clay-borg/workplans/CB-WP-0005-assertion-coverage.md

---
id: CB-WP-0005
kind: meta
title: "Make the instruments count assertions, then fix what they expose"
status: done
state_hub_workstream_id: "0b95a1e3-7780-43d0-81e9-072ef7978734"
---

# Purpose

`research/CB-RES-0004-replay-and-kernel-coverage.md` (v2, after an
adversarial review that rejected v1 with four blocking findings):

> **Every coverage instrument in this project counts names. None counts
> assertions.** Four of the seven defects found this pass are named in the
> source and inert, so no name-based check finds them.

Two are mutation-proven: AM-7's `hash-identical` clause survives folding a
100k-event log from an unrelated genesis state, and K9's `through` field
survives `Snapshot::take` discarding it entirely. `evidence/CB-EV-0001`
carries **`AM-7 replay | met, 2,290×`** for the first of those.

[ADR-0005](../decisions/ADR-0005-assertion-coverage-and-replay.md) decides
the response. This workplan executes it in four phases: teach the
instruments to count assertions, correct the record they falsified,
implement what they expose, then measure whether any of it worked.

**Headline numbers are expected to get worse before they get better.** A
pass that widened every denominator and reported the same percentages
would have proved the instruments still count names. Per InnerLoop §Step 4
no target moves in the commit that measures it.

## Phase A — teach the instruments to count assertions

## Task: spec→code link over every numbered spec and every crate

```task
id: CB-WP-0005-T01
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "d47338c6-eb2e-4443-aad2-0b08c2d91895"
```

`tools/rule-coverage.py` hardcodes `AGGREGATE = "games/ground/src/lib.rs"`
and `RULE_RE = \*\*(GR-[A-Z]+\d+)` against `GroundRules.md` alone. The
reviewer's finding: a ~10-line generalization would have surfaced K10, K14
and K18 the day AM-1b shipped.

Deliver: `AGGREGATE` becomes a list of source roots; rule patterns become
per-spec; the link runs over **every numbered spec × every crate**.

Three constraints from ADR-0005 §5, all of which must be visible in the
output:

1. The kernel denominator **reports and does not feed the exit code until
   2026-08-31**, after which it binds. The date lives in the tool and the
   tool prints the days remaining — an open-ended "gate it later" is how
   AM-4's targets went unratified for four workplans.
2. **Replicate the zero-rules positive control** on every new denominator.
   The existing arm refuses to report over zero rules, a defect it was
   fixed for; a kernel regex matching nothing must abort, not print
   `0/0 (100%)`.
3. State the limit in the output, as the GR arm already does: this counts
   names. It is the cheap half.

**Predicted:** K10, K14, K18 reported unlinked on the first run.
**Refuted if** any numbered rule in any spec is still unnamed in source
after the pass and the tool does not say so.

**Delivered, and the prediction held on the first run:**

```text
AM-1b kernel spec->code link: 15/18 (83%) K-rules named across 10 source files
  NOTE: link only — K-rules are kernel invariants with no scenario
        mechanism; and this counts names, not assertions
  gate: reporting only for 31 more day(s), binds 2026-08-31 (ADR-0005 §5)
  unlinked (declared in the spec, named nowhere in source):
    K10 K14 K18
```

`AGGREGATE` is now a list of source roots, rule patterns are per-spec, and
the link runs over every numbered spec × every crate. The binding date
lives in the tool and the days remaining are printed every run. The
kernel figures (`k_rules`, `k_linked`, `k_unlinked`) are registered facts,
so they are under `make facts-check` from the day they first exist rather
than after they drift.

**The self-test passed while the tool was completely broken** — a
`print(` inside `say()` became `say(`, so every real `make coverage` died
with `RecursionError` while `--self-test` reported all-ok, because it only
ever called the quiet path. The control named the behaviour and did not
assert it: this task's own thesis in miniature, and HDN instance #7. Fixed
by exercising the loud path, verified by re-breaking `say()`.

**A limit of `facts-check`, recorded not patched:** it is line-based, so a
tagged value that prose-wraps fails. Three edits to place two tags.

## Task: M-D1-MUT — one mutation per acceptance row

```task
id: CB-WP-0005-T02
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "c88f2696-ca12-44df-add3-0db3d2819c08"
```

The task this workplan exists for. Name-based checks catch 3 of the 7
defects; this catches the other 4.

Deliver `make mutation-check`: for each of the twelve AM-* acceptance
rows, a committed fixture that **inverts the row's stated property** and
an assertion that the suite goes **red**. A row whose mutation leaves the
suite green is a row backed by nothing.

Per ADR-0005 §1, `adapted:mutation-testing` — the denominator is
acceptance rows, not source lines, because the failure mode here is not an
untested branch but a headline number backed by nothing.

**The escape hatch is closed in advance:** a row for which no mutation can
be written is recorded `unmutatable` **with the reason** and **counts
against** the metric. A row nobody can invert asserts nothing.

Carries `--self-test`. Its own positive control is the one that matters:
a mutation harness that fails to apply its mutation reports every row as
`unmutatable` and looks thorough — this project has six harness-does-
nothing instances and one of them is being fixed in T03.

**Predicted: 9 of 12 rows turn red.** Deliberately beatable in both
directions — **12 of 12 refutes CB-RES-0004** (the instruments were better
than claimed, the finding shrinks to three absent rules, and M-D1-MUT was
not worth its CI cost); **3 of 12 means the pass is under-scoped and must
stop and re-plan** rather than proceed to Phase C.

**Delivered. Measured: 4 of 14 rows enforced. The prediction is badly
unmet.**

```text
  M-D1-MUT: 4/14 rows enforced
    PARTIAL       2      (AM-7, AM-8 — some clauses live, some inert)
    unmutatable   8      (no property to invert, reason stated per row)
    SURVIVED      0
```

Two corrections, detailed in [CB-EV-0004](../evidence/CB-EV-0004-assertion-coverage.md)
Test 2. **There are 14 rows, not 12** — AM-4 splits into a/b/c, so the
9-of-12 prediction is evaluated as ≥10 of 14. And **the first run's two
`SURVIVED` verdicts were my own no-op mutations**, either of which would
have published a false accusation against working code; replaced with real
inversions, after which both go red. T08's question is answered on the
first attempt.

**The finding is larger than the workplan assumed.** 8 of 14 rows are
`unmutatable` — AM-2, AM-3, AM-4c, AM-5, AM-6, AM-9, AM-10, AM-11 have no
instrument at all. AM-6 is the sharpest: **nothing compares any number to
100,000 events/s**, the headline throughput claim. The problem is not
three unimplemented rules; it is that **more than half the acceptance
table has nothing behind it.**

Harness controls: a stale find-string reports `HARNESS-BROKEN` rather than
scoring the baseline as the mutant; a red baseline reports `inconclusive`;
the tree is restored in a `finally` and verified. Not in `make all` — it
rebuilds the workspace once per row.

**Stop condition: see the note in T07 and the decision recorded there.**

## Phase B — correct the record

## Task: correct three committed verdicts and restore the fourth

```task
id: CB-WP-0005-T03
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "87fa2245-5f27-48af-906e-18affa41efcf"
```

Per ADR-0005 §4. Corrections are made **in place with a dated note**, not
silently edited — the correction trail is the artifact.

| row | committed | corrected to |
|---|---|---|
| AM-7 replay | `met, 2,290×` | timing clause **met**; `hash-identical` clause **withdrawn**, mutation-proven unmeasured, and the fold spans multiple game seeds so it is not a replay |
| AM-10 foreign types | `met` | **withdrawn as written** — no `cb-*-api` crate, so the population is empty; re-stated as a K6 determinism row, M-D4-LEAK marked **unmeasured** |
| AM-11 impl pairs | `met, narrow` | **unmet** until a shared conformance suite exists; the pair exists, the suite does not, and the metric is a bool over the suite |
| AM-1b | *absent from the scoreboard* | **added**, at its real value |

The last one is the point of the phase. `make coverage` prints `49/58` two
lines below the `100%` the scoreboard carried, and the scoreboard kept the
flattering half. Update `specs/GameKernel.md` §5 and
`specs/MetricsAndScenarios.md` §1 to match, and tag the new figures under
`make facts-check` so they cannot drift.

**Delivered.** `evidence/CB-EV-0001` §1 now carries a dated correction
note and a new **Enforced** column carrying M-D1-MUT — because a row can
be *measured* and still enforce nothing, and the scoreboard had no way to
say so. §1a records what changed and how each was found.

**A fifth correction surfaced that ADR-0005 did not list:** AM-12 still
read **$248.46**, the figure CB-WP-0002 disproved and corrected to
$93.15. It had been stale in the evidence file ever since — **untagged,
and therefore invisible to `facts-check`**. It is now tagged
`fact:pinned_total`. A DFD instance that survived the gate built to catch
DFD, because that gate only checks copies that opted in.

`specs/GameKernel.md` §5 carries the AM-10 withdrawal and the AM-11
downgrade inline, so a reader of the spec cannot reach the old claim.

## Phase C — DEFERRED before starting (see T02)

> **Deferred 2026-07-31 by the stop condition in T02, maintainer decision.**
> M-D1-MUT measured **4 of 14** (28.6%) against a 25% floor and a 71%
> prediction. Phase C is scoped to K9/K10/K11/K14/K18 — five rules — but
> the measurement says **8 of 14 acceptance rows have no instrument at
> all**, which Phase C does not address. Building it as written would mean
> proceeding on a diagnosis the instrument had just contradicted.
>
> T04, T05 and T06 stay in this file, unstarted, with their analysis
> intact; they move to **CB-WP-0006**, which is scoped to the finding that
> was actually measured rather than the one that was predicted.
>
> They carry `status: cancel` — the hub's status vocabulary is
> `wait|todo|progress|done|cancel`, and of those `cancel` is the accurate
> one: *these* task records are superseded, and equivalents live in
> CB-WP-0006 T05–T07. The work is deferred, not abandoned.

## Phase C — implement what the instruments expose (cancelled here)

The three tasks below were written in full, then cancelled unstarted. Their
analysis now lives where the work will happen — **[CB-WP-0006](CB-WP-0006-instrument-the-table.md)
Phase B** — rather than here, so there is one copy and it is next to the
code it describes. What each was, and what it became:

## Task: K9 and K11 — durable log, LogStore port, conformance suite

```task
id: CB-WP-0005-T04
status: cancel
state_hub_task_id: "35876b28-97ac-4379-bb71-72e74c4116d4"
```

K9's acceptance property is mutation-proven unasserted; K11 has no durable
format; AM-11's conformance suite does not exist. → **CB-WP-0006 T05**.

## Task: K10 — the replay bundle and `--replay`

```task
id: CB-WP-0005-T05
status: cancel
state_hub_task_id: "8592b6e7-8b83-4b47-b310-90e16a35eb6a"
```

INTENT design decision 8 of 10, unimplemented; four controls required
verbatim from ADR-0005 §6. → **CB-WP-0006 T06**.

## Task: K14 and K18 — implement, or amend the spec

```task
id: CB-WP-0005-T06
status: cancel
state_hub_task_id: "774b1c8a-71c1-4e0a-91b1-0247a3e397cf"
```

`CommitWindow` has zero non-test users; the bench never touches
`ScenarioFile`. Implement, or amend with a recorded argument. →
**CB-WP-0006 T07**.
## Phase D — measure it, then say what the loop should change

## Task: control loop — did the numbers get worse, then better?

```task
id: CB-WP-0005-T07
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "a34baa46-fbfd-473b-9e15-811e17697791"
```

Commit `evidence/CB-EV-0004-assertion-coverage.md`. Three tests, all
reported:

1. **Did the denominators widen?** Name coverage before and after, per
   spec. A widened denominator that reports the same percentage is the
   result to publish — it would mean the instruments still count names.
2. **M-D1-MUT against the 9-of-12 prediction.** Report unmet if unmet; no
   target moves in the commit that measures it. State which rows are
   `unmutatable` and why.
3. **Did quality hold?** `make all` green with the new gates; and the
   honest question this pass raises — did widening the instruments surface
   *new* defects, or only the seven already known? Finding none would be
   evidence the sweep was as complete as CB-RES-0004 claims, which is a
   stronger claim than it sounds and should be stated as such.

Normalize per unit of work, as CB-WP-0004 T05 established: report share of
pass alongside absolute figures, and use `cb-cost --since` to window this
pass against the last.

**Measured — [CB-EV-0004](../evidence/CB-EV-0004-assertion-coverage.md).**
70 responses, **$16.03**.

1. **Denominators widened, and the number moved.** 1 spec → 2, 58 rules →
   76, 1 source file → 10, and the new denominator came in at **83%**
   naming K10/K14/K18. The stated failure mode — a widened denominator
   reporting the same percentage — did not occur.
2. **M-D1-MUT 4 of 14 against ≥10. Unmet**, and wrong about *what* as well
   as how much: the diagnosis was three absent kernel rules, the
   measurement found eight rows with no instrument at all.
3. **Quality held**, and widening surfaced far more than the seven known
   defects: six further uninstrumented rows, HDN #7 (`rule-coverage`'s
   self-test green while the tool was broken), a stale $248.46 that
   `facts-check` could not see because it was untagged, and **a fifth
   error class**.

**The clean test CB-WP-0004 was owed, now run:** the two categories whose
tools removed the manual path are at **0 turns** two passes on; the two
that merely offered a better option are now the *entire* mechanical cost
of a pass. Absolute mechanical cost fell $51.76 → $6.13. The mechanism
holds.

**A regression, reported because nothing else would:** SH-3 batching is
**0.0%** (67 tool calls, 67 responses) against a 20% target, and mean
context 315,170 against 200,000. SessionShape has stated these since
CB-WP-0003 and none of them has ever been enforced.

## Task: retrospective and InnerLoop v1.4

```task
id: CB-WP-0005-T08
status: done
priority: medium
state_hub_task_id: "3add7e1e-2082-44ef-9287-742c90e5c958"
```

One loop change is already earned and should be written whatever else this
pass finds. InnerLoop §Step 2's "numbers" row says the reviewer must
*reproduce the number independently* — satisfiable by re-running the
command that prints it, which is exactly what does **not** find this class.
The reviewer found AM-7 by opening a test out of curiosity, and said so.

> **v1.4:** the reviewer must read the assertion behind every quoted
> acceptance number and **mutate it**, not re-run the command that prints
> it.

This is the **second** instance of a verification step inheriting the
author's blindness — CB-WP-0002's dedup blind spot was the first. Both
fixes replace re-derivation with adversarial execution. Record whether
that generalizes.

The question to answer honestly: **CB-WP-0004 concluded that tooling
recovers capacity only where it removes the manual path. Does the same
test predict which gates work?** `env-test` and `task-done` removed the
manual path and held. Does a mutation gate remove the manual path — or is
writing a weak mutation the new `grep`?

**Answered — [260731-assertion-coverage-retrospective.md](../history/260731-assertion-coverage-retrospective.md).
Yes, it is the new `grep`, and it is worse, because it fails in the
opposite direction.**

`mutation-check`'s first run produced two `SURVIVED` verdicts and both
were the author's own no-op mutations — two of fourteen rows, first
attempt, in a pass whose subject was inert assertions. Writing a weak
mutation is exactly as easy as writing a strong one and the harness cannot
tell them apart.

**The fifth error class: false accusation (FA).** HDN, TA, SSB and DFD all
under-report — a real problem passes. FA over-reports: it publishes the
claim that working code is broken, sends the next pass to fix something
that is not broken, and is *more* credible than the truth because it
arrives with a measurement attached. Thirteen instances, five classes, six
passes — and the newest class is one that hardening created.

**What would bind:** each mutation records its expected failure message
and the harness asserts the observed failure matches. A no-op fails that
immediately, because it produces no failure at all. CB-WP-0006 T08 already
requires it; T09 evaluates the stronger form — mutations written by
someone other than the author of the assertion.

**One correction to CB-WP-0004 T06**, stated rather than left implicit:
"a gate only pays if it removes the manual path" is a **predictor of
whether a gate saves money, not a criterion for whether it is worth
having**. `mutation-check` fails that test and still produced the most
valuable findings of the pass. T06 stated it too strongly; this pass is
the counter-example.

**Attribution note.** T07 and T08 shipped in one commit, and CA-08 keys on
the first qualified task id in the subject — so T07's bucket ($3.06 over
13 responses) covers the substantive work of both, and T08's own figure
covers only its close. `make task-done` refused to close T08 at all until
a commit named it, which is the "no estimates" contract working as
designed rather than a defect. The lesson is cheap: **one commit, one
task id**.

**InnerLoop v1.4** adopted: where a claim rests on numbers, the
adversarial reviewer must read the assertion behind each quoted number and
**mutate it**. Re-running the command that prints a number is not
verification of that number. Second verification step to inherit the
author's blindness; both fixes replace re-derivation with adversarial
execution.