diff --git a/claude/memory/MEMORY.md b/claude/memory/MEMORY.md
index 6063281..2ad756f 100644
--- a/claude/memory/MEMORY.md
+++ b/claude/memory/MEMORY.md
@@ -72,16 +72,18 @@ permalink: claude-memory/memory
 - Chamber-typography — *tracker not yet established*; moves live in per-session memories (2026-05-11 →) + `project-chamber-cruft-restoration.md` + `project-chamber-typography-mining-plan-2026-05-15.md`.
 
 ## Active Session
-> 🔑 **THE BLOCK CAME BACK NOT PASSED, AND THE JURIST WAS RIGHT.** Six record-keeping items (110·145·146·108·144·139) went as one block; ruling filed verbatim BEFORE any act under it (PENDING-108 (c)'s ordering, first adoption — **and 108's own clock now starts on that package**). ⚠ **The package's frontmatter asserted *"the jurist has NO repository access"* — FALSE, and open `[ESCALATE]` PENDING-161 had said so two days earlier.** Third placement, in a document written for quotation. **It generated the architecture** — a relay of eleven quotations chosen because the reader was believed blind; it read eight items verbatim. All three conditions discharged.
-> ✅ **THE ANSWER KEY EXISTS — commit `3a33666` ALONE**, the pre-registration REVIEWED-122 cond. 1 ordered on 2026-08-17 and that did not exist for ten days. **Block-keyed: 120 blocks / 106 ids ⇒ 14 invisible as units**; "69 filtered items" is stale. ⚠ **Only 5 of 120 rows hand-read in the full sense; 115 owed.** 🔑 **Drafting it found `REVIEWED-127`'s header names TWO items (`PENDING-157 + PENDING-158 —`); `ruled_pendings` can't match across the ` + `, so it suppresses NOTHING — both are AUTHORIZED and still read OPEN, and both `Awaiting:` lines still ask for a ruling that is placed.**
-> ⚠ **THE JURIST DISSOLVED MY REASON FOR NOT DRAFTING IT:** *a hand-read key cannot pass by construction, because no parser produces its verdicts.* The risk is to the key's **scope**, not its verdicts; a finer key collapses into a coarser one, never the reverse. **I ran a census and used it to justify inaction** — inverting the doctrine the census was run under.
-> ✅ **MOVE 2 CLOSED AGAINST ITS OWN PREMISE — 5 runs, not 25.** 22 of 27 are apparatus (all 13 of Arendt's are **bibliography**). 🔑 **A blockquote in this corpus does NOT imply a second voice** — Mauss sets his own `N.B.` excursus that way; 4 of 5 are the host's first-person-plural prose. **Executing it as written would have stamped second-voice attribution onto Mauss's own argument in four places and read as coverage.** Two record defects: ADDENDUM 4's table sums to **24** against a stated **25**, and it **mis-cites REVIEWED-116** (15/blockquote where the ruling says **21/inline** — different number, opposite unit). Instrument `studium-engine/scripts/blockquote_census.py --selftest`, 7/7 both directions.
-> ⚠ **THE JURIST'S UNEXPLAINED ANOMALY WAS ME.** It reported two of its tools disagreeing on line numbers by exactly 23 and declined to explain it. **I inserted a 23-line note into PENDING-89 while it was reading.** Both tools were right about the file they read; they read different files. **The executor's filing silently corrupted the checker's view of the executor's filing.** → **PENDING-104 ADDENDUM 1.**
-> 📌 **STEWARD OWES:** **rule the block — as amended, or send it back** (the jurist would send it back and will draft the placeable REVIEWED block on request) — *the one thing that cannot proceed without you* · **un-exclude `/Volumes/on ice` in System Settings** (`tmutil` refuses whole volumes; **no completed TM backup to `BlockBuster Addendum` is verifiable**) · place REVIEWED-129's amendment · rule PENDING-160 + -168 · restart Claude Desktop · the §5 regrade ruling.
-> ⚠ **THE §5 REGRADE GATE IS NOW UNTOUCHED FOR A THIRD SESSION.** Recorded, not dropped.
-> ⚠ **THE 270 ARE UNTOUCHED FOR A SECOND DAY — and that is the finding, not the footnote.** Named at wake, excluded by name in the package's own scope boundary, unclaimed at wrap. **A genuinely full day is exactly what will be allowed to stand in for it.**
+> ✅ **THE 270 GOT READ — 40 of them, and the backlog is real.** PENDING-164 AMENDMENT 1's declared-owed classification pass ran, **pre-registered and committed ALONE (`5ba5842`) before any commit body was read.** Systematic sample: **12 of the 17 rows that decide about a mechanism name one the register NEVER mentions** — incl. a **log-chain spec** bump to v0.6 (`logchain` = a named constitutional constraint, 29 register mentions; `data-portability`/`ImportProvenance`/`import trust` = **0**), a whole session-memory protocol retired, and a stopgap env var retired by a plan that calls it a stopgap. **3 of the 5 RECORDED rows arrived 25/46/53 days LATE** — recovery, not routing. → **PENDING-164 AMENDMENT 2** (`1d46d48`).
+> 🔑 **THE POPULATION WAS NEVER 270 — IT IS 362, and the two biggest holes are the doctrine repo and the L1 repo.** `prior-art.py`'s `owned_repos()` tests remotes against a **fragment of the steward's account name**, so `CapableMind-AI` (35), `BetterMemories.io` (42) and `be` (12) are invisible. ⚠ **Both its positive controls are satisfied by the broken predicate** — third instance this month of a control encoding what was already expected. **Six of the twelve findings live in those repos.** → **PENDING-171**, open. ⚠ **Deliberately NOT repaired in-session** (it would change the pre-registered population); fix AFTER the result is read, not inside it.
+> 🔑 **THE HEAD OF A REVERSE-CHRONOLOGICAL CENSUS IS A SAMPLING FRAME, NOT EVIDENCE.** The literal inherited question — *the first 20* — returns **1**, and the pre-registration said in writing, in advance, that 1 there refutes nothing: 18 of 20 rows are `dotfiles` and **9 of 20 WRITE TO THE REGISTER IN THE SAME COMMIT**, so they cannot be silent by construction. Both samples reported rather than quietly substituting the better one. ⚠ **The prior wrap handed forward "first 20, in register order" as if it were well-defined. It is not.**
+> ⚠ **MY OWN PROBE RETURNED FIVE CONFIDENT FALSE ZEROES** (`grep -m8 -n -o ".\{0,70\}TERM.\{0,70\}"` matched nothing while looking like it had looked) — and for some minutes it read as *two instruments disagreeing about the register*, the shape this thread treats as a finding. **It was not one.** The next mismatch must not inherit the assumption that a mismatch is always meaningful.
+> ⚠ **THE JUDGEMENT IS EXPOSED, NOT HIDDEN: band 10–13, ruling 12.** Every term string is recorded so any verdict is re-runnable in one command and contestable on the term. The reading rule (an occurrence counts only if it is *about* the mechanism) moved four rows **in BOTH directions**.
+> 📌 **STEWARD OWES:** **rule the block — as amended, or send it back** (the jurist will draft the placeable REVIEWED block on request) — *the one thing that cannot proceed without you* · **un-exclude `/Volumes/on ice` in System Settings** (`tmutil` refuses whole volumes; **no completed TM backup to `BlockBuster Addendum` is verifiable**) · place REVIEWED-129's amendment · rule PENDING-160 · -168 · **-171** · restart Claude Desktop · the §5 regrade ruling.
+> ⚠ **THE §5 REGRADE GATE IS NOW UNTOUCHED FOR A FOURTH SESSION.** Recorded, not dropped.
+> ⚠ **322 of the 362 REMAIN UNREAD, and today refuses to extrapolate from 40.** The next tranche must be another *systematic* draw — never the head of the list.
 
-- [Session 2026-08-27 — the block came back, and the key finally got written](session-2026-08-27-the-block-came-back-and-the-key-got-written.md) — jurist ruled the block NOT PASSED and was right on all three counts; key drafted + committed `3a33666`; snapshot moved and proved; Move 2 closed against its premise. **NEXT: the first 20 of the 270 — `prior-art.py`, and the REGISTER-MENTION column is the signal.**
+- [Session 2026-08-31 — the 270 got read, and the population was wrong](session-2026-08-31-the-270-got-read-and-the-population-was-wrong.md) — the pulling thread named at two consecutive wraps, taken all the way: 12/17 register-silent, population 362 not 270, PENDING-171 filed. **NEXT: of the twelve silent mechanisms, how many SHOULD the register contain? — criterion written down BEFORE re-reading the rows; no mechanical form exists and none must be invented.**
+
+- [Session 2026-08-27 — the block came back, and the key finally got written](session-2026-08-27-the-block-came-back-and-the-key-got-written.md) — jurist ruled the block NOT PASSED and was right on all three counts; key drafted + committed `3a33666`; snapshot moved and proved; Move 2 closed against its premise. *(its NEXT — the first 20 of the 270 — was taken up and closed 2026-08-31.)*
 
 ## Historical reference → MEMORY-reference.md
 Older archived-session pointers and the stable reference layer (steward profile · project-state detail · L1/L2/Chamber inventories · legacy pending-work · reference-file list) live in [MEMORY-reference.md](MEMORY-reference.md) — consult on demand; not loaded at wake. Recent cross-session trajectory comes from the Active Session entry above + the recent `session-*.md` files (wake §2.b.1).
diff --git a/claude/memory/session-2026-08-31-the-270-got-read-and-the-population-was-wrong.md b/claude/memory/session-2026-08-31-the-270-got-read-and-the-population-was-wrong.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..45dd680
--- /dev/null
+++ b/claude/memory/session-2026-08-31-the-270-got-read-and-the-population-was-wrong.md
@@ -0,0 +1,114 @@
+---
+name: Session 2026-08-31 — the 270 got read, and the population was wrong
+description: "The pulling thread named at two consecutive wraps and untouched both times was taken all the way. PENDING-164 AMENDMENT 1's declared-owed classification pass ran on 40 of 362 rows, pre-registered and committed alone (5ba5842) before any commit body was read. Sample B, systematic across the corrected population: 12 of the 17 rows deciding about a mechanism name one the register never mentions — including a log-chain spec amendment, a retired session-memory protocol, and a stopgap env var retired by a plan that calls it a stopgap. Three of the five RECORDED rows entered the register 25, 46 and 53 days late. Sample A — the literal inherited question — returns 1, and the pre-registration said in advance that it would refute nothing. Found before sampling: prior-art.py's owned_repos() tests remotes against a fragment of the steward's account name, so CapableMind-AI, BetterMemories.io and be are invisible; the population is 362 and six of the twelve findings live in those repos. Both its positive controls are satisfied by the broken predicate. Filed as PENDING-171."
+type: project
+metadata:
+  node_type: memory
+  type: project
+  modified: 2026-08-31
+---
+
+# Session 2026-08-31 — the 270 got read, and the population was wrong
+
+## PAST — what moved
+
+### The thread that had been named twice and touched neither time
+
+The 2026-08-27 wrap left a literal, checkable question: *of the first 20 census candidates, how
+many decided about a mechanism the register never mentions?* It also left a warning against
+itself — **a count of zero is the strongest possible refutation of PENDING-164 and must be
+reported as such, not explained away.**
+
+**Pre-registered first, committed alone (`5ba5842`), before any commit body was read** — the
+`3a33666` precedent. Two samples fixed in advance, the classification protocol written down,
+controls named in both directions, a contamination guard with the three register files hashed, and
+§8 stating in writing what would refute the item.
+
+### ⚠ The population was never 270 — found before sampling
+
+`prior-art.py`'s `owned_repos()` decides ownership by testing remotes against
+`OWNED_HOSTS = ("github.com/davidglidden", "davidglidden/", "git.skemantix.com")` — an **account
+name inside a remote path**, which is not the relation it claims to compute.
+
+**`_Dev/CapableMind-AI` (35), `_Dev/BetterMemories.io` (42) and `_Dev/be` (12) all fail it: 89
+unseen candidates. The population is 362.** The two largest omissions are the doctrine repo and
+the L1 repo — the two the wake digest lists first.
+
+⚠ **Both positive controls are satisfied by the broken predicate.** They require `0677e8a`
+(chamber-library) and `95760ff` (dotfiles); a rule that misses all three repos returns both. Third
+instance this month of a control encoding what was already expected. Filed **PENDING-171**,
+recommending (c) invert the predicate + (d) a control that can actually fail.
+
+**Deliberately not repaired in-session** — changing `OWNED_HOSTS` would change the population the
+result is pre-registered against.
+
+### The answer
+
+| sample | rows | mechanism decisions | SILENT | RECORDED-LATE | RECORDED-contemp. |
+|---|---|---|---|---|---|
+| A — newest 20, as printed | 20 | 11 | **1** | 0 | 10 |
+| B — every 18th of 362 | 20 | 17 | **12** | 3 | 2 |
+
+🔑 **The contrast is the finding, and it was written down before the reading began.** Sample A's
+head is the fortnight the register was most active; 18 of 20 rows are `dotfiles` and **9 of 20
+write to the register in the same commit — such a commit cannot be silent by construction.** A
+near-zero there measures the sampling frame, not the record. Reported both anyway rather than
+quietly substituting the better sample.
+
+**Strongest instances, none looked for:** `95b44d0` amends the **log-chain spec** to v0.6 —
+`logchain` is a named constitutional constraint with 29 register mentions; `data-portability`,
+`ImportProvenance`, `import trust` return **zero**. `0e3deee` retires an entire session-memory
+protocol. `d0051dd` retires `KRONOS_TRACKED_REPOS`, a stopgap another plan names as such.
+
+**RECORDED-LATE earned its pre-registered place:** three of five RECORDED rows first entered the
+register **25, 46 and 53 days** after the commit. The known case demanded it — `LFS` scores 84
+mentions today, all filed 2026-08-26, twelve weeks after `0677e8a`. **A late mention is recovery,
+not routing.** Wider reading: 15 of 17.
+
+**Controls, both directions.** `logchain` → 29 (must-not-flag alive). Must-detect satisfied on the
+second of three *fixed-in-advance* candidates: `ChromaDB`, 213 commits / 0 register. All three
+reported regardless; `SurrealDB` returned 2 and did not serve. **Guard held: register hashes
+byte-identical before and after; nothing written until the last row was measured.**
+
+### ⚠ Where the judgement sits, and the sensitivity band
+
+Naming the mechanism is interpretation. **Every term string is recorded**, so any verdict is
+re-runnable in one command and contestable on the term. Two post-pre-registration deviations, both
+declared, both neutral-or-adverse: multi-term rows require *all* terms silent; and a **reading
+rule** — an occurrence counts only if it is *about* the mechanism. Seven terms returned non-zero;
+all were read and quoted. **The rule moved four rows in BOTH directions** (`benchmark`, `lex` →
+RECORDED; `ornament`, `recall quality` → SILENT). **Band 10–13; ruling 12.**
+
+## PRESENT — confidence to recalibrate
+
+- ⚠ **My own probe returned five confident false zeroes** (`grep -m8 -n -o ".\{0,70\}TERM.\{0,70\}"`
+  matched nothing while looking like it had looked). For some minutes it read as *two instruments
+  disagreeing about the register* — the shape this thread treats as a finding. It was not one.
+  **The next such mismatch must not inherit the assumption that a mismatch is always meaningful.**
+- ⚠ **I inherited "first 20, in register order" as if it were well-defined.** It is not: the census
+  prints newest-first, and its newest end is the least informative slice available. The prior wrap
+  handed forward a sampling instruction it had not checked.
+- **What held.** Pre-registered and committed alone before reading. Answered the literal question
+  even though it was the weaker one. Ran the fairness sweep whose only possible effect was to
+  reduce my own count. Did not repair the tool mid-measurement. Filed nothing about the twelve into
+  the register — that is option (b), which PENDING-164 argues against and today does not overturn.
+
+## FUTURE — what pulls
+
+1. **322 of 362 rows unread.** Today is an explicit lower bound and refuses extrapolation. The
+   next tranche should be another *systematic* draw, never the head of the list.
+2. **PENDING-171 needs a ruling** before any further census run — the population is wrong until it
+   lands, and the fix must come *after* today's result is read, not inside it.
+3. ⚠ **Untouched a FOURTH session: the §5 regrade gate.** Recorded, not dropped.
+4. **Owed and concrete:** 115 of the answer key's 120 rows still need a full hand-read; REVIEWED-122's
+   build cannot proceed on a 5-row-verified key.
+5. **Steward's, and blocking:** rule the six-item record-keeping block — as amended or sent back.
+
+**Literal question for next-Claude** *(checkable; turns on the record, not on introspection)*:
+**Of the twelve register-silent mechanisms found today, how many are ones the register SHOULD
+contain?** Today deliberately did not ask this — a MemPalace CI retry policy is plausibly not the
+steward's governance business, and answering "whether the record contains them" is not answering
+"whether it ought to". ⚠ **This question has no mechanical form and must not be given one.** The
+honest instrument is a stated criterion, applied to twelve named rows, with the criterion written
+down *before* the rows are re-read — and a count of zero would mean PENDING-164 measures a real
+absence that costs nothing, which is a live possibility and must be reportable as such.
diff --git a/claude/memory/session-ledger-2026-08-31.md b/claude/memory/session-ledger-2026-08-31.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e5ea3c1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/claude/memory/session-ledger-2026-08-31.md
@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+---
+name: Session Ledger 2026-08-31
+description: Practice-of-return ledger maintained by /symmetria — returns, open horizons, recalibrations, authorization moves, sub-agent dialogues, bypasses.
+type: feedback
+---
+
+# Session Ledger — 2026-08-31
+
+## Returns
+
+- 2026-08-31T09:07 — **Did not accept the wake digest's self-report.** It asserted
+  *"PREVIOUS SESSION DID NOT WRAP (ended ~Aug 31 09:05)"*. Checked the substrate: transcript
+  `b7e7eb39` was still growing (mtime 09:09:25) and committed `5ba5842` to dotfiles at 09:08:25 —
+  **one minute into this wake.** The session has not ended; it is live. §3 flag avoided:
+  *component self-assessment accepted at face value*. The digest was right that no wrap exists and
+  wrong about why.
+
+- 2026-08-31T09:08 — **Re-measured rather than relayed.** The 362-population claim and the
+  `owned_repos()` defect came from reading another session's transcript. Ran
+  `prior-art.py --census` independently before putting a number in the briefing: 273 rows over
+  7 repos, `instrument verified: YES`. Consistent with the transcript's account.
+
+## What held
+
+- Stopped before touching the pulling thread on discovering a live sibling session working it.
+  Two sessions appending to `PENDING.md` concurrently is **PENDING-104 ADDENDUM 1 verbatim** —
+  the executor's filing silently corrupting the checker's view of the executor's filing.
+
+## Open horizons
+
+- ⚠ **Concurrency, unresolved and blocking:** which session holds the 270/362 thread? Nothing in
+  the governance apparatus detects two live executors; the collision class is filed (104 A1) but
+  no mechanism watches for it.
+- ⚠ **MEMORY.md carries a claim the substrate contradicts.** The Fool/Tarbuckle tracker line reads
+  *"NOTHING WIRED — no `statusLine`, no script, §13.1 spec unwritten."* Substrate: `settings.json`
+  runs `dotfiles/scripts/tarbuckle-body.py` as `statusLine` (refreshInterval 60); seven
+  `tarbuckle-*` scripts exist; `TARBUCKLE-SPEC-13.1-2026-08-25.md` exists; six state files under
+  `~/.claude/state/`. Correction owed — held, not applied, while a sibling session may be writing
+  memory.
+- `dotfiles` is **ahead 1** (commit `5ba5842`, unpushed) — the sibling's, not mine to push.
+- §5 regrade gate: untouched for a third session. Recorded, not dropped.
+- Ladder N-now **44/84** (was 51 on 2026-08-25) — the 30-day window is shedding faster than it
+  gains; grading may recede rather than approach.
+
+## Confidence to recalibrate
+
+- The 89-candidate / 362-population figures are **read from another session's transcript**, not
+  produced by me. The 273/7 half I verified myself. Marked as such in the briefing.
+
+## Authorization moves
+
+## Sub-agent dialogues
+
+## Bypasses