A cold reading's findings land as reading records, and the researcher's response is a separate disposition record — two acts, two writes, never collapsed

Typed links: refines itd-86 (the detection shape); the hold state's axes are shared with the itd-142 hold register and the iss-2608220750029991 triage-route seed.

Press Release

A reading record is not a capture with a flag, and a disposition is not an issue state. A capture is something a person noticed; a reading record is something an instrument returned under a recorded visible world — it carries a run-scoped identifier, a run identifier, a manifest reference, its position and regime value, and a position-typed body (for the detection pass: tension, constraint in play, why it is a tension). The researcher's response is a second record, keyed to the item identifier, from a five-state vocabulary whose availability varies by position: accepted (all positions — at the widening position it IS admission), rejected (a testable purpose is asserted; never at the widening position), declined (widening only — the proposal was admissible and the researcher chose otherwise, asserting nothing testable), held (directional, with an epistemic exit condition). The record can therefore always show that a reading record existed before it was dispositioned.

What's In Scope

• The reading record type (renamed from "detection", ruled 2026-08-28 — the registrative body and the Step-6 instrument keep the detection name; the record type is the reading record): a common envelope the instrument stamps — identifier (run-scoped, adr-45 mint, never content-derived, else a re-raise is indistinguishable from its first appearance and the recurrence signal dies), run identifier, manifest reference, position and regime value from the definition, and the pattern named — plus a position-typed body from the reading.
• The bodies, one per position — the pattern named sits in the envelope, never in a body, since a universal core condition must not live in a variant part: registrative — tension · constraint in play · why it is a tension; generative — configuration · what admits it; explicative — claim surfaced · claim type · what implies it; evaluative — candidate identifier · criterion · characterisation. One record type: one lint, one disposition surface, one identifier scheme; four types are rejected. Fallback if the discriminated union proves awkward in build: one type, untyped body, and a lint asserting the required fields per position — weaker, and adequate.
• The disposition record, written separately (ruled 2026-08-28, R7): five states, availability varying by position — accepted (all positions; at the widening position acceptance IS admission, since a state encoding position would duplicate the envelope), rejected (explicative/evaluative/registrative only: it asserts a purpose the closing run tests), declined (widening only: the proposal was admissible and the researcher chose otherwise — forcing that into rejected would manufacture a principle never at stake), held (exit condition required; availability at the widening position still open). The grounds field is disposition_grounds, required on every state except held; what it must contain varies by state, enforced by lint rather than by four fields. Free text, not enumerations. No disposition state means "already covered" in any position; an undispositioned item is reported as outstanding, not named as a state. The likely repeat the filing-time match writes onto a stored item (duplicates: / refines:, below) is a proposal on the item, never a state of its answer. The disposition record reads the envelope's position to validate its own state — a coupling the schema carries and the lint checks — and the admitted-against-declined count at the widening position is the ownership evidence, queryable without reading prose.
• The recurrence link, in two halves (adr-2609300821558671, ruling DQ2b of 2026-09-30). The mechanical half: reading ingest matches each stored finding against the issues, the intents and every earlier reading item with the filing-time match, writes a likely repeat onto the item as duplicates: or refines:, and shows it; the promote step matches the minted draft again. The warm half: a disposition may cite prior item identifiers (recurs), and a re-acceptance or re-rejection made against evidence of persistence carries that citation — the stronger record recurrence-is-signal describes, and the answer to the duplicate case (re-disposition with citation, not a fourth state). The reading never sees it: the assembler excludes dispositions, so the link lives entirely on the ledger side. Adopted (2026-08-28): the citation is the recorded form of the researcher's warm recognition — new material relative to the governing design, adopted, and routed back as an amendment to it.
• On-disk shape: reading records land under issues/readings/<run-id>/ and dispositions under issues/dispositions/, keyed by the item identifier. The status signal is the presence of the keyed disposition — never folder membership — and RS001–RS003, capture resolve, and the changelog derivation are taught in the same change to scope to open/resolved/wontfix and ignore both new types.
• The output contract that "validated" refers to is owned by the cold-reading output-contract intent; this intent consumes it and adds no second validation path.
• The surprise entry (per the recording-obligations ruling): a distinct record shape, schema reserved in this family now and populated in Iteration 2 — the reading's output, the researcher's disposition, and the surprise that occasions abduction are three acts, three records. The admission-side records (grounds on admission, declined-proposal dispositions) live in the step2-admission-records draft.
• The reserved two-axis hold field (frame-location × MoSCoW), present in the schema and unpopulated — deferred by decision; reserving costs nothing, retrofitting is expensive. Defined-and-dormant: the value grammars are stated (frame-location: free text naming the frame element; MoSCoW: must / should / could / wont) and a populated value is refused until activation is ruled — refusal, not silent acceptance, so the reservation is a behaviour rather than a comment.
• The lint: every reading record in a run either carries a disposition or is reported as outstanding — report-only, on the capture status board and the lint summary; it never gates preflight or CI, so a reading can never block unrelated pushes. Open holds render on the same board with their exit conditions; a hold exits only through a superseding disposition that cites it — never by expiry, and never silently.
• Routing on acceptance: action is a separate admission joined by the item identifier stamped forward on promoted_to (historical) and back in origin. Item-to-intent without a disposition is the collapse this record family exists to prevent: capture promote refuses an item identifier that carries no disposition, and a circumvention is a lapse-log entry.

Ruled

• Ruled (maintainer, 2026-08-28; decision log): the reading record is a distinct record type in the existing issue tier, with a separate disposition record and its own disposition vocabulary — the five-state, availability-by-position slate (R7) this draft implements. Ground: the surprise entry and the disposition are different acts and must be distinguishable records; reusing the issue states collapses them and misdescribes all three.
• Recurrence matching is mechanical and confirmed by the researcher (ruling DQ2b, 2026-09-30, adr-2609300821558671, which reverses the closing-run ruling that it is warm work only): the filing-time match links a stored finding to its likely repeats, among them the earlier reading items, and the link is a proposal a person keeps or deletes; the researcher's recognition of a recurrence is still a disposition judgement, and the recurs citation is its recorded form.
• Where an accepted item goes (per the acceptance-routing ruling): acceptance is one record; the action is a separate admission and build, joined by the item identifier (forward on promoted_to (historical), back in origin with the run identifier). The landings are enumerated — artefact via the intent lifecycle, cross-cutting rule via a discipline, redecision via a superseding ADR, the brief's description via the delivering change, the construal via a section rewrite with the prior construal passing to ledger content; the frame-level record is iteration 2, the fourth verdict deferred.

Open (maintainer readings design, 2026-08-28)

• Whether held is available at the widening position: a configuration held with an exit condition is a candidate deferred, which is what deferred already means in the selection-grounds vocabulary (pursued / deferred / declined) — two words for one act is the drift the design avoids elsewhere. The alternative routes a deferred configuration through the selection surface instead of the disposition surface. Reaches the selection vocabulary as well; does not gate the build.

What's Out of Scope

• Reusing open/resolved/wontfix: resolved means fixed, but an accepted detection may be deliberately not acted on; wontfix means will-not-act, whereas rejection asserts an intentional constraint; open is a parking space, whereas held is directional.
• Passing dispositions to a reading — warm by definition; the assembler excludes them and the read-block eval asserts it.

Scope Conditions

None stated.

Acceptance Criteria

• Given a validated reading output, when it is ingested, then one reading record is written per item, each with a run-scoped identifier.
• Given two runs producing the same tension, when both are ingested, then the two records carry different identifiers.
• Given any disposition with empty disposition_grounds (or a hold with an empty exit condition), when the command runs, then it refuses.
• Given a disposition whose state is unavailable at the item's position (a declined on a detection, a rejected on a widening configuration), when the command runs, then it refuses and names the availability rule.
• Given a run's reading records, when the lint runs, then every record either carries a disposition or is reported as outstanding.

Audit Notes

Fidelity review — receipt rcp-6d6ab907bc1c (verifier abcd:intent-auditor claude-fable-5).

Provenance: abcd:intent-auditor@claude-fable-5 · rubric_hash sha256:f3bba86a84b329fcbfbd3df64ec5d77d382dda9b4b1a61baf887e316bc41f38e · prompt_hash sha256:77eb6fcc7ae29cb828c8e98afa18d6d0dbd26ff84c66f2d977779b071277023d Input attestations: diff:932629f9^1...932629f9^2 (merge 932629f9fe1334a333067cc6835e90e1fcfb7a2e, build/itd-180 into experiment/cold-reading)@sha256:4fe10729c6a205a09991d684974d37a5260d966349818a8c8fb6b7e0f436f956;

Acceptance rollup: MET 3 · MET_WITH_CONCERNS 2 · NOT_MET 0 · INCONCLUSIVE 0

Per-criterion verdicts:

• ac-1 — MET_WITH_CONCERNS: capture.IngestReading mints one rdi-N per item under readings/<run-id>/ with run in every envelope and TestIngestWritesOneRecordPerItem proves it (go test passes), but no CLI or plugin verb calls IngestReading — by design the not-yet-built spc-63 ingest verb is the only door — so 'when it is ingested' cannot happen from a production entry point this cycle evidence: internal/core/capture/reading.go:144 — "func IngestReading(req IngestReadingRequest) (IngestReadingResult, error) {" evidence: internal/core/capture/reading.go:236 — "result.Records = append(result.Records, ReadingRecordRef{" evidence: internal/core/capture/ingest_reading_test.go:21 — "func TestIngestWritesOneRecordPerItem(t *testing.T) {" evidence: internal/core/capture/ingest_reading_test.go:59 — "strings.Contains(string(content), "run: \""+run+"\"")" evidence: .abcd/development/brief/04-surfaces/06-capture.md:139 — "the only caller of capture.IngestReading, so until it lands the two reading sub-verbs have no item to act on"
• ac-2 — MET: ids are minted (adr-45 timestamp plus entropy), never content-derived, and the mint probes every readings/rdg-*/ under the ledger lock and redraws on a hit; TestTwoRunsSameTensionMintDistinctIDs and TestTwoRunsAtOneInstantMintDistinctIDs (pinned same-second, same-suffix minter) both pass evidence: internal/core/capture/reading.go:856 — "func mintUnusedItemID(issuesRoot string, minted map[string]bool) (string, error) {" evidence: internal/core/capture/reading.go:201 — "id, err := mintUnusedItemID(issuesRoot, minted)" evidence: internal/core/capture/ingest_reading_test.go:68 — "func TestTwoRunsSameTensionMintDistinctIDs(t *testing.T) {" evidence: internal/core/capture/ingest_reading_test.go:178 — "func TestTwoRunsAtOneInstantMintDistinctIDs(t testing.T) {" evidence: .abcd/work/issues/resolved/iss-2608300227228575-reading-item-ids-collide-across-runs.md:10 — "The ingest mint now probes every readings/rdg-/ under the ledger lock and redraws on a hit"
• ac-3 — MET: validateDispositionStrict requires a non-blank disposition_grounds on every state except held and a non-blank exit_condition on held, both refusals reached from the wired abcd capture disposition verb; TestDispositionRefusesEmptyGrounds, TestHeldDispositionRefusesEmptyExitCondition and the CLI-level TestCaptureDispositionRefusesEmptyGroundsAndWritesNothing pass evidence: internal/core/capture/reading.go:579 — "if err := requireNonBlankString(fm, "exit_condition"); err != nil {" evidence: internal/core/capture/reading.go:583 — "if err := requireNonBlankString(fm, "disposition_grounds"); err != nil {" evidence: internal/core/capture/reading_test.go:97 — "func TestDispositionRefusesEmptyGrounds(t *testing.T) {" evidence: internal/core/capture/reading_test.go:116 — "func TestHeldDispositionRefusesEmptyExitCondition(t *testing.T) {" evidence: internal/surface/cli/cli.go:2632 — "dispositionCmd := &cobra.Command{" evidence: internal/surface/cli/capture_surface_test.go:559 — "func TestCaptureDispositionRefusesEmptyGroundsAndWritesNothing(t *testing.T) {"
• ac-4 — MET_WITH_CONCERNS: the verb reads position off the keyed reading record, consults issueschema.DispositionAvailability and refuses a ruled-unavailable pair with a message naming the state, the position and the states available there; TestDispositionRefusesStateUnavailableAtPosition covers exactly the two named cases (declined on detection, rejected on widening) and passes — the concern is that held at the widening position ships as an unruled row and is accepted silently rather than refused, a signed-off deferral (spec Out of scope) but a combination the availability rule does not judge evidence: internal/core/capture/reading.go:596 — "available, ruled := issueschema.DispositionStateAvailable(position, state)" evidence: internal/core/capture/reading.go:598 — ""%w: %q is not available at the %s position (available there: %s); the disposition record validates its state against the envelope's position"" evidence: internal/core/issueschema/reading.go:188 — "// DispositionHeld: deferred, deliberately absent." evidence: internal/core/capture/reading_test.go:134 — "func TestDispositionRefusesStateUnavailableAtPosition(t *testing.T) {" evidence: .abcd/development/specs/closed/spc-58-a-cold-reading-s-findings-land-as.md:246 — "the availability table ships with that row unfilled, so the refusal for that one combination is not armed"
• ac-5 — MET: the reading_outstanding rule walks every readings/<run>/rdi-*.md and reports each item with no standing disposition as outstanding (severity pinned to info in code), is enabled in .abcd/record-lint.json, is registered in lint.go and rides the bare abcd capture board through the same ReadReadingOutstanding function; TestOutstandingReportNamesUndispositionedItems, TestOutstandingReportSeverityIsInfoNotBlocker and TestCaptureBoardCarriesTheOutstandingRoster pass evidence: internal/core/lint/readingoutstanding.go:136 — "func ReadReadingOutstanding(repoRoot, issuesDir string) (OutstandingReadings, error) {" evidence: internal/core/lint/readingoutstanding.go:225 — "case answer.standing == nil:" evidence: internal/core/lint/lint.go:535 — "if roCfg, ok := cfg.Rules[ruleReadingOutstanding]; ok && roCfg.Enabled {" evidence: .abcd/record-lint.json:237 — ""reading_outstanding": {" evidence: internal/core/lint/reading_outstanding_test.go:49 — "func TestOutstandingReportNamesUndispositionedItems(t *testing.T) {" evidence: internal/surface/cli/capture_surface_test.go:614 — "func TestCaptureBoardCarriesTheOutstandingRoster(t *testing.T) {"

Gap audit:

• honoured:
  • reading record and disposition are two records, two writes, keyed by the item id evidence: internal/core/capture/reading.go:260 — "func Disposition(req DispositionRequest) (DispositionResult, error) {" evidence: internal/core/capture/reading.go:299 — "itemDir := filepath.Join(issuesRoot, issueschema.DispositionsDir, req.Item)"
  • envelope carries run-scoped id, run, manifest, position, regime and pattern; pattern is never in a body evidence: internal/core/issueschema/reading.go:117 — "var ReadingRequired = []string{ "schema_version", "id", "run", "manifest", "position", "regime", "pattern" }"
  • one record type, four position-typed bodies held as data (the intent's stated fallback) evidence: internal/core/issueschema/reading.go:99 — "var ReadingPositions = []ReadingPosition{"
  • the disposition reads the envelope's position to validate its own state evidence: internal/core/capture/reading.go:278 — "position, err := readingItemPosition(issuesRoot, req.Item)"
  • a hold exits only through a superseding disposition that cites it; the superseded record stays in place evidence: internal/core/capture/reading.go:328 — "if req.Supersedes == "" && len(standing) > 0 {" evidence: internal/core/capture/ingest_reading_test.go:127 — "the superseded record must stay in place"
  • recurs citation lives on the ledger side as a disposition field, never a state evidence: internal/core/issueschema/reading.go:305 — ""recurs": true,"
  • reserved two-axis hold field and surprise key: schema-present, populated value refused evidence: internal/core/issueschema/reading.go:233 — "var ReservedHoldFields = []string{"hold_frame_location", "hold_moscow"}" evidence: internal/core/capture/reading_test.go:170 — "func TestPopulatedHoldAxisRefused(t *testing.T) {"
  • the lint is report-only and never gates: severity pinned to info in code, on the lint findings and the capture board evidence: internal/core/lint/readingoutstanding.go:39 — "const severityInfo = "info"" evidence: internal/core/lint/reading_outstanding_test.go:82 — "func TestOutstandingReportSeverityIsInfoNotBlocker(t *testing.T) {"
  • open holds render on the board with their exit conditions evidence: internal/core/lint/reading_outstanding_test.go:107 — "func TestOpenHoldRendersItsExitCondition(t *testing.T) {"
  • capture promote refuses an item identifier that carries no disposition, and stamps promoted_to / origin on success evidence: internal/core/capture/promote.go:412 — "carries no disposition; an item is answered before it is acted on" evidence: internal/core/capture/promote_test.go:1 — "TestPromoteRefusesUndispositionedReadingItem / TestPromoteStampsReadingItemPromotedTo"
  • RS001-RS003 and record_schema taught to scope to open/resolved/wontfix and ignore both new families evidence: scripts/check-issue-resolution.sh:77 — "STATUS_DIRS=(open resolved wontfix)" evidence: internal/core/issueschema/reading.go:36 — "They are deliberately NOT in StatusDirs"
  • on-disk shape readings/<run-id>/ and dispositions/<item-id>/ evidence: internal/core/issueschema/reading.go:43 — "ReadingsDir = "readings"" evidence: internal/core/issueschema/reading.go:50 — "DispositionsDir = "dispositions""
• diverged:
  • a five-state disposition vocabulary evidence: internal/core/issueschema/reading.go:142 — "itd-180 and ruling (19) both say FIVE states and both enumerate four" evidence: internal/core/issueschema/reading.go:169 — "var DispositionStates = []string{ DispositionAccepted, DispositionRejected, DispositionDeclined, DispositionHeld }"
  • availability of every state at every position is ruled by the table (held at widening left open by the intent) evidence: internal/core/issueschema/reading.go:183 — "var DispositionAvailability = map[string]map[string]bool{" evidence: internal/core/capture/reading.go:597 — "if ruled && !available {"
  • promote refuses an item that carries no disposition — the build refuses every standing state but accepted, and refuses under contest evidence: internal/core/capture/promote.go:421 — "only %q licenses an action; supersede it with a new disposition first" evidence: internal/core/capture/promote.go:370 — "ErrInvariantViolation, item, len(standing), renderList(standing))"
  • a second disposition always supersedes the standing one — the verb instead refuses when more than one answer stands and prescribes a hand repair evidence: internal/core/capture/reading.go:318 — "if len(standing) > 1 {" evidence: .abcd/work/issues/resolved/iss-2608300835066901-itd-180-fifth-round-security-findings.md:10 — "capture disposition refuses under contest exactly as promote does and names the hand repair"
  • every record either carries a disposition or is outstanding — the report also names contested, cyclic, unreadable and unsafe items as distinct classes evidence: internal/core/lint/readingoutstanding.go:210 — "switch {" evidence: internal/core/lint/readingoutstanding.go:87 — "Contested []ContestedItem json:\"contested,omitempty\""
  • changelog derivation taught in the same change to scope to the status folders evidence: internal/core/release/emit_test.go:22 — "resolvedDir = ".abcd/work/issues/resolved/"" evidence: .abcd/development/specs/closed/spc-58-a-cold-reading-s-findings-land-as.md:158 — "scripts/check-issue-resolution.sh replaces its single $ISSUES_DIR pathspec"
• missing:
  • a validated reading output can be ingested from a production entry point (CLI or plugin verb) — no front door calls IngestReading; no rdi-N can be minted through the surface this cycle evidence: .abcd/development/brief/04-surfaces/06-capture.md:139 — "the only caller of capture.IngestReading, so until it lands the two reading sub-verbs have no item to act on" evidence: commands/capture.md:36 — "until that verb lands there is no reading item to answer, and these two sub-verbs have nothing to act on"
  • the committed-tree gate judges reading and disposition content (one lint over the record type) — record_schema declares no required fields for the three families, so a hand-written record the writer would refuse still passes the tree gate evidence: internal/core/capture/reading.go:16 — "(record_schema) declares no required fields for these two families yet, so it judges their SHAPE" evidence: .abcd/work/issues/resolved/iss-2608300257421526-itd-180-second-round-residue.md:10 — "schema.go states the reading stores' missing required fields as a gap the writer and review cover"
  • a fifth disposition state evidence: internal/core/issueschema/reading.go:146 — "The discrepancy is carried here, not resolved."

Grounds

• pursued: Pursued now because the instrument's first run happens in this cycle, and a record written after the fact is precisely the retrospective reconstruction the ledger exists to prevent: unless the reading record and the disposition are two writes from the start, nothing can later show that a finding existed before it was answered. Ruling (2) settled the shape; the only remaining question was whether to build it before or after the first run, and after is too late.