Canonical Legacy Contract

This is a preservation of Whitaker's WORDS. Its scope is distinct from designing a new Latin analyzer. TypeScript is compiled to JavaScript ESM; legacy behavior is defined by a fixed executable reference, not by expectations about Latin.

Snapshot identity

words-mk270-1f2f0fb is the canonical legacy source snapshot. The exact upstream commit is 1f2f0fb0867a896d7b9284a03d615ed635d6f992 from mk270/whitakers-words. legacy.lock.json locks its source archive and original data hashes. The archive contains the complete source tree and upstream license notice. Historical releases and other ports do not supply substitute data or expected results for this snapshot.

An executable baseline additionally identifies compiler, build options, platform, configuration files and process invocation. Those factors are part of a measured behavior profile; source identity alone is insufficient.

What compatibility preserves

Preserve the reference's admitted candidates, ordering, metadata, fallback order, trimming, input treatment, compound handling and errors within the qualified profile. Original linguistic errors remain legacy behavior. Repeated-call or batch-order effects are observations to reproduce or explicitly delimit, not opportunities for silent correction.

Keep raw input and raw executable output in fixtures. A comparison may have a declared normalized view, but must retain ordering, multiplicity, token boundaries and error states. Never use a global set of output lines as a conformance claim. Distinguish startup/terminal protocol from linguistic results explicitly.

The first delivery includes an analysis library, structured API, CLI and minimal browser validation harness. A complete dictionary UI is outside that delivery.

Corrected layer

The legacy result is immutable input to a separately selected corrected layer. No linguistic corrections are enabled by default. Each correction must declare:

• a stable deviation ID and layer version;
• affected source rows, rules or behavior, and applicable inputs;
• the legacy observation and proposed corrected behavior;
• evidence and the status of its adjudication;
• tests covering the change and unaffected behavior.

Results from a corrected layer retain the original legacy result and identify every applied deviation. Legacy baseline fixtures are never rewritten to make a correction appear compatible. A new layer version cannot alter a frozen legacy profile. Technical transport/build adaptations also remain explicit, but are separate from linguistic deviations.

Claims

Source preservation, executable reproducibility, behavioral compatibility and linguistic correctness are separate claims. Report measured coverage and remaining differences. A passing build, a few familiar words or a fixture subset does not establish complete Whitaker compatibility.