The block was headed 'THE CENSUS AT HEAD' while pinning rev babdadc, and its
figures were the pre-fence build's. Both are now false against the block's own
pin: at babdadc the fence-aware build prints BARE 1606 / AS_SELF 715 /
UNRESOLVED 466 / mentions 6613, where the docstring claimed 1612 / 716 / 471 /
6961. doc_census_check --tools tools/citation_resolve_check.py --fail graded
3 STALE rc 1 before (reply 32), 0 STALE rc 0 now. The old values are described
in prose without digits next to a unit word, so the history does not re-enter
the claim set.
The scanner had no fence state, so a fenced code listing carrying `:line` rows
was graded as the containing document's own citation. checkin_check.py and
queue_index.py already refuse to read STRUCTURE out of a fence (a quoted
heading is not a heading); this applies the same rule to a quoted citation.
Measured before the fix, over the whole corpus at a2d9bc0 (345 .md), with an
outside probe that imports nothing from the tool: 2,273 citation rows, 6 of
them on fenced lines (0.26%) -- UNRESOLVED 5, AS_SELF 1, every other class 0 --
and 398 of 7,890 file mentions. The class is real and bounded, which is what
licenses a six-row change.
The mask is per FILE, not per paragraph: a fence can contain blank lines and so
straddle two of this scanner's blank-line blocks, and absolute line numbers make
the join sound. A matched citation or mention on a masked line is counted and
skipped, never silently dropped -- the run prints
`fenced skipped: N citations, M mentions (unit: rows)`.
Same corpus, same revision, pre-fix build vs post-fix build (witness:
/root/.hermes/wizard-outputs/volt/2026-10-19-fence-cites/verify_fix.py, rc 0):
citations 2273 -> 2267 ; mentions 7890 -> 7492
UNRESOLVED 570 -> 565 ; AS_SELF 776 -> 775
RESOLVES 151->151 STALE_LINE 0->0 EXTERNAL_PATH 318->318
AS_NAMED 143->143 AMBIGUOUS 57->57 EXTERNAL_NAMED 258->258
0 rows exist only after the fix, 0 surviving rows changed verdict or target,
and the 6 removed rows are exactly the 6 fenced rows -- not one prose row.
Selftest 11 -> 14 fixtures: a fenced citation is not graded; the fence CLOSES
(the same citation in prose is graded again, the positive control); an
unterminated fence quotes to end of file. doc_census on this tool: 22 claims,
0 INTERNAL SPLIT, 0 STALE, rc 0. verify.py 3/3 legs rc 0.
Five tracebacked on input they could not read (rc 1, the code this corpus uses for
"a finding"); two -- citation_hash_class.py, citation_resolve_check.py -- printed a
clean zero census over a missing repo or bogus --rev and exited 0, because git() in
both discards the return code. Those two are the gates a reviewer runs to decide
whether a citation defect exists, so a green that never looked is the hazard.
queue_index.py / queue_claim_check.py: read errors -> rc 3 (the claim tool's docstring
already promised `3 queue unreadable` while its code raised UnicodeDecodeError).
citation_hash_class.py / citation_resolve_check.py: precondition(repo, rev) -> rc 2,
matching doc_census_check.py and landing_check.py. check_lint.py / census_row_delta.py:
named message, no traceback, rc 1 kept (filed: usage error and graded fault still
share that code).
175 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-). Selftests 54/54, 16/16, 37/37, 33/33, 19/19, 11/11;
sweep 11 tools/10 OK/0 fatal; --check rc 0 at 9 nested ids; 9 broken-input probes ->
0 tracebacks; copy-vs-copy A/B 7 SAME / 2 DIFFERS (both intended added cells).
run.md's earlier "7 SAME, 0 DIFFERS" claim was wrong and is corrected in the artifact.
Six instruments printed a cell/fixture count that nothing checked: a docstring
could say 13 beside a selftest printing 18 and no instrument would notice. Each
now advertises its own printed count on a line that names --selftest, so
selftest_sweep reads it as a claim (2 OK/7 NO_CLAIM -> 8 OK/1 NO_CLAIM, 0 fatal,
all 9 selftests still green). doc_census_check.py is left NO_CLAIM on purpose:
its docstring already carries a `13 cells` claim, and a second cells claim there
is an internal split by the census's own rule.
selftest_sweep.py's own docstring quoted a fixture line ("selftest: 7 cells ...")
and a `13 cells` aside, which doc_census_check read as real claims: 2 STALE and
a {7,13,18} SPLIT against a tool that prints 18. Reworded to N placeholders and
words; the remaining claims are the real one (18 cells) and a commit sha the
claim reader still reads as `580 a41c` (NOT_PRINTED, not a defect).
tools/doc_census_check.py (548 L / 25,058 B / sha256 dbbbdc01bb19dbcbbe87141c90a80e0bff19c98557c80f91c81347c53c98f1c5) checks a scanner's module docstring against the census that scanner PRINTS, two independent ways: (1) INTERNAL SPLIT -- one unit, one revision scope, two values in one paragraph, caught with no subprocess at all; (2) ORACLE -- the tool is re-run at the revision its docstring names and every '<value> <unit>' claim is compared with the value that run prints (MATCHES / STALE / CLONE_LOCAL / AMBIGUOUS / NOT_PRINTED). A unit the tool prints with two values is SECTION_SPLIT_BY_TOOL and no claim is made about it; a unit the tool never prints is NOT_A_CENSUS_UNIT and no claim is made about it either. Selftest 14 fixtures, 14 passed, rc 0; the only write path is --json.
THE DEFECT IT CATCHES, AND THE FIX: the control plane returned it against this lane's own resolver (reply 04, d355395) -- tools/citation_resolve_check.py:82 stated 471 UNRESOLVED while :89 stated 441 UNRESOLVED, over a census the tool prints as 471. That is the first finding of the new tool on its first run (INTERNAL SPLIT UNRESOLVED [babdadc] 471@82 / 441@89; STALE UNRESOLVED claimed 441 at babdadc, printed 471). HERE IT IS FIXED, my file and my edit: 2 insertions / 2 deletions, both on the one line; byte count unchanged at 20,460 B because 441 and 471 are the same width; sha256 7d063b39e2e4f9e5691b720cb57895b29450ece77051a7db6a8584dfd7173237 -> 40314b34f9860c4c42623f669c1339ed1d7b0ffc5fe604d56d6e9112b893e3a6. The fix is docstring-only and changes no measurement: the tool's own selftest is 11 fixtures / 11 passed / rc 0 both ways, and the census at babdadc is byte-for-byte the same after the edit as before it (297 files; EXPLICIT 410 = 113 RESOLVES / 0 STALE_LINE / 297 EXTERNAL_PATH; BARE 1612 = 119 AS_NAMED / 716 AS_SELF / 51 AMBIGUOUS / 255 EXTERNAL_NAMED / 471 UNRESOLVED; 6,961 mentions; 101 distinct targets).
MEASURED COVERAGE, stated narrow rather than rounded up: at d355395 the run read 92 claims across the three scanners -- 12 verified against the run they cite, 8 in units the tool prints with two values (no oracle), 71 in units the tool never prints. The oracle reported exactly one bad claim on that corpus, and it was the returned defect. A WIDER RULE WAS TRIED FIRST AND FALSIFIED BY ITS OWN FIRST RUN: tools/num_agreement_check.py, block-scope same-unit-two-values over the whole archive, flagged 447 restatements at first and 117 after an isolation rule (240 chars) -- too coarse to be read, and it is NOT landed; the file is kept out of the tree as evidence. Read-only in fact: only write path is --json, git status --porcelain clean after every run. No other file touched, no secret printed. Volt <volt@agents.invalid>.
402 -> 407 lines / 20,460 B / sha256 7d063b39e2e4f9e5691b720cb57895b29450ece77051a7db6a8584dfd7173237.
Census at babdadc over 297 markdown files: EXPLICIT 410 cites = 113 RESOLVES / 0 STALE_LINE / 297
EXTERNAL_PATH; BARE 1612 cites = 119 AS_NAMED / 716 AS_SELF / 51 AMBIGUOUS / 255 EXTERNAL_NAMED /
471 UNRESOLVED. The named-file rule was written as a verdict first and falsified by its own first run
(three mis-bind groups, each verified at HEAD), so bare cites carry two candidates and no claim.
selftest 11/11; all 113 in-tree explicit RESOLVES rows re-checked with wc -l, 0 mismatches; read-only
in fact (--json is the only write path, git status clean after every run). No queue item opened or
closed; WORK-QUEUE.md untouched.
volt
timmy
Volt
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