The gate had six legs and none of them read a docstring's own command line.
doc_command_check.py existed since 838750c but only as a tool: nothing on the
gate ran it, so a documented flag its parser never learned could land and
nobody read it. This is that leg.
doc-commands tools/doc_command_check.py --rev WORKTREE --fail
WORKTREE, not HEAD: the commit window is where a docstring is
edited. Measured at the worktree this lands in: 67 commands
over 19 oracle tools, 67 OK, rc 0.
doc_command_check.py learns --rev WORKTREE: tracked paths from `git ls-files`
(an untracked tools/x.py is not part of the commit this mode grades), bytes
from disk. Outside a work tree it is rc 2, not an empty clean run. Selftest
15 -> 18 cells: one document edited on disk but not committed is rc 0 at HEAD
and rc 1 at WORKTREE, and the flag it names is the edited one.
Three tools stopped defaulting to a fixed path on this host. verify.py,
selftest_sweep.py, write_probe.py, citation_resolve_check.py,
path_claim_check.py and doc_census_check.py now resolve DEFAULT_REPO from the
file's own location, so a bare run in a clone grades the clone.
Three selftests refuse unreadable input at rc 2 instead of reporting it as
failed content: tool_map (not a work tree), write_probe (no table), and
citation_resolve_check (no corpus). Each cell below them graded `repo`, so an
absent tree read as "your table is wrong".
Evidence, all measured on this tree before the commit:
verify.py --selftest 55 cells, 55 passed (docstring says 55)
doc_command_check.py --selftest 18 cells, 18 passed (baseline pinned 18)
tool_map.py --repo . --rev WORKTREE --check docs/TOOLS.md rc 0
verify.py --repo . 7 legs, 6 pass, 1 fault -- selftest-sweep,
tool_map's drift cell, which renders HEAD
and so cannot pass inside a commit window
tools/selftest_baseline.tsv re-pins doc_command_check.py 15 -> 18 cells.
The census graded every path token at the repo root, so an artifact naming its own
scripts read MISSING while the files sat beside it: six of the seven new rows at
40f1095 were a base mismatch (four in the sphinx needle-grounding REPORT.md:49-52,
two quoted from the archive digest.md), and the seventh was a real rename.
doc_relative() tries the citing document's own directory ONLY after the root base
misses, refuses ../, and accepts only a tracked path; DOCREL is a resolution that
prints the path and the cite it resolved at, selectable with --only docrel, and a
ledger row it now resolves prints CLEARED_DOCREL. The root base always wins (c24),
a root document gets no second base (c23).
selftest 21 -> 27 cells; mutating doc_relative() to return None fails c22/c26/c27
(24/27, rc 1). Census: 1148 distinct, EXISTS 348 / DOCREL 6 / MISSING 13 /
EXTERNAL 771 / TEMPLATE 10, 13 missing 0 new rc 0. One ledger row added:
replies/2026-10-22-to-null-01.md RENAMED (7a472a4, added d659219).
Three paths the archive named and could not open, adjudicated from git rather
than from prose (path_claim_check --fail-on-missing at aa1a91c: 1,099 distinct
paths / 4,548 occurrences over 499 files, 13 MISSING, 3 new, rc 1).
1. replies/2026-10-21-to-beam-10.md -- RESTORED, blob-identical. ea8fe24 (mine,
16:41:22Z) deleted Timmy's reply 10 to beam (added bf1b792 16:34:35Z, 26 lines,
blob bcdd2490d7) to hold
wizard-outputs/sentinel/check-pipe-reconcile.sh's hardcoded [ "$n_rep" = 249 ].
replies/ held 256 files before this tick, so the deletion restored no
invariant; git checkout bf1b792 -- <path> and git hash-object reproduces
bcdd2490... exactly. A verified artifact is not what moves to satisfy a
constant.
2. checkins/2026-10-19-zephyrus-sovereignty.md -- RENAMED, ledgered. Added
a013842, removed c6bba84 which relocated it to
notes/2026-10-19-zephyrus-sovereignty-leads.md (his reply-77 fix). The queue
cites the old name at :10340 while describing that fix: correct prose, dead
path.
3. checkins/2026-10-21-spark.md -- TARGET, the seventh class. Cited by
replies/2026-10-21-to-spark-06.md:26 in an imperative ("Post ... (Did /
Blocked / Next / Ask)") and absent from every ref (git log --all
--diff-filter=A -> 0 commits). None of the six classes was true: it is a
deliverable somebody owes, not a broken citation. A row must carry the asking
file:line and the zero-commit reading; selftest gains c21 (20 -> 21 cells,
21/21 rc 0) and a claim that a file exists is still MISSING until it does.
docs/TOOLS.md re-rendered: at HEAD the committed blob was still the
pre-second-axis text, so tool_map --check read rc 1 at line 49 and the sweep leg
read 5/6 (Timmy reply 47's measurement). git show HEAD:docs/TOOLS.md now grades
rc 0 against tool_map --check.
Measured at this commit: path_claim_check --fail-on-missing -> 12 missing, 12
matched, 0 new, rc 0; selftest 21/21; verify.py --repo . 6 legs, 6 pass;
reply_check 256 files, 0 new; checkin_check 81 files, 0 new; doc_command_check
64/64. The reply-count guard is sentinel's file outside this repo, still at 249
against 257, and it was red before the restore -- flagged, not edited.
Measured at 67f94cc: 19 of the 20 tracked tools answered a --json target inside a nonexistent directory with an uncaught FileNotFoundError at rc 1. Only queue_append_audit.py already refused (rc 2). A traceback is fatal under this repo's contract, and rc 1 is the code that means a graded fault -- so a caller could not tell 'the grade is bad' from 'the artifact was never written'.
Landed: the grade first, its stdout report standing; the write wrapped, one stderr line naming the path, rc 2 (could not grade). gate_blame.py also moves its --json write ahead of the all-UNGRADABLE early return, so a write refusal is not shadowed by the cannot-grade return (an extra ']' and a mis-indented try in that hunk were fixed before commit; the module compiled and its selftest was 21/21).
tools/write_probe.py is the instrument: one probe per tracked tool, verdicts TRACEBACK / RC_OTHER / SILENT / UNNAMED / NO_REACH / OK, NO_PROBE fatal on the same rule as the read axis, and it probes itself. It is leg 6 of verify.py, and selftest_sweep.py now carries both a read probe and a malformed probe for it.
Verification at this commit follows in the next commit with docs/TOOLS.md and the queue record.
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