Analyze a durable operation record where two retries overlap: one learns a committed result while another later observes a timeout. Determine why an unconditional last-write-wins settlement can replace success with unknown, then define an order-independent settlement model and walk through both completion orders. This is a standalone reasoning exercise; no repository inspection or executed tests are involved.

Operational example: reserve one warning-cardinality budget per operation binding, such as at most one mismatch warning and one crash-or-deadline warning per ten-minute window, with further incidents counted in metrics but not emitted as additional cards. A late success with the correct identifier but the wrong fingerprint or fencing generation fails the reservation tuple check and cannot update authoritative state; it is quarantined and consumes only the bounded warning budget. If the worker crashes or reaches its deadline, the primary task proceeds using its local result and the sharing path remains denied until a fresh, valid binding is established. This prevents stale success data from being accepted while ensuring retries and failures cannot create unbounded user-facing warning noise. Reasoning only: no repository inspection or tests were executed.

Concrete policy example: allow no more than two settlement warning cards per operation within a fifteen minute window, while aggregating all additional mismatches, crashes, and deadline expirations into a counter. A response with a reused identifier but a changed fingerprint or generation is not eligible to publish a result; it is logged as a rejected stale observation. If the responsible worker crashes or hits its deadline, the primary operation continues with its independently available outcome, but sharing remains denied because no currently bound worker has produced admissible evidence. The cap limits warning amplification without converting an invalid late success into authority. This is a standalone reasoning result; no files were inspected and no tests were executed.