build_construction skipped any normative source it could not read
(`except OSError: continue`) and promoted whatever remained. That is not a
degraded binding, it is a forged smaller one: the broker recomputes h_source /
h_payload from the fragments it is SENT (daemon.py:602-616), so an omitted
fragment is internally consistent and PAYLOAD_BINDING_MISMATCH cannot fire. A
partial law promotes exactly like a complete one and nothing downstream can tell
the difference.
Measured before this change, against a seeded home: with only USER.md readable,
the client produced a one-fragment construction with promotion=True. Removing
CONSTITUTION.md, STANDARDS.md or the runtime contract likewise promoted.
The classification mirrors the framework's own file ownership rather than
inventing one:
* CONSTITUTION.md / AGENTS.md / STANDARDS.md are framework-owned and
reconciled every upgrade (install.sh FRAMEWORK_OWNED,
config/file-adapter.ts FRAMEWORK_OWNED_FILES), as is the per-runtime
RUNTIME.md. Absent => IncompleteBinding. A deployment missing one is broken,
not minimal.
* SOUL.md / USER.md are deliberately not seeded by install.sh ("generated by
`mosaic init`") and TOOLS.md is seeded on first install only, so their
absence is legitimate. It is reported on stderr, never silent.
Unreadable is handled separately from absent for EVERY source, optional ones
included: a file that will not open is not a file that was never configured, and
collapsing the two is what let a permission change quietly shrink the law.
Also corrects this module's own docstring, which asserted that a VERIFIED lease
means "this agent is running THIS law". It does not. Both sides of the broker's
comparison originate in this client, so it detects corruption in transit and
nothing else. That overstatement is where the belief spread from; the stronger
claim needs the broker re-reading on-disk sources against a manifest the agent
cannot rewrite.
Test: promotion_binding_unittest.py, enumerated in test:framework-shell (the
enumeration guard's population is *test*.sh and does not cover Python, so an
unenumerated test here would simply never run). Falsifier executed: defeating the
guard while leaving the module API intact turns the suite red (12 failures);
restoring it returns green.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01EHYXhcCQsL3J1Lnm7EraGq
Closes#958.
The preimage definition (source-adapter.sh) is the single most consequential file in the wake pipeline — every observed_hash is a sha256 of what it emits — and it was UNVERSIONED: no git history, no backup. When it was edited at 07:27 on 2026-07-30, attribution was recoverable only because an agent transcript happened to still be on disk. A11 gives that file durable provenance (option (2) of #958: recorded content-addressed, not in-band).
DESIGN, per the pre-registration:
- Provenance is OUT-OF-BAND (never on the adapter's stdout) — an in-band record would advance observed_hash for every source at once and manufacture the re-baseline it exists to explain (B3).
- The obligation never depends on the provenance path: a missing/corrupt store cannot halt the detector or swallow a wake (#940 advisory-fields precedent; B4).
- DESC_FMT=d1 is NOT the provenance record — the tag versions the descriptor FORMAT; a behaviour change that keeps descriptor shape re-baselines every hash and leaves the tag unchanged (B6).
CREDENTIAL HARD GATE (rebuilt after the first verdict FAILED it): byte capture is now RECORD-ONLY BY DEFAULT (extras opt in via WAKE_PREIMAGE_CAPTURE), not allow-by-default-refuse-on-shape — because a shape list can only refuse the secrets someone already enumerated, and the tool's own usage text recommended adding detector.env (where HMAC material lives). Deny is evaluated on BOTH raw and resolved path forms with resolved anchors, ordered before allow — closing the realpath-before-deny ordering defect that let a renamed symlink target through.
VERIFICATION (reviewer, mos-dt, independent of the author's claims):
- Seven decoy cases by planted-marker-then-grep-whole-state-dir: known cred path / same-name symlink / RENAMED-target symlink / prefixed secret / prefixless secret / opted-in-symlink-to-DENIED-target all REFUSED; opted-in-symlink-to-ALLOWED-target CAPTURED (positive control that the harness can capture at all, and that C was not closed by breaking every symlink).
- Polarity-completeness self-test RE-RUN with the shape list stubbed always-allow AND both deny lists stubbed — case D still safe: the flip is complete, the shape list is not load-bearing. Each stub proven live first (a stub that silently fails to apply reports the dangerous state as safe).
- B11: rm-then-change fails LOUD (rc=1), refuses to re-baseline, leaves the ledger absent; absent-with-emptied-objects still first-installs cleanly (absent-is-not-corrupt not paid for by breaking first install).
- RED-first reproduced exactly P13-P16 pre-fix; each refusal corroborated three ways (loud stderr, ledger row captured:false WITH a hash so attribution survives refusal, objects/ holding only the adapter).
KNOWN RESIDUAL (filed #969, non-gating): the deny check is both-forms but the suite needles only the resolved form — a deny reduced to resolved-only survives 17/17 green and would leak a renamed-symlink case. No reachable leak at this head (shipped code correct on all seven decoys); it constrains a FUTURE edit. Doctrine: a both-forms fix needs a needle per form; a fixture that satisfies its assertion through a DIFFERENT rule is testing the rule it did not mean to test.
Authored by pepper (sb-it-1-dt); independently reviewed by mos-dt (sb-it-1-dt) under diff-blind pre-registration (7242688b1, predating first read) — NOT CLEAR on the first verdict (B2/B11 failed by decoy), CLEAR at 8aff7d8 after the polarity rebuild. Manifest version 0.7.0.
Co-authored-by: mos-dt-0 <[email protected]>
Part of #869
Mos (id-11) Gate-16 merge: independent APPROVE @b6f36564 (8/8, verified vs real production settings template), author id2 != approver id11, clean mosaic-coder author, CI green wp1988.
Co-authored-by: jason.woltje <[email protected]>
Co-committed-by: jason.woltje <[email protected]>
Jason Woltje
be-coder-08andJason Woltje
coder-mos1andmos-dt-0
jason.woltjeandMos