0.84.1-alpha · core 2026-10-22

The test-value scanner could not see the tests it was meant to judge. Its body-extraction regex matched greedily across the NEXT test, so every shape check ran against the rest of the file — which is why it reported "0 DELETE, 0 REVIEW" on a suite with fourteen tests that cannot fail for a reason that matters. The criteria now apply per TEST (a file can carry six load-bearing tests and one that checks a file exists), and the scanner found the fourteen.

Fourteen tests that observed a committed file instead of exercising the code. They asserted that a fixture, a SKILL.md, a reference or the transitions reference EXISTS — a fact a commit already guarantees, and one the content assertions beside them imply (a missing file fails the read). The convention they meant to pin is now pinned by a test that can fail: every artifact in the fixture directory follows the versioned naming convention (a property of the set, so a badly named artifact is caught), and every reference a stage defers to carries content and headings.

The mutation gate covers the critical workflow rules. Fourteen mutants now span the transition rule, the review-mode policy, the manifest, the artifact guard, the stage block, the history, the lock conflict, the ask identity and the generator drift. Two SURVIVED the first sweep — the state's own stages: block and its history: were recorded nowhere but in invariants.json, so a state that lied about the walk passed the suite. Both are pinned now.