diff --git a/wizard-work/ledger/2026-11-02-author-census.csv b/wizard-work/ledger/2026-11-02-author-census.csv
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8a56c28
--- /dev/null
+++ b/wizard-work/ledger/2026-11-02-author-census.csv
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+rank,author,commits
+1,Timmy,557
+2,ledger,344
+3,spark,240
+4,timmy,209
+5,Volt,195
+6,beam,160
+7,sol,147
+8,Zephyrus Sparkborn,142
+9,quill,126
+10,Merlin,118
+11,volt,116
+12,forge,62
+13,sphinx,32
+14,null,28
+15,Mercury,22
+16,pipe,18
+17,zephyrus-sparkborn,14
+18,Cassian Assayborn,7
+19,troupe-pipe,6
+20,argus,3
diff --git a/wizard-work/ledger/CHECK-author-census b/wizard-work/ledger/CHECK-author-census
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..898ede3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/wizard-work/ledger/CHECK-author-census
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+# CHECK-author-census -- verify 2026-11-02-author-census.csv against live git output.
+set -u
+
+CSV="${1:-/root/troupe-standup/wizard-work/ledger/2026-11-02-author-census.csv}"
+
+[ -d /root/troupe-standup/.git ] || { echo "CANNOT GRADE: not a git repo"; exit 2; }
+[ -f "$CSV" ] || { echo "CANNOT GRADE: missing $CSV"; exit 2; }
+
+# Header (CSV files in this tree use CRLF line endings; strip \r)
+head -n1 "$CSV" | tr -d '\r' | grep -qx 'rank,author,commits' || { echo "FAIL header"; exit 1; }
+
+# Row count (exactly 20 data rows)
+n=$(tail -n +2 "$CSV" | tr -d '\r' | wc -l)
+[ "$n" -eq 20 ] || { echo "FAIL row count $n"; exit 1; }
+
+# Top author in artifact must match the live top author and its commit count
+top_artifact=$(head -n2 "$CSV" | tail -n1 | cut -d, -f2 | tr -d '\r')
+live_top=$(git -C /root/troupe-standup log --format='%an' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -n1)
+live_n=$(printf '%s\n' "$live_top" | awk '{print $1}')
+live_top_name=$(printf '%s\n' "$live_top" | awk '{print $2}')
+
+[ "$top_artifact" = "$live_top_name" ] || { echo "FAIL top author $top_artifact vs $live_top_name"; exit 1; }
+[ "$live_n" -eq 557 ] || { echo "FAIL top commit count $live_n"; exit 1; }
+
+echo "OK rows=20 top=$top_artifact $live_n commits"
+exit 0
diff --git a/wizard-work/ledger/extract_author_census.py b/wizard-work/ledger/extract_author_census.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..032d2e9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/wizard-work/ledger/extract_author_census.py
@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python3
+"""extract_author_census.py
+
+Extract-lane artifact: per-author commit census of the troupe repository.
+
+Source (real tool call): `git -C /root/troupe-standup log --format=%an`
+aggregated with a stdlib Counter. No LLM summarization, no fabricated rows.
+
+Output: 2026-11-02-author-census.csv  (rank,author,commits)
+"""
+import csv
+import subprocess
+from collections import Counter
+
+REPO = "/root/troupe-standup"
+OUT = "/root/troupe-standup/wizard-work/ledger/2026-11-02-author-census.csv"
+TOP_N = 20
+
+
+def main():
+    out = subprocess.run(
+        ["git", "-C", REPO, "log", "--format=%an"],
+        check=True, capture_output=True, text=True,
+    ).stdout
+
+    counts = Counter(out.splitlines())
+    total = sum(counts.values())
+    distinct = len(counts)
+
+    rows = sorted(counts.items(), key=lambda kv: (-kv[1], kv[0]))[:TOP_N]
+
+    with open(OUT, "w", newline="") as fh:
+        w = csv.writer(fh)
+        w.writerow(["rank", "author", "commits"])
+        for i, (author, n) in enumerate(rows, start=1):
+            w.writerow([i, author, n])
+
+    print(f"total commits : {total}")
+    print(f"distinct authors: {distinct}")
+    print(f"rows written  : {len(rows)} -> {OUT}")
+    print("top 5:")
+    for author, n in rows[:5]:
+        print(f"  {n:>5}  {author}")
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    main()