LOOP-RULES R12 denies a spelling the gate accepts, and points authors at a frozen archive #3368

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1. gHashTag commented on Sep 6, 2026

   

   gHashTag

   on Sep 6, 2026

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   Correction: the narrow rule I proposed also fails its control

   In the issue body above I wrote:

   The narrow rule that would work: fail a diff that adds a ## heading to docs/NOW.md, not one that touches it.

   Measured, and it does not work. The legitimate repair in the population — 458ec0bd6, which restores damaged entries in the archive — adds 3 ## heading lines:

   $ git show 458ec0bd6 -- docs/NOW.md | grep -cE "^\+## "
   3
   $ git show 458ec0bd6 -- docs/NOW.md | grep -cE "^\+[^+]"   # added lines
   89
   $ git show 458ec0bd6 -- docs/NOW.md | grep -cE "^-[^-]"    # removed
   25
   

   It re-adds headings whose bodies had been destroyed. So the "narrow" rule blocks exactly the edit the broad rule blocks, and my recommendation was wrong in the same direction twice.

   The other post-freeze commit, 505785011, adds 0 headings — so on the measured population of 2 the rule would fire 1 of 2, and the one it fires on is the legitimate one.

   No cheap textual rule separates "adds an entry" from "repairs an entry" here: both add headings, both add body lines, and the only difference is position (a prepend sits at the top) which is exactly the fragile coupling the one-file-per-entry layout was adopted to remove.

   So: no guard is shipped, and this is a measurement rather than caution. What is shipped instead is #3369, which removes the two stale instructions that could send an author to the archive in the first place. An author who ignores the banner on line 1 is not a population a grep can separate from a repairer.

   If the owner wants a guard anyway, the honest version is a human-readable allowlist — a commit trailer such as Archive-Repair: <reason> that the gate looks for — which puts the exception where the tool looks, the same shape as # tri:no-dispatch and # tri:cause-removed. That is a convention change, so it is not made unasked.
2. gHashTag

   added a commit that references this issue on Sep 6, 2026

   docs(loop): R12 denied a spelling the gate accepts (Refs #3368) (#3369)

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   4d2f936
3. gHashTag commented on Sep 6, 2026

   

   gHashTag

   on Sep 6, 2026

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   Implemented as the declared-exception form named at the end of my correction above: Archive-Repair: <reason> in the commit message, read by scripts/ci/now-sync-gate-diff.sh — the required check-now-freshness job.

   Six controls, all run against a scratch repository rather than reasoned about:

   case	expected	got
   PR edits docs/NOW.md, no trailer	refuse	exit 1, with the archive message
   PR edits it, trailer present	allow	exit 0, "under an Archive-Repair trailer"
   PR does not touch it	unchanged	exit 0
   trailer present but with no reason	refuse	exit 1
   push edits it, no trailer	refuse	exit 1
   push edits it, trailer present	allow	exit 0

   Historical control: 458ec0bd6, the legitimate repair, carries 0 Archive-Repair: trailers — so the guard would have refused it, which is correct. The point is not to permit that commit retroactively but to make reopening a frozen file a decision somebody signed.

   Blast radius: 2 commits in the 600 since the freeze touch docs/NOW.md. Every other PR is unaffected.

   My own probe was the broken instrument first: git reset --hard removed docs/now/, the entry file could not be written, and two cases failed on the presence check rather than on the guard. Fixed the harness, not the reading.
4. gHashTag

   added

   needs-boundaryNo '## Boundary' section, so the Queen can reserve nothing for it and no bee can take itNo '## Boundary' section, so the Queen can reserve nothing for it and no bee can take it

   on Sep 23, 2026
5. gHashTag commented on Sep 24, 2026

   

   gHashTag

   on Sep 24, 2026

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   A boundary drafted from the paths this issue already names, so a bee can take it. Nothing is reserved until this is in the issue body - the Queen reads the body, not comments. Check the paths first: a wrong boundary reserves files the work does not own.

   Boundary

   • .claude/skills/spec-first-ternary-nn.md
   • .github/workflows/issue-gate.yml
   • docs/NOW.md
   • docs/loop/LOOP-RULES.md
6. gHashTag

   removed

   needs-boundaryNo '## Boundary' section, so the Queen can reserve nothing for it and no bee can take itNo '## Boundary' section, so the Queen can reserve nothing for it and no bee can take it

   on Sep 24, 2026
7. github-actions commented on Oct 3, 2026

   

   github-actionsbot

   on Oct 3, 2026 – with GitHub Actions

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   Re-filed as #5708.

   An attempt claimed this issue on 2026-09-24 and left an empty branch. A dispatch row that has spent its retry ceiling is released once and then keeps its issue for good, which is the right rule for a third identical failure and the wrong outcome for an issue nobody ever attempted twice. The new issue carries the same work, the same boundary, and today's brief.

   Closing this one so the swarm can take the work again.
8. github-actions

   closed this as not plannedon Oct 3, 2026
9. gHashTag

   added a commit that references this issue on Oct 10, 2026

   salvage(queen-3368): commit what the turn left uncommitted

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   4f065e7