Chain of Custody — history

The dated record of how Chain of Custody got here, moved out of the spec on 2026-10-20 because a reader does not need it to use the spec today. The spec keeps every section spec-format.md requires and its Deleted: tombstones; everything smaller is in git log -- compositions/chain-of-custody.md.

Decisions

Entries that record a migration rather than a turn the pattern took.

• 2026-09-24 — Rewritten in GRACE lang v0.61; forty-one of forty-three open Ledger lines closed by the rules that now own them. Chose: Composes, Composition state, Capability requirement — which takes the prose’s Configuration whole, the per-chain section renamed the chain exclusion because the grammar owns the noun section — Primitive policy, Audit arm, Action wiring, Wiring decision and Reconciliation as the surfaces, with the verdict classes as their own Verdict family; invariant numbers 1 through 5 and 7 unchanged, Invariant 6 tombstoned to Composes 5; the record checks renumbered as Conformance checks naming the rule each tests; the edge cases split into Non-goals and five Edge cases families. Choices the page left open, each decided by a standing rule: the blank credential answered invalid-credential in every action (2026-08-26-e, -r, 2026-08-30-j — make all things mean one thing); binding-unknown given a clock-free predicate — an unbound entry earlier than an entry whose event is already purged — and read as a durability finding in the proof and the checks alike (2026-08-30-a, -b, 2026-08-26-i, -u); the substrate’s unverifiable reasons relayed unchanged and its compensation-window qualifier carried beside the verification, never in the retention state (2026-08-26-h, -p, -q); the reconciliation’s window and cadence given names of their own, apart from the substrate’s knobs (2026-08-30-l); the metadata taken off every audit write, and so off the caps (2026-08-26-v — as simple as possible without losing fidelity); the purged half named against Erasure Tombstone with the persist-at-purge alternative dropped (2026-08-30-c — generalize nothing); and one genesis pairing key, stated once (2026-08-30-n). Over: the prose’s step lists, a verdict with three unlanded outcomes, and an alternative that rode a cascade the composition does not wrap. Because: the rules state each landing once; the two formal lines stay open because the model, not the page, is what they owe.

Ledger

The gate records the Ledger’s last gate: line carried behind its latest until 2026-10-20, newest first:

• 2026-08-26 authentication-precedence gate — 1 foundational routed (since closed), 2 foundational and 8 refining/rhetorical corrected in-round, 7 refining and 5 rhetorical routed (1 refining since closed)
• Final Critique 7’s 2 other foundational (since closed), 7 refining and 4 rhetorical also routed