Defer clone traversal review to future work

docs/roadmap/consolidation.md

@@ -2,8 +2,8 @@
 
 Status: proposed scope and target state for review. This document recommends
 refactors; it does not record implementation progress or authorize a release.
-Prepare the staged implementation plan after reviewing this roadmap and settling
-the [open questions](#open-questions).
+The scope questions are settled. Prepare the staged implementation plan after
+reviewing this roadmap.
 
 ## Purpose
 
@@ -81,21 +81,23 @@ conversions maintenance defects.
 
 ### Findings And Recommended Treatment
 
-The finding numbers below preserve the audit's identifiers. All six remain open
-work; retiring their original documents does not mark them implemented.
+The finding numbers below preserve the audit's identifiers. The selected work
+remains unimplemented; the cloning portion of finding 3 is deferred to future
+work. Retiring the original documents does not mark their findings implemented.
 
 | Audit finding | Maintenance priority | Assessment and recommended treatment |
 | --- | --- | --- |
 | 1. Import entry points and responsibilities | Higher | Main refactor. Include shared acquisition normalization, import-default ownership, declaration parsing, and directory admission. |
 | 2. Shared inheritance executor | Higher | Main refactor. Expose meaningful phases and explicit combination results while retaining one executor. |
-| 3. Projection and cloning | Higher for projection; secondary for cloning | Main refactor for projection; conditional, bounded follow-up for substantial clone handlers, preserving the distinction between the operations. |
+| 3. Projection and cloning | Higher for projection; cloning deferred | Main refactor for projection. Clone traversal review is tracked separately in [future.md](future.md#4-clone-traversal-review). |
 | 4. Schema field discovery and inline assembly | Medium | Include a focused refactor coordinated with projection. Keep one schema builder and its two descriptor views. |
 | 5. Resolved filesystem context | Medium | Include alongside acquisition work. Reuse resolved facts without merging resource lifetimes or changing validation timing. |
 | 6. Unused reverse inspection conversions | Small, independently reviewable cleanup | Include in the root facade and engine. Retain useful forward-conversion and detached-result coverage. |
 
 Findings 1–3 confirm the earlier roadmap's main opportunities; findings 4–6 add
 focused work. The following sections own their rationale and intended changes.
-Implementation and validation will establish each finding's disposition.
+Implementation and validation will establish completion of the selected work;
+the deferred clone review retains its separate disposition.
 
 Completed correctness and algorithmic remediations remain part of the baseline,
 including sequence records preserved at `ea46001:docs/roadmap/remediation.md`
@@ -334,17 +336,13 @@ into decoding and projection.
 Keep pointer-chain and recursive-inline decisions explicit, preserve supported
 field/tag forms and ambiguity paths, and retain cache/building-state behavior.
 
-Provisionally treat clone cleanup as a conditional follow-up, as recommended in
-[OQ-2](#oq-2-how-much-clone-cleanup-should-this-effort-commit-to). Extract substantial
-handlers where they make ownership behavior easier to read after the projection
-and schema work; completing this scope need not require clone edits if the
-remaining flow is already clear. Keep cloning distinct from projection:
-cloning reconstructs typed values, preserves physical fields, round-trips text
-codecs, and distinguishes unresolved from already validated secret state.
-Projection builds a canonical document and charges output nodes. Extract common
-helpers only where the semantics actually agree. The mostly explicit dispatch
-in `decodeValue` and `valueBuilder.build` does not warrant a generic reflection
-visitor solely because it has a high complexity score.
+Clone traversal review and cleanup are deferred to
+[future.md](future.md#4-clone-traversal-review). This effort preserves cloning's
+existing behavior while changing the shared schema and projection machinery.
+Keep projection's document-building semantics distinct from typed copying.
+The mostly explicit dispatch in `decodeValue` and `valueBuilder.build` does not
+warrant a generic reflection visitor solely because it has a high complexity
+score.
 
 ### 5. Remove Unused Inspection Conversions And Consolidate Real Adapters
 
@@ -417,7 +415,7 @@ or is required to claim readability improvements.
 
 This is dependency guidance for the later plan, not a commit-by-commit schedule:
 
-1. Confirm the implementation baseline and answers to the open questions; map
+1. Confirm the implementation baseline and settled scope; map
    retained behavior to existing tests and record concrete coverage gaps.
 2. Remove unused reverse inspection conversions and adjust their tests. This is
    small and independently reviewable.
@@ -426,9 +424,7 @@ This is dependency guidance for the later plan, not a commit-by-commit schedule:
    closure timing; then separate acquisition, item assembly, and evidence work.
 4. Refactor inheritance around explicit preparation and combination results,
    retaining completed correctness and algorithmic regressions.
-5. Refactor projection and schema field assembly in separate reviewable changes;
-   assess and, where useful, complete bounded clone cleanup under the scope
-   selected in OQ-2.
+5. Refactor projection and schema field assembly in separate reviewable changes.
 6. Consolidate real facade adapters, finish consumer/internal navigation, and run
    the applicable integration and ownership checks on the combined result.
 
@@ -449,7 +445,7 @@ not for every new helper.
 | Acquisition and imports | Selection, defaults, scheduling, relative/item placement, source-version evidence, aggregate limits, repetition within versus across tiers, and ordinary/layered equivalence. |
 | Resolved contexts | Host/native access, discovery selected/absent outcomes, terminal context failures, source-relative resources, independent overlay context, and handle closure. |
 | Inheritance | Mapping and record inheritance, nested destination-local evaluation, child identity, policy lifetime, version movement, history ordering, sensitivity, and retained-node budgets. |
-| Projection/schema/clone | Inline fields, recursive schemas, dynamic values, nil/empty values, cycles and limits, text codecs, secret states, callback ownership, and independent loads. |
+| Projection/schema | Inline fields, recursive schemas, dynamic values, nil/empty values, cycles and limits, text codecs, secret states, callback ownership, and independent loads; preserve existing cloning behavior where shared descriptors/state are affected. |
 | Facade and consumers | Forward conversion, detached records, supported API boundaries, source-form equivalence, maintained simple/catalog/discovery examples, and safe explanation/diff. |
 
 Examples of established boundaries include
@@ -475,15 +471,15 @@ Completion requires reviewable evidence that:
 - Contracted values, presence, provenance/history, diagnostics, sensitivity,
   resource lifetime, and algorithmic corrections remain protected by appropriate
   tests and source review.
-- The reviewed scope is accounted for against all six audit findings; completed
-  findings have validation evidence rather than being closed because code moved.
+- The reviewed scope is accounted for against all six audit findings, with clone
+  traversal review deferred to future work. Completed portions have validation
+  evidence rather than being closed because code moved.
 - Consumer guidance, contributor references, and internal documentation describe
   the resulting implementation. Current contracts continue to own behavior.
 
 Private type/helper names, final file splits, and exact stage boundaries belong
-in the implementation plan. The remaining question concerns the scope of clone
-cleanup. No additional feature semantics are needed to carry out the recommended
-refactors.
+in the implementation plan. No open scope questions remain, and no additional
+feature semantics are needed to carry out the recommended refactors.
 
 ## Settled Decisions
 
@@ -496,26 +492,11 @@ guidance. The [consumer-facing target](#consumer-facing-target) records the
 rationale and tradeoffs. This decision governs the consolidation effort; it does
 not establish a perpetual restriction on future API design.
 
-## Open Questions
-
-OQ-2 remains open. The target above follows its recommended answer pending
-discussion. Existing behavior and accepted architectural boundaries remain the
-baseline; routine private design choices can be settled in the implementation
-plan.
-
 ### OQ-2: How Much Clone Cleanup Should This Effort Commit To?
 
-**Recommendation:** commit to projection and schema refactoring, then assess
-clone handlers as a bounded follow-up. Include extractions that clarify typed
-copy ownership, secret-state handling, or codec behavior; allow the review to
-conclude that no clone changes are needed. Projection and schema have identified
-mixed responsibilities, while part of cloning's size is ordinary type dispatch.
-This keeps the effort focused on demonstrated maintenance benefit. Record the
-assessment under audit finding 3 so conditional work is not silently omitted.
-
-**Alternative:** include a focused clone-handler refactor as committed scope
-alongside projection and schema. Reviewing the related traversals together could
-give maintainers more consistent places to find struct, map, and sequence handling.
-The tradeoff is additional ownership-sensitive code movement when extraction may
-not simplify the flow. Cloning and projection would still retain their distinct
-semantics and operation state; a common visitor is not needed for either choice.
+**Settled:** defer clone traversal review and any resulting cleanup to
+[future.md](future.md#4-clone-traversal-review). Neither the review nor clone
+refactoring is part of this consolidation effort. Projection and schema
+refactoring remain in scope, including protection of existing cloning behavior
+where they share descriptors or operation state. The future review can conclude
+that no clone edits are warranted; its goal is demonstrated maintenance benefit.

docs/roadmap/future.md

@@ -83,3 +83,36 @@ evidence are preserved in Git history at `8e91a2b` under `docs/roadmap/`.
   across loads without introducing aliasing?
 - What cache lifetime and concurrency design would make schema reuse worthwhile
   without excessive retained memory?
+
+## 4. Clone traversal review
+
+Status: deferred. Review typed configuration cloning after the projection and
+schema consolidation work, when the resulting structure can inform the review.
+This is future maintenance work, not a prerequisite for completing consolidation.
+
+The complexity audit identified `valueOperation.clone` in
+[clone.go](../../internal/engine/clone.go) as a candidate for cleanup. Much of its
+size is straightforward type dispatch. Focused handlers may clarify allocation,
+recursive copying, cycle tracking, secret-state handling, or text-codec
+reconstruction, but extraction may also add indirection without making the code
+easier to understand.
+
+When this work is taken up, assess the traversal and record whether changes are
+worthwhile; a conclusion that no refactor is needed is valid. Make focused
+changes only where the maintenance benefit justifies the code movement. Keep
+cloning's typed-copy semantics distinct from projection's document-building
+semantics. Preserve detached values, nil/empty distinctions, physical inline
+fields, cycle/depth checks, and unresolved versus validated secret handling.
+Reuse existing ownership, codec, secret, and traversal tests, adding coverage for
+consequential gaps. No performance improvement is assumed.
+
+### Questions to resolve before implementation
+
+- After projection and schema consolidation, which clone branches still mix
+  responsibilities enough to benefit from extraction?
+- Would a proposed helper keep allocation, recursive copying, and cycle cleanup
+  easier to follow together, or merely move a short loop out of sight?
+- Are any small shared operations semantically identical across traversals, or
+  would sharing require special cases that obscure their different purposes?
+- Which ownership or special-value risks, if any, lack sufficient existing test
+  coverage for the proposed changes?