diff --git a/docs/design/INDEX.md b/docs/design/INDEX.md
index 356bd1b..5693f06 100644
--- a/docs/design/INDEX.md
+++ b/docs/design/INDEX.md
@@ -1680,6 +1680,8 @@ and both callers are untouched; maintenance is lazy-only — put-time indexing
 was rejected because it would need a roster-free doc-level identity function
 whose equivalence to the loaded-composite path no green test ratifies (decision
 log: #191 comments).
+
+### C19 — Bootstrap: blueprint → instance (recursive)
 **Guarantee.** Construction is a distinct phase, recursive at every level. Each
 node type has a **factory** `params → sized concrete node` (e.g. `SMA(length)`
 sizes its ring buffer). A **blueprint** is the param-generic, input-role-generic
@@ -2590,6 +2592,116 @@ benefit — a sweep paying zero for the study wires behind an unbound tap — is
 **deferred to the future DCE cycle** (C23); the mechanism ships now, verified
 sound. (#282, 2026-07-18.)
 
+### C28 — Internal stratification: the trading ladder, the process column, the shell
+**Guarantee.** The aura workspace's crates realize a layered responsibility
+model along two axes. A **ladder**, ordered by domain specificity from inner to
+outer:
+1. **engine** — the domain-free deterministic streaming runtime and vocabulary
+   (cells/kinds/freshness/firing, graph build, compile, run, taps/trace — C1–C9,
+   C19, C23, C24), the domain-free node roster (arithmetic/logic/rolling nodes
+   plus the generic `Recorder`/`GatedRecorder`/`SeriesReducer` sinks), and
+   generic statistics (the Monte-Carlo and moving-block-bootstrap kernels). The
+   layer name is wider than the crate `aura-engine`: it spans `aura-core`,
+   `aura-engine`, the domain-free part of `aura-std`, and the generic-statistics
+   surface.
+2. **market** — what a market *is*, carrying no analysis or strategy intent:
+   instruments and pip/point geometry (C15), session anchoring, bar resampling,
+   market-data ingestion (`aura-ingest`).
+3. **measurement** — descriptive statistics over market streams (session
+   statistics, conditional rates, distributions). Sibling of **strategy**: both
+   consume *market*, neither imports the other.
+4. **strategy** — the *definition* of trading signals: bias, stop rules, sizing,
+   cost-model nodes.
+5. **backtest** — the *evaluation* of strategies: simulated execution without
+   money (the `SimBroker`, position-management), the R-metric reductions and the
+   position-event table, and the per-run scaffold. Backtest mirrors *execution*
+   on the research side — execution semantics in R units, money exiled.
+6. **execution** — money, account-term sizing, the live broker; already exiled to
+   the deploy edge by C10/C13, existing today only as that ratified boundary.
+
+Beside the ladder stands the **process column** — the research-process machinery
+(the run registry C18, the process/campaign document types, campaign execution).
+It consumes run *artifacts*, not market streams, and orchestrates runs of any
+ladder layer; it stands beside the ladder, not on a rung. The **shell** (the
+`aura` CLI) imports everything and is imported by nothing.
+
+**Import rule.** An outer ladder layer may import inner layers, never the
+reverse; *measurement* and *strategy* are siblings (no import either way);
+*backtest* may import *strategy*. The process column imports the engine layer
+plus the run-artifact and metric interfaces, and is imported by no ladder crate;
+column-internal edges are free. The shell imports all; nothing imports the
+shell. **`dev-dependencies` are exempt** — tests may cross layers (the existing
+`engine`/`ingest`/`registry` → `std` edges are dev-only and stay). The rule
+binds **crate structure, not graph composition**: a blueprint may feed a
+measurement statistic into a bias input — data flow inside a graph is free (C24);
+layers govern imports, graphs compose freely.
+
+**Forbids.** An inner layer importing an outer one — most sharply the engine
+layer importing backtest reductions, or market importing strategy. A ladder crate
+importing the process column. Money (currency P&L, account sizing) inside the
+strategy or backtest layers (C10/C13 — it lives only at the execution/deploy
+edge). Once a second consumer warrants the split, keeping multiple layers welded
+in one crate's roster.
+
+**Why.** The stack is a framework specialized for traders: the inner engine is a
+domain-free analysis substrate (the same machinery would measure robot telemetry
+or any timestamped process), the outer rungs the trading specialization, and the
+two together are the "game engine for traders" (C16's game/engine split applied
+*inside* the workspace, from the engine|project boundary to the intra-stack
+layering). Separable responsibilities behind narrow, contract-defined seams let a
+contributor focus on one rung without absorbing the rest, and make each boundary
+auditable. Enforcement is the crate graph itself: once crates are cut along these
+cells, a layer violation is a compile error and every new edge a visible
+`Cargo.toml` diff — no linter, no discipline appeals. Five of the six seams are
+already ratified contracts and this model only *names* them as layer boundaries:
+the node contract (C8, engine ↔ any vocabulary), blueprint-as-data (C24,
+topology ↔ engine — its shape selecting the run scaffold is the additive #286
+refinement, phase 3 below), declared taps (C27, run ↔ analysis — the only way
+values leave a run), the run registry (C18, run ↔ process column), and the
+deploy edge (C10/C13, everything ↔ money). Only the
+process column ↔ metric interface is new (a named metric vocabulary *supplied* by
+measurement and backtest instead of baked in R-only — this is #147).
+
+**Status (2026-07-19, milestone "Stratification — ladder, process column,
+shell", #286).** This contract states the *target*. At HEAD the crates cut by
+mechanical role (vocabulary / reductions / documents / orchestration / CLI), not
+cleanly by layer, so the layering is realized only partially:
+- The dependency *direction* already nearly obeys the rule. The one hard
+  production violation is `aura-engine → aura-analysis`: `report.rs:20`
+  re-exports the R-metrics, the position-event table, the hurdle math, and the
+  selection-provenance types (`RMetrics`/`RunMetrics`/`summarize_r`/
+  `r_metrics_from_rs`, `PositionEvent`/`PositionAction`/`derive_position_events`,
+  `inv_norm_cdf`/`expected_max_of_normals`, `FamilySelection`/`SelectionMode`),
+  and the generic-statistics kernel in `mc.rs` carries R/bias-typed fields
+  (`McAggregate.bias_sign_flips`, `RBootstrap.e_r`) inside otherwise domain-free
+  structs.
+- **That violation is the exact surface of the deliberately-deferred #147.**
+  Cutting it cleanly needs the metric genericity (`RunReport<M>` plus abstracting
+  the registry deflation vocabulary) that #136 ratified *deferring* (user-ratified
+  2026-06-27: the registry `Metric`/`metric_cmp`/deflation vocabulary "stays in
+  the registry by design … forcing genericity would be a one-implementor
+  abstraction", deferred to the World/C21 layer — see the C16 realization note).
+  The stratification supplies the *second* metric consumer (measurement) that the
+  deferral was waiting on, so retiring #147 and cutting this edge are one coupled
+  decision — reserved to the user, since it reverses a ratified deferral.
+- The interweaving is mostly *inside* crates. `aura-std` holds four layers in one
+  roster: engine (arithmetic/logic/rolling + the generic sinks), market
+  (`session.rs`, `resample.rs`), strategy (`bias.rs`/`stop_rule.rs`/`sizer.rs` +
+  the cost nodes) and backtest (`sim_broker.rs`, `position_management.rs`);
+  `aura-analysis` holds backtest reductions and generic hurdle math together. No
+  crate exists yet for *measurement* (its run verb is the additive shape dispatch,
+  #286) or *execution* (unbuilt — the C10/C13 edge only). Under this model the
+  `aura-registry → aura-research` edge is column-internal and legal.
+- Phased realization (each independently shippable; behaviour byte-identical
+  except the purely additive shape dispatch): (1) this contract; (2) cut the
+  `engine → analysis` edge — coupled to the #147 decision above; (3) the #286
+  shape dispatch plus the per-run scaffold as a library (seeds an `aura-backtest`
+  crate, gives *measurement* its run verb, removes the measured O(cycles) run-time
+  retention); (4) split the `aura-std` roster along engine / market /
+  strategy+backtest; (5) split `aura-analysis` into generic statistics and
+  backtest metrics; (6) generify the column's metric interface (demand-driven —
+  this is #147). Crate names provisional; full evidence on #286 and the milestone.
+
 ---
 
 ## Open architectural threads not yet resolved