clay-borg/evidence/CB-EV-0027-the-tokens-on-the-table.md

# CB-EV-0027 — the tokens on the table

CB-WP-0029 T04. Tier M (structural M — imports another edition file under
AM-4's budgets; chaos d8=4 → no override). **Declaration 12 of chaos
window 2 — the last.** Closed 2026-08-07.

**Delivered:** [ADR-0016](../decisions/ADR-0016-the-tokens-on-the-table.md),
`Tokens.csv` vendored, `edition::tokens()`, Stress and DARVO tracks,
counted discs, Lead and Round on the table, and a supply audit that found
nothing and says so.

---

## 1. The supply, measured

750 games, 2–6 seats, greedy and random policies:

| token | supply | max per seat | max on table | exceeded? |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---|
| Protection | 6 | 1 | 2 | no |
| Denied | 5 | — | 3 | no |
| Relation link | 12 | — | **12** | **at the limit, never over** |
| Focus / Blame | 6 | — | 0 conflicts | no |

**The link row is the finding, and it is a negative one worth stating.**
GR-L01 gives each seat two relation slots; the box holds twelve link
tokens; six seats × two = twelve. **The rule and the component count are
the same constraint written twice**, which is what a supply looks like
when it needs no separate enforcement. Nothing was designed to make that
true — it fell out.

**Protection is the one that could have gone wrong and did not.**
`saturating_add(1)` at `lib.rs:986` has no upper bound, so the type
permits a seventh token. Play never gets there because GROUND—OU grants
Protection and the next Attack consumes it.

## 2. The check that was wrong, and what it cost to catch

The Focus/Blame check reported **2 conflicts**. It compared a seat's own
placed Focus against that seat's own `blame_from` — but `blame_from` lists
**who blamed this seat**, i.e. *other players'* discs. Different tokens.
Corrected: **0**.

**Fifth instance of the family CB-EV-0019 §1 named** — a number computed
correctly about the wrong subject:

| # | pass | the wrong thing |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | CB-WP-0021 | `csv` cost against a budget that never sees the code |
| 2 | to ground-game | *"12 in the file"* — a sum with no deal table |
| 3 | CB-WP-0018 | SOLVE's inertness attributed to the wrong condition |
| 4 | CB-WP-0025 | a timer bracketing whole games; a win rate attributed to the game |
| 5 | **here** | a token's own disc compared against other players' discs |

**And this is the first one caught before it left the repo** — by me, in
the same session, rather than by an adversarial reviewer or by the
maintainer. Four of the previous five reached a document or another
repository.

**That is one data point, not a trend.** What differs is that this pass
wrote the check, read its output, and asked *what exactly did I just
compare* — a habit the previous four instances are the argument for. The
family still has **no control**; `facts-check` catches copies that
disagree and nothing catches a correct computation over the wrong subject.

## 3. The decision not to enforce the supply

**`quantity` does not bind**, and the reason is not that nothing exceeded
it.

No numbered rule in `GroundRules.md` mentions a token supply. An engine
that refused a seventh Protection token would enforce a constraint nobody
ruled — **CB-WP-0023's error inverted.** That pass exists because SOLVE
was *offered* where it could not act; this would *refuse* where the rules
allow, and both are the engine deciding a rules question.

So the check ships as a standing control. If play ever exceeds a quantity,
that is a **question for `ground-game`** — *does the box bound the game, or
do the rules?* — which is a real design question with a real answer either
way, and not ours.

Registered as **F22, withdrawn**: a stated negative. A survey that finds
nothing and leaves no trace cannot be distinguished from one that was
never run.

## 4. What the tracks are for

`stress 4` is a fact you read. A marker one stop from the end of a 0–5
track is a fact you **see coming** — and DARVO arms at Stress 5 (GR-R08),
so *"one more Attack and I trigger"* is the single most useful thing the
page can say and could not.

Same for the DARVO pawn: OFF→DENY→ATTACK→REVERSE is a **sequence**, and a
pawn partway along it shows how much is left. `darvo Reverse` as text
tells you where you are and nothing about where that sits.

**Unverified.** Whether this changes what a player sees coming is a claim
about play, and only playing tests it. The evidence here is that the
tracks exist and carry the right stop counts.

## 5. Two fixture defects, and a limit corrected

**`seat_centres` matched every `<circle>`.** Track stops and token discs
are circles, so CB-WP-0028's overlap and outside-the-table tests reported
token discs as overlapping seats. Seats now carry `class="seat"` and the
helper keys on that. **Fixture defect, not regression** — the tests were
right to fire, about the wrong objects.

**The table height limit went 460 → 500.** That looks like lowering a
floor because the work hit it, which CB-WP-0021 T06 explicitly refused to
do (*"fix AM-7's measurement, not its floor"*).

**It is the opposite, and the distinction is the point.** 460 was a number
I picked while fixing the unplayable table — it had **no derivation**. 500
does: a viewport is ~800px, the header costs ~120 and the move controls
~150, leaving ~530 for the table; the version that actually broke dragging
declared 620. **An underived limit is a measurement defect**, and replacing
it with a derived one is fixing the measurement.

If a later pass wants 560, that argument has to move the viewport budget,
not the number.

## 6. Chaos window 2 — closed, and its verdict is due

**This is declaration 12 of 12.** The window opened 2026-08-03 at d8.

**Twelve declarations, zero 8s, zero overrides.** The retirement condition
— *retire if an override changes nothing twice running* — was
**untestable from the first declaration to the last**. CB-EV-0024,
CB-EV-0025 and CB-EV-0026 each said so; this is the fourth and final.

| window | rate | declarations | overrides | changed the outcome |
|---|---|---:|---:|---:|
| 1 | d4 | 12 | 2 | **2** |
| 2 | d8 | 12 | **0** | — |

**The verdict this supports: d8 bought rarity by spending evidence.** A
mechanism that produces no observations across a full window cannot be
evaluated by that window, which is a stronger statement than *"the rate is
too low"* — it is that the rate was chosen without asking what sample size
the retirement condition needs.

**Recording that is a change to how the loop constrains its own operation,
which is a tier-M trigger in its own right** (InnerLoop §Loop tiers, v1.6).
It is therefore **outstanding, not done here**, and is named in the
workplan so it is not lost between passes — which is exactly how
`ground-game`'s ten rulings went uncollected for two days.

## 7. Cost

CB-WP-0028's cost, by re-running the instrument: `make cost`. Not inlined
(§Single source of fact). CB-EV-0019 §4's unbounded chain is still
unbounded, now across four more passes.

## Open after this pass

- **The window-2 verdict** (§6) — the next thing this loop owes itself.
- **The wrong-denominator family still has no control** (§2), at five
  instances.
- **Whether the tracks change what a player sees coming** (§4) is untested
  and only play tests it.
- **`Relations`, `DARVO`, `Player_Mats` and `Glossary` remain unvendored.**
  The DARVO track now has a picture but not the edition's own words for
  each stage.
- **Three of four scenarios still never dealt**, carried from ADR-0015 D5.