diff --git a/docs/claim-verification.md b/docs/claim-verification.md
index a4b7fa1..74279d5 100644
--- a/docs/claim-verification.md
+++ b/docs/claim-verification.md
@@ -83,16 +83,20 @@ The duplicated-figure shape needs a **repo-side grep**, not a review agent — a
 or axis gives no shard sight of all the sites. Frame it as *new code must not add hits*, existing
 count as an acknowledged baseline (the *reframe* disposition).
 
-**Length is the commoner defect.** In that corpus one generation wrote ~45% more comment lines per
-block and ~47% more blocks per commit at an unchanged A/B/C/D distribution — same content, longer.
-Compressing it loses nothing, and is safer than any rule that deletes a category of content.
+**Volume is the commoner defect, and the first pass over-stated it.** That pass reported ~45% more
+comment lines per block and ~47% more blocks per commit at an unchanged A/B/C/D distribution (#35).
+Neither figure survived re-measurement: the per-commit count is the raw cross-cohort count this
+section ends by retracting, and the per-block excess came down to +32%. What holds is below.
+Compressing is still the safe remedy — it cannot delete a category of content the way moving a block
+can.
 
 **The rewrite-once instruction the rule carries is a hypothesis, not a settled mechanism.** A
 structural instruction is the only thing observed to shorten a draft (25%, against 14% for "compress
 this"), but it worked as a *live* instruction, while the always-loaded rule sat in the same context
 and did not fire — three verbose drafts were written under it. So ship it and re-measure with
-`scripts/comment-density.py`: blocks per commit should fall toward the concise cohort's 16, on that
-tool's counting rule. The other half of the measure — an unchanged A/B/C/D distribution — the tool
+`scripts/comment-density.py`: blocks per 100 added code lines should fall toward the concise
+cohort's 16.0, on that tool's counting rule and over a pinned range. Do not read the raw per-commit
+count — see below. The other half of the measure — an unchanged A/B/C/D distribution — the tool
 cannot see, so it still needs a hand pass. If neither moves, the mechanism belongs at review time
 and the always-loaded lines come back out.
 
@@ -105,15 +109,35 @@ lines**, and a ≥12-line trigger fires on 7.8% of concise blocks against 11.4%
 gate at any of those rates teaches its reader to ignore it, so the tool ships as cohort measurement
 only.
 
-What separates the cohorts is **count, not length**: 16 → 26 blocks per commit (+63%) against 4.3 →
-5.9 lines per block (+37%), over a shared median. The verbose generation writes more comments rather
-than much longer ones, so a length-keyed mechanism aims at the smaller half of its own defect —
-hence the rule leading with the count. Fable 5 sits below both cohorts (3.4 lines per block, 32.1%
-comment share): the axis is the model, not recency.
+**Lead with the two measures that carry their own denominator.** Comment share of added lines runs
+43.0% → 55.0%, and lines per block 4.31 → 5.68 (+32%) over a median of 3.0 in both — each a ratio by
+construction. That buys immunity to cohort *size* only, not to what the cohorts were working on —
+the confound that broke the first correction, and one a pinned range does not touch. Block *count*
+carries neither: the same two cohorts differ by +31% per 100 added code lines,
++10% per file touched, and +63% per commit. Both dimensions rise, neither dominates, and a mechanism
+keyed to one alone reaches about half the excess.
+
+The claim this replaces — "count, not length", read off that +63% — was **a raw per-unit count
+compared across cohorts whose unit is not the same size**. The verbose cohort's commits add 108 →
+179 code lines, so blocks per commit banked that as a comment habit. The tell needed none of the
+above: Fable 5 (n=16, so read it as a direction, not a magnitude) is the most concise cohort on
+every self-normalizing measure and the *least* concise
+on both raw ones (24 blocks per commit against 16, 3.57 per file against 3.08 — it writes 39.8 lines
+per file against 22.4). A metric that ranks the most concise model as the most verbose is measuring
+its denominator. This is the third correction to this diagnosis, and the third of one shape — a
+comparison whose denominator went unchecked: first the topic, then blocks merged across hunks, now
+commit size. Read the shape wider than the word: what actually recurs is a covariate that differs
+between cohorts and was never checked, and a denominator is only the kind that is easy to name.
+
+Fable 5 is below both cohorts on every normalized measure (14.1 blocks per 100 lines, 3.35 lines per
+block, 32.1% comment share, median block 2.0): the axis is the model, not recency.
 
 Corpus, stratification (the commits' `Co-Authored-By` trailer), and the A/B/C/D and +45%/+47%
-figures: #35. The calibration above is this session's and is *not* in that issue; it runs on the
-tool's own counting rule, moves if `commit_stats` changes, and is re-runnable via `--dump`.
+figures: #35. Every calibration above is this session's, not that issue's; it is measured over
+`1f8836ef..9a40565a`, on the tool's own counting rule, and is re-runnable via `--dump`. A further 72
+eligible commits carry no model trailer and sit in none of the cohorts. Pin a range
+before quoting from it — the first pass used `HEAD~400..HEAD`, which moved the cohorts between two
+runs on the same day.
 
 ## Reading a probe's outcome
 
diff --git a/rules/knowledge-layering.md b/rules/knowledge-layering.md
index 305c7fa..854484a 100644
--- a/rules/knowledge-layering.md
+++ b/rules/knowledge-layering.md
@@ -76,12 +76,12 @@ sentence states a durable claim — only provenance, the diff's own argument, a
 site already states — belongs in the PR body or an ADR. **When flagging that**, move the whole
 block, never a clause: a backward-looking sentence is routinely what makes the forward rule
 intelligible. But expect **volume**, not misfiling, to be the defect you actually find; it tracks
-the model, not recency, and its remedy is rewriting shorter — a different act from deleting. When
-*writing*, watch the count before the length: the measured excess is ~60% more blocks against ~35%
-longer ones, so the block not worth writing is commoner than the block worth shortening. Past ~10
-lines (the top tenth even for the concise baseline) rewrite once at half length, and **the rewrite
-wins** unless it dropped a forward-looking fact. False-flag rates, the calibration that refuted a
-commit-level gate, why the duplicated-figure shape needs a repo-side grep:
+the model, not recency, and its remedy is rewriting shorter — a different act from deleting. The
+excess is spread over how many blocks you write and how long each is, so watch both: drop the block
+that states nothing the next editor needs, and
+past ~10 lines (the top tenth even for that baseline) rewrite once at half length, **the rewrite
+winning** unless it dropped a forward-looking fact. False-flag rates, the calibration that refuted
+three gate designs, why the duplicated-figure shape needs a repo-side grep:
 `~/.claude/kit-docs/claim-verification.md` § "A comment written for the reviewer".
 
 ## Verify before you lock it
diff --git a/scripts/comment-density.py b/scripts/comment-density.py
index 01d4c64..539440a 100755
--- a/scripts/comment-density.py
+++ b/scripts/comment-density.py
@@ -8,6 +8,10 @@
 "unchanged A/B/C/D distribution" half needs a hand pass — this tool classifies
 nothing.
 
+Pin the range to explicit SHAs rather than `HEAD~N..HEAD`: a sliding window
+moves the cohorts under you, and a figure quoted from one is not reproducible
+by whoever reads it next.
+
 **There is deliberately no gate.** Three designs were calibrated against a
 generation known to be concise, and all three died: per-commit on either of two
 thresholds (catching 80-96% of the verbose cohort cost 52-79% false flags),
@@ -130,6 +134,13 @@ def collect(repo, rev_range, include_tests, min_added):
             "comment": comment,
             "ratio": comment / (code + comment),
             "blocks": len(blocks),
+            # Normalized against the code the commit actually added. Raw
+            # blocks-per-commit tracks commit size, and cohorts do not share
+            # one: reading it as a comment-habit difference credited a cohort
+            # for writing bigger commits, and ranked the most concise model as
+            # the most verbose. Report density; keep the raw count out of the
+            # summary so it cannot be compared across cohorts by accident.
+            "density": len(blocks) / code * 100 if code else 0.0,
             "per_block": statistics.mean(blocks) if blocks else 0.0,
             "max_block": max(blocks) if blocks else 0,
         })
@@ -142,7 +153,8 @@ def summarize(label, rows):
         return
     med = lambda k: statistics.median(r[k] for r in rows)
     print(f"{label:<24} n={len(rows):<4} ratio={med('ratio'):.1%}  "
-          f"lines/block={med('per_block'):.1f}  blocks/commit={med('blocks'):.0f}")
+          f"lines/block={med('per_block'):.2f}  "
+          f"blocks/100 code lines={med('density'):.1f}")
 
 
 SELF_TEST = [
@@ -194,10 +206,11 @@ def main():
 
     rows = collect(a.repo, a.range, a.include_tests, a.min_added)
     if a.dump:
-        print("sha\tmodel\tratio\tblocks\tper_block\tmax_block")
+        print("sha\tmodel\tratio\tcode\tblocks\tdensity\tper_block\tmax_block")
         for r in rows:
             print(f"{r['sha']}\t{model_of(a.repo, r['sha'])}\t{r['ratio']:.4f}\t"
-                  f"{r['blocks']}\t{r['per_block']:.2f}\t{r['max_block']}")
+                  f"{r['code']}\t{r['blocks']}\t{r['density']:.2f}\t"
+                  f"{r['per_block']:.2f}\t{r['max_block']}")
         return 0
     if not a.by_model:
         summarize("all", rows)