Preserve deterministic counter runtime state

[chubes4]

Problem

The transformer materializes declarative counters directly to endpoint values while source visual capture observes their scripted runtime progression. Home therefore renders different values despite aligned section geometry.

Direction

Define and preserve a deterministic counter presentation contract that matches source behavior at parity capture without fixture-specific values or timing hacks.

Acceptance

• Home counter values and positions match source deterministically.
• Counter behavior remains useful in the imported site.
• Repeated captures are stable.
• Transformer contracts and parity fixtures pass.

AI assistance

OpenAI gpt-5.6-sol through OpenCode analyzed the parity evidence and drafted this issue. Chris Huber remains responsible for scope and implementation decisions.

[chubes4]

WP Codebox ownership is now repaired in PR #2202. The corrected capture observes before scrolling, dwells through a bounded quiet window at each viewport, and reaches all four source endpoints (32, 27000, 2, 251) without dynamic_content_not_settled. Repeated captures are stable; Contact, Services, Team, and editor-validity evidence remain unchanged.

That truthful oracle exposes a Blocks Engine styling loss which the blank-source baseline concealed. The candidate contains the correct four endpoint values, but they render as tiny low-contrast label text; the source renders large bold white counter numbers. The dominant new diff regions are the four counter cells around y=2685..2877, and Home moves from the false-oracle 1.92798% to the truthful 2.03181%. #752 should therefore remain open and change scope from endpoint materialization to preserving the counter-number carrier/style contract.

Reproduction stack: exact-r83 transformer df3911bc7d9db1bac8b6ad67dfc918fd8ca44aaa, merged SSI runtime evidence #807, literal-smilie materialization branch fix/780-disable-smilies, and WP Codebox #2202.

AI assistance: OpenAI gpt-5.6-sol via OpenCode traced the settled source/candidate screenshots and DOM evidence and helped draft this update. Chris Huber is responsible for the findings.