the decoy sweep: 29 gates read, 16 fooled, 10 fixed - and a gate that refuses the next one (R-421)

THE CLASS, now a row: an instrument that matches a LABEL rather than the fact it names. Five
instances - R-410, R-400, R-378, R-419, R-94 - and EVERY ONE was found by accident, by someone
looking at something else. The gates enforce every other rule in this project, including the rule
that findings must be written down rather than left in prose. Nothing had ever checked the gates.

METHOD, and it is the transferable part: for each gate, construct the label WITHOUT the fact - a
directory with the right name and no bake log, a handler case that exists only in a comment, a note
whose prose mentions the marker it lacks - run the gate, record what it says. No verdict was reached
by reading. Reading is how all five hid.

RESULT: 29 distinct scripts (35 registrations; three are shared across three runners). 19 sound, 4
holes left OPEN with rows, 6 that no plausible decoy could be built for and are named UNTESTED rather
than called sound. A gate nobody tried to fool is UNKNOWN.

SCOPE IS A FACT TOO - the largest single cause, and mundane. Eight gates decided what to look at with
os.listdir, one level. Every one was green AND CORRECT today, and every one would have gone blind the
moment anyone added a subdirectory. mojibake and docker-v already used os.walk, caught the identical
planted file, and are the control that proves the cause was the listing and not the decoy.

IN THIS REPO: hub-confirm and manifest-bearer now walk. observations_gate (R-419, CLOSED) requires a
marker at a line start or after a sentence boundary and strips inline code spans - a note SAYING it
carries no marker no longer satisfies the marker test. closed-register now CONVICTS on a row it
cannot parse instead of warning: FOUR rows were in that state, TWO of them written by the session
that closed them the day before, and every one was exempt from the only check that reads that file.
The rows were repaired first and the conviction added second - registering a failing gate refuses
every push.

THE META-GATE: decoy_coverage_gate.py refuses a gate registered without a decoy or a named exemption.
It convicted ITSELF the moment it was registered, which is how it came to have one. Coverage is a
DECLARATION the gate AST-parses, never a grep - searching a test file for a gate's name would be the
very shape this sweep exists to find. The 20 uncovered gates are listed by name (R-426).

NOT FIXED, each with a row and a decoy asserting TODAY's behaviour so the fix must be deliberate:
R-422 reuse-refs (only 7 extensions; a rotted .md citation is invisible), R-423 site (PAGES is a
hardcoded list of 7), R-424 one-register (a defect parked as `idea`), R-425 offbox-rename (fixed
FILES list). R-427: closed_register_gate checks ONE direction - twelve open rows carry a closed
verdict and were NOT moved, because telling finished from partly-finished is a judgement and R-378
is the record of a machine getting it wrong.

FIVE DECOYS WITHDRAWN AS ILLEGITIMATE, mine, named in the audit. A decoy nobody would write proves
nothing, and manufacturing a finding to fill a row is worse than an honest NO.

No product code. No version bump. No image. No golden owed. All four runners green.
Register: OPEN 172 -> 178, CLOSED 160 -> 161.

documentation/audits/AUDIT-gate-decoys-2026-09-01.md

@@ -0,0 +1,81 @@
+# AUDIT — can this check be fooled by a label? The decoy sweep (2026-09-01, R-421)
+
+**Question asked of every gate:** *could I satisfy this with a convincing label instead of the real
+thing?* Answered by construction — a decoy is written, the gate is run, and the verdict recorded.
+**No row's last column was answered from reading.**
+
+## The survey
+
+**29 distinct scripts, 35 registrations** (`reuse-refs`, `instructions`, `observations` are one
+script each, registered in three runners). This matches the task's count of 29.
+
+| gate | runner(s) | meant to prove | actually matches | shape | decoy passed **before**? |
+|---|---|---|---|---|---|
+| emoji | ctrl | no emoji in UI copy | codepoints, in `listdir` scope | 1 | **YES** |
+| native-confirm | ctrl | no OS-modal dialogs | JS call regex, `listdir` scope | 1 | **YES** |
+| app-row-dedup | ctrl | one row markup | regex + `'…' not in src`, `listdir` | 1, 2 | **YES** (×2) |
+| template-id | ctrl | JS ids resolve | id sets, `listdir` scope | 1 | **YES** |
+| secret-markup | ctrl | no secret in markup | template actions, `listdir` | 1 | **YES** |
+| retrieval-promise | ctrl | promises are registered | stems, `listdir` scope | 1 | **YES** |
+| hub-confirm | eu | no OS-modal dialogs | JS call regex, `listdir` scope | 1 | **YES** |
+| manifest-bearer | eu | no bearer literals | 64-hex regex, `listdir` scope | 1 | **YES** |
+| observations | eu, ctrl, agent | a finding is filed | `FILED:` anywhere in the body | 2 | **YES** (R-419) |
+| debug-routes | ctrl | controls resolve | raw text, comments included | 2, 3 | **YES** |
+| closed-register | eu | closed rows are closed | verdict cell — **but skipped unparseable rows** | 2 | **YES** |
+| site | eu | pages are well-formed | a 7-entry `PAGES` list | 1 | **YES → R-423** |
+| one-register | eu | open work is registered | the state cell; `idea` escapes | 2 | **YES → R-424** |
+| offbox-rename | ctrl | branding is retired | a fixed 3-entry `FILES` list | 1 | **YES → R-425** |
+| reuse-refs | eu, ctrl, agent | citations resolve | paths — only 7 extensions | 1 | **YES → R-422** |
+| mojibake | ctrl | no double-encoded UTF-8 | bytes, via `os.walk` | 5 | NO — **control** |
+| docker-v | ctrl | `-v` mounts are safe | argv, via `os.walk` | 5 | NO |
+| image-pins | catalog | no floating tags | real `image:` refs | 5 | NO |
+| golden-currency | eu | a golden was baked | `GOLDEN_SHA256` in the bake log | 5 | NO (R-410 fixed) |
+| golden-notice | ctrl | ditto, other direction | imports the gate above | 5 | NO |
+| instructions | eu, ctrl, agent | instruction files stay sane | effective text | 5 | NO |
+| hub-copy | eu | retired names are gone | `os.walk` over hub/internal | 5 | NO |
+| release-complete | agent | a release is complete | git tag + ancestry + HTTP HEAD | 5 | NO |
+| hostinstall | eu | installer invariants | — | ? | **UNKNOWN** |
+| wire-contract | eu | emitted fields decode | — | ? | **UNKNOWN** |
+| due-checks | eu | dated checks fire | — | ? | **UNKNOWN** |
+| published | agent | versions are published | — | ? | **UNKNOWN** |
+| image-resolvable | catalog | images exist | `docker manifest inspect` | 5 | **UNKNOWN** |
+| volume-persistence | catalog | data survives | runs containers, diffs | 5 | **UNKNOWN** |
+
+**19 sound · 4 holes left open with rows · 6 unknown.** Ten holes were fixed in this session.
+
+## The one cause behind eight of them
+
+Eight gates decided their **scope** with `os.listdir`, one directory level. No template or manifest
+subdirectory exists today, so every one was green **and correct** — and would have stayed green the
+moment anyone added `templates/partials/`, which is an ordinary act. `mojibake` and `docker-v`
+already used `os.walk`, caught the identical planted file, and are the **control that proves the
+cause was the listing and not the decoy.**
+
+## Holes left open, with rows
+
+| row | gate | why not fixed here |
+|---|---|---|
+| **R-422** | reuse-refs | `PATH_RE` matches 7 extensions; a rotted `.md` citation is invisible. Widening it needs a false-positive pass over 4 repos. |
+| **R-423** | site | `PAGES` is a hardcoded list of 7. Fix is to glob `website/*.html`, which needs the per-page exemptions rethought. |
+| **R-424** | one-register | a defect parked under state `idea` escapes. Declared in the gate's own docstring as residual hole 1. |
+| **R-425** | offbox-rename | fixed 3-entry `FILES` list; a new offbox file is unscanned. |
+| **R-426** | — | owns the meta-gate's 20-name exemption list. |
+
+Each is asserted **as it behaves today** where a test could hold it, so the day it is fixed the
+assertion fails and is updated deliberately. A hole nothing asserts is a hole nobody remembers.
+
+## Decoys withdrawn as illegitimate — mine, and named
+
+§2.1 sets the standard: a decoy nobody would write proves nothing. These were withdrawn rather than
+counted, because counting them would have manufactured findings.
+
+1. **image-pins / `x-image: nginx:latest`** — `x-` fields are inert in Compose. The label had no fact
+   behind it *either way*. Replaced with a positive control (a real untagged `image:` line → convicted).
+2. **release-complete / a non-version heading on top of CHANGELOG.md** — `HEAD_RE.search` scans the
+   whole file, so the real release is still found and named `v0.130.0`. The gate is sound.
+3. **app-row-dedup / one commented-out partial call** — `dashboard.html` has **two**; replacing one
+   left the other live. The gate was right and my decoy was half-built.
+4. **one-register / a 3-column decoy row** — it convicted for a *structural* reason, not the one under
+   test. Rebuilt at the real 5-column shape, and the hole then reproduced.
+5. **template-id, secret-markup, retrieval-promise, hub-copy / wrong content** — my first planted
+   files carried nothing those gates hunt for, so "passed" meant nothing. Rebuilt with real triggers.