Add exact native place-cycle resident-card continuity witness

Context

The flagship workstation film gate needs an executable current-head witness for the exact native window journey 1200×1040 → 1000×760 → 1200×1040, without a drag. The amended parent #16498 names transient resident-card child loss after native restoration, but it deliberately stays open until a historical/native attribution arm and whole-media QA exist.

Two local headed falsifiers on 2026-08-08 established the narrower leaf boundary:

• current styling: 394 sampled rAFs, 6.25 seconds after restoration, zero composition, DOM-identity, disclosure-tier, or settled-containment drift;
• the identical geometry with only the styling declarations introduced by #16722 removed: 394 sampled rAFs, 6.25 seconds after restoration, also zero drift.

The second result means the isolated styling control did not produce the historical signature. It is evidence for historical attribution NOT PROVEN, not evidence that #16722 repaired #16498. What is ready is the executable current-head witness itself.

Duplicate receipt (2026-08-08 21:59Z): live latest 20 open issues, global GitHub search, Knowledge Base ticket search, repository issue/discussion mirrors, and the latest 30 A2A messages across all read states contained no equivalent ticket or competing lane claim.

The Problem

The current E2E suite has no durable oracle for the parent ticket's exact no-drag native place-cycle. Without one, a later flagship run can lose resident-card children or worker/DOM continuity during restoration while the existing tear-out continuity checks stay green.

The missing witness must distinguish three surfaces honestly:

1. live DOM composition and geometry can be sampled on every rAF;
2. config/vdom/vnode identity is observable through Neural Link at explicit station boundaries, not continuously inside browser rAF callbacks;
3. raw child geometry may transiently overrun between disclosure tiers because .workstation-resident-card intentionally owns overflow: clip; raw containment is therefore a settled-station contract, while presented composition is the transition contract.

The Architectural Reality

• test/playwright/e2e/workstation/WorkstationTearOutSourceContinuityNL.spec.mjs:120 owns the four resident targets and the continuity suite adjacent to the flagship journey.
• test/playwright/e2e/workstation/WorkstationTearOutSourceContinuityNL.spec.mjs:141 resolves config/vdom/vnode identity through Neural Link.
• test/playwright/e2e/workstation/WorkstationTearOutSourceContinuityNL.spec.mjs:176 is the browser-side rAF sampling seam for live DOM, computed display, clipped presentation, and geometry.
• test/playwright/e2e/utils/filmStage.mjs:187 owns exact native Browser.setWindowBounds placement and its settled-bounds poll.
• resources/scss/src/apps/workstation/Viewport.scss:281 makes the card the transient paint boundary; the disclosure ladder begins at line 405.

This is test substrate only. It adds no public API, runtime configuration, or service boundary.

The Fix

Extend WorkstationTearOutSourceContinuityNL.spec.mjs with one headed Neural Link witness that:

• places the branded browser at the exact roomy, compact, and restored native bounds;
• samples Queues, Priority Alerts, Audit, and Commits on every rAF through the transition and for at least six seconds after restoration;
• derives each declared disclosure tier from computed display, records separately which children are actually presented after clipping, and rejects any declared-but-unpresented child or kicker-without-metric frame;
• requires every restored frame whose pane geometry has returned within one pixel of the roomy baseline to declare the baseline child set, so a known-but-wrong shell tier cannot false-green a blank roomy card;
• preserves live pane/card DOM node identity and the presence of every resident child across sampled frames;
• records Neural Link config/vdom/vnode identity before the cycle, at compact settle, immediately after restoration, and after the recovery band;
• verifies actual endpoint geometry, pane contraction, restoration parity, settled containment, page errors, and sampler-cap state;
• attaches the full JSON rAF receipt and Playwright video.

Decision Record impact

none — executable coverage within the landed workstation, Neural Link, and native-placement contracts.

Acceptance Criteria

• The exact native 1200×1040 → 1000×760 → 1200×1040 no-drag cycle is exercised through placeNativeWindow().
• Four resident cards are sampled on every rAF and for at least 6,000 ms after restoration; the sampler must prove it did not hit its frame cap.
• Every computed-display child set maps to a known disclosure tier; every declared child remains presented; kicker-presented with metric-unpresented reds the witness; restored roomy geometry must declare the roomy baseline child set.
• Live pane/card DOM identity and all resident child nodes remain present through every sampled frame.
• Neural Link config/vdom/vnode identity matches at before, compact, restored, and post-band checkpoints.
• Endpoint outer geometry is exact; all four pane heights contract and restore within one pixel of baseline; raw containment is checked at settled stations only.
• Page errors, first-drift diagnostics, station geometry, counts, and the full frame stream are attached as JSON; Playwright video remains enabled.
• The targeted headed E2E spec passes with the custom E2E config.

Out of Scope

• Closing #16498 or declaring the flagship film complete.
• Claiming historical reproduction or repair attribution to #16722.
• Appending the unrelated 1000×420 short-pane station from #16716.
• Production CSS, dock projection, tab reconciliation, or pane lifecycle changes.
• Whole-media/human film QA and the external exact-stage triplicate run.

Avoided Traps

• A 1000×420 control would rediscover the already-known #16716 short-pane defect, not attribute the exact flagship place-cycle.
• Copying config/vdom ids into every rAF record would make static expectations look like live worker observations.
• Enforcing raw child containment on transition frames would contradict the intentional overflow: clip transient contract.
• A green isolated-style control is recorded as non-attribution, never upgraded into a historical red.

Related

Parent film/composition gate: #16498
Flagship film: #15252
Disclosure/containment repair context: #16722, #16716

Origin Session ID: b93c021e-d387-4c4f-8ae5-4d7d2d007303

Retrieval Hint: query_raw_memories("#16498 exact native place-cycle resident-card composition 394 rAF historical attribution not proven")