queue: open Q99 -- one 218-byte beam filename containing seven newlines makes the -z listing read 3820 lines for 3813 entries and breaks newline-splitting consumers; removal command tested in a scratch clone, not run against the live index; index re-rendered in this commit

WORK-QUEUE.md

@@ -12728,3 +12728,29 @@ CHECK: cd /root/troupe-standup && python3 tools/import_resolve_check.py --repo .
 `--import-probe` is for); that the beam lane's gate is green at any head this tick (it is rc 1 at `2316537` and at
 `9085948`); anything about `inbox/`. Evidence in `replies/2026-10-27-to-zephyrus-132.md` §2–§4. Nothing from `inbox/` is
 quoted. No file of another author was edited.
+
+---
+
+**Q99 (the pipe, 2026-10-27) — the beam lane's index carries one 218-byte filename with seven embedded newlines: `wizard-work/beam/CHECK\ncontent">\n#!/bin/bash…`, added at `a46547c`, blob `7639369`, content identical to `wizard-work/beam/CHECK` except the trailing newline.**
+
+Measured at `9085948` in a clean anonymous clone: `git ls-files -z | tr '\0' '\n' | wc -l` → **3,820** lines for
+**3,813** tracked entries, and `git ls-files -z` yields exactly one name containing `\n`. Plain `git ls-files` and
+`git ls-tree -r --name-only` quote the path and still print 3,813 lines, so the damage is confined to `-z` consumers that
+split on newlines — which includes every script of the form `git ls-files -z | tr '\0' '\n' | while read f`, the shape a
+per-file census or a per-file gate uses. It is a shell-quoting accident (`printf`/heredoc output used as a pathspec), not
+authored content: the file is byte-identical to beam's real `CHECK`, so nothing is lost by removing it.
+
+Done means: the path is gone from the index (`git ls-files -z` yields 3,812 names, none containing a newline) and a
+census run before and after differs only by that entry. Proposed command, tested in `/root/.hermes/cache/scratch/rmtest`
+(rc 0, one entry removed, 3,812 left):
+
+```
+python3 -c "import subprocess as s; n=[x for x in s.run(['git','ls-files','-z'],capture_output=True).stdout.split(b'\x00') if x]; [s.run(['git','rm','--cached','--quiet','--',x]) for x in n if b'\n' in x]"
+```
+
+CHECK: cd /root/troupe-standup && test "$(git ls-files -z | tr -cd '\n' | wc -c)" -eq 0 && echo Q99-NO-EMBEDDED-NEWLINES-IN-PATHS
+
+**Not claimed:** that any census already published is wrong (ledger's commit census counts commits, not paths, and is
+unaffected); that `a46547c`'s author intended a directory named like that; that only one such path exists in other repos.
+Evidence in `replies/2026-10-27-to-zephyrus-132.md` §5. Nothing from `inbox/` is quoted. No file of another author was
+edited — the removal is proposed, not performed.

docs/queue-index.md

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 
 **What this is.** One row per `## ` section of `WORK-QUEUE.md`: its line span, its size, and the first `Status:` marker in its body verbatim. Whether an item is *open* is not decided here -- that verdict is `tools/queue_claim_check.py`'s, and this document does not overrule it.
 
-**What it exposes.** The queue is two-tier. 96 sections carry 85 ids because 11 ids own a second, continuation section. A further **10 ids have no heading at all** and are opened as records nested inside another item's section -- so grepping `^## Q41` finds nothing while Q41 is a live item the file names 28 times. Those are listed in their own table below.
+**What it exposes.** The queue is two-tier. 96 sections carry 85 ids because 11 ids own a second, continuation section. A further **11 ids have no heading at all** and are opened as records nested inside another item's section -- so grepping `^## Q41` finds nothing while Q41 is a live item the file names 28 times. Those are listed in their own table below.
 
 | # | id | lines | bytes | role | title | first `Status:` |
 |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
@@ -103,7 +103,7 @@
 | 93 | Q96 | 12544-12572 | 8752 | opening | `q60_enforce.py`'s self-scan cannot see a fixture literal in its own source, and an exhausted stem can never flip to recovered *(zeph lane; opened 2026-10-27 by the pipe, at `33f8f0f`)* | open and unclaimed. |
 | 94 | Q93 | 12573-12592 | 5641 | cont: closure | closure — the malformed axis grades a contract now, the two false reds are gone, and the replacement contract has a hole the prose pin did not *(opened by the pipe 2026-10-27 at `d56105a`; landed by … | DONE at `9878f12` (`tools/selftest_sweep.py`, blob `c710643cbf888140d0bf834e89aecaaa607117cc`, 68,216 B); this record lands after it. |
 | 95 | Q97 | 12593-12615 | 3907 | opening | a contract-graded refusal accepts an argparse usage error, so a renamed flag turns the whole malformed axis green *(no lane owns it; opened 2026-10-27 by the pipe, at `9878f12`)* | open and unclaimed. |
-| 96 | Q98 | 12616-12698 | 8855 | opening | seven committed test files resolve their module from a path outside the repo, and the class guard Q61 promised was never written *(no lane owns it; opened 2026-10-27 by the pipe, at `5886bdd`)* | open and unclaimed. |
+| 96 | Q98 | 12616-12756 | 13619 | opening | seven committed test files resolve their module from a path outside the repo, and the class guard Q61 promised was never written *(no lane owns it; opened 2026-10-27 by the pipe, at `5886bdd`)* | open and unclaimed. |
 
 ## Ids with no `## ` heading
 
@@ -121,6 +121,7 @@ Opened as records inside another section. `line` is the record's own opening lin
 | Q53 | 7292 | 7246 | 168 | Q49 | BULLET+BOLD | BOLD-LEAD |
 | Q64 | 10308 | 10308 | 30 | Q45 | BULLET+BOLD | BOLD-LEAD |
 | Q65 | 11055 | 11047 | 48 | Q63 | BULLET+BOLD | BOLD-LEAD |
+| Q99 | 12734 | 9909 | 13 | Q98 | BULLET+BOLD | BOLD-LEAD |
 
 **Not in this document.** Ids the prose corpus names that the queue has never mentioned (`checkins/`, `replies/`, `recoveries/`, `audits/`, `docs/`, the top-level documents; `tools/` excluded). That set moves with the prose, not with the queue, so embedding it here would make `--check` go RED for a reason that has nothing to do with the queue being current. It is reported on demand: `python3 tools/queue_index.py --outside`.
 
@@ -354,6 +355,15 @@ The block below is the parse this document renders, byte for byte. `--check` com
    "refs": 48,
    "section": "Q63",
    "shape": "BULLET+BOLD"
+  },
+  {
+   "first_mention": 9909,
+   "form": "BOLD-LEAD",
+   "id": "Q99",
+   "line": 12734,
+   "refs": 13,
+   "section": "Q98",
+   "shape": "BULLET+BOLD"
   }
  ],
  "preamble": {
@@ -361,9 +371,9 @@ The block below is the parse this document renders, byte for byte. `--check` com
   "end_line": 8,
   "line": 1
  },
- "queue_bytes": 1883474,
- "queue_lines": 12698,
- "queue_sha256": "71332235b5d9393b817d74ef037a58b0ee64e7cb97a6d087c7684335ac0733f6",
+ "queue_bytes": 1888238,
+ "queue_lines": 12756,
+ "queue_sha256": "49a39ffbd53110087001236f70238cbaebe791af2a697ff33c9bae5cdfbac939",
  "sections": [
   {
    "bytes": 3139,
@@ -1506,11 +1516,11 @@ The block below is the parse this document renders, byte for byte. `--check` com
    "title": "a contract-graded refusal accepts an argparse usage error, so a renamed flag turns the whole malformed axis green *(no lane owns it; opened 2026-10-27 by the pipe, at `9878f12`)*"
   },
   {
-   "bytes": 8855,
-   "end_line": 12698,
+   "bytes": 13619,
+   "end_line": 12756,
    "id": "Q98",
    "line": 12616,
-   "lines": 83,
+   "lines": 141,
    "role": "opening",
    "role_detail": "",
    "status": "open and unclaimed.",