Skip to content

finding: page.json's _note justifies its prose-in-note citation convention with a parser limitation #5623 removed — the convention now rests on a false premise #7188

Description

@os-help

Observation-class finding surfaced by sweep #7142's review (PR #7179, spec-surface seat, session session_016R9de1FqP7NvwKvqXi92Gh). Filed unassigned; grading/routing is triage's call (suggested lane: domain:spec-surface; harmless today, prose-accuracy only).

Fact

packages/spec/liveness/page.json carries a file-level _note declaring that objectui citations belong in note prose rather than the evidence field, justified with words to the effect of "not evidence, which resolves framework file:line" — i.e. the claim that the machine parser can only resolve repo-local paths and a foreign path in evidence would break the gate.

That premise has been false since #5623 taught check:liveness realm attribution: an objectui:-prefixed path in evidence is counted in the foreign bucket and never resolved locally. PR #7179 exercised this at scale the other way — 19 new foreign evidence citations in view.json / field.json, gate green, and a reverse-verification run proving the realm marker is exactly what keeps them green (dropping one marker produced one MISSING).

Why it matters (mildly)

  • The practice itself is harmless — the gate treats foreign paths identically whether they sit in evidence or note; only the evidenceForeign tally differs.
  • But the stated reason is dead, and a convention resting on a false premise invites two failure shapes: someone "fixes" page.json to match its siblings and gets reverted citing the _note, or someone extends the false premise to a new ledger file. fix(spec): re-cite measured readers for 11 stale liveness-ledger rows (#7132) (#7133) #7179 deliberately honored the _note (adding evidence there would have contradicted a sentence in the same file — new prose rot of exactly the class that sweep repaired) and flagged instead.

Fix shapes (either is decision-free)

  1. Re-anchor the _note's rationale to the true present-day reason (stylistic uniformity within the file / historical), keeping the convention; or
  2. Retire the convention: move page.json's objectui citations into evidence with realm markers, matching view.json / field.json, and delete the obsolete clause — one file, E22-dated.

Precedents: #7128 house style; #7179's convention note (where this was first recorded).

Dedup

Searched open issues for page.json _note, prose-in-note, evidence realm — nothing. #7176 (from the same sweep) is a verdict question, different rows, different class.

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

Type

No type

Projects

No projects

Milestone

No milestone

Relationships

None yet

Development

No branches or pull requests

Issue actions