Closing-bar verification pass on origin/main — one tree, one report (+ the E2E red it found) (#2660)

**Closing-bar item 4, run on one clean tree at `origin/main`
(`be63e72f1`).** Nobody was assigned this and my own work is merged, so
I took it.

> **This PR is now REPORT-ONLY — net zero file changes.** I found the
planning-lane E2E red, fixed it, then discovered **#2658 (gsxdsm) makes
byte-for-byte the same change** to the same helper and was opened first.
I reverted mine rather than leave two identical edits to one function to
conflict. **The E2E result below depends on #2658 landing** — on
`origin/main` without it, that suite is 2 failed / 5 passed.
>
> The duplication is worth one note for the fleet: two workers
independently hit the same control-card failure and independently traced
it to FN-7648's unplanned-seed gate plus a fixture that never wrote a
spec. Independent confirmation of the diagnosis, but also ~an hour spent
twice — the census-style work order exists to stop exactly that, and E2E
fixture defects are not on it.

## Report — all four, one tree

| Check | Result |
|---|---|
| `pnpm test:gate` | **PASS** (132 + 10 + 487 + 71 tests) |
| `pnpm verify:fast` | **PASS** — 13 steps green in 89.9s, boot smoke
`GET /api/health 200`, clean shutdown |
| E2E families | **13 files / 109 tests PASS** — *after* the fix below;
**2 failed** before it |
| census | total **787**, triage **10** |

## Two corrections to the bar itself

**1. It is not "all-8 E2E" any more — there are 13 families.** The suite
grew while the bar was being written:

```
agent-count · agent-link · lease-rebound · lifecycle · merge-family · merge-rebound
merge-safeguards · merged-board · planner-lane · planner-lane-resolution
planning-lane · rebound-family · stranded-column
```

A verification pass scoped to 8 would have skipped 5 families —
including the one that was red. Worth fixing the number in the bar so
the final pass globs rather than counts.

**2. `DELIBERATE-LITERAL (reviewed)` reads 3, and I chased it —
RESOLVED, no gap.** I flagged the drop from an earlier "7" as a possible
fleet-safety hole. It is not one. Reconciled against `--json byFile`:

| File | markers | counted `deliberate` | counted `column` |
|---|---|---|---|
| `hold-release.ts` | 2 | **2** | **0** |
| `live-agent-count.ts` | 1 | **1** | 6 |
| `replan-target.ts` | 2 | 0 | 4 |

`deliberate: 3` = hold-release 2 + live-agent-count 1, which is exactly
the set of marker-covered **comparisons**. `replan-target.ts`'s two
markers sit above `return "triage"` **return-value** literals, not
comparisons — the census correctly does not count those as guards at
all, so they are neither `deliberate` nor `column`. The earlier "7" was
simply a different tree state before conversions landed; I was quoting a
stale number.

Worth noting the marker matcher is already hardened for the subtle case:
`hasDeliberateMarker` walks every **ancestor** rather than the enclosing
statement, because the real markers sit above the enclosing *function*
while the comparison is a `return` inside it — a statement-only lookup
"silently reclassified three reviewed literals as backlog". That is the
guard-cannot-fire pattern, already caught and fixed by whoever wrote the
AST version.

**Consequence for the fleet: the census's categories are trustworthy
as-is.** No pre-launch action needed on this.

## The red it found

`workflow-planning-lane-live-e2e.pg.test.ts` — **2 failed / 5 passed**,
including its own **control** case:

```
releases an ordinary held card on a default board (the control)
  → AssertionError: expected [] to include 'FN-OK'
```

`seedHeldTask` never wrote a `PROMPT.md`, so task creation's bootstrap
seed stood, and FN-7648's `isUnplannedForExecution` correctly refused to
release an unspecified card. **The sweep was right; the fixture was
asking it to release a card that had never been specified.**

**This is the second instance of the identical defect** — same cause and
same fix as `workflow-lifecycle-live-e2e`'s `seedTask` in #2634. This
suite was written after that fix and did not inherit it. The graph-entry
contract doc already states the rule: *"Scheduler/release test fixtures
must model a card that cleared the gate ... A held unreviewed card is
the gate working."*

Both failures had one cause — the mid-sweep approval-park case was
downstream of the control never releasing. **5 → 7 passed**, and cards
that are *supposed* to be held still are, held by their own
status/marker, which is what those cases assert.

Given it has now happened twice, a shared `seedPlannedTask` helper in
the E2E fixture module would prevent a third. I did not add one here: it
touches suites owned by U7 and U11 mid-consolidation, and this PR should
stay the verification pass plus its one finding.

## Bar status after this

- **gate / verify:fast / E2E** — green on one tree, with this commit.
- **triage → 0** — still **10**, all in U12's `moves.ts` (4) and
`register-task-workflow-routes.ts` (1) per file scan; flag resolution in
flight.
- **ratchet tightened (item 2)** — not done, U12's.
- Once triage hits 0 and the ratchet lands, re-running this exact pass
is a ~4-minute job and I can produce the final report.

🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)

---------

Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

docs/workflow-owned-lifecycle-closing-verification.md

@@ -0,0 +1,102 @@
+# Closing-bar verification — workflow-owned lifecycle
+
+The programme's closing bar requires one verification pass on one tree: gate,
+`verify:fast`, the live E2E families, and the census. This file is the runbook and the
+record, so the pass is reproducible rather than re-derived each time.
+
+## How to run it
+
+```bash
+git checkout --detach origin/main            # one tree, no local commits
+pnpm test:gate
+pnpm verify:fast
+# GLOB the E2E families — do not hard-code a count (see "Findings" below)
+pnpm --filter @fusion/engine exec vitest run \
+  $(cd packages/engine && ls src/__tests__/*live-e2e*.test.ts | tr '\n' ' ') --reporter=dot
+node scripts/lifecycle-column-census.mjs
+```
+
+## Recorded passes
+
+### 2026-07-30, `origin/main` @ `a6138abeff` (latest)
+
+| Check | Result |
+|---|---|
+| `pnpm test:gate` | PASS |
+| E2E families | **14 files / 112 tests PASS**, exit 0 |
+| census | COLUMN 748 · ROLE 5 · STATUS 186 · DELIBERATE-LITERAL 17 · QUERY 83 · IR-node 43 |
+
+### 2026-07-30, `origin/main` @ `be63e72f1` (first pass)
+
+| Check | Result |
+|---|---|
+| `pnpm test:gate` | PASS — 132 + 10 + 487 + 71 tests |
+| `pnpm verify:fast` | PASS — 13 steps in 89.9s; boot smoke `GET /api/health 200`, clean shutdown |
+| E2E families | 13 files / 109 tests — 2 failed until the planning-lane seed fix (#2658) |
+| census | COLUMN 787 · ROLE 0 · STATUS 182 · DELIBERATE-LITERAL 3 · triage 10 |
+
+**Both numbers moved within a few hours**, which is the point of recording the commit
+alongside the result: a bare count in an instruction is stale by the time it is read. The
+family count went 13 → 14 and the backlog 787 → 748 between these two passes, and the
+census grew two categories (`QUERY filters`, `IR node definitions`) that did not exist in
+the first run.
+
+## Findings
+
+### 1. Glob the E2E families; never count them
+
+The bar said "all-8 E2E". There were **13** at the time of this pass:
+
+```
+agent-count · agent-link · lease-rebound · lifecycle · merge-family · merge-rebound
+merge-safeguards · merged-board · planner-lane · planner-lane-resolution
+planning-lane · rebound-family · stranded-column
+```
+
+A pass scoped to eight would have skipped five — **including the only one that was red**.
+The suite grows as evidence lands, so the count in any instruction is stale on arrival.
+The command above globs for this reason.
+
+### 2. A release-path E2E fails when its fixture never wrote a spec
+
+Symptom: `runHoldReleaseSweep(...).released` comes back EMPTY, often for the suite's own
+control card.
+
+Cause: task creation leaves a bootstrap-seed `PROMPT.md` (`# <id>\n\n<description>`), and
+FN-7648's `isUnplannedForExecution` reads that file for any card resting in an `intake`-
+or `hold`-trait column and refuses to move an unplanned card into a processing column.
+**The sweep is correct; the fixture is asking it to release a card that was never
+specified.**
+
+This has now occurred **twice** in independently written suites —
+`workflow-lifecycle-live-e2e` (fixed in #2634) and `workflow-planning-lane-live-e2e`
+(fixed in #2658, and independently by a second worker, wasting the duplicate effort). The
+graph-entry contract doc already states the rule:
+
+> Scheduler/release test fixtures must model a card that cleared the gate ... A held
+> unreviewed card is the gate working.
+
+**Any new suite that drives the release sweep must seed a planned `PROMPT.md`.** A shared
+`seedPlannedTask` helper in `_workflow-vocabulary-fixture.ts` would end the pattern; it
+was not added while several consolidation branches still touch those files.
+
+Diagnostic order that identifies this quickly, and two hypotheses it kills:
+
+1. `sweep()` returns `held: [{ reason: "move-rejected-or-no-slot" }]`.
+2. Adding `maxConcurrent`/`maxWorktrees` to the settings changes nothing — **not** the
+   in-transaction capacity gate.
+3. A direct `store.moveTask(id, wip)` **succeeds** — the move is not the blocker.
+4. `isTaskBlockedOnApproval` is false, `isUnplannedForExecution` is **true**.
+5. Read the seeded `PROMPT.md`: it is the stub.
+
+### 3. `DELIBERATE-LITERAL` is internally consistent
+
+`deliberate: 3` reconciles exactly: `hold-release.ts` 2 + `live-agent-count.ts` 1.
+`replan-target.ts` carries two markers above `return "triage"` **return-value** literals,
+which the census correctly does not count as guards at all — so they appear in neither
+`deliberate` nor `column`. A lower number than a previously quoted one is not evidence of
+lost markers; check `--json byFile` before treating it as a gap.
+
+`hasDeliberateMarker` walks every **ancestor**, not the enclosing statement, because real
+markers sit above the enclosing function while the comparison is a `return` inside it. A
+statement-only lookup silently reclassified three reviewed literals as backlog.