DD b14 — TELES START/STOP Boundaries and Label Renames#

Date: 2026m04d04

Status: Active rule. Extends the TELES contract defined in CLAUDE.md.

The Rule#

Every TELES operation has an explicit START and STOP boundary. Between START and STOP, TELES may perform any RST formatting repair that does not alter formal content (axioms, theorems, symbol definitions, equations). This is the existing TELES contract as defined in CLAUDE.md.

This DD extends that contract with one additional permission:

Within a TELES session (after START, before STOP), if the session’s own mechanical operations introduced labels, cross-references, or naming artifacts that are discovered to be confusing or misleading before STOP is declared, TELES may rename those artifacts to serve transparency — even in append-only llog files.

This permission is narrowly scoped:

  1. Only artifacts created by the current TELES session. TELES may not rename pre-existing labels that it did not introduce.

  2. Only before STOP. Once STOP is declared, all labels become immutable. Any rename after STOP requires a new TELES session with its own START.

  3. The rename must serve transparency. The new name must be more descriptive and less ambiguous than the old name. The purpose is to reduce confusion for future readers, not to impose aesthetic preferences.

  4. The rename must be mechanical and total. Every occurrence of the old name must be replaced. Partial renames create exactly the BABL ambiguity that TELES exists to prevent.

  5. A TELES error admonition must document the rename in each affected file or (for bulk operations) in the session llog, reporting the old name, the new name, and the reason.

The Precedent#

On 2026m04d04, the TELES b15 compound naming migration (started 2026m04d03) was in its post-flight cleanup phase. The migration had mechanically inserted references to :ref:`best-names-root-table` in 91 files — an admonition box in each migrated llog pointing readers to the legacy naming lookup table at DD b/12.

During post-flight, the label best-names-root-table was identified as misleadingly generic. The table is not a general “best names” reference — it is specifically the legacy naming lookup table for PET/JUB axioms and theorems, documenting the A# → ax#_A# compound form transition. The generic name could lead future readers to expect an authoritative naming guide when it is actually a historical artifact.

Because the TELES session had not yet declared STOP, and because the label was introduced by that same session’s mechanical insertion, the rename from best-names-root-table to legacy-5d-link-names-table-for-pet-jub-model was performed as a TELES cleanup operation: 99 occurrences replaced across 92 files by scripted sed operation.

Relationship to CLAUDE.md#

The existing CLAUDE.md TELES definition permits “formal rst syntax errors (like indentation, headings order, etc.) that DO NOT TOUCH any formal content.” This DD does not change that definition. Label renames are not RST syntax errors — they are semantic changes. This DD grants a separate, narrower permission for label renames specifically, bounded by the START/STOP session scope.

No change to CLAUDE.md is required. This DD is the authoritative reference for this permission.

TELES START/STOP Prompts#

Formal START and STOP prompt templates are stored in the TELES compiler directory at compiler/teles/. See: