[finding] 38 watch hints name real files the gates read but miss the corpus by their file EXTENSION — every card touching those files is under-named #12781

Filed unassigned, recording only. Measured 2026-08-27 on origin/main @ 1246b4cf2 while implementing #12299 (the residue-side repair, ruling B of #12371).

The gap

hintCovers compares WHOLE SEGMENTS. An ESM/TypeScript relative import spells its target without the extension. So after #12371's producer fix resolves a module-relative literal against its writing script, the hint is correct and still reaches nothing:

hint  packages/spec/scripts/lib/dist-freshness      <- what the gate imports
tree  packages/spec/scripts/lib/dist-freshness.ts   <- what the gate reads

Measured over the live fleet (176 families, 829 distinct hints, 385 inert, 7125 tracked files): 38 distinct inert hints name a real tracked file once a file extension is appended. All 38 resolve through .ts.

The cost is in the MATCHED column, and it is a MISSING lead, not a fabricated one: a card editing packages/spec/scripts/lib/dist-freshness.ts is never told that check:api-surface, check:dual-source-exports, check:exported-any and check:entry-nameability all read it. Nine families are unreachable entirely for this reason — their whole declared population is extensionless specifiers.

Sample of the 38 (full list reproducible with the census in #12299's PR):

packages/spec/scripts/lib/dist-freshness        packages/spec/src/kernel/protocol-version
packages/spec/scripts/lib/sharded-artifacts     packages/spec/src/migrations/registry
packages/spec/scripts/lib/strictness-ledger     packages/spec/src/conversions/registry
packages/spec/scripts/lib/export-origins-layout packages/spec/src/ui/react-blocks

Why #12299 did not take it

#12299's declared surface is the residue printer. It teaches unreachableReason to name the real file and stops unreachableClass filing these as "the layout moved", so the rows stop lying — but it moves no verdict, and hintCovers is untouched. Teaching the covering rule to follow a dropped extension is a fleet-wide MATCHED-column widening, which under firstPartyImportTargets' docblock owes its own pair-count measurement before it lands. That is this card.

What a card here would owe

• The pair count, both directions, driven through hintCovers and nothing else.
• A decision on WHERE the extension is followed: at extraction (the hint becomes the resolved file path) or at comparison (hintCovers tries the extensions). These are not equivalent — the first changes the printed hint, the second does not.
• The extension list is a narrowing with a measured price already recorded in extractWatchHints strips a module-relative literal's own depth, so unreachableReason prints false "never was a repo path" rows for files the gates really read — residue-side repair, shape pending the #12371 ruling #12299: over the same corpus a rule accepting ANY suffix in the same directory selects the same 38 hints but names a .test.ts sibling for 4 of them (protocol-version, metadata-type-schemas, react-blocks, manifest-collection-spelling). Whichever site follows the extension inherits that trap.

Dedup

Searched the open domain:devx board (99 issues, listed and grepped locally; the /search/issues endpoint is not reachable from this seat). The neighbours are #12470 (a SINGLE-SEGMENT module-relative literal contributes no hint at all — a different predicate: there no hint is produced, here the hint is produced and misses by the extension) and #12514 (which describes these same nine families as a LAYOUT MOVE; see the correction posted there). Nothing open covers this class.

Refs: #12371 (producer fix A) · #12299 (residue repair B) · #12470 (the adjacent single-segment class)

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