Leave a record's moved reading as the command that produced it (#269)

docs/decisions/0001-decision-records.md

@@ -6,6 +6,8 @@ Status: accepted. Supersedes nothing. Superseded by nothing.
 
 Narrowed-by: 0267, on the third permitted edit, the pointer to a later record, which takes a fixed form and becomes a pair of fields where the later record narrows a clause
 
+Narrowed-by: 0269, on the rule that a record is never edited in place, which does not reach a pasted output deleted so that only the command that produced it is left
+
 Issue: #2
 
 ## The decision

docs/decisions/0103-what-admits-a-dependency-and-what-is-refused.md

@@ -137,9 +137,6 @@ tracing library, and 0112 refuses a cross-platform media framework on size on
 every target:
 
     git grep -l '#103' -- docs/decisions
-    docs/decisions/0041-how-a-cache-key-is-built.md
-    docs/decisions/0061-the-span-facility.md
-    docs/decisions/0112-where-the-platform-decoder-begins.md
 
 ## A dependency a record already standing requires
 

docs/decisions/0269-a-reading-a-record-pasted-that-has-moved.md

@@ -0,0 +1,160 @@
+# 0269. A reading a record pasted, after the tree has moved
+
+Date: 2026-09-02
+
+Status: accepted. Supersedes nothing. Superseded by nothing.
+
+Narrows: 0001, on the rule that a record is never edited in place, which does not reach a pasted output deleted so that only the command that produced it is left
+
+Issue: #269
+
+## The decision
+
+Where a landed record pastes a command and the output that command produced, and
+the output no longer reproduces, the output is deleted and the command is left
+standing alone; nothing is pasted in its place, and this is a fourth edit that is
+not a supersession.
+
+## The instance, read rather than recalled
+
+[0103](0103-what-admits-a-dependency-and-what-is-refused.md) pastes a command and
+three file names under a paragraph arguing that a refusal with a worked case
+behind it is quotable:
+
+    git show origin/main:docs/decisions/0103-what-admits-a-dependency-and-what-is-refused.md | sed -n '137,140p'
+
+The same command run against the reference a reader has:
+
+    git grep -l '#103' origin/main -- docs/decisions
+
+returns five paths rather than three. Two of them the paste does not carry: the
+record itself, which matches on its own `Issue:` line and always did, and
+[0011](0011-the-language-the-toolchain-and-the-binding-layer.md), which wrote this
+collision down as its own reversal condition before there was a graph to measure.
+
+Nobody edited that paragraph. The count moved because records were added, which is
+what makes this a class rather than a mistake somebody made.
+
+One thing near it is untouched and is worth separating, so that a reader does not
+raise it a second time. The sentence above the command counts three refusals with
+a worked case behind them. That is a count of refusals and not of files, the
+command returns files, and the two were never the same number - 0103 itself and
+0011 are among the five and neither is a refusal with a worked case. The sentence
+is the record's argument, it is unchanged, and this decision reaches the output
+under it and nothing else.
+
+## Why the output goes and the command stays
+
+A reader who runs the command finds two files the record does not account for and
+cannot tell whether the record is wrong or whether they are. That is the defect
+class this repository's rules lead with, standing in the record whose subject is
+what may be admitted at all.
+
+Pasting a fresh output repairs the sentence and not the class. The reading was
+correct on the day it was written and went stale without being touched; a second
+paste is a second thing that will go stale, and the next record naming #103 moves
+it again.
+
+The command alone cannot fail in that direction. It either still runs or it does
+not, and a command that no longer runs is visible the moment somebody tries it,
+where a stale output is invisible to everyone who does not.
+
+The tree already hands a reader a command rather than its output in the two places
+that meet this most often. `README.md` says of the dependency graph that what is
+there and what it reaches is read rather than written there. `docs/gate-parity.md`
+does it twice: once as a sentence telling a reader to re-run rather than read the
+paste, and once by declining to write a count into a table cell and handing over
+the command instead. This record takes the second of those shapes for a landed
+decision record, where the first is not available because it is an edit that adds
+prose.
+
+## Why this is a narrowing of 0001 and not a supersession of anything
+
+[0001](0001-decision-records.md) says a record is added or superseded and never
+edited in place, and gives the reason: the value of a record is the reasoning that
+was available at the time, including the parts that turned out to be wrong, and a
+record quietly corrected reads afterwards as a decision that was always right.
+
+A pasted output is not reasoning. It is a reading of a tree at a moment, standing
+as evidence for a sentence that is itself unchanged.
+[0103](0103-what-admits-a-dependency-and-what-is-refused.md)'s paragraph argues
+that the refusals are quotable; the command is the quotation, and the three lines
+under it are what the quotation returned once. Delete them and the record decides
+what it decided, argues what it argued, and reverses under the same condition.
+
+So the clause narrowed is the prohibition itself rather than any of the three
+edits already carved out of it, and the field
+[0001](0001-decision-records.md) receives says so. 0267 is the record that decided
+what such a field looks like, one day before this one used it.
+
+## What is lost, stated rather than softened
+
+The historical reading goes out of the file. A reader who wants to know what the
+command returned on 2026-08-24 has to go to the history for it:
+
+    git log -p --follow -- docs/decisions/0103-what-admits-a-dependency-and-what-is-refused.md
+
+That is a real cost and it is the one argument against this decision. It is
+accepted because the alternative keeps a wrong reading in front of every reader in
+order to serve one who is looking for a superseded one, and because the history is
+where this repository keeps superseded things everywhere else.
+
+Nothing refuses a stale paste. No check here re-runs a command a record wrote
+down, and none could without running arbitrary commands out of tracked text, which
+is a thing this gate deliberately does not do. So this rule is carried by the
+record and by whoever notices, exactly as it was before, and what changed is that
+noticing now has a route that does not require superseding a record whole. #269 is
+where that gap was named and this record does not close it.
+
+## Why this is written down before the code
+
+Without it the only route 0001 offers for a stale reading is a supersession of the
+whole record. Superseding
+[0103](0103-what-admits-a-dependency-and-what-is-refused.md) to correct one pasted
+grep discards a licence set, a worth test, five grounds and a clause for a
+standing requirement that nobody has argued with, and it does that every time any
+record's reading moves. The cost is high enough that the honest route is the
+expensive one, and a rule whose honest route is the expensive one selects for the
+quiet one - which here is leaving the wrong output standing.
+
+The specific failure has already happened and it is the one above. It will happen
+again on a schedule nobody controls, because every pasted reading in every record
+goes stale when the tree moves rather than when somebody edits the paragraph.
+
+## Alternatives, and what each cost
+
+A supersession of the whole record. It costs the six things above, discarded to
+correct three lines, and it gets worse each time: a record superseded for a stale
+reading has a successor that carries its own pasted readings and its own future
+supersession.
+
+A fresh output pasted in place of the stale one. Cheapest to write and it is the
+option that looks like a fix. It costs nothing today and reproduces the defect on
+the day the next record names #103, which is measured rather than supposed: the
+count moved from three to five without anybody opening the paragraph.
+
+A sentence beside the paste saying the output moves, which is what
+`docs/gate-parity.md` does. It costs more than what it replaces: it is an edit
+that adds prose to a landed record, so it needs the same permission this record is
+about, and it leaves the wrong output standing as the first thing a reader meets.
+
+Leaving it. The state this record ends. A reader who runs the command gets an
+answer the record contradicts, in the record that says a claim carries the command
+that produced it.
+
+## What would reverse this
+
+A deleted output turns out to have been the argument rather than evidence for one,
+twice. One is a paragraph that was written badly. Two is a shape where the output
+carried the reasoning, and the answer is a supersession rather than a wider
+deletion rule.
+
+The history stops reaching a deleted reading. This decision rests on the history
+holding what the file no longer does, so a rewrite of it, or a move that breaks
+`--follow`, takes the ground out from under this record rather than merely
+inconveniencing a reader.
+
+A check arrives that re-derives a record's pasted readings and refuses one that no
+longer reproduces. Then the deletion is no longer the repair, because the paste
+can be kept and held true, and this record is superseded by one describing what
+that check reads.

docs/decisions/README.md

@@ -65,4 +65,5 @@ allocated, and why a record is superseded rather than edited are in
 - [0243. The means a certificate is validated with, and what it costs](0243-the-means-a-certificate-is-validated-with.md)
 - [0267. A record that narrows one clause of another](0267-a-record-that-narrows-one-clause-of-another.md)
 - [0268. A conjunctive licence expression, and the term the set does not name](0268-a-conjunctive-licence-expression.md)
+- [0269. A reading a record pasted, after the tree has moved](0269-a-reading-a-record-pasted-that-has-moved.md)
 - [0272. The route next up is read from](0272-the-route-next-up-is-read-from.md)