dotfiles/obsidian/vault-governance-block-round2-2026-08-19.md

---
name: obsidian-vault-governance-block-round2-2026-08-19
description: Read-only round-2 investigation of owner, related, change_log and links, plus a faithful account of AldineXXI's frontmatter specification. Findings only; nothing proposed, nothing decided, nothing changed.
type: reference
---

# Governance block, round 2 — `owner` · `related` · `change_log` · `links`

2026-08-19. **Read-only. No vault file was changed.** Same method as the `canonical`/`assurance`
follow-up. Findings only.

---

## 1 · `owner` (153) — one job, three spellings, zero discrimination

| value | notes |
|---|---:|
| `David Glidden` | 136 |
| `David` | 12 |
| `David F. Glidden` | 5 |

**Three distinct values across 153 notes, all naming the same person.** The key does one job
consistently — and the job is constant. A field whose value never varies partitions nothing; a
`GROUP BY owner` returns three groups that are one person spelled three ways.

Unlike `canonical`, there is no second meaning hiding here. The finding is the opposite shape: not
*more* than its count suggested, but *less*.

## 2 · `change_log` (89) — real content, four incompatible schemas

| | count |
|---|---:|
| empty list / null | **38** |
| carrying content | **51** |

The 51 are real and substantive (`{date: 2025-09-28, change: 'Created alias stub pointing to
canonical Learning & Mind organ', by: 'David'}`). But they use **four different entry shapes**:

| entry keys | count |
|---|---:|
| `(by, change, date)` | 26 |
| `(change, date)` | 11 |
| `(date, note)` | 11 |
| `(date, summary, version)` | 2 |
| ⚠ `(datetime.date(2025,10,12),)` — the **date became the key** | 1 |

So the answer to *"template nobody filled in, or real content worth keeping?"* is **both, unevenly**:
43% empty, 57% real, and the real half is four conventions rather than one. `change` / `note` /
`summary` are three names for the same slot; `by` is present on half of one schema and absent
everywhere else, recording an author who — per §1 — is invariant.

## 3 · `related` (121 instances, 442 link targets)

**Pointer integrity**, case-insensitive, tested at four strictnesses:

| | count | |
|---|---:|---:|
| note name resolves | 215 | 48% |
| matches an alias or title | 17 | 3% |
| **unresolvable** | **210** | **47%** |

**Two link conventions, and the minority one is the working one.** 57 targets are wikilink-wrapped
(`'[[P3 Pattern Index]]'`); **385 are bare strings** (`'White Abstraction – Moy Glidden'`). A bare
string in frontmatter is not a link in Obsidian — so **87% of `related` entries do not produce a
clickable relation**, whatever they resolve to.

**A third job, as with `canonical`.** Some targets are **people, not notes** — `Divorce.md` carries
`related: [Lune, Marie, Briac Prud'homme]`. These are unresolvable not because the link is stale but
because the referent was never a document. Relating-to-a-person and relating-to-a-note are different
operations sharing one field.

## 4 · `links` (77 instances, 286 link targets)

**Six dict schemas:**

| keys | count |
|---|---:|
| `(children, parents, peers)` | 31 |
| `(parents, peers)` | 23 |
| `(related,)` | 6 |
| `(children, parents)` | 5 |
| `(canonical,)` | 4 |
| `(parents,)` | 4 |

⚠ **`links` contains sub-keys that duplicate two other top-level governance fields.** Four notes
carry `links: {canonical: [[...]]}` while `canonical` also exists as a top-level key on 161 notes;
six carry `links: {related: ...}` against a top-level `related` on 121. The same relation can be
expressed in two places, and nothing reconciles them.

**Pointer integrity:**

| | count | |
|---|---:|---:|
| full path resolves | 1 | 0% |
| note name resolves | 122 | 42% |
| matches an alias or title | 72 | 25% |
| **unresolvable** | **91** | **31%** |

⚠ **The alias/title tier is load-bearing and was nearly missed.** A first pass without it reported
163 unresolvable (57%); adding alias and title matching moved that to 91 (31%). The stricter figure
would have overstated decay by nearly two to one. Same resolver-too-strict error as the `canonical`
"151 dead" number this morning, caught this time before it was quoted.

**Some targets address a vault structure that does not exist here** — `places/pine-street`,
`people/moy-glidden`, `people/abg`, `GLOSSARY.md`, all from `00. Atlas of Roots — Index.md`. That is
not a stale path; it is a path shaped for a different repository layout.

---

# The AldineXXI Frontmatter specification — faithful account

`~/_Dev/animal-davidglidden-eu/docs/AldineXXI-Codex/frontmatter-specification.md` · 310 lines /
3,268 words · **Status: OPERATIVE 2026-05-22**, drafted 2026-04-17.

**Scope:** every markdown document under `content/`. Stated as *"the contract between the author (at
writing time), the versioning system (at revision time), and Hakyll (at build time). Publishing a new
piece or revising an existing one should not require re-deciding frontmatter shape."* The document
declares itself the canonical record, expects to evolve, and rules that pre-convention pieces may be
backfilled or carry less metadata — *"graceful degradation rather than demanded completeness."*

### §1 Design principles (five, verbatim in substance)

1. **Minimal required surface.** A new essay needs only `title`, `date`, `class`. Everything else is
   opt-in, driven by what the piece needs.
2. **Dates, not versions.** YYYY-MM-DD throughout. No semver, no `v1.0.0`.
3. **Public-facing naming.** Field names appear in templates and occasionally in prose; they should
   be legible to a reader who sees them. No internal jargon.
4. **Flat where possible, nested when justified.** Nesting only where the structure is load-bearing.
5. **Private editorial notes stay private.** Author's stance, intent or mode live in separate notes
   files, not published frontmatter — *"What's in the frontmatter is what the publication stands
   behind."*

### §2 Field reference

- **§2.1 Identity (always present):** `title` (req), `date` (req, ISO — the **origin date**, stable
  through all revisions, drives archive location), `class` (req, one of 14 content types),
  `location` (opt, city-level), `slug` (opt, routing override).
- **§2.2 Sequence membership:** `sequence`, `sequence_short`, `sequence_order`, `sequence_slug`,
  `sequence_order_roman`, `preceded_by`, `followed_by`. Carries a **known latent defect** — the
  sequence marker's total is hardcoded `"of V"` and is ruled to become build-derived.
- **§2.3 Versioning:** `revisions` (chronological list of `{date, location?, summary?}`),
  `edition_label`, `recants`, `recanted_by`. Two are explicitly **forward fields** kept without
  carriers.
- **§2.4 Content metadata:** `description` is the operative field the build reads; `summary` is
  retained as drafted but **not read** by the head template. `description` is required for Essay and
  Observation, soft-required elsewhere.
- **§2.6 Language [2026-05-14]:** `lang` (ISO 639-1, defaults `en`), `lang_secondary` (list). Three
  contexts: French-primary, English-primary-with-passages, genuinely bilingual.
- **§2.7 Medium [2026-05-20]:** `medium`, orthogonal to `class`; `verse` the first non-default value,
  which *"surfaces because the corpus produced an instance"* rather than by anticipation.
- **§2.8 Translated renderings [2026-06-05]:** `work` (slug of the work this piece renders),
  `translator` (absent = the author's own rendering; **absence is the signal**). The work file carries
  no `work:` field — it *is* the work.

### §2.4's prune — the precedent most directly on point

**Four documented-but-unread fields removed (W1.12, 2026-06-07)**, on the stated ground that *"the
audit found zero readers in the build for each"*: `comments`, `epigraph`, `philosophical_lineage`,
`related_texts`. The disposition rule: *"Legacy carriers degrade gracefully (unread fields are inert);
strip them on touch. Re-entry of any of these is a new convention decision, not a revival."*

### §3 — the iA Writer → ARC translation table

⚠ **Surfaced without comment, because it names this investigation's fields directly.** The table
rules on each Obsidian-side field it encounters:

| Obsidian field | ARC disposition, as written |
|---|---|
| `change_log` (list of `{date, change}`) | → `revisions:` list, one entry per item; `change` → `summary` |
| `last_updated` / `last_modified` / `last_reviewed` | → a single `revisions:` entry with that date |
| `canonical: "03. Writings/..."` | **Drop.** *"Obsidian path — private authoring metadata."* |
| `assurance: {evidence_level, risk_flags, scope}` | **Drop.** *"Private editorial metadata."* |
| `status: canonical` | **Drop.** *"Publication IS canonicalization."* |
| `author` | **Drop.** *"Every piece is by the same author."* |
| `version` (semver) | **Drop.** *"Per ADR-005: dates, not versions."* |
| `type: essay` | **Drop.** *"Use `class:` instead."* |
| `project` | **Drop.** *"Redundant — every piece in this repo is ARC."* |
| `tags` | **Drop.** Retired 2026-05-20; *"topical organization is carried by `class:` and the corpus enfilade, not by tag indexes."* |
| `related_texts` (Obsidian `[[...]]` links) | **Drop.** Pruned; the anticipated rendering was never built |
| `relations: preceded_by` / `followed_by` | Flatten to top level; **use slug not title** |
| `review_cycle` | **Drop.** *"Private editorial metadata."* |
| `notes: {intent, stance, mode}` | **Drop from public frontmatter.** *"Preserve in separate private notes file if wanted."* |
| `subproject` | **Drop.** *"`sequence:` carries the same information publicly."* |
| `external_references` | **Drop.** *"External citations belong in the text, not in frontmatter."* |
| `language` | → `lang:` (ISO 639-1) |
| `languages` | decompose per §2.8 into one work + N renderings |

### §4–§6 Recipes

Publish (decide `class` → create `content/{class-folder}/YYYY-MM-DD-slug.md` → required frontmatter →
optional fields → write → `make build` → commit). Revise (`make revise` → edit → **append** a
`revisions:` entry → build → commit new current + dated snapshot together). Recant (write the
retractation-piece with `recants:`, add `recanted_by:` to the original, commit both together).

### §7 What is deliberately NOT in the frontmatter

Word count / reading time (derivable) · **last-modified auto-timestamps** (*"Misleading (git tracks
this; the frontmatter should reflect publication events, not filesystem touches)"*) · author name ·
license · copyright year · OG/Twitter card metadata.

### §8 Open questions

Three of four are struck through as resolved (slug canonicalization; translated pieces; epigraph
rendering). One remains live: **sequence wrapper pages** — the running page uses
`class: sequence-index`, a working convention outside the 14-type enumeration, *"not yet ratified"*.
The section closes: *"These do not block publishing under the current convention."*

---

**Nothing above is proposed or decided.** The reading of the spec against the vault findings is the
jurist's, not the executor's.