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+# databasev2 — chain and dependency review
+
+Reviewed 2026-08-29 against story frontmatter, the track index's sequence
+table, and the code as it stands on `dev`. Six findings, ordered by how much
+damage each could do if acted on.
+
+## The recorded picture
+
+`chain` is a **cross-track** field (positions 1–6, defined in
+`docs/stories/board-views.md`), not a databasev2 one. Only two databasev2
+iterations carry it:
+
+| chain | Story | status |
+| --- | --- | --- |
+| 1 | language 08 shard-actor runtime, 11 fibers | done |
+| 2 | language 22 durability/throughput/scale | done |
+| 3 | language 31 actor lifecycle, 40 shutdown drain | done |
+| 4 | language 24 chat/websocket workload | done |
+| 5 | **databasev2 4** io_uring group commit | in-progress |
+| 6 | **databasev2 3** WAL checkpoint | done |
+
+The track's own sequence lives in `00-story.md` as a Needs column plus an
+ASCII graph. The two disagree with each other, with the chain field, and with
+what happened.
+
+## Finding 1 — the graph contradicts the chain field and the history
+
+`00-story.md` draws `3 ──▶ 4`: iteration 3 before iteration 4. The chain field
+says the opposite — iteration 4 is chain 5, iteration 3 is chain 6, so 4 comes
+first. History settles it: **4's part A landed 2026-08-28, 3 landed
+2026-08-29.** The chain field and the history agree; the graph is wrong.
+
+Worth fixing rather than shrugging at, because the graph is the artefact
+someone reads when choosing what to start.
+
+## Finding 2 — the graph contradicts its own prose about direction
+
+The order rationale states "**3 and 4 matter to 2**" — that is, 2 depends on 3
+and 4. The graph draws an edge *from* 2 *to* 3, which reads as the reverse.
+One of the two is backwards, and the prose is the one that matches the code:
+`resident: keys` needed the checkpoint, not the other way round.
+
+## Finding 3 — a retired path is still drawn
+
+The graph still shows `2 ──▶ 5 ──▶ 6`. The 2026-08-27 amendment directly below
+it says iteration 6 is largely superseded by 2, and that **5 is no longer a
+prerequisite for anything on the critical path**. The prose retired the path;
+the picture kept it.
+
+## Finding 4 — the chain metadata omits the iteration doing the work
+
+Iteration 2 is on the critical path, is `in-progress`, and is where 5c/5d just
+landed — and it carries **no `chain` field**. The board-views query "the
+concurrency chain, in execution order" filters `WHERE chain`, so iteration 2 is
+invisible to it. Either 2 belongs on the chain and should say so, or the chain
+is genuinely a concurrency artefact that databasev2 2 sits outside — in which
+case 3 and 4 carrying it while 2 does not deserves a one-line explanation.
+
+## Finding 5 — iteration 3's hazard section is stale, and was incomplete
+
+This is the one with teeth.
+
+`03-wal-checkpoint.md` carries a "Hazard: compaction invalidates every
+`resident: keys` offset" section and a matching Outstanding entry. Both are now
+**stale**: the Outstanding entry says "**Nothing fails today** because
+iteration 2's storage half is unimplemented", which stopped being true when
+5c/5d landed (`125bd09`, `08abd09`, `0c97fa4`, `f606fc9`). The hazard also
+offers two shapes and says "the first is almost certainly right" — the first
+*was* implemented, and the section should now record that as settled rather
+than as an open fork.
+
+More importantly, **the recorded hazard named only half the danger.** It
+described stored offsets becoming wrong: a pointer into a rewritten file.
+Implementation found a second, worse failure it did not anticipate — compaction
+walked the slab **bitmap**, and a keys-resident row has no bitmap bit, because
+its slot is returned to the free list when the payload is dropped. Every such
+row would therefore have been **omitted from the new log entirely**. That is
+silent data loss, not a bad pointer, and no amount of offset-rebuilding would
+have caught it.
+
+Both failure modes are now pinned by `test_keys_resident_survives_compaction`,
+which rewrites rows in hash order so offsets genuinely move and a missing
+re-point cannot pass by luck.
+
+## Finding 6 — the coupling is now bidirectional, and undocumented in that direction
+
+The docs record 2 depending on 3. After 5d, **3's own deliverable depends on
+2's API**: `wo_wal_compact` in `database/src/wal.c` now calls
+`wo_row_next_id`, `wo_row_offset1`, `wo_row_set_offset` and
+`wo_table_is_keys_resident` — all iteration 2 surface. Compaction can no longer
+be described as a pure file operation, which is exactly what the hazard section
+predicted and no dependency table records.
+
+Minor, same family: iteration 6 is "largely superseded" and to be revisited
+"only with a measurement showing the page cache insufficient" — a hold
+condition — yet its status is `pending` while genuinely parked iterations 8, 9
+and 10 are `hold`.
+
+## What is actually blocked
+
+Nothing in databasev2 is blocked on anything else in databasev2. Iteration 2's
+remaining tasks 6 and 7 depend only on iteration 2. Iteration 4's part B is not
+blocked either — it is unstarted with an invalidated premise, which is a
+re-brainstorm, not a dependency.