diff --git a/AGENTS.md b/AGENTS.md
index 9cf4f63..81a98d5 100644
--- a/AGENTS.md
+++ b/AGENTS.md
@@ -18,6 +18,9 @@ When losslessness and readability conflict, losslessness wins.
 The other direction is a canonical fixpoint, not byte-identity: human markdown normalizes, the way
 back yields the library's canonical spelling, and that spelling round-trips byte-identically.
 
+"Equals" is structural equality over editor-normal ADF — adjacent text nodes with identical marks
+merged, JSON number semantics — the only domain markdown can restore.
+
 Round-trip equality is a property tested over a corpus, not a claim made in prose.
 
 ## 3. Unknown input policy
@@ -32,7 +35,8 @@ Round-trip equality is a property tested over a corpus, not a claim made in pros
 
 - Directives, one grammar for everything markdown lacks: `:::panel info` … `:::` blocks,
   `:mention[@Mikael]{id=5b10a2}` inline. Prior art: CommonMark's generic-directives proposal.
-- Plain CommonMark is a subset: the flavour adds syntax, never changes CommonMark meaning.
+- Plain CommonMark is a subset, with one carve-out (`spec/flavour.md`): directive-shaped literal
+  text is claimed.
 - Tables: one header row plus plain inline cells → pipe table; anything richer → directive form.
 - Identity-bearing nodes carry their ids in attributes; a document is only portable within its
   site — accepted.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 974e074..44404e0 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -38,8 +38,9 @@ isAdfDocument(v: unknown): v is AdfDocument
   (AGENTS.md §3).
 - `htmlToAdf(adfToHtml(doc))` equals `doc` — fidelity HTML cannot express rides `data-*`
   attributes.
-- Plain CommonMark is valid input to `markdownToAdf`; converting back yields the library's
-  canonical spelling, which round-trips byte-identically.
+- Plain CommonMark is valid input to `markdownToAdf`, with one carve-out: literal text matching
+  directive syntax is claimed (escapable — `spec/flavour.md`). Converting back yields the
+  library's canonical spelling, which round-trips byte-identically.
 - Foreign HTML maps a documented element set; an unmappable element is an error, never a silent
   drop. Well-formed HTML only — no tag-soup recovery.
 - The emitted formats are semver surface (AGENTS.md §8).
diff --git a/spec/flavour.md b/spec/flavour.md
index d27ce43..8d4e4e8 100644
--- a/spec/flavour.md
+++ b/spec/flavour.md
@@ -14,18 +14,20 @@ normalizes to it through the round-trip.
   (intra-word).
 - Bullet lists `- `; ordered lists incrementing `1.` `2.` `3.`, the first number taken from the
   node's `order` attribute. Continuation lines align with the first character after the marker
-  (two spaces for `- `, three for `1. `). Lists are tight — blank lines between items normalize
-  away; ADF does not record tightness.
-- Blockquotes prefix every line with `> `.
+  (two spaces for `- `, three for `1. `); blank lines inside an item are empty lines. Lists are
+  tight — blank lines between items normalize away; ADF does not record tightness.
+- Blockquotes prefix lines with `> `; a blank line inside a blockquote is a bare `>`.
 - ATX headings (`#` … `######`); setext input normalizes to ATX.
 - Code fences ``` with the node's language as info string, the fence lengthened past any backtick
   run in the content; indented-code input normalizes to fences.
 - Thematic break `---`.
-- Hard break: backslash at end of line (survives editors that trim trailing spaces).
+- Hard break: backslash at end of line (survives editors that trim trailing spaces). Where
+  CommonMark admits no spelling — the end of a block, inside a heading — it is `:hardBreak{}`.
+- An empty paragraph — real payloads carry them — is `::paragraph`.
 - Links `[text](url)`; `<…>` around a destination containing spaces; title in double quotes.
   `<url>` autolink form only when the text equals the destination and the destination is a valid
   CommonMark autolink (absolute URI).
-- Paragraphs on one line — no soft wrapping; soft line breaks in input collapse per CommonMark.
+- Paragraphs on one line — no soft wrapping; a soft line break in input becomes a single space.
 - Entity references in input decode to their characters; output backslash-escapes only where text
   would otherwise parse as syntax.
 - Blocks separated by one blank line, no trailing whitespace, single trailing newline.
@@ -59,11 +61,19 @@ defines (e.g. the panel type). The body is block markdown. The closing fence is
 least the opening's length, and a container's fence is longer than every directive fence line in
 its body — counting only lines that parse as directive fences in the body's block structure; a
 colon run inside a code fence or opaque carry is content. Canonical form uses minimal lengths.
+Directive fence lines follow code-fence indentation (up to three spaces relative to their
+container); trailing whitespace on a fence line is tolerated in input, never emitted.
 
 **Leaf block**: `::name {attrs}` — a block-position node with no body.
 
-**Attributes**: `{key=value key2="two words"}`. A bare value matches `[A-Za-z0-9_-]+`; any other
-value is double-quoted with JSON string escaping (`\"` `\\` `\n` `\t` `\uXXXX`, …) — total over
+**Claiming at block level**, symmetric with inline: a line whose leading run of two or more
+colons is followed immediately by a name character is claimed and must parse fully as a container
+opening or a leaf, else it is a named error. A bare colon-run line is a closing fence while a
+container is open, a named error otherwise.
+
+**Attributes**: `{key=value key2="two words"}`. `{attrs}` is optional in every form, and `{}` is
+valid — no attributes. A bare value matches `[A-Za-z0-9_-]+`; any other value is double-quoted
+with JSON string escaping (`\"` `\\` `\n` `\t` `\uXXXX`, …) — total over
 Unicode, and raw newlines never appear inside quotes. All values are strings at the grammar
 level; each node's section assigns types. Canonical form orders keys alphabetically, spells
 values bare wherever allowed, and inside quotes escapes only what it must, using the shortest
@@ -74,9 +84,10 @@ directive syntax — the leading `:` of a would-be directive, `]` inside content
 before `:` in input always yields a literal colon.
 
 **Malformed directives are error results**, named: an unclosed container at end of input, a body
-fence line of the container's length or longer, unparseable or duplicate-keyed attrs, invalid
-JSON in an opaque carry. Never a silent literal-text fallback — a typo that reparses as prose is
-the silent loss §2 refuses.
+fence line of the container's length or longer, a bare colon-run line outside any container, an
+inline `[content]` or `{attrs}` left unclosed at end of line, unparseable or duplicate-keyed
+attrs, invalid JSON in an opaque carry. Never a silent literal-text fallback — a typo that
+reparses as prose is the silent loss §2 refuses.
 
 ## The opaque carry (AGENTS.md §3)
 
@@ -90,6 +101,8 @@ Block and inline positions canonicalize differently, each fitting where it sits:
 
 The info string `adf` is reserved: a genuine `codeBlock` whose `language` is exactly `adf` is
 itself emitted through the opaque carry, so the reservation stays absolute and stays lossless.
+In block-directive positions (`::adf`, `:::adf`) the reserved name is a named error — the
+carry's block form is the fence.
 
 ## Raw HTML in input
 
diff --git a/todo.md b/todo.md
index c0415aa..e0877f3 100644
--- a/todo.md
+++ b/todo.md
@@ -15,14 +15,16 @@ detail is settled at its own milestone.
       family, the pipe-vs-directive table rule and the directive table form, task and decision
       lists, layout, extensions, syncBlock.
 - [ ] **1c — Inline node syntaxes and marks** in `spec/flavour.md`: mention, emoji, status, date,
-      inlineCard, mediaInline; underline, subsup, textColor, border.
+      inlineCard, mediaInline; underline, subsup, textColor, border; the spelling for text nodes
+      whose whitespace CommonMark cannot hold (literal newlines, leading or trailing spaces).
 - [ ] **1d — Corpus start** (§10): checked-in ADF ↔ canonical-markdown fixture pairs per spec'd
       node.
 - [ ] **2 — `adfToMarkdown`.** First real code — decide here where §10's coverage check lives.
 - [ ] **3 — `markdownToAdf`.** The CommonMark parser is the largest single component. The raw-HTML
       element mapping is empty until milestone 6, so at `0.1.0` every raw-HTML construct in input
       is an error result.
-- [ ] **4 — Round-trip property tests** over the corpus, both ways — the thing that proves 2 and 3.
+- [ ] **4 — Round-trip property tests** over the corpus, both ways — the thing that proves 2 and
+      3. Generators emit editor-normal ADF (§2).
 - [ ] **5 — Release pipeline, ship `0.1.0`.** Publish-on-version-change (§9), `NPM_TOKEN` secret,
       the repo made public first (§6). `0.1.0` is the markdown round-trip: both markdown
       directions, the types, `isAdfDocument`. The build lands here: a build tsconfig emitting JS