docs: separate buyer gap decisions from evidence history

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ All notable changes to OriginWeave are documented in this file. The format follo
 - Recorded the verified pointer-reply connection repair and recovery tests, keeping pending hosted checks, remaining authority gaps and browser acceptance separate.
 - Recorded the published text-entry connection safeguards and their test evidence, separating queued hosted checks and remaining pointer/status repairs from released browser behavior.
 - Separate the current maintenance queue and source lineage from preserved historical observations, and record the text-entry session and pending-request safeguards without claiming released browser behavior.
-- Current delivery inventory: 131 open pull requests (14 ready, 117 draft); 14 open non-PR issues. Observed 2026-09-09; source acceptance remains revision-specific.
+- Current delivery inventory: 130 open pull requests (12 ready, 118 draft); 14 open non-PR issues. Observed 2026-09-09 12:57 UTC; source acceptance remains revision-specific.
 - Clarified that the active presentation-evidence harness is implemented while its failed browser run does not establish product runtime or release acceptance.
 - Corrected historical checkpoint labels and made the current inventory check reject stale counts; recorded verified text-input parent adoption without claiming browser execution.
 - Recorded the executed session-isolation repair and its verified adoption, separating complete local checks and PR visual inspection from pending hosted checks and unreleased browser acceptance.

docs/traceability/product-gap-baseline-navigation.md

@@ -0,0 +1,67 @@
+# Product-gap baseline navigation traceability
+
+- Status: Implemented on active documentation successor; protected-main acceptance pending.
+- Scope: `docs/product-technical-gap-baseline.md` buyer navigation, dated observation semantics, and historical evidence retention only.
+- Predecessor: #238 branch exact `16098a0eecc57bfc545d22ce632d95d1ffccfe67`.
+- Preserved predecessor baseline blob: Git blob `c4a87e6c70f2c48b6e4ef820f18e8ddb0dca5696`, 186,500 bytes.
+- Triggering buyer-navigation finding: #238 comment `5598004000`.
+- Self-staleness finding: #309 review `5154249954` on exact `187310346c5c42b22e53f734c2c9ce7122df0d7f`.
+- Self-staleness RED: `32b01ebda4ce061e63c926434d4320847c93fbcf`.
+- Minimal dated-receipt repair: `84340f2ac35ddbc0571038418acc93e0f9882595`.
+
+## Problem
+
+The baseline had accumulated current observations, repeated same-day checkpoints, old exact heads, measurements, browser screenshots and long implementation runbooks in one 186,500-byte file. The latest observation was accurate, but the commercial gap matrix was no longer a practical decision surface: a buyer or maintainer had to traverse historical evidence before reaching the current gap/owner/acceptance view.
+
+That is a documentation correctness issue, not cosmetic cleanup. When current delivery truth and historical evidence use the same unbounded surface, stale exact-head prose becomes easier to mistake for current acceptance and the next causal action is harder to identify.
+
+The first compact successor exposed a second correctness defect. It labelled a static queue snapshot `Current exact observation` and recorded 129 open PRs before #309 itself existed. Creating #309 changed the queue, and restoring #309 to Draft changed the Ready/Draft split again. A static Markdown file cannot truthfully promise continuously current volatile GitHub counts; self-modifying queue membership makes that claim especially unstable.
+
+## Constraints
+
+- Do not discard or rewrite historical evidence to make the current file shorter.
+- Do not turn active-PR evidence into protected-main or release truth.
+- Preserve exact heads, measurements and dated claims for their recorded generation.
+- Do not present a volatile GitHub snapshot as continuously current after its observation cut.
+- If the documentation PR itself affects the observed queue, include that PR and its lifecycle state in the cut.
+- Do not touch production browser/runtime code, `.github/**`, rulesets, secrets, review state or another bounded context's authority.
+- Preserve existing historical regression coverage rather than deleting assertions that become inconvenient after extraction.
+- Keep the canonical buyer path `docs/product-technical-gap-baseline.md` stable so PRD/TRD/ARCHITECTURE/docs indexes do not need a new authority name.
+
+## Alternatives considered
+
+1. **Keep appending to one file.** Rejected because it preserves evidence but does not repair decision-surface reachability.
+2. **Delete old checkpoints.** Rejected because it destroys traceability and makes previous exact-head claims unauditable.
+3. **Collapse old prose with HTML details while retaining it in the same source file.** Rejected as the final design because rendered navigation improves but source-level history and current authority remain coupled.
+4. **Keep volatile queue counts under a `Current exact` heading.** Rejected because the claim becomes stale as soon as the queue changes and can be invalidated by the documentation PR itself.
+5. **Move the historical dossier to immutable evidence and use an explicitly dated, self-inclusive observation receipt at the canonical path.** Selected. It separates current decision authority from historical receipts, preserves the buyer entry point, and makes the freshness boundary explicit.
+
+## Decision
+
+The predecessor baseline blob is reused byte-for-byte at `docs/evidence/product-technical-gap-baseline-through-2026-09-09.md`. The canonical baseline becomes a bounded dated observation receipt, buyer gap matrix, acceptance order and compact evidence/history index.
+
+Review `5154249954` is repaired test-first. Commit `32b01ebda4ce061e63c926434d4320847c93fbcf` requires the live surface to use an explicit `2026-09-09 12:57 UTC` observation cut, reject the continuously-current heading, include #309's Draft state in the 130-PR / 12-Ready / 118-Draft count, and state that later live GitHub state supersedes the receipt. On predecessor `187310346c5c42b22e53f734c2c9ce7122df0d7f`, those assertions are source-semantic RED. Commit `84340f2ac35ddbc0571038418acc93e0f9882595` makes the smallest documentation repair without changing the archived dossier, production source, workflows, rules, or browser evidence.
+
+Legacy tests whose purpose is to validate historical checkpoint integrity execute against the archived dossier. They are retained as byte-identical non-discovered modules and exposed through small compatibility wrappers that redirect only their `BASELINE` input. The current buyer surface receives its own navigation/freshness regression. This avoids weakening historical assertions while preventing them from forcing historical runbooks back into the live decision surface.
+
+## Risk and mitigation
+
+- **Risk: archive divergence.** Mitigation: the archive reuses the predecessor Git blob rather than reserializing it.
+- **Risk: dated observation mistaken for a live dashboard.** Mitigation: the heading carries the observation time, the text says it is not continuously live, and later GitHub state explicitly supersedes the cut.
+- **Risk: self-reference drift.** Mitigation: the observation cut includes #309 as Draft and the contract pins the complete 130 / 12 / 118 split observed after that lifecycle repair.
+- **Risk: old tests silently stop running.** Mitigation: original `test_*.py` entry points remain discoverable and import/export the preserved legacy test classes after binding their historical baseline input to the archive.
+- **Risk: compactness hides material gaps.** Mitigation: the matrix keeps buyer risk, exact evidence, canonical owner/acceptance and state together, while linked PRs/issues and the evidence dossier retain detail.
+
+## Acceptance
+
+- `docs/product-technical-gap-baseline.md` is at most 220 lines and 24,000 UTF-8 bytes.
+- `## Buyer gap matrix` appears within the first 90 lines.
+- The live baseline contains no `### Previous verified cut:` daily-history section and no `## Current exact observation` heading.
+- The dated observation receipt records `2026-09-09 12:57 UTC`, includes #309 as Draft, records 130 open PRs / 12 Ready / 118 Draft, and says later live GitHub state supersedes the cut.
+- The archived dossier remains larger than 180,000 bytes and contains the known 2026-09-08 and 2026-08-29 historical anchors.
+- Existing historical regression classes remain discoverable through their original test entry points and run against the archived baseline rather than being deleted or relaxed.
+- Protected-main, browser/runtime source, workflows, review rules and external owner contracts remain unchanged by this documentation repair.
+
+## Follow-up
+
+Fresh exact-head hosted checks and rendered GitHub inspection are still required before this documentation successor can be considered accepted. After normal integration into #238, later refreshes should replace the bounded dated receipt/matrix with a new observed cut and add detailed evidence receipts only when that detail no longer belongs on the buyer surface.

tests/_historical_baseline_contract_loader.py

@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+"""Load preserved historical baseline contracts against extracted evidence receipts."""
+
+from __future__ import annotations
+
+import importlib.util
+from pathlib import Path
+from types import ModuleType
+
+TESTS = Path(__file__).resolve().parent
+ROOT = TESTS.parent
+ARCHIVE = ROOT / "docs/evidence/product-technical-gap-baseline-through-2026-09-09.md"
+ARCHIVE_CHANGELOG = ROOT / "docs/evidence/CHANGELOG-through-2026-09-09.md"
+
+
+def load_historical_contract(filename: str, module_name: str) -> ModuleType:
+    """Load one legacy module against immutable baseline/changelog evidence inputs."""
+    path = TESTS / filename
+    spec = importlib.util.spec_from_file_location(module_name, path)
+    if spec is None or spec.loader is None:
+        raise RuntimeError(f"cannot load historical contract: {filename}")
+    module = importlib.util.module_from_spec(spec)
+    spec.loader.exec_module(module)
+    module.BASELINE = ARCHIVE
+    if hasattr(module, "CHANGELOG"):
+        module.CHANGELOG = ARCHIVE_CHANGELOG
+    return module
+
+
+def export_public(module: ModuleType, namespace: dict[str, object]) -> None:
+    """Expose the preserved test classes/helpers through the original discovery module."""
+    for name in dir(module):
+        if not name.startswith("_"):
+            namespace[name] = getattr(module, name)