Codex · Chapter IV
Night watch protocol
How the graveyard watch runs, what drift means, and how dawn replay is supposed to feel.
The night is not a black box. It is a watch with a ledger. If you cannot replay it, it did not happen.
During the watch
Relays fire in the order the brief wrote. Holds sit with a named owner. If a conduit is silent longer than the brief allows, the desk marks drift and stops that rail. It does not retry into the void.
Drift
Drift is not an error toast. It is a state: the rail that usually runs has gone quiet, or a door answered unlike itself. Treat it as a floor event. Someone reads it at dawn. Do not auto-clear drift to keep a dashboard green.
Dawn replay
Walk the night in order. Seal holds. Send back anything that drifted. Write one line if the brief itself is wrong. The morning meeting, if you still have one, should start from the ledger, not from memory.
What not to do at 3 a.m.
Do not widen a brief because the queue looks lonely. Do not unmark a hold because you are tired. The desk is staffed so that those decisions wait for a name in daylight.