#000046 closed — verify_quotes paraphrase numeric-agreement gate (Phase 3)

Closes the harder-fixture-tier ticket: a real verify_quotes
tightening lifts the falsification-hard rate 4/12 → 6/12, bench-gated,
ForkScore's bench-Δ goes positive on it — the loop is closed
end-to-end.

arborist/qa/verify.py: _numeric_signature(text) extracts comma-
stripped digit-runs ('8,849' and '8849' collapse; '300' stays
distinct from '300000' ← '300,000'). _check_each_with_paraphrase
gains a gate: a span that token-covers the source ≥ paraphrase_coverage
but asserts a digit-number the source lacks (modulo thousands-comma)
is no longer paraphrase-grounded — it goes to unverified. Catches the
near-miss the lexical coverage check is blind to ("Water boils at 50
degrees" against a source saying 100 token-covers 100% because
'50'/'100' aren't >4-char content tokens). Narrow by construction:
fires only on the paraphrase fallback (verbatim/span/entity/claim-
lattice paths untouched), only on a digit-number. A rounding-
paraphrase demoting here is the honest verdict — it isn't a verbatim
grounding.

Hard pack: lifts 5f-fal-hard-004 (50 vs 100) and -007 (300 vs
300,000) to UNGROUNDED → falsification-hard rate 4/12 → 6/12 = 0.5.
The other 6 over-grounds (4 HYBRID_ENTITY + 2 recombined-no-number
STRICT_PARAPHRASE) and the Formulate hard pack are unaffected —
headroom for a bigger order/dependency-aware verifier upgrade, an
optional follow-up, not a #000046 blocker.

Bench gate: make bench-qa (n=3 × 75 questions × 3 modes = 675 cells)
before / after. STRICT-rate quote 0.53→0.50, pointer 0.23→0.25,
lattice 0.44→0.45 — all within the 5-pp noise floor. Per-row diff
(675 common cells, 74 changed audit_mode): the only clearly
gate-attributable QA shift was the fictional "our cold fusion
breakthrough" year-claim demoting STRICT→HYBRID (×3 samples) — a
correct demotion; every other transition was quote→quote /
claim_lattice→claim_lattice LLM re-answer variance. No regression on
legit answers. Artifacts: bench/qa_results/2026-05-11T13-42-38Z (before)
and ...T14-19-51Z (after) — gitignored; summarized in qa-modes-bench.md
Addendum 5 + ticket-000046 §5 Phase 3.

Worked example: fork_score on the real change — parent {5f/
falsification: 4/12} → child {5f/falsification: 6/12} → γ·Δ5f =
(1/6)/5 ≈ +0.033 > 0 (positive; a single improvement of this size is
MARGINAL by the ÷5 dilution, the test pins the full-lift-to-1.0 case
at ACCEPT).

Tests: 5 new in tests/test_verify.py (numeric_signature normalization
+ subset-matches-comma-variant + disagreement-rejected +
gate-is-narrow + number-present-still-verifies);
test_5f_falsification_hard_pack_below_ceiling re-pinned 4/12 → 6/12.
make test 2339 passed, 28 skipped.

#000046 → closed; #000012 §8 §4 + TICKETS.md row + falsification-hard
_meta / hard-004,007 notes + Makefile 8/12→6/12 comments updated.

(Makefile also carries an uncommitted chain-check-SQL improvement from
the concurrent session — NOT in this commit; staged only the
#000046-comment hunks.)

docs/TICKETS.md

@@ -93,7 +93,7 @@ Newest first. Update on every open/close.
 | ID       | Title                                          | Status                | Opened     | Directive |
 |----------|------------------------------------------------|-----------------------|------------|-----------|
 | #000047  | ForkScore `_delta_*` aggregator (mean vs max vs sum) | **closed · 2026-05-11** — Option D: `WeightSet.delta_aggregator` ∈ {`mean`,`max`,`sum`} (default `mean` unchanged → no `ESTIMATOR_VERSION` bump), `fork_score._delta_5{s,t,f}` dispatch via `_aggregate`, recorded in `ScoredFork.weights`, per-sub `HARD_REGRESSION_FLOOR` flags aggregator-independent; bench data behind keeping `mean` in `5f-threshold-calibration-2026-05-11.md` §5; 8+1 tests. #000012-revision / #000025 §10.14 follow-up | 2026-05-11 | —         |
-| #000046  | Harder 5S/5T/5F fixture tier (below-ceiling baselines) | in progress · **Phase 1 + Phase 2 landed 2026-05-11** — `falsification-hard-v1.jsonl` (12 near-misses, `verify_quotes` over-grounds 8 → rate 4/12; `make bench-5f-falsification-hard` / `bench-fork-baseline-hard`, worked-example test `fork_score` γ·Δ5f → positive) + `formulate-hard-v1.jsonl` (12 mis-segment inputs, `parse_pointer_claims` mis-segments 8 → rate 4/12; `make bench-5f-formulate-hard`). Two below-ceiling 5F subs now exist. Closure pending an actual surface improvement (`verify_quotes` tightening — bench-gated — or `parse_pointer_claims` segmentation) that lifts a rate. #000025 §10.14 follow-up; #000047 closed | 2026-05-11 | —         |
+| #000046  | Harder 5S/5T/5F fixture tier (below-ceiling baselines) | **closed · 2026-05-11** — Phase 1 `falsification-hard-v1.jsonl` (12 near-misses) + Phase 2 `formulate-hard-v1.jsonl` (12 mis-segments, rate 4/12) + Phase 3 `verify_quotes` paraphrase numeric-agreement gate (`_numeric_signature`; demotes a token-covering span asserting a digit-number the source lacks modulo thousands-comma) → falsification-hard rate 4/12 → 6/12 on a real change; bench-gated (`make bench-qa` n=3×75×3 before/after — no STRICT-rate regression on legit answers; only gate-caused QA shift was correctly demoting a fictional-year claim STRICT→HYBRID); `fork_score` γ·Δ5f went positive on it. Headroom (6 over-grounds + 8 mis-segments) = optional bigger-verifier-upgrade follow-up. `make bench-5f-falsification-hard` / `bench-5f-formulate-hard` / `bench-fork-baseline-hard`; 7+ tests. #000025 §10.14 follow-up; #000047 closed | 2026-05-11 | —         |
 | #000045  | Prometheus-Σ Phase 3 sleep-sweep scheduler (gating ticket) | open · doc-only scaffold 2026-05-10; pins 8 governance parameters + 4 retrigger gates; opens implementation only after one retrigger fires | 2026-05-10 | —         |
 | #000044  | AUTOCOUNT doc-drift discipline | closed · landed across `fc5ba50` / `03c0f6a` / `6c6defb` / `f5dbfab` / `3b30126` 2026-05-10 (mechanism + 4 metrics + 54 tags across 7 doc files; harness catches drift at test time, refresh is 60-second turnaround) | 2026-05-10 | —         |
 | #000043  | Empirical tightening of T3 bound constants (#000036 Phase 2) | open · awaiting go/no-go (parks until v7 deployment surfaces measurement data) | 2026-05-10 | —         |