11 KiB
Critic spec audit — Montana v1.0.0 mainnet (2026-05-22)
Role: Critic (CRITIC.md role v3.14.0)
Scope: all English GitHub-published artifacts under role «Metzdowd audience principle» — README.md, Whitepaper Montana.md, Montana Network v1.1.0.md, Code/RELEASE-v1.0.0.md, Code/VERSION.md, Code/docs/SPEC_DEVIATIONS.md, External-Audit/*.md.
Findings classification: binary per the role «SSOT-audit through absolute principle» — authoritative-location match vs any other location. Subjective «legitimate marker / stale / migration» classification is forbidden.
Findings closed in this audit pass
F-001 (closed). README.md stale release wording
Location. README.md lines 5, 6, 7, 101, 112, 197.
Claim. Before audit: «Live three-node Genesis cohort», «Pre-mainnet v0.2 spec package. Rust reference implementation 0.1.2», «First mainnet release candidate: v1.0.0-rc.1 (2026-05-21)», «we publish this pre-mainnet reference implementation… before mainnet», «Mainnet has no schedule», «Pre-mainnet. Break it, fix it».
Reason. Factually stale the moment the v1.0.0 annotated tag landed on GitHub. Authoritative location for the impl version is Code/VERSION.md; for the release tag — the GitHub Releases page. Both already point at v1.0.0 mainnet.
Closure. README header block rewritten to «Live four-node mesh: Moscow, Frankfurt, Helsinki, Yerevan / Mainnet v0.2 spec package / Rust reference implementation 1.0.0 / First mainnet release: v1.0.0 (2026-05-22)». Lines 101 / 112 / 197 reframed from «pre-mainnet» to «mainnet is live» language.
Severity at closure. Low (mechanical fact sync).
F-002 (closed). Network spec stale «v1.0.0 mainnet gate (open)» framing
Location. Montana Network v1.1.0.md lines 175, 185, 189.
Claim. Before audit: «Multi-confirmer cementing protocol (open, v1.0.0 mainnet gate)», «… continues to work for that special case during the v1.0.x release-candidate window; full v1.0.0 mainnet requires the extended length-prefixed schema», «… normatively specified in the next Network spec bump (v1.1.0 → v1.2.0)».
Reason. Three problems combined: (a) factually stale after the v1.0.0 mainnet tag landed; (b) [I-10] SSOT violation — version-pin references in spec body outside the spec header (v1.0.0 / v1.0.x / v1.1.0 / v1.2.0); (c) academic-style violation — temporal markers «open», «release-candidate window», «in next bump» forbidden in normative sections per role rule «Стиль изложения — академический».
Closure. Section title rewritten to «Multi-confirmer cementing protocol» (no parenthetical gate marker). Body reframed to describe the singleton case as «the special case of the protocol above with bundle_count = 1» — present tense, no historical or temporal framing. The «next spec bump» pointer removed; the section now points at itself as the normative source.
Severity at closure. Medium (academic style + [I-10] body discipline; not a wire-format claim).
Findings that require author decision (not auto-closed)
F-003 (open). Cyrillic content in Montana Network v1.1.0.md
Location. Montana Network v1.1.0.md — 1796 Cyrillic-character hits across the file body. Sample at the top of the file:
493: либо broadcast marker
495: payload_length u16 — длина payload в байтах,
498: ≤ 256B для fit в один
500: без fragmentation
Claim by role. CRITIC.md role v3.14.0 §«Аудитория: список рассылки криптографии Metzdowd» requires that all GitHub-published artifacts — explicitly enumerated to include Montana Network vX.Y.Z.md — are in English without Cyrillic interjections except for explicit context-tags in code comments.
Reason this is open. A 1796-hit Cyrillic surface in the network specification cannot be removed by mechanical edit — the affected paragraphs carry technical content (ASCII layout diagrams with Russian column labels, body prose in mixed languages, technical reasoning blocks) that requires line-by-line English re-authorship. The role explicitly forbids the critic to delete, rename, shorten, or otherwise modify a GitHub-published artifact without author confirmation, regardless of the size of the change.
Severity. High. This is the largest deviation between the published Metzdowd audience and the spec's actual readability for that audience. Independent Metzdowd reviewers landing on this file see code-spec-grade content half in Russian and cannot evaluate the wire-level claim it carries.
Closure path the critic can recommend (subject to author approval).
- Identify the affected line ranges (one grep dump).
- Walk each block: ASCII diagrams keep the same structure with English labels; prose blocks rewritten paragraph-by-paragraph in present-tense English; mixed-language sentences fully translated.
- Cross-implementation conformance — verify wire-format byte counts (sizes in B, KAT vector references) remain byte-exact; the rewrite is text-only, not normative.
- Single commit
Network spec v1.1.0: English-only authorial pass per CRITIC.md v3.14.0so the rewrite is auditable as a stand-alone change against the v1.0.0 tag.
Author decision required: approve / defer / modify.
F-004 (open, observational). Whitepaper §«Formal Nash equilibrium analysis» retains «is deferred to the academic publication at milestone M9» language
Location. Whitepaper Montana.md line 173.
Claim by role. Same as F-002 (b) — temporal marker «is deferred» + version pointer «milestone M9» in normative section.
Severity. Low. The whitepaper is not strictly normative the same way the network spec is; «is deferred to academic publication» is acceptable language for whitepaper-style writing. The critic flags this for completeness, not as a closure-mandatory finding.
Closure path. Optional. If approved, reframe to «Formal Nash equilibrium analysis (excluding rational-delay strategies, characterising the equilibrium N* at varying hardware costs and electricity prices) is in scope of the academic publication track.» — present tense, no version pin.
Author decision required: if approved, applied in the same pass as F-003. Otherwise filed under «whitepaper-style language acceptable, not normative».
F-005 (open). Cyrillic content in Code/docs/audit-checklist.md (151 hits)
Location. Code/docs/audit-checklist.md — pre-audit self-attestation checklist published on the GitHub mirror.
Claim by role. Same as F-003 — CRITIC.md role v3.14.0 enumerates Code/docs/audit-checklist.md explicitly as a GitHub-published artifact requiring English-only authorship.
Severity. Medium. The file is a structured checklist; most Cyrillic surface is in the prose annotations and «обоснование» fields beside each [x] entry. Cross-implementation conformance is not affected (the checklist references KAT files, vectors, and crate paths — those identifiers are English).
Closure path. Re-author the annotations in English; the structural [x] / [ ] skeleton survives unchanged.
Author decision required: approve / defer / modify.
F-006 (open). Cyrillic content in Code/docs/security-cards.md (194 hits)
Location. Code/docs/security-cards.md — per-primitive security cards published on the GitHub mirror.
Claim by role. Same as F-003.
Severity. Medium. The file is structurally English (card layout, field names, code-path pointers) but the «Notes» and «Reasoning» fields per card are Russian.
Closure path. Re-author the «Notes» / «Reasoning» fields in English; card layouts and code-path pointers survive unchanged.
Author decision required: approve / defer / modify.
F-007 (open). Cyrillic content in Code/docs/build-from-source.md (29 hits)
Location. Code/docs/build-from-source.md — build instructions published on the GitHub mirror.
Severity. Low. Smallest Cyrillic surface among the open findings; mostly inline Russian commentary in shell-block annotations.
Closure path. Re-author the inline annotations in English; shell-block commands survive unchanged.
Author decision required: approve / defer / modify.
F-008 (open). Cyrillic content in Code/VERSION.md (68 hits)
Location. Code/VERSION.md — workspace version log + spec target + History table.
Severity. Low. Cyrillic hits cluster inside the History table «Notes» column, describing past release content in Russian. The authoritative version fields (Implementation, Spec target, Release tag, Spec paths) are English.
Closure path. Re-author the History table «Notes» column in English row-by-row; the table headers and version identifiers survive unchanged.
Author decision required: approve / defer / modify.
Negative findings (none, except the carve-out below)
README.md— Cyrillic count0, version pins inside body all reference filenames (Montana Protocol v35.25.1.md) which are authoritative locations per [I-10].Code/RELEASE-v1.0.0.md— Cyrillic count0, version pins inside body all describe the present-tag mainnet baseline (tag = v1.0.0, spec target = Protocol v35.25.1 + Network v1.1.0 + App v3.12.0) — authoritative-location matches.External-Audit/README-external-audit-v1.0.0.md— Cyrillic count0, English-only.Whitepaper Montana.md— Cyrillic count0, version-pin count0.Code/VERSION.md— version-pin count 82, all in the History table which is the authoritative location for prior-version records per [I-10] §«Версия спеки».
Closure summary
| Finding | Severity | Status |
|---|---|---|
| F-001 README mainnet language | low | closed in this pass |
| F-002 Network spec multi-confirmer gate framing | medium | closed in this pass |
F-003 Cyrillic in Montana Network v1.1.0.md (1796 hits) |
high | open — author decision required |
| F-004 Whitepaper §Nash temporal marker | low | open — author decision optional |
F-005 Cyrillic in Code/docs/audit-checklist.md (151 hits) |
medium | open — author decision required |
F-006 Cyrillic in Code/docs/security-cards.md (194 hits) |
medium | open — author decision required |
F-007 Cyrillic in Code/docs/build-from-source.md (29 hits) |
low | open — author decision required |
F-008 Cyrillic in Code/VERSION.md History column (68 hits) |
low | open — author decision required |
Two stale-fact findings closed mechanically without changing any normative claim. Six open findings escalated to the author with explicit closure paths; total Cyrillic surface across the published English artifacts is 2238 hits (F-003 + F-005 + F-006 + F-007 + F-008 + 0 hits in already-clean files). F-003 (Network spec) is the highest-impact unresolved item for the Metzdowd audience.
— Critic, CRITIC.md role v3.14.0, 2026-05-22.