`check-fnxc-future-dates.mjs` validates the **date** portion of a stamp
and never looks at the clock time:
```js
const STAMP = /FNXC:[A-Za-z0-9_-]+\s+(\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2})/g;
…
for (const match of source.matchAll(STAMP)) if (match[1] > today) hits += 1;
```
The capture stops before the hour, so a stamp may carry **any** `hh:mm`
and pass. Found while pre-flighting #2992, whose new comments read
`2026-07-30-25:30`.
## It is not one typo
Four stamps **already on `main`** carry a clock time that cannot exist:
```
packages/cli/src/__tests__/task-list-board-columns.test.ts:2 -24:40
packages/cli/src/commands/task.ts:29 -24:40
packages/cli/src/commands/task.ts:636 -24:40
scripts/check-lane-wiring.mjs:18 -24:00
```
Three separate authors, so this is the gate's blind spot rather than one
person's slip — and #2992 adds two more, which is how I noticed.
AGENTS.md specifies `yyyy-MM-dd-hh:mm`. The stamp's whole purpose is to
make the FNXC record a readable chronology of *why* code exists; a
timestamp that cannot exist quietly costs it that, and nothing was going
to catch it.
## The fix
Hours `00-23`, minutes `00-59`, counted per file **alongside** the
future-dated population rather than as a separate gate — same defect
class (a stamp that does not describe a real moment), and one ratchet is
cheaper to keep honest than two.
**Mutations, both directions:**
| stamp | result |
|---|---|
| `2026-07-30-25:00` | **flagged** |
| `2026-07-30-23:75` | **flagged** |
| clean tree | `475 known future-dated stamp(s), none added`, exit 0 |
## On the four existing stamps
Normalized by clamping the impossible hour to `23`, minutes preserved,
so relative ordering within each file survives. **That is a
normalization with a stated rule, not a claim about the true minute** —
`-24:40` most plausibly meant "just past midnight", but writing
`2026-07-31-00:40` would be future-dated against today's local calendar
and fail the very gate this PR extends. Clamping keeps every stamp real,
ordered, and non-future; the exact minute was already unrecoverable.
**Verified:** FNXC gate exit 0, lane-wiring gate exit 0,
`task-list-board-columns` 5/5, lint clean.
Comment-only changes to the CLI files (stamp text inside FNXC blocks),
so no behaviour change and no changeset.
Noted separately on #2992 so its two new stamps get corrected there
rather than landing and immediately failing this gate.
---------
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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