage <id>] "text"` — an honest carrier for an operator annotation, at the
+  moment it happened (#46).** Measured on `260829-scoring-leaderboard` (2026-09-01): a host performed an
+  owner-delegated mechanical resync of eight story dod blocks, was asked to note it in the run log, and
+  could not — `events.jsonl` is append-only and tool-owned, so the only carriers were a FUTURE gate note
+  (late, and keyed to a decision the note is not about) or a `reject` (destructive). The session ended up
+  hanging the context off an unrelated `story.reopened`.
+  - **One event, and nothing else.** It appends a single `operator_note` line carrying actor, timestamp,
+    optional stage and the text. It does not go through `RunStore.save()`, which would rewrite `updated_at`
+    and re-derive every status for an annotation that changed no state: `test/operator-note.test.ts`
+    compares `run.yml` and `budget.yml` **byte for byte** across the call, because "safe to reach for
+    mid-run" is the whole of what makes the verb usable.
+  - **Every refusal writes nothing.** An unknown run (exit 3), a stage this run does not have (exit 2), an
+    empty note (exit 1) and a lone argument that turns out to name a run all refuse before the log is
+    opened. The last one is the trap worth naming: `tldrx note 260829-x` is a half-typed command, not a
+    note whose entire content is a run id, and recording it would be the one outcome nobody wanted.
+  - **Visible afterwards.** `tldrx run status` prints the last three (with `tldrx replay` named when there
+    are more), `--json` carries them as `operator_notes`, and `tldrx replay` narrates every one in place.
+
+- **`tldrx run gates set <stage>:<policy> --note "…"` — the signed upgrade path for a frozen
+  `gates_policy` (#14).** The policy is resolved at `run new` and frozen into `run.yml` by design, and that
+  default is not taken back here. What it left with no door at all, found on the 2026-08-30/31 unattended
+  pilots: a run created BEFORE the `agent` policy existed can never use `approve --as-agent`, and `run.yml`
+  is hand-edit-forbidden (spec §1) — so the only move was to abandon the run.
+  - **Built like `story reopen`, because it is the same kind of act:** a person overruling state the machine
+    is holding. A `--note` is required; ONE stage per invocation (a list would let a second change ride on
+    the first one's signature); the entry must be QUALIFIED, because under `--gates` a bare `plan` means
+    `human` and a signature must not rest on a default; and a no-op is refused rather than recorded.
+  - **One `gate.policy_changed` event** carries the phase, who signed it, the old and the new value, and the
+    note. A run with no `gates_policy:` at all gets the FULL map written — every stage explicitly, with the
+    one change applied — because a partial map would quietly claim its other stages had been decided too.
+  - It changes who may CLOSE a gate from then on. Gates already signed are untouched, and nothing re-reads
+    the policy of a closed one.
+
+- **`tldrx ship` — open a PR from the run's epic branch, with the handoff as the body (#15).** The loop
+  ended at "merge by hand": a finished epic sat on `epic/<slug>`, the document explaining it sat in
+  `<run>/<phase>/handoff.md`, and nothing carried either one to a PR.
+  - **It never pushes.** `core/build/git.ts` has no `git push` wrapper on purpose (spec §5), and this verb
+    keeps that rule rather than being the exception to it: a branch the remote has not seen is a refusal
+    that names the exact `git -C … push -u` command. Publishing a branch is a decision, and it stays the
+    operator's.
+  - **It never writes to the run** — no event, no gate, no cursor, no money — and it does not mirror
+    tickets: `tldrx tickets sync` already is that verb, holds the `process.yml` contract and appends
+    `ticket.synced`. A second, thinner mirror inside `ship` would give the workspace two answers to "is this
+    story mirrored", so `ship` names it as the next step instead.
+  - **Clean refusals, in a sentence:** no epic branch, no handoff, no `gh`, no remote, an unpushed branch,
+    several epic branches with no `--branch`, a branch the run did not cut. The body goes to `gh` as
+    `--body-file`, never as an argument, so a long handoff cannot overflow an argv limit.
+  - Both external binaries go through one narrow transport that takes a cwd — the same idea as
+    `adapters/transport.ts`, and the only way to ASSERT the argument shape of a command the suite must not
+    run. The unit tests drive a recording fake; the one end-to-end test puts a STUB `gh` first on PATH in a
+    throwaway workspace with a throwaway bare `origin`. The real `gh` is never invoked by a test.
+
+- **`TLDRX_CLAUDE_BIN` — point the sub-agent spawn at a different binary (#27, minimal slice).**
+  `spawnAgent` hardcoded `claude`, so a pinned install, a wrapper that adds a proxy or credentials,
+  and a stand-in in a sandbox all required patching source. The variable replaces the executable
+  NAME and nothing else — the argv is still Claude Code's, so what it points at has to speak
+  `-p --output-format stream-json --json-schema` — and blank or whitespace counts as unset. Honoured
+  everywhere the CLI is spawned: `spawnAgent`, the `--dry-run` command line (`describeSpawn`) and
+  `claude mcp list` (`McpProbe`). `tldrx doctor` deliberately still checks `claude --version`,
+  because `env.yml` declares that string. Documented under **Environment variables** in the CLI
+  reference. This is not the provider abstraction #27 asks for; #27 stays open for it.
+
+- **A drift guard on `templates/story.md` and `templates/epic.md` (#48).**
+  Both ship in the npm package, both state the Plan front-matter schema, and **nothing in `src/`
+  reads either one** — a second copy of a contract whose first copy is computed from `STORY_KEYS`
+  and `EPIC_KEYS`. Add a required key and `schemaContract.ts` stops compiling while the templates
+  say nothing; a human then opens one, writes a story the check refuses, and the framework looks
+  broken. They now go through `validateStoryFile` / `validateEpicFile` — the very checks the stage
+  gates on — with their key sets asserted equal to `STORY_KEYS` / `EPIC_KEYS` in order, and the
+  status enum each spells out in a comment asserted equal to `PLAN_STATUSES`. Proven to have teeth:
+  renaming one key and staling one enum comment turns three tests red. Whether the files should be
+  generated or deleted is a packaging decision and is left open on #48.
+
+- **The merge-wave sandbox is built under a hostile `init.defaultBranch` (#49).**
+  `test/merge-wave.test.ts` names every repo `main`, and CI run 33459567355 failed in the test's
+  own setup — `git push -q origin main` → `src refspec main does not match any` — on a runner whose
+  default branch is not `main`. `f1ffe56` had already fixed it (`-b main` on both inits,
+  `--branch main` on the clone), but nothing EXERCISED the fix: on a `main`-defaulting host,
+  removing the treatment changes nothing. The sandbox now pins `init.defaultBranch: trunk` for
+  every git command it builds itself with, the clone asserts it is on `main` rather than
+  discovering it five lines later, and two tests pin the mechanism — untreated reproduces the CI
+  error verbatim, treated does not.
+
+- **The Plan prompt now STATES the schema the `plan` check enforces, generated from the check itself (#35, #38).**
+  `stages/plan/stage.md` named the output filenames — `stories/<id>.md`, `epics/<epic>.md`, `waves.yml` — and
+  said nothing about their shape, so a fresh agent learned it by having a paid attempt refused. Measured twice
+  in two days: on `260831-hardening-d1` the plan sub-agent followed the rendered bundle faithfully and wrote
+  seven stories as plain markdown (`no YAML front matter — the file must open with ---`), and on
+  `260829-scoring-leaderboard` it wrote a 1,009-character acceptance item against a `MAX_ITEM_CHARS = 512`
+  cap that appeared in no file it could read. Both attempts were consumed, correctly and uselessly.
+  - **Generated, not copied.** `src/core/plan/schemaContract.ts` renders a `## Output schemas` section from
+    `STORY_KEYS`, `EPIC_KEYS`, `PLAN_STATUSES` and the six `MAX_*` constants — the same definitions
+    `validateStory`, `validateEpic` and `validateWaves` read. `Record<StoryKey, Field>` is load-bearing:
+    add a key to a schema and the file stops compiling until the new key has a value and a rule. The worked
+    examples it ships are run through `validatePlan` itself in the tests, so the contract the prompt states
+    and the contract the check enforces are provably the same one. This repo already had the other kind:
+    `templates/story.md` carries the schema correctly and `grep -rn 'story\.md' src/` finds nothing that
+    reads it.
+  - **Only where the check runs.** `applyCheckContracts` splices it under an H2 the framework owns, for a
+    stage that declares `checks: [plan]` AND writes `waves.yml` — the same predicate `checkPlan` skips on,
+    now shared (`writesPlanArtefacts`). A What or How prompt is byte-identical to before. It goes into
+    `stage.md` rather than after the inputs because `prompt.ts` orders the document most-stable-first for
+    the prompt cache, and a section computed from constants is exactly as stable as the stage body.
+  - **~4.2 KB against a $4 stage.** The alternative it replaces is a refused attempt per fresh workspace.
+
+- **`tldrx plan sync-dod` — the mechanical repair for dod blocks an edited `workspace.yml` orphaned (#42).**
+  A story's ```dod block may only name commands `workspace.yml` declares, byte for byte, and that rule is not
+  relaxed by a byte here — it is what stops a data file from running an arbitrary command as you. What it
+  lacked was an inverse. Measured live 2026-08-31 on `260829-scoring-leaderboard`: fixing `workspace.yml`
+  (a filtered `test:`, `lint:` deleted) instantly invalidated the dod blocks of **8 approved stories**, and
+  the only recoveries were hand-editing agent-approved artefacts or re-running the whole Plan stage — a paid
+  turn to change two lines in eight files, churning thirteen correct stories on the way.
+  - **Evidence, not similarity.** The ancestry comes from git's history of `.tldrx/workspace.yml`: a line a
+    previous version declared under a role the current file still has becomes that role's current command; a
+    line whose role is gone is dropped; a line the current file already declares is left alone; and a line no
+    version ever declared — or one two roles once shared and now disagree on — is **flagged, its story left
+    byte-identical**, and the command exits `2`. Guessing at a rename by string shape is the one thing this
+    must not do. In a workspace with no git history there are no ancestors, so everything non-current is
+    flagged.
+  - **It touches nothing else.** Front matter, prose, blank lines and the fences come back byte-identical;
+    only the command lines inside the fence move. The previous version is kept at `<story>.md.bak`
+    (`writeAtomic`), the summary is a per-story diff, `--dry-run` prints it and writes nothing, and the result
+    is validated by the same plan check the drift came from. Stories that CAN be synced still are — one
+    undecidable line is not a veto on the other seven files.
+  - **The drift message now names the remedy.** "`<cmd>` is not one of .tldrx/workspace.yml's commands — a
+    story may not invent one" gained a second sentence pointing at `tldrx plan sync-dod`. Only for a STORY:
+    a stage's `cmd:` is a line a human wrote, and `sync-dod` does not touch stage files.
+
+- **`tldrx answer <Qn> "…" --supersede` — the verb for reversing a decision already on record.**
+  Found live 2026-08-31: an owner reversed an answered decision after the risk behind it was
+  refuted, and `tldrx answer` refused ("Q1 is not an open question") because an answer is
+  recorded once. `superseded_by` had been in the §2.5 schema since the first draft with **no
+  command that wrote it**, so the only route was a hand edit of `facts.yml` — and a hand edit
+  that left `superseded_by: null` left the reversed decision inside `FactsStore.active`, which
+  every stage reads as never-re-ask truth. The next run would have reinstated the call the owner
+  had just taken back.
+  - **The verb.** Valid only on an ANSWERED question (on an open one it exits `1` and says to
+    answer it normally; without the flag an answered one still exits `3`, now naming
+    `--supersede`). It appends a new fact carrying the whole new answer with the same `area` and
+    `repos` and ordinary provenance, sets the old fact's `superseded_by` and the new one's
+    `supersedes` — both halves, through `FactsStore.supersede`, under the workspace lock, so the
+    reciprocity rule cannot be broken — and never edits a byte of the old fact's text. Reversing
+    twice supersedes the SECOND fact: the chain is walked to its head, so it stays single-link.
+  - **The questions block is appended to, not rewritten.** The original `[Answer]:` line and its
+    footer stand; a superseding answer line and a `reanswered_by | reanswered_at | fact |
+    supersedes` footer go under them. `status:` stays `answered`, because it is.
+  - **Every reader that feeds a decision now skips a superseded fact.** This was half the work
+    and none of it was new code: `superseded_by` had a writer for the first time, and six readers
+    had been filtering on retirement alone. `isLive` (`core/facts/Fact.ts`) is now the one
+    predicate behind `FactsStore.active` (no-re-ask, `tldrx run new --from` de-duplication),
+    `findDuplicate`, `renderFacts` (the `{{facts}}` section of **every** prepared prompt),
+    `renderWatchFacts`, `runFacts` (the implicit plan's "this run's answers") and `relevantFacts`
+    (the training miner). One test had pinned the old behaviour in words — "a
+    superseded-but-not-retired row stays visible" — and that was the bug, not the rule.
+  - **History readers still show it, labelled.** `tldrx replay` renders the new `fact.superseded`
+    event as its own line — the one moment the workspace's durable memory changes its mind was
+    the one moment replay could not narrate — and `tldrx retro` lists the old fact with
+    `(superseded by F<n>)` beside it.
+
+### Fixed
+
+- **`tldrx learn` — the cold-player QA round (#30).** A first-time player played all eight chapters
+  and returned SHIP-with-fixlist. Everything they found is fixed or recorded:
+  - **Chapter 8 no longer lies about the brake.** It said "the phase has already spent its Watch
+    money" while the tool printed `$1.89 left … estimate is $2.00`. The real mechanism is that a
+    re-run is priced at the stage's WHOLE declared `budget_usd`, never at what a second attempt might
+    add — so a stage that has spent anything can no longer afford itself. The chapter now says that,
+    quotes both figures, and `assert()`s them against the `budget.blocked` event so the numbers cannot
+    drift away from the sentence.
+  - **Chapter 1 no longer promises something chapter 2 does not deliver.** `--no-interview` skips
+    *init's* setup interview, which no chapter covers; the forward reference is gone and the debrief
+    now sends the learner to `.tldrx/init-handoff.md`, where measured/inferred/assumed and
+    `[src: …]` / `absent:` actually live.
+  - **`tldrx learn --chapter <n>` refuses a chapter that is already played**, up front and by name,
+    instead of narrating it and then dying mid-chapter on `run new: … already exists` (exit 1,
+    measured). The refusal names `--reset` and the chapter a bare `learn` would resume at.
+  - **The tutorial has a door out.** The ending now names the first four commands to type on a real
+    repo — `tldrx init` (with the warning that it runs an interview by default), `run new --scope
+    hotfix`, `next`, and `tldrx ship`.
+  - **Chapter 7 RUNS `next --prepare` and `next --commit`** against the feature run's Watch stage
+    instead of describing them in a debrief. Chapters 6 and 7 swapped for it: the attended chapter
+    addresses the feature run through `{run}`, so the hotfix run has to be signed off first.
+  - **Every non-zero exit code is printed** (`→ exit 4`), so the code chapter 2 teaches is a thing
+    the learner reads rather than a thing they are told. Chapter 5 now also demonstrates the exit-2
+    refusal a bare `next` gives with two runs open, and names the two run-id spellings.
+  - Jargon defined at first use — expert, level 0, the `claim-sources` / `no-reask` / `budget-gate`
+    bracket, `boundary`, `[src: …]`, `absent:`, economy, §2.11 — and the `expert … has no evidence`
+    nudge explained once instead of repeating unexplained nine times.
+  - Known and NOT fixed: a step's stderr (where the agent stream lives) is buffered and printed after
+    its stdout, so a summary can appear before the stream that produced it. Interleaving needs an
+    `onStderrLine` on the runtime seam and in both implementations; documented in `engine.ts`.
+
+- **`tldrx cost` no longer claims "two economies" over one (#56).** The `(no total: two economies, no
+  exchange rate)` footnote was unconditional, so a run whose every attempt was metered in dollars was
+  told no total could be printed. It is printed only when both economies are actually present.
+
+- **The README's "Not on npm yet" warning was false and told readers not to run the install line
+  directly underneath it.** The package IS published: `npm view tldr-experts version` → `0.3.1`,
+  exit 0. The warning is removed rather than re-dated — the npm badge at the top of the README
+  already shows the live version, so nothing in its place can go stale the same way. The
+  `npm i -g tldr-experts` line it was contradicting is unchanged.
+
+- **The site's own home page linked an anchor that does not exist.** The hero's "Try it offline,
+  free" button pointed at `/quickstart#try-the-whole-thing-first-for-free`, but the heading renders
+  as `id="first-try-it-for-free"` — verified against the LIVE page, not just a local build. Dead-link
+  checking never saw it because VitePress does not check fragments. Repointed, and a sweep of the
+  built site now resolves every anchor link it emits.
+
+- **`tickets sync`, `tickets status` and `budget show` took a run id as a positional that neither
+  their `usage` nor their `--help` declared (#53).** Measured at `7ac298c`:
+  `tldrx tickets status zzz-positional-probe` and `tldrx budget show zzz-positional-probe` both reach the
+  run resolver and exit `3` with `no run 'zzz-positional-probe'`, so both forms have always been
+  supported. The mechanism is the same in each: the subcommand word is consumed by the dispatcher
+  (`tickets.ts:53`, `budget.ts:32`) before `stringFlag(args, "run") ?? args.positionals[0]` runs
+  (`tickets.ts:246`, `budget.ts:48`), so `positionals[0]` is a run id by then.
+  - **The capability is DECLARED, not removed.** `usage` now reads `tldrx tickets sync [<run>] …`,
+    `tldrx tickets status [<run>] …` and `tldrx budget show [<run>] …`, and both help entries gain the
+    `[<run>]` arg every other run-scoped command already carries. Nothing about what the CLI accepts
+    changed.
+  - **This is the axis #51's guard cannot see.** That guard compares the registry to the usage; here the
+    registry itself was narrower than the code, and where both are silent both are green. The new check
+    in `test/cli.test.ts` is a hand-written list — nothing derives a positional from source — but its
+    BEHAVIOURAL half spawns the real CLI against a throwaway workspace, so it also goes red if the
+    capability is ever removed, which is the direction a tidy-up of the arg parsing would break it in.
+
+- **`tldrx run gates set` was documented nowhere in `docs/` (#54).** `grep -rn "gates set" docs/` returned
+  nothing at `7ac298c`, so the CLI reference — the page a reader lands on from the README — described
+  seven of `tldrx run`'s eight subcommands. It matters more than an ordinary docs gap because `gates set`
+  is the ONLY sanctioned way to move a `gates_policy` that `run new` froze, and the situation it exists for
+  (a run opened before the `agent` policy existed, which can otherwise never use `approve --as-agent`) is
+  one an operator hits mid-run and searches the docs for. What they found was "abandon the run".
+  - Documented in all three places the question gets asked from: the `tldrx run` usage block and a new
+    prose entry in `docs/guide/08-cli-reference.md`; a **Moving a frozen policy** section in
+    `docs/guide/03-runs-and-gates.md`, right under the paragraph that explains the freeze, with the
+    `--gate-agent` disclaimer further down now linking to it; and `docs/spec.md`, both in §2.2's
+    `gates_policy` row and as its own §CLI row (exits `0,1,2,3`, each measured).
+  - Every copy carries the two facts a usage line cannot: **`--note` is mandatory**, and the change
+    appends one **`gate.policy_changed`** event with the actor, the moment, the note and the old→new
+    value — the whole audit trail for a mutation nobody would otherwise go looking for.
+  - Guarded: `test/cli.test.ts` now asserts the CLI reference names every subcommand in
+    `runCommand.subcommands`, plus `gate.policy_changed` by name. Scoped to `run` on purpose —
+    `plan sync-dod` has no section on that page at all (a separate gap, unfiled), and `hook`'s seven
+    scripts are deliberately documented as one `<script>` slot.
+
+- **The epic file duplicated every story's status, and nothing ever updated the copy (#50).**
+  Measured on `260829-scoring-leaderboard` (2026-09-01): `03-plan/epics/E1.md` listed S1, S2 and S3 as
+  `todo` in its `## Stories` table while `03-plan/stories/S1.md` said `done` (merged at `0a50660`,
+  `task.done` in `events.jsonl` at 23:46:11Z) and S2 said `in_progress`. Nothing had lied — nothing had
+  written, either. Fixed by **removing the copy**, not by adding a second writer, and the repo already
+  drew that line for the one field it does maintain: the epic's front-matter `status:` is DERIVED and
+  written by `BuildExecutor.updateEpicStatus` (`build.ts:2552`) from the story files. A copy with a
+  writer is a cache; a copy without one is a lie waiting to be read.
+  - **Nothing parsed the table.** `validateEpicFile` is front matter only ("the front matter is the whole
+    schema", `schemas/epic.ts:69`), `adapters/body.ts:50` mirrors an epic to a ticket as a bare list of
+    ids with no status, and the dashboard reads the front matter. A writer would have been maintaining a
+    document with no reader.
+  - **Both copies of the shape are fixed, not just the visible one.** `templates/epic.md` now points at
+    `03-plan/stories/<id>.md` instead of tabulating it, and the GENERATED contract the Plan sub-agent
+    reads (`schemaContract.ts`, spliced into the stage prompt) now says "Do NOT restate a story's status,
+    repo or `depends_on`" — without that, the next Plan agent invents the table again, which is how it
+    got there.
+  - `test/plan-schema-contract.test.ts` runs the issue's acceptance: build a plan from the shipped
+    templates, flip S1 to `done` through `updateStoryFront` (the writer the Build executor uses), then
+    grep the epic. Any `S<n>` + status word on one line of the epic body is a claim, and the claim set
+    must be empty.
+
+- **Seven `usage` strings were narrower than the same command's `--help` (#51, after #25).**
+  `usage` is what a BAD invocation prints — `run.ts:85`, `questions.ts:38`, `tickets.ts:60`, `gate.ts:44`
+  and three more write `<cmd>.usage` to stderr — so it is the string an operator reads at the exact
+  moment they got the invocation wrong, and it was hiding flags the code accepts. Widened: `run attend`,
+  `run status`, `run estimate`, `run auto`, `run unlock` and `run cancel` now show `[--run <id>]`
+  (all six read `args.positionals[0] ?? stringFlag(args, "run")`); `tldrx next` shows it too
+  (`next.ts:48`); and `tldrx questions lint` shows the `[<run>]` positional it has always taken
+  (`questions.ts:49`, and `docs/guide/08-cli-reference.md` had been documenting it for longer than the
+  CLI admitted it).
+  - **The guard is subcommand-aware, and that is not gold-plating.** A plain
+    `usage.includes("--run")` calls `run` CLEAN, because the new `run gates set` line names `--run` —
+    measured, the naive check saw **one of run's seven gaps**. `test/cli.test.ts` scopes a flag that
+    declares a `sub:` to that subcommand's block of the usage, and falls back to the whole string for a
+    `sub:` that is a MODE rather than a word in argv (`dashboard --out {sub: "static"}`, which the first
+    draft reported as a gap it is not).
+  - **Three of the seven were spelling, not gaps, and are allowlisted with the reason:** `seed`'s
+    `<Qid> "<text>"`, `watch`'s `check <feature>` and `hook`'s enumerated script names all say the same
+    thing more specifically than the registry's general name. A fourth, `run`'s
+    `<stage>:<human|auto|agent>`, is the same case. The allowlist is itself checked: every entry must
+    still name a declared flag or arg, so a rename turns an exemption red instead of silent.
+  - **`tickets --dry-run` was left OUT on purpose.** `tickets sync` previews by default and `--apply` is
+    the write; advertising `--dry-run` would imply the opposite, and `test/money-safety.test.ts:319`
+    asserts its absence. Recorded in the allowlist as a decision rather than papered over as a gap.
+
+- **A literal ESC byte in `McpProbe.ts`'s ANSI regex (#52).** `src/core/doctor/McpProbe.ts:11` wrote a raw
+  `0x1b` where `\x1b` was meant, so the source read `/<ESC>\[[0-9;]*m/g` and a reader — in a diff, in a
+  review, in a terminal, in most editors — saw `/\[[0-9;]*m/g`, a different and wrong-looking regex that
+  someone tidying is one keystroke from breaking `tldrx doctor --mcp` with. **Not the #47 hazard**, and
+  worth saying: ESC does not trip the binary-file heuristic, and the file was always visible to a grep.
+  Behaviour is byte-identical, and `.source` is the wrong instrument for proving that (it returns the
+  literal as written, so the two spellings differ there while compiling to the same matcher) — so
+  `test/doctor.test.ts` compares the shipped `stripAnsi` against a reference rebuilt from the old
+  literal-ESC form over a nine-line corpus, 4 of which change. `test/source-hygiene.test.ts` now flags a
+  raw ESC as well as a NUL: measured across all 479 `.ts` files under `src/`, `test/`, `bin/` and
+  `scripts/`, `McpProbe.ts` held the only one, so the check has no false positives to trade against.
+
+- **A stray NUL byte made two source files invisible to every grep-based sweep (#47).**
+  `test/cli.test.ts` carried one literal `0x00`, so `file(1)` called it `data` and `grep -I` —
+  ripgrep and ugrep too — dropped it SILENTLY, exit 0, no message. Measured on `origin/main`:
+  `grep -lI -E 'node:child_process|Bun\.spawn' test/*.ts` returned **36 files with `cli.test.ts`
+  absent**, though it calls `Bun.spawn` on line 32. That is how it missed #43's load-aware timeout
+  and then timed out at 5004 ms on the very merge that was fixing timeouts. Writing the guard found
+  a **second** one nobody had reported — `src/core/text/srcToken.ts:711`, a NUL used as a cache-key
+  separator, which hid that file from every `src/` sweep (367 of 368 `.ts` files visible). Both are
+  now the two-character escape `\0`: identical at runtime, ordinary text on disk. Post-fix the same
+  sweep finds `cli.test.ts` and all 368 `src/` files. `test/source-hygiene.test.ts` walks `src/`,
+  `test/`, `bin/` and `scripts/` and fails on any NUL, with the offender named at `path:line`.
+
+- **The five wave-5 docs-pass nits, each a sentence nothing was checking (#25).**
+  - **`boundary.ts` promised an exclusion is "never silent" and dropped state paths without a
+    word** — `BoundarySurface.excluded` was populated and read by nothing. Every verdict that has a
+    surface now names what was excluded, green and red alike, including the case where the
+    exclusion was ALL there was and the run therefore reported "declares no surface".
+  - **The precondition refusal asserted "the stage is still `ready`" without looking.** It reports
+    the status `run.yml` actually holds. Bigger than filed: on a FRESH run the stage at the cursor
+    is `pending`, not `ready`, so the old sentence was wrong in the ordinary case as well as on the
+    retry of a `failed` stage.
+  - **The agent-gate fallthrough printed its label twice** — `boundary: boundary=…`, because every
+    condition detail was prefixed with its own id including the two that have a trigger of their
+    own. Only the generic `condition` trigger keeps the prefix; alone it names nothing.
+  - **`dispatchNotes.ts` documented `.agent/04-build/build/S5/…`**, one phase segment more than
+    `dispatchNotesPath` builds. The example is now asserted equal to the path the code produces.
+  - **Two usage strings were narrower than their own `--help`**: `tldrx gate template` omitted the
+    positional `[<run>]` it accepts, and `run new` spelled `--gates <a,b|all|none>` where the help
+    says `<a,b|a:agent|all|none>`.
+
+- **`tldrx next --dry-run` spawns nothing. It used to cost $0.42 a go (#17).** The flag ran the
+  stage for real — one `claude -p`, one `agent.spawned`, one `agent.result`, the cost on the
+  ledger — and only reverted the non-handoff FILES afterwards. Measured on the 2026-08-30 pilot;
+  `tldrx next --help` had said "Spawns nothing and writes nothing" the whole time, so this is the
+  code catching up to the promise rather than the promise being watered down to the code.
+  - **What it does now.** It assembles the prompt, prices it, and stops: the expert bundle, the
+    context ledger, the prompt size, the declared outputs, and the **exact `claude -p` argv** it
+    would have run (with the `--json-schema` blob elided as `<envelope-schema>`, rendered from
+    `buildClaudeArgs` itself so the printed command cannot drift from the real one). Then the two
+    commands that would actually dispatch it. Exit `0`.
+  - **Nothing is written either.** No prompt bundle and no `pending.json`, so a dry run cannot
+    leave a `--commit` looking at a turn that never happened; the stage keeps its status and the
+    ledger keeps its zero. `dry_run_allowed: false` still refuses (Build sets it: a stage that cuts
+    branches and fans out per-story sub-agents has no ONE dispatch to describe).
+  - **On an attended run it is still refused at exit `4`** — but for the right reason now. It costs
+    nothing; it describes a dispatch the framework never makes there, and `--prepare` writes the
+    bundle the host is going to carry. The message said "it spawns a real sub-agent" and no longer
+    lies.
+
+- **A precondition gets its own clock, not the stage's 900–1800 s (#20).** `preconditions:`
+  inherited `timeout_s`, so one hung command — `docker info` against a dead daemon is the measured
+  case — could hold a run for half an hour: exactly the waste the feature exists to prevent, taken
+  by the guard instead of by the attempt. Each precondition now gets **60 s** by default
+  (`PRECONDITION_TIMEOUT_S`), overridable per entry with `timeout_s: <n>`, refused at load if that
+  is not a number `> 0`. A timeout is a red precondition like any other — exit `2`, nothing
+  written, nothing spawned, the stage where it was — and its message names the precondition, its
+  own timeout and the knob that changes it, rather than the stage's. `CommandRun` gained
+  `timedOut` so a timeout can be told from a refusal or a wrong exit code without reading prose.
+
+- **The budget gate can see host-token spend and attendedness (#22).** The tolerant reader the
+  `budget-gate` hook and the status line share (`hooks/lib/runFile.ts`) skipped `tasks[]` and
+  `attended_by:` entirely. So a run whose turns a host session paid for reported `$0.00` metered
+  and nothing else, and `runSnapshot`'s tolerant path hard-coded `attendedByHost: false` with a
+  comment admitting it meant "cannot see". `RunView` now carries `attended_by` and each task's
+  `cost_usd` / `metered` / `tokens`; `runSpend` derives the metered dollars, the declared host
+  tokens and the uncosted turns; `renderRunEconomies` renders the one line that says a dollar
+  figure is a lower bound. The gate appends it to a `host-tokens` phase's stderr note and to a
+  refusal, and `budget.blocked` records `economy`, `attended_by`, `metered_usd`, `host_tokens` and
+  `unmetered_tasks`. **No verdict changed**: a dollar ceiling still governs dollars, the two
+  currencies are still never converted, and a plain metered run's refusal is byte-identical.
+
+- **The `max_reads` flake was a real race, not a slow test (#24).** A chunk boundary is not a line
+  boundary: `LineSplitter` hands every complete line in one chunk to the read counter
+  synchronously, so when the OS coalesced the sub-agent's writes — which is what a loaded CI box
+  does — reads 4..20 were counted in the same tick as read 3, long before the `SIGKILL` just
+  ordered could land. `agent.result.payload.reads` was therefore a function of scheduling, and the
+  assertion pinning it to the cap cost two retries in one night. The counter now stops the moment
+  the cap fires, so what is recorded is the number of reads the cap ALLOWED. Pinned by a fixture
+  that makes the coalescing deterministic (`FAKE_CLAUDE_READS_BURST=1` — every read pair in one
+  write): pre-fix that reported 20 reads against a cap of 3.
+
+- **One over-cap list item no longer cascades into false "S<id> has no file" errors (#37).**
+  `validatePlan` resolves cross-file references out of the set of stories that PARSED, so a story file that
+  failed its own validation was indistinguishable from one that was never written. Measured on the
+  `260829-scoring-leaderboard` session: `acceptance[3]` in `S8.md` was 1,009 characters against the 512 cap,
+  and the check reported three errors of which one was real — the other two said `S8 has no file in stories/`
+  about a file that was 5,794 bytes on disk. The operator only avoided a wasted pass by re-deriving the cause
+  from the validator source; an agent reading that message goes hunting for a missing file or rewrites
+  `waves.yml`.
+  - A reference to a story or epic whose FILE EXISTS is never reported as missing. It now reads
+    `S8 is unresolved because stories/S8.md failed validation — that file exists; fix the errors reported
+    against it and this one goes with them`, carries `cascade: true` on the `PlanIssue`, and covers the
+    id-mismatch case (`stories/S8.md declares id \`S9\``) as well as the invalid-file case. The epic side —
+    a story pointing at an epic whose own file did not validate — had the identical bug and the identical fix.
+  - `describePlanIssues` orders root violations ahead of cascades. Its window is three issues wide, so one
+    real defect cascading into four references could otherwise spend the whole window on consequences and
+    never name the cause.
+  - A story that is genuinely absent still reports `has no file`, with no cascade flag.
+
+- **A refused list value now names the cap it broke, at the cap's current value (#38).**
+  The constants were interpolated already but the sentence was not self-describing: `513 characters exceeds
+  the 512 cap` did not say the cap is per-item or that splitting the item is the fix. Now
+  `513 characters exceeds the 512-character cap on one list item — split it into several items` and
+  `65 items exceeds the 64-item cap`, both still derived from `MAX_ITEM_CHARS` / the list's own `max`, and
+  the same constants are what the Plan prompt states up front.
+
+- **The merge itself is now serialised, and a gate can no longer describe a tree it is not pushing
+  (#44).** `scripts/merge-wave.sh` merges, gates and pushes in ONE shared checkout and took no lock.
+  Measured on the pre-fix script with two concurrent invocations against a real sandbox repo: run A
+  gated `7afcc0e` (its own merge) at `typecheck` and `fadc923` (the OTHER run's merge, landed
+  mid-gate) at `build`, then printed `OK fadc923 … pushed`. Both runs reported the same sha and
+  both exited 0 — a green report over a tree neither had finished gating. With a red change in the
+  other branch the same interleaving hands agent A a `FAIL build=1` for code it never wrote, which
+  is what was actually observed live 2026-08-31 (`2184` tests counted where the branch had `2181`).
+  - **A lock, held from before the dirty-tree check through the push.** `mkdir` on
+    `.git/merge-wave.lock` — atomic on macOS and Linux, where `flock(1)` is not on stock macOS, and
+    in `git rev-parse --git-common-dir` so the lock can never be dirt in the tree it guards — and
+    not `$R/.git`, which in a linked worktree is a FILE that `mkdir` can never turn into a lock. A second invocation WAITS,
+    saying so on stderr (`merge-wave: waiting for another merge in this checkout (owner: …)`) so the
+    single summary line on stdout stays a single line. Waiting is bounded (`MW_LOCK_WAIT_S`, default
+    3600 → exit `6`), and a lock whose owner is a dead pid on this host, or older than
+    `MW_LOCK_STALE_S`, is broken open — after re-reading the owner line, so two waiters cannot tear
+    down a lock a third has just taken. An interrupted run hands the lock back on its way out: an
+    untrapped signal kills bash WITHOUT running its `EXIT` trap, so `INT` and `TERM` are trapped too. No
+    path through the wait loop is free of the budget, including the break-open one: a lock that
+    cannot be created or removed now fails in under a second instead of spinning forever.
+  - **And an assertion that does not depend on the lock.** Between the last gate and the push, HEAD
+    must still be the commit the gates ran against; if it moved, nothing is pushed and the script
+    exits `5` saying which sha it gated and which one is there now. The lock prevents the race; this
+    makes pushing an ungated HEAD impossible even for someone who bypasses the lock. The pre-fix
+    script, given the same mid-gate commit, pushed it and reported `OK`.
+  - **It pushes the commit it gated, not the `main` ref.** `git push origin main` publishes
+    `refs/heads/main` whatever HEAD is — and a red gate leaves `main` sitting on an ungated merge
+    commit by design, so the next run from a detached or repaired HEAD would have published THAT.
+    The push is `HEAD:main` now, and a pre-flight refuses (exit `7`) when the gated commit is not a
+    fast-forward of `origin/main` rather than letting the server's rejection be the first news.
+  - Gate logs moved from the fixed `/tmp/mw-*.log` to a per-invocation `${TMPDIR}/mw-<pid>/`, and the
+    FAIL lines name the directory. Two runs in two clones on one box shared those files.
+
+- **The test suite no longer goes red because the machine was busy (#43).** On an untouched
+  `origin/main`, `bun test` reported `2155 pass · 5 fail` while the same two files alone reported
+  `91 pass · 0 fail`: four tests that spawn a REAL `git` expiring on bun's 5000 ms default, and one
+  50 ms performance budget measured at 66.4 ms, with three `tldrx` runs and two other agents sharing
+  the box. Because `merge-wave.sh` refuses to push on any test failure, that red is indistinguishable
+  from a regression at the exact moment a merge is decided, and the natural response — re-run until
+  green — is how a real regression eventually gets pushed.
+  - **The clock moved; no assertion did.** `test/fixtures/machineLoad.ts` measures the machine
+    (1-minute run-queue per core, floored at 1 and capped at 8) and hands out budgets from it. All
+    **42** test files that spawn a real process — `git`, `bun`, the CLI — now open with
+    `setDefaultTimeout(spawnTestTimeout())`: 30 s idle, scaled by load, still a hang detector. How
+    long a process takes to start is a property of the machine, not of the code, so a fixed budget on
+    such a test measures the box. A test enumerates those files and fails if a new one skips the
+    budget. Serialising the suite would not have helped: `bun test` already runs files sequentially
+    in one process (verified — a `setDefaultTimeout` in one file does not reach the next, and a 5.5 s
+    test in that next file still expired at 5000 ms). The contention is other processes on the box,
+    which only a load-aware budget can see.
+  - **The first version of that list was a `grep -l`, and it lied.** It returned 14 files and silently
+    omitted `cli.test.ts`, whose "every command's help lists an exit table" then timed out at 5004 ms
+    on the merge that was fixing timeouts. Cause: one stray NUL byte at `test/cli.test.ts:366` makes
+    the file `data` to `file(1)`, and grep drops binary files under `-I` without a word. The list is
+    built by READING every file now, and `cli.test.ts` is asserted to be in it. Filed as #47.
+  - **The one real performance budget keeps its teeth.** `handoff` on 256 KB is now the floor of
+    three runs against `perfBudgetMs(50)`, which on an idle machine is 50 — the identical assertion.
+    A stall inflates some runs and never the floor, and a function that genuinely takes 120 ms still
+    fails, which is itself a test.
+
+- **`npm pack` output no longer refuses the next agent's merge (#45).** `tldr-experts-<version>.tgz`
+  was not ignored, and the dirty-tree guard refuses on ANY porcelain line, untracked included — so a
+  pack artifact left by a release check blocked the merge of whoever came next, someone who did not
+  create the file and could not know whether deleting it was safe. `*.tgz` is ignored now. The guard
+  is deliberately unchanged: an untracked file is still dirt, and a test holds it to that.
+
+- **`claim-sources` reports every problem it found, over every declared `.md` output — and a
+  `file` src resolves against this run's epic worktree.** Four issues, one code path (#33, #34,
+  #23, #16), all four measured on the 2026-08-30/31 unattended pilot runs.
+  - **It reported ONE problem** (#33). `checkClaimSources` returned on the first file, the first
+    category and `unresolved[0]`, so a 226-bullet cap breach sat invisible behind a single bad
+    file path: fixing the visible one and re-running would have bought the next one at the price
+    of a full paid pass. Every file and every category is reported now, as a per-file summary
+    (`<file>: 3 unsourced bullet(s) on line(s) …; 2 unresolvable source(s) — …`), with file-level
+    problems such as the cap breach listed FIRST so 200 line numbers cannot bury them. Up to six
+    of a category are named and the rest become `(+N more)` — the same convention
+    `describeKnowledgeIssues` uses, and necessary because a check's `detail` is rendered inside
+    one-line summaries (`autoGate`, `next`).
+  - **It looked at ONE file** (#34). The filter was `endsWith("handoff.md")`, so the identical
+    violation refused the stage when it was written in `handoff.md` and passed in silence when it
+    was written in `design.md`, `contracts.md` or `scope.md` beside it — the pilot's pass-3
+    violation was caught only because it happened to be in the handoff. Every declared `.md`
+    output is read now, by both the gate check and the write-time hook: the four-section rule for
+    the files that ARE handoffs, and `validateCitations` for the ones that are not. That second
+    rule is deliberately narrower — a bullet with no citation is prose, but a `[src: …]` that WAS
+    written must parse, must resolve, and must obey `$ … → exit n` belonging only to an
+    `Evidence ledger`. A declared non-handoff output that was never written is still not a
+    failure; that is the `--commit` gap check's job.
+  - **The execution-claim validator reads the verb** (#23). `\bexit \d` missed "exits 0", which
+    is how a trainer writing normal English says it, so the claim slipped through the grammar the
+    rule exists to enforce while "exit 0" three words away was refused. Conjugation, an optional
+    "with", and the `code`/`status` spellings all match now; the digit is still required, so "the
+    exit path is documented" and "the exchange refuses an empty code" stay prose.
+  - **A `file` src resolves against this run's epic worktree** (#16). The Build phase commits
+    onto an epic branch and deliberately does not merge it, so a Watch-stage handoff ABOUT that
+    work had every `repo:src/…` citation refused for naming code the working tree does not have
+    yet — the stage's own evidence was rejected for being true. `.tldrx/worktrees/<repo>/_epic-<run>-<epic>`
+    is now a resolution base, tried before the working tree, for both the hook and the gate; the
+    path convention has one home (`core/paths.ts`) that the Build executor writes and the §2.8
+    resolver reads. Resolution also no longer stops at the first base where the file EXISTS but
+    is too short — a file truncated on the epic branch would otherwise deny a claim about the
+    line it still has on `main`. **Still open** (commented on #16): the epic worktree is removed
+    at the end of Build unless `--keep-worktrees`, so the default Watch stage has no tree on disk
+    to resolve against. Closing that means reading blobs out of the epic branch inside a hook
+    whose budget is 50 ms, or keeping epic worktrees for the life of the run — a design call, not
+    a mechanical one.
+
+- **The Build DoD is a DELTA gate again: the base tree is checked before any story is charged (#41).**
+  A dod block proves one thing — *this story did not break the tree* — and nothing checked that the tree was
+  unbroken to begin with. Measured live 2026-08-31 on `260829-scoring-leaderboard`: of the three commands
+  `workspace.yml` declared, **two already failed on pristine main** — a bare `dotnet test` ran two `Live`-trait
+  tests that call paid Azure AI and that the repo's own CI excludes, and `dotnet format --verify-no-changes`
+  flagged 336 files in a repo whose CI never gates format at all. All 15 stories in the plan would have blocked
+  identically, each having spent a developer turn, and each told the operator the STORY was red.
+  - **Pre-flight at Build entry.** After the dirty-tree and foreign-epic refusals and before anything is
+    dispatched, every dod command the pending stories name is run once against the untouched base tree. A
+    non-zero exit refuses the stage (exit `2`, back to `ready`) naming the command, its exit code and the repo,
+    with no attempt spent and nothing charged.
+  - **In the repo's own checkout, not a fresh worktree.** That is the tree a human means by "the base": it has
+    the installed dependencies and tool state that make the command mean what the team thinks it means. A
+    pristine worktree would fail half the world's repos for want of `node_modules` and turn a safety net into
+    an outage.
+  - **Paid for once.** Results go to `04-build/preflight.yml` — files are the state — keyed by repo, command and
+    the base sha, and are read back by every later invocation of the run. A missing or unreadable cache is a
+    question, never a fault: a run that entered Build on an older binary measures lazily rather than erroring.
+  - **Attribution.** When a story's DoD does go red, the cached base result decides whose fault it is. A command
+    red on the base too halts the build with the same workspace-config error rather than blocking the story and
+    consuming its attempt. A command the gate declined to run is recorded `unmeasured` and excuses nothing.
+
+- **The review handshake no longer swallows an unrecognized verdict, nor drops structured
+  findings.** Measured on `260831-hardening-d1` / S1 (2026-08-31). Two verdict grammars coexist
+  — gate evidence is `sign | sign-with-fixlist | refuse`, a story review is
+  `approve | fixlist | changes` — and the host-facing hint named neither, saying only "write
+  {verdict, summary, findings}". The host wrote `sign`. `parseReview` fail-closed it to `changes`,
+  correctly and **silently**: a clean fix-list verification round read as a second `changes`, the
+  story went `blocked`, and a `story reopen` cycle was the only way to record the verdict that
+  had been meant all along. Separately, `findings` was filtered with `typeof f === "string"`, so
+  the attempt-1 adversarial reviewer's seven `{severity, file, line, claim, evidence, fix}`
+  objects were dropped whole — the verdict survived, the evidence it rested on did not.
+  - **The contract is now stated where the host reads it.** Both `--commit --review` hints name
+    the enum: `verdict is one of approve | fixlist | changes, NOT the `sign`/`refuse` gate
+    vocabulary`.
+  - **The downgrade is announced.** Fail-closed is unchanged — an unreadable verdict is still
+    `changes`, never `approve` — but a verdict outside the enum now comes back on
+    `Review.verdictProblem` ("the reviewer's verdict `sign` is not approve|fixlist|changes —
+    recorded as `changes`"), is printed by the executor on the one path both doors pass through,
+    and rides in `findings` so the review log and the next attempt's `## Previous attempt` both
+    carry it. A DECLARED `fixlist` that fell short is untouched: `fixlistProblems` already says
+    that one out loud, and two sentences for one downgrade would read as two faults.
+  - **Structured findings are rendered, never dropped.** An object becomes
+    `[severity] file:line — claim · evidence: … · fix: …`; a shape nothing recognizes is kept as
+    JSON; a `findings` that is not an array is kept as one finding. An unreadable finding in the
+    log beats a finding that is not in the log.
+
+- **A project stage override that supplies only `stage.yml` no longer swaps the stage body for an
+  empty one.** Reported from the 260829-scoring-leaderboard driver session (2026-08-31) and
+  reproduced here: `stage.md` was resolved by string-substituting `stage.yml` in the path the
+  preset had already picked, so creating `.tldrx/stages/plan/stage.yml` to tune one key moved the
+  BODY lookup into a directory that had none — and the miss was read as an empty string. The
+  context ledger printed `stage 1 B` where it had been 4.9 KB; the sub-agent would have been
+  dispatched with the inputs, the experts and the rejection note and **zero** stage instructions,
+  and nothing refused. `stageMdPath` now resolves per FILE, not per directory: the override's own
+  `stage.md` wins, else the packaged one is inherited, and a stage with no body anywhere is a
+  named `StageBodyError` rather than a silent empty prompt. Both readers — `next --prepare` and
+  the Watch executor — go through it.
+
+- **`approve --as-agent`'s refusal now names the route that works on the run in front of you.**
+  It pointed only at `--gates <stage>:agent`, which is chosen at `run new` and frozen there — so
+  the one suggestion meant recreating a run already in flight. It now leads with the delegated
+  approve: read the agent's evidence note yourself and sign as you, `tldrx approve --note
+  "delegated: <agent> reviewed this, evidence at <path>"`, which keeps the gate's policy and puts
+  the provenance on the record. Found across the 2026-08-30/31 unattended pilots.
+
+- **`budget raise <phase> <usd>` help said `<usd>` was "the new ceiling"; the source adds it.**
+  `raiseBudget` computes `ceiling_usd + amount` (`raiseBudget.ts:83`), so an operator following
+  the help over-raised — measured live on the scavtopia leaderboard run, a "$5.40 new ceiling"
+  command would have set $8.00. The arithmetic is what live runs depend on and is untouched; the
+  words move. `<usd>` is now "how much to ADD to that phase's ceiling — a delta, not a new
+  ceiling", with a note spelling out the $10 + $25 = $35 case and pointing at `budget show`, which
+  already prints the correctly-sized command.
+
+- **`tldrx run new --from` stores an imported answer's own words, not a letter pointing at a file
+  it does not own.** AI-DLC records a chosen option as `[Answer]: C`, and the import stored
+  "<question> — C" verbatim; two facts became unreadable once aidlc was uninstalled and the source
+  file went with it (2026-08-30/31 pilots). The interview flow has always resolved a letter to the
+  option's text before recording (`interview/reply.ts:32-37`), and the import now does the same:
+  `parseAidlcQuestions` reads the lettered options (uppercase, and a space required after the
+  punctuation, so `- E.g. …` stays prose) and `answerText` resolves the answer against them; a
+  letter with no option behind it is stored as typed rather than invented. Conflict detection is
+  unchanged by the longer text: it keys on the QUESTION, as `hooks/no-reask.ts:54` already does,
+  because `findDuplicate` is Jaccard over tokens and therefore length-sensitive — the same
+  contradiction scored 0.78 against a bare letter and ~0.22 against the answer written out.
+
+- **A second run's stories no longer merge into ANOTHER run's epic branch.** Measured live
+  2026-08-31 on two concurrent runs: `260831-hardening-d1` reported S1, S2 and S6 all
+  "merged into `epic/hardening-d1` (N commits carried)", and `epic/hardening-d1` was still
+  sitting at its base with **zero** story commits — all three merges had landed on
+  `epic/d1-tenancy-identity-customers`, a CLOSED previous run's branch. Nothing failed; the
+  run closed green with an empty epic, and it surfaced only because a later story measured
+  `git merge-base` and found the dependency it had been promised was missing.
+  - **The cause was one missing run id.** `openEpicWorktree` built the epic worktree's disk
+    path as `_epic-<epic id>`, and every plan names its first epic `E1`. The second run's
+    `existsSync` therefore hit the FIRST run's directory, `addWorktree` was skipped, and
+    `git merge --no-ff` ran inside a checkout of a foreign epic branch. The in-memory map was
+    keyed correctly (`repo:epicBranch`) — only the path collided, and only across processes.
+    Every progress line renders `story.epicBranch`, so the messages were right about where the
+    merge was *meant* to go for as long as the bytes went somewhere else.
+  - **The path now carries the run**: `_epic-<run id>-<epic id>`, the same shape the STORY
+    worktree was given after the 2026-08-29 audit found the identical class of bug one level
+    down. That fix never reached the epic worktree, which is the worse half — a story worktree
+    collision means two sub-agents editing one file, an epic worktree collision is a merge.
+  - **And a reuse on the wrong branch now refuses.** Every reuse of an epic worktree — the
+    remembered path and the one found on disk — asserts its checked-out branch is the story's
+    epic branch first (`assertWorktreeOn`, `core/build/git.ts`). A mismatch throws
+    `WorktreeBranchMismatchError` naming both branches and the directory, and fails the stage.
+    It never re-points the worktree and never merges anyway. Path scoping makes the collision
+    impossible; this makes it impossible to repeat *silently*.
+
+- **A `--note` with a blank line in it no longer destroys `run.yml`.** Measured 2026-08-31 on the
+  live `260829-scoring-leaderboard` run: `tldrx reject --note "<two paragraphs>"` wrote the note
+  into the gate's flow mapping with LITERAL newlines inside a double-quoted scalar, which is not
+  YAML — the `yaml` package answered `Missing closing " quote at line 57` and Bun's parser
+  `Unexpected character` — and from that moment **every** command on the run failed. There was no
+  repair verb, so the operator had to hand-edit a file the docs forbid editing, and the next save
+  re-emitted the same string and broke it again at the same line, taking `run.yml.bak` with it.
+  Four changes, each closing one part of the loop:
+  - **The emitter escapes, at the one place every field goes through.** `yamlScalar`
+    (`core/facts/emitFactsYaml.ts`) escaped `\` and `"` and nothing else; it now emits via
+    `JSON.stringify`, whose string grammar is a strict subset of YAML 1.2's double-quoted scalar —
+    the escaping this repo already trusted in `adapters/external.ts` and `build/storyFile.ts`.
+    Because every YAML this framework hand-emits routes strings through that one helper, the fix
+    reaches **all** of them at once: gate notes (`approve`, `reject`, `revoke`), `cancelled.note`,
+    task `error` and `stopped_by`, gate `evidence`, run `title`/`scope`, `facts.yml` fact text and
+    retirement reasons, and `split.yml` goals, claims, questions and answers. Verified against
+    **both** parsers behind the runtime seam. Existing files do not churn: over every code point
+    from U+0020 to U+FFFF the new escaping and the old produce identical bytes (63,456 checked, 0
+    differ), so only the values that were already corrupt change shape.
+  - **A file already broken this way heals itself on load.** `parseYamlRepairing` (`core/yaml.ts`)
+    re-escapes raw control characters trapped inside a double-quoted scalar, re-parses, and accepts
+    the result only if it parses — otherwise the parser's ORIGINAL error is thrown, because a
+    repair that cannot be verified is not offered. `RunStore.open` then rewrites the mended file
+    through the fixed emitter and says so on stderr. A one-time hand repair was never enough: the
+    old emitter re-corrupted the file on the next save, so `emit(load(x))` had to be made stable.
+  - **Every state write keeps one step back.** `RunStore` and `FactsStore` had grown a
+    byte-identical private copy of temp-plus-rename each; both now call one
+    `core/fs/writeAtomic.ts`, which additionally copies the version it is about to replace to
+    `<file>.bak`. Atomicity only ever guaranteed a WHOLE file, never a good one. The copy is taken
+    before the rename, so the live file is never absent for an instant and a torn backup can only
+    ever cost a backup. `tldrx init` now adds `tldrx-work/*/*.bak` and `.tldrx/memory/*.bak` to the
+    managed `.gitignore` block.
+  - **A `run.yml` beyond mechanical repair fails honestly, and takes nothing else down with it.**
+    The error names the file, quotes the parser verbatim, says that every command on the run reads
+    that file first, and points at `run.yml.bak` — while stating plainly that using it is a MANUAL
+    decision tldrx will not make. Separately, one corrupt `run.yml` used to throw a raw
+    `YAMLParseError` out of `buildModel` and kill `tldrx dashboard` for the whole workspace;
+    `loadRunResult` (`core/replay/loadRun.ts`) now distinguishes missing from unreadable, and the
+    dashboard lists the run as **unreadable** with the parse error beside it and renders every
+    other run as normal.
+
+### Changed
+
+- **The docs now say, at the top of both places a reader starts, that `run attend host` is a LOCK
+  and `run auto` is an ENGINE.** Grounding: on 2026-08-31 the framework's own author — who had read
+  the chapter — ran `tldrx run attend host <run>` expecting it to drive the whole run by itself,
+  and then asked whether `attend` and `auto` compose. They do not, and the code has always said so
+  (`runAuto.ts:108` refuses `run auto` on an attended run at exit `1`, before the event log is
+  opened; `runNext.ts:659` exits `4` on a bare `next` and names the `--prepare` command). The docs
+  took too long to say it.
+  - **README gains "Trying it: three ways to run"**, immediately after Quick start: a three-row
+    table of who executes each turn, what a turn costs, and where each mode stops; one scenario
+    line each (`run auto` for a small run you would watch anyway and for CI/cron — the only mode
+    with no session behind it; `attend host` when a session is already open and cost or quality
+    matters; `attend host` + a mandate for overnight); and the two-command recipe with a verbatim
+    example **mandate prompt**.
+  - **`docs/guide/10-unattended-mode.md` leads with the same disambiguation** — a blockquoted
+    lock-vs-engine table above the chapter's opening paragraph, so a skimmer cannot make that
+    mistake — and gains a `### The mandate` section carrying the prompt verbatim, tying its four
+    legitimate interrupts back to the `questions` / `budget-event` / `boundary` fallthroughs the
+    framework already enforces, and to the fact that no `git push` wrapper exists in the Build
+    executor (`src/core/build/git.ts:13`) and the developer prompt says "Do not push"
+    (`src/core/build/prompts.ts:180`).
+  - **`tldrx run --help` says it too.** `run` had notes for `status`, `estimate`, `unlock` and
+    `cancel` and none for the pair that actually confuses people. It now leads with one note per
+    mode — "a LOCK, not an engine" / "an ENGINE, not a lock", each naming the other's refusal — and
+    the `<host|--none>` argument line says the framework will not spawn on the run again. Help text
+    only; no behaviour, no flag and no exit code moved.
+
+- **`tldrx run estimate` is remaining-work aware (#21).** It priced the next stage from token medians while
+  the budget brake separately computed what that stage still had to pay for — two models, one question, and
+  the one people read was the one that never shrank. A Build stage with five of six stories done was still
+  quoted the number the Plan wrote before any of them ran, which is the figure that made a pilot operator
+  move money twice for work the run could already afford.
+  - It now calls **the same `remainingWork()`** the brake and `budget show`'s `est.` column call, with the
+    same inputs, and reports it beside the token estimate: done stories excluded, blocked ones named, the
+    arithmetic shown. A test asserts the two numbers are identical rather than merely similar.
+  - It also rolls the run up: `still to run: N stage(s) … $X priced`, with terminal stages excluded and the
+    cursor stage narrowed by the plan when the plan knew better. `--json` carries both as `remaining` and
+    `runRemaining`.
+  - The token half is untouched. The input side is still measured off the same assembly `next` builds, and
+    the cache/output medians still say which sample they came from — that half was never the complaint.
+
 ## 0.3.1 — 2026-08-31
 
 **Unattended mode.** Twelve of the entries below are one feature: a run a **host session**
@@ -653,6 +1543,66 @@ none of these behaves byte-identically to the release before them.
 
 ### Fixed
 
+- **A trainer that `cd`s no longer writes its knowledge file into a different git repo.**
+  Measured 2026-08-31 on `~/scavtopia` (five repos, ten `expert train --mode light` runs): the
+  `mcp` run was rejected with `mcp.md.partial was never written`, and the file had been written —
+  46 lines, 9,567 bytes, complete and usable — to
+  `whiteboard/.tldrx/experts/mcp/knowledge/mcp.md.partial`. The sub-agent ran
+  `cd <workspace>/whiteboard` to execute that repo's declared gate command, then wrote the
+  RELATIVE path the prompt had given it, and the path resolved against the repo it had `cd`'d
+  into. Three costs from the one bug: **$1.23 charged for work that was finished and then
+  orphaned**, a parasitic `.tldrx/` tree left inside an unrelated git repo (`git -C whiteboard
+  status` → `?? .tldrx/`), and **no repair round possible** — the missing-file branch returns
+  before the repair check, so this failure mode was unrecoverable by construction even with
+  budget left. Fixed at both ends.
+  - **Prevention: the prompt now states an ABSOLUTE output path**, workspace-root-resolved, and
+    says why — "If you `cd` into a repo to run its gate command, a relative path then resolves
+    against THAT repo … and throws the whole paid run away. That is measured, not hypothetical."
+    Both training prompts carry it, and so does the repair round's target, for the same reason.
+  - **Recovery: when the file is missing, the declared repo roots are probed** for the stray
+    relative write before "never written" is said. A file found there is moved back and validated
+    exactly as if it had landed correctly — recovery is not a pass, the same `parseKnowledgeFile`
+    still judges it, and a recovered file that fails can still be repaired because the probe runs
+    ABOVE the repair round.
+  - **The note is honest and names the mess.** `recovered: the trainer wrote to
+    whiteboard/.tldrx/… , inside the `whiteboard` repo — a relative `.tldrx/…` path resolves
+    against whatever directory it had `cd`'d into.` The empty parasitic directories are removed
+    on the way out; a directory holding anything else is **left in place and named**, with the
+    `git -C <repo> status` to run, because a tool that deletes inside a repo it was never asked
+    to touch is a worse bug than the one it is fixing. A repo carrying its own
+    `.tldrx/workspace.yml` is skipped entirely — that file may belong to a nested workspace, and
+    taking it would be theft rather than recovery.
+  - When no stray is found the verdict is unchanged and now says where it looked.
+
+- **A rejected training run records WHICH problems, not just how many.**
+  Measured 2026-08-31: `components` failed with 12 problems for $1.02, and `training.jsonl` — the
+  durable record — held only the string `"…does not validate — 12 problem(s)"`. The twelve went
+  to stdout, where five of them were printed and the rest elided as `(+7 more)`. Anyone who had
+  not captured stdout, which is anyone running this normally, could not tell why a $1.02 run
+  failed. The list is now persisted twice.
+  - **On the ledger**: `check.failed.payload` carries `problems` (the rendered per-problem
+    lines), `problems_total`, `errors`, and `task`. The list is fitted to the record's 4 KB
+    payload cap and reports `problems_omitted` when it does not fit — an append that THROWS on
+    an oversize payload would take the cost line down with the reasons, which is the opposite of
+    the point. The repair round's own `check.failed` carries what it sent back, so "what did the
+    repair actually fix" is answerable later.
+  - **In the file**: `<area>.rejected.md` now opens with a `# REJECTED` header — expert/area,
+    mode, timestamp, dollars spent, error and warning counts, and every problem, uncapped —
+    above the trainer's bytes exactly as written, separated by a rule. A quarantine with no
+    verdict (a sub-agent that died, a rollback) gets no header: there were no reasons to state
+    and inventing them would be inventing the reason.
+
+- **`## Sources` is now taught as prose with the refused shape shown.** Same batch: four of the
+  five problems the `components` report printed are one mistake four times — `L34 Sources: no
+  [src: …] token`, `L35`, `L36`, `L37`. The trainer had written the recap as a bulleted list.
+  The prompt already said "**Sources** — prose", and a writer who reads that as a style note
+  writes bullets, because bullets are what the other four sections take. The rule it collides
+  with is genuinely file-wide — `parseKnowledgeFile` requires a `[src: …]` token on EVERY list
+  item in every declared section, recap included, and an unsourced one is an error that rejects
+  the file whole. Both prompts now show the accepted prose next to the refused bullets, the same
+  move the execution-claim rule makes. Whether an unsourced recap bullet should be a warning
+  rather than an error is a real question and is deliberately NOT settled here.
+
 - **A rejected knowledge file gets ONE repair round before the money is thrown away.**
   Measured 2026-08-30 on `~/scavtopia`: `tldrx expert train dotnet-stack --area dotnet --mode
   light` spent **$1.69**, the trainer wrote `knowledge/dotnet.md.partial`, and the validator
@@ -985,6 +1935,19 @@ none of these behaves byte-identically to the release before them.
 
 ### Verified, not changed
 
+- **`tldrx expert train` already exits nonzero when a training fails.** The 2026-08-31 batch
+  report measured shell `EXIT=0` on all ten invocations, including the three that failed their
+  check — but nine of those ten ran on a build that predates this one (`dist/tldrx.js` was
+  rewritten mid-batch at 05:40Z). On the current source the code path is intact:
+  `runTraining` returns `EXIT_AGENT_FAILED` (5), `expert train` returns `outcome.code`,
+  `dispatch` returns it, and `bin/tldrx.ts` does `process.exit(await dispatch(...))`. Now pinned
+  by three tests that drive the REAL CLI as a subprocess with a fake `claude` on PATH and assert
+  the PROCESS exit code — one for a file that does not validate, one for a file that was never
+  written, one for the passing case — because "`runTraining` returns 5" and "the process exits
+  5" are two different claims. Falsified before being trusted: making `expert train` return
+  `EXIT_OK` breaks two of the three.
+
+
 - **The walk already skips vendored and generated trees**, and always did: `SKIPPED_DIRS`
   in `detect/walk.ts` covers `node_modules`, `dist`, `build`, `out`, `bin`, `obj`,
   `target`, `.venv`, `Pods`, `.next`, `.expo`, `coverage` and more, plus every