clay-borg/workplans/CB-WP-0029-the-tokens-on-the-table.md

---
id: CB-WP-0029
kind: product
title: "The tokens on the table: components you can count, and a supply the engine may not respect"
status: ready
---

# Purpose

```
structural tier  M   (imports another edition file under AM-4's budgets and
                      touches the rendering the coverage gate is written
                      against)
chaos            d8 = 4  → no override
declared tier    M
```

**Declaration 12 of chaos window 2 — the last.** The window closes with
this pass and its verdict is due; see §The window closes here.

## The ask

> *"Let's do the token objects first."*

The engine models every token correctly. It shows them as **numbers on a
seat card** — `protect 2`, `blamed by P3`, `freedom READY`. A real table
has objects you count at a glance.

## What `Tokens.csv` turns out to carry

Nine token types, and the columns are more interesting than the names:

| token | qty | sides | what the engine has |
|---|---:|---|---|
| Stress marker | 6 | Single | `stress: u8` — a marker on a 0–5 track |
| Freedom | 6 | **Double** (READY/spent) | `freedom_ready: bool` |
| DARVO stage | 6 | Single | `darvo: DarvoStage` on an OFF/DENY/ATTACK/REVERSE track |
| Relation link | **12** | Single | *"two per player"* — GR-L01's two slots |
| Focus / Blame | 6 | **Double** (FOCUS/BLAME) | `focus` map **and** `blame_from` list |
| Protection | 6 | Single | `protection: u8` |
| Denied | **5** | Single | `denied: bool` per Problem |
| Lead | 1 | Single | `lead: PlayerId` |
| Round | 1 | Single | `round: u8` |

**`quantity` is a component limit, and a simulation does not have one
unless it is told.** `protection` is `saturating_add(1)` at `lib.rs:986`
with **no upper bound** — the edition ships six Protection tokens for up
to six players. T03 is about whether that matters.

**`sides` is the second interesting column.** Freedom and Focus/Blame are
*one double-sided token each*, not two states. The engine holds Focus in a
map and Blame in a list; whether those can disagree with a single physical
token is worth checking.

## The window closes here

Window 2 opened 2026-08-03 at d8 and runs to twelve declarations. **This is
the twelfth.**

Its retirement condition — *retire if an override changes nothing twice
running* — has been **untestable throughout**: eleven declarations, zero
8s, zero overrides. CB-EV-0024, CB-EV-0025 and CB-EV-0026 each said so.

**Recording the verdict is a change to how the loop constrains itself and
is therefore its own tier-M pass**, not a task here. This workplan names
it as due so it is not lost between passes, which is how the ten rulings
went uncollected.

## Task: decide what a token is, here

```task
id: CB-WP-0029-T01
status: todo
priority: high
```

`decisions/ADR-0016-*.md` (tier M merges survey and decision).

- **Vendor `Tokens.csv`?** ADR-0015's test applies: does it carry text a
  player reads? `front_text` (READY, DENIED, PROTECTION…) and `use` do.
  `shape` and `size` are print instructions and do not.
- **What is a token in the renderer?** The engine has no `Token` type and
  should probably not gain one: a token is a *view* of state the aggregate
  already holds. Deciding otherwise means a second source of truth for
  Stress.
- **Where do they sit?** Player tokens belong with their seat; Denied
  belongs on its Problem; Lead and Round belong on the table. **The
  overhead view is what makes that placement meaningful** — a token
  drawn in a list is a number with a picture.
- **Does `quantity` bind?** The decision T03 needs: is the component count
  a rule the engine must enforce, an artifact of physical production, or
  undetermined? **Do not answer it here from taste** — T03 measures first.

## Task: tokens as objects

```task
id: CB-WP-0029-T02
status: todo
priority: high
```

Draw them, on the table built in CB-WP-0028.

- **Stress on a 0–5 track**, not the number `5`. The track is the thing
  that makes "one more Attack and I trigger DARVO" visible before it
  happens.
- **DARVO on its OFF→DENY→ATTACK→REVERSE track**, which is the game's
  namesake mechanic and currently the least visible thing on the page.
- **Freedom as a two-sided disc** — READY or spent, using the edition's own
  `front_text`.
- **Protection, Blame and Focus as counted objects** by their seat.
- **Denied on its Problem**, not as the word `denied` in a corner.

**Controls:**
- **every existing coverage probe still passes.** They name facts, and
  CB-WP-0027 and CB-WP-0028 both showed a fact-naming probe survives a
  reflow. A third confirmation is worth having;
- **the token text comes from the edition**, asserted as a substring of
  the vendored file — the rule ADR-0015 established and the thing that
  stops a hand-copied label drifting;
- a seat with **no** tokens renders as a seat with no tokens, not as a
  seat missing its area. The empty case is the one that silently vanishes.

## Task: does the engine respect the supply?

```task
id: CB-WP-0029-T03
status: todo
priority: high
```

**Measure before deciding.** For each token with a `quantity`, ask whether
the aggregate can exceed it:

- **Protection (6)** — `saturating_add(1)` with no bound. Can one seat
  hold three? Can the table hold seven? **Write the check, run it, report
  the number.**
- **Denied (5)** — five tokens, and a scenario deals at most five
  Problems. Probably safe; *probably* is not an answer.
- **Relation links (12, two per player)** — GR-L01 enforces two slots, so
  this one is likely already respected. Confirm rather than assume.
- **Focus/Blame (6, double-sided)** — one token per player that flips.
  Can a seat hold Focus *and* have Blame from the same source at once? If
  so, the model and the component disagree.

**Whatever this finds is a finding, not a fix.** A component limit the
rules do not state is `underdetermined` and belongs to `ground-game`; the
engine must not start enforcing a bound nobody ruled. **CB-WP-0023 exists
because SOLVE was offered where it could not act** — inventing a limit is
the same error in the other direction.

**Controls:**
- each answer is a runnable check, per GameDesign §1 — a claim about the
  supply is arithmetic and needs its reproduction;
- **the register gets a row per token that can exceed its quantity**, or a
  stated "none found", because a survey that reports nothing and leaves no
  trace is indistinguishable from one that was not run.

## Task: evidence

```task
id: CB-WP-0029-T04
status: todo
priority: medium
```

`evidence/CB-EV-0027-*.md`.

- **Whether the supply is exceeded**, with the numbers.
- **Whether the tracks changed what the maintainer could see coming** —
  the Stress track exists so a player can see DARVO approaching, and that
  is a claim about play, not about pixels.
- **What the reflow cost the coverage gate**, third data point.
- **The window-2 verdict is due** (§The window closes here) — name it as
  outstanding if the closing pass has not run.
- **Quote CB-WP-0028's cost by re-running the instrument.**