--- id: CB-WP-0030 kind: process title: "A number that does not move: a control for the wrong-subject family" status: ready --- # Purpose ``` structural tier M (changes how the loop constrains its own operation — it adds an admissibility requirement, ADR-0006 D5) chaos d8 = 7 → no override declared tier M ``` **Declaration 1 of chaos window 3**, opened 2026-08-07 at d8 by ADR-0017. ## The family, with every instance Seven claims in this project have been wrong in the same way. CB-EV-0019 §1 named it: *this project's arithmetic errors are not in the arithmetic.* | # | pass | the claim | what was wrong | caught by | |---|---|---|---|---| | 1 | CB-WP-0021 | `csv` costs 21,613 against 3,798 of headroom | AM-4a **never sees** that code | re-deriving in ADR-0011 | | 2 | → ground-game | *"12 in the file"* | a sum with no deal table | **the recipient** | | 3 | CB-WP-0018 | SOLVE offered on a face-down Problem | the wrong condition named | implementing the ruling | | 4 | CB-WP-0025 | 112–161 µs per node | the timer bracketed whole games | **adversarial review** | | 5 | CB-WP-0025 | the game is too easy at 5–6 seats | a win rate attributed to the game | **adversarial review** | | 6 | CB-WP-0029 | 2 Focus/Blame conflicts | compared *other* players' discs | re-reading the check | | 7 | ADR-0017 | window 2 had zero overrides | never counted; cited 4× | writing the verdict | ## What will not work, measured before proposing anything **`facts-check` has a real gap and it is not this one.** It reports **62 untagged literal copies** across 7 registry keys and fails on none of them — a drift surface it names and does not close. **Closing it would have caught at most one of the seven.** Instance 1's denominator *was* a registry fact and was *correct*; the error was that AM-4a does not cover the code. Instances 2, 4, 5, 6 were **fresh measurements** — no registry key existed, and a provenance tag reproduces a wrong subject faithfully. > **A tag proves a number came from somewhere. It cannot prove the > somewhere was the right place.** The untagged surface is worth closing on its own merits, and **bundling it here would let this pass claim a victory it did not win.** Named as separate work, not done here. ## What did work, and it is one thing Read the *caught by* column. Every instance was caught when **the number was computed a second time by something with a different purpose** — a later pass, a reviewer, the recipient, or the author re-reading. Two of them, 4 and 5, share a sharper property: **the claim was tested against a variation.** - #4's cost **fell** as branching **rose**. A per-node cost cannot do that. The tell was in the published output. - #5's win rate was attributed to the game; a second policy on the same deals gave 0% where the first gave 100%. And #1 has it too: vary which crates are in scope and the budget changes, which is the whole error. **So the control is to generalise the thing this project already builds after each instance** — RetrospectiveAnalysis §4.1's policy panel, CB-WP-0029's attack-value sweep — and require it *before*: > **A measured claim must name the variable it depends on, and show the > measurement moving with it. A number that does not move when its subject > moves is measuring something else.** **Honest yield: 3 or 4 of 7**, and it catches the two that travelled furthest. It does **not** catch #7 (a count never made) or #3 (not a number). **Claiming it closes the family would be the family's own error applied to itself.** ## Task: decide the rule and its limits ```task id: CB-WP-0030-T01 status: todo priority: high ``` `decisions/ADR-0018-*.md`. - **State the rule** and where it binds: register findings that carry arithmetic, and anything leaving the repo. - **State the yield honestly**, instance by instance, including what it misses. A control whose reach is overstated is worse than none, because it stops people looking. - **Decide whether it is a gate or a discipline.** A sensitivity claim is prose; `loop-lint` can check *presence*, never *adequacy*. Say which half is mechanical. - **Do not bundle the untagged-facts surface.** Name it as separate. ## Task: the rule, in the spec that governs findings ```task id: CB-WP-0030-T02 status: todo priority: high ``` `specs/GameDesign.md` §1 already requires a reproduction that **exists**, has the **ruled shape**, and **can fail**. This adds the fourth clause, because §1.2's row-level rule was itself born from instance 2 and covers only sums. **Controls:** - the clause names the variable and the expected direction, or it is a sentence with no content; - **the existing three clauses are unchanged** — this is an addition, and a rewrite would silently drop what earlier instances bought. ## Task: make the mechanical half mechanical ```task id: CB-WP-0030-T03 status: todo priority: high ``` `loop-lint` fails when a register row of an arithmetic kind lacks a sensitivity line. **Controls:** - the check must **fail on a real row**, demonstrated by mutation — a lint that cannot go red is decoration (ADR-0006 D3, ADR-0017 D2); - **it checks presence, not adequacy**, and its output says so, so nobody reads a green lint as *"the claim was verified"*; - existing register rows are brought under it or explicitly exempted with a reason — a rule that only binds future rows leaves the six instances unprotected. ## Task: evidence ```task id: CB-WP-0030-T04 status: todo priority: medium ``` `evidence/CB-EV-0028-*.md`. - **Re-run the seven instances against the rule** and report how many it would have caught. If the answer is below 3, the rule is not the one. - **What the untagged surface is worth**, since it was measured here and deferred. - **Whether a lint that checks presence is worth having at all**, or whether it trains the eye to stop at green.