PENDING-88: skill-harvest has no FIX lane; register 166KB over read cap (151 PROPOSED / 26 BUILT)

PENDING.md

@@ -587,3 +587,14 @@ Q1, Q4, Q5 affirmed as filed; **Q4 on stronger grounds than argued** (REVIEWED-7
 **Recommendation:** (a), with (b) live. (c) is refused: it would leave the stamp attesting an order it never measured, which is the false-ABSTAIN shape PENDING-55 named — *a false ABSTAIN is as much a lie as a false PASS*. The evidence is strong enough to argue the mechanical route is feasible and weak enough that it does not yet earn ratification: the corruption is simulated by block-reversing docling's own output, the sample is 11 books at 40 interior pages rather than a census, and the executor's own synthetic-fixture prediction that real two-column books would false-flag was **refuted by measurement** and is corrected in the package.
 **Files affected:** none mutated. Package drafted at `chamber-library/docs/order-attestation-JURIST-PACKAGE-2026-07-29.md` (30/30 quoted passages verified by mechanical containment, positive and negative controls passing). All instruments scratchpad-only, wired to nothing. If ratified: a MINOR supersession of §Tiering & Fence + `graduation-spec.yaml` `order_attestation:` as declared data.
 **Awaiting:** Jurist design gate, then steward authorization.
+
+## PENDING-88 — The skill-harvest loop has no FIX lane, and its surface has outgrown its own readability
+**Date:** 2026-07-29
+**Tag:** [PROPOSAL]
+**Summary:** `/wrap-up` §1.6 requires that skill changes be *proposed only* — "never create, patch, or retire a skill autonomously at wrap" — with no change-class distinction, so a template gaining a section and a change to an authorization boundary are governed identically; the resulting queue is **151 PROPOSED against 26 BUILT + 13 AUTHORIZED**, oldest open batch **2026-06-05**, in a register now **166 KB — over the read cap**, which means the `/wake-up` step that exists to surface open proposals **cannot read them**.
+**Rationale:** This is not the contamination mitigation working as designed; it is a flattening of the ratified taxonomy. `~/CLAUDE.md` already rules the question directly: *"Claude Code improving its own diagnostic capability is not self-modification — it is the system doing what it was built to do. The steward remains in the loop through `[PROPOSAL]` and `[ESCALATE]` tags."* The taxonomy it names has a FIX lane — *"[FIX] Resolves a scoped bug against existing specification · Requires: Nothing — implement directly"* — and §1.6 does not use it. The cost is now measurable and compounding: proposals are not rejected, they are **filed into a file neither party can read**, and the mechanism meant to bring them to the steward has failed silently since the 2026-07-22 tripwire. The steward's own statement of intent (2026-07-29): *"I never meant to forbid that as long as I was made aware of what needed to be improved and why. In fact, I need you to be able to do so — I cannot think of everything."* Note also the shape of what is stuck: today's four proposals (a `## What held` ledger section, a `prevention` KG predicate, one line at the wake, a reframed standing question) change **what gets recorded**, not what the executor may do — the class most starved by a blanket gate, and the class whose absence produced the "ledger of failure" the steward named tonight.
+**Options:** (a) status quo — everything stays PROPOSAL; (b) **a change-class test for tooling, mirroring the chamber's ratified one** (*"does this change what any gate accepts?"*): **does this change what the executor may do without asking, or what a governed artifact asserts?** NO → **FIX**: apply it, and report it in the wrap with what changed and why, plus a provenance comment in the skill source. YES → PROPOSAL, unchanged; (c) (b) plus a standing **hard floor** that remains PROPOSAL/ESCALATE regardless of class; (d) compact the register (owed since 2026-07-22) with no rule change.
+**Recommendation:** **(c), and (d) regardless of the rule decision** — the unreadable register is a mechanical defect breaking the loop today, independent of who may change what. The hard floor must be explicit and is the part the steward should scrutinise hardest: anything touching `~/CLAUDE.md` / `~/REVIEWED.md` / L2 constitutional documents (Constraint #1); anything altering an authorization boundary, a gate's acceptance, or the loop itself; anything touching logchain append / cursor persistence / module registration (Constraint #2); and — the one most relevant to this item — **anything that would reduce what gets surfaced to the steward**, since pre-filtering for comfort is the named contamination failure and a self-granted FIX lane is exactly where it would appear.
+**Files affected:** `~/.claude/skills/wrap-up/SKILL.md` §1.6; `~/.claude/skills/wake-up/SKILL.md` §2.a (the register read that currently cannot complete); `skill-harvest-register.md` (compaction).
+**Executor's declared interest, stated because it is disqualifying if unstated:** this item would loosen a constraint on the executor, proposed by the executor, immediately after the steward invited it. That is the exact condition under which the contamination problem predicts an answer shaped to please. Mitigations taken: the recommendation *adds* a hard floor rather than only removing a gate; the FIX lane carries a mandatory **report**, so awareness is preserved by disclosure rather than by permission; and this is filed as `[PROPOSAL]` and **not implemented**, though under its own proposed test the question of whether the executor may change a skill is plainly PROPOSAL-class and would remain so.
+**Awaiting:** Steward authorization.