Ratchet audit green; console_loop exit-code theory refuted (PS 5.1 stderr quirk was the chain-breaker)

G-A2600-004 iter 2, verification iteration. (1) REFUTATION: the working theory from the G2 ceremonies ("console_loop --run-prove-loop exits nonzero on Asteroids L0, breaking if-chained automation") is WRONG — console_loop.main() already returns 0 unconditionally after writing the report ("nonzero only for infrastructure failure", returns 2 only for missing corpus dir), and the empirical probe confirms EXITCODE=0 with $?=True.

Raw traces, ROM material, local paths, and personal data are not part of this public record.