D044 - Every check records where its expectation came from

Status: decided Date: 2026-09-26

Each check carries a provenance, appended to its res record, from this ladder:

assumed -> implementations -> spec -> documented -> derived -> hardware

assumed is this project's reasoning and the default. implementations needs at least two implementations that share no codebase, named in the check's comment. derived means the kernel's documented ancestor settles this specific case. Each upgrade is made per check, never by pattern.

Why: a failure against an ISO C expectation and a failure against this project's guess read the same without it, and an emulator author cannot tell whose bug it is. The ladder makes the value of each source explicit, including the caveat that implementations read each other.

Rejected: no provenance - every failure is equally arguable. Upgrading by rule - sweeps up checks whose case the document does not settle.