Slice 3 of the completion wave: closing a contract that is a stage of a persisted Programme marks that stage COMPLETE, persists the ledger, and rides the continuation canary on the close envelope — the next eligible stage is SURFACED, never guessed (task done ≠ programme done). No programme bound → no continuation block; ledger failure degrades without failing the closure. Three contracts. Also fixed en route: contract ids were second-granularity timestamps that collided when two needs filed in the same second (red test proves distinct ids now, uuid suffix added).
Nick