clay-borg/specs/FindingRegister.md

# The finding register

Design findings about **GROUND**, with their reproductions. Governed by
[`GameDesign.md`](GameDesign.md) (admissibility, kinds, states, metrics)
and [ADR-0012](../decisions/ADR-0012-the-design-instrument.md). Reported
by `make design`.

**Split out of `GroundRules.md §Underdetermined` on 2026-08-05** when that
file crossed the ~400-line loadability limit. ADR-0012 D2 said *"no new
file"* and this is a new file — but D2's substance was **one register, not
a second mechanism competing with the first**, and that holds: this *is*
§Underdetermined's register, moved, still driving off the same
`provisional`/ruling machinery. D2 also named the awkwardness this
resolves — a finding about the engine sitting in a document about the
game.

The U-items themselves, with their defaults and rulings, stay in
[`GroundRules.md §Underdetermined`](GroundRules.md); this file tracks them
*as findings*.

**This section is the design-finding register** (ADR-0012 D2). It was the
register for dataset ambiguities already; CB-WP-0022 extended it to all
five kinds rather than building a second one beside it. Admissibility,
kinds, states and metrics: [`GameDesign.md`](GameDesign.md). Reported by
`make design`.

<!-- design-register:begin -->

| id | kind | state | reproduction | role | raised | owner |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U1 | underdetermined | applied | — | default | 2026-07-31 | ground-game |
| U2 | underdetermined | applied | scenarios/ground/gr-d01-darvo-trigger.yaml | default | 2026-07-31 | ground-game |
| U3 | underdetermined | applied | — | default | 2026-07-31 | ground-game |
| U4 | underdetermined | applied | — | default | 2026-07-31 | ground-game |
| U5 | underdetermined | applied | — | default | 2026-07-31 | ground-game |
| U6 | underdetermined | applied | — | default | 2026-07-31 | ground-game |
| U7 | underdetermined | applied | — | default | 2026-07-31 | ground-game |
| U8 | underdetermined | applied | — | default | 2026-07-31 | ground-game |
| U9 | underdetermined | applied | — | default | 2026-07-31 | ground-game |
| U10 | underdetermined | applied | — | default | 2026-07-31 | ground-game |
| F11 | inert | applied | scenarios/ground/gr-p05-solve-legality.yaml | counterexample | 2026-08-02 | clay-borg |
| F12 | degenerate | note | — | — | 2026-08-01 | clay-borg |
| F13 | inconsistent | withdrawn | scenarios/ground/gr-e01-threshold-reachable-2p.yaml | counterexample | 2026-08-01 | clay-borg |
| F14 | unplayed | applied | games/ground/examples/attack-value.rs | counterexample | 2026-08-01 | clay-borg |
| F15 | underdetermined | note | — | — | 2026-08-05 | clay-borg |
| F16 | inconsistent | withdrawn | games/ground/examples/difficulty.rs | counterexample | 2026-08-05 | clay-borg |
| F17 | degenerate | raised | games/ground/examples/attack-value.rs | counterexample | 2026-08-06 | ground-game |
| F18 | inert | raised | `games/ground/src/edition.rs::card_text_tests::the_engine_reads_only_part_of_what_it_vendored` | counterexample | 2026-08-06 | clay-borg |
| F25 | inert | raised | `games/ground/src/edition.rs::card_text_tests::the_engine_agrees_with_the_editions_own_numbers` | default | 2026-08-08 | clay-borg |
| F24 | inert | raised | `games/ground/src/edition.rs::card_text_tests::the_hardcoded_deck_still_matches_the_edition` | default | 2026-08-07 | clay-borg |
| F19 | degenerate | applied | crates/cb-render-html/src/lib.rs::overhead_table | counterexample | 2026-08-06 | clay-borg |
| F20 | inert | applied | crates/cb-render-html/src/lib.rs::ending_page | counterexample | 2026-08-06 | clay-borg |
| F21 | degenerate | note | — | — | 2026-08-06 | clay-borg |
| F23 | inconsistent | applied | decisions/ADR-0017-chaos-window-2-verdict.md | counterexample | 2026-08-07 | clay-borg |
| F22 | underdetermined | withdrawn | games_ground::edition::supply_tests::play_never_exceeds_the_components_the_box_holds | counterexample | 2026-08-07 | clay-borg |
| F26 | inert | raised | `crates/cb-render-html/src/lib.rs::a_scoped_table_says_what_a_scope_does` | counterexample | 2026-08-08 | ground-game |
| F27 | unplayed | raised | `games/ground/examples/scenario-panel.rs` | counterexample | 2026-08-08 | clay-borg |
| F28 | underdetermined | raised | `games_ground::tests::the_mastery_rating_and_the_shared_score_count_different_things` | counterexample | 2026-08-08 | ground-game |

<!-- design-register:end -->

- **F27 — the two competitive modes are scoring lenses over cooperative
  play.** `scenario-panel` finds group success *exactly* equal across
  SHARED GROUND, COMMON PROBLEM and BONDED COALITIONS in all 36 cells.
  Correct arithmetic: `GreedyPolicy` maximises the group outcome and
  never reads `state.mode`, so the same games are played and only the
  winner set is carved differently. **Whether a mode changes how GROUND
  is played is therefore untested**, and cannot be tested by any panel
  built from the current policies — it needs one that plays for personal
  score. `unplayed` rather than `inert`: the modes score correctly, they
  have simply never faced a seat that wanted to win alone.

- **F28 — SHARED GROUND's mastery rating counts cards where the mode
  card counts points.** *"All claimed Problem cards form one shared score.
  … For a mastery rating, subtract 1 for each Blame token still in play
  and 1 for each Denied Problem."* The shared score is claimed **value**
  (`total`); `mastery` subtracts the same penalties from the claimed
  **count**. Both readings fit the sentence and they differ on every game
  where a 3-point Problem is claimed. Ours to report, theirs to rule.

  **Sensitivity:** vary only the point value of the claimed Problems and
  the gap moves with `sum(value) - count`. The two readings agree exactly
  when every claimed Problem is worth 1 — no Problem in the edition is —
  or when nothing is claimed, which is a loss. Everything else is held
  fixed: same board, same penalties, same threshold.

- **F26 — a package that adds a FILE is invisible, where a package that
  adds a column is not.** `h2-scoped-problem-stress` ships
  `Rules_Text.csv` — twenty-two passages of player-facing rules, including
  the one passage that says what a `stress_scope` does. No reader in
  clay-borg mentioned the file, so `edition-check` could not call it stale
  (a file nothing reads is not out of date, it is unseen) and no gate
  could call it unread. The rule the table's whole layout encodes sat in
  the repo, reachable by no player, for the entire measured life of H2.

  **Inert rather than underdetermined**: nothing is ambiguous about the
  rule and the engine implements it correctly — the text simply could not
  fire. Third instance of F18's shape and the first where the unit is a
  file, which is why it is filed separately instead of folded in.

  Raised against `ground-game` because the actionable half is theirs: a
  package's manifest should name its own files, so that a consumer reading
  none of them is a detectable state. clay-borg now reads the one passage
  it needed (CB-WP-0046); the other twenty-one remain unread and that is
  the standing evidence.

- **F11 — SOLVE offered where it cannot act.** Offered on a face-down
  Problem, or with no matching suit in hand; inert every time. Ruled
  GROUND-WP-0002 T02, implemented CB-WP-0023 as GR-P05. `applied` — the
  rule changed, not just the annotation. **The case we reported was not the
  case that fired**: `validate` already rejected face-down, and the
  maintainer's three inert SOLVEs were the *hand* case.
- **F12 — GR-A13 "wasted SOLVE" on an already-claimed Problem.** A
  scenario had to pick a default and did. `note`: no artifact isolates the
  degenerate line, so under GameDesign §3.1 it may not be reported until
  one exists.
- **F13 — GR-E01 vs GR-S01, withdrawn 2026-08-05.** Raised as *"4/6/9
  against 5/7/9, no dataset reconciles them."* `2da19a4` measured **6/9/12
  against 5/7/9** and the scenario was renamed `-unreachable-` →
  `-reachable-`. **Its reproduction is green**, which under GameDesign §1.3
  is the alarm that forced the resolution. Withdrawn rather than deleted,
  and the withdrawal is reported (ADR-0012 D5).
- **F16 — "the game is too easy at 5–6 seats", withdrawn the day it was
  raised.** Claimed from `GreedyPolicy` winning 200/200 at those seat
  counts. A `FirstLegal` policy scores **0%** on the identical deals, and
  at two seats it *beats* greedy — two unsophisticated agents span the
  whole range, so the measurement was about the policy. Caught by the
  CB-WP-0025 adversarial review (C4) **before transmission**; it would
  have been the fifth wrong premise sent to ground-game and the worst,
  since GROUND-WP-0005 is blocked on exactly this number. The withdrawal
  was reported (ADR-0012 D5). Its reproduction is `difficulty.rs`, whose
  policy panel is plural *because of this finding*.
- **F23 — a false claim propagated five times by citation instead of
  measurement.** CB-EV-0024 §6 stated that chaos window 2 produced **zero
  overrides** and that its retirement condition was untestable. CB-EV-0025,
  CB-EV-0026, CB-EV-0027 and CB-WP-0029 each repeated it, citing the one
  before.

  **It was false.** Declaration 3 (CB-WP-0020) rolled d8 = 8 and overrode —
  and **CB-WP-0020 recorded it correctly at the time**, in those words:
  *"the first override at d8… It changed nothing… **One.**"* Counting the
  workplans takes one command.

  **The subject makes it worse.** Three of those four files were arguing
  that this project's defect is claims asserted without their
  reproduction — while carrying one. `facts-check` catches a copied number
  that disagrees with its source; nothing catches a number with **no
  source**, asserted once and cited thereafter.

  **`applied`** — ADR-0017 corrects it, and each of the four files carries
  an in-place correction rather than a silent edit (ADR-0012 D5). **The
  general defect is not fixed**: it is the same family as the five
  wrong-subject instances, and still has no control.
- **F22 — does the component supply bind the game? Asked, measured, and
  withdrawn.** `Tokens.csv` gives every component a `quantity` — 6
  Protection, 5 Denied, 12 relation links — and **no numbered rule
  mentions a supply**, so the engine could in principle mint a seventh
  Protection token (`saturating_add`, no bound, `lib.rs:986`). Measured
  over **750 games**, 2–6 seats, greedy and random: Protection reaches 1
  per seat and 2 on the table; Denied 3 of 5; links **exactly 12 of 12**,
  never over, because GR-L01's two-slot rule *is* the twelve-token supply
  written twice. Focus/Blame: 0 conflicts. **Withdrawn — nothing to
  report.** Registered as a stated negative because a survey that finds
  nothing and leaves no trace cannot be told from one that was never run.
  The check ships as a standing control (ADR-0016 D3): if play ever does
  exceed a quantity, that is a **finding for ground-game** — *does the box
  bound the game, or do the rules?* — and **not** a bound for the engine to
  invent.
- **F21 — dragging did not work until after the first note was saved.**
  Reported 2026-08-06: *"I could not drag and drop at the beginning but
  after I added the first comment it worked."* **`note`, and I could not
  reproduce it.** The gesture logic is correct against the served page
  (the JS harness posts properly), the ghost carries `pointer-events:none`
  so it cannot intercept the drop, and the markup is identical before and
  after the note — the 303 re-renders the same page from the same state.
  **Candidates, none confirmed:** a `<details>` toggle inside an action
  card shifting the layout mid-drag; a first-load timing difference; or a
  browser-level pointer capture. **Reproducing it needs a browser, which
  no test here has** — the same gap F19 named. Recorded rather than
  guessed at.
- **F20 — a click target wearing a drag affordance made the ending
  controls look dead.** `play again`, `end session`, `pass` and the move
  buttons carried `.pick`, which is `cursor:grab`. A grab cursor invites a
  **drag**, and a drag released over nothing posts nothing — so the button
  did nothing and appeared broken. Reported as two separate observations
  (*"the button shows a hand to pick up that it probably shouldn't"* and
  *"I can't start another game or stop the server"*) which are one defect.
  **`applied`**: click targets now carry `.tap`. **This extends CB-WP-0017's
  rule** — interactive and inert must not look identical — to *click and
  drag must not look identical either*.
- **F19 — the engine shipped a table nobody could play on, and every gate
  was green.** CB-WP-0028's overhead view was 620px tall, so the action
  cards sat a screen below the Problems; dragging between them was
  physically impossible. Seats were drawn *inside* the table, and the
  `table` drop target was a card among the buttons rather than the drawn
  surface. **`make all` passed throughout**, because every test asserted
  the DOM was correct — which it was. The JS harness even posts a correct
  gesture against a page a human cannot drag on. `degenerate`: the feature
  fires and collapses play. **`applied`** — fixed 2026-08-06, with height,
  seat-position and single-drop-zone proxies added. **They are proxies.**
  Nothing here lays out a browser, and the gap CB-EV-0026 named — that no
  gate measures whether a player can play — is unclosed.
- **F17 — ATTACK cannot affect whether the table succeeds.** Reported
  from play as *"there is no incentive to play attacks as long as I have
  positive cards"*, and **the artifact now exists**:
  `games/ground/examples/attack-value.rs`, 200 games per cell, one number
  varied — ATTACK's rank in an otherwise identical policy.

  | ATTACK ranked | wins (2/3/4/5/6p) | attacks | DARVO armed |
  |---|---|---:|---:|
  | 10 (below all) | 132 / 165 / 190 / 200 / 200 | 0 | 0 |
  | 75 (above SUPPORT) | **132 / 165 / 190 / 200 / 200** | 315–923 | 13–218 |
  | 95 (above SOLVE) | **0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0** | 1400–5170 | 400–1000 |

  **The middle row is the finding: identical win counts at every seat
  count**, while attacking hundreds of times and arming DARVO. Attacking
  is not punished — it is **inert with respect to the goal**. Group success
  is a function of SOLVE alone, and ATTACK only costs anything when it
  ranks above SOLVE and displaces it.

  **So the maintainer was right and the reason is sharper than the
  phrasing.** There is no incentive because there is no *path*: ATTACK's
  effects (Stress, Rivalry, DARVO) feed nothing that decides
  `group_success`.

  **Asked in all three modes 2026-08-07, and ATTACK earns its place in
  none of them:**

  | mode | never attack | attack sometimes |
  |---|---|---|
  | SHARED GROUND | 132/165/190/200 | **identical** — free but pointless |
  | COMMON PROBLEM | 59/52/48/44 | 59/52/48/**34** — a cost at six seats |
  | BONDED COALITIONS | 131/134/132/116 | **59/52/48/34** — roughly halved |

  **The coalitions row has a mechanism the data confirms.** GR-A07 flips a
  Bond to a Rivalry on Attack, and GR-E04 scores Bond *networks* — so
  attacking destroys the thing that scores. And the attacking numbers in
  E04 are **identical** to E03's, which is exactly what that predicts:
  break every Bond and each seat becomes a coalition of one, so GR-E04
  degenerates into GR-E03.

  **Not a claim that the game is broken.** DARVO is the pattern the game
  is *about* not falling into; a self-destructive ATTACK may be the
  design. The question for `ground-game` is whether the namesake mechanic
  being unreachable in competent co-op play is intended.
- **F18 — the engine imports one of nineteen edition files, so the cards
  cannot say what they do.** Reported as *"I don't understand the GROUND
  card"* — which is not a design gap: `Actions.csv` carries that card's
  tagline (*"Regulate. Restore the frame. Decide."*) and full rules text,
  and clay-borg never imported it. Every other card is the same: a player
  sees `Clarify` where the card reads *"Ask What Happened — Invite a
  concrete account before judging."* **`inert`**: the data exists and
  cannot fire, because nothing reads it. **Ours, and CB-WP-0028 fixes it.**
- **F25 — the engine hardcodes numbers the edition states.**
  `GroundState::threshold` is a `match` returning 5/7/9 while
  `Scenarios.csv` carries `threshold_2_players`, `threshold_3_4_players`
  and `threshold_5_6_players`; setup writes `stress: 2` against *"All
  players start at Stress 2."*; the engine plays five rounds against a
  printed 1–5 track. **All three agree, on all four scenarios**, and that
  is the finding rather than the reassurance: these are the most contested
  numbers in the project — the whole 4/6/9 versus 5/7/9 episode turned on
  them — and the engine has been right by maintenance coincidence rather
  than by reading the file that owns them. **`inert`**, role `default`:
  green because they agree, red the moment either side moves. **Ours.**
  Same shape as F24.

- **F24 — the draw pile is a Rust literal.** `solution_deck()` builds six
  of each suit from an array and never opens `Solutions.csv`, whose `suit`
  and `quantity` columns say the same thing. **They agree today** — 24
  rows, six per suit — so nothing is wrong now, and that is the point:
  the engine is right by maintenance coincidence rather than by reading.
  **`inert`**: the data exists and cannot fire. Role `default`, not
  `counterexample` — the reproduction is green *because* the two agree,
  which is the state GameDesign §1.3 says to expect from a documented
  provisional choice, and it turns red the moment either side moves.
  **Ours.** CB-WP-0037 T02 deletes the literal.

- **F15 — the rules define one game, not a series.** `OutcomeView` gives
  `personal` (per seat), `group_success` (per table) and `winners`. Summing
  the first and counting the third answer different questions, and GROUND
  says nothing about how several games combine. CB-WP-0024 T04 shows
  **both, labelled**, rather than picking one and letting it become the
  score by default. `note`: no artifact demonstrates that this *harms*
  play — a unit test showing the two tallies point at different seats
  demonstrates only that they can differ, which is arithmetic, not a design
  defect. Under GameDesign §3.1 it may not be reported until one exists.
- **F14 — GR-E03/GR-E04 never played to the end. Closed 2026-08-07, and
  the reason they were unplayed was ours.** `cb-play` built every game with
  `ScoringMode::SharedGround` and passed an **empty patch**, so two of the
  three shipped modes were unreachable from the only way anyone plays. The
  mode was patchable in *scenarios* and not from the *driver*. `--mode`
  added; all three now play to the end and give **different winners from
  identical play**: shared → all four seats, common → P3 alone, coalitions
  → P1+P2. **`applied`** — 800 games per mode in the reproduction.

### The register's first run found ten answers nobody had collected

**U1–U10 are `ruled`, not `reported`.** GROUND-WP-0002 T05 answered all
ten on **2026-08-03** — every one **confirmed** as the default clay-borg
already simulates — and GROUND-WP-0002 T03 confirmed five of the six
provisional scenarios, voiding `gr-e01` as a rules gap. The workplan is
`finished`.

CB-RES-0007 reported *"0 of 10 ruled"* and this register was built saying
`reported`. **Both were two days stale on the day they were written.** The
answers had arrived and nothing propagated them — the same failure as the
unread inbox, in the opposite direction.

**They are `ruled`, not `applied`, and the difference is work we owe.**
Per ADR-0012 D5, `applied` means the source changed and the provisional
default was deleted. The rulings *confirmed* our defaults, so the rules did
not move — but the scenarios still carry `provisional: true` for choices
that are now settled. **Lifting those flags and recording each ruling is
what closes U1–U10**, and it is not done. `make design` shows them open
until it is.

### The U-item ↔ scenario mapping, measured twice

**One U-item has a scenario that names it: U2.** CB-RES-0007 asserted six
of ten did.

CB-WP-0026 T03 tried to write the other mappings and **produced two wrong
ones before checking them**:

| claimed | why it was withdrawn |
|---|---|
| `gr-a04-bond-support` → U1 | it asserts consent is **required**; U1 asks **when** the target accepts. Different question. |
| `gr-d05-darvo-reverse` → U5 | it exercises the **unrejected** REVERSE; U5 is the **rejected** one (GROUND—ND). Different stage. |

Both were plausible from the `covers:` list and both were wrong on
reading the description. **That is the third and fourth instance of this
exact defect** — a link that looks right, asserted without checking what
the artifact actually exercises — and the first two reached ground-game.

So a scenario now declares `encodes_u_item` explicitly or claims nothing.
**Nine U-items have no reproduction and are recorded as having none.**
They are `applied` because the ruling landed and the provisional flag came
off, not because anything demonstrates them.

### What the backfill measured, and what it contradicted

**Only U2 names its U-item in a scenario.** Measured, not estimated:

```
for u in U1 .. U10; do grep -lE "\b$u\b" scenarios/ground/*.yaml; done
```

CB-RES-0007 asserted *"six of the ten already have provisional
scenarios."* Five provisional scenarios exist and **one** cites the item
it stands for. The other four may well encode U-item defaults — the
mapping is simply **not written down**, so it is not checkable, and an
uncheckable link is the defect this register exists to fix. The register
records what is citable; the rest is debt, visible in `make design`.

**No sixth kind was needed** — the five kinds absorbed all four non-U
findings. And the survey's *"six provisional defaults"* was **not** entered
as a finding: C3 showed it double-counted GR-E01, and the provisional
scenarios are *reproductions for* underdetermined items, not a finding of
their own.

**U1–U10 are `reported` while lacking reproductions**, which GameDesign
§3.1 would now forbid. They were reported on 2026-07-30, before the rule
existed. They are grandfathered rather than rewritten, and the debt is a
reported metric with a target of zero.