nx_readmany.nx

nx_readmany.nx -- ONE CALL, N FILES (Lane I common-task hardening, 2026-08-20). MINED, NOT GUESSED. nx_wfcost measured the full 309-transcript / 2,006,669,677 B action record and the read cluster is the largest BUILD candidate in it: nx_fs:read >> nx_fs:read 5,675 episodes, nx_shelltool:grep >> nx_fs:read 1,683, nx_fs:lines >> nx_fs:lines 1,233, nx_fs:lines >> nx_fs_write:edit 904 -- ~9,495 consecutive-read episodes, each one a seat turn spent re-issuing the same verb. (The larger mgmt:POST cluster is deliberately NOT addressed here: nx_organ_ship already collapses it, so that one is an ADOPTION gap, not a build gap -- building a second would be the duplicate ruler.) WHY A BATCH READ AND NOT A BIGGER CAP: the measured unit is the SEAT TURN (1 turn ~= 133,658 input-token-equivalents, measured, not estimated). N reads cost N turns regardless of how many bytes each returns, so the win comes from collapsing TURNS, never from raising a limit. TWO LAWS THIS ORGAN EXISTS TO NOT BREAK: 1. THE ENVELOPE IS PER ITEM, NEVER GLOBAL. A single global "truncated=1" cannot say WHICH file was cut, so the caller re-reads all of them and the batch saves nothing. Every item carries its own status + bytes= + of= (its TRUE full size, always known because the read is sized from the file). This lane already found `nx_actlog harden` computing a truncation envelope and then dropping it at the next hop -- an envelope dropped at the next hop is an envelope that was never published. 2. ONE BAD TARGET MUST NOT POISON THE BATCH. Every item gets its own third state (OK | EMPTY | ABSENT | UNREADABLE | BUDGET-EXHAUSTED), so an absent path costs exactly one row and the other N-1 files still come back. A batch that fails whole is worse than N single reads. PARTITION: ok + empty + absent + unreadable + budget_exhausted == items, and the footer PRINTS the sum so it can be reconciled. TRUNCATED is a SEPARATE AXIS, never a partition member -- a truncated item is ALSO an OK item, and folding it in would silently break the reconciliation. read <per_item_max> <budget> <path> [path...] 0 = unlimited for either bound selftest gv verdict gate, runtime fixtures, neg-controls license_tier: ORIGINAL No hw writes (Rule 26).