Stop the grounding gate rejecting drafts for saying "I'd"

packages/ai/src/checks.test.ts

@@ -124,6 +124,32 @@ describe('claim extraction', () => {
   test('ignores common words even when capitalised', () => {
     expect(extractClaims('the thing is Thanks matters')).not.toContain('Thanks');
   });
+
+  test('does not read a first-person contraction as a name', () => {
+    // "I'd" is capitalised mid-sentence but asserts nothing. Extracting it
+    // withheld every first-person draft, because normalising the apostrophe
+    // leaves "i d" and no evidence can contain that.
+    expect(extractClaims("fees are brutal, and I'd guess settlement is worse")).toEqual([]);
+    expect(extractClaims('fees are brutal, and I’d guess settlement is worse')).toEqual([]);
+    expect(extractClaims("we shipped it and I've seen the same thing since")).toEqual([]);
+  });
+
+  test('reads a possessive as the name it possesses', () => {
+    // "Stripe's" must match evidence that says "Stripe", not read as invented.
+    expect(extractClaims('the Stripe’s fees are brutal')).toContain('Stripe');
+    expect(extractClaims("the Stripe's fees are brutal")).toContain('Stripe');
+  });
+
+  test('does not treat apostrophes as quotation marks', () => {
+    // Two contractions used to bracket the prose between them into a
+    // "quotation" that nothing could support.
+    const claims = extractClaims("I've seen this. Curious what you'd try next.");
+    expect(claims).toEqual([]);
+  });
+
+  test('still picks out a genuinely quoted phrase', () => {
+    expect(extractClaims('they said “fees are brutal” last week')).toContain('fees are brutal');
+  });
 });
 
 describe('flattery (PRD §13.3)', () => {
@@ -304,4 +330,40 @@ describe('findUnsupportedClaims', () => {
 
     expect(unsupported).toHaveLength(0);
   });
+
+  test('accepts a first-person draft that only cites the evidence', () => {
+    // The shape the composer actually produces. Every one of these was
+    // rejected as an unsupported claim, so the approvals queue answered
+    // "the wording kept asserting things nothing supports — I'd".
+    const { unsupported } = findUnsupportedClaims(
+      "You said fees are brutal and settlement takes days. I'd guess the delay is the " +
+        "batching rather than Stripe's rails, but I've been wrong about that before.",
+      GROUNDING,
+    );
+
+    expect(unsupported).toHaveLength(0);
+  });
+
+  test('a first-person draft passes every gate', () => {
+    const report = runChecks(
+      input({
+        body:
+          "You said settlement takes days and fees are brutal. I'd guess the batching " +
+          "is the harder half — I've seen that pattern before.",
+      }),
+    );
+
+    expect(report.passed).toBe(true);
+    expect(report.unsupported).toHaveLength(0);
+  });
+
+  test('still catches an invented specific inside first-person prose', () => {
+    const { unsupported } = findUnsupportedClaims(
+      "I'd say Fluxwire cut our settlement time by 40%.",
+      GROUNDING,
+    );
+
+    expect(unsupported).toContain('Fluxwire');
+    expect(unsupported).toContain('40%');
+  });
 });

packages/ai/src/checks.ts

@@ -219,6 +219,20 @@ const STOPWORDS = new Set([
   'way',
 ]);
 
+/**
+ * Contraction and possessive endings, removed before a capitalised word is
+ * read as a name.
+ *
+ * "I'd" is not a proper noun, but it is capitalised mid-sentence and so was
+ * extracted as one — and nothing could ever support it, because `normalize`
+ * turns the apostrophe into a space and leaves the untraceable token "i d".
+ * Any draft written in the first person failed its own grounding gate, twice,
+ * and was withheld. Stripping the ending also fixes the opposite error:
+ * "Stripe's" normalised to "stripe s" and did not match stored evidence
+ * reading "Stripe", so a correctly grounded name was rejected as invented.
+ */
+const CONTRACTION_SUFFIX = /['’](?:s|d|m|t|ll|ve|re)$/i;
+
 /**
  * Distinct content words a draft must share with the evidence to count as
  * grounded. Two is enough to rule out generic outreach ("would you be open to
@@ -377,8 +391,13 @@ export function findUnsupportedClaims(
 export function extractClaims(body: string): string[] {
   const claims: string[] = [];
 
-  // Quoted phrases: an explicit claim about what someone said.
-  for (const match of body.matchAll(/[""']([^""']{4,120})[""']/g)) {
+  // Quoted phrases: an explicit claim about what someone said. Only double
+  // quotes delimit one. An apostrophe is not a quote mark, and treating it as
+  // one made every pair of contractions in a draft look like a quotation: "I've
+  // seen this. Curious what you'd try" yielded the claim "ve seen this. Curious
+  // what you", which no evidence can support. Single quotes are left out for
+  // the same reason — they are indistinguishable from the apostrophe in "I'd".
+  for (const match of body.matchAll(/["“”]([^"“”]{4,120})["“”]/g)) {
     if (match[1]) claims.push(match[1]);
   }
 
@@ -396,7 +415,8 @@ export function extractClaims(body: string): string[] {
   for (const sentence of sentences) {
     const words = sentence.trim().split(/\s+/);
     for (let i = 1; i < words.length; i += 1) {
-      const word = words[i]!.replace(/^[^\p{L}\p{N}]+|[^\p{L}\p{N}]+$/gu, '');
+      const trimmed = words[i]!.replace(/^[^\p{L}\p{N}]+|[^\p{L}\p{N}]+$/gu, '');
+      const word = trimmed.replace(CONTRACTION_SUFFIX, '');
       if (word.length < 3) continue;
       if (!/^\p{Lu}/u.test(word)) continue;
       if (STOPWORDS.has(word.toLowerCase())) continue;