An Anchored intentRef Is Dated by Its Whole File, So Unrelated Doc Edits Flag Line-Ending and Versioning Copies #1819

check_intent_staleness resolves an anchored intentRef to its whole file, so any commit touching GOVERNANCE.md or WORKFLOW.md flags every repo's .editorconfig, .editorconfig-checker.json, .gitattributes and version.json as "possibly trails the hub", even when the section those copies answer to did not change. #726 named this as the one judgment call in its fix ("would trade a wrong comparand for a noisy one"), and it now fires in practice.

What this looked like in practice

The aiopurpleair audit run 2026-09-25T18:20:21Z | hub 624c3243 reported 0 defects and four intent hints, all citing ccdd57e (#1799). That commit's GOVERNANCE.md hunk is the "Action pinning" bullet in "Workflow YAML Conventions", not "Line Endings". Its WORKFLOW.md hunks are D1/D6 and output-seam prose, not D3. The hub's own .editorconfig, .gitattributes and .editorconfig-checker.json last changed in August. Clearing the four hints meant reading the commit's hunks against both anchored sections, and there was nothing to adopt.

GOVERNANCE.md and WORKFLOW.md are the two most-edited carried docs, so this repeats on every resync of every repo that carries these four files. Because of #727, a verified hint can't be cleared either, so the same noise returns on the next hub edit anywhere in either doc.

Shapes that would close it

1. Date the anchored section, not the file. Walk the file's history and keep only the commits whose diff changes lines inside the heading the anchor names. _last_effective_change already filters a revision list, so this would be one more filter on it.
2. Fall back to the file's own canonical for an anchored ref. Compare .editorconfig against the hub .editorconfig plus the anchored section, taking the later of the two.
3. Demote whole-file matches for anchored refs to a note, as An intent finding verified satisfied cannot be cleared, so a correct resync can never produce a clean run #727's second shape proposes for intent hints in general.