# ADR-4910: Planning documents are read and written through one parse → mutate → serialize seam [Proposed]

- **Status:** Proposed — design lock for Phases 1–6 of epic [#4906](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4906). Ratify to `Accepted` at Phase 6 closeout, once the phases have demonstrably shipped. No production code lands in this PR.
- **Date:** 2026-09-20
- **Issue:** [#4910](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4910) — Phase 0 of epic [#4906](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4906)
- **Subsumes as layers:** [ADR-1372](1372-markdown-sectionizer-seam.md) (`markdown-sectionizer` — structure), [ADR-2143](2143-markdown-table-and-mutation-consolidation.md) (`markdown-table`, bounded mutation, fail-loud `Result<T>`). Both remain in force and unchanged; this ADR frames them as the layers a planning document composes, and neither is a rewrite target. **Their reciprocal `Subsumed by` back-links are deliberately not added yet:** `docs/adr/README.md` lifecycle rule 3 states that only an `Accepted` ADR is owed the back-link, because a `Proposed` ADR's claim is prospective. They land in the Phase 6 ratification PR, when this ADR becomes `Accepted` and the index check begins demanding them.
- **Relationship to prior work:** the third consolidation in this family, after [#1372](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/1372) (read seam) and [#2143](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/2143) (tables, bounded mutation, fail-loud). Sibling: [#2121](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/2121) (`phase-id.cts`). The node-scoped parse-error contract (§5) applies to documents the `Evidence` distinction [#4631](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4631) draws for gates.

## Context

Twelve open `confirmed-bug` issues are one defect: **MSD's durable state lives in prose markdown,
and every verb brings its own regex to it.**

Two seams already exist for this and both are correct. `markdown-sectionizer` ([ADR-1372](1372-markdown-sectionizer-seam.md)) owns
fenced code, headings, sections and bullets. `markdown-table` ([ADR-2143](2143-markdown-table-and-mutation-consolidation.md)) owns GFM tables, the
bounded `withSection` mutation primitive, and the fail-loud `Result<T>` in `write-set.cts`. What
neither owns is the **composition**: a planning document is frontmatter + a section tree + tables +
bold-label fields + checklists, and the verbs that mutate one reach past all three seams to a
`String.replace`.

The result is a repo that ships a strict escaping reader and an unescaped prose writer for the same
table.

### Four arms, one missing owner

**(a) The writer emits what the reader is required to reject.** `quick.md` Step 7c interpolates a
raw `${DESCRIPTION}` into a pipe row; `escapeCell` exists at `src/markdown-table.cts:716` — and its
own doc comment describes a *caller-must-re-escape contract*, i.e. an obligation the caller may
simply not discharge — and is applied per column at `:852-862` on the *generated* path, not this
one. A task description containing a
Jinja filter permanently ragged the table, and `quick-tasks-migrate` cannot help because the next
`/msd-quick` re-corrupts it ([#4736](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4736)). A project
that migrates is not out of the state. Symmetrically, `parseDecisions` rejects a second colon in a
plain-prose bold lead-in — text `discuss-phase` itself emits — forcing
`outcome: "could-not-parse"` and hard-blocking `check.decision-coverage-plan`
([#4793](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4793)).

**(b) A structural write replaces a line span and destroys what shares the line.**
`src/phase.cts:3795` (on `next`) matches `/(\*\*Plans:\*\*\s*)[^\n]+/i` — one capture group, the
rest of the line matched and uncaptured — and `:3842` re-emits `$1` and a new count and nothing
else. On a real close that deleted 174 of the line's 205 characters, a paragraph documenting a
design decision, with no warning and a payload reporting success
([#4852](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4852)).

This is the **third** occurrence of one defect. `src/roadmap.cts:1196` — the sibling writer for the
*same line* — already does it correctly, and the gap between the two sites is not subtle. Its
`planCountPattern` carries three capture groups (label, count token, trailing) and `:1213-1216`
re-emits `${label}${planCountText}${trailing}`, under a comment enumerating **three arms**:

> 1. `$2` present (a real count token) → rewrite the token, preserve `$3` verbatim (an annotation a
>    human wrote after a real count; #2853). […] 3. Anything else (freeform prose, `TBD` / `TBD —
>    annotation`, a bracketed human note, the first line of a wrapped sentence, an empty value) →
>    leave the whole matched line untouched.

It even distinguishes a fresh-template placeholder from a bracketed *human* annotation that is
structurally identical (`[Deferred pending re-scope]`), positively, on wording — because treating
the two alike was bug #3584 Finding A. That is three arms of accumulated care at one site and none
of it at the other.

The pattern arrived in `d49a7d0c4` (fix #2853, 2026-07-31) and was tightened in `0f417aa6d` (fix
#3584, 2026-08-18). **Neither touched `src/phase.cts`.** The same shape appears
again in `state.update "Last Activity"`, which deletes `last_activity_desc` and `state_head` while
its own payload lists `"Last Activity Description"` under `preserved`
([#4862](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4862)).

The correct implementation existing beside the incorrect one, in the same repo, for the same line,
with a comment explaining the rule, is the evidence that a comment is not a mechanism.

**(c) Unrecognised grammar returns empty instead of raising.** `roadmap.analyze` returns
`phases: []` and `phase_count: 0` for a checklist-only ROADMAP — a shape `templates/roadmap.md`
itself emits — *while the same call builds 26 `missing_phase_details` tokens and discards them*,
and while the same tree enumerates 20 phases through `init.progress`
([#4899](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4899)). `adr-parser` returns `decisions: []`
for `## 11. Locked decisions` and **reports success**, from two independent causes: the leading
section number is not stripped, and `locked decisions` is not a synonym
([#4900](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4900)). `extractPhaseFieldMultiline` folds
list items, fences, lowercase labels and inline `**mentions**` into a field value, and one shape
silently marks *another phase's* requirement complete
([#4837](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4837)).

In each case a caller cannot distinguish *"this document records nothing"* from *"I could not read
this document."*

**(d) The pattern is duplicated, so a fix lands at one copy.** #4478's phase-heading anchor fix
landed in `roadmap-parser.cjs`; `init.cjs:2229`, `:2401`, `:3044` and `milestone.cjs:646` keep
unanchored `gi` copies, while `init.cjs:116` — in the same file as three of them — is anchored
correctly ([#4865](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4865)). The codebase disagrees with
itself inside one file. Same shape in
[#4661](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4661) (`/msd:undo`'s unanchored ERE over
`git log`), [#4605](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4605) /
[#4606](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4606) (`pr-branch`'s `STRUCTURAL_RE`), and
[#4499](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4499) (`frontmatter.set` reformatting block
sequences it was not asked to touch).

### Why a design lock, before any code phase

Three facts make this ADR necessary rather than ceremonial.

1. **The composition layer is a genuine gap, not an oversight to patch.** [ADR-1372](1372-markdown-sectionizer-seam.md) explicitly
   excluded tables, mutation and fail-loud; [ADR-2143](2143-markdown-table-and-mutation-consolidation.md) covered those three and scoped itself to
   `ROADMAP.md` / `STATE.md` mutation sites, listing *"migrating non-planning markdown"* as a
   non-goal and document-model parsing as out of #3180's scope. A planning *document* as one
   object has never had an owner. Six phases will build against whatever this file says.

2. **The epic names a drain point that does a different job — and a ratchet the language cannot
   deliver.** Both are corrected in §6 and §7 below. Discovering either mid-Phase-5 would strand
   the phase.

3. **Six of the twelve absorbed issues had open community point-fix PRs**, which is the epic's
   stated non-goal already happening in the contribution queue. All six were closed unmerged, with
   their issues, rather than landed — see *"The point fixes were closed, deliberately"* below. That
   decision is what makes each phase's census reflect the real tree rather than a partially-patched
   one, and it is the reason this ADR can specify census-to-zero as an acceptance criterion at all.

There is no recorded ADR or Cortex decision governing this composition seam today
(`recall_decision` returns no governing contract; `.out-of-scope/` carries no prior denial), so
later phases have nothing authoritative to build against.

## Decision

Eight decisions, locked. Phases 1–6 execute against them as separate PRs.

### 1. One `PlanningDoc` seam, composing the existing layers

A new leaf module parses a planning artifact **once** into a `PlanningDoc`: frontmatter, a section
tree, and typed field nodes (bold-label line, GFM table, checklist). It is owned by neither
`phase` nor `roadmap` nor `state`, because all three need it — the same Conway's-Law reasoning
`src/plan-document.cts`'s own docblock records for itself.

The three existing seams are its **layers, not its alternatives**: `markdown-sectionizer` for
structure (including `stripFencedCode` / `scanInlineCodeSpans`, so fence- and code-span-awareness
is delegated rather than re-decided), `markdown-table` for tables, `frontmatter.cts` for
frontmatter, `write-set.cts` for `Result<T>` and `WriteOutcome`. **Extend, never mutate** —
[ADR-2143](2143-markdown-table-and-mutation-consolidation.md) §2's lock is inherited verbatim. Neither `Accepted` ADR is reopened by this work.

The seam is **registry-scoped to planning artifacts**, not to markdown in general. `.planning/`
artifacts are already enumerated by `src/artifacts.cts`'s `isCanonicalPlanningFile`; the registry
extends that rather than inventing a second notion of what a planning document is.

> **Naming, recorded as a live risk.** `src/plan-document.cts` already exists and parses one
> `*-PLAN.md` **body**. The ambiguity is resolved by **absorption** — that module becomes a typed
> field reader beneath this seam — not by a naming convention every future author must be told.
> Until that lands, the two names are close enough to confuse, and this note is the warning.

### 2. A structural write replaces a node. There is no span, because there is no regex.

A field write owns its token and re-emits everything else on its line **by construction**. The
parser decides where a value ends and hands the writer a node carrying a `valueSpan`; the writer
has no expression that can reach past it.

This is the same rule `src/roadmap.cts:1196` encodes by hand in a third capture group and a
comment. The difference is that `$3` stops existing, because capture groups stop existing. A rule
that depends on an author reading a comment has now failed three times (#2853, #3584, #4852) at
one line in one file.

Mutation is node-addressed, never path-string-addressed. A path string (`"phases.3.plans"`) is a
grammar, a grammar needs a parser, and that is how this epic started. A handle returned by the
parser cannot address a node the parser did not find.

### 3. Serialization is byte-stable for untouched regions

`serialize` splices mutated node spans back into the **original buffer**. A region the mutation did
not touch is the original bytes — not a faithful re-render of them.

"Re-render faithfully" is an unbounded obligation: it must reproduce every whitespace, alignment
and quoting choice a human made. #4499 is exactly that obligation being missed, and it closes here
without a targeted fix. This is a deliberate **Hyrum's Law** commitment: every byte of an untouched
region is depended on by someone's diff review, and a semantically-equivalent reformat is a real
break.

It also closes a round-trip corruption before it exists: an untouched escaped cell (`\|`) is not
re-escaped, because it is not re-rendered.

### 4. One writer per artifact, sharing its escaping with the reader

For each typed field kind, the escape-or-refuse function is **exported by the reader's module** and
called by the writer. Not a third shared module — that is a second place for the pair to drift,
which is the defect. A parity test per field kind asserts the pair.

A value that cannot be represented in the grammar is **refused** by the writer, with a report. A
writer never emits a document its own reader must reject.

Prose-interpolated table rows in shipped workflow markdown are replaced by a `msd_run` verb that
appends through the seam, so the escaping is executed once rather than restated in prose.

#### 4a. `accepted ⊇ emittable` — the accept-but-never-emit rule

Each grammar is declared **accepted** (the reader takes it) and, separately, **emittable** (the
writer may produce it). `emittable ⊆ accepted`, asserted. A grammar may be accept-only.

This is **Postel's Law applied at the right level**, and it is worth stating why, because the naive
reading argues the opposite. Postel's own guidance splits by level: *internal system-to-system —
stricter on both ends; user-facing input — more liberal.* MSD's planning artifacts are **both**.
They are written by the tool and hand-edited by humans — the epic's stated constraint is that they
*"stay human-readable and hand-editable; that is the constraint, not the problem."* So the reader is
liberal toward a human's variation (#4793 is a reader being wrong to reject prose a human, or
`discuss-phase` itself, legitimately wrote), the writer is conservative, and **neither is ever
silent**. "Be conservative in what you send" is the uncontroversial half and applies to the writer
without qualification.

### 5. A parse miss is typed, carries its span, and is scoped to the node

`[]` means **none**. An unrecognised shape surfaces `could-not-parse` with the offending span.

**The error lives on the node, not the document.** This is the sharpest constraint in the epic and
the naive reading gets it wrong: making an unrecognised table fail the whole artifact would take
out `phase list`, `init.progress` and every other consumer of the same file. Instead the document
parses, the affected node carries the parse error, a consumer that reads that node gets
`could-not-parse` with the span, and a consumer reading a different node is unaffected.

The document-level `Result<PlanningDoc>` failure is reserved for a document that is not a planning
artifact at all — unreadable, no frontmatter terminator, not the declared kind.

> **This is an interpretation of #4906's criterion, stated rather than assumed.** The epic's
> "Done when" reads *"an unparseable shape surfaces `could-not-parse` with the offending span"* and
> carries no document-or-node qualifier. This ADR reads it **distributively** — per unparseable
> *shape*, not per file — which is what node-scoping delivers. The reading is recorded here
> explicitly because the alternative (document-scoped) is also a faithful reading of the same
> sentence and would produce a materially different Phase 1 and Phase 4: one bad table would fail
> `phase list` and `init.progress` along with `roadmap.analyze`. If the epic intended the
> document-scoped reading, §5 and the Phase 1/4 acceptance criteria are what change.

This is [ADR-1411](1411-resolution-provenance.md)'s "report provenance rather than fall open silently" and [ADR-2143](2143-markdown-table-and-mutation-consolidation.md) §5's no-null-
swallow rule, at document-node granularity; it is the `Evidence` distinction #4631 draws for gates,
applied to documents. #4899's own bug is the strongest argument for it: the evidence was *already
computed* — 26 `missing_phase_details` tokens, built and then discarded — and thrown away on the
way to reporting `phases: []`.

### 6. The ratchet is type-narrowing **plus** lint — not typechecking alone

The epic states: *"the write boundary takes a `PlanningDoc` mutation, not a `string`, so a
reintroduced `content.replace(/…/)` against a planning artifact does not typecheck."*

**The narrowed boundary is adopted. The guarantee, as stated, is not available.**

```ts
fs.writeFileSync(planningPath, content.replace(/(\*\*Plans:\*\*\s*)[^\n]+/i, …));
```

typechecks perfectly. `fs` has never heard of `PlanningDoc`, and no narrowing of *our* boundary
reaches a call that never goes near it. Publishing the epic's sentence unqualified would hand every
later reader a guarantee that one `require('node:fs')` defeats — and a false guarantee is worse
here than none, because it is the thing that stops someone writing the lint.

So enforcement is two mechanisms with stated scopes:

- **Type-narrowing at the seam's write boundary** — accepts a `PlanningDoc` mutation, not a
  `string`. Makes the correct path the easy path and catches every bypass *through the seam*.
- **`local/no-adhoc-markdown-parsing`, extended** — owns the bypass. It is already the mechanism
  [ADR-1372](1372-markdown-sectionizer-seam.md) §2 and [ADR-2143](2143-markdown-table-and-mutation-consolidation.md) §7 both chose, and [ADR-2143](2143-markdown-table-and-mutation-consolidation.md)'s Phase 4 **shipped**: the rule today
  guards `src/**/*.cts`, `tests/**/*.cjs` and `scripts/**/*.cjs`, and already carries
  `tableRegex` and `adhocReplaceMutation` message ids alongside `fenceRegex` and `sectionCollect`.
  This ADR does not ask for that work again.

  **What it does not yet catch is specific, and #4852 is the proof.** `adhocReplaceMutation` keys
  on *"a `.replace()` mutation of a roadmap/state document using a hand-rolled **table or section**
  regex"*. `/(\*\*Plans:\*\*\s*)[^\n]+/i` is neither: it is a **bold-label field** regex. So the
  defect lives in `src/phase.cts` — a file this rule does lint — and `lint:ci` is green. That is a
  behavioural demonstration of the gap, not an inference from reading the rule.

  The extension is therefore one detector, not a new mechanism: a field-shaped `.replace()`
  mutation of a registry-recognised planning artifact, and a raw
  `readFileSync` → `.replace()` → `writeFileSync` triple against one. Paired with an allowlist
  drain (#4446 pattern) for what exists today, deleted per phase rather than renewed.

> **Correction to the epic, recorded deliberately.** #4906 names
> `scripts/lint-planning-artifact-writer-drift.cjs` as *"the drain point; extend it."* That script
> exists, but its own module docblock scopes it as a **registry-completeness** guard: every writer
> of a `.planning/`-**root** file is represented in `isCanonicalPlanningFile`. It states *"No
> ratchet / no baseline"* as a design choice, silently skips any runtime-computed target, and never
> inspects *how* a write is performed. It is a correct guard on a different axis and is left
> untouched. Extending it would have meant teaching a registry checker about regex shapes.

**Stated coverage limit.** A lint over `src/*.cts` cannot see #4736's writer, which is prose in
`msd-core/workflows/quick.md`. Decision 4's `msd_run` verb is what brings that surface inside the
fence; the lint does not, and this ADR does not pretend otherwise.

### 7. Every parser ships a positive control per accepted grammar

A parser declares the grammars it accepts (§4a's `accepted` set). A lint asserts one positive-
control fixture per declared grammar; a parser without one fails the build. Modelled on
`scripts/lint-table-schema-drift.cjs`, which already does this for table schemas and is wired into
`lint:ci`.

This is what stops #4837's four continuation shapes and #4900's two heading forms regressing
silently. It is also the guard that would have caught #4900 at authoring time: `locked decisions`
was never a declared synonym, so no control ever existed for it.

Per `CONTRIBUTING.md`'s fixture-provenance rule (#2371), a control may not be derived from the
parser's own writer or docstring examples — and §4a makes that mechanical rather than a matter of
discipline, because the accept-only grammars are by definition ones the writer cannot produce.

### 8. Exactly one implementation of a shared pattern, proven by a drift guard

The phase-heading pattern has one owner. Five copies (#4865) collapse to one, proven by the
existing drift-guard idiom rather than by review attention. Same rule for `/msd:undo`'s scope
selector (#4661) and `pr-branch`'s `STRUCTURAL_RE` (#4605, #4606): the pattern is a property of the
seam's grammar, not a literal each call site owns.

## What makes a phase done

**A phase is done when a structural property holds, not when N symptoms are gone.** This is stated
as its own section because it is the single thing most likely to be lost between this file and the
implementation, and the epic says so in its own words: *"An implementation that does that has not
closed this epic, even with every symptom gone and CI green."*

Every phase below carries the same three acceptance criteria, in this order:

1. **Census → zero.** The phase opens by enumerating every instance of its anti-pattern in the tree
   and publishing that count in its PR. It closes when the count is **zero**. The number is
   measured by the phase, not guessed here — but the obligation to measure it, and to drive it to
   zero rather than to "the reported ones", is locked now.
2. **Deletion, not coexistence.** The bespoke implementations are **removed**, not kept in sync
   beside the seam. The epic's framing is exact: *"two copies that agree today are the same defect
   as two that disagree."* A phase that leaves a migrated call site's old code path in place has
   not finished.
3. **Unrepresentable by construction.** Each phase ships one property that makes its class
   *impossible* rather than *currently absent* — a property test over generated inputs, a type that
   does not admit the wrong shape, or a drift guard that fails CI on the next copy. A phase whose
   only evidence is per-site regression tests has bought symptom coverage, not a seam.

**The absorbed issues are regression evidence, never the deliverable.** Each is driven fail-first
and kept, because a structural change that does not demonstrably fix the reported symptom is
unproven. But a phase is not permitted to close on those tests alone, and "the three reported sites
are fixed" is not a passing census.

> **The six absorbed issues whose point-fix PRs were closed are now themselves closed** (#4736,
> #4837, #4661, #4605, #4606, #4499), superseded by this epic. Their phase PRs therefore reference
> them with `Refs #NNNN`, never a closing keyword — `CONTRIBUTING.md` forbids a closing keyword
> against an already-closed issue. Their regression tests are still owed; closure changes the link
> form, not the evidence obligation.

## Phases

Each phase is one `chore(#4906): … — Phase N` sub-issue + PR, gated on `msd-test`, and each carries
the three criteria above.

- **Phase 0 — this ADR.** Design lock. Docs-only. Closes [#4910](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4910) only; #4906 stays open.
- **Phase 1 — the seam exists, and is the only way to express a planning-document write** (§1, §2,
  §3, §5). Net-new module; **no call site migrated**, so there is nothing for a census to count
  yet.
  - *Unrepresentable:* the mutation API is node-addressed, so a caller cannot name a node the
    parser did not find and cannot reach past a `valueSpan`. Byte-stability is asserted as a
    **property over generated documents** (`fast-check`), not over the three known sites: for any
    document and any single node mutation, every byte outside that node's span is identical.
  - *Structural:* one positive control per grammar the module declares it accepts (§7); the
    artifact registry derived from `isCanonicalPlanningFile` rather than a second list.

- **Phase 2 — no verb writes a planning-document field with its own regex** (§2, §3).
  - *Census:* every `.replace()`-based field write against a registry-recognised planning artifact
    in `src/*.cts`. Published in the PR; driven to zero.
  - *Deletion:* the bespoke patterns are **removed** — including `src/roadmap.cts:1196`'s three-arm
    `planCountPattern`, which is *correct today* and still goes. A correct copy of a rule the seam
    now owns is exactly the two-copies-that-agree case the epic names; keeping it "because it
    works" re-creates the divergence this phase exists to end.
  - *Unrepresentable:* Phase 1's byte-stability property is re-run against the **migrated** call
    sites, so the guarantee is a property of the writer rather than three passing examples.
  - *Evidence (fail-first, `Refs`):* #4852, #4862, #4499.

- **Phase 3 — no artifact has a writer that can emit what its own reader rejects** (§4, §4a).
  - *Census:* every typed field kind in the registry; each must resolve to exactly one
    escape-or-refuse function, exported by the reader's module.
  - *Deletion:* `quick.md` Step 7c's prose interpolation is **removed**, not corrected in place —
    replaced by a `msd_run` verb that appends through the seam. This is the arm no lint over
    `src/*.cts` can reach, so deleting the prose is the only mechanism available.
  - *Unrepresentable:* `emittable ⊆ accepted` asserted **over the registry**, so a new field kind
    inherits the check instead of needing one written for it.
  - *Evidence (fail-first; `Refs` for #4736):* #4736, #4793.

- **Phase 4 — a caller can always distinguish "records nothing" from "I could not read it"** (§5).
  - *Census:* every planning-artifact read path returning a collection. How many can return `[]`
    for an input they failed to parse? Driven to zero.
  - *Deletion:* the discard sites go. #4899's `missing_phase_details` evidence is *already
    computed* — 26 tokens built and then thrown away on the way to reporting `phases: []` — and
    that discard is the defect, not the parser.
  - *Unrepresentable:* for a registry-recognised artifact the node type does not admit a silent
    empty; a collection node carries either values or a parse error with its span, never neither.
  - *Evidence (fail-first; `Refs` for #4837):* #4899, #4900, #4837.

- **Phase 5 — every shared grammar has exactly one implementation** (§8).
  - *Census:* copies per pattern. The phase-heading pattern is **five** today (#4865 — four
    unanchored, one correct, three of them in the same file as the correct one). Driven to one.
  - *Deletion:* the four copies are **removed**, not aligned. Aligning them is what #4478 did, and
    it is why #4865 exists.
  - *Unrepresentable:* a drift guard fails CI on the next copy, so the count cannot climb back —
    the mechanism `scripts/lint-table-schema-drift.cjs` already applies to table schemas.
  - *Evidence (fail-first; `Refs` for #4661, #4605, #4606):* #4865, #4661, #4605, #4606. #4661
    carries a constraint the phase must respect: the obvious anchor fix silently **under**-selects
    fixups into a partial revert, so the remedy is selecting by the scope a commit *declares*, not
    a better regex.
- **Phase 6 — the class cannot be reintroduced** (§6, §7).
  - *Census:* the grandfather allowlist. It starts at whatever Phases 2–5 could not reach and ends
    **empty** — an allowlist that survives the phase is a ratchet with nothing to hold.
  - *Deletion:* allowlist entries are deleted as each site migrates, never renewed. This is the
    idiom `local/no-source-grep` and ADR-2143 §7 both use, and ADR-2143 Phase 4's own experience is
    the reason it is restated: entries that are renewed instead of drained become orphaned markers
    pointing at closed epics.
  - *Unrepresentable:* the narrowed write boundary plus the field-shaped `.replace()` detector, so
    the next occurrence fails CI rather than review. Plus the positive-control lint (§7): a parser
    declaring an accepted grammar with no control fails the build.
  - *Also ratifies this ADR* to `Accepted` with a dated Ratification section, and adds the
    reciprocal `Subsumed by` back-links to [ADR-1372](1372-markdown-sectionizer-seam.md) and
    [ADR-2143](2143-markdown-table-and-mutation-consolidation.md) — which lifecycle rule 3 begins
    demanding at exactly that point.

**Ordering constraints.** Phase 1 introduces the primitive every later phase consumes and must
precede all of them. Phase 6 must land **last**: a ratchet whose allowlist still grandfathers every
unmigrated site is a ratchet with nothing to hold. Phases 2–5 are mutually independent — their
censuses do not overlap — and may run in any order, or in parallel.

## The point fixes were closed, deliberately

Six of the twelve absorbed issues had open community PRs doing point fixes at their existing call
sites. **All six were closed unmerged on 2026-09-20**, with thanks and an explanation, along with
their issues:

| PR | Issue | Contributor | Owning phase |
|---|---|---|---|
| #4762 | #4736 | @behruznassre | 3 |
| #4897 | #4837 | @behruznassre | 4 |
| #4848 | #4661 | @0xdhx | 5 |
| #4610 | #4605 | @tarc | 5 |
| #4609 | #4606 | @tarc | 5 |
| #4530 | #4499 | @drungrin | 2 |

This is the epic's non-goal enforced rather than merely stated: *"Repairing the absorbed issues
individually at their existing call sites without building the seam. That is the pattern that
produced them — three times for #4852 alone — and it leaves the epic open."* Landing six correct
point fixes would have left the missing owner missing and made each phase's census start from a
tree that looks healthier than it is.

**The work was not wasted, and this is not a quality judgement.** Every one of those PRs is cited
in this ADR's Context: #4736 is the sharpest statement of the writer/reader split, #4661 supplies
the constraint that the obvious anchor fix is *also wrong*, #4606 is the fifth attempt at one
defect and is the epic's strongest recurrence evidence, and #4499 is the quietest issue in the
cluster and the one that proves the writer re-renders regions it was never asked to touch.

Two consequences for the phases:

- **A closed issue changes the link form, not the evidence obligation.** Phase PRs reference these
  six with `Refs #NNNN`; `CONTRIBUTING.md` forbids a closing keyword against an already-closed
  issue. Each still owes its fail-first regression.
- **The census is now the whole tree, not the reported sites.** With no point fix landing, each
  phase's census reflects the real state of the code, which is the number that matters.

## Consequences

- **Positive.** The class ends where it is generated rather than where it is reported: a field
  write cannot destroy its line, a writer cannot emit what its reader rejects, an unreadable
  document cannot report itself as empty, and a shared pattern has one copy. New verbs inherit
  correctness from the seam instead of re-deriving it — which is what the previous two
  consolidations each demonstrated.
- **Cost.** Seven PRs plus lint infrastructure. Phases 2, 4 and 5 carry High blast radius
  (`cmdPhaseComplete`, the roadmap/ADR read paths, five call sites across three files) and need
  per-consumer `get_impact` due diligence.
- **Risk — the honest one.** Behaviour-preserving migrations regress subtle formatting, and this
  seam's whole value proposition is formatting fidelity. Mitigated by §3's byte-stability property
  test, the fail-first regression per absorbed issue, §7's positive controls, and the per-phase
  `msd-test` gate. [ADR-2143](2143-markdown-table-and-mutation-consolidation.md)'s own Phase 5 exists because a coverage re-check found a seam its
  Phase 0 had left unowned; `/adr-phase-coverage` runs again at epic closeout for that reason.
- **Risk — naming.** `planning-document` beside `plan-document` (§1). Live until absorption lands.
- **Non-goals.** Repairing the twelve at their existing call sites (the pattern that produced them
  — three times for #4852 alone). Replacing markdown as the storage format; the artifacts stay
  human-readable and hand-editable. Rewriting `markdown-sectionizer` or `markdown-table`.
  Re-litigating [#1639](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/1639)'s `[^:*]*` discipline as
  policy — this ADR changes *where* a grammar is defined and *how* a miss is reported, not what a
  decision title may contain, though §4a is why #4793 resolves anyway.

## Alternatives considered

1. **Repair the twelve issues at their call sites.** The epic's own non-goal, and the pattern that
   produced them. Rejected **in practice, not only on paper**: six community PRs were doing exactly
   this and all six were closed unmerged rather than landed. This is the alternative that was
   genuinely available and genuinely declined, which is what makes the rejection load-bearing.
2. **Put the composition layer inside `markdown-sectionizer.cts`.** Rejected: that seam is generic
   markdown structure with no planning-domain knowledge, and `CONTEXT.md` scopes it that way.
   Teaching it what a `**Plans:**` line is inverts the dependency, makes a leaf module know about
   its consumers, and puts an `Accepted` contract at risk for a reason unrelated to markdown
   structure.
3. **Path-string-addressed mutation** (`doc.set('phases.3.plans', v)`). Rejected: a path string is
   a grammar, and a grammar needs a parser.
4. **Re-render the document faithfully instead of splicing** (§3). Rejected: an unbounded fidelity
   obligation, which #4499 is an instance of being missed.
5. **A third shared escaping module** (§4). Rejected: a second place for the reader/writer pair to
   drift.
6. **One document-level `Result` that fails the whole artifact** (§5). Rejected: one bad table
   takes out every unrelated consumer of the same file.
7. **Type-narrowing alone as the ratchet** (§6). Rejected on the merits, with the counter-example
   in-line. This is the epic's stated mechanism and it does not hold.
8. **Extending `lint-planning-artifact-writer-drift.cjs`** (§6). Rejected: correct guard, different
   axis, explicitly ratchet-free by design.

## References

- Epic: [#4906](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4906) · Phase 0 sub-issue: [#4910](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4910)
- Layers: [ADR-1372](1372-markdown-sectionizer-seam.md) (`markdown-sectionizer`), [ADR-2143](2143-markdown-table-and-mutation-consolidation.md) (`markdown-table`, bounded mutation, fail-loud)
- Fail-loud precedent: [ADR-1411](1411-resolution-provenance.md) — report provenance rather than fall open silently
- Sibling consolidation: [#2121](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/2121) (`phase-id.cts`)
- Absorbed: [#4736](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4736), [#4793](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4793), [#4852](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4852), [#4862](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4862), [#4899](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4899), [#4900](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4900), [#4837](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4837), [#4865](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4865), [#4661](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4661), [#4605](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4605), [#4606](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4606), [#4499](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4499)

## Amendment (2026-09-21): a write refuses on a document with any unreadable node

**§5's node-scoping is correct for reads and was never examined for writes.** This amendment adds
the write rule. The original `## Decision` body is unchanged and §5 still holds as written.

### What was missed

§5 was reasoned entirely from [#4899](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/issues/4899), which is a
**read** bug — `roadmap.analyze` returning `phases: []`. Node-scoping is the right answer there: a
ragged Progress table should not make `init.progress` fail as well, and it must not, because that is
a command a user needs in order to *see what to repair*. A hand-editable format whose single typo
bricks every command that could diagnose it is a worse tool.

> **Correction to §5's own wording, carried here rather than silently.** §5's body names `phase list`
> alongside `init.progress` as a consumer that would be blocked. That is wrong: `cmdPhasesList`
> (`src/phase.cts:207`) enumerates the `phases/` directory and never opens `ROADMAP.md`, so an
> unreadable Progress table cannot affect it either way. `init.progress` (`src/init.cts:3625`) does
> read `ROADMAP.md` and is a real instance; `roadmap.analyze` is the other. The argument stands on
> those two — it never needed three — but the example was not checked when §5 was written. §5's body
> is left unmodified per the append-only rule; fold this correction in at ratification.

But "the error lives on the node" was then stated unqualified, and it silently licensed something the
original never considered: **`phase.complete` re-serializing a `ROADMAP.md` whose Progress table it
could not read.** Serialization re-emits the whole file, so the verb republishes every region —
including the one nobody could parse — while having understood only part of it. That is a
partial-view write, and it is a strictly worse failure than the one #4899 reports, because the read
bug returns a wrong answer while this one *persists* one.

### The rule

**Reads are node-scoped. Writes are document-scoped.**

- A **read** of node *n* resolves independently: it returns *n*'s values, or `could-not-parse` with
  *n*'s span. A sibling node's parse failure is invisible to it. Unchanged from §5.
- A **write** — any `PlanningDoc` mutation reaching the serializer — **refuses** when *any* node in
  the document carries a parse error, whether or not the mutation targets that node. The refusal is a
  typed `WriteOutcome` naming the unreadable node and its span, never a silent skip and never a
  partial apply.

**This does not reopen §5's "reserved for".** §5 reserves the document-level `Result<PlanningDoc>`
*parse* failure for a document that is not a planning artifact at all, and that reservation stands
untouched. The refusal added here is a different type on a different axis — a `WriteOutcome` at
mutate/serialize time, on a document that parsed successfully and merely contains one or more nodes
carrying their own errors. A document can therefore be perfectly valid to *open* and still refuse to
be *written*, which is the intended state.

The asymmetry is deliberate and is the point of the amendment: a reader is answering a bounded
question and can honestly answer it from a bounded region, while a writer is asserting that the
document it emits is the document it read. A writer that cannot read a region cannot make that
assertion about it, and §3's byte-stability guarantee does not rescue it — splicing untouched bytes
through faithfully is not the same as knowing they were consistent with the change being written.

### Why not the alternatives

- **Document-scoped for reads too** (strictest, one error type, simplest to test). Rejected: one
  unreadable table blocks every consumer of that file, including the diagnostic commands, and the
  artifacts are hand-editable by design — the epic's own constraint.
- **Node-scoped for writes** (what §5 left implied). Rejected on the partial-view write above.
- **Refuse only when the mutation's own target node is unreadable.** Rejected, for two reasons that
  survive scrutiny:
  1. **It would almost never fire.** A verb locates the node in order to write it, so the target is
     readable in the ordinary case by construction. A precondition that is satisfied whenever the
     write is attempted is not a precondition.
  2. **It does not match the blast radius of the operation it guards.** Serialization re-emits the
     **whole file** (§3). A write is therefore a document-wide assertion — *this is the document I
     read* — regardless of how narrow the mutated span is. A document-wide act takes a
     document-wide precondition; scoping it to one node guards something smaller than what is
     actually happening.

### Stated limit: this rule does not cover a write whose input comes from outside the document

An isolated review of this amendment falsified its first draft's motivating example, and the true
mechanism is worth recording because it bounds what the rule can promise.

The draft claimed `phase.complete` derives the value it writes into `**Plans:**` from *a different
region of the same document*. It does not. `planCount` and `summaryCount` are read at
`src/phase.cts:3429-3434` from `findPhaseInternal(cwd, phaseNum)` — a **filesystem scan of the phase
directory**. No `PlanningDoc` node holds those counts at all.

That makes the dependency wider than the draft claimed, and it makes the limit explicit:

> **A document-scoped write refusal protects the document's own consistency. It says nothing about
> the correctness of a value sourced from outside the document.** If the phase directory is
> mid-write, partially synced, or otherwise disagrees with reality, `phase.complete` writes a wrong
> count into a perfectly readable `**Plans:**` line and this rule will not object — correctly, since
> every node parsed.

The write rule still holds on its own terms (see the two reasons above; neither depends on where the
written *value* came from). But the seam does not make a write *correct*, only *whole*, and an
implementer must not read §5-plus-this-amendment as a guarantee that a successful write was right.
Closing the outside-input gap is a separate concern about where verbs source their values, not about
how documents are parsed, and it is **not** in this epic's scope. It is recorded here so that the
next reader finds it stated rather than re-derives it from a surprise in production.

### What changes downstream

- **Phase 1** ships both scopes: the node-scoped read error of §5, **and** a document-level
  `hasUnreadableNodes` predicate the serializer consults before applying any mutation. Both get
  positive controls.
- **Phase 2** gains an acceptance criterion that is new, not reworded: *a mutation against a document
  carrying any unreadable node refuses, with a typed outcome naming that node — and the file on disk
  is byte-identical afterwards.* The last clause matters: "refused" must mean nothing was written,
  which is a filesystem assertion, not a return-value one.
- **Phase 4's census gains a second axis.** It was "every read path that can return `[]` for an input
  it failed to parse". It is now that, **plus** every write path that can apply a mutation to a
  document with an unreadable node. Those are different call sets and the phase must publish both
  counts.

### Provenance

Raised by a maintainer ruling on 2026-09-21, after §5 shipped in
[#4911](https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-core/pull/4911). The gap was real: §5's node-scoping had been
recorded in that PR as an interpretation of #4906's *"an unparseable shape surfaces `could-not-parse`
with the offending span"* — a sentence that carries no read-or-write qualifier — and the
interpretation was made without examining the write side at all.

## Amendment (2026-09-22): two of Phase 2's cited defects are already fixed, and STATE.md's field-write engine is re-scoped out

Phase 2's evidence list read *#4852, #4862, #4499*. Two of those three are **already fixed on
`next`, independently of this epic**, and the third — #4862 — exposed a subsystem whose blast radius
disqualifies it from a mechanical migration. All three claims below were reproduced against the
built module, not inferred from reading source.

### #4499 is already fixed

`src/frontmatter.cts`'s `spliceFrontmatter` already preserves untouched top-level keys verbatim,
per-key, comparing structural equality before deciding whether to regenerate a key's raw text.
Reproduced: a document with `must_haves` and `tags` block sequences, with only `wave` changed,
round-trips those two keys **byte-identically**. This predates this epic — the mechanism (`#1572`
in its own comments) already implements the identity-preservation rule Decision 3 asks for, for
YAML frontmatter specifically.

**Struck from Phase 2's evidence.** Frontmatter is a different grammar from the body-field grammar
this seam models (`boldField` / `table` / `checklist`) — Decision 1 treats it as one opaque region,
supplied by `frontmatter.cts` as a layer, not decomposed into writable nodes. `spliceFrontmatter`'s
internal per-key YAML splicing is therefore not a "verb writes a field with its own regex" instance
in the sense this phase targets, and it is not broken. No migration is owed here.

### #4862 is already fixed at its own level, and its subsystem is re-scoped out

`state-document.cts`'s `stateReplaceField` already anchors its bold-field pattern to line start with
same-line-only leading whitespace (its own comments cite `#4243`). Reproduced: writing `Last
Activity` leaves a sibling `**Last Activity Description:**` field and the `state_head` frontmatter
key both intact. The exact symptom #4862 reported does not reproduce.

**What #4862's site actually is, measured rather than assumed:** `stateReplaceField` /
`stateReplaceFieldWithFallback` carries a **CRITICAL** `get_impact(direction=both)` rating — 190+
affected symbols, truncated as a lower bound. So, measured the same way, do `phase.cts`'s
`mutateMilestonePhase` (121) and `roadmap.cts`'s `cmdRoadmapUpdatePlanProgress` (200) — the two
sites Phase 2 *does* keep. **The CRITICAL label does not distinguish these groups**, and an earlier
draft of this amendment claimed it did without checking the second two; corrected here. All three
symbols live in large, single-file modules (`phase.cts` at 4,800+ lines, `roadmap.cts` at 1,600+,
`state-transition.cts` at 3,500+), and `direction: both` walks into every sibling function such a
file touches — a known measurement artifact of bidirectional impact on a large shared module, not
evidence specific to any one of these three symbols' actual behavior.

**What genuinely distinguishes them is architectural, and this is the actual basis for the
re-scoping:** `stateReplaceField` is one building block inside `updateCore`
(`state-transition.cts`), which is a full read-modify-write transaction — session-vs-body field
routing (`sessionLabelsForBodyField`), a three-condition frontmatter-fallback case (`#3699` case D),
frontmatter reconstruction and re-sync, and post-write preservation reconciliation
(`readModifyWriteStateMd`). Its own comments cite four prior hardening passes against exactly the
corruption classes this epic worries about — `#3374`, `#3699`, `#4010`, `#4243` — predating #4906.
`mutateMilestonePhase` and `cmdRoadmapUpdatePlanProgress`, by contrast, are each **one field, one
grammar, a three-arm decision that collapses onto a single `setFieldValue` call plus a caller-side
pre-check**, inside a confinement window another module already computes — a substitution of
mechanism with the same inputs and outputs, not a design task.

This is not "a verb brings its own regex to a field write." `updateCore` is a proven,
actively-maintained transactional engine that already defends against silent corruption, and it
does not map onto `PlanningDoc`'s current node model at all: there is no node concept for a
multi-field transaction, a frontmatter-derived-from-body sync pass, or a session-scoped write with
an archive-shadowing guard. Migrating it would mean designing that model, not calling an existing
seam function.

**The STATE.md field-write engine is re-scoped out of Phase 2** on that architectural basis. It is
not defective, so there is no urgency, and its migration — if ever undertaken — needs its own design
phase with its own node-model design, not a slot inside a phase whose other deliverable is a
same-mechanism substitution in `phase.cts`/`roadmap.cts`.

**Struck from Phase 2's evidence.**

### What Phase 2 actually delivers

With both struck, Phase 2's census is exactly the `**Plans:**` line: `src/phase.cts`'s
`planCountBodyPattern` (still live — one capture group, confined by `withPhaseSection` but still a
regex the seam should own) and `src/roadmap.cts`'s `planCountPattern` (the correct three-arm sibling,
still a duplicate implementation under Decision 2's "two copies that agree today are the same
defect" rule). Both write the same field on the same artifact and migrate together onto one seam
call. `#4852` remains the phase's fail-first evidence; `Refs #4852`, since it is already closed
`NOT_PLANNED`.

No new phase number is opened for the STATE.md engine. If a future contributor wants to bring
`STATE.md` under this seam, that is new work requiring its own issue, its own design, and its own
`get_impact` accounting — not an unclaimed fragment of this phase.