Formerly the first Red String prototype (2026-09-06); reassigned the same day to The Dossier’s prove-it step after Sarah moved evidence and inference to The Dossier. Interactive argument-mapping board: a corkboard of paper scraps lifted from a passage; drag red string from what holds up to what it holds, find the one scrap that will not take a thread, and pin it as the plant.

Peregrine · live prototype · The Dossier prove-it step (formerly Red String v1, reassigned 2026-09-06)

Argument board

Reading-native. The passage’s claims are pinned to a corkboard as scraps. Drag string from the scrap that holds up to the scrap it holds. One scrap was never in the file and will not take a thread. Find it by failing to wire it, then pin it as the plant.

Verb: connect. Commit: cinch (press-and-hold the plant, the string loops it). No clock. The passage is one tap away under The file, per substance rule 1.

Prototype controls

Try: drag from a pin, or tap one scrap then another. Try the leftover scrap against two partners and watch its pin. Then Pin the plant and hold.

Red String
1/2
exhibit 12 · the warbler file 120 coin
String what holds up what. The scrap that won’t take a thread is the plant.
Drag from a scrap’s pin to the scrap it holds up. Or tap one, then the other.
drag string between pins
string runs from what holds up what it holds
The file ▸
Pin the plant
the file · exhibit 12
Back to the board

What this prototype settles, and what it asks

  1. Verb and commit. Connect is a pin-to-pin drag with a sagging string that draws in when it takes. The commit is a press-and-hold cinch: the string loops the plant and pulls tight. Haptic proposed: cinch — friction → snap. Neither is in _principles.md’s registry yet; a row is added alongside this file.
  2. Two tempos. Reading and stringing are quiet: no meter, no clock, refusals are a slack string and a small wobble. The juice is at the cinch and the reveal only.
  3. The orphan is never pre-styled. Its pin turns grey with “won’t take a thread” only after it has failed against two different partners and holds nothing. An innocent scrap can reach that state too and clears it the moment it connects. That threshold is a tuning question, not a rule.
  4. Directed string. Rookie tier (tags on) accepts either direction and orients the arrow from the tags. Detective tier (no tags) refuses a reversed string with the same slack fall as any miss, so a refusal never confirms that two scraps belong together. Whether that is too hard is the first thing to playtest.
  5. Wrong plant. Pinning an innocent scrap costs 40 coin and draws its true thread in gold with the line “It holds.” No “wrong,” no adversary invented for it. Failed string attempts cost nothing; the economy of fumbles belongs to the build.
  6. The orphan maps to a con, as the spec’s lint requires: round 1 is The Embellisher (adds what isn’t on the page), round 2 The Generalizer (turns one case into a rule). The reveal pairs the name with its M.O. in plain language; mugshot is a CSS silhouette (reserved for the reveal).
  7. The receipt. Every reveal ends on a flat line naming the test’s own shape (Command of Evidence / Inference) without a curtain. It is the answer to “I just don’t want to find out in March that the fun part was the fake part.”
  8. Casting. The static mockup’s ornithologist was “Reyes,” which is The Embellisher’s alias (Auguste Reyes). She is Halvorsen here. New passage names should be screened against casting_pool.
  9. Content shape follows the catalog’s build-the-chain contract: cards with roles, directed edges, one distractor (the orphan), and a misplaceable scrap in round 2 (the second support reads as if it could hold up the claim; only the conclusion takes it).