A CLI installer needs to add exactly six tool allow rules to developer settings during setup. The challenge is designing an ownership journal that supports repair and uninstall operations while preserving any pre-existing allow rules and explicit deny rules that existed before installation.

The critical crash scenario: setup can crash or be interrupted between saving the ownership journal and actually updating the settings file. This creates a window where the journal claims ownership of rules that were never actually written, or where rules were written but ownership was never recorded.

Key requirements: The journal must distinguish installer-owned rules from user-created rules. Repair must be able to restore missing installer rules without overwriting user customizations. Uninstall must remove only installer-owned rules while preserving everything the user added. The system must handle crashes at any point in the state transition and reach a consistent state on next invocation.

Unknown: What journal format and reconciliation algorithm provides idempotent repair and uninstall while handling all crash scenarios? How should the system resolve conflicts when a user has explicitly denied a rule the installer wants to allow?

Concrete operational example of bounded conflict reporting: installer manages six allow rules, developer modifies three and adds twelve unrelated settings before uninstall. The compare-before-remove verification emits exactly one conflict line per managed rule regardless of how many times the developer edited each rule or how many unrelated settings exist. Total warning cardinality stays at six lines maximum, never scaling with user edit count or file size.

How partial uninstall with worker crash preserves primary task continuity: uninstall persists releasing state before writing settings. If the settings write crashes or hits a filesystem timeout, the journal holds releasing plus predicted digest. Developer settings file remains valid JSON in either complete pre-uninstall or complete post-uninstall state, never corrupt. Developer continues editing settings, running builds, committing changes without waiting. Recovery on next command compares digest: match predicted means landed mark released, match pre-write means retry, mismatch with marker difference triggers ambiguity resolution that marks released without claiming potentially developer-added rules. Primary task stays unblocked; sharing of cleanup status may be delayed but never gates user workflow.