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+# Store machine-health finding mutes in their own state file
+
+- Status: accepted
+- Date: 2026-10-21
+
+## Context
+
+The machine-health audit is gaining checks that list items (startup entries, extensions, listeners,
+large folders). The owner needs to mark an item as expected so it stays listed but stops raising the
+check's severity, and to make that pick on the interactive decision page that each run builds.
+
+A mute has to outlive the run that created it, so it needs a stable name for an item across runs, a
+stored place to live, and a way to tie a pick on a page back to the item that page showed.
+
+The first design put mutes under `check_overrides` inside `approvals.json` at schema 1.0. A stress
+test rejected that: an older plugin build reading an `approvals.json` with an unknown key either
+FAILs `setup check` or strips the key on its next write, so a mute could break setup or vanish during
+an update window.
+
+## Decision
+
+- **Mutes live in `<StateBase>/state/mutes.json`**, validated by a new
+  `catalog/schemas/mutes.schema.json` at `schema_version` `"1.0"`. Its shape is
+  `checks.<check-id>.muted_findings[]`, each entry `{ key, label, reason, added_at, run_id }`, with
+  `key` and `added_at` required and no other properties allowed.
+- **`approvals.json` and `approvals.schema.json` are unchanged**, byte for byte. Remediation
+  approvals stay there; mutes never go there.
+- **A finding item is named by a FindingKey**: `<kind>:<first 16 hex characters of
+  SHA-256(lower(kind + "|" + identity fields joined by "|"))>`, matching
+  `^[a-z-]{1,16}:[0-9a-f]{16}$`. The kinds are `startup`, `task`, `folder`, `app`, `ext`,
+  `listener`, `exclusion`, `detection` and `firewall`, each with a fixed list of identity fields. A
+  listener whose owner cannot be resolved gets no key and cannot be muted.
+- **A pick resolves only against the map of the run that built the page.** Each run writes
+  `<StateBase>/views/checkup-<runStamp>.ids.json`, mapping page row ids to an action and a
+  FindingKey. The page's copied payload carries a builder-assigned `run: <runStamp>` line, and the
+  resolver opens only the map that line names. A payload with no `run:` line, or one naming a map
+  that is gone, is refused whole. The newest 12 runs' maps are kept.
+
+## Consequences
+
+- The FindingKey format and each kind's identity fields are one-way: changing either orphans every
+  stored mute. A change ships with a migration or a new kind name.
+- A downgraded plugin has no reader for `mutes.json`, so muted items raise severity again until the
+  upgrade. Neither file FAILs and nothing is stripped. The CHANGELOG fragment for the release that
+  adds `mutes.json` says so.
+- Checks never read `mutes.json`. The orchestrator reads it and passes the muted keys to each check
+  as an argument.
+- A payload pasted after its run has been pruned (more than 12 runs later) cannot be resolved; the
+  owner re-picks on a newer page.