ACI-042: A Verdict Names Its Tree

Thesis

A verdict describes one tree, one artefact and one environment at one instant. Quote it with the ref and the count of uncommitted files it was measured on, name the artefact you examined in the claim itself, and ask what state a test reads or leaves behind that it did not create. Publish the command beside the conclusion, so the next reader re-runs it instead of inheriting it.

Story

In September 2026 Lamplight's acceptance gate answered PASS 36/36 on a piece of work marked complete every time it was asked, while the close itself sat uncommitted. The project's lifecycle commands write their records without committing them, and the gate reads the working tree. Nothing pointed at the gap: the command reported success, the gate passed, git status listed the files among the usual churn, and the work displayed Completed. Its commit says: "A green is supposed to be a claim about the project; this one was a claim about a filesystem" (Lamplight@2cc6e6b95, 2026-09-05). Two days later the project's end-of-day summary gave its health check two values rather than one: 88, with 21 rows deliberately left uncommitted, and 64 once they were applied (Lamplight@e4b0c4212, 2026-09-07).