Prototype private Mentat questions behind explicit preview opt-in

Connect the optional named-weapon question before skill posture and faction powers. Every accepted question waits for the same target-owned private card-show action, preserving held/absent privacy; matching cards are compulsory, otherwise the owner selects a fallback. Keep cards in hand and retain historical observations only for the questioner and target, without binding later plans. Support actual controls, inspectors, all four AI profiles and saved JSON/SQLite continuation.

Normal activation remains disabled pending the user's uniform-response UX exception. The private flag is neither projected nor writable through actions. Legacy battles remain unchanged. Empty hands skip with an explicit unavailable receipt and no invented answer. Source and unresolved boundaries are documented, with a compact current-status dashboard preserving all goal, Git, subagent, usage and saved-game requirements.

Independent review passed privacy, custody, sequencing and preview gating. Twenty-two focused tests cover canonical card roles, exact-match/fallback symmetry, target-only controls, captured lower-only behavior, stale/duplicate requests and concurrent SQLite writes. Typecheck, lint, 4605 offline tests, production build and 43 HTTP tests passed with stable source. The first broad run retained one outdated Mentat card-copy assertion; update it to verify private disclosure, custody, optional question and subsequent concealment. Gameplay source was unchanged by that test-only correction.

Two genuine-setup sample games deliberately deal Mentat via a controlled initial skill shuffle. Basic: 100 actions, 3 JSON restores, turn-one Harkonnen win. Advanced: 507 actions, 14 restores, turn-five Harkonnen win. Each has one private observation, subsequent Atreides Prescience and no rejected candidate. These bounded force/skill custody samples do not establish general card-custody coverage, calibration or full module acceptance.

After the reported outage all 665 opening rooms and original seat/recovery/receipt records were preserved (699 after integration). A fresh 666-room backup preceded checks; database integrity and foreign keys pass. The existing localhost server was reused; its live lock prevented a duplicate start. Existing Ecaz and Ixian browser seats restored their same hands and pending choices. A separate conserved staged Mentat preview restored its private history and posture, then legally concealed its leader before subsequent faction powers. Human/browser paths are distinguished from genuine-setup simulations. No database reset, recurring automation, public activation or publication.

Verified source tree: 297ae06e0764d7cad525a802fe383a84971c3e9c5d6362c8cd0b79c5c3977caf
Final source tree: 177c98415098ea42174a860d8b1fac4f7c7dd6c3e67c93b18330d1d0fc4edf0e
The only post-verification edit removed one surplus newline at the end of the new developer document; its exact before/after content and fingerprints are retained privately. Staged diff checking caught this whitespace issue before commit. No application or test code changed.

docs/RULE_DECISIONS.md

@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ Updated 13 September 2026. This is the authoritative navigation index for existi
 | Smuggler shipping | Optional free companion is included in the actual total; apply Guild rounding to the reduced priced count. Ordinary Fremen reserves are on planet. The officially permitted owned No-Field plus a separate free force is now prototyped at the unchanged one-marker price. Legacy unstamped ordinary declarations keep their quoted full price. | [Ordinary contract](SMUGGLER_SHIPMENT.md), [No-Field combination](SMUGGLER_NO_FIELD.md) |
 | Sandmaster movement | One optional board spice per distinct entered territory on an explicit legal route; source-only repositioning earns none. Per-movement Hajr reset is a documented grammatical inference. Canceled moves earn nothing; multiple-pile collection remains guarded. | [Source and connected prototype](SANDMASTER_MOVEMENT.md) |
 | Diplomat defense | With no actual defense, one physical Worthless card in either Battle Plan slot may copy the opponent's canonical base Shield or Snooper. The same native trained disc may protect itself. The public after-reveal/before-traitor choice and mandatory discard after traitor preemption are documented implementation inferences. Lower retreat and modified or multirole defenses remain guarded. | [Source and connected prototype](DIPLOMAT_DEFENSE.md) |
+| Mentat question preview | The physical card says to show the card to the questioner, privately; it stays in hand and does not bind a plan. Ask before posture/faction powers. A uniform target response protects held/absent privacy but awaits approval as an exception to skipping forced confirmations; standard activation stays disabled. Empty hands skip with no fabricated answer. | [Source and preview](MENTAT_QUESTION.md) |
 | Leader battle effects | Rihani normal peek and reshuffle precede a separate committed optional draw; ordering is an explicit printed-order inference. Unused excludes actual calls, not mere disclosure. Mentat/Bureaucrat change scores; Sandmaster adds board spice. Multiple piles and Face Dancer composition stay guarded. | [Source contract and prototype](LEADER_BATTLE_EFFECTS.md) |
 | Source and readiness | Separate published rules, explicit implementation choices and unfinished interpretations; Advanced/expansion gates stay closed. | [Base/Advanced audit](BASE_ADVANCED_READINESS_20260907.md), [checklist](../game/reference.ts) |
 | Setup and Fremen movement | Preserve source-ordered setup and the distinct declared-movement cancellation; do not recreate fixed historical gaps. | [Setup contract](ADVANCED_SETUP_TEST_SEAM.md), [Fremen Karama](FREMEN_MOVEMENT_KARAMA_RULES.md) |
@@ -39,7 +40,7 @@ These are unresolved in the cited records. Do not infer an answer from elapsed t
 | Sapho remaining timing | First versus unspent Advanced Guild priority, partly completed combined turns, cyclic auction duration and remaining battle timing stay guarded. Prior questions remain unanswered. | [Source audit](JUICE_OF_SAPHO_SOURCE_UPDATE.md), [battle review](JUICE_OF_SAPHO_BATTLE_REVIEW.md) |
 | Mirror Weapon | Whether copied Tooth/Artillery mandatory-discard rules attach to the physical Mirror remains unanswered; arithmetic helpers do not admit the full battle card. | [Engine audit](MIRROR_WEAPON_ENGINE_AUDIT.md) |
 | Semuta Drug | Full-hand take-before-discard and the privacy-neutral immediate reaction protocol remain unresolved. Typed discard continuations already exist; they are not activation. | [Source update](SEMUTA_SOURCE_UPDATE_20260907.md), [privacy review](SEMUTA_PRIVACY_REVIEW.md) |
-| Leader Skills edge cases | Capture/replacement eligibility, Banker escrow custody (user question sent), Smuggler survival settlement, Mentat empty-hand/death disclosure, Diplomat lower retreat ordering, modified-defense inheritance and remaining simultaneous optional timing need resolution before those cases are enabled. These are recorded source gaps, not answered user rulings. | [Material boundaries](LEADER_SKILLS_RULES.md#material-boundaries-not-settled-by-the-sources), [Diplomat boundary](DIPLOMAT_DEFENSE.md#evidence-and-remaining-scope) |
+| Leader Skills edge cases | Capture/replacement eligibility, Banker escrow custody (user question sent), Smuggler survival settlement, Mentat empty-hand fallback (private historical observations persist after death), Diplomat lower retreat ordering, modified-defense inheritance and remaining simultaneous optional timing need resolution before those cases are enabled. These are recorded source gaps, not answered user rulings. | [Material boundaries](LEADER_SKILLS_RULES.md#material-boundaries-not-settled-by-the-sources), [Diplomat boundary](DIPLOMAT_DEFENSE.md#evidence-and-remaining-scope) |
 | Suk Graduate / Atreides | Whether rescued dialed casualties count toward the seven-loss Kwisatz Haderach threshold remains unresolved. The user question has been sent; Advanced Atreides rescue stays guarded. | [Source and runtime boundary](SUK_GRADUATE_RULES.md) |
 | Ordinary Guild cancellation | Unaffordable repricing, replacement/retry/decline, consumed opportunity, contributor adjustment and ordering with special shipment-stop. The affordability question was already sent. | [Material timing](GUILD_RATE_KARAMA_RULES.md#material-unresolved-timing) |
 | Base special Karama | Unfunded auction recovery, stopped-shipment settlement and Atreides full-plan commitment order remain provisional. Native full-plan/Voice/Prescience/Truthtrance/Ghola interactions now have genuine-setup focused evidence, but the source audit does not settle the special offer/deadline or target-first interpretation. | [Explicit base interpretations](BASE_ADVANCED_READINESS_20260907.md#explicit-unresolved-base-interpretations), [full-plan interaction audit](ATREIDES_FULL_PLAN_TIMING.md) |