[os-try-charles]

Fixes #17453

What this changes

Three knownGap texts in docs/qa/platform-checklist/areas/approvals.json cited
packages/plugins/plugin-auth/src/backfill-account-issuer.ts, CREDENTIAL_ISSUER. That module
retired with sys_account.issuer when better-auth 1.7.3 rolled the issuer-scoped account identity
back (#17440, closed 2026-09-12), so the citation names a file that is not on the tree and a reader
who follows it cannot tell whether the gap is closed or the citation merely rotted.

The file's convention is explicit — the gap text stays because it carries the reason — so this is
not a path substitution, and there is nothing to substitute anyway:

• backfill-account-issuer.ts is gone. Positive control: ls packages/plugins/plugin-auth/src/
  lists 176 files, so the empty grep backfill is a reading, not a broken instrument.
• CREDENTIAL_ISSUER survives only as history — as a retired symbol named in
  packages/spec/src/migrations/entries/semantic/18.sys-account-issuer-retired.ts (and its copy in
  the generated packages/spec/src/migrations/registry.ts), and as the deliberately renamed test
  constant LEGACY_CREDENTIAL_ISSUER in packages/plugins/plugin-auth/src/account-issuer-upgrade-path.test.ts.
  There is no live symbol to re-point the three citations at.

So each text keeps the reason it exists to carry — a password hash alone was not enough; the failure
was a silent lockout whose User not found warn pointed at the sys_user row rather than at the
account — and now records that the trap retired with the column, anchored on the retirement's
own migration entry, which is a durable record rather than a module that can be deleted.

The clauses the retirement also falsified

The card's second claim measured true, and this pass fixes it in the same edit. The governing text
is the repo's own, in examples/app-showcase/src/security/seed-approval-demo.ts:

1.7.3 rolled that model back and sys_account.issuer retired with it, so the derivation, its
failure branch and the whole class of silent lockout behind it are gone. (provider_id, account_id)
is the key, and internalAdapter.createAccount supplies both.

Withdrawn accordingly:

text	falsified clause	now reads
approvals.per-group-signoff	"the issuer READ OFF the dev admin's own credential row rather than re-spelled"	the seed provisions the account through better-auth's own $context; there is no issuer to read
approvals.viewer-gating-submitter-side	"derives that issuer from the dev admin's own credential row and stamps it"; "pins both the issuer and the sign-in"	nothing is derived or stamped; the dogfood test pins the account under the key sign-in resolves on and asserts nothing still writes the retired field
approvals.ooo-delegation-reroute	"(issuer derived from the dev admin's own row)"	delegate B is constructible with nothing about her issuer to get right

Each of the three items bumps revision and appends a history entry, per the checklist's
change lifecycle (docs/qa/platform-checklist/README.md).

One bounded in-place fix, declared

approvals.ooo-delegation-reroute's steps carried the same dead requirement one field below the
gap text it points at: "provision B as a real login (see knownGaps: the credential account's issuer
must be local:credential)". Left alone it would have contradicted the rewritten knownGap three
lines above it and still sent a runner looking for a column that no longer exists — a replayed
instruction, not prose. It is corrected to "a stock boot already does it, see knownGaps".

It is declared here because it sits outside the three texts the dispatch named, and it is inside
every other boundary: same file (the declared file surface), same defect class, mechanical, no new
verification surface, and no other claim holds this file.

Measurements

Base origin/main @ 24d622b94; gates re-run on the final commit.

The three citations were at :23, :259, :662 — no drift from the card.

node scripts/pm/dispatch-gates.mjs --commands prescribes 12 commands for this surface. All 12 are
green (EXIT=0), including pnpm check:platform-checklist. Two needed prerequisites first
(pnpm install in the fresh worktree; turbo run build --filter=@objectstack/formula --filter=@objectstack/lint for check:doc-formula-expressions) — their first exit 3 was
PREREQUISITE NOT MET, not a finding.

The zero-headroom surface did not move. Census line before and after the edit are identical:

check-platform-checklist: OK — 15 areas, 264 items (264 active, 0 planned); coverage: 38 kinds mapped,
1 waived; traps: 19 documented, 19 in use; provisioning: 5 area recipes, 8 item references resolved
(1 area-qualified), 5/5 recipes referenced; meta-URL spelling: 19 `call` strings scanned against 34
folded spellings; line citations: 0 survive across 20 swept documents; symbol anchors: 600/633 resolved
by `symbol-anchors.mjs` across 20 swept documents against 310 cited sources, 33 on the named #16898
residual, 17 file floors held

That is the expected reading rather than luck: the three citations were bare paths, not
path#symbol anchors, so they were never in the anchor population the floors count — and the new
anchor is written bare and without a line number, which also keeps the file:line limb at 0.
No floor and no baseline JSON was touched.

Acceptance notes

• docs/qa/platform-checklist/areas/approvals.json history entries at revisions 4 and 5 of the three
  items still narrate the issuer trap in the past tense ("issuer derived from the dev admin's own
  row"). They are left alone on purpose: history is the append-only record of what the item said
  when a run was pinned against it, and rewriting it would destroy the thing that makes old run
  records interpretable.
• scripts/check-platform-checklist.mjs carries a bad-citation ledger row for this file
  (seed-approval-demo.ts#AUDITOR_DEMO_USER, shape: import-only). It is a different citation from
  the three changed here and is untouched; noted, not filed.

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