# Emission cadence — source declaration

Statute §9.6: approval evidence is **load-bearing** and **low-volume**. Rate
monitoring is the wrong form. A handful of revocations a month has no rate to
drop below; suppression is indistinguishable from a quiet month.

This file is the source side of `GH-WP-0002-T04`. That task is the detection
surface; this declaration is what it reads. Machine-readable copy:
[`../cadence.yaml`](../cadence.yaml).

## Form

**Heartbeat, plus reconciliation counts.** Not a rate.

### Heartbeat

A signed positive claim: *nothing to report*, together with per-class
transition counts since the previous heartbeat (or since process start on
the first). The claim can itself go missing, which is the point — silence
becomes a missing positive rather than a quiet month.

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Class | `heartbeat` |
| Interval | 24 hours (SHOULD also be emittable on demand) |
| Assertion | `nothing-to-report` |
| Counts | `{issuance, use, supersession, revocation}` of committed outbox rows |
| Missing heartbeat | **finding** |

### Reconciliation

Compare this engine's committed outbox counts per class to `audit-core`'s
accepted event counts for `source=approval-engine` and the corresponding
`action`. Divergence is a **finding**, not a log line.

| This engine | `audit-core` `action` |
| --- | --- |
| `issuance` | `approval.issuance` |
| `use` | `approval.use` |
| `supersession` | `approval.supersession` |
| `revocation` | `approval.revocation` |
| `heartbeat` | `approval.heartbeat` |

Undrained local rows are this engine's lag, not yet a divergence. A row
with `drained_at` set that `audit-core` does not hold is the omission
case §9.6 names.

## What is a finding

- No heartbeat arrives for more than one interval.
- `audit-core` count for a class is less than this engine's drained count
  for that class.
- Outbox depth or age exceeds the lag bound in `cadence.yaml` (drain stuck).

None of these are rate drops. None of these are informational logs.

## Residual

Atomicity prevents accidental omission (crash between mutation and emit).
Cadence and reconciliation **detect** adversarial omission after the fact.
Nothing in the model prevents a compromised source from suppressing. That
residual is stated, not closed.