FINAL_VERIFICATION.md

decisions/spine/FINAL_VERIFICATION.md

FINAL Pre-Fable-5 Whole-Arc Verification

Scope: the complete built spine of *Humanity* — 79 nodes (CH_PROLOGUE, CH_01…CH_77, CH_EPILOGUE) — verified for the final pre-Fable-5 handoff gate. This is the terminal gate after prior range reviews; the job is to catch what survived, especially session-16 regressions. Method: grep-first sweeps across docs/spine/*.md + registries + T1/CVD sources, then targeted Reads of every hit that warranted one. Every confirmed finding below was re-read at the cited line and quoted verbatim from the live file; the reveal-window item was cross-checked against registries/T0_Cross_Cultural_Link_Graph [DRAFT v0.1]/Sheet1.csv and T1_Threads_22_Master_References §4.

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0. RESOLUTION (2026-07-14) — flipped to GO

All fix-queue items resolved and gate-green (14/14, exit 0). Applied: M1 — 5 Corr facet swaps to the safe register (CH_40:68, CH_41:65, CH_42:73, CH_43:59, CH_44:53); flagged design bullets left intact; word-boundary re-grep confirms 0 name-checked Corr in any CH_39–62 facet. M2/M3/M4 — the three pre-Ch-38 who-frame body-prose leaks (CH_04:28, CH_15:30, CH_23:28) rewritten to the confined safe register. A focused adversarial re-verify (wf_5e297aff-442) of the pre-Ch-38 window then caught two more same-class leaks the main sweep missed — CH_16 ("a single quiet hand… She can feel the hand. She cannot see a face on it" → impersonal-order recast) and CH_22 ("the same old wish… she has no name for it" → "the same kind of wrong worked a new way") — both fixed; CH_30 was adjudicated REFUTED (the sanctioned "same kind of erasure, ink vs fire" method-through-line) and left unchanged; the M2–M4 edits regression-checked clean. Canon index rebuilt (7176 chunks, real embeddings, index_freshness green). The MINOR (m1) is now RESOLVED (2026-07-14, Josh: "don't defer"). Investigating it surfaced that it was broader than a lone gloss residue: the T1_Threads_22_Master_References [ACTIVE v2.2] authority doc carried ~12 stale Cassius "Ch 74" refs (the realignment had reached the spine + all T0 registries but never scoped this T1 doc), and LINK_0145 mirrored it. Knocked out via a guarded specific-phrase script: 11 Cassius refs realigned Ch 74→76 (the legit protagonist "Ch 74-75 dying-rising" ref + all "Ch 76-77 waterfall" refs guarded); the "theological-sophistication chain" ambiguity resolved against spine canon (Ch 74 = Yggdrasil/Door-Home, Ch 76 = the Cassius confrontation → the chain re-homes to Ch 76); LINK_0145 + the CH_42:71 design echo aligned; fidelity baseline refreshed; index rebuilt; gates 14/14, exit 0. See REVEAL_WINDOW_REALIGNMENT.md. Verdict: GO — handoff-ready, zero open items.

1. VERDICT — GO-WITH-FIXES → GO (fixes applied 2026-07-14)

Zero unresolved BLOCKERs. GO is therefore not blocked on a hard-line/count/§17 breach. However, four MAJOR reveal-discipline leaks survive in player-facing / design-summary prose across five modern chapters and three early chapters, all pre-empting the House-of-Velheim reveal windows the whole arc depends on. These are gate-invisible (no harness catches them) and must be fixed-forward before the Fable-5 handoff. One MINOR reveal-window-hygiene residue is safe to batch with the fix pass or defer to a verify sweep.

• GO requires zero unresolved BLOCKERs: MET (0 blockers).
• 4 MAJORs are trivially fix-forward (surgical string swaps to the canonical safe register); none require new canon or a Josh ruling.
• Recommendation: apply the fix queue (§4), re-run the \bCorr\b + who-frame greps to 0 name-checked hits, then flip to GO.

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2. Per-lens summary

Raw = findings surfaced by the lens verifier. Confirmed = survived adversarial review. Verdict = the lens's contribution to the gate.

Note on the confirmed set: the four MAJORs are the post-adversarial survivors — every other lens's raw findings were refuted or downgraded below the confirmed bar during the adversarial pass, so they contribute 0 confirmed. The 5 session-16 cardinal rulings (F1/F2 Vritra kill-vs-spare + Ch-75 4-quadrant matrix, childhood-familiar Ch-75 return, best-friend→Ntala seed, F4 mastery Option-D, F5 aku-aku sacredness-tier) were verified consistently applied and free of half-application/contradiction. The reveal-window item is broken out below as a separate MINOR because it is real but ambiguous, not a clear regression.

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3. Confirmed findings (BLOCKER → MAJOR → MINOR)

BLOCKERS (0)

None. No §17 hard line breached, no locked count changed (77 ch / 22 threads / 72 weapons / 10 trades / 12-tier / 33 species / 22 familiars / 185 abilities / 69 regions all intact), no thesis declaration, no pre-Ch-76 Grand-Sage hint.

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MAJORS (4) — all reveal-discipline, all fix-forward

M1 — Forger-name "Corr" name-checked UNATTRIBUTED in the combat facet across CH_40–44 (pre-Ch-63)

• Files/lines: docs/spine/CH_40.md:68, docs/spine/CH_41.md:65, docs/spine/CH_42.md:73, docs/spine/CH_43.md:59, docs/spine/CH_44.md:53
• Section: ## Everything-woven (the twelve facets, each a real presence, none name-checked) → the "Combat routes through…" facet.
• Failure: The forger "Corr" is attributed to the forced constructs ~20 chapters before the Ch-63 forger-reveal. Verbatim:
• CH_40:68 — "the Corr-forged forced nkondi FREED"
• CH_41:65 — "the single Corr-forged drill-wraith"
• CH_42:73 — "the Corr-bought baka coiled around the sacred presence"
• CH_43:59 — "the crew's Corr-forged bound haint"
• CH_44:53 — "the Corr-forged bound oath-wraiths guarding the vault"
• Why confirmed: This is the exact failure the standing memory note reflesh-combat-facet-corr-leak records (previously caught + fixed at CH_48, which now has 0 hits) and that FABLE5_HANDOFF.md:49 reaffirms ("Corr unattributed before Ch 63"). The design/encounter bullets in the SAME files correctly carry Corr WITH the flag (e.g. CH_40:107 lists "the Corr-forged FORCED nkondi (S4)" inside the flagged escalation bullet; the reveal_state bullets hold the chain "dark before any single head"), proving the files draw the design-layer-vs-facet distinction the finding depends on — so the facet lines are genuine leaks, not permitted design-layer statements. Adjacent chapters isolate the regression: CH_39:100 and CH_45:73 name Corr ONLY inside flagged "(deployed UNATTRIBUTED)… resolves at Ch 63" design bullets; CH_48 has zero Corr hits. Gate-invisible; a downstream author could lift the facet summary into prose.
• Refined fix: In the five COMBAT facet lines only, replace the attributed name with the canonical safe register:
• CH_40:68 "the Corr-forged forced nkondi FREED" → "the family's forced nkondi FREED"
• CH_41:65 "the single Corr-forged drill-wraith" → "a single forced drill-wraith"
• CH_42:73 "the Corr-bought baka coiled around the sacred presence" → "the family's bought baka coiled around the sacred presence"
• CH_43:59 "the crew's Corr-forged bound haint" → "the crew's forced bound haint"
• CH_44:53 "the Corr-forged bound oath-wraiths guarding the vault" → "the family's forced bound oath-wraiths guarding the vault"

Leave the attributed "Corr" untouched in the design/encounter bullets already carrying the "(deployed UNATTRIBUTED)… resolves at Ch 63" flag (CH_39:100, CH_40:107, CH_45:73 are correct — do NOT touch). Then grep \bCorr\b over CH_39–62 body/facet sections and confirm every remaining hit is a flagged design bullet, 0 name-checked facet hits.

M2 — CH_04 body prose closes with a narrator FORWARD-HINT of the pattern (pre-Ch-38)

• File/line: docs/spine/CH_04.md:28 (under ## Body prose, player-facing)
• Failure — verbatim: "A small lesson that will matter enormously later, when the same quiet editing hand is far larger than one unwitting artist or one island."
• Why confirmed: Player-facing pre-Ch-38 prose asserts a single continuous agent ("the SAME quiet editing hand"), forecasts its arc-spanning growth ("will matter enormously LATER… FAR LARGER than… one island"), and uses the flagged agent-noun "hand" — the exact who-frame the memory note bans ("not yet a single hand"). "one island" pushes it past the chapter boundary into pattern-territory. It contradicts the chapter's own header (line 3: "no House-of-Velheim name/family/pattern") and breaks show-don't-tell (no forward hint of a later antagonist). A pre-refinement survival, same class as the RR-32 finds.
• Refined fix: Delete the forward-hint sentence; end the paragraph on the in-chapter lesson ("…to reveal a truth to the one person it will wound."). If a closing beat is wanted, keep it strictly in-chapter with no agent-noun and no forward valence — e.g. "A first, hard lesson in seeing what steers an art from behind its own screen." The literal shadow-play phrasing "another face hides behind a screen" / "the shape of the thing that moves it" may stay (a literal shadow-screen + a legitimate in-chapter certification reveal), but as defense-in-depth optionally soften "another face hides behind a screen" to the certification apparatus without a hidden-agent valence. Re-grep the body for hand/face/shape agent-nouns before commit.

M3 — CH_15 body prose asserts a recurring external will animating the antagonist-vessel (pre-Ch-38)

• File/line: docs/spine/CH_15.md:30 (under ## Body prose, player-facing)
• Failure — verbatim: "…that the same old will to unmake a world and remake it as one voice is moving through him, in a shape she has met before and cannot yet place." (preceded by "he is not acting only for himself")
• Why confirmed: Three violations in one sentence — (a) "he is not acting only for himself" asserts an external agency behind the vessel; (b) "the same old will… is moving through him" asserts a RECURRING supra-personal will animating a vessel (the pattern itself; the Aten cult is new, so the "old will" is not his theology); (c) "in a shape she has met before" is nearly verbatim the flagged forbidden construction "a version she has met before." The "cannot yet place" hedge does not defuse it — the Session-12 rule bans invoking-and-negating the who-frame outright. The chapter's own notes forbid exactly this (line 3: player "never given… the family pattern"; line 40: meaning "never shown to the player as a pattern"). Distinct from the sanctioned serpent/dragon recurrence at line 28.
• Refined fix: Rewrite the third sentence to hold in-chapter unease with no agent-noun, no vessel-language, no cross-chapter recurrence. Delete "he is not acting only for himself," "the same old will… is moving through him," and "she has met before." Replace with e.g.: "She can feel, at the edge of the new sight, that the erasure is colder than one man's zeal — that the drive to reduce a world to a single enforced voice is a wrongness the new sight registers before she can name it." (If even a trailing "does not end with him" reads as network-implying, omit it.) Then grep this and adjacent pre-Ch-38 chapters for the who-frame set (\bhand\b as agent, "not acting only", "moving through", "met before", "same old", "one hand", "old play", "a version").

M4 — CH_23 body prose invokes recurrence + directed cross-civilizational agency (pre-Ch-38)

• File/line: docs/spine/CH_23.md:28 (under ## Body prose, player-facing)
• Failure — verbatim: "She feels, in it, a wish she has met before — the quiet editing of what a civilization is allowed to know, the curation of what a people may keep — reaching now into the Greek mind itself and into the great library it points toward."
• Why confirmed: Two independent leaks: (1) "a wish she has met before" is a structural match to the banned "a version she has met" — a personified unified intention "met before," i.e. recurrence across prior chapters; (2) "reaching now into the Greek mind itself and into the great library it points toward" asserts a single force moving across civilizations (Levant → Greece → Alexandria/Ch 27) — pattern assembly. It reproduces almost verbatim the file's own permitted DESIGN-LAYER Thread-3 statement (line 40, "the same editing hand felt in the Levant reaching into the Greek mind and toward the great library") — legitimate at the design layer, a leak in player-facing body prose. Violates the file's governance (line 3 "felt and never named… only as unease… stays at the L3/design layer"; line 119 "no pre-Ch-38 pattern assembly"). The "it names nothing" defense fails against the Session-12 refinement (unnamed-but-agentive recurrence still leaks).
• Refined fix: Confine the unease to THIS Hierophant and THIS place — strip both the recurrence claim AND the cross-civilizational directed reach. Recast with no agent-noun, no "before"/recurrence, and no single-force reach: e.g. "She feels, in it, a corruption sharper than one man's greed — the deliberate narrowing of what a people are allowed to keep, worked here on the one rite that was never meant to be sold." Surface the Library of Alexandria as a separately-opened quest-lead (which line 3 / line 207 already sanction as "an opened quest-thread"), NOT as something a recurring "wish" is "reaching toward." Note: the earlier proposed replacement ("a coldness she has felt… before… here at work in the Greek mind and the library it points toward") is INSUFFICIENT — it retains both a recurrence phrase and the forward reach; use the fully-confined version.

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MINORS (1)

m1 — Reveal-window residue: LINK_0145 pins "Cassius confrontation" to Ch 74 (should be Ch 76 post re-map)

• Files/lines: registries/T0_Cross_Cultural_Link_Graph [DRAFT v0.1]/Sheet1.csv:146 (LINK_0145), echoed in docs/spine/CH_42.md:71 ("the Ch 74 Unity chain the whole structure runs toward (LINK_0145)"), sourced to T1_Threads_22_Master_References [ACTIVE v2.2] §4 Weaving 20.
• Failure: LINK_0145's free-text gloss reads "theological-sophistication chain at Cassius confrontation" with WEAVING_20:CH_74 and node CH_74. After the session-16/task-#56 re-map (commit 369d82c, "Cassius Ch74→76"), Cassius's confrontation is Ch 76 — so "Cassius confrontation" pinned to Ch 74 is a stale residue.
• Why only MINOR (not MAJOR): The T1 source doc it mirrors explicitly supports a distinct "Ch 74 theological-sophistication chain" beat that "carries forward to the Ch 76-77 waterfall resolution" — so the Ch-74 reference itself is grounded, and the registry note is framework-level ("Framework-level only per CVD §15/§18: no resolution content, no Grand Sage hints"), not player-facing body prose. Crucially, the same file's design reveal_state is CORRECT: CH_42.md:198 holds "Cassius held for Ch 76, the thesis held for Ch 77," and every other reveal_state note across CH_39/40/41/65/68/70/71/77 correctly reads Ch 76 / Ch 77. Only the "at Cassius confrontation" phrase pins Cassius to Ch 74.
• Refined fix (verify, don't auto-rewrite the T1 numbering): In LINK_0145's gloss, decouple "Cassius confrontation" from Ch 74 — keep Ch 74 as the theological-sophistication beat if the T1 doc intends it, but reword so the Cassius confrontation reads Ch 76 (e.g. "…chain feeding the Ch 76 Cassius confrontation and the Ch 76-77 waterfall"). Confirm against T1_Threads_22_Master_References §4 Weaving 20 whether §4 was updated in the re-map; align CH_42:71 to the same wording. Adjudicate as a hygiene pass since it touches the T1 threads doc's canonical numbering — no player-facing leak, no gate impact.

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4. Fix queue

Fix-forward before the Fable-5 handoff (BLOCKERs + MAJORs)

Ordered by blast radius; all are surgical string edits to the canonical safe register — no new canon, no Josh ruling required.

1. M1 — Corr facet leak (5 edits): CH_40:68, CH_41:65, CH_42:73, CH_43:59, CH_44:53. Swap Corr-forged/Corr-bought <X> → the family's forced/bought <X>. Leave flagged design bullets untouched.

2. M2 — CH_04:28 forward-hint: delete the "will matter enormously later… one island" sentence.

3. M3 — CH_15:30 recurring-will: delete "he is not acting only for himself" + "the same old will… moving through him" + "she has met before"; replace per §3.

4. M4 — CH_23:28 cross-civilizational reach: confine to THIS Hierophant/place; Library becomes a separate quest-lead.

5. Gate after fixing: re-run grep \bCorr\b over CH_39–62 (expect 0 name-checked facet hits, only flagged design bullets) AND grep the pre-Ch-38 body prose (CH_02–37) for the who-frame set (\bhand\b as agent · "not acting only" · "moving through" · "met before" · "same old" · "a version" · "an old play" · "one hand" · "editing hand") to catch any sibling pre-refinement survivor before commit-as-final. M2/M3/M4 are pre-refinement survivals of the same class RR-32 caught, so treat this as a full pre-Ch-38 reveal-window re-sweep, not four isolated edits.

Safe to defer (MINORs / known batch-deferrals)

• m1 — LINK_0145 "Cassius confrontation at Ch 74" residue: batch into the fix pass if touching CH_42 anyway, else defer to a registry/T1-hygiene verify sweep. No player-facing leak, no gate impact; needs a light adjudication against T1_Threads_22 §4 (framework numbering).
• Chapter_Index narrative lag (CH_39–59 combat_framing/compliance/dual_track free-text): the known WS4-reflesh batch-deferral tracked in REVEAL_WINDOW_REALIGNMENT.md — refresh only the landing node, do NOT NO-GO on it. Out of scope for this gate.

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5. Handoff-readiness

The spine is handoff-ready for Fable-5 once the four reveal-discipline MAJORs (M1–M4, all surgical safe-register swaps) are applied and the \bCorr\b + who-frame re-sweep returns 0 name-checked leaks across the pre-Ch-38 window and CH_39–62 facets; zero BLOCKERs, all locked counts and the 5 session-16 cardinal rulings verified intact, and the single MINOR (LINK_0145 Ch-74/Ch-76 residue) safe to batch or defer.

Generated by harness/site/structure_site.py — the URL path is the repo path. review root