git:20260801.f22342b to git:20260802.84e719c

+ **One shape, one constant, and `src/data/` when it has several readers.** A token, a delimiter, a marker: written once, never retyped, and regexes compose from it. When more than one module must AGREE on the value, it goes in `src/data/` by domain (`markup.ts` for the shapes, `marks.ts` for the reserved control codes, `language.ts` for the words a template author types) and everything imports from there, tests included. Three modules picking their own code is how two of them pick the same one.

+ A WORD is a constant too, and the ones the product is named on are the first: `view` sits at the root of `markup.ts` and the fence, the decorator token, the file extension, the directory and the env vars all derive from it. Every `@directive` sits in `language.ts` and every matcher composes from there. Renaming either is a major version, and it should cost one edit, never a sweep.

+ The test is HOW MANY MODULES MUST AGREE, never data-versus-logic. A value one module reads stays with the code that reads it, however table-shaped it looks: the palette sits in `style.ts` beside `resolveTag`, which is the only thing on earth that reads it, and keeping it unexported is what stops any module growing its own opinion about a colour. `src/data/` holds FORMS several readers share, never meanings.

+ Split a module by CONCEPT when it grows, never by the nature of its values. Splitting by nature separates exactly what changes together.

+ A module becomes a DIRECTORY the day it gains that second concept, never because of the storey it occupies: `style.ts` and `pipeline.ts` are the two ends of the chain and stay single files. A directory holding one file names a split nobody has designed yet, and the file inside it still has to be called something, where `index.ts` already means the package's public entry. Waiting costs nothing, because `exports` publishes `src/index.ts` alone and every import names its file under `nodenext`: the move is a rename the typecheck proves complete, never a search for the sites it missed.

+ **No magic number, no bare literal.** Anything a reader would have to decode gets a name: widths, offsets, escape sequences, sentinels, thresholds. **Tests included**, and first of all there, since a test is read to learn what the code is supposed to do. `expect(out).toContain("\x1b[1;97m")` says nothing; `seq("box_title")` says everything.

+ Prefer DERIVING over naming a copy: ask the module that owns the value (`renderTags(tagMark("fail"))`) rather than declaring a second constant that is free to drift from it. Name a copy only for a value the owner deliberately does not expose.

+ **Every module answers for itself.** `foo.ts` is tested by `foo.test.ts` beside it, or it says IN WRITING why it is not, in the exclusion table of `scripts/check-sidecars.mjs`, which gates it. A reason there is a decision; anything reading "not yet" belongs in the suite instead. The gate bites both ways, or the table rots into a list of excuses: an entry naming a module that has since gained a test, or that no longer exists, fails too.

+ Coverage counts lines a suite happened to execute, which a test driving the whole engine from the front door satisfies without pinning one module's edge. A sidecar is where that module's OWN contract is written, so the day it changes the failure lands on it and not three layers away. Tests typecheck like the rest: a fixture that no longer matches the shape it drives proves nothing.

+ Three kinds, and only the first is a sidecar. A suite answering for a PATH rather than a module lives in `tests/`, exempt by location so there is no allowlist to keep in step. End to end is `scripts/verify-pack.mjs` alone: it packs, installs and spawns the real binary, and nothing else here crosses a process.

+ A near-miss deserves a case as much as a hit. Every matcher in this engine is built so a malformed line falls through to the BODY, where an author sees it printed: a test that only ever feeds it valid input cannot tell that apart from a matcher that swallows.

+ **Only a template writes presentation.** A `{{tag}}` resolves at the end of a view's render (`template/render.ts`) and in the host's `strict.failedLine`, nowhere else. Text able to open a colour is able to close one the render meant to keep, and to paint a line in a tone that contradicts what the line says.

+ Two seams enforce it. The pipeline runs no tag pass, so a tag in the model's prose is text. And message text is neutralised (`inert`, `style.ts`) where it becomes a scope value: `render.ts` for a block, `cell()` for a decorated table. Neutralise first, style second, or a carrier's own emphasis dies with the model's markup.

+ **Comments only where the code cannot speak.** A why, a trap, a non-obvious decision. Short. No paraphrase of the line below.