ruled_pendings() intended to detect "the PENDING ids that rulings actually DISPOSE
OF" and matched exactly one header form. The register writes four. Censused over 132
placed rulings: 80 em-dash single, 3 parenthetical, 1 plus-joined, 1 slash-joined,
47 naming no PENDING at all. Eight items were counted open while ruled — four of
them by the three most recent rulings — which is how the queue reported 64 when 56
was defensible. [FIX] against existing specification: the code failed its own stated
intent, and no ruling widens it.
Also read: closure declared on an item's own **Awaiting:** line. Two items were
counted open with their own bodies saying otherwise (PENDING-82 "CLOSED 2026-08-08",
the STATE-CLAIM marker "DISCHARGED 2026-08-26"), because the rule read headers only.
THE SLASH-JOINED FORM IS DECLINED, AND THAT IS THE LOAD-BEARING PART. Its sole
instance is REVIEWED-116 — PENDING-131/132/133/134, a design gate on a package
rather than a disposition of four items, and PENDING-133's body still reads
"Awaiting: Steward authorization". Reading it would have falsely closed a live item.
Closure detection HIDES items, so an unrecognised form never yields the permissive
answer (REVIEWED-132 condition 1). unreadable_ruling_headers() reports the decline so
the gap is visible rather than looking like a clean pass.
The same reasoning set the body-closure anchor. A bare \bCLOSED\b search of item
bodies matches 20 items, including PENDING-95, -108 and -109 — all live, all merely
discussing closure. Anchored to the Awaiting line it matches exactly the two closed.
Controls are paired throughout: every form that is read has a negative twin holding
the form that must not be. 99 controls pass. Verified end-to-end against the live
register, not by selftest alone: 64 -> 56, and PENDING-133 still visible.
PENDING.md is NOT touched. Widening the instrument to the record is authorized;
normalising the record to fit the instrument is not (REVIEWED-132 §6).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01X3L79vgAnt1x2kxvf23Qt7
