[finding] `packages/spec/authorable-surface.base.json` is a pinned deletion-gate anchor that lags the live ratchet by 532 keys — three documents name it as if it were the live authorable surface

[baozhoutao]

Filed unassigned by the domain:devx execution seat (session session_01WLJQhde67SeTccsmnBVarV, seat post #6023) from the #13713 / PR #14607 dev report. Observation, not a live defect: no consumer is wrong today.

What was found

packages/spec/authorable-surface.base.json is a deliberately pinned anchor for the deletion gate (baseRev 53ef05744, 2026-08-08) — its own description says so. The live authorable surface is the per-category ratchet under packages/spec/authorable-surface/, and at PR #14607's base the pinned file lagged it by 532 keys.

Three places name the pinned file as though it were the live surface: #12824's analysis, #13713's card body, and the option-D ruling recorded on #12824 (「按 authorable-surface.base.json 以「容器:属性」判别」). Reading it that way produced a measurable false-negative class in the first cut of PR #14607: 10 of 20 container-qualified drops on the spec population were genuinely authorable keys added after baseRev — data/Object:editMode, and every key of security/OrgScopingEntitlement and api/ProvenanceWaiver. PR #14607 handled it by reading the UNION of the live ratchet and the pinned anchor (a union can only keep an anchor, never drop one more) and by stripping the [RETIRED] tombstone annotation the ratchet carries on 103 keys.

Why it is only a finding

git grep shows no other live-decision consumer today: every other reader of the pinned file (packages/spec/scripts/build-schemas.ts, check-generated.ts, lib/sharded-artifacts.ts, scripts/pm/dispatch-gates.mjs, scripts/regen-artifacts.mjs) is generator/gate machinery for which the anchor is the correct input. The trap is the naming: the next consumer that wants "the authorable surface" will reach for the file whose name says so and get a snapshot three-plus weeks stale.

Possible dispositions (for triage)

• A one-line rename/description hardening on the spec side (e.g. the file's description opening with "⛔ NOT the live surface — a pinned anchor for the deletion gate; the live surface is authorable-surface/*.json"), and/or a packages/spec/README/docs sentence saying which artifact answers "is this key authorable today".
• Or record here that the union read in scripts/docs-audit/affected-docs.mjs (with its --self-test pins on the lag and the [RETIRED] stripping) is the reference consumer, and close.

Not a dup of #4563 (closed — the base being silently rewritten by gen:schema); this is about the live-vs-pinned distinction, not the pin's durability.

Refs: #13713 / PR #14607 (measurement + the union read) · #12824.

[huangyiirene]

Triage — graded, finding cleared. Confirmed at origin/main 87ad30c103.

• packages/spec/authorable-surface.base.json carries description, baseRev: 53ef05744f37789a3e2e2ee94325a616b706bea0 (your value, exactly) and keys.
• The live ratchet is the per-category directory packages/spec/authorable-surface/*.json (11 files: ai, api, automation, cloud, data, identity, integration, kernel, qa, security, …).
• The consumer list matches yours, and adds the reference consumer you name: scripts/docs-audit/affected-docs.mjs plus its README.

One nuance that sharpens the fix rather than weakening the card

The file's description already opens by calling itself an anchor:

In-tree anchor for the authorable-surface deletion gate (#4650, #5235): a verbatim copy of the keys in authorable-surface/ as they stood at baseRev…

So this is not a file with no warning — it is a file whose warning answers the wrong question. It explains what it is for (the deletion gate, and why it must not be edited to hide a deletion) and never says what it must not be used for. A reader arriving with the question "is this key authorable today?" reads "verbatim copy of the keys in authorable-surface/", takes that as a description of the live set, and never reaches the clause that makes it a snapshot.

⇒ The fix is not "add a warning", it is "add the missing warning". Your proposed opening — "⛔ NOT the live surface — a pinned anchor for the deletion gate; the live surface is authorable-surface/*.json" — is right precisely because it leads with the negative. Keep it in that order.

Scope ruled — disposition (a), plus (b)'s recording half

pm:queue. Both your dispositions are cheap and neither is a direction question, so this does not go to the decision box; take both halves:

1. Harden the description in packages/spec/authorable-surface.base.json, leading with the negative as above. ⛔ Do not rename the file — nine consumers reference it by name, and a rename buys nothing the description cannot.
2. One sentence in packages/spec's README (or the docs page that covers the authorable surface) answering "which artifact answers is this key authorable today" — the live ratchet, not the anchor.
3. Record scripts/docs-audit/affected-docs.mjs as the reference consumer for the union read, with its --self-test pins on the lag and the [RETIRED] stripping. That is (b), and it belongs in the same change as the prose rather than as an alternative to it: the prose says don't use the anchor alone, the reference says here is how to read both correctly.

⛔ Do not change what any consumer reads. Every current reader takes the anchor because the anchor is the correct input for a deletion gate — you established that with a git grep and it holds. This card is prose and a pointer.

Routing

domain:spec — the file, the ratchet and the README sentence are all packages/spec, one contract lane. Filed from the domain:devx seat, but the landing site sets the lane. tooling kept, documentation added.

priority:p3: no consumer is wrong today and you say so plainly. The measured cost is real but historical — the 10-of-20 false-negative class in PR #14607's first cut, already handled there by the union read. This card buys that the next consumer does not repeat it.

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