Adaptive check cadence: the interval is earned, not assigned

Operator ruling 2026-08-20. Severity no longer sets the review interval.
A check that comes back clean climbs one rung — instant, 1h, 8h, 24h,
48h, 96h, 7d, 14d, 1mo, 1q — and anything wrong drops straight back to
instant. A quarter is the ceiling. The operator may defer an instant
finding to a stated date; that is the only other way off the bottom rung.

The rung is the point: it says how stable the estate has been on that
matter, which is information severity does not carry. Volatile things get
attention automatically; quiet things stop consuming it; neither
judgement has to be made by a person who might be busy.

Escalation trigger 5 rebased onto the ladder — fourteen days at the
bottom rung, whether that is failing checks or no checks.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

findings/RISK-F-0003-ops-warden-read-boundary-ungraded-lanes.md

@@ -10,21 +10,24 @@ date_reported: "2026-08-19"
 system: ops-warden
 environment: production
 fix_owner: ops-warden
-fix_tracking: WARDEN-WP-0032-T05
+fix_tracking: WARDEN-WP-0032-T05 (done) / T06 (structural)
 # Graded by risk-nexus 2026-08-19 — docs/rulings/2026-08-19-first-grading.md
-severity: high
-severity_at_production: high
+severity: medium
+severity_at_production: medium
+severity_superseded: "high (2026-08-19) — the CLI-layer gap is mitigated"
 impact: I4
 likelihood: L2
 fidelity_modifier: false
 production_rescore: false
 disclosure: embargoed
-embargo_condition: "the five exec_capable lanes graded under WARDEN-WP-0032-T05"
+embargo_condition: "RISK-F-0009 resolved — the OpenBao deny set covers every high-risk lane with a KV path"
 embargo_since: "2026-08-19"
 embargo_review: "2026-09-18"
 escalation: none
-last_reviewed: "2026-08-19"
-review_by: "2026-09-18"
+last_checked: "2026-08-20T05:40:00Z"
+next_check: "2026-08-20T05:40:00Z"          # due now: the ladder starts at instant
+cadence: instant
+clean_streak: 0
 graded_by: risk-nexus
 ruling: RISK-RULING-2026-08-19
 ---
@@ -190,3 +193,35 @@ Reasoning: `docs/rulings/2026-08-19-first-grading.md`.
   Open at review: OpenBao policy coverage of the five paths; whether
   `WARDEN-WP-0032-T05` has landed; whether any compliance evidence cites
   `ADR-0004` as implemented.
+
+## Check — 2026-08-20: mitigated on one layer, `high` → `medium`
+
+`ops-warden` reports all 17 high-risk lanes now exiting 7 on
+`warden access --fetch` with `WARDEN_AGENT_ID` set, verified under
+`WARDEN-WP-0032-T05`/`T06`. The 14 ungraded lanes are graded; the boundary
+fires. The live gap this finding described is closed on the CLI layer.
+
+**Not clean, so the cadence stays at `instant`.** Something moved, and under
+the ladder that resets the clock rather than earning a longer one. The next
+check is the one that can start climbing.
+
+**`high` → `medium`.** What remains is the omission shape rather than the
+instance: whether a future lane can still be added without a grade. That is
+`WARDEN-WP-0032-T06`, and the durable form of the operator's maturity-context
+rule is `zone-engine`'s (`RISK-N-0004`). Not `low`, because "graded by hand
+once" is not the same as "cannot be ungraded again".
+
+**The embargo condition changed rather than being met.** The original condition
+— the five `exec_capable` lanes graded — is satisfied. But `RISK-F-0009` shows
+the *second* layer, the OpenBao deny set that protects the direct `bao kv get`
+path, covers 6 of 17 high-risk lanes. Publishing this finding now would name
+lanes that are still reachable by the path this control exists to close. The
+condition is therefore re-pointed at `RISK-F-0009`.
+
+That is the disclosure rule working across two findings rather than one: what
+matters is whether the text shortens a path, not whether this particular
+finding's own fix has landed.
+
+**Verification limit, recorded rather than assumed:** the mitigation is
+`ops-warden`'s report and this register has not probed it. Their operator token
+is expired, which is also why `RISK-F-0009` rests on a file comparison.