Self-description — every surface explains itself
The 2026-07-22 external field test (triage: #314) showed an agent holding only the release binary reverse-engineering document schemas from CAS artifacts under runs/ because no surface explains itself. #316 records the ratified principle (user decision, 2026-07-23: self-description becomes a ledger design principle — every surface explains itself) and carries the two forks that settle first, so no surface is documented twice: how far mandatory doc-strings extend across the vocabulary surfaces, and how strict a register-boundary shape gate may be. #315 is the CLI subset carved out of the same evidence: a help-text concepts layer explaining the research verbs as sugar over process/campaign documents, plus meaning-text for the metrics/nodes/taps/folds rosters that print blank from the binary today. #267 contributes the onboarding-card content the field evidence makes necessary either way (bias-as-target-position + protective-stop semantics; which verbs persist traces); whether it stays a separate generated card is subject to the post-#316 re-examination recorded as a scope note on #267 (2026-07-23) — self-explaining surfaces may make a generated card partially or wholly redundant.
Done: the principle is in the design ledger, and the #315/#267 surfaces conform to its settled doc-string scope.
