docs: audit real-paper Electron journey

[dkritarth]

Closes #26

User outcome

Vellum now has evidence-backed current truth for the real Electron journey at a21d596: the unmodified app fails before ingest, and every reachable result or blocked downstream step is recorded without claiming unit tests as product proof.

Scope

• Records isolated live Electron evidence, screenshots, console excerpts, accessibility observations, and a complete result matrix.
• Records the planned real paper and expected metadata from the official arXiv source.
• Documents the one-off isolated Electron-control method and its security limits.
• Links focused defects [S0-AUDIT] Electron dev boot cannot load preload bridge #51, [S0-AUDIT] Bundled better-sqlite3 cannot load native binding in Electron #52, and [S0-AUDIT] Create control cannot start paper ingest #53.

Non-goals: this PR fixes no product defect, changes no runtime code, and does not claim reader, Ask, or persistence behavior works.

Acceptance criteria

• Test paper and expected metadata are recorded.
• Every core step has a pass/fail result and root blocker evidence; unreachable steps are explicitly Fail — blocked.
• Codex Ask response is checked against actual paper text for grounding. Blocked by [S0-AUDIT] Bundled better-sqlite3 cannot load native binding in Electron #52 and [S0-AUDIT] Create control cannot start paper ingest #53.
• Empty, loading, error, and restart states are exercised. Empty, error, and restart were exercised; loading was not captured before [S0-AUDIT] Bundled better-sqlite3 cannot load native binding in Electron #52.
• Every observed reproducible failure has its own linked issue with reproduction steps: [S0-AUDIT] Electron dev boot cannot load preload bridge #51, [S0-AUDIT] Bundled better-sqlite3 cannot load native binding in Electron #52, [S0-AUDIT] Create control cannot start paper ingest #53.
• No defect was fixed inside this audit; bypasses existed only in a disposable detached worktree.

Automated verification

• Reproducible baselines recorded before any temporary audit bypass.
• Focused test: npx vitest run core/acp/stdio-client.test.ts — 18/18 passed.
• npm test — final run 147/147 across 24 files. Initial run was 146/147 due one ACP disposal timing failure; focused and full reruns passed.
• npm run typecheck — passed.
• npm run build — passed and reproduced [S0-AUDIT] Electron dev boot cannot load preload bridge #51 by emitting out/preload/preload.mjs while main expects index.js.
• git diff --check master...HEAD — passed.

Existing jsdom canvas-not-implemented stderr remains test noise and is not treated as live PDF proof.

Live Electron verification

1. Created detached worktree at exact a21d596; confirmed isolated data/ absent and normal checkout data untouched.
2. Launched unmodified Electron production/dev output; observed bridge: … and missing-preload console errors ([S0-AUDIT] Electron dev boot cannot load preload bridge #51).
3. Used a detached-worktree-only preload-path bypass to expose the shell; observed bridge: pong and valid empty reader.
4. Clicked Create through the real renderer; visible and accessibility text remained unchanged ([S0-AUDIT] Create control cannot start paper ingest #53).
5. Clicked Library; observed blank renderer/undefined bridge without bypass and Could not load your library. plus native-binding error with preload bypass ([S0-AUDIT] Electron dev boot cannot load preload bridge #51/[S0-AUDIT] Bundled better-sqlite3 cannot load native binding in Electron #52).
6. Restarted isolated Electron repeatedly; boot and DB failures reproduced. No paper/chat state could be created.

Exact action transcript: docs/verification/issue-26/interaction-journal.json.

Visual and console evidence

• docs/verification/issue-26/01-preload-failure.png — unmodified app, bridge: ….
• docs/verification/issue-26/02-empty-state.png — empty reader after preload-only bypass, bridge: pong.
• docs/verification/issue-26/main-console.txt — preload and native-binding errors.
• docs/verification/issue-26/controller-console.txt — semantic Create click completed with createChanged: false.
• docs/verification/issue-26/last-renderer-console.json — captured post-load renderer window had no page errors after bypass.

Real-paper / ACP evidence

Planned paper: arXiv 1706.03762v7, Attention Is All You Need. Title, authors, version, length, and factual grounding targets are sourced from the official arXiv record in the audit report.

The paper was not ingested. Signed-in Codex Ask was not reached. Prior issue #25's ACP smoke is not substituted for paper-grounded Electron evidence.

Limitations and follow-ups

• [S0-AUDIT] Electron dev boot cannot load preload bridge #51: emitted preload filename does not match runtime path.
• [S0-AUDIT] Bundled better-sqlite3 cannot load native binding in Electron #52: bundled better-sqlite3 resolves a nonexistent native-addon path.
• [S0-AUDIT] Create control cannot start paper ingest #53: Create control is a no-op and exposes no ingest input.
• Loading state, reader navigation/search/zoom/TOC, Details/summary, model selection, Codex grounding, new chat, and persistence remain unverified because these boot-critical defects block them.
• macOS Accessibility permission was unavailable. Playwright drove the real Electron renderer; native OS dialogs were not tested.

PR remains draft while the two unchecked acceptance criteria remain unmet.

Independent review

• Independent Terra verifier repeated the clean isolated build and live renderer procedure.
• Reviewer confirmed [S0-AUDIT] Electron dev boot cannot load preload bridge #51 and [S0-AUDIT] Create control cannot start paper ingest #53 live, confirmed [S0-AUDIT] Bundled better-sqlite3 cannot load native binding in Electron #52's generated-bundle root path statically, and agreed downstream paths are blocked.
• Reviewer found the Library blank-renderer TypeError as a [S0-AUDIT] Electron dev boot cannot load preload bridge #51 manifestation; audit evidence was updated.
• Standards and specification reviews were run separately; evidence-link and cleanup findings were resolved.
• Linked issue [S0-02] Audit complete real-paper Electron journey and record every failure #26 has status:in-progress, never status:blocked.