diff --git a/.claude/board/LATEST_STATE.md b/.claude/board/LATEST_STATE.md
index ec418be7..04786891 100644
--- a/.claude/board/LATEST_STATE.md
+++ b/.claude/board/LATEST_STATE.md
@@ -2,6 +2,33 @@
 
 ### Current Contract Inventory — new module (lance-graph-contract)
 
+- `lance_graph_contract::ontology_warrant` — **grading a factfinder's ungraded
+  verdict, without letting the grade leak back into the fact.** A factfinder
+  (OGAR `ogar-elk` + siblings) answers exactly: entailed or not. That is rung 1
+  and must stay exact. What IS graded is a different question — how well
+  warranted a claim is given how many independent sources speak to it — and it
+  is computed OVER facts, never replacing them. The two rungs are kept apart
+  structurally: there is deliberately **no** method turning a `NarsTruth` back
+  into an entailment.
+  - `Quorum { corroborating, silent, conflicting }` — counts, not sources. The
+    type cannot name who said what; provenance stays with the factfinder.
+  - `Quorum::warrant() -> NarsTruth` — frequency is the share of *speaking*
+    sources that corroborate; confidence grows with how many spoke.
+  - `SourceVerdict { Corroborates, Silent, Conflicts }` — three variants, no
+    `Unknown`: a source not consulted is not a source.
+  - **The load-bearing rule: silence is abstention, not dissent.** A source with
+    no path between two classes has not denied the relation, it has said
+    nothing. Counting silence as dissent turns "the other ontology is sparser"
+    into "the other ontology disagrees" — the opposite finding from the same
+    data. Measured, not preferred: on a real cross-ontology comparison the
+    sources that both spoke agreed 1,730 : 3 (99.8 %) while 1,693 were silent;
+    folding silence into dissent reports ~51 %. Both numbers are computed in
+    `the_measured_cross_ontology_case_reads_as_agreement` so the difference is
+    visible rather than asserted.
+  - Zero-dep and factfinder-agnostic: names no ontology, no vocabulary and no
+    producer crate. Takes three counts, so any factfinder that can bucket its
+    comparisons can feed it and the contract crate stays dependency-free.
+
 - `lance_graph_contract::identity_quad` — the **4 x 24-bit identity tenant**. A row whose identity is asserted independently by four external identifier spaces (each in the 10^5-10^7 range) carries all four in ONE V3 facet payload, resolved once at bake time. Afterwards a read is a fixed-offset register read: no join, no crosswalk table consulted, no walk. The saving is not space, it is the disappearance of the read-time join.
   - `IdentityQuad` — `4 x u24` over the 12-byte payload, read/written **through `legacy_outliers::LegacyOutlier::WideTriple` (G2)**, not a parallel bit-math implementation. `from_slots` / `slots` / `slot` / `try_slot` / `with_slot` / `filled` / `into_facet` / `from_facet` (rides a real `FacetCascade`: classid in `0..4`, payload in `4..16`).
   - `IdentityCodebook` + `check_capacity` / `MAX_ENTRIES` — the bijective `key <-> ordinal` book. `try_new` **rejects** a non-injective key list (`CodebookError::DuplicateKey`) at construction, so a many-to-one mapping cannot exist to be discovered later; `verify_bijective()` is the explicit whole-book witness a bake runs. Overflow **refuses** rather than truncating, the same refuse-don't-widen discipline `codebook::Codebook` uses at its own 256-entry scale — and it is a **sibling of** that type, never a widening of it (a 10^6-entry space cannot be reached by splitting into 256-entry families without the split becoming the address).
diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index 32432459..6141727c 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -6636,6 +6636,7 @@ dependencies = [
 name = "ndarray"
 version = "0.17.2"
 dependencies = [
+ "blake3",
  "fractal",
  "matrixmultiply",
  "num-complex",
diff --git a/crates/lance-graph-contract/src/lib.rs b/crates/lance-graph-contract/src/lib.rs
index 04a0e92d..d9015419 100644
--- a/crates/lance-graph-contract/src/lib.rs
+++ b/crates/lance-graph-contract/src/lib.rs
@@ -121,6 +121,7 @@ pub mod ocr;
 /// D-OVC-1 — OGAR concept codebook (`0xDDCC` domain layout), wire-compat mirror.
 pub mod ogar_codebook;
 pub mod ontology;
+pub mod ontology_warrant;
 pub mod orchestration;
 pub mod orchestration_mode;
 pub mod pearl_junction;
diff --git a/crates/lance-graph-contract/src/ontology_warrant.rs b/crates/lance-graph-contract/src/ontology_warrant.rs
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..6d4a1b84
--- /dev/null
+++ b/crates/lance-graph-contract/src/ontology_warrant.rs
@@ -0,0 +1,267 @@
+//! `ontology_warrant` — grading a factfinder's ungraded verdict, without ever
+//! letting the grade leak back into the fact.
+//!
+//! # The two rungs, kept apart by the type system
+//!
+//! A factfinder (OGAR's `ogar-elk` and siblings) answers **exactly**: this
+//! subsumption is entailed, or it is not. That answer is rung 1 — retrieval —
+//! and it is mandatory that it stay exact. Nothing above may make it
+//! probabilistic.
+//!
+//! What genuinely IS graded is a different question: *how well warranted is a
+//! claim, given how many independent sources speak to it.* That is rung 2, and
+//! it is computed **over** facts rather than replacing them.
+//!
+//! This module keeps the two apart structurally rather than by convention:
+//! [`Quorum`] carries the counts, [`Quorum::warrant`] returns a graded
+//! [`NarsTruth`], and there is deliberately **no** method that turns a
+//! `NarsTruth` back into an entailment. A caller that needs the exact answer
+//! asks the factfinder; a caller that needs the warrant asks here; neither
+//! surface can be mistaken for the other.
+//!
+//! # Silence is abstention, not dissent — the load-bearing rule
+//!
+//! When two independently authored ontologies are compared, a claim falls into
+//! one of three states, and **conflating the second with the third inverts the
+//! result**:
+//!
+//! | state | meaning | evidence |
+//! |---|---|---|
+//! | **corroborating** | the other source asserts the same relation | positive |
+//! | **silent** | the other source asserts nothing about this pair | **none** |
+//! | **conflicting** | the other source asserts the opposite direction | negative |
+//!
+//! A source that has no path between two classes has **not** denied the
+//! relation — it has said nothing. Counting silence as dissent turns "the other
+//! ontology is sparser than this one" into "the other ontology disagrees",
+//! which is the opposite finding from the same data. So [`Quorum::warrant`]
+//! lets `silent` affect **confidence only through what it is not** — it never
+//! pushes frequency down.
+//!
+//! This is not a modelling preference. It was measured: on a real cross-ontology
+//! comparison, reading silence as dissent reported ~50 % disagreement where the
+//! sources that actually both spoke agreed 99.8 % of the time.
+//!
+//! # Zero-dep, and knows no factfinder
+//!
+//! This module names no ontology, no vocabulary and no producer crate. It takes
+//! three counts. Any factfinder that can classify its comparisons into those
+//! three buckets can feed it, and the contract crate stays dependency-free.
+
+use crate::exploration::NarsTruth;
+
+/// How many independent sources speak to one claim, and what they say.
+///
+/// Counts, not sources: this type deliberately cannot name who said what. The
+/// provenance belongs with the factfinder that produced the comparison; what
+/// reaches the grading layer is how many, in which direction.
+#[derive(Debug, Clone, Copy, PartialEq, Eq, Default)]
+pub struct Quorum {
+    /// Sources asserting the same relation.
+    pub corroborating: u16,
+    /// Sources with no opinion on this pair. **Abstention, never dissent.**
+    pub silent: u16,
+    /// Sources asserting the opposite direction.
+    pub conflicting: u16,
+}
+
+/// Evidence weight of one source that has spoken.
+///
+/// A single source is worth `1.0` evidence unit; NARS confidence for `n` units
+/// is `n / (n + k)` with `k = 1`. Two independent sources agreeing therefore
+/// give `2/3` rather than `1/2` — the whole reason a quorum is worth computing.
+const EVIDENCE_PER_SOURCE: f32 = 1.0;
+
+impl Quorum {
+    /// A quorum from the three counts.
+    #[must_use]
+    pub const fn new(corroborating: u16, silent: u16, conflicting: u16) -> Self {
+        Self {
+            corroborating,
+            silent,
+            conflicting,
+        }
+    }
+
+    /// How many sources actually asserted something. **Silence is excluded** —
+    /// it is the denominator's job to count opinions, not participants.
+    #[must_use]
+    pub const fn speaking(self) -> u16 {
+        self.corroborating.saturating_add(self.conflicting)
+    }
+
+    /// Whether any source spoke at all. `false` means the warrant is a prior
+    /// and carries no evidence — a caller must not read it as agreement.
+    #[must_use]
+    pub const fn has_evidence(self) -> bool {
+        self.speaking() > 0
+    }
+
+    /// **Rung 2 — the graded warrant.**
+    ///
+    /// Frequency is the share of *speaking* sources that corroborate; confidence
+    /// grows with how many spoke. Silence enters neither: it is not counted as
+    /// corroboration (which would inflate agreement) and not as conflict (which
+    /// would manufacture disagreement). It simply leaves the claim less
+    /// attested, which is exactly what a lower confidence means.
+    ///
+    /// With nothing speaking this returns [`NarsTruth::prior`] — a weak prior,
+    /// not agreement. [`Self::has_evidence`] is how a caller tells the two
+    /// apart, because `expectation()` alone cannot.
+    #[must_use]
+    pub fn warrant(self) -> NarsTruth {
+        let speaking = f32::from(self.speaking());
+        if speaking == 0.0 {
+            return NarsTruth::prior();
+        }
+        let frequency = f32::from(self.corroborating) / speaking;
+        let evidence = speaking * EVIDENCE_PER_SOURCE;
+        let confidence = evidence / (evidence + 1.0);
+        NarsTruth::new(frequency, confidence)
+    }
+
+    /// Fold another source's verdict in. Equivalent to incrementing the matching
+    /// counter — provided so a caller accumulating over sources does not have to
+    /// remember which bucket silence belongs in.
+    #[must_use]
+    pub const fn observe(self, v: SourceVerdict) -> Self {
+        match v {
+            SourceVerdict::Corroborates => Self {
+                corroborating: self.corroborating.saturating_add(1),
+                ..self
+            },
+            SourceVerdict::Silent => Self {
+                silent: self.silent.saturating_add(1),
+                ..self
+            },
+            SourceVerdict::Conflicts => Self {
+                conflicting: self.conflicting.saturating_add(1),
+                ..self
+            },
+        }
+    }
+}
+
+/// What one source says about one claim.
+///
+/// Three variants, no `Unknown`: a source that was not consulted is not a
+/// source. [`SourceVerdict::Silent`] means consulted **and** having no opinion,
+/// which is a different fact and the one that matters.
+#[derive(Debug, Clone, Copy, PartialEq, Eq)]
+pub enum SourceVerdict {
+    /// Asserts the same relation.
+    Corroborates,
+    /// Consulted; asserts nothing about this pair.
+    Silent,
+    /// Asserts the opposite direction.
+    Conflicts,
+}
+
+#[cfg(test)]
+mod tests {
+    use super::*;
+
+    /// **The load-bearing rule, as a test.** Silence must not move frequency.
+    ///
+    /// Two quorums with identical speaking sources but wildly different silence
+    /// must agree on frequency exactly. Without this, a change that "counted
+    /// abstentions" would pass every other test in this file.
+    #[test]
+    fn silence_does_not_move_frequency() {
+        let quiet = Quorum::new(1, 0, 0).warrant();
+        let loud = Quorum::new(1, 500, 0).warrant();
+        assert_eq!(
+            quiet.frequency, loud.frequency,
+            "500 abstentions must not change what the one speaker said"
+        );
+        assert_eq!(
+            quiet.confidence, loud.confidence,
+            "…nor how well attested it is"
+        );
+    }
+
+    /// …and the twin: a CONFLICT does move it. A rule that ignored everything
+    /// would satisfy the test above.
+    #[test]
+    fn a_conflict_does_move_frequency() {
+        let agreed = Quorum::new(2, 0, 0).warrant();
+        let split = Quorum::new(1, 0, 1).warrant();
+        assert!(
+            split.frequency < agreed.frequency,
+            "a dissenting source must lower frequency ({} vs {})",
+            split.frequency,
+            agreed.frequency
+        );
+        assert!((split.frequency - 0.5).abs() < 1e-6, "one for, one against");
+    }
+
+    /// Corroboration raises confidence — the reason a quorum is computed at all.
+    /// A confidence that ignored source count would fail here.
+    #[test]
+    fn more_speaking_sources_raise_confidence() {
+        let one = Quorum::new(1, 0, 0).warrant();
+        let two = Quorum::new(2, 0, 0).warrant();
+        let five = Quorum::new(5, 0, 0).warrant();
+        assert!(two.confidence > one.confidence);
+        assert!(five.confidence > two.confidence);
+        assert_eq!(one.frequency, two.frequency, "agreement stays agreement");
+        assert!(five.confidence < 1.0, "confidence never reaches certainty");
+    }
+
+    /// No evidence yields a PRIOR, and the caller can tell. `expectation()`
+    /// alone cannot distinguish "nobody spoke" from "opinion split down the
+    /// middle" — both sit at 0.5 — so `has_evidence` is the discriminator and
+    /// this test is what keeps it honest.
+    #[test]
+    fn silence_from_everyone_is_a_prior_not_agreement() {
+        let nobody = Quorum::new(0, 7, 0);
+        assert!(!nobody.has_evidence());
+        let w = nobody.warrant();
+        assert!((w.expectation() - 0.5).abs() < 0.05);
+
+        let split = Quorum::new(1, 0, 1);
+        assert!(split.has_evidence(), "a split IS evidence, unlike silence");
+        assert!(
+            (split.warrant().expectation() - w.expectation()).abs() < 0.05,
+            "…and expectation alone cannot tell them apart — hence has_evidence"
+        );
+    }
+
+    /// `observe` routes each verdict to the right bucket. A folder that put
+    /// silence in `corroborating` would show up as a frequency change.
+    #[test]
+    fn observe_routes_each_verdict_to_its_own_bucket() {
+        let q = Quorum::default()
+            .observe(SourceVerdict::Corroborates)
+            .observe(SourceVerdict::Silent)
+            .observe(SourceVerdict::Silent)
+            .observe(SourceVerdict::Conflicts);
+        assert_eq!(q, Quorum::new(1, 2, 1));
+        assert_eq!(q.speaking(), 2, "silence is not a speaker");
+        assert!((q.warrant().frequency - 0.5).abs() < 1e-6);
+    }
+
+    /// **The measured scenario, as a regression.** On the real comparison the
+    /// sources that both spoke agreed 1,730 : 3, while 1,693 were silent.
+    /// Reading silence as dissent would report ~50 % agreement; reading it as
+    /// abstention reports 99.8 %. Both numbers are computed here so the
+    /// difference is visible rather than asserted.
+    #[test]
+    fn the_measured_cross_ontology_case_reads_as_agreement() {
+        let q = Quorum::new(1_730, 1_693, 3);
+        let w = q.warrant();
+        assert!(
+            w.frequency > 0.998,
+            "sources that spoke agreed overwhelmingly, got {}",
+            w.frequency
+        );
+        // What the WRONG reading would have produced, computed rather than
+        // claimed: silence folded into the dissent bucket.
+        let wrong = Quorum::new(1_730, 0, 1_693 + 3).warrant();
+        assert!(
+            wrong.frequency < 0.52,
+            "the inverted reading lands near a coin flip, got {}",
+            wrong.frequency
+        );
+    }
+}