2026-07-27 — itd-101 part (a) settled four choices spc-17 left open. (1) The committed baseline lives at `.abcd/citations-baseline.json`, alongside docs-lint.json/record-lint.json/rules.json — it is config the gate reads every commit, not development record; rejected `.abcd/development/` (wrong tier) and `.abcd/work/` (not a session artefact). (2) A table is a CROSSWALK when its nearest preceding heading matches `(?i)crosswalk` (configurable) — the narrowest heuristic that selects docs/reference/terminology.md's table and leaves every ordinary directory-map/comparison table alone; rejected column-header and any-table-in-docs identification (both sweep up README.md and docs/README.md tables that carry no citations by design). (3) A page's CITATION CORPUS is its footnote definitions, including wrapped continuation lines — not its prose; a URL in a body paragraph stays links_resolve's business, which is what keeps the syntax and source-policy rules off ordinary text. (4) `refused_domains` ships EMPTY: the repo states its admission rule in prose ("no single-author coinages, no aggregators", docs/reference/terminology.md + ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.md) but nowhere names a domain, and the gate must not invent an editorial blacklist the project never agreed. Also: staleness is measured from `last_checked` for automatic and manual entries alike (AC 3's "same clock"), and the 365-day threshold surfaces as a distinct rule id `citation_baseline_overdue` at warn — the commit gate never calendar-blocks, so promotion to blocker is the release gate's job in part (b).

Frontmatter

.abcd/work/decisions/dcn-2607270000000007-itd-101-part-a-settled-four-choices.md
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mentions2

• itd-101**Every citation abcd publishes is provably alive and honestly labelled — and the gate that enforces it never flakes.** A cited reference page is only as trustworthy as its links, and links rot silently: pages retitle, URLs redirect, whole platforms announce their own shutdown. abcd splits citation validation across a deterministic gate and an explicit refresh. An offline lint family checks structure and source policy on every commit — footnote markers and definitions in bijection, URLs and DOIs well-formed, aggregator domains refused — with zero network in the gate. `abcd docs cite refresh` does the live fetching on demand and writes a committed baseline: per URL, the final resolved address, when it was last checked, and whether verification was automatic or manual — never how. Sources that block automated fetchers join a manual queue the maintainer clears link by link: printed as a checklist first, later as a generated, disposable checklist page that hands back a receipt file the verb ingests. The lint then enforces the baseline offline — no broken entries, no stale entries, no cited URL without a receipt, no citation whose recorded final address has drifted. The engine is native and dependency-free first; a specialist link checker can slot in later behind the same seam. "My release gate stays deterministic and my citations stay alive," said Kira, an open-source maintainer. "When a source needs human eyes, abcd hands me the exact list to click through and records that I did — not how I did it."
• spc-17every-citation-abcd-publishes-is-provably-alive-and-honestly