Every finding no permitted edit can clear is a warning

Context

ADR-0009 makes a finding that no permitted edit to the named document could clear a warning, and applies it to the rules whose subject is the document's own body, naming L14, L16 and L17. The rules added since that read a body, L20 and L21, follow it. Nine others report faults that only an edit to a frozen document could clear, and under ADR-0001 that edit is never permitted:

Each stays an error, so lint fails on that repository for good. L08, L09 and L10 read the body, and ADR-0009's list omits them. L01, L02 and L07 read the front matter, which ADR-0009's scope does not reach. L03, L04 and L05 report relationships, which ADR-0009 sets aside as cleared by editing the other document, but no edit to another document clears these: a type comes from the identifier, a frozen target keeps its status, a frozen document cannot be renumbered, and no document can be written to hold what is not an identifier. RFC-0009 describes L08's finding of a level two heading after the closing section as an error that does not soften. In a frozen document it is a fault no permitted edit can clear.

The gap in the body and the front matter was raised on 2026-10-26 in #30, and the relationship faults on 2026-11-02, while the change in #53 was open.

Decision

A finding that no permitted edit could clear is a warning, whatever part of the document it concerns. When the named document is frozen this applies to L01, L02, L07, L08, L09, L10, L14, L16, L17, L20 and L21; to L04 where it names a ref in depends or includes, or a reference that is not an identifier any document can hold; and to L05 where it names itself, a document of another type, or one document in both lists, or names a frozen target that is not accepted. It applies to L03 where every document holding the identifier is frozen. It does not apply to a fault another permitted edit can clear: a reference to a valid identifier no document holds, whose document can be written; a target that is not accepted and not frozen; or an identifier also held by a document that is not frozen, which can be renumbered. Nor does it apply to L11, whose finding is that a frozen document was edited and whose remedy is to revert.

Alternatives

• The body rules alone. L08, L09 and L10 become warnings and L01, L02 and L07 stay errors, as ADR-0009's scope gives it. A front matter fault in a frozen document is as permanent as a body fault, so this keeps the failure ADR-0009 was written to remove.
• Relationship faults left as errors, as ADR-0009 sets them aside. L03, L04 and L05 stay errors in a frozen document. No edit to another document clears the faults in the table above, so this keeps the failure for them.

No other alternatives were weighed.

Consequences

Easier:

• A repository holding a frozen document with any fault in it will still pass lint, and the fault will still be reported.
• A finding in a frozen document will be an error only where some permitted edit could clear it.

Harder:

• More of what lint prints will be warnings that can never be cleared.

Constrained:

• A rule added later will report a warning wherever its finding could only be cleared by editing a frozen document.