The invocation is a position and a target state: the scope operand and the override stamp leave, and the committed preset for the position is applied by the assembler

Summary

This spec delivers the intent that returns abcd reading assemble to the two operands the design specifies. --scope is removed from the verb, the assembler applies the committed preset entry for the invoked position, the manifest records that entry and its hash in place of the scope source and the override stamp, itd-184's operand pin is re-pinned to the two operands, and every surface that describes the invocation says two operands. adr-2609021016286571 supersedes adr-58; adr-2609021016272867 derives the comparative position's widening run from the record, so no position needs a third operand.

Scope

In: the CLI surface of reading assemble; the preset loader and its file shape; the assembly's scope resolution; the manifest and bundle fields that carried the scope; the operand pin; the plugin page, the brief's reading chapter, the four definitions' Object sections and the generated command reference; the tests that pinned the three-operand shape; the fourth condition of the four definitions' shared blindness core.

Out: the presets' content and windows (the preset-windows intent); the comparative position's derived run (the comparative-channel spec); the include table (itd-194).

Approach

The verb

internal/surface/cli/reading.go drops the --scope flag and the refusal text that named it; the positional-operand refusal names --position and --target only. TestAssembleRefusesFreeTextOperands keeps refusing a positional; a new TestAssembleRefusesAScopeOperand asserts that --scope is an unknown flag, exit 2, nothing written.

Preset application

internal/core/reading/scope.go keeps LoadPresets, the file's shape (schema_version, presets, per-position kinds, records, paths, and the window the preset-windows spec adds) and every load-time refusal (uncommitted edit, symlink, path outside the tree, denied segment). What changes is resolution: ResolveScope(token) becomes PresetFor(position), which returns the one committed entry for the position and refuses when the file holds no entry for it. The cold and warm names retire as tokens; the committed file is reshaped to one entry per position (the preset-windows spec owns the entry contents and their measured figures, and lands after this spec in the landing order below). extends is removed with the second name.

The manifest and the bundle

Manifest.Scope, Manifest.ScopeHash and Manifest.ScopeOverridden (manifest.go) are replaced by Manifest.Preset (the entry applied, as selectors) and Manifest.PresetHash; BundleScope keeps carrying the kinds and records the reading was handed and its location-narrowing count, renamed BundlePreset, so the reading still knows what it was given (itd-199's ac-5 reasoning stands). SchemaVersion moves by one because the field set changes. TestBundleScopeCarriesNoRepositoryPath is kept under the new name.

The operand pin

readingOperands in internal/surface/cli/regime_surface_test.go pins the assemble verb's operand set, and TestNoOperatorSurfaceSetsARegime walks the command tree against it, failing closed on any addition, as itd-184 designed it. The pin is updated to position, target, and the test gains a case that adds a third operand and watches the pin fail.

Surfaces

commands/reading.md (the invocation section, the examples, the manifest field list), .abcd/development/brief/04-surfaces/23-reading.md, docs/reference/cli/commands.md (regenerated), and the ## Object section of each of the four definitions under agents/ state two operands and no scope; the definitions' precedence sentence ("where the definition and the bundle disagree, the bundle governs") stays, with "bundle" now describing the preset-derived content. Brief invariant 15 already carries the two-operand enumeration (amended with adr-2609021016286571).

The blindness core's fourth condition

The four definitions share one blindness core, and its fourth condition says items come back unordered and unweighted where the readings companion's section 2 says items are returned in the order they arise in the object. On correction (7) of the 2026-09-02 ruling the condition takes the companion's sentence: In each of agents/cold-reading-widening.md, agents/cold-reading-entailment.md, agents/cold-reading-comparative.md and agents/cold-reading-detection.md the sentence "Items come back unordered and unweighted" becomes "Items are returned in the order they arise in the object", byte-identical across the four, with the rest of the condition (no severity, no confidence score, no most-important-first, no top-N, and the reason) unchanged. The four prompt_version values move PATCH together, and agents/CHANGELOG.md gains one entry naming the four. This is a change to the definitions and not to the bundle, so it moves neither SchemaVersion nor AssemblerVersionCore; the definition content hash in the run metadata moves by construction. This resolves iss-2609021153261145.

Landing order

The Iteration 2 set lands in two phases around the maintainer's readings, on the corrections ruling of 2026-09-02. Phase A, before any reading runs: The two-operand invocation (spc-2609021004075744), itd-194 (spc-2609021003136831), the preset windows (spc-2609020626048722), the comparative channel (spc-2609020626039834) and the reading-occasioned origin (spc-2609020626042168), in that order. The maintainer then runs the four readings in the cycle's order, widening, entailment, comparative and detection, and dispositions their outputs. Phase B, built at Step 5 after those dispositions: The condition disposition (spc-2609020626046252), the admission and surprise verbs (spc-2609020626040342), the reframe record (spc-2609020626048705), the scribe verbs (spc-2609020626045177) and the principles read object (spc-2609020626042471), in that order. No spec names a target version number: Each names the class of bump it makes, and the merging change sets each constant from the merged base and updates every pinned count in the same diff.

This spec lands first in Phase A, because the preset-windows spec measures and declares per-position entries in the one-entry-per-position shape this spec introduces, and the comparative spec's derived run assumes no operand. Versions: SchemaVersion +1 (field set), AssemblerVersionCore MINOR (bundle shape), preset schema_version unchanged here (the preset-windows spec moves it), the four definitions' prompt_version PATCH (the fourth condition above).

How the Acceptance Criteria are satisfied

• ac-1 (a third operand refuses). --scope is gone from the flag set, so cobra refuses it as unknown; a positional refuses as today. Tests: TestAssembleRefusesAScopeOperand, TestAssembleRefusesFreeTextOperands.
• ac-2 (the preset for the position is applied and recorded). PresetFor(position) supplies the selectors the include table's admission is intersected with; the manifest carries preset and preset_hash. Test: TestAssemblyAppliesTheCommittedPresetForThePosition asserts the bundle item set equals the intersection and the manifest names the entry.
• ac-3 (uncommitted preset refuses). Unchanged from itd-199: TestUncommittedPresetRefuses.
• ac-4 (no override stamp, reproducible). The manifest struct has no scope_overridden and no scope.source; TestManifestCarriesNoOverride decodes a manifest and asserts both keys absent, and TestRunIsReproducibleFromCommitAndPreset assembles twice at one commit and compares bundles byte for byte (the amnesia eval's property, exercised here on the preset path).
• ac-5 (the pin fails closed). TestNoOperatorSurfaceSetsARegime over readingOperands with the added-operand case.
• ac-6 (every surface says two operands). TestReadingSurfacesNameTwoOperands greps the plugin page, the brief chapter, the four definitions and the generated reference for --scope and for the phrase the design uses, and fails on a hit or a miss.
• ac-7 (the fourth condition takes the companion's sentence). The one sentence in the four definitions, the four PATCH bumps and the changelog entry. TestBlindnessCoreIsByteIdenticalAcrossDefinitions (existing) holds the four cores identical; TestTheFourthConditionTakesTheCompanionsSentence in definitions_test.go asserts the core's fourth condition carries the sentence "items are returned in the order they arise in the object" and not "unordered and unweighted", and that each definition's prompt_version has moved.

Tests

internal/surface/cli: TestAssembleRefusesAScopeOperand, TestAssembleRefusesFreeTextOperands, TestNoOperatorSurfaceSetsARegime (over readingOperands). internal/core/reading: TestAssemblyAppliesTheCommittedPresetForThePosition, TestPresetForRefusesAMissingPosition, TestManifestCarriesNoOverride, TestRunIsReproducibleFromCommitAndPreset, TestUncommittedPresetRefuses (kept), TestBundlePresetCarriesNoRepositoryPath (renamed). internal/core/lint or the docs lane: TestReadingSurfacesNameTwoOperands. internal/core/reading: TestBlindnessCoreIsByteIdenticalAcrossDefinitions (existing), TestTheFourthConditionTakesTheCompanionsSentence. evals/: the read-block and amnesia lanes run unchanged over the new invocation; the oracle's pinned counts do not move.

Out of scope

The preset entries' contents, windows and measured figures; the mechanism proportion line; the derived widening run at the comparative position; the include table's narrowing and the unscanned mark.