docs(design): case-as-workspace — the type fix, the orbit fix, and the identity question

[bryanmatthewsimonson]

Answers "think this through with all of the implications and write a prompt that can be merged to main that I can pass to the next Claude Code session."

This is a design draft. NOT approved. §6 is the list of things only you can settle. §7 is a self-contained "start here" brief for a fresh session. Merging it commits you to nothing.

The proposal splits in two, and the halves have very different prices

The workspace half is mostly already built. entity-field-schemas.js:66-71 gives case four fields, all provenance: 'authored' — the only type in the registry with zero sourced fields. That is the project reading, shipped. All of Phase 20 assumes it. Only two things are stale: the type comment at entity-model.js:46-49 ("a real-world story under assessment") and llm-prompts.js:383, which literally asks the model for "cases named in the text" and then interpolates ENTITY_TYPES with no definition of any type. The model is obeying the prompt — that is why it proposed Proximal Origin and the litigation as cases.

The identity half is forbidden in part, and buys no segregation. publishOwnedKeysManifest (reader/index.js:5039-5054) already publishes one primary-signed kind-30069 listing every owned entity pubkey, with no case scoping and a fixed d. Bricks & Minifigs and COVID case keys would appear side by side in a single event signed by the same primary — segregation on the wire is zero, and worse than the status quo, because today the linkage is only inferable from behavior. It also collides with the custody rule (TEAM_CASE_DESIGN.md:104-110), orphans 30054/30055/30063/30064 at forked coordinates, and is structurally impossible for NIP-07 users.

The presenting complaint has a much smaller cause

Membership is defined twice and the two disagree:

Definition	Where	Rule
memberUrlSets	case-membership.js:34-60	tag OR claim (Phase-20.1 union)
collectCaseEntityIds	case-bundle.js:34-49	claim only

You built the COVID workspace entirely by tagging — 49 member articles, 0 claims about the case. Measured:

"What is the origin of Covid?"
   SHIPPED collectCaseEntityIds  →   1 entity  (the case itself)
   UNION (tag-inclusive)         → 265 entities

The articles and the graph work; the entity orbit is what is empty. The flat list of all 283 in the side panel (sidepanel/index.js:107, no case filter) is "the entities list will keep growing and growing."

Corrections to figures in circulation

• "252 entities / 796 claims" is stale — the real figures are 283 and 980. Every number in §1/§4 was re-measured from the backup for this draft.
• The three "paper" cases are all tagged on one article; their orbits are that article's entities, three times.
• "The pending litigation connected to the matter" is not a COVID lawsuit — it is tagged exclusively on the Bricks & Minifigs post.
• suggested_by separates project from subject with 100% accuracy on this data: every user-made case is a project, every LLM-made case is a subject.

Pre-deadline set: CW.1–CW.5 — five PRs, zero wire changes, zero migrations

#	Slice	Value
CW.1	Prompt + type guard — define every type, kill "cases named in the text"	~40 lines. Stops the bleeding.
CW.2	Retype your four by hand (update, never delete-and-recreate)	Minutes. Not code.
CW.3	Orbit union — collectCaseEntityIds tag-inclusive	COVID case: 1 → 265. Highest value per line here.
CW.4	restoreDerivedKeys guard when derivation root ≠ active primary	Live footgun with two profiles installed.
CW.5	Custody guard test — case key signs nothing but kind-0 and 32125	Owed regardless of how Q3/Q4 resolve.

CW.10 (per-case identity binding) is blocked on §6 Q3/Q4. The case entity's key signing captured content is recommended never.

§6 needs your call

Q1 does case mean workspace, full stop (rec: yes — and it retires "Bricks & Minifigs scandal" as the canonical example) · Q2 should the bundle widen with the orbit (rec: no, separate PR — it exports private keys) · Q3 per-case profiles: enforce or leave prescribed (rec: prescribed; the measured evidence says identity was never the problem — your two projects share 0 entities and 0 URLs) · Q4 amend the custody rule (rec: no) · Q5 partition vs dedupe (rec: dedupe first — your duplication is intra-case name drift, which partitioning multiplies) · Q6 should generateEntityId stop hashing the type · Q7 should xray-portal join WORKSPACE_DATABASES

Phase number unclaimed — 28 is the next free slot; confirm before claiming.

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