## The problem
`census --compare` fails on `origin/main` — I verified it at
`bc782d8d92` and at every commit on the branch where I found it. Its
failure message reads:
> The parser has a blind spot; its count cannot be the bar until this is
closed.
That matters because the parser's count **is** the bar the program just
used to declare the closing bar met (triage 0, backlog 722). A red
cross-check asserting the instrument is untrustworthy had to be settled
in one direction or the other.
## It is settled: there is no blind spot
**Measured — 13 divergent sites, all 13 seen by the parser:**
| parser's classification | count |
|---|---|
| `deliberate` | 4 |
| `role` | 5 |
| `status` | 4 |
| **missed entirely** | **0** |
## The bug is in the check
It compared per-bucket totals and failed when the regex's `column` total
exceeded the parser's. That conflates the two things it most needs to
separate:
- the parser **missed** a site → a real hole, the failure worth having;
- the parser **classified it better** → `role`/`status`/`deliberate`
instead of `column`.
The second is the parser's entire reason for existing. So the old form
fired *more* the better the parser got, while accusing it of the one
defect it did not have. The regex is knowingly weaker at telling an
agent role from a column guard — that asymmetry is why the parser was
adopted, and the check was penalising it.
The intent was never wrong; the comment above the check already said the
contract was "a site the REGEX found and the parser missed". Only the
implementation disagreed with it.
## After
```
text classifier: {"column":728,"role":0,"status":182,"deliberate":14}
AST classifier: {"column":722,"role":5,"status":186,"deliberate":17}
parser sees every site the regex does (+131 sites the regex cannot see).
14 the regex calls a column guard, the parser classifies as {"role":5,"status":4,"deliberate":4,"definition":1}.
```
Fails only on a genuinely missed site now, printing the first ten.
Reclassifications are reported rather than failed.
## Scope
Report-only. `--compare` is not in the merge gate — the gate runs
`--strict`, which is why this stayed red and unwatched. Verified:
`--compare` exit 0, `--strict` exit 0, lint clean. No census numbers
change.
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