diff --git a/docs/README.md b/docs/README.md
index 0a0407a62..9e9e96a4e 100644
--- a/docs/README.md
+++ b/docs/README.md
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ doc below, or that changes which sections a task signal points to.**
 | Concurrency / optimistic-locking work | `docs/api-conventions.md` §7a/b/c + `docs/decisions/optimistic-concurrency.md` |
 | Auth / security-surface work | `docs/decisions/api-auth-security.md` |
 | CI / release pipeline work | `docs/ci-cd.md` + `docs/decisions/release-ci-governance.md` |
-| Proposing a new guard / CI check / regression test convention | `docs/defect-shapes-773.md` §4 (detector menu + the classes where no detector is plausible), then the four rules every guard must satisfy: `docs/decisions/records/testing/guard-derives-population-from-source.md`, `…/guard-ships-with-mutation-proof.md`, `…/mutation-claims-are-executed.md` (a `MUTATION` grade carries a DECLARED clause mutation that is re-run every suite) and `…/verification-code-needs-its-own-proof.md` (the obligation follows the VERDICT, so it binds the harness, wrapper or checker doing the checking — not only the files in the guard population) |
+| Proposing a new guard / CI check / regression test convention | `docs/defect-shapes-773.md` §4 (detector menu + the classes where no detector is plausible), then the three rules every guard must satisfy: `docs/decisions/records/testing/guard-derives-population-from-source.md`, `…/guard-ships-with-mutation-proof.md` and `…/mutation-claims-are-executed.md` (a `MUTATION` grade carries a DECLARED clause mutation that is re-run every suite) — plus `…/verification-code-needs-its-own-proof.md`, which extends the same obligation BEYOND guards to the harness, wrapper or checker doing the checking, and says where its proof lives when the checker holds no row |
 | Adding or bounding a consequential numeric config field (an FFmpeg profile tunable, a pipeline knob) | `docs/api-conventions.md` §3d — reject out of range with a 422 naming the bound and its consequence, never accept-then-rewrite; validate against the constants the renderer reads, keep the render-time clamp for pre-existing rows, and let an UNCHANGED legacy value through on update. Then `api.ffmpeg-profile-numeric-bounds` |
 | Testing a surface gated by config / an env var / a credential | `docs/decisions/records/testing/deny-path-at-production-config-value.md` — cover the setting absent, at its production value, and each opt-out, and assert the DENY branch |
 | Touching a full-replace write path or a hand-built request object | `docs/decisions/records/testing/full-replace-asserts-field-list.md` — derive the field list from the DTO and assert set equality; reconcile by id where child state exists. In the SPA the same rule is enforced by the type system: `docs/spa-conventions.md` §4b — build the body as `Complete<T>`, annotating BOTH the wrapper parameter and every construction site |
diff --git a/docs/decisions/README.md b/docs/decisions/README.md
index 746646cc3..57fb3af51 100644
--- a/docs/decisions/README.md
+++ b/docs/decisions/README.md
@@ -218,7 +218,7 @@ the link for rationale. Superseded/retired history lives in `archive/`. Regenera
 | `testing.playwright-mcp-download-and-recovery` | In Playwright-MCP E2E, fetch file-download endpoints with curl — never a browser tab or `window.open` — and if browser tools stall repeatedly, `pkill -f ms-playwright-mcp` and drive a fresh session. | 2026-07-21 | [link](records/testing/playwright-mcp-download-and-recovery.md) |
 | `testing.scripted-playout-golden-deferred` | The `PlayoutBuildGoldenTests` in-memory golden net covers Sequential (YAML) as of #381. Scripted's *end-to-end pipeline* is excluded — `ScriptedPlayoutBuilder` runs a user-authored external program that drives the engine over HTTP loopback, which the in-memory harness can't pin — so that full-pipeline (integration) harness is deferred to #563. But the scheduling *behavior* those scripts drive lives entirely in the in-process `SchedulingEngine` (the `ScriptedScheduleController` is a 1:1 pass-through to it), which IS directly unit/golden-testable; the earlier "Scripted is un-golden-able by construction" framing overstated the constraint by conflating transport with engine. #395 extracts that shared switch to `ContentEnumeratorBuilder` and adds a direct regression net (`ContentEnumeratorBuilderTests`) over it. | 2026-07-22 | [link](records/testing/scripted-playout-golden-deferred.md) |
 | `testing.troubleshoot-path-cannot-test-branding` | Verify logo/watermark/bug changes through a real channel playout — a green troubleshoot run proves nothing about branding. | 2026-07-21 | [link](records/testing/troubleshoot-path-cannot-test-branding.md) |
-| `testing.verification-code-needs-its-own-proof` | VERIFICATION CODE IS CODE UNDER TEST. The obligation in `testing.guard-ships-with-mutation-proof` attaches to whatever emits a PASS/FAIL somebody acts on — a smoke test, a timeout wrapper, an operator-run checker, the harness that applies the mutations — and NOT only to files sitting in the guard population or named like guards; every one of the five defects measured below was in code nobody had counted as a guard. THE DISCRIMINATOR IS WHETHER A PROOF TEST CAN DRIVE THE CONSTRUCT HERMETICALLY, NOT WHETHER CI RUNS IT, and the difference is load-bearing rather than pedantic: `.claude/hooks/*.sh` and `.husky/pre-push` are operator-run and CI never fires them AS HOOKS, yet FOUR of them carry `MUTATION` rows — `posttooluse-worktree-marker.sh`, `pretooluse-bom-guard.sh`, `pretooluse-worktree-guard.sh` and `.husky/pre-push` — because a pytest proof drives them in a sandbox. A does-CI-run-it test would sort those four already-proven guards into the exempt branch. (Most of the remaining hooks are graded `NONE`; that is unproven debt, not evidence for the other discriminator.) "IT NEEDS A REAL SERVER" IS AN EXEMPTION CLAIM AND IT IS USUALLY FALSE: `scripts/mcp_smoke.py` takes its config path and server name as POSITIONAL ARGUMENTS, so a test hands it a synthetic config in a tmpdir pointing at a stub responder and drives SIX of its refusal paths — no gitignored `.mcp.json`, no language server — and it is proven that way in `scripts/tests/test_mcp_smoke.py`. That is a subset, not every branch: the config, command-resolution and spawn stages are not driven, and the test file lists what it covers rather than implying the rest. A checker is never excused because its CALLER cannot run in CI. WHERE THE PROOF LIVES: the checker itself needs NO `docs/guard-inventory.md` row, because that population is derived from workflow and hook call sites and a transitively-reached script is rejected as a phantom; the proof goes in an ordinary `scripts/tests/test_*.py`, which joins the population automatically and carries the row, while the manifest entry names THAT test as `guard` and the checker as `target`. That shape already exists for `mutation_harness_lib.py` and needs no change to any population. ONLY WHAT NO PROOF TEST CAN DRIVE HERMETICALLY falls back to a WITNESSED NEGATIVE CONTROL — the failure path executed once, the false-green form reproduced, both recorded in the PR, and its decay stated because nothing re-runs it. `scripts/check-local-lsp.sh` is the genuine case: it asserts developer-machine installs (a global `csharp-ls`, a `host/fxr` under `DOTNET_ROOT`, a root `node_modules`) that no runner has. STOP-AND-SUBTRACT, adopted here as this record's own threshold: when a review round's finding was CREATED by the previous round's fix and that happens TWICE CONSECUTIVELY, delete the layer generating them rather than guarding it. READING THE CONSTRUCT IS NOT EXECUTING IT: ShellCheck 0.11.0 flagged NEITHER of the two shell defects below, and each is indistinguishable from correct by reading. | 2026-08-28 | [link](records/testing/verification-code-needs-its-own-proof.md) |
+| `testing.verification-code-needs-its-own-proof` | VERIFICATION CODE IS CODE UNDER TEST. The obligation in `testing.guard-ships-with-mutation-proof` attaches to whatever emits a PASS/FAIL somebody acts on — a smoke test, a timeout wrapper, an operator-run checker, the harness that applies the mutations — and NOT only to files sitting in the guard population or named like guards; every one of the five defects measured below was in code nobody had counted as a guard. THE DISCRIMINATOR IS WHETHER A PROOF TEST CAN DRIVE THE CONSTRUCT HERMETICALLY, NOT WHETHER CI RUNS IT, and the difference is load-bearing rather than pedantic: `.claude/hooks/*.sh` and `.husky/pre-push` are operator-run and CI never fires them AS HOOKS, yet FOUR of them carry `MUTATION` rows — `posttooluse-worktree-marker.sh`, `pretooluse-bom-guard.sh`, `pretooluse-worktree-guard.sh` and `.husky/pre-push` — because a pytest proof drives them in a sandbox. A does-CI-run-it test would sort those four already-proven guards into the exempt branch. (Most of the remaining hooks are graded `NONE`; that is unproven debt, not evidence for the other discriminator.) "IT NEEDS A REAL SERVER" IS AN EXEMPTION CLAIM AND IT IS USUALLY FALSE: `scripts/mcp_smoke.py` takes its config path and server name as POSITIONAL ARGUMENTS, so a test hands it a synthetic config in a tmpdir pointing at a stub responder and drives FIVE of its refusal paths plus the success path — no gitignored `.mcp.json`, no language server — and it is proven that way in `scripts/tests/test_mcp_smoke.py`. That is a subset, not every branch: the config, command-resolution and spawn stages are not driven, and the test file lists what it covers rather than implying the rest. A checker is never excused because its CALLER cannot run in CI. WHERE THE PROOF LIVES: the checker itself needs NO `docs/guard-inventory.md` row, because that population is derived from workflow and hook call sites and a transitively-reached script is rejected as a phantom; the proof goes in an ordinary `scripts/tests/test_*.py`, which joins the population automatically and carries the row, while the manifest entry names THAT test as `guard` and the checker as `target`. That shape already exists for `mutation_harness_lib.py` and needs no change to any population. ONLY WHAT NO PROOF TEST CAN DRIVE HERMETICALLY falls back to a WITNESSED NEGATIVE CONTROL — the failure path executed once, the false-green form reproduced, both recorded in the PR, and its decay stated because nothing re-runs it. `scripts/check-local-lsp.sh` is the genuine case: it asserts developer-machine installs (a global `csharp-ls`, a `host/fxr` under `DOTNET_ROOT`, a root `node_modules`) that no runner has. STOP-AND-SUBTRACT, adopted here as this record's own threshold: when a review round's finding was CREATED by the previous round's fix and that happens TWICE CONSECUTIVELY, delete the layer generating them rather than guarding it. READING THE CONSTRUCT IS NOT EXECUTING IT: ShellCheck 0.11.0 flagged NEITHER of the two shell defects below, and each is indistinguishable from correct by reading. | 2026-08-28 | [link](records/testing/verification-code-needs-its-own-proof.md) |
 
 ## Review due
 
diff --git a/docs/decisions/records/testing/verification-code-needs-its-own-proof.md b/docs/decisions/records/testing/verification-code-needs-its-own-proof.md
index 732519c6e..cc67cf60e 100644
--- a/docs/decisions/records/testing/verification-code-needs-its-own-proof.md
+++ b/docs/decisions/records/testing/verification-code-needs-its-own-proof.md
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ status: active
 since: '2026-08-28'
 supersedes: none
 superseded-by: none
-rule: 'VERIFICATION CODE IS CODE UNDER TEST. The obligation in `testing.guard-ships-with-mutation-proof` attaches to whatever emits a PASS/FAIL somebody acts on — a smoke test, a timeout wrapper, an operator-run checker, the harness that applies the mutations — and NOT only to files sitting in the guard population or named like guards; every one of the five defects measured below was in code nobody had counted as a guard. THE DISCRIMINATOR IS WHETHER A PROOF TEST CAN DRIVE THE CONSTRUCT HERMETICALLY, NOT WHETHER CI RUNS IT, and the difference is load-bearing rather than pedantic: `.claude/hooks/*.sh` and `.husky/pre-push` are operator-run and CI never fires them AS HOOKS, yet FOUR of them carry `MUTATION` rows — `posttooluse-worktree-marker.sh`, `pretooluse-bom-guard.sh`, `pretooluse-worktree-guard.sh` and `.husky/pre-push` — because a pytest proof drives them in a sandbox. A does-CI-run-it test would sort those four already-proven guards into the exempt branch. (Most of the remaining hooks are graded `NONE`; that is unproven debt, not evidence for the other discriminator.) "IT NEEDS A REAL SERVER" IS AN EXEMPTION CLAIM AND IT IS USUALLY FALSE: `scripts/mcp_smoke.py` takes its config path and server name as POSITIONAL ARGUMENTS, so a test hands it a synthetic config in a tmpdir pointing at a stub responder and drives SIX of its refusal paths — no gitignored `.mcp.json`, no language server — and it is proven that way in `scripts/tests/test_mcp_smoke.py`. That is a subset, not every branch: the config, command-resolution and spawn stages are not driven, and the test file lists what it covers rather than implying the rest. A checker is never excused because its CALLER cannot run in CI. WHERE THE PROOF LIVES: the checker itself needs NO `docs/guard-inventory.md` row, because that population is derived from workflow and hook call sites and a transitively-reached script is rejected as a phantom; the proof goes in an ordinary `scripts/tests/test_*.py`, which joins the population automatically and carries the row, while the manifest entry names THAT test as `guard` and the checker as `target`. That shape already exists for `mutation_harness_lib.py` and needs no change to any population. ONLY WHAT NO PROOF TEST CAN DRIVE HERMETICALLY falls back to a WITNESSED NEGATIVE CONTROL — the failure path executed once, the false-green form reproduced, both recorded in the PR, and its decay stated because nothing re-runs it. `scripts/check-local-lsp.sh` is the genuine case: it asserts developer-machine installs (a global `csharp-ls`, a `host/fxr` under `DOTNET_ROOT`, a root `node_modules`) that no runner has. STOP-AND-SUBTRACT, adopted here as this record''s own threshold: when a review round''s finding was CREATED by the previous round''s fix and that happens TWICE CONSECUTIVELY, delete the layer generating them rather than guarding it. READING THE CONSTRUCT IS NOT EXECUTING IT: ShellCheck 0.11.0 flagged NEITHER of the two shell defects below, and each is indistinguishable from correct by reading.'
+rule: 'VERIFICATION CODE IS CODE UNDER TEST. The obligation in `testing.guard-ships-with-mutation-proof` attaches to whatever emits a PASS/FAIL somebody acts on — a smoke test, a timeout wrapper, an operator-run checker, the harness that applies the mutations — and NOT only to files sitting in the guard population or named like guards; every one of the five defects measured below was in code nobody had counted as a guard. THE DISCRIMINATOR IS WHETHER A PROOF TEST CAN DRIVE THE CONSTRUCT HERMETICALLY, NOT WHETHER CI RUNS IT, and the difference is load-bearing rather than pedantic: `.claude/hooks/*.sh` and `.husky/pre-push` are operator-run and CI never fires them AS HOOKS, yet FOUR of them carry `MUTATION` rows — `posttooluse-worktree-marker.sh`, `pretooluse-bom-guard.sh`, `pretooluse-worktree-guard.sh` and `.husky/pre-push` — because a pytest proof drives them in a sandbox. A does-CI-run-it test would sort those four already-proven guards into the exempt branch. (Most of the remaining hooks are graded `NONE`; that is unproven debt, not evidence for the other discriminator.) "IT NEEDS A REAL SERVER" IS AN EXEMPTION CLAIM AND IT IS USUALLY FALSE: `scripts/mcp_smoke.py` takes its config path and server name as POSITIONAL ARGUMENTS, so a test hands it a synthetic config in a tmpdir pointing at a stub responder and drives FIVE of its refusal paths plus the success path — no gitignored `.mcp.json`, no language server — and it is proven that way in `scripts/tests/test_mcp_smoke.py`. That is a subset, not every branch: the config, command-resolution and spawn stages are not driven, and the test file lists what it covers rather than implying the rest. A checker is never excused because its CALLER cannot run in CI. WHERE THE PROOF LIVES: the checker itself needs NO `docs/guard-inventory.md` row, because that population is derived from workflow and hook call sites and a transitively-reached script is rejected as a phantom; the proof goes in an ordinary `scripts/tests/test_*.py`, which joins the population automatically and carries the row, while the manifest entry names THAT test as `guard` and the checker as `target`. That shape already exists for `mutation_harness_lib.py` and needs no change to any population. ONLY WHAT NO PROOF TEST CAN DRIVE HERMETICALLY falls back to a WITNESSED NEGATIVE CONTROL — the failure path executed once, the false-green form reproduced, both recorded in the PR, and its decay stated because nothing re-runs it. `scripts/check-local-lsp.sh` is the genuine case: it asserts developer-machine installs (a global `csharp-ls`, a `host/fxr` under `DOTNET_ROOT`, a root `node_modules`) that no runner has. STOP-AND-SUBTRACT, adopted here as this record''s own threshold: when a review round''s finding was CREATED by the previous round''s fix and that happens TWICE CONSECUTIVELY, delete the layer generating them rather than guarding it. READING THE CONSTRUCT IS NOT EXECUTING IT: ShellCheck 0.11.0 flagged NEITHER of the two shell defects below, and each is indistinguishable from correct by reading.'
 signals: 'the verification harness is itself unproven code · a false green in the checker rather than the checked · `[ -x "$cmd" ]` is true for a DIRECTORY · perl alarm/exec exits 0 without `or die` · macOS has no `timeout` and no `gtimeout` · smoke test accepts an impostor server · a server that pre-answers a guessable id · each fix created the next round''s defect · stop and subtract rather than add a layer · hermetically drivable is the test, not does-CI-run-it · a checker is not exempt because its CALLER cannot run in CI · the checker needs no inventory row — name the proof test as `guard` and the checker as `target` · a transitively-reached script is rejected as a PHANTOM · witnessed negative control for what cannot be driven · paths: `scripts/mcp_smoke.py`, `scripts/tests/test_mcp_smoke.py`, `scripts/check-local-lsp.sh`, `scripts/tests/mutation_manifest.py`, `docs/guard-inventory.md` · issues: #796, #793, #790, #785, #777, #776'
 mechanics: 'THE macOS TIMEOUT RECIPE, recorded here because the WRONG form was the recommended one and a session that followed it verbatim produced a false green (#793): `perl -e ''alarm shift; exec @ARGV or die "exec failed: $!\n"'' <secs> <cmd...>`. The `or die` is load-bearing — without it perl exits 0 when `exec` fails, so a missing or misspelt binary reports SUCCESS having run nothing (measured 2026-08-28: `perl -e ''alarm shift; exec @ARGV'' 5 /nope` exits 0; the `or die` form exits 2 and says why). macOS has neither `timeout` (GNU coreutils) nor `gtimeout` on this fleet, and an absent `gtimeout` exits 127 with empty output, which reads as a clean pass to any caller grepping stdout for a failure string. Two traps travel with it: `[ -x "$cmd" ]` does not establish that a command is runnable, because a directory satisfies `-x` (`[ -x /bin ]` is true); and whatever wrapper is used, its EXIT CODE must be checked rather than its stdout. `scripts/check-local-lsp.sh` is the single in-repo site carrying the perl recipe and the check-the-exit-code discipline; the `-x` trap appears there only in a comment recording what it deliberately does not do.'
 ---
@@ -25,9 +25,9 @@ reproduced with a control before being fixed:
 
 **Why this is a separate rule and not an application of #775.** `testing.guard-ships-with-mutation-
 proof` is scoped by a population — the guard files `docs/guard-inventory.md` derives and grades.
-Defect 1 and 3 are a `perl` wrapper inside an `if`, which is not a file at all; 2, 4 and 5 live in
-`scripts/mcp_smoke.py`, which *is* a file but is reached only through another script and so falls
-under scope limit item 6. That scoping is what keeps the inventory from becoming a chore that gets
+Defects 1 and 3 are a `[ -x ]` test and a `perl` wrapper inside `scripts/check-local-lsp.sh`, which
+no workflow or hook invokes; 2, 4 and 5 live in `scripts/mcp_smoke.py`, reached only through that
+script and so excluded by scope limit item 6. Neither file is in the population. That scoping is what keeps the inventory from becoming a chore that gets
 rubber-stamped; what was missing is the claim that the obligation follows the *verdict*, not the *file*.
 
 **The discriminator, stated precisely because the obvious one is wrong.** It is not "does CI run
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ are graded `MUTATION`, because a pytest proof drives them in a sandbox. The ques
 proof test can drive the construct *hermetically*, and "it needs a live server" usually fails that
 test rather than passing it. `mcp_smoke.py` takes its config path and server name as positional
 arguments, so `scripts/tests/test_mcp_smoke.py` hands it a synthetic config pointing at a stub
-responder and drives six of its refusal paths — identity mismatch, a body carrying only an id, a
+responder and drives five of its refusal paths plus the success path — identity mismatch, a body carrying only an id, a
 missing tool, a pre-answered `initialize`, a pre-answered `tools/list` — with no server to start.
 That is a subset and the file says so. `check-local-lsp.sh` genuinely
 cannot be driven that way: it asserts a global `csharp-ls` on PATH, a `host/fxr` under