method: nothing checks the prose a tool prints or documents beside its numbers

sylpheed-port found a harness note asserting an unestablished fact under a
load-bearing number. Swept my printed output: 38 lines assert a screen or game fact
and the assertive ones are computed in the same run, so no instance there -- though
the sweep is keyword-based and the criterion is a judgement.

The class is real on the larger surface, and I have a known instance: ring_row.py
documented its calibration as 49.5 + 1.060*design_y, wrong because it was fitted
against menu_focus.py's approximate rows rather than the disc's. It sat in the file
underpinning every focus finding and was found by accident.

Tool docstrings carry calibrations, thresholds and claims about the game, nothing
verifies any of it, and unlike a why in an authored file there is no convention
demanding a citation.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Wuu56cE8vJGTBtn1ppsk8v

docs/re/METHOD.md

@@ -3044,3 +3044,30 @@ exclusion argument, and is usually absent.
 corpus and I audited the single most load-bearing one. One verified case is not a
 verified set; the other 271 are unaudited, and most are probably fine, which is
 exactly why nobody will check them.
+
+## Nothing checks the prose a tool prints or documents beside its own numbers
+
+`sylpheed-port` found `verify-capture`'s note saying a capture was *"rendered with
+authored initial focus"* — an assumption nothing had established, sitting under
+their most-quoted residual. Their point: **an assumption in a harness note is
+invisible in a way an assumption in a `why` is not.** `audit-kinds` checks every
+authored value for a citation; nothing checks a tool's own prose.
+
+✅ **Swept my printed output and found no instance**: 38 lines assert a screen or
+game fact, and the ones that assert rather than report are computed in the same run
+(`"(nothing moves under this input that is quiet at rest)"` prints only when the
+index is empty). ⚠️ Weak sweep — keyword-matched, printed strings only, and "does
+this assert something the run does not establish" is a judgement, not a test.
+
+🔴 **But the class is real here and I have a known instance on the larger surface:
+tool DOCSTRINGS.** `ring_row.py` documented its calibration as
+`capture_y = 49.5 + 1.060 * design_y` — **wrong**, fitted against `menu_focus.py`'s
+approximate rows rather than the disc's. It sat in the file that underpins every
+focus finding, and it was found by accident while chasing something else, not by
+any check.
+
+📌 **The surface is bigger than harness notes.** These tools carry long docstrings
+full of factual claims about the game — calibrations, thresholds, what a screen
+does — and **nothing verifies any of it**. A `why` in an authored file at least has
+a convention demanding a citation. A docstring has nothing, is read as authoritative
+by the next reader, and travels with the code.