record(ENG-RECORD-CONFLICT-SURFACES): file two records-tooling defects

.agents/issues/ENG-RECORD-CONFLICT-SURFACES/ISSUE-LOCAL-01M29QNAFS7STAT36D7PVMM9QE.md

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+ID: ISSUE-LOCAL-01M29QNAFS7STAT36D7PVMM9QE
+Title: agent-issue.py silently discards any issue section outside its fixed schema
+Row: ENG-RECORD-CONFLICT-SURFACES
+State: OPEN
+Kind: bug
+GitHub: -
+Mirror: PENDING
+Availability: FULL
+Created: 2026-09-12
+Updated: 2026-09-12
+Closed: -
+
+## Problem
+
+scripts/agent-issue.py renders an issue file from a fixed IssueRecord schema, so every update and close DELETES any section the schema does not name. Evidence is lost with no warning and no diff shown to the caller.
+
+Mechanism, read in the tree at 97cb6964b:
+
+- IssueRecord carries exactly id, title, row, state, kind, github, mirror, availability, created, updated, closed, problem, resolution (scripts/agent-issue.py:120-140 area).
+- _write (:654-674) calls filesystem.atomic_write(path, render_issue_record(record)). The rendered text is generated from those fields ALONE; the file on disk is never read forward.
+- So a section such as '## Reconciliation', '## Evidence' or any other heading an agent or a human appended is not represented in the record, is not re-rendered, and disappears on the next update or close.
+
+Observed, not theorised. Closing the local issue on row QUANT-GGUF-IQ4_NL (PR #3149; that record is named in the pull request and is deliberately NOT cited by ID here, because it lives on that branch and a reference to it would not resolve on this one) dropped TWO '## Reconciliation' sections that recorded why the row's scope changed twice: that #3097 had landed the ROCm gather, and that the CUDA arm was never missing because #2419 had already landed it. Both were dated, both cited commits and file:line anchors, and both were the only record of a scope correction. They were restored by hand; nothing in the tool's output said they had gone.
+
+Why this matters more than an ordinary bug. AGENTS.md 'Records' says to move superseded detail into .agents/completed/ and 'Never delete evidence to reduce context'. A tool whose normal success path deletes evidence inverts that rule, and it does so in the one file class the protocol treats as canonical. The failure is also invisible by construction: the caller sees a success, and the loss is only detectable by diffing the file before and after, which nobody does because the tool is the sanctioned way to edit it.
+
+Not filed as a same-flow fix, because the repair is a design question rather than a typo: the tool must decide whether unknown sections are preserved verbatim and where they are re-emitted relative to Problem and Resolution, whether ordering is stable across a round trip, and whether a lossy write should refuse rather than warn. That wants a spec and a red-before test that round-trips a file carrying an unknown section.
+
+## Resolution
+
+-

.agents/issues/ENG-RECORD-CONFLICT-SURFACES/ISSUE-LOCAL-01M29RSZ48ZW6DH833G505CNBJ.md

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+ID: ISSUE-LOCAL-01M29RSZ48ZW6DH833G505CNBJ
+Title: check-pr-size forces every RUNNABLE_BASELINE re-pin through one shared test file
+Row: ENG-RECORD-CONFLICT-SURFACES
+State: OPEN
+Kind: bug
+GitHub: -
+Mirror: PENDING
+Availability: FULL
+Created: 2026-09-12
+Updated: 2026-09-12
+Closed: -
+
+## Problem
+
+scripts/check-pr-size.py:704-722 requires any change touching a governance_checker path to also change that checker's recognized_evidence file with lines > 0 in the same diff. For scripts/check-gate-commands.py that file is tests/scripts/test_check_gate_commands.py. Every row that enters the RUNNABLE_BASELINE population must therefore edit one shared test file, which is the shape AGENTS.md Records names as defective: 'A gate often creates the lock. If a checker requires every change to edit one shared file, the checker is defective. Move the obligation to a per-row surface. Do not delete the obligation.'
+
+Measured, not argued. The same ERROR fires on three already-merged commits of the same shape, so this is repo-wide behaviour rather than one row's mistake:
+
+  d1256c2fd  BACKEND-TENSTORRENT-KEEPQUANT   fires (also on check-agent-record.py)
+  2f4001199  QUANT-EXL3-PERF                 fires (also on check-agent-record.py)
+  aa7bcc8c6  QUANT-EXL3-MUL1                 fires
+
+Found on PR #3149 (row QUANT-GGUF-IQ4_NL), where the baseline move was genuinely required: deleting the single line 'QUANT-GGUF-IQ4_NL' from RUNNABLE_BASELINE reds 17 tests, including test_the_baseline_matches_the_shipped_record, test_the_baseline_re_pin_is_load_bearing and test_hf_model_download_earns_its_runnable_baseline_entry. So the ratchet is doing its job and the evidence requirement is the part that does not fit.
+
+One further fact a reader needs, and one CORRECTION this issue makes against its own first draft.
+
+The fact: agent-preflight.sh SKIPS check-pr-size for want of --base/--head/--branch, so no local gate surfaces this at all and the first signal is CI. That is how PR #3149 reached a fresh review with it outstanding.
+
+The correction: this issue first asserted that check-pr-size 'prints ERROR and EXITS 0', and that is FALSE. Measured both ways at the same revision:
+
+  python3 scripts/check-pr-size.py ... | tail -2   ->  $? == 0
+  python3 scripts/check-pr-size.py ... > file      ->  $? == 1
+
+main() returns 1 when errors is non-empty. The zero came from reading $? after a PIPE, which reports the exit status of tail and not of the checker. The wrong reading was the author's, not the tool's, and it is recorded here rather than quietly deleted because a filed defect that misstates the tool it accuses is worse than no filing. Nothing else in this issue depends on it: the shared-file lock is a property of check-pr-size.py:704-722 and is unaffected by how the process exits.
+
+The gate is also STRICTER THAN THE RULE IT ENFORCES. AGENTS.md says a semantic checker change needs 'a spec, a red-before test OR MUTATION, and green-after evidence'. A mutation satisfies AGENTS.md; check-pr-size accepts only a changed line in one named test file, which a pure data re-pin cannot produce without adding a per-row test class to that shared file.
+
+Not filed with a fix. The repair is a design question: whether a data-only re-pin of a baseline list should count as a semantic checker change at all, whether the evidence surface should become per-row (one file per row, read with a glob, as Records prescribes), and whether the checker should exit non-zero when it prints ERROR. That wants a spec and a red-before case.
+
+## Resolution
+
+-