diff --git a/PENDING-archive.md b/PENDING-archive.md
index 2b90692..5baaf89 100644
--- a/PENDING-archive.md
+++ b/PENDING-archive.md
@@ -4115,6 +4115,7 @@ Named here so that a later reader looking for the correlation datum does not go
        existed. Disclosed rather than left for the reader to discover.
        ⚠ Same date as mumble-rate-two-week-report, deliberately: one reading, one
        deletion, one occasion.
+     resolved: 2026-09-09 — corpus deleted per REVIEWED-128 cond. 2 as scoped by REVIEWED-136 AMD 1 cond. F, after the content-free statistics were banked under cond. A (commit 3d45e3a). The WRITER was also made inert per cond. G; what replaces it is filed open.
 -->
 
 ### AMENDMENT 3 — 2026-08-25 — ⚖ STEWARD DECISION: option 1. The item closes. **Ruled: REVIEWED-129.**
diff --git a/PENDING.md b/PENDING.md
index d203b9a..e41f17f 100644
--- a/PENDING.md
+++ b/PENDING.md
@@ -3066,6 +3066,7 @@ Link 1 to link 4 directly. **The trial built to test whether a fool could reach
        this CONVERTED to `date 2026-09-08` on 2026-08-25, the day the body shipped
        (6f0ccde), exactly as this discriminator instructed. The clock could not start
        before the body existed; it has started.
+     resolved: 2026-09-09 — the fortnight report at claude/governance/tarbuckle-fortnight/REPORT-2026-09-09.md, produced under REVIEWED-136's measure/verdict split (commit 3d45e3a). Rate reported with denominators named inline; the pre-marker 7 draws discarded and said so. The four VERDICTS are reserved to a later sitting and are NOT discharged by this.
 -->
 
 *(Filed as a tracked deferral rather than left in prose. §8 already obliges this report and had no trigger — the class PENDING-158 was authorized against today. Deliberately `manual`: inventing a date before the clock can start would be the proxy the schema's own comment warns against.)*
@@ -4203,4 +4204,35 @@ chk(f"a real session reads as WRAPPED end-to-end  [{_v.count('wrapped')} of {len
 **Recommendation: (c) then (b) then (a).** The polarity finding predicts siblings, and repairing the one found before knowing how many exist would be the instance-not-class error the executor directives name. ⚠ The census must state what it cannot see: a needle assembled from parts in a *defective* control is indistinguishable from a correct one by grep, so the sweep bounds the problem from below.
 
 **Files affected:** `~/dotfiles/scripts/tarbuckle-seam.py:164`; a new helper beside `source_lacks()` in `tarbuckle-mumble.py` under (b); whatever (c) surfaces.
+**⚠ THE CLASSIFICATION IS DEFERRED, AND THE DEFERRAL BINDS THE FORM OF THE RULING RATHER THAN AWAITING ONE.** Whether this is a fifth *instance* or a third *occurrence* of the second instance is not decided here, deliberately: deciding it inside a filing would be CLASS E arriving in the item about to be ruled, with the drafting hand choosing the unit that suits its number. **The constraint on PENDING-168's ruling is therefore procedural: it must state WHICH UNIT it counts in — named instances, or occurrences — BEFORE it states a number.** A ruling that gives a count without its unit is not to be read as having settled the count. Recorded as a deferral so it cannot resolve itself in whichever direction next week's drafting prefers.
+
+<!-- DEFERRED-DECISION: pending-168-count-unit-declared
+     since: 2026-09-09
+     trigger: text-present REVIEWED.md — PENDING-168 —
+     owner: steward
+     discriminator: PENDING-168's doctrine is stated at a strength its instance count
+       carries. The count has no agreed unit: four NAMED INSTANCES, one of which
+       ("the self-planted needle") already covers TWO occurrences, and PENDING-180
+       adds a third occurrence of that same instance. Five occurrences became six;
+       the named-instance count stayed four. Both readings are defensible and they
+       give different numbers, which is the CLASS E defect PENDING-146 names.
+       ⚠ THIS TRIGGER FIRES ON THE RULING, WHICH IS AFTER THE FACT BY DESIGN — it is
+       a check that the constraint was honoured, not a gate that enforces it. When it
+       fires, read the ruling and confirm it declared its unit before its number. If
+       it did not, the count it states is unestablished and the doctrine's strength
+       claim rests on an unagreed denominator.
+       ⚠ NEEDLE TESTED AT FILING, after the first one fired vacuously. The bare string
+       "PENDING-168" was the first choice and it already occurs 3x in REVIEWED.md from
+       REVIEWED-136's own text, so it came due the instant it was written — the exact
+       defect this item reports, committed inside it. The needle is now the em-dash
+       ruling-header form, verified absent (0 occurrences) at filing.
+       ⚠ WHAT THIS NEEDLE CANNOT SEE, stated rather than left to be discovered: the
+       register writes rulings in at least four header forms — 80 em-dash, 3
+       parenthetical, 1 joint, 1 slash, censused 2026-09-06. A ruling filed as
+       "REVIEWED-N (PENDING-168)" will NOT fire this trigger. text-present takes one
+       needle and cannot be OR-ed, so the majority form is chosen and the gap is
+       disclosed. Silence from this trigger is therefore weak evidence, not proof the
+       ruling has not landed.
+-->
+
 **Awaiting:** Steward authorization. ⚠ **Nothing is blocked:** the control's vacuity costs nothing today, because the behaviour it failed to guard was verified behaviourally in the same sitting. What is time-sensitive is only that PENDING-168 not be ruled on an evidence base this item changes.