A `DELIBERATE-LITERAL` marker in the wrong **position** is
indistinguishable from no marker, and the miss is silent until CI.
**Measured on #2883:** the marker sat inline in the middle of a
conditional expression, so it attached to the wrong AST node and three
reviewed literals scored as new debt (`self-healing.ts` 86 → 89). The
message the tool printed at the time said *"record why at the site with
a `DELIBERATE-LITERAL` marker"* — which I had done. Nothing in the
output suggested placement was the problem.
Two lines added to the failure message:
- Markers are read from a node's **leading** comments, so put one on the
declaration and hoist the literal into a named helper if needed.
- **`pnpm lint` does not run this census** — CI's Lint job does. That is
why the usual "lint passed locally, push" loop cannot catch either
mistake, and why the tool itself is the only place a reader sees this in
time.
## Verified, not assumed
I induced a real failure (a temporary `t.column === "in-review"` guard
in `self-healing.ts`) and read the printed output rather than trusting
that the string lands in the right branch — the message has two branches
and only one is the guard-count-rose path:
```
packages/engine/src/self-healing.ts: 89 -> 90
Resolve a lifecycle column from the task's own workflow (…)
correct, record why at the site with a DELIBERATE-LITERAL marker.
Put the DELIBERATE-LITERAL marker in the DECLARATION's leading comments, not inline in an
expression: markers are read from a node's leading comments, so a mid-expression one attaches to
the wrong node and is silently ignored. Hoist the literal into a named helper if you need to.
Note that `pnpm lint` does NOT run this census — run it explicitly before pushing.
```
Guidance only — no scanner behaviour changes, so no counts move.
## Verification
`pnpm test:gate` 161 + 487 + 13 + 71; `pnpm lint` and census `--strict`
clean.
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