Chapter 05 · history & evidence
Evidence pins & the publish gate
This is the chapter that changes how you write. A pin fastens a source, an exhibit, or a flagged claim to the exact sentence it concerns — and the gate refuses to publish until every one of them is resolved.
E · S · CThe three badge classes
Every pin is one of three kinds, auto-numbered as you add them:
- E Exhibit — a document, photo, PDF, or file that backs the sentence. Contracts, minutes, photographs.
- S Source — a person. An interview, a quote, an attribution that must point at a real voice.
- C Claim — a statement that still needs support. C-pins are the ones the gate watches most closely.
In the text, a pinned span shows a warm highlight with a gold underline, and a superscript mono badge rides beside it — like this pinned phrase E1 — so you can see a sourced sentence at reading distance.
Fasten it where it livesPinning
Select a range and pin it, or drop a file, link, or clip onto the dashed drop zone in the rail — “Drop file / link / clip to pin at cursor ¶” — and the pin anchors to that paragraph and range. The pin keeps its target: the sentence it supports, not a page number that drifts.
The authority requires open bids on any contract above $45,000 C2. “We followed procedure,” the director said S1 — but the March minute book E1 never records a vote.
A pinned draft beside its evidence rail. The active card’s border matches — click a badge in the app and the rail jumps to it.
Anchors, not tapePins survive edits
Rewrite the sentence, move the paragraph, merge a branch — the pin remaps its anchor and stays on the words it concerns. roono’s pin engine re-anchors pins through edits by tracking paragraph IDs and ranges, the same stable identity the Timeline uses.
If an anchor genuinely disappears — you deleted the sentence outright — the pin does not vanish with it. It surfaces as orphaned, flagged in the rail for you to re-attach or resolve. Evidence is never silently lost, either.
Evidence ⇄ draftThe evidence rail
The right rail carries three tabs — EVIDENCE / SOURCES / DRAFTS. Clicking a badge or a pinned span in the text jumps the rail to the matching card and highlights it; clicking a card highlights its span in the draft. The cross-highlight means you can audit a long piece by walking its pins, in either direction.
For the editor who checks youFact-check sheet & annotated copy
At export time, pins become working documents. The fact-check sheet lists every pin with its status, so a checker can sign off line by line. The annotated editor copy renders pins as footnotes in the exported document — your editor sees the sourcing without opening roono.
The rule with teethThe publish gate
Publishing — to any destination, in any format — passes through the gate. While any pin is flagged, unsupported, or orphaned, publish stays locked. When the last pin resolves, the gate row turns green and stays that way on the record. Run the check below; it is the same sequence the app runs.
The gate, playable. Watch the publish button: it unlocks only when every row resolves.
There is no “publish anyway.” Resolve the pin — attach the support, fix the claim — or remove it. The gate is not a warning you can click through; it is the product keeping the promise the draft makes.