clay-borg/workplans/CB-WP-0048-a-configuration-not-a-variant.md

---
id: CB-WP-0048
kind: product
title: "A configuration, not a variant"
status: in_progress
---

# Purpose

```
structural tier  M   (changes the state and therefore the recording, and
                      replaces the selector every consumer names)
declared tier    M
```

Implements [ADR-0022](../decisions/ADR-0022-a-configuration-is-a-point-in-aspect-space.md),
adopting ground-game catalog **schema 2** per
[CB-RES-0010](../research/CB-RES-0010-game-aspects-and-design-space.md).

## The gap, stated exactly

`scoped_plus_attack_soothe` is a profile in the vendored catalog **today**.
clay-borg cannot name it — not "has not implemented", *cannot express*.
`Variant` has three arms; H1 bundles flat pressure with self-soothe and
cannot be taken apart, H2 gives scoping alone, and their product has no
arm. Every future combination has the same problem.

The kernel is not the obstacle: **four sites branch on the variant and
each belongs to exactly one aspect** (ADR-0022 Context). The selector is
the blob.

## Task: the mirror is held by the gate

```task
id: CB-WP-0048-T00
status: done
priority: high
```

**Done 2026-08-08.** The schema-2 mirror (`catalog.yaml`, `ASPECTS.md`,
`CATALOG.md`, `modules/`) arrived vendored with **no recorded digests** —
19 files — and `make edition-check` was red on the working tree.

- Digests are now **generated by walking `editions/`**, not typed. Two
  reviews (CB-REV-0002 #8, CB-REV-0003 #8) already found hand-written
  lists that made their own controls vacuous; a mirror that grows a
  *directory* is precisely the case a maintained list loses.
- `editions/PROVENANCE-catalog.md` was a file **inside the mirrored tree
  that upstream does not have**, which the gate correctly refused as
  unexplained. Folded into `editions/ground-darvo-r0/PROVENANCE.md` —
  provenance *about* the mirror is ours, so it does not live inside the
  thing it describes.

**Noted, not fixed:** `vendored_files()` matches only `.csv` inside the
edition directory, so a non-CSV added *there* is invisible to both the
digest and the freshness check. The sibling walk has no such hole. The
exposure is one file today (`PROVENANCE.md`, ours) — but this is F26's
shape again and should be closed on its own terms.

## Task: `Configuration` and `Rules`

```task
id: CB-WP-0048-T01
status: todo
priority: high
```

Per ADR-0022 D1. Identity as data, behaviour exhaustive, `resolve()`
between them.

**Controls:**
- **a proposed module is refused BY NAME**, distinguishably from a typo —
  the two-error requirement is the reason this shape was chosen, so it is
  the first test;
- **two modules on one aspect are refused** (GAME↔MODEL validation);
- **an aspect the catalog has and the kernel does not know still parses**,
  because a configuration must be nameable before it is runnable;
- **`Rules` has no catch-all arm**, so a new module cannot fall through
  silently (CB-WP-0034's exhaustiveness, which caught two commands before
  any test ran);
- mutation-proven, each control against its own defect.

## Task: legacy ids alias forever

```task
id: CB-WP-0048-T02
status: todo
priority: high
```

Per ADR-0022 D2, through the catalog's own `legacy_experiment_id`.

**Controls:**
- **all 26 recordings replay byte-identically**, which is the whole
  constraint — `make sim` is the authority;
- **`--variant h2` and `--profile h2` produce the same resolved
  configuration**, asserted on the resolved object rather than on
  behaviour, so the equivalence is exact and not a coincidence of
  outcomes;
- **the expansion comes from the catalog**, not a table in our source: a
  second copy of ground-game's mapping is F25's shape.

## Task: the resolved configuration is recorded

```task
id: CB-WP-0048-T03
status: todo
priority: high
```

Per ADR-0022 D3 and CB-RES-0010 §5.3: `cb-play` sessions, replays, trial
logs and panel cells carry the **resolved** module list.

**Controls:**
- **the recorded configuration is the applied one**, proven the way
  CB-WP-0046 proved the trial-log stamp — from the state, not the flag;
- **the trial-log marker carries the configuration**, closing the gap
  CB-WP-0047 left open (variant stamped, scenario and mode not);
- **a bare field write cannot leave a module inert** — the H2 defect had
  three call sites and this is the generalisation of it.

## Task: the page and the panels speak aspects

```task
id: CB-WP-0048-T04
status: todo
priority: normal
```

**Controls:**
- **the table names every live module**, not a legacy id — the CB-WP-0044
  family: a rules change the page cannot name is reported as "no changes";
- **panels facet by aspect** (CB-RES-0010 §5.4), so "hold all aspects
  fixed, vary one" is what the harness does rather than what a reader
  reconstructs;
- **a module nothing measured is reported unmeasured**, not absent.

## Not done here

- **No policy reads the configuration.** F27 already records that the
  three scoring modes produce identical play because `GreedyPolicy` never
  consults `state.mode`; the same will be true of every aspect. Selection
  without aspect-aware policies gives configurations we can run and cannot
  evaluate — CB-RES-0010 §5.4's last bullet is F27 restated. **This is the
  next pass, and it is a prerequisite for measuring any new module**, not
  a nicety.
- **`end_condition` and `problem_deal` get no kernel path here.** Both
  their non-default modules are `status: proposed`; T01 makes them
  nameable and refusable, which is what ADR-0022 asks for and all it asks
  for.
- **`specs/Taxonomy.md` does not yet distinguish aspect from stratum.**
  ADR-0022 D0 states the distinction; the taxonomy is where it belongs,
  and without it the two vocabularies will be crossed in exactly the way
  the taxonomy exists to prevent.