docs(confidence-engine): record v0.48 storage closure and next boundary handoff

Record: v0.48 persistence objective complete; Finding eligibility resolved;
next boundary is isolated Finding-informed Current Understanding (feature/
finding-informed-understanding-v0.49); broader Finding-system questions
intentionally deferred. No production or test changes.

docs/current-handoff.md

@@ -973,6 +973,56 @@ Without this separation, any attempt to add findings to the existing update path
 
 ---
 
+## v0.48 CLOSURE AND NEXT BOUNDARY HANDOFF (2026-08-28)
+
+### PERSISTENCE — COMPLETE
+
+feature/investigation-storage-provider-v0.48 has satisfied its bounded objective: generic investigation storage abstraction, LocalStorageProvider-backed canonical storage, and longitudinal investigation persistence are sufficiently established.
+
+**Closed items:**
+- Generic storage contract (`loadInvestigation`, `saveInvestigation`, `clearInvestigation`) — COMPLETE
+- ScenarioForm canonical hydration/persistence/clear ownership — COMPLETE (only owner; ReasoningWorkspace has no competing path)
+- Autosave persists: scenario, situationGraph, selectedQuestion, summary/Current Understanding state, focusedContributions, findings, updatedAt — COMPLETE
+- Legacy ReasoningWorkspace investigation persistence removed — COMPLETE
+- No competing production investigation persistence path remains — VERIFIED
+- Cold-return continuity proved via live multi-turn browser close/reopen experiment — VERIFIED
+- Contribution persistence across reload/cold return proven by latest bounded runtime experiment — VERIFIED (earlier `focusedContributions=[]` observation not reproduced, treated as technical debt)
+
+### FINDING ELIGIBILITY — RESOLVED (NOT REOPENABLE)
+
+**Dispositions:**
+- `userDisposition === null` → accepted-by-default → eligible as working interpretation for current investigation → NOT explicit user endorsement → still revisable. **CLOSED.**
+- `not_relevant` → retained canonically/provenance → NOT eligible to drive current investigation reasoning. **CLOSED.**
+
+**Finding role:** Advisory evidence carriers, NOT direct SituationGraph mutation agents. Authority boundary: only case/update owns graph mutation and frontier selection. **CLOSED.**
+
+### NEXT BOUNDARY — ISOLATED FINDING-INFORMED CURRENT UNDERSTANDING
+
+The remaining boundaries are NOT persistence issues. They belong to the next feature:
+
+1. Focused → global ownership/integration (how accumulated canonical Findings participate in global reasoning)
+2. Current Understanding incorporating focused learning (narrative synthesis from eligible Findings + authoritative graph state)
+3. **CURRENT-UNDERSTANDING-COUPLED-BLOCKER** (adding Findings to buildGraphUpdatePrompt() exposes them to authoritative outputs — graph mutations, activeUnknownNodeId, selectedQuestion, resolution proposals — which violates the established authority boundary)
+
+**Recommended branch:** `feature/finding-informed-understanding-v0.49`
+**Branch from:** `b215846` (current HEAD on feature/investigation-storage-provider-v0.48)
+**Objective:** Establish the smallest isolated path by which globally eligible canonical Findings can influence Current Understanding WITHOUT changing authoritative SituationGraph reasoning outputs.
+
+### INTENTIONALLY DEFERRED FINDING-SYSTEM QUESTIONS (NOT v0.49)
+
+- Richer Finding schema
+- Final Finding ID system
+- Contribution ↔ Finding clustering
+- Semantic Finding deduplication
+- Finding merge/split ownership
+- Final Finding → graph mapping mechanism
+
+### BRANCH CLEAN STATE
+
+This branch has NO tracked working tree changes at HEAD b215846. Documentation closure recorded in this section only. No production or test modifications required.
+
+---
+
 ## Findings Interaction + Attention Model — August 2026
 
 ### What this tells us = accepted by default