v0.8.5 — housekeeping from the audit, and the playtest line retired

The third release from the audit; nothing a player sees changes. CHANGELOG has the detail.

The 0.4.9 playtest line is no longer maintained (Jesse, 2026-09-29): the deploy rule that
existed for it is gone and #85 is moot. The table test (#39 #35 #42a #40) is closed — every
line of the checklist was met at a table. #46 is done and cannot regrow: the 36 unused
declarations are removed and `noUnusedLocals`/`noUnusedParameters` are on; two of them were
dead bot functions from rejected candidates the round said it had deleted. The documents no
longer teach `trainCapSlack` (a knob that throws), point at `as-built.md` (deleted in 0.8.2),
model `officeType` (the engine says `tier`) or describe `collisionOccurred` (never emitted);
the README's account of bot flags now matches the bot's. Five playtest saves committed in
`docs/` against the repository's own rule are in the ignored `playtests/`.

What the audit found and did not fix is written down as TODO #112-#117, each with its reason.
#112 is `docs/plans/structure.md`, the proposal for `http.ts`, `main.ts` and `check`. #117 —
`/api/save` hands a seat the seed mid-game — waits on a conversation.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01FrCWubm9GAftYCm2hWdKwK

README.md

@@ -84,7 +84,7 @@ station-master/
 ├── CHANGELOG.md        ← what changed and why, in detail, commit to commit
 ├── TODO.md             ← open questions, provisional numbers, things to come back to
 ├── docs/
-│   ├── rules/          ← the ruleset, card reference, glossary, decision record
+│   ├── rules/          ← the ruleset, glossary, decision record (the card tables are in docs/*-deck.md)
 │   ├── architecture/   ← how it is built, and what the pieces are
 │   ├── plans/          ← worked plans for a single change, kept for the reasoning
 │   └── design/         ← board layout studies and rendering samples
@@ -124,7 +124,7 @@ syntax**: no `enum`, no parameter properties, no namespaces. `tsconfig.json` enf
 
 ```sh
 node src/sim/harness.ts 200                   # how the bot does, with the funnel
-node src/sim/compare.ts 1600 trainCapSlack=1  # one change, paired against the current bot
+node src/sim/compare.ts 1600 noValueLays=1    # one ablation, paired against the current bot
 ```
 
 **Never judge a heuristic on an unpaired run.** Revenue has σ ≈ 9 across games, so two runs of the
@@ -134,10 +134,11 @@ standard error at ±0.13, in under two minutes. Keep a change at **t ≥ 3**, an
 better/worse/identical split beside the mean: a gain carried by a few rescued games is a different
 claim from one spread across the field.
 
-Variants come from `makeDeveloperBot(tweaks)`. A tweak is **temporary** — when it measures well it
-becomes the default and the flag is deleted in the same commit; when it measures badly it is deleted
-with the finding recorded in `CHANGELOG.md`. A bot that accumulates switches nobody can account for
-is the thing this machinery exists to prevent.
+Variants come from `makeDeveloperBot(tweaks)`. Every flag is an **ablation**: it turns OFF a
+heuristic that is now the bot's default play (`noPlanSwitching`, `noValueLays`, …), so an adopted
+heuristic can be re-measured when the deck or the rules move under it. A candidate that measures
+badly is deleted, with the finding recorded in `CHANGELOG.md` — a switch nobody turns on is a switch
+nobody maintains. `compare.ts` lists the flags it accepts and refuses any other name.
 
 ## Design notes worth knowing