Avoid paragraph flow around standalone block-participating inline leaves

[chubes4]

Problem

A standalone inline semantic element that participates as a block/layout child can be wrapped in a generated paragraph. Core paragraph margins then alter parent grid geometry even though the source leaf already owns its display and margin contract.

Evidence

Fixture 89, transformer d40ac8e2ef1504fcc69ca4a63d2283db11c17cba, WP Codebox 0.18.4. Full passing artifacts: /tmp/fixture-89-combined-v0184-round7-retry/artifacts.

Source fallback cards contain a direct <strong> with display:block; margin:12px 0 4.8px. Candidate keeps <strong> but nests it in p.wp-block-paragraph with margin:16px 0.

• Source fallback grid height: 141.13px.
• Candidate: 156.33px.
• Exact local delta: +15.203px.

Acceptance

• Preserve standalone block-participating inline leaves without generated paragraph flow margins.
• Retain source class/tag selector addressability, order, display, and authored margins.
• Keep ordinary phrasing content in native paragraphs.
• Preserve native/editor-valid output without core/html.
• Add rendered geometry coverage for direct strong/span leaves under grid/flex and normal prose negatives.

AI assistance

OpenAI GPT-5.6 Sol using OpenCode analyzed complete source/candidate DOM and drafted this issue. Chris reviewed the evidence.

[chubes4]

Round 10 isolates the remaining selector-addressability defect after the carrier geometry repair at combined transformer f5e3ec74a9498e726dc9f049d48078505e8c17a1.

Full-page source and candidate are both 1280x8067; aligned mismatch is 31,263 / 10,325,760 pixels (0.3028%) with no page-level drift. The residual is entirely native inline descendants whose source DOM still matches the original selectors but whose projected author rules are absent:

• Four .stage-output span / .stage-output strong pairs lose block display, typography, line-height, and label margin. Each 260px card grows about 10px while remaining center-aligned.
• Four .maintenance-loop li > span markers lose their 30x30 grid circle, mono typography, colors, and radius, becoming stretched inline spans.

This extends the issue acceptance criterion for retaining source class/tag selector addressability: selector projection must recognize inline leaves serialized inside native Group/List output, including descendant and child combinators, when the candidate DOM remains selector-equivalent.

Evidence: /tmp/fixture-89-combined-v0184-round10/artifacts. No fallback blocks; all 170 emitted blocks are native.

AI assistance: OpenAI GPT-5.6 Sol using OpenCode performed the source/candidate DOM and screenshot attribution and drafted this evidence update. Chris reviewed the direction.

[chubes4]

Round 12 isolates the final standalone-anchor flow defect at transformer bf3845f650df0054135ba3c867fe2ae6f2c4fd6d.

Two direct anchors converted through p.blocks-engine-synthetic-paragraph retain exact source geometry but lose browser-default underlines because no author rule explicitly sets decoration:

• Closing link: 212 strict pixels at y=7786.
• Footer Back to top: 73 strict pixels at y=8019.

Acceptance extension: standalone anchor carriers must preserve effective source text decoration, including browser-default underline when no author declaration disables it, while explicit text-decoration:none remains un-underlined. Evidence: /tmp/fixture-89-combined-v0184-round12/artifacts.

AI assistance: OpenAI GPT-5.6 Sol using OpenCode performed pixel, DOM, and computed-style attribution and drafted this update. Chris reviewed the direction.

[chubes4]

Final evidence for owning PR #773. Immutable source: fixture PR #768.

Integrated verification used local exact combined SHA 50309edbc004370de3f3c2468f013b0eee4fa1ce, assembled from these isolated repairs and WP Codebox PR #2195 commit 68f920d8019bfb3352a32ba0bd2a6e234484231c. The integrated stack, not this PR alone, achieved: fixture 89 succeeded; visual 0/10,325,760 pixels (0 ratio); both 1280x8067; 170/170 native; zero core/html; 340/340 editor-valid; zero findings/warnings.

Repo-native reproduction:

cd <static-site-importer-checkout>
node tools/run-fixture-matrix.mjs --local --static-site-importer "$PWD" --blocks-engine <integrated-blocks-engine-checkout> --fixture-root <blocks-engine-checkout>/fixtures --target-fixture 89-static-site-importer-architecture --wp-codebox-bin <wp-codebox-2195-checkout>/packages/cli/dist/index.js

Source, candidate, and diff images were uploaded to the linked working thread. GitHub-resolvable code is fixture PR #768 plus owning PR #773.

AI assistance: gpt-5.6-sol via OpenCode was used to assemble, verify, and publish this evidence; Chris Huber remains responsible for the result.