docs: the duplicate-section merge and the WHERE boundary, with their evidence

context/code/formula-and-io.md records why the category merge happens in pass 1
rather than pass 2, and why the WHERE boundary is sp+ rather than a lookahead --
the grammar-walking generator cannot honour a predicate, which is the part that
generalises.

context/test-evidence records the fault injected for each test, including the
one that made the WHERE test carry two negative shapes: compound-atomicity alone
already refuses the ticket's own reproducer, so a test built only on it passes
over a rule still spelled sp*.

improvise-349m improvise-r08u

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01FC2jVn8Au7E9JPkw6bwXXH

context/code/formula-and-io.md

@@ -92,6 +92,28 @@ round-tripped from the day it exists.
 What the *evaluator* does with it, and why a fitted tree is always wrapped in a
 `SUM`, is `context/code/core.md` §13.
 
+### `WHERE` carries the same boundary, and the mechanism has to be generatable
+
+`where_clause` and `inline_where` are compound-atomic with `sp+` after the
+keyword, exactly as `is_expr` is (improvise-r08u). Non-atomic, pest auto-skipped
+`WHITESPACE` after `^"WHERE"`, so `SUM(Rev WHEREAS x = y)` read as a `WHERE` on
+a category `AS` — a silently wrong filter where it should have been a syntax
+error, the same class of defect `IS` had.
+
+Two things decided the shape, and the second is the one worth carrying. A
+negative lookahead `!bare_char` with `sp*` would have been *strictly* more
+permissive — it keeps `WHERE|Region|=East`, which the old rule accepted — but
+**the grammar-walking generator cannot honour a predicate**: it walks
+`formula.pest` through `pest_meta` and emits `WHEREa=""`, text the grammar then
+refuses, so `generated_formula_parses` goes red. A rule whose only guard is a
+lookahead is a rule the generator can violate. `sp+` is generatable, matches
+`IS`, and costs exactly one accepted spelling: a category may no longer abut the
+keyword, so `WHERE |Region|` needs its space.
+
+Note compound-atomicity *alone* closes the ticket's own reproducer, because
+`AS x` cannot be one identifier once implicit whitespace is gone. `sp+` is what
+closes the residue, `WHEREAS=y`, and the negative test names both.
+
 ## A formula target is unquoted, exactly as a reference is
 
 `parse_formula` strips the pipes off the target the same way it does off an
@@ -158,6 +180,18 @@ format order-independent — a `## View:` may name a category defined further
 down. `PCategory::items` is a `Vec` in file order because `IndexMap` insertion
 order is load-bearing (gotcha 18), so pass 2 must replay the list as written.
 
+Two `## Category:` sections naming one category are **one** category, and the
+merge is a concatenation performed in pass 1 (`ParsedFile::push_category`,
+improvise-349m). Merging in pass 2 — building each section in turn — was not
+idempotent. A group is created either by the item that names it or by a `>`
+line, and `build_category` creates its own section's item-groups *before* its
+own `>` lines; so the first section's `>` groups landed ahead of the second
+section's item-groups, while `format_md` writes one section with all the items
+before all the `>` lines. The reparse then built the other order, and the two
+`format_md` outputs differed. Concatenating first makes the built order the
+written order by construction. Refusing a duplicate header was the alternative
+and would have made a legal hand-written file an error for no gain.
+
 ### A section header takes its name as the whole line, totally
 
 `header_name = { pipe_quoted ~ &NEWLINE | line_name }` (improvise-pczv). The

context/test-evidence/formula-and-io.md

@@ -203,6 +203,23 @@ backend from quietly normalising or re-encoding what it is handed.
 
 ## `improvise-io/src/persistence/parse.rs`
 
+### two_sections_naming_one_category_round_trip_to_a_stable_group_order
+
+improvise-349m: `format_md(parse_md(text))` was not idempotent when a file
+carried two `## Category:` sections with the same name — the two outputs
+differed only in the order of the `>` group lines. It looked like a flake
+because only `grammar_prop_tests::generated_file_roundtrips` saw it, and only
+when the generator happened to emit a duplicate header; taking proptest's
+minimal input and running it deterministically is what turned it into a bug.
+
+The fixture is the smallest shape that shows it: a first section defining a
+group by a `>` line only, and a second whose *item* names a different group that
+also gets a `>` line. Both groups must have parents, or `format_md` writes only
+one `>` line and the differing internal order is invisible in the text — which
+is the trap when shrinking this fixture further. Fault injected: reverting
+`ParsedFile::push_category` to a plain `Vec::push` fails the assertion, and the
+ticket's own minimal input was checked against the fix as well.
+
 ### parse_md_formula_category_suffix_without_space
 
 Bug improvise-zgb (b). The formulas walker located the `[Category]` suffix with
@@ -646,7 +663,28 @@ reopens the hole; that substitution is what this test was finally proved
 against. The negative arm is paired with a positive one, or "reject everything"
 would pass.
 
-`^"WHERE"` has the identical hole and was deliberately **not** fixed here:
-pre-existing, far less exposed (it sits in one fixed position after an
-expression, where `IS` follows any identifier in expression position), and a
-grammar change with its own round-trip risk. Filed as improvise-r08u.
+`^"WHERE"` had the identical hole. It is closed now — see below.
+
+### where_does_not_swallow_the_start_of_a_longer_word
+
+improvise-r08u, the `WHERE` half of the same defect. `where_clause` and
+`inline_where` were ordinary rules, so pest auto-inserted `WHITESPACE` after
+`^"WHERE"` and `SUM(Rev WHEREAS x = y)` parsed as a `WHERE` on a category `AS`:
+a silently wrong filter where it should have been a syntax error.
+
+The test carries **two** negative shapes because the repair has two independent
+halves, and this was found by injecting each separately. Making the rules
+compound-atomic alone already refuses `WHEREAS x = y` — once implicit whitespace
+is gone, `AS x` cannot be one identifier — so a test built only on the ticket's
+reproducer passes over a rule still spelled `sp*`, and `WHEREAS=y` is what that
+rule still reads as a filter. Faults injected: the original non-atomic rule
+(fails on the first assertion) and `sp+` relaxed to `sp*` (fails on the second).
+The positive arms are there so "refuse every WHERE" cannot pass.
+
+### where_requires_a_space_after_the_keyword
+
+The one spelling `sp+` costs, stated rather than discovered later:
+`WHERE|Region Name|=|East Coast|` used to parse and now does not. `IS` has
+required its space since improvise-4zl7, so this is the two keywords agreeing.
+The paired positive arm — the same text with the space — is what stops it
+degrading into "any WHERE with a quoted category fails".