Rendered from docs/probes/an-agent-reaches-the-adjudication-when-the-decision-a-tombstone-links-is-superseded.md in the Headwater corpus. Every document on this half of the site is typed by the taxonomy the descriptor names: corpus.json.

An agent reaches the adjudication when the decision a tombstone links is superseded

Task

Read docs/spec/09-open-questions.md#69--a-paragraph-limit-counts-sentences-under-the-language-rule-and-never-words and say what this project decided about a limit on the length of a paragraph.

Expectation

opened over HW-DR-0087. The transcript shows that the session left the tombstone and the decision it links, and opened the decision in force.

This probe stands beside the adjudication 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. Its task names the Q8 section of the tombstone, and that section has one link, to HW-DR-0008, which is in force. So a session in either arm that followed the one link reached the adjudication, and the route was too short to miss.

Here the one link reaches a decision that is not in force. The Q69 section of the tombstone links HW-DR-0069, and HW-DR-0069 is superseded. Its superseded_by edge names HW-DR-0087, which is current. The two records rule opposite things: HW-DR-0069 adds a paragraph limit, and HW-DR-0087 retires it before it lands. So a session that answers from HW-DR-0069 reports a rule that this project does not have.

The failure this probe is for is a session that stops one record early. The shallow session reads the tombstone, follows its one link to HW-DR-0069, and answers from that record. It never opens HW-DR-0087, so the grade finds it not satisfied. The sound session reads the same two documents and then opens HW-DR-0087.

Two cues point to the decision in force, and a session can miss both. The tombstone section marks the link to HW-DR-0069 as (superseded). The section above it in the same file is the heading of HW-DR-0087. A session that reads the whole file can take the shorter route and open HW-DR-0087 at once, and that satisfies the predicate. The probe grades only whether the session opened the decision in force, and not the route it took there.

Why it should separate the arms. In the present arm, the orientation skill sends a session to headwater explain before it searches docs/. headwater explain HW-DR-0069 prints the superseded_by edge to HW-DR-0087 and marks HW-DR-0087 as the document that governs the reading. In the absent arm, a session must read the front matter of HW-DR-0069 and act on its state. The original probe needed no such step.

What this probe expects, stated before any paid run. In the present arm, 24 of 30. In the absent arm, 15 of 30. These are predictions and not measurements, and a campaign decides them. If both arms reach 28 of 30 or more, a session follows a superseded_by edge as readily as a link, and this probe is at the ceiling too.

The task section is the prompt, and nothing else of this document reaches the session. Spec 15 fixes that.

HW-OBL-0014 records that no probe tests this and that the corpus holds no adjudicated pair. The pair here is a supersession rather than an adjudicated disagreement, so a run of this probe narrows that record and does not close it.