swaitsandClaude Opus 5.5
df38dcccf9
Stephen (2026-10-13): when what wanderbooks knows is stale, check the date, research it or ask the owner or CPA, and update the rule for everyone with a pull request (best) or an issue (worst). - ledger_core::rules: a registry of rules set by law that change over time. Each says the years it's known for, its rules.md entry, its vendored official source, and a review date. stale_rules(today) is pure; the engine has no clock. - The 1099 threshold is the first: $600 through 2025, $2,000 in 2026, then indexed for inflation (26 U.S.C. §6041(h)). default_threshold and vendor_1099_report now return Result; for 2027+ they refuse with LedgerError::RuleNotKnown, whose message says what to do: get the figure from the official source or the owner/CPA, pass it explicitly, then open a PR (or issue) at github.com/swaits/wanderbooks. Before, 2027+ silently used $2,000. - MCP: books.vendor_1099 relays that refusal; books.digest gains stale_rules; the server instructions tell the agent the procedure (and how to handle control-account conflicts: explain, never renumber). The CPA package writes a NOT-INCLUDED note instead of a guessed 1099 worksheet. - Viewer: "Needs attention" shows each stale rule with a ready prompt for the agent; the 1099 page explains instead of guessing. Review date for the 1099 rule: 2026-11-01, when the IRS usually publishes next year's inflation adjustments (CONVENTION, marked as such in the registry). Tests: an_unknown_year_threshold_is_never_guessed, dated_rules_go_stale_on_their_review_date (dates passed in, so no clock in the test), MCP stdio: 2027 refused with guidance, explicit threshold accepted, digest carries stale_rules (asserted date-independently). Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01GWVo7x3UHw5kwCUaWxiejX
4.1 KiB
4.1 KiB
Specification sources
wanderbooks' rules come from documents, not from anyone's memory. This
directory holds the authorities the engine's specs cite (docs/spec/rules.md
is the rule catalog), and every spec block in the code carries a SOURCE:
line pointing into it.
The authority stack
There is no single "bible" of US bookkeeping. Authority is layered, and the layers differ in what they cover and in whether we may copy them:
| Layer | What it governs | Copyright | Here |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pacioli (1494), Geijsbeek translation (1914) | The mechanics of double entry: debits equal credits, the trial balance, one money, writing only forward, correcting by opposite entry, closing into capital. No modern standard restates these; they predate every regulator. | Public domain | Vendored verbatim: sources/pacioli-1494.md |
| IRS: Internal Revenue Code, Treasury Regulations, publications, form instructions | Records and supporting documents, retention, accounting periods and methods, information returns (1099), capitalization (de minimis, 12-month rule), partners' capital, payroll taxes, rounding on returns | Public domain (17 U.S.C. §105; IRS.gov's content policy) | Vendored verbatim: sources/irs-*.md, sources/us-public-domain-status.md |
| FASB Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) | Authoritative US GAAP: cash flows (ASC 230), revenue and principal vs agent (ASC 606), foreign currency (ASC 830), credit losses and aging (ASC 326), property and depreciation (ASC 360) | © Financial Accounting Foundation | Cited by paragraph with short quotes only (in rules.md) |
| FASB Concepts Statement No. 8, Chapter 4 (2021) | Definitions of the five elements (it replaced Concepts Statement 6) | © Financial Accounting Foundation; non-authoritative | Cited with short quotes only |
| Textbooks (OpenStax Principles of Accounting, Vol. 1) | Conventions no standard states: normal balances, closing-entry mechanics, straight-line depreciation arithmetic | CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (incompatible with this repo's license) | Cited with short quotes and attribution only |
| Convention or decision | Where no authority speaks: aging bucket edges, cent rounding among members, closed-period locks | — | Stated as CONVENTION or DECISION, with who decided and when |
How to read a SOURCE line
SOURCE: Pacioli ch. 36 (sources/pacioli-1494.md); IRS Pub. 583 (sources/irs-records.md)
SOURCE: ASC 830-20-30-1 (cited, rules.md B-3)
SOURCE: DECISION (Stephen, 2026-10-13)
SOURCE: CONVENTION (QuickBooks aging); nearest authority ASC 326-20-55-38 (illustrative)
A rule whose only source is CONVENTION or DECISION is a candidate for a human to confirm or overturn; nothing else is.
Vendoring rules
- Public-domain texts are copied verbatim (whitespace normalized), each with its URL, retrieval date, and the SHA-256 of the retrieved file, so anyone can check the excerpt against the original.
- Copyrighted sources are cited by paragraph, quoted briefly, never copied.
- When an authority changes (the IRS revises a publication; a statute is amended), add the new text beside the old with its effective date. Rules that depend on dates (1099 thresholds) must say which text applies when.
- Rules that change with the law are registered in
crates/ledger-core/src/rules.rswith the years they are known for and a review date. Past what it knows, the engine refuses rather than guesses; from the review date, the MCP digest and the viewer flag the rule. Whoever updates one (human or agent) vendors the new official text here, extends the rule, and sends the change upstream: a pull request at https://github.com/swaits/wanderbooks (best), or an issue.
Open: sources we could not verify
Read on 2026-10-13 through Deloitte's free DART roadmaps, which reproduce ASC text: ASC 230-10-45-16 and -28, 326-20-55-37/38, 606-10-25-23, 45-2, 55-37/38, 830-20-30-1. Not yet verified (the ASC's free basic view needs a login): ASC 360-10-35-4 (depreciation), 340-10 (prepaids), 230-10-45-10, 606-10-55-37B, 210 (balance sheet). Until someone with a FASB basic-view account reads them, the rules that would cite them cite the textbook and say so.