docs(governance): a requirement written after the work, and a gate that called it absent

[lessevv]

Eleven requirements locked into the v2.0 manifest are cited by nothing in the
product repository. Nine of them never could have been: the requirement was
written to describe work that had already merged, so no trailer on the
implementing commit could have named it. Two are measurable to the second —
E2-R22's implementation merged at 20:31:49 and the identifier was minted at
21:02:33; E5-R27's merged twenty-six seconds after the specification change
that created it.

Three parts, and none of them is the whole answer.

A record satisfies the citation box where a citation was impossible

GOV-R26, and a new When the requirement postdates the work section in
40-quality/definition-of-done.md.
Where the identifier did not exist on this repository's default branch when the
work merged, a record in the implementing repository — naming the identifier,
the seam that implements it, and the commit that merged it — ticks the citation
box for that requirement.

It is not a citation and does not pretend to be. The implementing change stays
uncited and the gate's answer about it does not change. What it buys is the
thing that was genuinely missing: an identifier appearing nowhere cannot be told
apart from one nobody implemented, and separating them otherwise costs every
future audit a hand re-derivation of all eleven seams — two of which already
came back different from the audit that had attributed them.

What does not qualify is enumerated rather than implied, because the risk is
that this becomes a way to skip citing work that could have cited: a trailer
that could have carried the identifier and did not; work still in flight; the
record and the work in the same pull request; an entry naming no commit or the
wrong one; a record standing in for the requirement itself.

The ordering rule, restated about the requirement

GOV-R27, in
50-governance/change-lifecycle.md
beside GOV-R4, which is where a reader asking about order already goes.
GOV-R4 orders a behavioural change; a requirement written only to describe
existing behaviour is not one, which is exactly the gap nine of the eleven
walked through. Neither rule is machine-checked and both pages now say so about
themselves.

The gate names what it read

GOV-R28. spec_check.py kept only identifiers on a line matching
^\s*Spec:, so A3-R23, E5-R27, E6-R14 and E6-R16 read as uncited purely
for being named in a sentence — a guard keyed on a line format reclassifying
documented differently as not documented.

The trailer stays the only form that passes: "unlike A3-R23" and "superseded
by A3-R23" name an identifier while citing none of it, and a gate that accepted
them would grade changes as cited on a reading no reviewer agreed to. What
changed is that prose is now read and reported distinctly.

Planted, against a body naming ids only in prose and against one naming none:

$ spec_check.py --text-file prose-only.txt          # "Cites A3-R22 and A3-R23."
::error::no `Spec:` trailer found; the text names A3-R22, A3-R23 outside one
A citation is read from a line beginning `Spec:` and from nowhere else, so this
text cites nothing. What it does name, in prose, the specification defines:
A3-R22, A3-R23. If this change implements that, the fix is the trailer — on a
commit and in the pull-request body:

    Spec: A3-R22, A3-R23
[exit 1]

$ spec_check.py --text-file cites-nothing.txt
::error::no `Spec:` citation found
[exit 1]

Before this change both printed the identical no Spec: citation found. On
the passing path a trailer that lost a sibling to a squash now warns rather than
passing in silence:

$ spec_check.py --text-file trailer-plus-prose.txt  # Spec: A3-R22, prose names A3-R23
spec-check: OK — cites A3-R22
::warning::named but not cited: A3-R23 — named outside a `Spec:` line, so this
change does not cite it. Add it to the trailer if this change implements it.
[exit 0]

What this deliberately does not close

A3-R23 and the second half of E6-R14 are slips, not inversions: the
identifier existed and the trailer left it out. GOV-R26 refuses them by
design. They need a later change on the same seam carrying the trailer, or a
recorded override.

No merged commit is amended. 70-operations/versions/2.0.0.toml and its status
are untouched.

Gates run locally: integrity.py, manifest_check.py, commit_lint.py,
dco_check.py, typos, markdownlint-cli2, lychee — all clean.

Spec: GOV-R26, GOV-R27, GOV-R28, ADR-0034, GOV-R11, Q-R23

[sonarqubecloud]

Quality Gate passed

Issues
0 New issues
0 Accepted issues

Measures
0 Security Hotspots
0.0% Coverage on New Code
0.0% Duplication on New Code

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