diff --git a/PENDING.md b/PENDING.md
index 666d29e..b81ac3a 100644
--- a/PENDING.md
+++ b/PENDING.md
@@ -6849,3 +6849,27 @@ The control now reads all three registers at `##` and `###`, recognises `ADDENDU
  · **The per-conversion typography gate** — the ruling's "forward item, unconditioned": *"run per conversion… it becomes a wired gate that catches converter-version drift, per-file anomalies, and any future front-end's silent normalization — without anyone having to predict which converter might misbehave."* Not built; the gate list is `verify_conversion · verify_graduation · body_word_conservation · sidecar_gate`. **Its absence is exactly why `verify_conversion` returned 5/5 on word-damaged output.** My run is an instance of the failure the jurist predicted 42 days before it happened.
 **Bundling error, corrected.** PENDING-177 as filed bundled a FIX with a PROPOSAL under one ID — the CLASS E defect PENDING-146 names (the open list's unit is the ID; the decidable unit is the item), which left a damage-reducing fix blocked behind a ruling it does not need. **Split, and the FIX has landed:** `pdf_textlayer` now carries `--pdf-backend pypdfium2 --image-export-mode placeholder`, since Q1 confirmed lane routing is declared data revisable without supersession, and the change strictly reduces damage and alters nothing a gate accepts. The runbook records, at the point of work, that the flag fix is **not** a censused adoption. What remains under -177 is the eligibility question alone.
 **Awaiting:** Jurist correction of the Q2 mechanism-boundary; steward direction on the two undischarged obligations. The Brown candidate stays staged either way.
+
+## PENDING-178 — The ladder trial counts the fool's chatter as sessions, so its trigger becomes satisfiable for the wrong reason
+**Date:** 2026-09-01
+**Tag:** [HARDENING]
+**Summary:** REVIEWED-95's falsifier and REVIEWED-123 condition 2 both count sessions by counting `*.jsonl` files in `~/.claude/projects/-Users-davidglidden` (`governance-drift-check.py:426,513`). Since 2026-08-25 that directory also receives one transcript per **Tarbuckle mumble** — a status-line-driven generation with one programmatic prompt and one line of output. **Enumerated 2026-09-01: the directory holds 54 files = 43 real sessions + 11 mumbles.** A mumble session cannot reach the verification ladder, cannot exhibit the behaviour the trial measures, and can only ever enter the denominator.
+
+**The defect is the counter's UNIT, and it is distinct from PENDING-147.** -147 names the *window* (30-day rolling, non-monotonic) and the *perishability* of the evidence; both are true and neither is this. Here the population has stopped being sessions. The consequence runs opposite to -147's finding (1): -147 argued the `>= 84` trigger was very likely **unsatisfiable** at ~1 session/day. Mumble transcripts accumulate in this directory whenever the steward works from the home cwd, so the trigger becomes **satisfiable — for the wrong reason.** The ladder freeze that REVIEWED-123 ruled as a bounded hold would then lift on a count that is, at time of filing, 11/54 machine chatter. **No rate and no time-to-fire are offered.** Both were asserted earlier today from a one-day reading and are withdrawn; they should stay withdrawn in the record. What is claimed is the composition of the count on the date of filing, enumerated across every project directory, not sampled.
+
+**A finding DECLINED, recorded here with its argument so it is not rediscovered as a defect.** `TRANSCRIPTS` is scoped to one of **eight** project directories; the machine holds **159** transcripts, and the two largest omitted directories are `--Dev-CapableMind-AI` (55) and `-dotfiles` (45). That is PENDING-171's predicate class — a path fragment standing in for the relation it claims to compute — at a second site, and it has the shape that gets filed. **It is not filed, because it is benign here: 43 of the 44 real sessions ever recorded are in the scoped directory** (the omitted 114 are 115 mumbles less the one real scratchpad session). "The trial sees 34% of the population" is true of *files* and misleading about *sessions*, and stating it without the second sentence would overstate the defect. Recorded as a near-miss so the next reader does not have to re-derive the reason for the silence.
+
+**Options:**
+- **(a) Nothing.** The trigger fires early on a diluted count; the freeze lifts on a number nobody meant.
+- **(b) Filter by shape at the counting site** — exclude transcripts whose first `user` record is the mumble prompt. Cheap, and the predicate is the fool's own prompt text, which will drift.
+- **(c) Write mumble transcripts somewhere else**, so the projects directory means sessions again. Touches the fool's wiring, which is `dotfiles`, on behalf of a governance instrument — the coupling PENDING-152 already notes.
+- **(d) Re-express the trigger over a monotonic counter maintained by wake/wrap** — PENDING-147's option (ii), which fixes unit and window together and makes both items discharge on one act.
+
+**Recommendation: (d).** It is the only option that leaves the counter meaning what the ruling needs it to mean rather than repairing the current mismeasurement, and it discharges PENDING-147 (2) in the same act. (b) is the fastest and would do, but it encodes today's fool in a governance gate.
+
+**⚠ NOT BUNDLED, deliberately — there is a SECOND, independent finding about the same mechanism and it is not this item.** Of Tarbuckle's 102 terminal generator results, **54 were rejected against 41 spoken (57%)**, the rejection pile-up sits at **14 words against a `MAX_WORDS` of 9**, and one line returned at 196 words. A generator and its gate disagree systematically and the gate wins without a surfaced record. That is a separate decidable unit; merging it here would reproduce the CLASS E defect PENDING-146 names. **It is unfiled by the steward's cap on this thread, not overlooked, and this sentence is the record that it exists.**
+
+**⚠ Provenance of the numbers.** All counts enumerated 2026-09-01 from `~/.claude/projects/*/` and `~/.claude/state/tarbuckle-{draws,rejects,invocations}.jsonl`. Earlier figures given to the steward in the same session — a "wiring day" attribution, an "~8/day" rate, and a "197 reached the generator" — were **wrong and are withdrawn**; the first was corrected by the steward, the last by the steward's observation that the numbers did not close. `tarbuckle-draws.jsonl` mixes two schemas in one field (`aside`/`notable` are routing hand-offs, not terminal outcomes), which is what produced the third error.
+
+**Files affected:** `scripts/governance-drift-check.py` (`TRANSCRIPTS`, `trigger_fired`); whichever surface a monotonic counter is written from under (d).
+**Awaiting:** Steward authorization.
diff --git a/claude/governance/thread-query-log.jsonl b/claude/governance/thread-query-log.jsonl
index 01ef7e6..4744bd8 100644
--- a/claude/governance/thread-query-log.jsonl
+++ b/claude/governance/thread-query-log.jsonl
@@ -4,3 +4,4 @@
 {"date": "2026-08-26", "thread": "the §5 regrade gate — the control on the jurist's step 2 result is already degraded and decays with every exposure; blind grading, contaminated control, whether to run it or record it as degraded", "terms": ["regrade", "gate", "control", "jurist's", "step", "result", "already", "degraded", "decays", "every", "exposure", "blind", "grading", "contaminated", "whether", "record"], "candidates": 689, "returned": [{"path": "~/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~md~obsidian/Documents/David, root-and-branch/00. Compass/00b. Constellations/Animal Rationis Capax/99. Archives—Previous Iterations/99. The Chamber/00. Core Foundation/complete-amphitheatre/hermetic/ibn-arabi-artificial-divine-intelligence.md", "date": "1230-01-01", "matched": ["every", "blind", "whether"]}, {"path": "~/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~md~obsidian/Documents/David, root-and-branch/08. Notes/Books.app highlights/The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck  A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life.md", "date": "2025-04-20", "matched": ["control", "step", "result", "already", "every", "blind", "whether", "record"]}, {"path": "~/.claude/projects/-Users-davidglidden/memory/session-ledger-2026-07-04.md", "date": "2026-07-04", "matched": ["gate", "jurist's", "step", "result", "already", "every", "blind", "grading", "contaminated", "record"]}, {"path": "~/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~md~obsidian/Documents/David, root-and-branch/08. Notes/Books.app highlights/Concerning the Spiritual in Art.md", "date": "2025-04-20", "matched": ["step", "result", "already", "every", "blind", "whether"]}, {"path": "~/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~md~obsidian/Documents/David, root-and-branch/08. Notes/Books.app highlights/The Shape of a Pocket.md", "date": "2025-04-20", "matched": ["control", "step", "result", "already", "every", "blind", "whether", "record"]}]}
 {"date": "2026-08-27", "thread": "the 270 uncounted census candidates — the backlog of decisions that never reached the authorization record", "terms": ["uncounted", "census", "candidates", "backlog", "decisions", "never", "reached", "authorization", "record"], "candidates": 388, "returned": [{"path": "~/.claude/projects/-Users-davidglidden/memory/session-ledger-2026-06-09.md", "date": "2026-06-09", "matched": ["census", "backlog", "decisions", "never", "authorization", "record"]}, {"path": "~/.claude/projects/-Users-davidglidden/memory/session-ledger-2026-04-24.md", "date": "2026-04-24", "matched": ["candidates", "decisions", "reached", "authorization", "record"]}, {"path": "~/.claude/projects/-Users-davidglidden/memory/session-ledger-2026-07-05.md", "date": "2026-07-05", "matched": ["census", "backlog", "decisions", "never", "authorization", "record"]}, {"path": "~/.claude/projects/-Users-davidglidden/memory/session-2026-05-25-arc-stage-f-gamma-and-l1-test-real-history-findings.md", "date": "2026-05-25", "matched": ["decisions", "never", "reached", "authorization", "record"]}, {"path": "~/.claude/projects/-Users-davidglidden/memory/session-2026-06-04-arc-stage-n-closed-gloss-now-published.md", "date": "2026-06-04", "matched": ["census", "decisions", "never", "authorization", "record"]}]}
 {"date": "2026-08-31", "thread": "the 270 uncounted census candidates — decisions that never reached the governance record; prior-art enumeration and register silence", "terms": ["uncounted", "census", "candidates", "decisions", "never", "reached", "governance", "record", "prior-art", "enumeration", "register", "silence"], "candidates": 472, "returned": [{"path": "~/.claude/projects/-Users-davidglidden/memory/session-2026-06-04-evening-whisper-migration-ikb-english-enforcement.md", "date": "2026-06-04", "matched": ["census", "decisions", "never", "governance", "record", "enumeration", "register", "silence"]}, {"path": "~/.claude/projects/-Users-davidglidden/memory/session-ledger-2026-04-24.md", "date": "2026-04-24", "matched": ["candidates", "decisions", "reached", "governance", "record", "register", "silence"]}, {"path": "~/.claude/projects/-Users-davidglidden/memory/session-ledger-2026-07-19.md", "date": "2026-07-19", "matched": ["census", "candidates", "never", "governance", "record", "enumeration", "register", "silence"]}, {"path": "~/.claude/projects/-Users-davidglidden/memory/session-2026-05-17-stage-d-matrix-three-masters-questions-sources-section.md", "date": "2026-05-17", "matched": ["candidates", "decisions", "never", "record", "enumeration", "register", "silence"]}, {"path": "~/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~md~obsidian/Documents/David, root-and-branch/08. Notes/Children/01. Lune/The necessary distance.md", "date": "2025-07-30", "matched": ["never", "reached", "record", "silence"]}]}
+{"date": "2026-09-01", "thread": "the 322 unread prior-art census candidates: which mechanism decisions never reached the governance register, and what criterion decides which SHOULD have", "terms": ["unread", "prior-art", "census", "candidates", "mechanism", "decisions", "never", "reached", "governance", "register", "criterion", "decides", "should"], "candidates": 503, "returned": [{"path": "~/.claude/projects/-Users-davidglidden/memory/session-ledger-2026-04-18.md", "date": "2026-04-18", "matched": ["candidates", "mechanism", "decisions", "never", "governance", "register", "should"]}, {"path": "~/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~md~obsidian/Documents/David, root-and-branch/06. Projects/Cabaret/Cabaret Project — Founding Document.md", "date": "2026-04-04", "matched": ["candidates", "mechanism", "decisions", "never", "governance", "register", "decides", "should"]}, {"path": "~/.claude/projects/-Users-davidglidden/memory/session-ledger-2026-06-05.md", "date": "2026-06-05", "matched": ["unread", "census", "mechanism", "decisions", "never", "governance", "register"]}, {"path": "~/.claude/projects/-Users-davidglidden/memory/session-2026-06-06-evening-arc-renderings-imprint-be-laundromat.md", "date": "2026-06-06", "matched": ["census", "candidates", "mechanism", "decisions", "never", "register", "criterion", "should"]}, {"path": "~/.claude/projects/-Users-davidglidden/memory/session-ledger-2026-04-27.md", "date": "2026-04-27", "matched": ["candidates", "mechanism", "decisions", "never", "register", "criterion", "should"]}]}
diff --git a/claude/memory/session-ledger-2026-09-01.md b/claude/memory/session-ledger-2026-09-01.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..987639c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/claude/memory/session-ledger-2026-09-01.md
@@ -0,0 +1,75 @@
+---
+name: Session Ledger 2026-09-01
+description: Practice-of-return ledger maintained by /symmetria — returns, open horizons, recalibrations, authorization moves, sub-agent dialogues, bypasses.
+type: feedback
+---
+
+# Session Ledger — 2026-09-01
+
+## Returns
+
+- **2026-09-01T08:5x — Did not accept the wake digest's own report at face value.** `LAST SESSION
+  [control c] — NO HUMAN TURN … That session ran unattended. PENDING-172.` Opened the transcript
+  (`435f1368`) before repeating it. It is a **Tarbuckle mumble**: 12 records, one programmatic
+  prompt, one line out. Unattended *by design*. The control's predicate is true and its inference
+  is wrong for a class PENDING-172 never contemplated. ⚠ Had I relayed the digest line, the
+  briefing would have opened with a false second-unattended-executor alarm.
+- **2026-09-01T08:5x — Did not report N-now by relay.** MEMORY.md carries the instruction to
+  re-measure rather than relay (REVIEWED-123 cond. 2). Measured: **54**. Then asked what the +10
+  was made of instead of reporting the delta.
+
+
+- **2026-09-01T09:1x — RETURN: the steward corrected the wake's central finding, and the correction held.**
+  I attributed the mumble burst to "yesterday was the wiring day." **Wrong — Tarbuckle was wired
+  2026-08-25** (`6f0ccde`…`97a0cb3`, 16:15–19:13). My projection *"at ~8/day the trigger fires in
+  ~4 days"* was built on that error and is withdrawn.
+  ⚠ **And my session-per-day table was an artifact of looking in ONE project directory.** I wrote
+  "no sessions 08-28 to 08-30"; `tarbuckle-invocations.jsonl` records 144/99/370 statusline ticks
+  on those days. There are **8 project dirs and 159 transcripts**; the mumble spawns its session in
+  the cwd of whatever session it decorates.
+- **What the correction did NOT do is dissolve the finding.** Measured across all 8 dirs:
+  **115 of 159 transcripts are mumbles (72%); only 44 are real sessions, ever.**
+
+## What held
+
+- Read *both* 2026-08-31 session records rather than the newest (PENDING-174's condition — two
+  live records for one date, neither superseding).
+- Ran `thread-query` on the actual thread and reported the **null** result as a result, per the
+  pre-registered trial's own terms, instead of quietly dropping a step that found nothing.
+- Read the uncommitted `REVIEWED.md` diff before characterising it; did not stage, commit or
+  touch it (constitutional file; the wake reads, it does not mutate).
+
+## Open horizons
+
+1. **The thread — the 322.** Blocked-by-choice on PENDING-171 (population is 362, not the
+   frozen-list 270+). Next draw must be *systematic*, never the head.
+2. **The N-counter contamination** (below) — not filed. Needs a PENDING or a steward word.
+3. FIX-lane check-in, `COME DUE` day 30 — gates PENDING-173's build and the typography gate.
+4. `PENDING-177` marked BUILT with no REVIEWED entry naming it.
+5. §5 regrade gate — untouched a **sixth** session. Recorded, not dropped.
+
+## Confidence to recalibrate
+
+- 🔑 **CORRECTED, and sharper than the first reading.** The trial's `TRANSCRIPTS` glob
+  (`governance-drift-check.py:426`) sees only `-Users-davidglidden` = **54 = 43 real + 11 mumble**.
+  ⚠ **The directory scoping is NEARLY HARMLESS and I must not overstate it**: 43 of the 44 real
+  sessions ever recorded are in that dir. "It sees 34% of the population" is true of *files* and
+  misleading about *sessions*. It is PENDING-171's predicate class at a second site, benign here —
+  a near-miss to record, not a defect to file.
+  **The live defect is the unit.** 11 of 54 (20%, rising) are machine chatter that cannot reach the
+  ladder. PENDING-147 argued the trigger was probably *unsatisfiable*; the mumble makes it
+  satisfiable **for the wrong reason** — the freeze will lift on a count part fool-chatter.
+  Confidence **high**: enumerated across every project dir, not sampled.
+
+- **Inherited, not re-verified:** the 362 / 89-unseen figures (morning session's measurement) and
+  the REVIEWED-131 §4 authorship (mtime 08:45 + steward's file ⇒ *reads as* the steward's hand;
+  **not established**).
+
+## Authorization moves
+
+- Nothing filed. Two items *identified* as owing a filing (N-counter unit; the control-c class
+  gap) and deliberately left unfiled at wake — filing is work, and the wake reads.
+
+## Sub-agent dialogues
+
+## Bypasses