# Phase 8 Batch 4 Diagnosis - Middle Repetition / Tasker Compression

Date: 2026-07-05

## Trigger

Claude full-book cold read finding #5:

- Ch06-Ch11 care moves harden into a rota.
- Ch15/18/20 Tasker decision is staged as repeated notebook/column/no-decision beats.
- Reader interest sags in the middle because repeated care language becomes recognizable before it changes state.

## Current Evidence

### Repeated announced care moves

- Ch06 Priya: `"Did you eat? You came straight from work."`
- Ch06 Sam: `"Stand here. Not symbolically. You can actually see all three from here."`
- Ch18 Mara: `"Are you eating?"`
- Ch18 Mara food/dish beat is necessary for the scarf-to-blue-dish handoff, but the spoken eating-check repeats Priya's care register.

Diagnosis: keep the care, remove the announced formula. The middle should feel like different people caring differently, not a checklist of owned moves.

### Tasker repetition

- Ch15 must keep the formal offer call. It introduces new information: pay, benefits, keys, after-hours wall, deadline, Vandercook/press trap, Asha referral possibility.
- Ch18 repeats the decision-board shape: "two columns," Tasker/New York lists, no decision, floor-plan draft left unsent.
- Ch20 must keep the refusal and Asha-consent/Nia payoff. It is the actual decision.

Diagnosis: Ch18 is the best compression target. It should keep pressure alive without restating the full column contents. The chapter's unique work is absence labor, scarf return, leaving-side studies, and keeping Kessler held while June does not answer Tasker. Replace the column block with a shorter, more active pressure beat: Nia floor-plan draft, Asha hold, maybe one material Tasker detail, but no full two-column reprise.

### De-telemetry opportunity

World-coherence audit asks to de-telemetry one Tasker/Asha beat. Current Ch23 reports Asha's Tasker outcome in one line. Batch 4 can either:

- leave this for a later larger expansion, or
- add a small Ch20 post-referral fragment that makes Tasker/Asha move independently without making June manage it. The fragment must not turn Ch20 into a fourth Tasker scene.

## Working Repair Hypothesis

1. Ch06: rewrite two care lines so Priya and Sam act in their registers without using the repeated formulas.
2. Ch18: replace the two-column Tasker/New York block with a shorter active beat; keep the floor-plan draft and Asha's hold.
3. Ch20 or Ch23: only add Asha/Tasker independent motion if the fragment creates fresh pressure and does not re-argue the decision.

## Risks

- Cutting too much Ch18 Tasker pressure could make Ch20's refusal feel sudden.
- Adding Asha/Tasker material could increase telemetry instead of reducing it if it arrives as more texts.
- Care-move repairs must not flatten warmth; they should make the warmth less announced.

## Next Step

Claude packet requested for surgical replacement candidates, not wholesale chapter rewrite.
