Rendered from docs/obligations/0183-no-mechanism-holds-a-committed-binary-asset-against-a-run.md in the Headwater corpus. Every document on this half of the site is typed by the taxonomy the descriptor names: corpus.json.

No mechanism holds a committed binary asset against a run

Context

HW-DR-0061 ruled that a recorded terminal demonstration is a figure under principle 11, so it may show no output that a live run would move. That ruling was enforceable only where something compares the artifact against a run.

tools/site/refresh-figures.sh is the comparison HW-DR-0039 built, and it reads text. It writes a measured number into a data-figure element of an HTML file, and --check compares what it would write against what the tree carries. Nothing in that path opens a GIF, a cast file or a PNG. A number frozen inside a binary asset is invisible to the one instrument that holds a figure to a run.

HW-DR-0078 answered the #601 half of this record a different way than the shape below assumed. The owner chose a visible recorded-on-<date> marker over a regenerate-and-compare step, for the one asset #601 names. A text check now holds the marker's presence, and nothing holds the frozen number itself.

Obligation

For #601's asset, this obligation is narrowed rather than discharged as first framed. The comparison this record asked for is not what closes the recording bars of #601 now. HW-DR-0078 accepts the frozen number as a deviation, disclosed rather than checked. A step that regenerates and compares the recording is not owed for that one asset.

The general question stays open, and it is what this record now tracks. Nothing in this corpus states what holds a committed binary asset against a run, where that asset carries no ruling of its own. A second recording, a screenshot, or any other binary a future issue proposes meets the same gap HW-DR-0061 first measured. It meets that gap unless it too receives a ruling like HW-DR-0078's, or the comparison this record describes gets built.

The shape a compare-and-regenerate mechanism would take is unchanged from the original obligation. Replay a recorded artifact against a scratch corpus, in the way --check already works for a text figure. Fail the build when the result is not the committed bytes. A recorder must be on the runner for that step to run at all. The repository variable CI_RUNNER sends jobs to GitHub's hosted images, which install one on request.

Discharge

The #601-tied thread closes here. A front-page recording's frozen number is held by disclosure under HW-DR-0078. The blocking text check for its marker is the mechanism that ruling asks for.

The general record stays open. It discharges under either of two conditions. One: a step of .github/workflows/ci.yml regenerates a committed binary asset and compares it against the tree, failing the build on a difference. Two: every committed binary asset in this corpus carries a ruling of its own, the way #601's recording now does. Until one of those holds, a new committed binary asset with no ruling meets the same gap this record first measured.