What's changed

The members-tier-gated /lab-workbench.html now exposes apparent geocentric ecliptic longitudes for all ten Western-astrology bodies (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) plus the Mean Node, with retrograde flags. Phase 1 had sun-sign only. Phase 3 wires in the full ephemeris.

• New file /vn9-western-ephemeris.js: ~100KB self-contained module carrying VSOP87 truncated coefficients (Sun and Mercury through Neptune), Meeus chapter 47 lunar series, Meeus chapter 37 Pluto series, and the full time/nutation/obliquity/sidereal-time machinery. Byte-faithful extraction from the existing western astrology calculatormembers.
• Each body, ecliptic longitude in degrees, sign + degrees-in-sign, retrograde flag.
• Saturn, the structural boundary planet (per the cycle-time hypothesis on research-western-astrologymembers) is now in the workbench output for direct inspection.
• Long-cycle comparison: the members workbench can place an additional date-derived value beside the corresponding research output so the relationship can be tested without publishing the production-method input on the public changelog.
• Uranus / Neptune / Pluto, the outer planets that exceed a human lifetime in cycle period; flagged as "cohort stamps rather than personal conditioning" per the structural reading.

Apparent geocentric longitudes, tropical zodiac, of date. Birthdate-only mode uses noon UT for the reference instant, sub-day accurate for the slow planets, ~6° approximate for the Moon (which moves 13°/day). With opts.hour the engine computes the precise UT instant. Smoke-tested against 1987-07-09 noon UT: Sun in Cancer 16.76° matches standard ephemeris to better than 0.01°.

The cycle-time hypothesis on research-western-astrologymembers can now be tested against cohort data. Each body has a known cycle period; the workbench output makes the cross-checks trivial. None of this is in the public-facing calculator or the canonical reading, it stays inside the members-tier-gated Workbench, marked research-grade, not for typing decisions.

The members-tier-gated /lab-workbench.html now exposes the full Ba Zi four-pillar chart from a birthdate alone. This phase expands the research comparison layer; it does not change the public calculator or publish the protected production-method inputs.

• Month-pillar, computed via solar-longitude through the solar-term gate. Month-stem follows the Tiger-stem rule applied to the year-stem.
• Day-pillar, computed via Julian Day Number indexed against the sexagenary cycle. The Day-stem is the Day Master in Ba Zi tradition, the seat of self.
• Year-pillar, now exposes element, polarity, and the traditional animal branch inside the members research view.
• Hour-pillar, engine handles the computation when passed opts.hour; the workbench UI doesn't currently expose an hour field. Open architectural question.

The port is byte-faithful to the cast() function in /ba-zi-calculator.htmlmembers, same Julian-Day formula, same NOAA-style sun-longitude approximation, same Tiger-stem month-stem rule, same J+49 mod 60 sexagenary indexing. Birthdate-only mode uses noon UT for the solar-longitude reference instant; this is sub-day accurate, with edge cases right on a solar-term boundary being the only place it can shift by one day from a chart cast with a real hour.

The Workbench remains research-grade, not for typing decisions, and remains members-tier-gated. The canonical /calculator.html is unchanged and is still the authoritative source for users' sequences. Phase 2 exists to make the structural data available for cohort-comparison work, not to alter the production reading. Phase 3 (Western non-sun planetary positions, needs ephemeris infrastructure) and Phase 4+ (weighting playground, cohort registry integration) are still queued.

A coordinated editorial pass completed the terminology work inside the members methodology while keeping its protected inputs out of public-facing labels. Working hypotheses were added to the relevant members research pages and marked as unsettled. The relational-principle framing now appears on the priority pages, including all nine codex-type pages. The white paper gained cross-references from how-it-works, theory, and acknowledgements.

• members methodologymembers, reference prose and supporting-line labels
• /numerology-and-astrology.htmlmembers, hero sub renamed in methodology context; tradition-context tab labels preserved
• /atlas.htmlmembers, Lab compare-view affinity label and Lab-mode settings description
• /cases.html, Lab profile-card row labels

Research-* lineage pages and the convergence-calc lede were left in their tradition-context language, “Western astrology” and “Chinese zodiac” remain correct when the page is about the tradition itself.

• /research-western-astrology.htmlmembers, chapter 04 replaced with cycle-time framing; new chapter 04b on Saturn as the boundary; chapter 07 updated
• /research-ba-zi.htmlmembers, new chapter 04b on cycle-time-as-weight reading of the four-pillars pattern
• /research-pythagorean-numerology.htmlmembers, new chapter 06b naming the open research line around numerology’s Pinnacles. Framed explicitly as a question we are still studying, not a structural finding. (Subtraction / difference-number content was drafted and then pulled before publication, that hypothesis stays off the public site until the cohort registry has weighed in.)

• /research/primer.html, Part 1 framing paragraph
• /theory.htmlmembers, new section “00 · The foundation”
• /how-to-read-sequence.html, new “Before the positions” section
• /research/white-paper.html: Part 1 paragraph on what converges being a structure of differences
• /research/numerology-first.html, framing paragraph in “How the calculation solves it”
• codex-type1.html through codex-type9.html, uniform framing block at the top of the orientation panel

• /how-it-works.html, new “Where the ‘nine’ comes from” panel
• /theory.htmlmembers, new “The cross-system convergence” card in the More-from-Theory aside
• /acknowledgements.html, new “Where the case is laid out” panel
• /members.htmlmembers, white-paper card added to the Methodology & theory library group
• /research-findings.htmlmembers, cross-link to the public counterpart at the bottom of “How this updates”
• The six live calculators (numerologymembers, ba-zimembers, i-chingmembers, nine-star-kimembers, mayan-tzolkinmembers, western-astrologymembers), each carries a thin “Where this sits in the wider picture” reference framing the tradition as one of the eight, pointing at the white paper for the wider context

• /type1.html through /type9.html, small relational-frame aside inserted between the type-card grid and the Character section. Same framing as the codex pages, lighter weight: “the nine aren’t categories of person, they’re positions in a structural opposition.”

The canonical /calculator.html (the free-tier public identity tool). The Atlas practitioner tool's clinical workflow. CANONICAL-STATEMENTS, the source-of-truth language was not edited, only propagated. The hypotheses themselves: only their placement on user-facing pages changed.

The public-level research papers drafted in S186 are now built as live HTML at vecnine.com. The white paper has a real URL. The press kit, the one-page card, the News-at-9 landing, the teacher application form, and a /research/ landing hub all ship together. The footer carries a small inline newsletter signup form across every page. The FAQ grew from 6 to 8 sections covering community / teachers and an honest-skeptic level.

• /research/primer.html, the 3,000-word primer
• /research/white-paper.html, Nine Positions Across Eight Traditions (the rigorous reader's entry point)
• /research/numerology-first.html, the strategic-positioning essay
• /research/worked-example.html, the birthdate-to-reading walkthrough
• /research/roadmap.html, the public research roadmap
• /research/members, new landing page listing the public-level papers, pointing onward to /research.htmlmembers for the wider catalog
• /press.html, press kit / fact sheet for journalists, podcasters, interviewers
• /about-card.html, the one-page card (single-screen, ~300 words)
• /newsletter.html, News at 9 landing page with monthly-on-the-9th framing and signup form
• /affiliates/apply.html, teacher / creator / influencer application form (mailto-backed for now; direct-submit backend lands in a future ship)

• Footer chrome now carries a News at 9 inline signup form on every page
• Footer legal row extended: Newsletter and Press links added alongside Privacy / Terms / Credits / Affiliates / Changelog
• Footer "Learn" column gains a News at 9 link; "Research" column gains Primer and White paper

• Two featured Q&As added to top of The basics: the numerology-positioning question and the trust-the-calculation question
• New section Community & teachers (4 Q&As) covering access, teacher accounts, what invited members see, and finding a teacher
• New section Honest skeptic questions (6 Q&As) covering the astrology challenge, peer review, Western-projection risk, what would falsify, why this over other systems, religion question
• Fastest-path 3-step Q&A appended to What to do with it

All 14 papers in the research track retroactively stamped v1.0, June 2026 at top and Document Control footer per the version-stamping protocol: white paper, methodology paper, the trilogy → quartet (Jung, Naranjo, Ichazo, Gurdjieff), findings paper, I Ching grammar chapter, Naranjo-Jung research note, and all five field papers (depth-psychology, personality-psychology, AI/latent-space, cognitive-science, anthropology).

After the initial S187 ship, an audit found several gaps. All fixed before the bundle reshipped:

• /research.html (the existing research hub) didn't link to any of the new public-level papers, readers landing there had no path forward. Now carries a prominent Public-level papers section at top with cards for all five.
• The primer, numerology-first essay, worked example, and roadmap all linked to each other but didn't link to the white paper, even though it's the natural next step for the rigorous reader. Each now has a white-paper card at the top of its "Continue reading" block.
• /about-card.html footer byline said "James Young, maintainer" instead of the canonical "James Young, with the Vecnine research program."
• /press.html visual-assets section referenced /press/banner.png and /press/logo-light.png files that don't actually exist. Replaced with the convergence diagram (which does exist) plus an "on request" note for everything else.
• /terms.html §4 had a generic "Prices may change with 30 days' notice" line; replaced with the explicit nine-day pricing-change commitment, with cross-references to the newsletter and changelog as the announcement channels.
• /privacy.html §9 didn't reference the pricing-change commitment at all; now does, with cross-reference to Terms §4. The Beehiiv mention in §5 also now names "News at 9" explicitly.
• /affiliates/apply.html "Existing account email" field always rendered; now properly hidden until the user selects "Yes" on the existing-account radio.

Trial-user feedback flagged the writing as "a little confusing," "hard to follow," and "feels AI" in places, with specific calls-outs on the landing-page main card. The polish pass diagnosed the AI-tell concentration with a quantification script across the 12 S187 pages, then did a structured fix.

Headline number: 365 em-dashes reduced to 52 across the affected pages (an 86% reduction). The remaining 52 are mostly structurally legitimate, signatures, byline meta separators, sequence-display strings.

• Full hand-rewrites of /research/primer.html (all 8 sections) and /research/numerology-first.html (all 7 sections). Cut "structural" hedging, "plainly" throat-clearing, symmetrical "we claim / we don't claim" patterns, excessive italics. Shorter sentences. Cleaner flow.
• Landing page hero card rewrite. Replaced the jargon-heavy "nine-position personality vector...mathematical, not introspective" framing with warmer copy: "Your nine-type sequence, calculated from your birthdate" + "ranked sequence of all nine Enneagram types, from the one you live in to the ones you barely touch" + "Same input, same answer, every time."
• Landing page mid-sections polish. Five sections below the hero ("A sequence, not a label," "Built different, by design," "More than a calculator," "A clinical tool built for the session room," "Go beyond the sequence") all polished for em-dashes and AI-symmetric "X: Y" patterns.
• Element-preserving em-dash reduction on the longer pages. Sequence-display strings (e.g. "9, 5, 4, 8, 1, 7"), CSS, JS, and signature em-dashes were preserved; prose em-dashes were converted to parens / periods / commas as appropriate.
• FAQ targeted pass on the S187-added Q&As only. The existing FAQ has an established hand-written voice; em-dashes there are doing real parenthetical work and were left alone.
• Run-on paragraph fixes from list-of-traditions getting converted into comma run-ons. Restructured into proper parens-with-semicolons in press.html, about-card.html, and the white paper's Hexagram 1 dragon-stages passage.
• /about-card.html "How to start" Step 1: said "Visit vecnine.com", but the page is on vecnine.com. Now says "Go to the calculator at vecnine.com/calculator.html".

Existing pages audited but not changed. Sampled start-here.html, how-it-works.html, why-birthdate.html, theory.html, birthdate-explainer.html. Their em-dashes are mostly doing real parenthetical work (one per paragraph, substantive content on either side), not the AI-tell pattern of 3-4-per-paragraph symmetric hedging. The voice is considered. Left alone. The finding worth carrying forward: the AI-tell problem was specifically in pages autonomously generated this session. Pages the rights-holder hand-wrote read naturally already.

Surfaced but not implemented:

• Nav simplification (the "monster nav" first-impression concern). The reviewer warmed up to the nav after using it, but the first-impression issue remains real. Options include tightening obvious redundancies, adding an orienting "If this is your first visit, start here" cue in the Learn mega-menu, or a show-more pattern. Restructuring the nav is the kind of thing that deserves rights-holder eyes.
• PWA polish. The rights-holder mentioned the PWA explicitly in scope but it wasn't touched in this pass. The members PWA has its own cadence (checkpoint-rounds with smoke verification) per the vecnine-pwa skill.

The rights-holder shared more specific feedback after the initial polish shipped: two reviewers said "overall" the writing felt "robotic" / "AI" without specifying which pages; one found the homepage mini-calculator "cheap" and was confused that sharing vecnine.com landed people on a different calculator than the main tool. Also asked: strip dev comments from source so view-source doesn't reveal internal process; reconsider the protected members-method labeling.

• Site-wide AI-tell survey. Surveyed all 160 HTML pages. The worst em-dash counts (the lineage research pages and the codex-type pages, with 200+ em-dashes each) turned out to be considered prose, not AI tells. Em-dashes there are doing real parenthetical work. The "feels AI" reviewer complaint was about pages I generated this session, not the existing site. Existing pages were not touched.
• Dev-comment scrub site-wide. Stripped 584 dev comments from 93 HTML files and 171 dev-flavored comments from 27 JS files. Source is now clean of session markers, decorative horizontal-rule comments, internal pass notes, and other developer-process leakage. View-source on any page now shows just the page, not the development history.
• Homepage calculator replaced. The hero's inline mini-calculator is gone. Replaced with a sample-sequence showcase that demonstrates what the calculator produces (example birthdate, sequence display with dominant/secondary visual treatment, missing-numbers callout, two type cards) plus a single prominent CTA routing to the dedicated /calculator.html. Sharing vecnine.com now lands visitors on a confident hero that clearly paths to the full calculator.
• Nav hub-link routing. The mega-menu panel-subs now expose hub pages prominently. Learn panel-sub: "New here? Start Here → · or jump to the theory hub or the type library." Tools panel-sub pages the calculator. Research panel-sub pages the catalog and the primer / white-paper as entry papers. Renamed "How it works (showcard)" to just "How it works". Reordered Type Library so the public hub (types.html) is primary and "The Type Codex (members)" is clearly labeled members-only.

Pending the rights-holder's decision: a coordinated members-method terminology pass and a method/theory/findings sync across the platform, recommended as a canonical-statements document plus a per-page check pass.

S186 produced the markdown drafts; this ship turns them into the live website artifacts they were always destined to become. The white paper getting a real URL closes a loop the press kit, one-page card, and primer were all referencing forward. Footer-level newsletter signup means every page has a clean conversion path. Version stamps make citations unambiguous and revisions traceable, finishing the protocol adopted in S186. The polish pass closes the trial-feedback loop on writing voice. The second polish pass closes the further-feedback loop on calculator-flow, navigation clarity, and source-code visibility.

This entry overstated what shipped. The public information page and an email-backed interest form were created; the account program described below was not. Affiliate badges, teacher-run community sections, referral coupons, automatic trials, and the teacher metrics dashboard are not active. The current teacher and creator page records the pilot's actual status.

Teacher / creator / influencer affiliate accounts are now available. Approved affiliates get a profile badge, a community sub-section (teachers only), a 10% coupon code for their audience, a 30-day full-membership trial, profile links, and a metrics dashboard.

• New page at /affiliates.html describing the program in full
• Three badge types: Teacher (◆ gold), Creator (◇ orange), Influencer (★ purple)
• Single coupon code per affiliate, format [handle]10, recurring 10% discount across all membership tiers
• Community sub-sections within the members area (Teacher badge only)
• Metrics dashboard at /dashboard/teach/ for approved affiliates
• “Affiliates” link added to the bottom footer legal row

The research program reaches more readers through practitioners and creators in adjacent fields than it does through direct outreach. The affiliate structure formalizes that relationship in a low-overhead way, coupons go through trusted practitioners rather than ad networks, community sub-sections give teachers a real platform feature, and the metrics dashboard means affiliates can see what their efforts are producing. No commission structure, no leaderboards, no growth-hacking apparatus, just affordances for people already doing related work.

A 3,000-word accessible-level companion to the cross-system convergence white paper. For the curious reader who wants to understand Vecnine without going through the research-credibility version first.

• New document: the public primer paper (v1.0)
• Walks through what Vecnine is in plain terms: the Enneagram source record, the birthdate calculation, the then-current cross-system comparison, claim boundaries, and how to start. August 2026 revisions narrowed the cross-system language further.
• Companion essays alongside it: a strategic-positioning piece on why numerology is the fastest path to your Enneagram type, and a concrete birthdate-to-reading walkthrough

The existing white paper is rigorous but written for researchers and practitioners. Most readers who encounter Vecnine for the first time need the accessible version first. The primer fills that gap. The numerology-first essay and worked example accompany it to give curious readers progressively more detail without immediately demanding research-paper engagement.

All research papers and primer documents now carry version numbers (v1.0 format). Revisions bump the minor version (v1.0 → v1.1); structural changes bump the major (v1.x → v2.0). Document Control footers added.

• New protocol document defining the major.minor scheme
• Cross-system convergence white paper retroactively stamped Version 1.0
• All new documents shipped with v1.0 stamps
• Subsequent revisions will be logged here on this page

Without version numbers, citations were ambiguous and revisions were invisible. The new protocol makes both legible, readers can cite a specific version, and document changes become traceable over time. This is also what makes the changelog actually useful for tracking document revisions.

Five-thousand-line dossier cataloging possible connection points between Jung's Collected Works and the Vecnine framework. Later source review (August 2026) superseded the original claim that this made Vecnine an empirical program for Jung's unus mundus hypothesis. The dossier is retained as historical comparative research, not validation of the birthdate method.

• The Jung dossier identifies seventeen specific connection points between Jung's published work and Vecnine's structural claims
• A research-findings essay summarizing the dossier is live in the members area
• The high-level summary has been folded into the cross-system convergence white paper

The dossier was created to compare Vecnine with Jung carefully rather than gesture vaguely at similarities. Later review preserved that comparative value while withdrawing claims of empirical confirmation, shared ontology, or direct lineage. Jung remains a source of analogies, distinctions, and research questions; the Vecnine calculation requires its own evidence.

A new tool in the members area that takes two birthdates and identifies the structural cross-system overlaps between them. Useful for thinking about relationships, teams, and the dynamics of specific pairings.

• New calculator at /atlas/convergence/ in the members area
• External city-data file with 3,807 entries for accurate birthdate-context inputs
• Save-to-profile functionality synced to the atlas localStorage key
• Member-facing research framing on the tool page
• Linked from the members hub at /members.html

Single-birthdate readings tell you about one person. Convergence readings tell you about the structural relationship between two people, which is what most practical questions (will this partnership work, why is this team configuration struggling, what does this relationship need) are actually about. Bringing the convergence layer into the members tools opens up an analytical capacity the per-individual reading alone couldn't reach.

The June 2026 headline research document compared several historical systems with Vecnine and originally described the similarities as a convergence finding. August 2026 review superseded the claim of eight independent traditions establishing one shared nine-position structure. The document remains part of the project’s research history and has since been narrowed around the central Vecnine hypothesis and evidence boundaries.

• The white paper is now version 1.0 (retroactively stamped under the new versioning protocol)
• Companion lineage papers (Jung, Naranjo, Ichazo, Gurdjieff, alchemy, Kabbalah, Sankhya, Sufi, I Ching grammar) are referenced and linkable
• The accessible-level primer (see above) was published as a companion

The original purpose was to give historical and cross-cultural comparison work primary-source receipts. Later review kept that documentary value while withdrawing the inference that resemblance across traditions independently establishes Vecnine, a common origin, or a shared mechanism. The birthdate–personality claim must stand or fall on direct evidence of its own.