D347 - A record named after a scratch directory

decided · 2026-08-27 · found by listing compat/ instead of assuming what was in it

Recording became automatic (D323), and the title is derived from the module's containing directory. So running a payload that happened to sit in an Explorer default produced a tracked record:

compat/New folder (2).toml
  outcome = "0x7ff61e175ee3"   imports = 3   standing = 34%

A host address rather than image+..., three imports, describing a loader payload rather than a title - filed in the directory whose whole purpose is the compatibility claim this project makes about titles.

Automatic recording made a latent looseness into pollution. While a person typed compat record, the directory name was their problem and they would not have typed it. Taking the person out removed the judgement that had been silently doing the filtering, which is a cost of automation worth naming rather than a bug in the automation.

A title id is an identifier: letters, digits, dot, dash, underscore. Anything else is a directory name, and the run says so rather than skipping quietly - a run that declines to record and a run with nothing to record must not look the same (principle 3).

Found by listing the directory. Not by a test, not by the gate - by checking a claim about the state of the tree rather than reciting it, after being wrong twice that day doing the reverse.