docs(6209): coverage, guidance-ownership, shape, warnings tests and shared fixtures

test_pattern_coverage, test_guidance_ownership, test_integration_shape_classify,
test_instruction_surfaces_agree, test_retrieval_warnings, helpers.py and
conftest.py state the property each test or fixture holds. The issue and
milestone numbers, consolidation dates and one-install measurements that
recorded how each was found are dropped; fixture dates and ids stay.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

tests/helpers.py

@@ -1,8 +1,7 @@
 """Shared test helpers — the plain functions tests call, as opposed to the
 fixtures in conftest.py.
 
-Each of these was copied into several test modules before #2825 consolidated
-them; a module imports what it needs with ``from tests.helpers import ...``.
+Each of these serves several test modules; a module imports what it needs with ``from tests.helpers import ...``.
 """
 from __future__ import annotations
 
@@ -17,9 +16,7 @@ async def drive_update_note(note, **kwargs):
 
     The patch stack is the point: update_note reaches for a version snapshot,
     an embedding refresh and a project reactivation on its way out, none of
-    which a unit test has. Written twice — once for the snippet mirror
-    (#3128) and once for the verification fields (#3182/317) — before being
-    consolidated here.
+    which a unit test has.
 
     Returns whatever update_note returned; assert on the `note` you passed in.
     """
@@ -43,12 +40,11 @@ def tool_doc(module: str, name: str) -> str:
 
     Flattened because these are hard-wrapped at ~76 characters, so any phrase
     worth asserting on is liable to straddle a line break — a property of the
-    formatter, not of the guidance. The disambiguator guard (#3123) learned
-    that on its own first run, matching raw text and reporting a phrase absent
-    that was plainly there.
+    formatter, not of the guidance. Matching raw text reports a phrase absent
+    that is plainly there.
 
     Used by every test that pins the docstring CONTRACT rather than its
-    wording. The tool docstring is the agent-facing contract (rule 119), so
+    wording. The tool docstring is the agent-facing contract, so
     these guards exist to catch it being tidied down to a parameter list.
     """
     import importlib
@@ -63,8 +59,7 @@ def compiled_sql(element, dialect=None) -> str:
     """A SQLAlchemy clause or statement rendered as literal SQL text.
 
     For asserting on the shape of a predicate without a database — which is how
-    the visibility clauses and the knowledge facets are both tested. Was a
-    private copy in each of those modules before #3128 needed a third.
+    the visibility clauses and the knowledge facets are both tested.
 
     Pass `dialect` when the assertion is about something only one backend
     renders — a Postgres row-lock mode, say. The generic dialect is enough for
@@ -93,9 +88,8 @@ def session_returning(note):
     """``make_mock_session`` whose every ``execute()`` yields `note` (or None).
 
     The commonest shape above the bare session: a service that loads one
-    record by id and acts on it. Two files had spelled this out identically
-    before a third was about to (#3207 — derive before the third copy), and
-    it belongs beside `make_mock_session` for the same reason that one does.
+    record by id and acts on it, and it belongs beside `make_mock_session`
+    for the same reason that one does.
 
     For a service making SEVERAL different reads, set
     ``session.execute.side_effect`` to a list of results instead.
@@ -134,7 +128,7 @@ def fake_record(**attrs) -> MagicMock:
     """A MagicMock record with REAL values on the attributes named, and a
     ``to_dict()`` that mirrors them.
 
-    The hazard this exists for (note 2109): an auto-created MagicMock attribute
+    The hazard this exists for: an auto-created MagicMock attribute
     is truthy and has a repr — so a bare MagicMock handed to the product reads
     as trashed, shared, a task, and owned by a MagicMock. Name every attribute
     the code under test will read; the per-model ``fake_*`` builders below
@@ -180,10 +174,10 @@ def fake_note(**attrs) -> MagicMock:
         "note_type": "note", "is_task": False, "task_kind": "work",
         "status": "todo" if is_task else None,
         "data": None, "deleted_at": None,
-        # Milestone 317: a truthy mock here reads as "this note carries a
+        # A truthy mock here reads as "this note carries a
         # check", which trips the guard on records that may not have one.
         "verify_with": None, "expires_when": None, "verified_at": None,
-        # Milestone 381: a truthy mock would read as a live claim.
+        # A truthy mock would read as a live claim.
         "claimed_by": None, "claimed_at": None, "claim_touched_at": None,
         "claim_session": None,
     }, attrs)
@@ -196,7 +190,7 @@ def fake_task(**attrs) -> MagicMock:
         "tags": [], "parent_id": None, "project_id": None, "is_task": True,
         "task_kind": "work", "user_id": 7, "deleted_at": None,
         "verify_with": None, "expires_when": None, "verified_at": None,
-        # Milestone 381: a truthy mock would read as a live claim.
+        # A truthy mock would read as a live claim.
         "claimed_by": None, "claimed_at": None, "claim_touched_at": None,
         "claim_session": None,
     }, attrs)
@@ -219,9 +213,8 @@ def fake_lesson(**attrs) -> MagicMock:
     """A stand-in lesson: a note whose `note_type` is what makes it one.
 
     The title is the subject alone and the trigger lives in `data`, because
-    that is the record the product creates (milestone 427) — the trigger joins
-    the title only in the embedded document. A default whose title carried the
-    trigger would be testing a row only an un-migrated database holds.
+    that is the record the product creates — the trigger joins the title only
+    in the embedded document.
 
     The check fields and `arose_from_id` are explicitly None for the reason
     `fake_snippet`'s `data` is: `update_note` reads `verify_with` and
@@ -310,8 +303,7 @@ def plain_rule_detail():
     the TOOL forwarded the right arguments, so the seam is stubbed the same
     way the create/update calls themselves already are.
 
-    Consolidated here on its second copy, per this module's own reason for
-    existing (#2825) — two stubs for one seam drift apart quietly, and a test
+    Shared here because two stubs for one seam drift apart quietly, and a test
     stubbing the seam slightly differently is a test asserting something
     slightly different than it appears to.
     """
@@ -356,8 +348,7 @@ def http_sink(reply: bytes = b'{"context":"","note_ids":[]}',
     (one dict per request, in order). Lets the shell be tested end to end —
     the extraction, the encoding, the URL — without a Scribe instance.
 
-    Three test modules each carried their own ``_Sink`` handler before #2904
-    consolidated them here; pass ``reply`` for the body the hook should see.
+    Pass ``reply`` for the body the hook should see.
 
     ``by_path`` is for a hook that calls more than one route: each request is
     answered with the reply for its path (``reply`` when none is listed), and
@@ -406,10 +397,10 @@ def http_sink(reply: bytes = b'{"context":"","note_ids":[]}',
 
 
 def writepath_cfg(**over):
-    """A complete `get_writepath_config` stand-in, built from the registry (#4102).
+    """A complete `get_writepath_config` stand-in, built from the registry.
 
-    DERIVED, NOT LITERAL, and the reason is a failure mode this file already
-    warned about in prose without being able to prevent: the write-path hint
+    DERIVED, NOT LITERAL, because of a failure mode prose cannot prevent: the
+    write-path hint
     drives three arms, each of which reads its numbers out of the config dict
     inside a fail-open `except`. A dict missing one key does not raise where a
     reader would see it — the arm silently becomes a no-op, which is
@@ -417,9 +408,9 @@ def writepath_cfg(**over):
 
     So the keys come from `retrieval_surfaces.SURFACES`. A seventh surface, or a
     rename, changes this helper for free and cannot quietly disable an arm in
-    ten hand-written dicts that each looked complete on the day they were typed.
+    hand-written dicts that each looked complete on the day they were typed.
 
-    NOT EVERY KEY IS A SURFACE, and that gap already bit once (#4214). The
+    NOT EVERY KEY IS A SURFACE. The
     checkpoint bar has no entry in SURFACES on purpose — everything in that
     table is a floor/budget pair belonging to one QUERY, and the checkpoint
     runs none, it re-reads hits the rule arms already produced. Adding it there
@@ -458,11 +449,7 @@ def need_tools(*tools):
 
     A skip rather than a stub on purpose. Stubbing `jq` would test the stub —
     these tests exist precisely because the shell's behaviour is the thing in
-    question (#2932), so anything short of the real tool proves nothing.
-
-    Consolidated 2026-09-21 from three byte-identical copies in
-    test_contract_around_the_change, test_hook_json_reader and
-    test_session_slippage_readout.
+    question, so anything short of the real tool proves nothing.
     """
     import shutil
 
@@ -482,14 +469,11 @@ async def rule_row(rule_id: int):
     map, which can hold a value the database never accepted — a column the
     write never reached, a default the ORM supplied rather than the schema.
     Opening a new session forces a real read and is the only way `verify_with`
-    being NULL rather than "" is distinguishable at all (milestone 312).
+    being NULL rather than "" is distinguishable at all.
 
     Import is lazy because this module is imported by unit tests that have no
     database and must not pay for one — the same reason `plugin_config` defers
     its service imports.
-
-    Consolidated 2026-09-21 from two byte-identical copies in
-    test_integration_rule_move and test_integration_rule_verification.
     """
     from scribe.models import async_session
     from scribe.models.rulebook import Rule
@@ -519,7 +503,7 @@ def skill_text(name: str) -> str:
 
     A skill keeps what matters on most turns in SKILL.md and moves what matters
     at one moment into sibling files it links (Agent Skills progressive
-    disclosure, #4398). Both are the skill's own statement, so a test asking
+    disclosure). Both are the skill's own statement, so a test asking
     "does this skill still say X" reads them together rather than pinning X to
     whichever file it happens to sit in today.
     """