Derived values and append-at-end lists in the release-gate manifest and surface registers conflict on every surface-adding branch. Every branch that adds a command page, agent prompt or surface chapter rewrites the same lines of .abcd/development/release-gate/manifest.json (checkerCount, promptHash, and the one-line prompt context that carries the command and agent rosters) and the manifestHash literal in receipt.example.json, which is the sha256 of the manifest, so two such branches always conflict and the second must merge main and run a fresh preflight before it can queue again.

Derived values and append-at-end lists in the release-gate manifest and surface registers conflict on every surface-adding branch. Every branch that adds a command page, agent prompt or surface chapter rewrites the same lines of .abcd/development/release-gate/manifest.json (checkerCount, promptHash, and the one-line prompt context that carries the command and agent rosters) and the manifestHash literal in receipt.example.json, which is the sha256 of the manifest, so two such branches always conflict and the second must merge main and run a fresh preflight before it can queue again.

Measurement

The ten PRs merged into main between 2026-09-24 and 2026-10-15 whose branch added a command page, an agent prompt or a brief surface chapter: #725 (lab), #727 (scribe), #729 (build, source), #752 (drain), #762 (reflect, reflection-composer), #814 (planning-interviewer), #828 (dashboard), #849 (question-drafter), #922 (library, a rename of memory/source) and #1004 (reserve). Counts are of those ten branches (git diff <merge>^1...<merge>^2) changing the named line or value.

Every row touched at the same line by every branch is a guaranteed conflict between any two concurrent surface branches: the five release-gate rows are all of that kind, and four of them are values a machine can derive. The sorted, one-entry-per-key files (surface.json, commands.md, sentences.go, helpgroups.go) change in every branch but at different places, and conflict only when two branches add neighbouring verbs.

Replaying every in-branch merge of the PRs merged since 2026-09-24 with git merge-tree (438 merges, 132 with a conflict) undercounts, because a branch that rebased leaves no merge to replay: manifest.json and receipt.example.json conflicted in 3 each, commands.md in 17 and cli.go in 10, the last two from edits to the same command's prose rather than from additions. #1004's last merge of main (71f004830) conflicted on receipt.example.json alone.

Rulings

Recorded here rather than in DECISIONS.md, by the agent fixing the record.

• The example receipt's manifestHash becomes a placeholder, sha256:<computed: the sha256 of manifest.json at subject.digest.gitCommit>, rather than being dropped. Nothing reads the example's literal as an input: receipt_gate reads only .abcd/work/reviews/<sha>/, abcd docs fidelity record computes the hash itself (lint.ReleaseGateManifestHash), the release workflow and launch's receipt tests build their own fixtures, and the only reader was TestReceiptExampleManifestHashIsTheCommittedManifests, which existed to keep the copy fresh. Keeping the field keeps the example a complete picture of the shape, which the README and commands/launch.md point readers to; a placeholder that is not hex can never pass for a hash, and the replacement test holds the example to it and proves receipt_gate refuses it, with the computed hash in its place as the control. The real gate is untouched: a release receipt whose manifestHash differs from the shipped manifest is refused exactly as before.
• checkerCount is computed, not stored. Nothing consumed it (the detector never read it), it drifted once already (iss-2609011423385217), and the merge test shows what a stored copy does under a merge: both branches bump 42 to 43, git takes the identical change as clean, and the merged manifest says 43 where the lists give 44. The test now refuses the field and states the count it would have held.
• promptHash stays stored and verified; the rosters leave the prompt text. Receipts echo it as policy.promptHash, so it has a consumer and dropping it would leave receipt writers computing it by hand. The command and agent rosters move out of the one-line context string into top-level commands and agents arrays, and the context names them through ${commands} and ${agents}, which the detector fills, as it already fills ${doc} and ${s.name}. promptHash keeps its definition word for word (sha256 over context, directionA, directionB) and now changes only when the wording does; the rosters are pinned by manifestHash with the rest of the file. The rendered context is the old one, names and order unchanged, wrapping aside (checked with node against the detector's own fill lines).
• Lists are sorted, one entry per line, the order held by the test. The rosters sort by name. briefDocs sorts by directory and then by file name with its leading chapter number removed: chapter numbers are handed out in sequence, so numeric order puts every new chapter on the line after the newest one, and two concurrent branches take the same number anyway. Slug order puts a chapter beside its neighbours by name, the same place its command takes in the roster. Two names that sort into the same gap still conflict, and the resolution is to keep both lines.
• No merge=union. It is unsafe on JSON: it keeps both sides' lines, so two branches appending to one array each add the comma to the old last entry and leave their own entry bare, and the union is "x", "a" "b", invalid. A changed derived value would come out as two copies of the key. And the forge's merge queue ignores merge drivers anyway (iss-2609100507439414's corroboration of 2026-09-19).
• Left alone: surface.json and docs/reference/cli/commands.md are generated from the command tree, sorted by command path, and drift-tested, so additions land apart; their conflicts are edits to one command's prose, resolved by regenerating, which commands.md's header already says. internal/README.md was touched by none of the ten branches. The brief's 04-surfaces/README.md register is the remaining shared-line hotspot (the numbered chapter table, the one-line agents and hosts row and the "one file per verb" list); it is authored prose in the design record, ordered by chapter number, and reordering it is left to its own change.