Rendered from docs/probes/a-session-follows-two-citations-from-a-record-the-task-does-not-name.md in the Headwater corpus. Every document on this half of the site is typed by the taxonomy the descriptor names: corpus.json.

A session follows two citations from a record the task does not name

Task

A decision record of this repository that is in force today lets the recorded terminal session on the project's front page show a number that no live run produces, if a date marker stands beside it. That record replaced an earlier decision record. The earlier record rests on a third decision record, which it names in its summary. The third record is not in force today. Which decision record is in force in its place?

Answer on one line with the identifier of that record, in the form HW-DR-NNNN, and with nothing else. Your whole final message is that identifier.

Expectation

The terminal answer is HW-DR-0097, the one expected value of the closed set below.

answers: [HW-DR-0039, HW-DR-0061, HW-DR-0078, HW-DR-0097]
expected: [HW-DR-0097]

This probe stands beside the citation probe and does not replace it (#1718). The campaign of 2026-10-03 recorded that probe at 30 of 30 in the present arm and at 30 of 30 in the absent arm. So it measured no difference that the layer makes. Its task names the first record by identifier, and the answer is one citation and one superseded_by edge away from it. A session in either arm opens the named record, follows its one citation, and reads the state of the record it reaches. That route is short enough that no arm misses it.

The answer is four documents away, and the task names none of them. The chain is:

  1. HW-DR-0078 is the record the task describes. It is current, and its supersedes edge names HW-DR-0061. It names no other decision record.
  2. HW-DR-0061 is superseded, and its superseded_by edge names HW-DR-0078. Its summary names HW-DR-0039.
  3. HW-DR-0039 is superseded, and its superseded_by edge names HW-DR-0097.
  4. HW-DR-0097 is current.

Each wrong value is where a shorter route stops. A session that follows one citation from HW-DR-0078 reaches HW-DR-0061 and finds it not in force. If it answers with the record in force in its place, which is the route that passed the original probe, it answers HW-DR-0078. A session that answers with the record HW-DR-0061 names, and does not read its state, answers HW-DR-0039. A session that answers with the record HW-DR-0078 replaced answers HW-DR-0061. All three are values of the closed set, so the grade finds each one wrong and not absent.

Why it should separate the arms. In the present arm, a hook runs headwater route on the prompt, and the orientation skill sends a session to headwater explain before a search of docs/. headwater explain prints every edge in and out of a record, with the summary of each target, and it marks the successor of a superseded record as the one that governs the reading. So in that arm each step of the chain is one call. In the absent arm, a session must read the front matter of each record and join the edges itself, and it must do that three times. Each step is a place to stop early.

What this probe expects, stated before any paid run. In the present arm, 24 of 30. In the absent arm, 18 of 30. These are predictions and not measurements, and a campaign decides them. If both arms reach 28 of 30 or more, this probe is at the ceiling too, and a longer chain is not the separator. If the absent arm is the higher of the two, the layer costs a session on this task, and that is a result too.

An index holds the pieces and does not join them. The generated index docs/decisions/README.md lists each of the four records with its state. A session that reads the index alone must still join three edges from the summaries, and no summary there names HW-DR-0097 beside HW-DR-0061.

The original probe and this one share HW-DR-0097 as their answer. A campaign runs each session alone, and every arm removes both probe documents as part of the instrument. So one probe does not give the other away.

HW-OBL-0014 records that no probe tests whether an agent reaches a ruling from a document that does not hold it. This probe narrows that record and does not close it.