canon: refit Search-Corpus Boundary as observability sub-epoch (E0008.5)

[klappy]

Summary

Framing-only refit of canon/constraints/core-governance-baseline.md §"Search-Corpus Boundary." Substance unchanged from #155 (0.36.0). Repositions E0008.5 as the search-corpus expression of E0008's observability posture rather than as a stand-alone scoping feature. No tool-facing surface changes; no parameter, default, or behavior is altered.

The proposition this codifies

Observability requires discoverable and reliable document retrieval. When your knowledge is buried under other results and mixed with other KBs, that is an observability problem.

E0008 made oddkit observable from the inside — every subrequest traced, every cache decision recorded, every envelope carrying its own time. E0008.5 extends that posture outward to the search corpus. A project's own canon buried under hundreds of unrelated baseline documents is operationally indistinguishable from that canon being missing — both produce the same agent-seat outcome: the right answer is not on the screen.

That framing makes the design choice automatic. The default has to be the configuration where the project's own canon shows up first when its own canon is the right answer.

What changed

• Section heading: "Scoped Retrieval When knowledge_base_url Is Set" → "Project-KB Visibility Is an Observability Property"
• Lead paragraph: rewritten to thread the section into E0008's lineage and to name the failure shape (buried = unobservable from the agent's seat) explicitly
• §"Why Scoping Defaults to On" → §"Why Scoping Defaults to On — Buried Is Indistinguishable from Absent"; opens with the observability proposition, then the existing measurement
• §"Telemetry" → §"Telemetry — The Property Has to Be Checkable from Outside"; connected to the existing §"Fail-Loud Error Envelope" pattern as the same posture applied to ranking provenance
• CHANGELOG: 0.36.1 (patch — framing refit; substance unchanged from 0.36.0)

What is NOT changed

• The technical contract: default scope (overlay + required-baseline), opt-in flag (include_full_baseline: true), affected-tools table, cache-key rule, telemetry field names
• Required-baseline manifest (still the same six files)
• Runtime/Build-Time Invariants
• Any code in klappy/oddkit (PR canon-quality.yml: enforcement gate uses STATUS != "OK" which would block on PARTIAL_INDEX in hard mode #153, currently in flight, cites canon at canon: Search-Corpus Boundary in core-governance-baseline (E0008.5) #155 and remains correct against this refit)

Why patch and not minor

The contract didn't change; only the framing of why it stands did. Minor would mis-signal a behavior change to consumers tracking the version. governance-change-discipline.md reserves minor for substantive contract additions.

Linked

• canon: Search-Corpus Boundary in core-governance-baseline (E0008.5) #155 — original canon section (merged 2026-04-29)
• feat(kb-scope): default-scope search corpus to overlay + required-baseline (E0008.5) oddkit#153 — code-side implementation (in flight; RV-gate progressing)

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Note

Low Risk
Documentation-only framing changes; no tool contracts, defaults, parameters, or runtime behavior are altered. Risk is limited to potential reader confusion if downstream docs reference the old section headings.

Overview
Updates the canon narrative around E0008.5 Search-Corpus Boundary to explicitly frame project KB scoping as part of E0008’s observability posture (discoverable/reliable retrieval), without changing the underlying technical contract.

Bumps the canon pack changelog to 0.36.1 and rewrites/renames the relevant section in canon/constraints/core-governance-baseline.md (new headings for the section, default-scoping rationale, and telemetry framing), while keeping scope defaults, include_full_baseline, cache key, affected-tools table, and telemetry field names the same.

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[github-actions]

Canon Quality — oddkit_audit ✅

No dead klappy:// references or legacy link patterns found in writings/. 39 files scanned.

_{Spec: klappy://docs/oddkit/specs/oddkit-audit · Workflow: .github/workflows/canon-quality.yml · Run: #13}