fix: follow-up review corrections, BIS rejection, and a gitignore miss

Second-pass review of this session's work by another agent. It corrected several
real mistakes of mine and finished F06 gaps I had left open. Reviewed, verified
and committed as-is.

THE MISS THAT MATTERS
`job_scout/state/applications.json` — the authoritative application registry
introduced by F02 — was never actually tracked. `job_scout/state/*` in
.gitignore silently excluded it, so my checkpoint commit afdef7e claimed to add
it and did not. Only `application_cohort.json`, the GENERATED projection, was
version-controlled; the source of truth and the migration history backup were
not. .gitignore now carries explicit negations for both.

MY ERRORS, CORRECTED
- "kastellaun" was in CH_LOCATION_KEYWORDS. Kastellaun is in Rhineland-Palatinate.
  I took it from a Bundeswehr reserve listing and filed it under Switzerland -
  precisely the class of bug F12 existed to fix.
- The F12 fix only widened the keyword list; SmartRecruiters still discarded the
  structured country, which was the concrete case the review named
  (city=Baar, country=CH). The adapter now preserves it, and a COUNTRY_NAMES
  mapping gives country precedence over a bare town name.
- F15 was applied to Taleo and Prospective only. Greenhouse still wrote
  `updated_at` into `posted`; it now uses `published_at` and carries provenance.
- My negation guard `\b(no|not|...)\b[^.;]{0,60}$` was too loose - an unrelated
  "not" within 60 characters could mask a real claim. Tightened to require the
  negation to govern the term.
- F18's retirement of the macro-count rule missed "Four to six compact skills
  lines" in the workflow; removed now.

F06 GAPS I LEFT OPEN, NOW CLOSED
Date-format validation on education/employment periods (the 2035-99 case named
in the review), evidence-structure validation, referential integrity on evidence
source files, and the missing-identity KeyError.

F10 TAKEN FURTHER, AND RIGHTLY
I demoted the US-GPA fields to *_orientation_only. They are now removed
entirely, with grade_output_rule saying what to do instead: use the German grade
and scale, and if a recipient requires a US GPA, use THEIR method and record it.
Keeping a number derived by a non-recognised method invites its use.

Also: the Capgemini omit-preference now sits in experience_capgemini.md itself,
alongside the instruction not to fill or explain the intentional gap.

BIS BASEL - REJECTED 2026-09-11
jr100429, applied 2026-07-10, no interview, no reason given. Recorded in the
registry with a dated event and in the decision log; the "prep interview brief
when screening lands" next action is cleared. This also settles the 2026-09-04
observation that the req had vanished from the BIS board - it was a real
rejection, not just a closed posting.

VERIFICATION I RAN MYSELF BEFORE COMMITTING
49/49 tests. Validator PASS with 0 advisory warnings. Package manifest and
registry views current. All 12 F12 location cases still correct, including
Kastellaun now rejecting. The F05 counter-proof still catches all 9 violations.
SBB, NVIDIA, RUAG and Kdo Cy resumes still scan clean. Diffs are net-additive
across every reference file - the deletions are replacements, not losses.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Qej5SBvhcbGXHwLqNWiskM

job_scout/state/history/application_status_before_2026-09-11.json

@@ -0,0 +1,118 @@
+{
+  "agent_sections": {
+    "AGENTS.md": "\n\n_Update this section when starting/finishing a JD._\n\n| Session | Status | Next Command |\n|---------|--------|-------------|\n| NVIDIA - **Senior DevOps Engineer**, **Zürich** (req JR2024256) | **SUBMITTED 2026-09-05.** Evidence Fit **64/100**, fit class **Stretch**, hard gate **FAIL x2**, channel **Weak** (7th consecutive cold submit; this posting published no named contact). 2pp resume 13 bullets + 1pp cover letter 279 words; both validators PASS 0 warnings, 0 boxes, 0 Tier 1 findings open. Measured Document Quality **82/100 pre-edit**; both Tier 1 findings were then closed, so it is better than 82 but **not re-measured - never quote a post-edit estimate as a score**. Submitted on an explicit user override. ⚠ **Hybrid vs 5-day onsite was never resolved before sending** - now a live screening topic, not pre-cleared. Thun→Zürich is ~1h50 each way. Comp is *not* a risk (levels.fyi Greater Zürich IC3 median ≈ CHF 204k). Honest gaps named in the letter: on-prem networking (0 canonical) and that employer-side Linux/Ansible ended Dec 2022, with only the personal `PP-3` server carrying currency. | Await response. **Raise the working model at first contact** - a 5-day-onsite seat would be a late no. |\n| SBB - **Data Engineer (m/w/d)**, Asset Management Infrastrukturanlagen, **Bern** (Job ID 103755) | ⭐ **INTERVIEW INVITED 2026-08-28 - 9. September 2026, 08:30, 45 Min, MS Teams. The only live interview in the log.** Stage **2 of 4** per the posting: *\"Virtuelles Kennenlernen mit HR und Fuehrungskraft\"*, so **HR together with Andri Wienandts**, not a pure HR screen. Brief: `output/SBB_DataEngineer_AssetMgmt/interview_brief_sbb_2026-09-09.md`. **First conversion of the evidence-first cohort** (6 applications, 2 rejections) and it came from a **COLD submit** - the warm contact printed on the posting was never called. The resume never contained **Snowflake, dbt or Power BI**, the literals an ATS screen would key on, and it still got through: a human read it and the honest-substitution framing held. One data point, do not over-read it. Submitted 2026-08-25, Core, Evidence Fit **79/100**, hard gate PASS, Document Quality **92/100**, no cover letter (SBB waives it). Best practical fit in the log: Bern, German-language, no relocation, EU + B permit. **Four unresolved items, now live call topics:** Anforderungsniveau **K** band (capped GAV, not public, likely below the 180k bar); the seat reads **lateral or below** current Staff + Component Owner scope (the declined-BKW shape); **RAMSI** Java/Spring Boot/Angular is a full responsibility line on a historical/absent stack; Kidz Care scales on gross household income. Gaps to answer honestly: Snowflake, dbt, Argo, Helm, Power BI, Spring Boot, Angular - survivable only because the JD says \"z. B.\". Thesis stays a **methods prototype**: no operational data, no accuracy figures, PSO surveyed only. | **Decide before 9.9.:** what he does if K lands at 130-150k, if architecture is set elsewhere, or if RAMSI is heavily Angular. Any one can be a no - better decided in advance than improvised on camera. |\n| RUAG C5I - **AI Engineer C5I**, **Thun** (application ID 18027) | **SUBMITTED 2026-08-27** via jobs.ruag.ch (portal only). Evidence Fit **74/100**, fit class **Stretch**, hard gate **FAIL** (R1/R2, the title-defining responsibilities, are Adjacent not Direct), Document Quality **93/100** after a critique-and-fix round, channel **Weak/cold**. German CV 2 pages/13 bullets + motivation letter 1 page/295 words; validators PASS, 0 boxes, visual QA clean. (Cohort slot language here is historical: the **7/2/1 caps were dropped 2026-09-05** - see `application_strategy.md`.) Positioning is his canonical title Staff Data, Analytics & AI Engineer; `PP-3` carries current Linux/hardening evidence and `SW-5` ties DevSecOps to C5I's stated model. The letter names the AI-platform gap in one sentence. Honest gaps: no AI/LLM platform, no compute/GPU cluster, no RAG/retrieval, ML/AI frameworks certification-context only. **Compensation, PSP/project eligibility and level were never resolved and are now live screening topics.** Marco Heinzen's published direct line was never used. **If rejected, do not drop RUAG** - **Senior DevOps Engineer C5I** is shortlisted and fits better (still live on the board 2026-09-04). The **Data Lakehouse / Senior Data Platform Engineer** req was a title-match prior the JD does not support: reposted 2026-09-04 as **Senior Data Engineer (MSSQL)**, requiring on-prem MSSQL/Talend/SAP S/4HANA - 0 canonical each - and **ruled out**. | Await response; optional calls to Marco Heinzen (scope/level) and Frank Haugwitz (comp/PSP). |\n| Schweizer Armee - **Kommando Cyber (Kdo Cy)**, DevOps Engineer III (Data Platform), **Zimmerwald** (Ref JRQ$540-19848) | **SUBMITTED 2026-08-27.** Evidence Fit **79/Core**, hard gate **PASS**, Document Quality **92/100**, channel **Weak**. German 2-page CV plus 1-page motivation letter; validators PASS, 0 boxes, Line truncated
+    "CLAUDE.md": "\n\n_Update this section when starting/finishing a JD._\n\n| Session | Status | Next Command |\n|---------|--------|-------------|\n| NVIDIA - **Senior DevOps Engineer**, **Zürich** (req JR2024256) | **SUBMITTED 2026-09-05.** Recorded in the application record (now 7 entries) and in the scout decision log. ⚠ **Hybrid vs 5-day onsite was never resolved before sending**, so the working model is now a **live screening topic**, not a pre-cleared one - the same pattern as RUAG's comp/PSP. Thun→Zürich is ~1h50 each way; a 5-day-onsite answer is the main disqualifier to watch for. Comp is *not* a risk (levels.fyi Greater Zürich IC3 median ≈ CHF 204k, IC4 ≈ CHF 379k). Channel **Weak - the 7th consecutive cold submit**, though this posting published no named contact, so cold was the only option available. Submission PDFs `Dennis_Thiessen_Resume.pdf` and `Dennis_Thiessen_Cover_Letter.pdf` exist and are MD5-verified against source; letter recompiled so its date reads 5 Sep 2026. ⚠ **The letter carries `\today` and the submission copies are copies, not build targets - if it is sent on a later day, recompile the letter and refresh both copies first** (`config.md` Output Rules). Submitted despite the hard-gate failures on an explicit user override, the same shape as RUAG AI Engineer C5I. Resume 2pp/13 bullets + 1pp cover letter (279 body words), both validators PASS 0 warnings, 0 boxes, visually inspected. Measured **Document Quality 82/100** at critique; **both Tier 1 findings were fixed 2026-09-05** - `Ubuntu` removed from the skills line (0 canonical; `PP-3` is Debian only, and the Debian→Ubuntu transfer argument belongs in an interview answer, not a skills line) and `security hardening` now marked *(personal server)* per the explicit `claims.json` instruction. Four honest ATS terms were added from existing evidence (configuration management, service reliability, container orchestration, observability), lifting JD term coverage **50%→61%**; no bullet was touched, so the budget stayed at 13 and cadence could not regress. **The critique is now STALE BY DESIGN - the document is better than 82 but that number was not re-measured, so never quote a post-edit estimate as a score.** The headline reorder was deliberately NOT applied: it is a positioning call for the user and `\\headline` sits in the FIXED header block. Cover-letter hook is first-party verified (NVIDIA's own live Zürich posting JR2022878); **a hook was DROPPED at verification** - the Phase 0 plan's \"Alps / Swiss AI Initiative with ETH Zürich and EPFL\" is **not** supported by the first-party NVIDIA newsroom release, which mentions neither EPFL nor any Swiss AI Initiative; that came from secondary coverage. The letter names **both** honest gaps out loud - on-prem networking, and that employer-side Linux/Ansible ended Dec 2022 with only a personal server carrying currency. **⚠ BLOCKING: the working model is still unresolved and no document fix changes that.** Session `output/NVIDIA_SrDevOps_Zurich/session_nvidia_sr_devops.md`; JD scraped live via Playwright and saved verbatim (posted ~2026-09-01, very fresh). Evidence Fit **64/100**, fit class **Stretch**, **hard gate FAIL on two counts**: (1) required line *\"Strong expertise in on-premises networking and compute infrastructure\"* is a **Gap** - networking is 0 canonical and is not substitutable from data-platform work; (2) **hybrid vs onsite is UNRESOLVED** and the JD is silent - Thun→Zürich is ~1h50 each way. Required tally **3 Direct / 3 Adjacent / 1 Gap**. Recorded as an override rather than a passing gate, the same shape as RUAG AI Engineer C5I. (At the time this also had no free cohort slot; **that constraint no longer exists** - caps dropped 2026-09-05.) **Correction to the same day's scout triage: it called two required lines Gaps; only Q5b networking is one. Q2 (10+ yrs DevOps) is Adjacent and defensible** - a continuous CI/CD/automation thread runs Generali 2015 → today across five employers; the honest weakness is that those roles were titled data/test/research engineer, not DevOps. **The finding that changes the calculus: comp.** levels.fyi Greater Zürich puts NVIDIA IC3 median ≈ CHF 204k and IC4 ≈ CHF 379k, the highest-paying SWE employer in the city - the first role in the log where comp is a reason to *accept* a long commute rather than decline. Caveat: self-reported and equity-heavy after an extraordinary NVDA run; treat base as the reliable part. Strongest match is **R3, CI/CD pipelines for R&D engineering teams** - literally his career shape (`FC-1` Jenkins at a Fraunhofer institute, `BS-6` Ansible/Jenkins for fab analytics teams, `SW-3` Kubernetes + GitLab today). Zürich is NVIDIA's HPC/AI infrastructure-software R&D hub - first-party verified from NVIDIA's own live Zürich posting JR2022878 (*\"building the next generation of scalable AI infrastructure ... distributed training, real-time inference, and communication efficiency across large sLine truncated
+  },
+  "cohort": {
+    "cohort_id": "evidence-first-2026-01",
+    "status": "active (log, not a capped cohort)",
+    "started": "2026-07-27",
+    "target_mix": {
+      "core": 7,
+      "adjacent": 2,
+      "stretch": 1
+    },
+    "definitions": {
+      "core": "Evidence Fit 75+ and no hard-gate failure",
+      "adjacent": "Evidence Fit 60-74, no required Gap, normally at most one serious preferred gap",
+      "stretch": "Evidence Fit below 60 or a defining responsibility is only Adjacent"
+    },
+    "policy_change_2026_09_05": "Slot caps (7 core / 2 adjacent / 1 stretch) DROPPED by user decision. target_mix is retained only as a record of the original design and is no longer read by cohort_tracker.py or enforced anywhere. This file continues as a durable application log. Channel is now the rationed variable: no application goes out cold when a named contact is published and reachable. See resume_builder/reference/application_strategy.md.",
+    "applications": [
+      {
+        "company": "Google",
+        "role": "Software Engineer III, Business Home",
+        "application_date": "2026-07-27",
+        "fit_class": "core",
+        "evidence_fit": 89.0,
+        "hard_gate": "pass",
+        "channel": "weak",
+        "outcome": "rejected_no_interview"
+      },
+      {
+        "company": "Aker BP ASA",
+        "role": "Data Product Architect - AI-ready Data Products",
+        "application_date": "2026-07-29",
+        "fit_class": "adjacent",
+        "evidence_fit": 79.0,
+        "hard_gate": "pass",
+        "channel": "weak",
+        "outcome": "rejected_no_interview",
+        "submitted": "2026-07-29",
+        "rejection_date": "2026-08-27"
+      },
+      {
+        "company": "SBB",
+        "role": "Data Engineer (m/w/d), Asset Management Infrastrukturanlagen, Bern",
+        "job_id": "103755",
+        "application_date": "2026-08-25",
+        "fit_class": "core",
+        "evidence_fit": 79.0,
+        "hard_gate": "pass",
+        "channel": "weak",
+        "outcome": "withdrawn_by_candidate",
+        "submitted": "2026-08-25",
+        "open_risk": "Anforderungsniveau K is a capped GAV band, figures not public; seat may read lateral or below current Staff + Component Owner scope.",
+        "interview": {
+          "stage": "Stage 2 of 4 - Virtuelles Kennenlernen mit HR und Fuehrungskraft",
+          "invited": "2026-08-28",
+          "scheduled": "2026-09-09 08:30",
+          "duration_min": 45,
+          "format": "Microsoft Teams",
+          "held": "2026-09-09",
+          "result": "Held 2026-09-09 (HR + Scrum Master). Candidate WITHDREW 2026-09-11 after SBB confirmed there was no room to move on the Einstufung.",
+          "user_read": "User reported 'ein paar Red Flags' and judged that the Rahmenbedingungen do not compensate for them. The specific red flags were NOT captured while fresh - if this is reopened, ask before relying on memory. Leaning negative but explicitly undecided as of 2026-09-10; he asked to leave it open pending SBB's feedback."
+        },
+        "note": "FIRST interview invitation in the evidence-first cohort. Converted from a COLD submit - the published warm contact (Andri Wienandts, +41 79 364 62 53) was never called. The resume never contained Snowflake, dbt or Power BI, the three literals an ATS keyword screen would have keyed on, so a human read the dossier.",
+        "comp_datapoint": "HARD FIGURES, from the interview - supersedes the earlier +10% estimate. Anforderungsniveau K TOPS OUT AT ~CHF 145k. His own position: ~CHF 135k today inside a Swisscom band that runs to ~CHF 160k. So the decisive point was NOT the absolute number but the HEADROOM: he would have had to enter K at its ceiling just to break even, with nothing left above. First hard calibration of a Swiss public-sector band and the reference point for the whole Bern/Thun tier (RUAG, Swissgrid, BKW, BFH, PostFinance).",
+        "withdrawn": "2026-09-11",
+        "why_withdrawn": "Total package was a net DOWNGRADE on four counts: 41h vs 40h week; 25 days holiday + Brueckentage vs 28 + 5 from Zeitautonomie; 3 office days vs 2; and the band ceiling above. Plus a qualitative red flag: he spoke only to HR and the Scrum Master and perceived DIFFICULTIES IN THE TEAM. That one is not fixable by a salary offer - note it if SBB or a similar Bern-tier seat comes back.",
+        "lesson": "SBB-SPECIFIC targeting rule (user 2026-09-11): at SBB, Anforderungsniveau K is too low - aim at Niveau L and/or Kader. NARROWED the same day at the user's instruction: Anforderungsniveau is SBB's OWN system (https://company.sbb.ch/de/jobs-karriere/arbeitgeberin/lohn.html) and does NOT generalise - jobs.admin.ch uses Lohnklassen, RUAG its own scheme, PostFinance per-posting bands. ~145k is an SBB ceiling, not a tier anchor. THUN-AREA EMPLOYERS (RUAG, Kdo Cy) ARE EXPLICITLY OUT of this reasoning: near-zero commute plus benefits a band does not show - he named childcare-cost coverage at the Schweizer Armee/Kdo Cy as potentially far more generous (UNVERIFIED - ask). Never decline a Thun-area role on band alone. What DOES generalise: judge by headroom in the band, and price the total package (working time, holiday, office days), not the entry number."
+      },
+      {
+        "company": "Citadel Securities",
+        "role": "Platform Engineer, Research Platform Engineering (Zurich/NY/Miami)",
+        "application_date": "2026-08-26",
+        "fit_class": "adjacent",
+        "evidence_fit": 71.0,
+        "hard_gate": "pass",
+        "channel": "weak",
+        "outcome": "applied"
+      },
+      {
+        "company": "Schweizer Armee - Kommando Cyber",
+        "role": "DevOps Engineer III (Data Platform)",
+        "application_date": "2026-08-27",
+        "fit_class": "core",
+        "evidence_fit": 79.0,
+        "hard_gate": "pass",
+        "channel": "weak",
+        "outcome": "rejected_no_interview",
+        "submitted": "2026-08-27",
+        "rejection_date": "2026-09-10",
+        "days_to_disposition": 14,
+        "note": "Form-letter rejection from Besarta Mehmeti, no interview, 14 days to disposition - the fastest in the log after Google Business Home. The letter is boilerplate ('Profil und unsere Kriterien nicht in allen Punkten uebereinstimmen') and carries ZERO diagnostic content, so it is not a signal about the package and is no reason to re-audit it. Same disposition class as Microsoft ISE, Google Business Home and Aker BP: a cold-channel no-interview rejection does not implicate document quality on its own. WORTH WATCHING, NOT CONCLUDING: this row and the SBB row are identical on every recorded dimension - core, Evidence Fit 79, hard gate pass, Document Quality 92, channel weak - and they went opposite ways (SBB converted to an interview, this died in 14 days). That shows the fit score did not discriminate; it does NOT show what did. n=1 on each side. Do not react with positioning changes (application_strategy.md 38/74). Channel note: Marcel Matthey-Doret (+41 58 46 78409) was published and never called - the fourth published, reachable contact left unused after Heinzen (RUAG), Wienandts (SBB) and Marthinsen (Aker BP). Consistent with the 2026-09-05 channel policy, but NOT evidence for it: the single interview in this log came from a cold submit."
+      },
+      {
+        "company": "RUAG MRO Holding AG (Business Area C5I)",
+        "role": "AI Engineer C5I (w/m/d), Thun",
+        "application_date": "2026-08-27",
+        "fit_class": "stretch",
+        "evidence_fit": 74.0,
+        "hard_gate": "fail",
+        "channel": "weak",
+        "outcome": "applied"
+      },
+      {
+        "company": "NVIDIA",
+        "role": "Senior DevOps Engineer, Zurich (JR2024256)",
+        "application_date": "2026-09-05",
+        "fit_class": "stretch",
+        "evidence_fit": 64.0,
+        "hard_gate": "fail",
+        "channel": "weak",
+        "outcome": "applied"
+      }
+    ]
+  }
+}