loom-cli/.loom/event-log.md

# Event log

**Appended, newest last, never revised.** *A later entry supersedes an earlier one
by saying so.*

*Entries tagged `osprey` were all considered in a single sphere of understanding.*

---

## 2026-09-07 — what this tool is `osprey`

**Decided:** *`loom-cli` is a fetcher and a comparator.* **It fetches a document
you depend on and tells you whether the publisher's copy has moved.** *It reports
and never repairs.*

**Believed to advance:** *every act in the loom model is a file in somebody's
repository — publishing is writing one, adopting is fetching a URL, homing a gap
is an `mv`.* **Almost nothing needs a program**, so the program should be the
part that cannot be done by hand: an HTTP request, repeated.

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that reporting is enough.* **If every
report is followed by the same manual act, we have moved the work rather than
removed it**, and the missing command will be obvious.

## 2026-09-07 — the design lives here and not in a spec `osprey`

**Decided:** *this log is the artifact of `osprey`.* **No specification document
is written, and the specimen that opened the round is discarded.**

**Believed to advance:** *every entry here carries a belief that could be shown
wrong, so a reader can see which parts are load-bearing and which were guesses.*
**A spec flattens all of it to equal confidence** — *which is how the specimen
managed to be wrong, with a straight face, within a day of being written.*

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that a reader can build from a log.* **It
is ordered by time and not by topic**, so somebody arriving reads chronologically
and holds the corrections in their head. *Fine at fifteen entries and not at
eighty. When a newcomer cannot build from it without a guide, the guide is the
next thing to write — and not before.*

## 2026-09-07 — freshness is a conditional request `osprey`

**Decided:** *the tool records the publisher's `ETag`, verbatim and opaque, and
sends it back as `If-None-Match`.* **It never computes a hash of anything.**

**Believed to advance:** *`externals` requires it, and we now have the empirical
reason as well as the stated one.* **On gitea a raw file's `ETag` is its git blob
hash; on GitHub it is not.** *A design that compares a local hash to a remote
`ETag` works on exactly one host by coincidence.*

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that `ETag` is stable enough to lock on.*
**A proxy, a CDN, or a host that regenerates the header per request would produce
a change report where nothing changed.** *Untested against anything but gitea and
GitHub.*

## 2026-09-07 — supersedes nothing: the path is for a person `osprey`

**Decided:** *the origin URL is recorded in the lock, not derived from the stored
path.*

**Believed to advance:** *the path `\.loom/externals/<host>/<path>.md` does not
round-trip.* **Measured:** *the document we hold as
`git.hypertheory-labs.dev/loom/externals/externals.md` is served from
`/loom/externals/raw/branch/main/.loom/published/externals.md`* — **the stored
path has dropped the route, the branch, and `.loom/published/`.**

*The third is not routing.* **`publication.md` makes `.loom/published/` the whole
contract**, and a tree that erases it cannot say whether a copy came from
somebody's published surface or from a file they may rename at will.

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that people will still read the path as a
location.* **If anybody writes code that parses it back into a URL, the path
should stop looking like one.**

## 2026-09-07 — the lock, and what it holds `osprey`

**Decided:** *one record per adopted document in `.loom/externals/.locks`: the
**resolved** origin URL, and the `ETag` it came with.*

**Believed to advance:** *the specimen said there would be no lock file, on the
strength of the `ETag`-as-blob-hash claim.* **That claim failed twice**, so the
file exists and is named for what it is. *It was briefly called `.etags`, from
when we believed there would be one field.*

**Resolved, and not the short form.** *Measured: gitea `303`s
`/loom/externals/raw/externals.md` to `/raw/branch/main/…`* — **so a lock holding a
short URL is locked to whatever the default branch is at the time you ask**, and a
branch rename reports as a change in the document.

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that one file is cheap.* **Two fetches in
one round conflict inside it, and the conflict is in a file no human can resolve
by reading.** *If that bites, it becomes one record per document and the tree is
mirrored twice.*

## 2026-09-07 — unlocked is a state `osprey`

**Decided:** *a document with no lock is reported as unlocked.* **`check` never
adopts whatever the remote is currently serving as the lock.**

**Believed to advance:** *adopting it would assert the local copy is the one being
served, which is the thing you were about to check.* **It is the hash assumption
in a different coat, and it fails silently in the one case that matters — a copy
somebody edited.**

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that anybody will run `pull` again to fix
it.* **If unlocked documents simply accumulate, the report is noise and something
has to lock them.**

## 2026-09-07 — `404` is unresolved, and that is no longer provisional `osprey`

**Decided:** *`check` reports a `404` as unresolvable — the document was withdrawn
or we have lost access — and names both readings without picking one.*

**Believed to advance:** *over HTTP they are the same response, because a host
that distinguished them would leak the existence of things you may not see.*

**This entry exists because the status of the behaviour changed and the code did
not.** *It began as a local workaround recorded in a `.gaps.md` against
`externals`, which listed `410` and not `404`.* **`externals` has since added the
`404` row, so the gap is closed and the facet is deleted at this reconciliation.**

> **The workaround is not retired. It is now the specified behaviour.** *Unchanged
> in the code and entirely changed in status — and this log is the only place that
> says so.* **Somebody inheriting this will find the behaviour and go looking for
> the gap that justified it, and find nothing.**

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that reporting both readings is useful.*
**If in practice it is always one of them, the report is a ritual** — *and that is
worth knowing.*

## 2026-09-07 — declined: `check` does not resolve the `404` over ssh `osprey`

**Considered:** *the two readings **are** distinguishable over ssh — permission
denied against repository not found — and `externals` now says so.* **Demonstrated
here by accident:** *`loom/settled` returned `404` over HTTP while an ssh clone of
it succeeded.*

**Not done, because:** *it needs a key, a non-default port, and a second
transport* — **and it would be fixing rather than reporting**, which is the rule
this design held all round.

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that a person will do it.* **The ssh
disambiguation is one command and it is in the document; if nobody ever runs it,
the ambiguity was never actionable and reporting it was theatre.**

## 2026-09-07 — declined: `init` `osprey`

**Considered and rejected**, not deferred.

**Because:** *its temptation is to scaffold, and four empty directories assert four
things nobody has decided.* **A file that carries no delta should not exist.**

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that starting is easy without it.* **If
people repeatedly fail to start**, *the useful version creates one file and asks
one question* — **and creating the tree is still not the feature.**

## 2026-09-07 — declined: worktree, clone; and where a round lives `osprey`

**Decided:** *the cart lives on the default branch; the work is isolated on a
branch named for the cart.*

**Believed to advance:** *a cart is a venue and the work is an artifact.* **`cart`
says three states are visible in a listing, and a branch makes all three
invisible** — *a venue only visible if you know which branch to check out is not a
venue.* **Both dailies land on the default branch, one commit per exchange.**

**Declined: a worktree, and a separate clone.** *Both isolate concurrent working
directories, and `cart` says there is one live cart, ever.* **They solve a problem
the agreement says cannot exist.**

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that the dailies and the work have
different audiences.* **If a daily needs to quote a file that only exists on the
branch, the split makes the daily unreadable from where it lives**, and the answer
collapses to one branch for both.

## 2026-09-07 — `publish` is renamed `reachable`, and it earned its place `osprey`

**Decided:** *the command is `loom reachable <path>` — one anonymous request
against a document in `.loom/published/`.*

**Believed to advance:** *the old name said the tool performs publication, which
is the one thing the model says it never does.* **It performs a fetch with a
different subject**, which keeps it inside a fetcher and a comparator.

**It was nearly cut for being a third kind of thing. Then it was validated three
times in one afternoon**, against loom's own repositories:

```
loom/settled              404 anon   the page written to fix "settled is private"
jeffry/homelab-cluster    404 anon   and bedrock's public starting page named it
                                     as the better answer
loom/.loom                200 anon   fetchable — but not where a reader lands
```

**All three are now fixed.** *The third was not a `reachable` failure and is
recorded as the tool's boundary:* **`reachable` answers *can anybody fetch this*
and does not answer *will anybody find it*.** *The second is not testable by a
fetcher and a comparator, and trying is the first step in the tool becoming
something else.*

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that publication failures are common enough
to need a command.* **Three for three is a small sample from one publisher in one
week.**

## 2026-09-07 — the `ETag`/blob coincidence is a migration aid `osprey`

**Recorded so it is not rediscovered as a good idea.**

*With eight adopted documents and no locks, `check` was run by hand by hashing the
local copies and comparing to remote `ETag`s* — **the exact thing the convention
forbids** — **and it worked**, because on gitea the two coincide. *It found
exactly one drifted document, correctly.*

**It is worth doing once, on gitea, to lock what was fetched by hand before the
tool existed. It is not a mechanism.**

> **The coincidence has now been found twice and rejected twice.** *The next person
> to notice it will think they have found the good idea again.*

## 2026-09-07 — annotate to ask; write in your own file to assert `osprey`

**Decided:** *responses between two presences are correspondence — each writes in
their own file — and annotation is reserved for asking or challenging.*

**Believed to advance:** *the freeze is not "you cannot edit", it is "you cannot
edit without resolving what was said".* **An annotation creates an obligation**,
which makes it the blocking form and correspondence the non-blocking one.

*And the cost is practical: **dissolving a multi-pass file is expensive**, so the
cost of annotating rises with the length of the thing annotated.* **Annotate
early, or accept the cost when the question is worth blocking on.**

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *this rule is in neither `cart` nor
`annotating`.* **It is our reading of their text, and `cart` is loom's** — *they
may say we have it wrong.*

## 2026-09-07 — why this tool exists, in one story `osprey`

**Gitea's ssh is on port `2222`.** *I did not know that. I tried to clone, got
`Permission denied (publickey)`, and spent three tool calls and a guess chasing it
as an authentication problem before finding the port.*

**The fact was published.** *`jeffry/homelab-cluster`, in `.loom/published/gitea.md`,
says:*

> **A clone URL without the port will not work**, and the failure looks like an
> authentication problem rather than a wrong port.

**It named my failure before I had it, and I could not read it** — *the repository
was not fetchable by anybody who is not its owner.*

**This happened inside the round that was designing the fix**, *and it failed for
the reason that round had just spent two passes identifying.* **A document that is
correct, published, and unreachable is worth exactly as much as one that was never
written.**

**Believed to advance:** *nothing in this log is a stronger reason for the tool to
exist.* **`reachable` is why the document can be fetched. `pull` and `check` are
why it is still true when you read it.**

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that the tool would have helped.* **I would
have had to already depend on that document to have pulled it** — *and the thing I
needed was the one I did not know I was missing.* **A fetcher does not solve
discovery, and this story is partly a discovery problem wearing a freshness
problem's clothes.**

## 2026-09-07 — supersedes the `reachable` entry: publication is not publicness `marmalade`

**The entry above records three publication failures found by `reachable` and says
all three are fixed. One of them was not a failure.**

**`jeffry/homelab-cluster` is private on purpose** — *it describes a running
cluster, and its owner does not want outsiders reading what is on it.* **It
publishes six documents to an audience that is not the public**, *which
`publication.md` permits in the word we misread:*

> **What a repository has handed over for **others** to depend on.**

***Others*, not *everyone*.**

**So the tool as logged would have reported a correct repository as broken.** *An
anonymous fetch returning `404` is the intended outcome there*, **and a check that
treats anonymous reachability as success produces a false positive on every
deliberately-private publisher.**

**What survives:** *the defect that round found in `bedrock/starting.md` was real,
and it was never about `homelab-cluster`.* **A public document promised that a
private repository was the better answer**, *and the promise was the defect.*
**The link was removed; naming it as private, the way `.loom` names `settled`,
would also have answered it and would have kept the better document findable.**
*That call is loom's and it is already made.*

**Believed to advance:** *a check that cannot fail teaches nothing, and one that
fails on correct repositories is worse* — **it trains people to ignore it.**

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that anonymous is still the right default.*
**If most publication here is to private audiences, the default is wrong** and the
command should refuse to run without being told who to ask as.

## 2026-09-07 — measured: a read token, and what a host will tell you `marmalade`

**A gitea read token was issued for one session and destroyed after.** *Recorded
because these are facts about the host that nothing else here writes down.*

**A read token authenticates raw HTTP on a private repository.** *`404`
anonymously, `200` with `Authorization: token` or `Bearer`, and `If-None-Match`
returns `304` authenticated.* **So `add` and `check` work against private
repositories** — *the assumption the specimen made and nobody had run.*

**`/api/v1/repos/{o}/{r}` reports `admin, push, pull: true` for a token that
cannot write.** *Those are the account's rights.*

**But a refused write names the token's scopes in the error body.** *So:*

> **A token cannot be asked what it may do. It can only be told, by being
> refused.**

*Supersedes the specimen's "the name is the only record", which was too strong.*
**For this tool the rule is unchanged and the reason is different:** *`loomctl`
never writes, so it never provokes the only response that would tell it anything.*

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that gitea keeps doing this.* **The scope
list in an error body is not a documented interface** — *it is a message, and
messages change.*

## 2026-09-07 — the CLI has nouns, and one of them is not built `marmalade`

**Decided:** *`loomctl`, with subcommands.* **`loomctl external …` now; `loomctl
beads …` when it exists.**

**Believed to advance:** *`external` is what somebody else published that we depend
on.* **The verb `check` means the same thing wherever it appears — ask somebody
else whether what we believe is still true.**

**Declined: a plugin boundary.** *`kubectl` and `gh` grew plugins after somebody
outside wanted in.* **The seam gets built when it is a reported gap, not a designed
one** — *which is how loom says that arrives, with a name attached and a workaround
recorded beside it.*

**Declined: a field where a repository declares who it published for.** *It would
let a tool compare intent to result, and it asserts a category nobody decided.*
**The better version needs no declaration: derive it from the other side, by
reading everybody's `externals/` to see who actually depends on you.** *That is
`registry`'s shape.*

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that one noun justifies the structure.*
**Until `beads` exists, `loomctl external` is a subcommand with nothing to be
distinguished from.**

## 2026-09-07 — declined: `published check` `marmalade`

**Considered and rejected.** *The command that would ask whether somebody who is
not you can fetch what you published.*

**Because it simulates a consumer, and `registry` will have real ones.** *An
observed fetch beats a synthetic probe — the probe says a stranger **could** have
fetched it; a registry says somebody **did**.* **Building the probe first builds a
worse version of the thing that is coming.**

**And it removes the only thing complicating the credential story:** *`--as
<context>` existed almost entirely to serve this command.*

**Belief that could be shown wrong, two ways:**

- **`registry` never materialises**, *and nothing ever asks the question.*
- **`registry` records *declared* consumers rather than *observed* fetches.** *"Who
  says they depend on us" is not "who can actually read us"* — **then this comes
  back.**

*Cost of deciding: the command found three real problems in one afternoon, one of
which was a false positive it would have produced forever.* **The workaround is one
`curl`, and a real need with a cheap workaround is a gap rather than a missing
feature.**

## 2026-09-07 — kept, though nothing implements it `marmalade`

> **A check performed with your own credential proves nothing.** *It helps you
> complete alone an act that, by definition, you cannot* — **and then tells you it
> was fine.**

**Believed to advance:** *whoever builds `registry`'s consumer view needs this
before they design it*, **because the tempting implementation is for the publisher
to verify their own publication** — *the same mistake with a database behind it.*

**And it is cheap to detect:** *`/api/v1/user` gives the acting login, the
repository gives its owner.* **One request**, *and nobody thinks to make it.*

## 2026-09-07 — `external list` talks to git, measured `marmalade`

**Decided:** *`list` enumerates a publisher's `.loom/published/` by shelling out to
`git`* — **`clone --filter=blob:none --depth=1 --no-checkout`, then `ls-tree`.**

**Believed to advance, and measured across three hosts:**

```
git archive --remote   gitea ok · github 422 · gitlab 404
partial clone          gitea ok · github ok · gitlab ok      124–144KB
REST                   /api/v1/repos/{o}/{r}/contents/{p}
                       /repos/{o}/{r}/contents/{p}           (api.github.com)
                       /api/v4/projects/{url-encoded}/repository/tree
```

**The argument is consistency, not thrift.** *One mechanism against three hosts
instead of three adapters* — **and REST `404`s on a private repository, which is
the case that matters.**

**The failure mode to build for:** *`--filter` is a server capability and git's
fallback is **silent***, warning `filtering not recognized by server` and
downloading everything. **`--depth=1` bounds it. Detect the warning and say so.**

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that shelling out stays simple.* **The first
time we need output `git` does not print stably, the library trade looks
different.**

## 2026-09-07 — nothing needs ssh, and nothing needs write access `marmalade`

**Decided:** *every transport is HTTPS on 443, and no token this tool is given
should carry `write:repository`.*

**Measured:** *partial clone with the blob filter works over gitea's **smart
HTTP***, so `list` never needed ssh — *it was built that way out of habit.*

**The tool writes only to the working tree** — *a fetched document, a lock, a
facet* — **and never commits or pushes.** *Committing and pushing are the person's,
under their own credentials.*

> *Same reason `cart` gives for an agent committing and not pushing:* **the
> consequences of a push land on people it cannot experience.** *A tool that can
> push is a tool that can publish, and publishing is an act somebody performs.*

**Implementation:** *never build `https://<token>@host/…`* — **git writes it into
`.git/config` and it surfaces in `git remote -v` and logs.** *Pass
`-c http.extraHeader="Authorization: token …"` per invocation instead.*

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that every host we meet allows token auth
over git-HTTPS.* **A host that does not would need ssh for `list` and nothing
else.**

## 2026-09-07 — untested, and load-bearing `marmalade`

**Nobody has confirmed that a gitea PAT scoped `read:repository` authenticates
*git over HTTPS*, not only the API and raw files.** *Those are different paths in
gitea; the token we had was measured only against the second.*

**Measured:** *an unauthenticated HTTPS clone of a private repository returns
`Failed to authenticate user`* — **so something is required, and which something is
unknown.**

**Recorded rather than assumed** *because it is the first thing to run against the
next token*, **and because if a read scope is not enough, that is the only argument
for keeping ssh.**

## 2026-09-07 — `--help` is the documentation surface `marmalade`

**Decided:** *`--help` is what a person or an agent actually runs when handed an
unfamiliar CLI, so it is the surface that has to be good* — **say what a command
does and what it will not do.**

**A `.loom/published/` for `loomctl` is deferred, not declined.** *The distinction
matters because `init` was declined.* **It earns publication when somebody depends
on this tool's behaviour rather than reading its help.**

## 2026-09-07 — decided by fallback: where the credential lives `marmalade`

**Nobody chose this; the fallback became the decision and that is recorded so it
can be found.**

**One file in `~`, kubeconfig-shaped, holding hosts and credentials together.**
*Never in a repository, and nothing that reads from a repository.*

**Believed to advance:** *the config is no longer only a secret* — **it is how you
talk to a host at all**, *API shape, ssh port if it ever matters, which transport a
command uses.* **Some of that is not secret and several people would want the same
values.**

> **The split is expected and was not done:** *a host list that can be committed,
> and a credential file that cannot.* **It was named rather than decided.**

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that one file is fine until somebody
shares.* **The first time two people want the same host list, the file has to
split**, *and doing it later means moving a file people have already written by
hand.*

## 2026-09-07 — Go, and `git` on `PATH` `marmalade`

**Decided:** *`loomctl` is written in Go.*

**Believed to advance:** *it gets installed on other people's machines — a laptop,
a cluster node, a CI runner* — **and a single static binary is the difference
between "download it" and "first install a runtime."** *The work is precise HTTP
header control, shelling out to `git`, and reading files; the standard library does
the first and third with no dependencies.*

**Considered: TypeScript on npm.** *A real distribution channel and the familiar
one.* **Not chosen because it puts a runtime in front of a tool meant to be run
casually and often** — *including by agents in loops that pay start-up cost every
time.*

**Consequence: `git` must be on `PATH`.** *`list` shells out rather than using a
library, because the behaviour measured across three hosts **is** git's behaviour —
filter support, the silent fallback, the user's existing credential helpers.*
**`list` is the only command that needs it, which makes `list` the seam if this
ever bites.**

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that distribution is the deciding
constraint.* **If `loomctl` only ever runs in one or two places, the binary
advantage is worth little and the choice was made on a cost nobody pays.**

## 2026-09-07 — a wrinkle in the isolation role `marmalade`

**`osprey` cast the isolation role as: the cart on the default branch, the work on
a branch named for the cart.** *It assumed the work happens **during** the round.*

**Both rounds so far have been design rounds that decide work happening
**after**.** *So the branch is named for the round that authorised it, and outlives
the cart that named it.*

**Recorded rather than fixed.** *The role still works; its justification was
written for a case that has not yet occurred.* **If a round ever does produce code
while it is open, nothing here changes.**

## 2026-09-07 — `loomctl external` exists, and its first run reconciled two documents `marmalade`

**Built: `list`, `add`, `check`.** *Go, no dependencies outside the standard
library, `git` shelled out for `list` only.*

**The first real run did the thing the tool is for.** *Eight documents were
adopted by hand before it existed; `check` reported all eight `unlocked`, and
`add` locked them* — **and two came back changed**, `bedrock/starting.md` *and*
`cart/cart.md`. **Neither change would have been noticed by anybody.**

**Believed to advance:** *the lock is what makes `check` possible at all.* **With
no lock there is nothing to compare and the only honest report is `unlocked`** —
*and the tool refuses to invent one by adopting whatever the remote currently
serves.*

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that a per-person path derived from the URL
is good enough.* **`<host>/<owner>/<repo>/<name>.md` guesses that the first two
path segments name an owner and a repository**, *which is true of gitea, GitHub and
GitLab and is not a rule.* **`--path` exists for when it is wrong.**

## 2026-09-07 — supersedes the isolation role: a cart is not committed `marmalade`

**`cart` is now `v1` and it changed the thing we cast a role on.**

> **So the cart is not committed.** *It lives in the working tree of the machine
> the two presences share, and `.loom/cart/` is ignored by version control.*

**The reason is not tidiness:** *a committed cart grows a third file by itself.*
**The two-file rule defends against somebody asking for one; version control does
not require anybody to ask** — *anyone who can clone can add a third, and the
agreement's test is never invoked because nobody had the conversation.*

**And it is what makes a round end.** *Committed, a cart is gone from the tree and
permanent in history* — **so "gone" means "no longer live" and the negotiation
stays quotable forever.** *Ignored, gone means gone.*

**So `.loom/cart/` is now in `.gitignore`.** *The isolation role entry above
assumed the cart lived on the default branch; **the cart lives on no branch.***
*What survives of that entry is the other half: work is isolated on a branch named
for the round that authorised it.*

**Not undone: `osprey` and `marmalade` are already in this repository's history.**
*Rewriting history to honour a rule adopted afterwards would cost more than it
buys*, **and the two rounds are quotable forever, which is exactly what `v1` says
not to want.** *Recorded rather than repaired.*

**Belief that could be shown wrong, and it is a real conflict:** *the annotation
protocol this repository works under says **commit before dissolving, git is the
only archive of the conversation.*** **An ignored cart has no archive**, so
dissolving a notes file destroys the annotations outright. *One of the two is
wrong and it is not ours to settle.*

## 2026-09-07 — what the planted change actually proved `marmalade`

**`cart.md` was changed upstream deliberately, without telling us, to see whether
the tool would notice.** *It did — and the sequence is worth recording, because
the obvious reading is wrong.*

**`check` did not catch it.** *All eight documents were unlocked, and `unlocked`
means **I cannot tell you**.* **It was `add` that revealed the change, by
overwriting the file** — *and the only reason anybody saw what had changed is that
`git` happened to be watching the working tree.*

> **So the mechanism is proven and the workflow is not.** *A conditional request
> against a lock works. **A document nobody has locked is a document nobody is
> checking**, and it stays that way silently.*

**Decided, as a consequence:** *`add` now reports when it replaces local content
that differs from what the publisher is serving.* **It used to say only
`adopted`.** *A copy that differs is the only evidence that something moved while
the document was unlocked, and destroying it silently is how a change nobody saw
becomes a change nobody can find.*

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that a note is enough.* **`add` still
overwrites** — *it does not stash the old bytes anywhere* — **and outside a git
working tree the note tells you something was lost without letting you see it.**
*If that bites, `add` needs `--dry-run` or a refusal.*

## 2026-09-07 — the unowned half: somebody has to run it `marmalade`

**Nothing here answers *when* `check` runs.**

*`bedrock` says it about running systems and it is just as true of this:*
**nothing serves the truth, so the only mechanism is somebody looking.** *The tool
makes looking cheap; it does not make it happen.*

**Recorded as a need with no owner rather than a feature**, *because the answers
are all outside the tool* — **a git hook, a CI job, an agent's session start, a
scheduled run** — *and choosing one here would put a scheduler inside a fetcher and
a comparator.*

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that staying out of it is right.* **If in
practice nobody ever runs `check` unaided, a tool that only reports when asked is
a tool that reports nothing**, *and the thing we declined to build is the thing
that was needed.*

## 2026-09-07 — a changed external is a polad, which the specimen said first `marmalade`

**Decided:** *`check` stages what moved into `.loom/cart/current/polad/`*, **a
candidate artifact shaped exactly like what it would become**, *whose exits are
apply or discard.*

**This was in the specimen and we lost it.** *"A changed external becomes a polad
in the cart, and somebody decides."* **The round that discarded the specimen
discarded this with it**, *and it came back only because somebody asked what the
stash should be.*

**Believed to advance:** *`externals` says reconciliation runs the other way* —
**given what changed in theirs, what do we change in ours** — *and the facets
usually survive while the manifests, the config and the code that a usage named
are what move.* **So staging prints the `.usages.md` beside it**, *which is the
file that names what to go fix*, **and says so when there is none**: *a usage that
does not name what it justifies is half a usage, and no usage at all is a document
nothing records a dependency on.*

**With no cart open, `check` reports what moved and stages nothing.** *The tool
does not open a round* — **a cart is a bounded exchange between two presences, and
starting one is somebody's act, not a side effect of asking about freshness.**

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that requiring an open cart is right.* **If
most changes arrive when no round is open, the useful behaviour is the one that
never runs**, *and the polad needs somewhere else to live.*

## 2026-09-07 — supersedes "add says what it replaced": add does not replace `marmalade`

**`add` adopts what is not here, and refuses what is already adopted.** *The
earlier entry made `add` announce an overwrite; **it no longer overwrites at
all**.*

**Believed to advance:** *a command that both adopts and re-fetches is a command
that overwrites the only evidence a change happened.* **Splitting them gives each
one job** — *`add` adopts, `check` notices.*

**One exception, and it is the only way out of a dead end:** *a document that is
present but **unlocked** was fetched by hand before the tool existed.* **Nothing
records its origin and the path does not round-trip, so `check` cannot ask about
it and `add` refusing would strand it forever.** *So `add` accepts it, and the
bytes decide:*

- **identical** → *the lock is written and nothing is rewritten.* **The assertion
  a lock makes — this local copy is the one being served — is then verified rather
  than assumed**, *which was the whole objection to adopting a remote `ETag`
  blindly.*
- **different** → *staged as a polad; the local copy is left alone*, **because a
  copy that differs is the only evidence that something moved while nothing was
  watching.**

*Measured on this repository: eight documents adopted by hand, all eight locked
with nothing rewritten.*

## 2026-09-07 — `apply`, because the lock is the half a person forgets `marmalade`

**Decided:** *`loomctl external apply [path…]` moves a staged polad into place and
moves its lock with it.*

**Believed to advance:** *applying by hand is one `mv`, and it leaves a lock
describing the copy you just replaced* — **which is exactly the drift the lock
exists to prevent.** *The polad carries the `ETag` that was served with the bytes
somebody reviewed, so applying locks what was actually read rather than whatever
the publisher serves at apply time.*

**This is not the tool fixing anything.** *It executes a decision a person already
made, one document at a time, after the report.*

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that two exits are enough.* **For an
external, discard does not mean the change goes away** — *the upstream moved
whatever we do* — **so discarding is really "knowingly stale", and nothing
currently records that choice.** *If people discard often, that silence is the
next defect.*

## 2026-09-07 — declined: a separate `adopt` verb `marmalade`

**Considered:** *`loomctl external adopt <path> <url>`* — **a command whose job is
to say "this copy came from there"**, *for a document that is present but
unlocked.* **Both parties reached the deadlock independently and this was the
other way out.**

**Not done, because the byte comparison makes the verb unnecessary.** *Whatever
the command is called, it must not trust the claim* — **it has to fetch and
compare, because the whole point is that nobody knows whether the local copy is
still a copy.** *Once it does that, it is `add` with an origin supplied, and the
user's intent in both cases is the same sentence: **I depend on this document and
here is where it lives.***

**And a verb earns its place by naming an act, not a state.** *"Present but
unlocked" is a condition a repository is temporarily in* — **a permanent command
for it advertises a transitional situation as a normal one.**

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that the condition is transitional.* **If
people and agents keep dropping documents into `externals/` by hand — and they
will — it is a recurring category and not a migration**, *and then it deserves its
own word, discoverable in `--help` rather than found in a hint.*

*The domain word survives regardless: `externals` says adopting is fetching a URL,
and the tool says `adopted` throughout.*

## 2026-09-07 — the credential is not needed here, and is not gone `quince`

**`jeffry/homelab-cluster` is public and `jeffry/homelab-impl` is private.**
*Adoption flows public → private, so nothing this repository depends on requires a
credential, and `loomctl` has been exercised end to end without one.*

**That does not remove the PAT. It moves when you need it.** *`externals` now
says: **do not adopt from a source less readable than the repository you are
adopting into.*** *Which sorts the cases:*

- **a public repository adopting** — *may only adopt public documents*, **so it
  never needs a credential**, *and needing one is the signal that something is
  wrong.*
- **a private repository adopting private documents** — *legitimate, and needs
  one.*

> **So needing a credential stopped being a capability and became a signal.** *The
> tool cannot tell the two apart — it sees that the source is private and cannot
> see who may read the repository the copy lands in* — **which is exactly why
> `add` warns rather than deciding.**

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that public-adopting-public covers the
common case.* **The moment a private repository wants to depend on another private
one, the credential is required and untested.**

## 2026-09-07 — status change: the git-over-HTTPS assumption is unexercised, not blocking `quince`

**An earlier entry records that nobody has confirmed a read-scoped PAT
authenticates git over HTTPS, and calls it load-bearing. It is no longer
blocking.**

*It bears on `external list` against a private repository, which is the
private-to-private case above and does not occur here.* **The path is unexercised
rather than untested-and-in-the-way.**

**Recorded because the code did not change and its status did**, *which is the
kind of thing only a log says.* **It stays the first thing to run against the next
token.**

## 2026-09-07 — the completeness case has a mechanism: it is the facet `quince`

**The open question was: a `200` tells you a document moved and says nothing about
whether your casting still covers it.**

**`check` prints the document's `.usages.md` when it stages a polad**, *and for an
agreement that is the file its roles are cast in* — **so the question is answered
by reading the facet the tool just pointed at.**

**It failed on the first real change because `externals.md` had no facet at all**,
*and the tool said `no .usages.md — nothing records what depends on this`:* **a
correct report and useless as a prompt.**

**So both were written.** *`externals.usages.md` names which Go file implements
which rule — an unusual usage, because this repository implements the convention
rather than using it — and `cart.usages.md` gained the `v1` casting it was missing.*

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that pointing is enough.* **Nothing checks
that a facet was updated, or that it was even read.**

## 2026-09-07 — decided: nothing committed announces an open cart `quince`

**A cart is local and untracked, so a clone cannot see that a round is open.**
*That is the boundary and not a defect:* **`v1` makes the cart local to the
working tree the two presences share, and somebody who has only cloned is by
construction not one of them.**

**`.gitignore` records that carts happen here. Nothing records that one is open**,
*and the asymmetry is deliberate* — **a mechanism for announcing something
designed to be ephemeral is the first step in it not being ephemeral.**

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that the shared working tree is the right
unit.* **If two presences ever work from different machines, the cart has nowhere
to live**, *and everything above stops being true at once.*

## 2026-09-07 — conversion now destroys, so the log is the only record `quince`

**Under `cart/v1` the cart is untracked, so converting a round deletes its dailies
outright.** *Every previous conversion left them in git.*

**So an entry that was not written before the `rm` is gone**, *and the write-ahead
log is the mechanism* — **stage as you go, because at conversion the cart is the
only copy and you are about to delete it.**

**And it sharpens a conflict recorded in `cart.usages.md`:** *the annotation
protocol here says commit before dissolving because git is the only archive.*
**With an ignored cart there is no archive, so dissolving a notes file destroys
the annotations outright.** *Both documents are loom's; this is where an adopter
can see the collision.*

## 2026-09-07 — declined for now: reference-only adoption `quince`

**`externals` offers two ways out of the confidentiality rule.** *We implement
neither, and this records why the first is not built.*

**Reference-only is mechanically small:** *a lock with no file. `check` never
touches the copy — it sends `If-None-Match` and reads the status — so the only
code that changes is telling deliberate absence from loss, which is one optional
field in the lock.* **The facets stay**, *which is the ownership line drawn
exactly: the facet is ours, the document is theirs.*

**The cost is larger than the document suggests, and it is why this is worth an
entry rather than a `TODO`:** *with a copy, `CHANGED` gives you a diff, and today
the diff was the whole answer.* **Reference-only keeps no old bytes, so it tells
you *that* a document moved and never *what* moved** — *and the question
`externals` says reconciliation asks is a question about the delta.*

> **So it is not adoption minus offline reading. It is adoption minus
> reconciliation-by-diff.**

**Not built because we have no instance.** *Everything this repository adopts is
public.* **And the convention's other exit — ask them to publish — is the one that
actually occurred**: *`homelab-cluster` went public and the problem dissolved.*
**The better exit made the worse one unnecessary in the only case we have had.**

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that the case stays hypothetical.* **A
private repository here depending on another private one makes it real** —
*`homelab-impl` is the obvious candidate* — **and then the design above is a few
hours.**

*The warning now names both exits, including the one we have not built. **Telling
somebody a rule and not the way out of it is how a guardrail becomes something
people route around.***

## 2026-09-07 — measured: only gitea resolves its own short raw URL `rowan`

**A lock must record a resolved URL** — *a short form follows whatever the default
branch is at the time you ask, so a branch rename reports as a change in the
document.* **Adopting by name means building that URL, and the three hosts do not
behave alike:**

```
gitea    /{owner}/{repo}/raw/{path}              303 -> /raw/branch/main/{path}   resolved
github   raw.githubusercontent.com/{o}/{r}/HEAD/{path}   200, no redirect          NOT resolved
gitlab   /{owner}/{repo}/-/raw/HEAD/{path}               200, no redirect          NOT resolved
```

**`HEAD` works on all three and resolves on none.** *It would put a moving ref in
the lock, which is the hazard we recorded and then nearly built.*

**So gitea's redirect does the work, and the other two need the branch resolved
first** — *`git ls-remote --symref <url> HEAD`, which is one round trip and no
clone.*

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that gitea keeps redirecting.* **The short
form is a convenience, not a documented interface**, *and if it stops we resolve
the branch the same way as everybody else.*

## 2026-09-07 — supersedes "git is needed for `list` only" `rowan`

**Adopting by name against github or gitlab needs `git ls-remote` to resolve the
default branch.** *Against gitea it does not, because the redirect answers the
same question.*

**So the earlier claim — `list` is the only command that needs `git`, which makes
`list` the seam — is now wrong for two of three flavors.** *The seam is unchanged
in practice here, where everything is gitea, and the entry would otherwise read as
still true.*

*Recorded because the code changed in a way that quietly moved a boundary somebody
might rely on.*

## 2026-09-08 — measured: the private path works, and nothing is unexercised now `rowan`

**Supersedes the entry that recorded the git-over-HTTPS assumption as unexercised.
It has been run.** *A read-scoped token, issued for one session and destroyed
after.*

```
git clone --filter=blob:none --depth=1  over HTTPS + token, private repo   OK, 124KB
loomctl external list jeffry/homelab-impl                                  OK, authenticated
short raw URL + 303, authenticated                    404 anon -> 200, resolved branch
If-None-Match across the redirect, authenticated                           304
```

**So a private repository can adopt from another private one**, *by name and by
URL, with `check` working off the lock afterwards.* **Every path in the tool has
now been run at least once.**

*Incidentally confirmed: `homelab-impl` publishes nothing and adopts six documents
from `homelab-cluster`, each with a `.usages.md`.* **Consuming inward, which is
the arrangement that made the confidentiality hazard impossible in that shape.**

## 2026-09-08 — the tool is a mast, not a lock `rowan`

**Recorded because it decides a question that keeps coming back, and nothing in
the code says it.**

> **`loomctl` grants no access.** *It reads what your credentials already let you
> read.* **Anything it does, a person could do with copy and paste** — *and the
> locks mean nothing outside the tool and the discipline of the agreement.*

**So it warns and does not refuse.** *The point is not to make the wrong thing
impossible; it is to make it deliberate* — **the same move as annotating a file
you could simply edit.**

**Which is also why `add <full-url>` stays**, *even though it can reach outside a
publisher's `.loom/published/` and is, in that form, a small general-purpose file
fetcher.* **A general-purpose tool is not the aim**, *so the escape hatch is kept
and made to say what it is, rather than removed.*

**What the tool adds over copy and paste is not restriction. It is the record** —
*origin, resolved branch, `ETag`.* **A pasted document has no provenance**, *so
nobody can later ask where it came from or whether we were allowed to have it* —
**not because the question is hard, but because the evidence is gone.**

## 2026-09-08 — the confidentiality check is coarse, deliberately `rowan`

**`add` now asks whether *this* repository is readable anonymously**, *by resolving
`origin` and making one unauthenticated request.* **So the warning fires when the
source is private and the destination is public, rather than on every adoption a
private repository performs** — *which was the previous behaviour and would have
been noise in exactly the workflow that is legitimate.*

**Belief that could be shown wrong, and it is a known blind spot rather than a
guess:** *the signal distinguishes public from not-public and nothing finer.*
**Two repositories private to different people is the case where private-to-private
genuinely widens access, and this check cannot see it** — *so the tool says so, in
the message, instead of implying a verdict it has not earned.*

**Failing open is deliberate:** *no origin, or an unparseable one, reports "I
cannot tell" and warns.* **"Cannot tell" must never read as "not public."**

## 2026-09-08 — three gaps closed, and the workaround they justified is now the rule `rowan`

**`publication`, `recording-decisions` and `cart` were amended in answer to gaps
filed from here.** *Closed at reconciliation rather than at repair: each stayed
true of the copy we held until `check` reported `200`.* **The gap files for the
first two are deleted; `cart.gaps.md` keeps four of five.**

**What survives is what they justified, and in every case it is the same shape —
something we invented locally became specified behaviour, unchanged in practice
and entirely changed in standing:**

- **`wal.md`.** *We built it before `cart/v2` named it, and only because it was
  suggested to us.* **`v2` cites that:** *a practice that works only when somebody
  is standing there to suggest it is not a practice.*
- **"A fetch you did not perform."** *Ours was a declined command and an insight
  kept without an implementation; it is now the test in `publication`.*
- **The compaction rule**, *including the four kinds that may never be dropped,*
  **plus one addition we did not think of: a compaction is itself a decision and
  gets an entry.**

## 2026-09-08 — declined: fixing `annotating` `rowan`

**Four real gaps stand unfixed, deliberately.** *It is the most-depended-on
document here and a revision costs every adopter an afternoon.*

**Two of the four are not gaps in the agreement at all.** *The rule exists — the
source hash that detects a violated freeze, and **dissolve** as the definition of
what responding is — **but it lives in a local editor protocol and not in the
agreement**.* **That needs a decision about where a rule lives, which is not an
amendment and is not ours.**

**Local answers keep running:** *verify the source hash and the anchors before
responding, and say so if they disagree.*

## 2026-09-08 — a casting file goes stale on amendments that add no role `rowan`

**Twice in one day.** *`cart/v1` and `cart/v2` each invalidated nothing we had
cast and each left `cart.usages.md` incomplete.*

> **`check` reports that a document moved and cannot say whether your casting
> still covers it.** *The mechanism is that it prints the `.usages.md` beside a
> staged polad, which it did, both times.* **It points; it cannot make anybody
> read.**

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that pointing is enough.* **Nothing checks
that a facet was updated, or that it was opened.**

*Related, and the reason this entry can be trusted: this round arrived headed
`rowan` in a file named for a round that had already converted, with no `name`
file.* **The name is what tags durable entries**, *so a mismatch mis-files the
record permanently.* **The heading won; it is recorded in `cart.usages.md`.**

## 2026-09-08 — declined: a round on the third-file question `rowan`

**Not opened, and not sent upstream as a gap either.** *Left open in
`cart.gaps.md` where it was filed.*

**Because it may not be a category.** *Ours appeared because a round was converted
while somebody was still writing, which the agreement already forbids.* **A third
file that only ever arrives as a conversion-timing failure has its fix upstream**,
*and the choice between moving it and rejecting it never has to be made.*

> **Before writing the rule, count how many arrive any other way.**

*One instance is not a sample* — **which is the reason `cart/v2` gave for leaving
it alone, applied one step further.**

## 2026-09-08 — `orient`, and declined: a second orientation file `sorrel`

**Decided:** *one generated file, `.loom/orientation.md`, for whoever arrives
next.* **It restates no rule** — *every rule it might repeat is owned by a
document already in the working tree, and a copy of a rule is a copy that goes
stale.*

**Declined: splitting it into an externals half and a publishing half.** *The
splitting rule is **generate what varies, adopt what does not*** — **and the
publishing half varies not at all and is already adopted**, *so `publication.md`
appears in the index like any other adopted document, in exactly the repositories
that adopted it.* **A second command would emit a file whose whole content is a
pointer to a file already in the tree**, *and would revive the `published` noun
that went with `published check`.*

**Declined: `.loom/externals/README.md` as the path**, *which was measured rather
than argued:*

```
$ loomctl external check
README.md  unlocked  no origin recorded — ...
```

**`check` walks that directory for adopted documents, so a generated file there
reports as unlocked in every repository using the feature, forever.** *And the
deeper reason is the invariant: everything under `.loom/externals/` is somebody
else's document, which is what makes "do not edit these" a rule you can state in
four words.*

**The `.usages.md` is pointed at, not summarised.** *What depends on a document is
free prose, and anything that extracts a claim from prose will eventually extract
it wrong.*

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that a fixed path is worth more than a
configured one.* **It only pays if it is the same everywhere**, *which is not ours
to decide and is with `bedrock`.*

## 2026-09-08 — the lock records visibility, and the word it will not use `sorrel`

**Decided:** *the lock carries what the source could be read as when it was
fetched, and `check` audits it against this repository's visibility now.*

**Believed to advance:** *access is verified once, at fetch, and the copy is
durable.* **Whether an adoption is still legitimate rests on the relative
visibility of two repositories — a fact somebody can change with a checkbox a year
later, without ever seeing the adoption.** *Recording it turns a silent permanent
hazard into something that runs.*

**The value is `public` or `not-public`, and never `private`.** *An anonymous
request tells those two apart and nothing finer* — **so it cannot see two
repositories private to different people, which is the case where adopting between
private repositories genuinely widens access.** *The word `private` would claim
precision the signal does not have.*

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that the coarse signal is worth having.*
**If the cases that matter here are all private-to-private, this alarm will never
fire and the field is ceremony.**

## 2026-09-08 — a probe is not a fetch, and confusing them clears alarms `sorrel`

**Recorded because the bug was one line and the trap is permanent.**

*Visibility was computed by one function used in two places.* **At `add` time,
"no credential is configured" means the fetch that just succeeded was anonymous,
so the source is public** — *sound.* **In the audit, nothing is being fetched:
"no credential configured" says nothing about whether a stranger could read the
URL**, *and returning `public` there would have **silently cleared real
alarms**.*

> **The worst failure available to a check is to report that it found nothing.**

**Probing is now its own function that always asks with no credential at all**,
*because what matters is what a stranger can read and not what we can.* **Found by
testing the alarm path rather than after shipping it.**

## 2026-09-08 — `orient`, not `prompt`, and why that was mine to notice `sorrel`

**Renamed before it shipped.** *`prompt` reads as "produce something to feed a
model", and the file is a table of contents a person can read.*

**The correction was right and the assumption behind it was mine:** *`prompt` was
not being used in the narrow sense, and I took it at the narrowest reading
available.* **Second time in two days** — *the first was reading `others` as
`everyone` in `publication.md`, which cost a command that was built, validated
three times, and then declined.*

*Recorded as a working note rather than a decision: **when a word could be read
narrowly or broadly, this repository has evidence that I pick narrow.***

## 2026-09-08 — published: what the tool guarantees `tansy`

**`.loom/published/guarantees.md`**, *and step 4 of `publication` was run: `200`
anonymously, off no credential of ours.*

**The earlier decision did not reverse; its condition fired.** *`.loom/published/`
was recorded as deferred rather than declined, on the condition that somebody
depends on the tool's behaviour rather than reading its help.* **A docs site whose
build calls `add`, `check` and `apply` is that consumer.**

*The delta is not the command list — that is a copy of what the code owns.*
**`--help` says what the tool does; a published page says what will keep being
true**, *and a reader cannot learn from a binary which of its behaviours survives
the next version.*

**The page includes what is not promised**, *which is the half a reimplementation
needs most:* **the command surface, the orientation file's format across
versions, the precision of the visibility signal, and that anything is checked
when nobody is looking.**

## 2026-09-08 — we do not promise the surface; we promise the change lands `tansy`

**A consumer's README tells a person to type `loomctl external add loom/<repo>
<doc>.md`.** *Nothing parses it — which is exactly why no check would catch a
rename.* **The thing that moved would not be a document anybody adopted.**

**Promising the surface would freeze the CLI. So the promise is narrower and
runs:**

> **We do not promise the surface holds. We promise a change to it lands on the
> page you already lock.**

*`guarantees.md` carries an append-only `Surface changes` section*, **so a rename
reports `200` to every consumer the day it happens.**

**Belief that could be shown wrong:** *that anybody remembers to write in it.*
**Nothing enforces the section** — *the same weakness as a facet nobody updates.*

## 2026-09-08 — two ETags can be compared and never ordered `tansy`

**Found by accident, and it is a consequence of a rule we published this
morning.**

*The docs site stamped a hand-written guide with the `ETag` it was read against,
and its banner said `written against an older guarantees`.* **It was backwards:
the guide was ahead of the site's copy, not behind.**

**And it cannot be fixed by trying harder.** *An `ETag` is opaque — that is the
point of it, and we guarantee we never interpret one.* **So a consumer can know
that two versions disagree and can never know which is behind.**

*The banner now claims no direction.* **Anybody building freshness on this
inherits the same limit**, *and it belongs in the log because it follows from the
guarantee rather than from anybody's code.*

*Consequence nobody predicted: reconciling cleared the banner with no
acknowledgement, which is correct — an acknowledgement is for a guide that is
behind, and this one was ahead.*