@@ -1,3 +1,13 @@
+## 2026-08-12 — lance-graph #929 (MERGED) — steering rescue dead; sign test retired as primary instrument
+
+### Current Contract Inventory — no new types (2 probes + report §5.12/§5.13 + 1 epiphany)
+
+- **CT-F16 `[G]`:** the steering-level moderator FAILED both pre-registered bars on CT-F14's own 19 storms (0.579 vs 0.70; residual +28.4 % wider; level sweep monotone toward the surface, best 850 hPa). §9.2's "single most promising fix" is superseded in place. The height ladder survives as a measurement; its operational reading died.
+- **The instrument calibration `[G]`:** a 90°-rotated control scored **0.684 = CT-F14's headline**. At n=19 the sign test separates from a wrong answer only at 14/19. **Rule: attach a deliberately-wrong referent to any rate-headline; its score is the floor.**
+- **The replacement instrument:** circular resultant (R̄, μ, Rayleigh) resolves the same rows at **p=0.0050** (sign test: 0.0835), estimates the offset (**−30.2°±36.5°**) instead of penalizing it, and makes the rotated control visible (μ shifted 100.3° at identical R̄). Post-hoc — instrument demo, NOT a promotion. **Sign-consistency numbers are no longer verdict-grade anywhere in this arc.**
+- **Faltung frame:** resultant = first circular Fourier coefficient; CT-W6 = deconvolution (components ⊛ apparatus noise); `Z_256` circular Faltung is `DistanceLut::circular()`-native.
+- **Queued, operator go-ahead pending:** **CT-W6** (dipole = neighbor far-field + bow-wave vector sum, global fit, 38 obs — the mechanistic candidate for the −30° offset and the 0.684 plateau) · CT-W2s/W5/W7 (sunflower collision facets, spiral-ADI via Fibonacci-stride pairs, Gegendruck) · CT-F17 (fresh-sample verdict) · C-register climatological calibration.
+
 ## 2026-08-12 — lance-graph #927 (MERGED) — board hygiene for #926 + the living-vs-ledger correction rule
 
 ### Current Contract Inventory — no new types (board entries + one report correction)
 
@@ -1,3 +1,15 @@
+## 2026-08-12 — lance-graph #929 (MERGED) — CT-F16 kills the steering rescue; the control scores the headline; the resultant resolves what the sign test collapsed
+
+- **Added.** `comet_tail_f16.py`/`.json` (bars committed BEFORE the run, `05f09005`), `comet_tail_resultant_instrument.py`/`.json` (deterministic bootstrap, seed pinned), report **§5.12 + §5.13**, §9.2's steering row superseded **in place**, EPIPHANIES `E-THE-CONTROL-SCORED-THE-HEADLINE-1`. All 13 headline figures in THIS entry verified against the committed JSONs before landing (13/13 exact — the #927 lesson, now standard).
+- **Locked — the leading moderator is DEAD `[G]`.** §9.2 had named the steering level *"the single most promising fix"*. Paired re-scoring of CT-F14's own 19 storms with ONLY the motion reference swapped (surface 6h displacement → 500/600/700 hPa disk-mean flow; stored centres, byte-identical `err_deg`): **F16a 0.579** vs a 0.70 bar (worse than surface's 0.684), **F16b residual 28.4 % WIDER** (68.29° → 87.71°) where ≥10 % tightening was predicted, **F16d level sweep monotone toward the SURFACE** — best 850 hPa, outside the ladder's 400–650 hPa band, no mid-tropospheric optimum. The height ladder itself (field-per-level, different quantity) is NOT falsified; its operational reading is.
+- **Locked — the control calibrated the instrument `[G]`.** F16c's deliberately **90°-rotated** reference scored **13/19 = 0.684, p=0.0835 — numerically identical to CT-F14's headline**. At n=19 the sign-test ladder is 11→0.324, 13→0.0835, 14→0.0318: **CT-F14 was never one storm short of significance; it was one storm short of distinguishability from an answer built to be wrong.** Rule banked: *an anti-vacuity control measures the RESOLVING POWER of the instrument, not only the test it guards* — attach a deliberately-wrong referent to any rate-headline and read the control's score as the floor.
+- **Locked — the 0.684 plateau was the STATISTIC, not the data `[G]`.** Operator: *"die irrationale Aufsummierung hilft, dass der Dipol nicht auf 0.68 kollabiert."* Measured on the SAME 19 rows, no fetch: circular resultant **R̄=0.516, μ=−30.2°±36.5°, Rayleigh p=0.0050** where the sign test gave NO-VERDICT (p=0.0835). The rotated control — conflated at 0.684=0.684 by the sign test — shows identical R̄ with **μ shifted 100.3°**: the wrong referent is VISIBLE. Permuted control collapses to R̄=0.142, under the uniform floor 0.203. Mechanism: binarization discards magnitude AND mean direction; the vector sum keeps both, so the arc's systematic offset is now ESTIMATED (−30.2°) instead of penalized. A one-sided sign test on a distribution not centred at zero reports which SIDE the bias falls on — this arc used it as the primary instrument since §4; every prior sign number (2/2, 6/10, 8/10, 13/19) is bounded by §5.13 in BOTH directions.
+- **The Faltung frame (operator, same exchange).** The resultant IS the first circular Fourier coefficient (Faltung with `e^{iθ}`); the queued CT-W6 fit is a DEconvolution (component mix ⊛ apparatus noise, ±3–7° from CT-F4); on `Z_256` circular Faltung is substrate-native (`DistanceLut::circular()`'s domain).
+- **⊘ Scope, held.** §5.13's p=0.0050 is **post-hoc on the same sample — an instrument demonstration, NOT a promotion** of the directional claim; the report says so in three places. Sign-test conflation second finding: weak flow (<10 m/s, n=6) sign 0.833 / median |err| 103°; strong (≥10, n=13) sign 0.462 / |err| 55°; corr(speed,|err|)=−0.407 — magnitude improves with steering as physics expects while sign moves opposite.
+- **Deferred / queued.** **CT-W6** — two-component vector deconvolution of the dipole (neighbor far-field + bow-wave `½ρv_rel²`, GLOBAL coefficients over 38 observations, circular metrics, F16c-standard controls) — the candidate mechanism for the −30° offset AND the plateau (a vector sum cannot be scored against one bearing). CT-W1 folds in as the `c_geo` component. CT-W2s/W5/W7 (sunflower collision nodes with the 2-rail-address + 8-DOF facet carve, spiral-ADI aligned/orthogonal Fibonacci strides, Gegendruck), **CT-F17** (fresh-sample verdict). None run.
+
+**Confidence (2026-08-12):** merged. F16's failure verdicts are `[G]` (pre-registered, paired). The resultant numbers are `[G]` as measurements, `[S]` as evidence for the directional claim (post-hoc). The steering ladder survives as an n=2 observation. Structural claim (§9.1) untouched throughout.
+
 ## 2026-08-12 — lance-graph #927 (MERGED) — #926's board hygiene, one rounding caught by self-verification, and the rule I broke while citing it
 
 - **Added.** `PR_ARC_INVENTORY` + `LATEST_STATE` entries for the merged #926. One correction to `COMET_TAIL_REPORT.md` §6.1. **This entry exists because #927 was MIXED, not hygiene-only** — it landed hygiene *and* a correction, and the rule's termination clause exempts only the pure case. #927's own PR description called itself "hygiene-only"; that was written before the correction landed and was wrong by the time it merged.