The blanket "available on every rune" claim is gone
The universal attributes reported for a rune are the ones its schema actually carries, read from the schema rather than from a static list
--format json reports the same narrowed set, so machine consumers agree with the human output
refrakt reference list and refrakt reference dump are consistent with the single-rune output
No theme config is loaded to produce it
A test pins the correction against a rune with known-inapplicable attributes, so the false claim cannot return
AGENTS.md (or whatever dump --check guards) is regenerated if its content shifts
npm run build and the full repo suite pass

Approach

Worth deciding rather than defaulting: does an inapplicable attribute vanish from the output entirely, or appear marked as unavailable?

Vanishing is simplest and matches the schema. But the structure contract already records why an axis is unavailable on a rune ("this rune declares no body section"), and surfacing that is more useful to someone wondering why reading is missing from card when it is on textblock. Reference output is a teaching surface, so the reason is probably worth showing — but it should be a choice, not an accident of implementation.

Blocked by

WORK-534

References

SPEC-125 — Phase 3
WORK-527 — the contract entries carrying the reasons

Resolution

Completed: 2026-09-09

Branch: claude/milestone-v0-31-0-e5ihxr PR: refrakt-md/refrakt#594

What was done

refrakt reference <rune> now reports the universal attributes that rune actually carries, and names the reason for each axis it does not.

packages/runes/src/schema-universals.ts (new) — describeSchemaUniversals(schema), the schema-only view. The schema is the ground truth; the rule only explains it: available is read off the schema's own attribute list rather than recomputed, and an axis is reported unavailable only if the schema really carries none of its attributes. So the reasons can never contradict the attribute list printed beside them — which matters, because "the tool states as fact something false about the rune it is describing" is the bug being fixed, and a drifting explanation would be a fresh instance of it.
packages/runes/src/lib/index.ts — RuneStructure gains universalAttributes, recorded by createContentModelSchema (always, even for the auto default, so "structurally gated" is distinguishable from "nothing known"). New declareUniversalPosture(schema, posture) for hand-written schemas.
packages/runes/src/tags/{badge,xref,icon,tint,bg,expand}.ts — each declares its posture, one line plus the reason. This is what lets the report explain badge as inline rather than reaching for a structural reason that is true and beside the point.
packages/runes/src/reference.ts — the markdown line, the JSON shape (attributes.universalUnavailable), and the hoisted dump section. The dump section now reads as the shared vocabulary rather than a blanket promise.
Docs — site/content/docs/cli/reference.md gains a worked example of the new output; site/content/runes/surfaces.md now points at refrakt reference (WORK-534 had to point away from it, since it was the thing that lied).
Changeset — .changeset/olive-moons-shout.md.

Tests

packages/runes/test/reference-universals.test.ts (7) — the blanket claim is gone; the reported set is the schema's; each absence is explained; an inline rune is explained by posture rather than anatomy; a rune that does carry a gated axis still reports it (over-narrowing the report would be its own false claim); JSON and markdown agree; and, across every core rune, an axis the schema carries is never reported unavailable.

packages/runes/test/reference.test.ts — the existing tier test pinned the false line verbatim, all 37 names. Rewritten to assert the fixture's actual three.

Direction-checked: reintroducing the old line fails 3 of the 7 new cases.

Notes

Explain rather than vanish. The item posed this as a choice. Vanishing matches the schema and is simpler, but reference output is a teaching surface — it is what create-refrakt writes into AGENTS.md for coding agents — and "why is reading on textblock but not on grid?" is what a bare omission leaves unanswered.
51 of the 55 runes in this repo's reference had at least one false claim.
No theme config is loaded. ReferenceContext carries schemas, fixtures and source names — no config, which is the right shape under ADR-028. That is why the posture had to become reachable from the schema rather than being read from RuneConfig.universalAttributes.
Nothing to regenerate. No AGENTS.md is checked in anywhere in this repo (the only reference dump header in the tree is prose inside SPEC-041), so no dump --check guard exists to update.
The item's opening example is stale in one detail: it cites reading and dropcap as inert on card. WORK-532 gave card a body role in v0.31.0, so today only prominence is genuinely unavailable there — which is what the corrected output reports.