The change that waited for evidence

An agent item with no state-alignment verb reached the canary gate, where the only accepted proof was applied. No host could produce that receipt for the item. The canary journaled held, and the downstream host waited on evidence that could never exist. The operating lesson was sharper than the implementation bug: trust needs a truthful positive receipt for “nothing to do,” while a genuine refusal must remain held.

The run

The operator asks for agent state to converge beyond its canary without turning refusal into success. Roundhouse verifies the exact digest and signed store history, then looks for a canary outcome that proves the item is correct at that digest. The turn came from the real hold cause: this category had no state-alignment verb, so applied was impossible even when the desired state was already correct. The recovery introduced satisfied as a distinct positive outcome, kept exit 75 as held, and reran the two-host real-jj fixture. The run closed when the canary and downstream journaled satisfied for the same digest while a review hook refused by the trust gate still remained held.

before  canary=held cause="no state-alignment verb; applied receipt impossible"
before  downstream=waiting evidence="could never exist"
recover canary=satisfied gate=accepted-for-same-digest
after   downstream=satisfied outcome=converged
control refused-review-hook=held downstream=waiting

That sequence is the anonymized receipt from the merged Roundhouse recovery: a two-host fixture, the real hold cause, the recovery action, and both terminal paths. No private machine identity or invented recovery receipt enters the story.

The reviewable boundary

The shared marketplace is a public repository that owns plugin version pinning under the trust ratchet. Inspect its catalog and release history before accepting a plugin update; the catalog is part of the evidence chain, not an invisible download step. A changed marketplace SHA is a new decision even when the version label stays the same.

Dependencies disclosed at install

Railyard uses Compound Engineering (EveryInc) for selected delivery workflow stages. Ponytail (DietrichGebert) and Superpowers are not Railyard prerequisites.

CE remains manager-owned and is resolved when a selected stage needs it. This page describes the dependency boundary.

What to review

• Confirm the marketplace entry names the expected repository and plugin version.
• Compare the pinned version with the release and review trail of the owning repository.
• Treat a changed marketplace SHA as a new review decision, even when the version string stays the same.
• For Roundhouse itself, adopt the authenticated release pin with roundhouse fleet-adopt-pin roundhouse PIN.json before convergence updates the code that enforces these checks.
• Keep signing, enrollment, and privileged host actions under their own explicit consent boundaries.

The canary evidence walkthrough carries the general propagation gate, and attack shapes separates the contained outcome from its residual.