# Chapter 20 Initial Claude Draft Assessment

Source: `output/drafts/claude/chapter_20.round_01.md`

Verdict: ACCEPT AS PROSE BASE WITH REPAIR.

Why it is usable:

- It fulfills the compressed Ch20 architecture: Ruth/Sam care without advice, Asha-first consent, Tasker refusal before deadline, Asha recommendation, and New York scaffolding all happen before any Theo repair.
- June's decision is materially independent of Theo. The strongest safeguard is the daylight test: if Theo never speaks to her again, the Ridgewood wall and Kessler path still have to be worth choosing.
- Nia remains credible. The offer wins the arithmetic, and the no costs June a clean answer.
- Asha is a working-artist alternative, not a magical rescue. The draft keeps bad heat, late pay, deposit timing, and March cash-flow risk visible.
- Ruth/Sam do not ask for the story. Their help is practical: dish, catalogs, car/hand truck, and one confession about their own silence.

Required repairs before integration:

- Mechanical: remove markdown-bold text-message formatting at raw line 19.
- Mechanical: break the banned echo-line pattern at raw line 103.
- Correct raw typo `10:5o-whatever`.
- Remove book-specific tic `A beat` from Asha's call.
- Thin several Claude-default explanatory/philosophical closers around the stay test and post-Nia-call aftermath.
- Clarify the catalog return route enough that the eight catalogs leave June by a non-Theo route without requiring a Ch21 contradiction.

Disposition: accepted and integrated at `output/chapters/chapter_20.md`; raw gate report preserved at `output/critiques/codex/mechanical/chapter_20_raw_quality_gate_report.md`.
