feat(quality): add anti-inert gate registry

docs/ADMIN-GUIDE/README.md

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+# Administrator Guide
+
+- [Gate registry operations](quality-gate-registry.md)

docs/ADMIN-GUIDE/quality-gate-registry.md

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+# Gate Registry Operations
+
+## Routine verification
+
+Run `pnpm gate:verify` from a dependency-installed checkout. Exit zero means registry observations matched their declared `actual` values; it does **not** assert required-behavior conformance while deltas remain. Open `DEFECT` records are checked descriptions of current behavior with tracked owners, never successful gate outcomes.
+
+Investigate any of these immediately:
+
+- `GATE VERIFY FAILED` — registry structure, observed behavior, provenance, claim binding, source/deployment identity, or negative-control detection changed.
+- `unregistered gate` — an executable appeared under a declared gate root without a registry entry.
+- `no negative control` — a gate has no must-fail case.
+- `DEPLOYED IDENTITY UNAVAILABLE` — the runner cannot reach the installed enforcing copy. The pinned observation is checked, but live equality is not asserted.
+- `PROVIDER EVIDENCE ... ABSENT` — retained external history was unavailable; do not infer merge-time success.
+
+## Updating a gate
+
+1. Add or change the criterion and exact case.
+2. Observe the case fail for its own stated reason.
+3. Declare an exact inerting mutation and observe the verifier detect it.
+4. If required and actual behavior differ, add a tracked remediation owner and justification.
+5. If meaning changed, append provenance; never replace the original silently.
+6. For an installed counterpart, verify live byte identity and update the observed digest only from measured evidence.
+7. Run focused verifier tests, `pnpm gate:verify`, and the repository baseline gates.
+
+Do not add an ownerless exception or describe an open delta as pass/green/OK.
+
+## CI behavior
+
+Woodpecker runs `gate-verify` on every pull request and protected-main push without path filtering. This is deliberate: changes outside gate files can make a gate inert.
+
+Provider evidence input is an optional JSON array of normalized pipeline records containing `commit`, unique integer pipeline `number`, pipeline `status`, and a `gate-verify` step status. The highest numbered rerun is authoritative; ambiguous duplicates fail. Its retention window is provider-controlled and is not overstated by this repository.
+
+Prior commit replay performs a frozen offline install from each commit's own lockfile before running that commit's verifier. Bubblewrap clears the environment, hides operator-home credentials, and disables networking for historical lifecycle and verifier code. A missing cached dependency or unavailable sandbox fails replay; current dependencies are never substituted.