Terminal authority outranks provisional transcript length

A live transcript consumer may retain its longest provisional snapshot to tolerate delayed or incomplete reads. That monotonic rule must stop at a verified terminal boundary: when the end marker and canonical transcript are committed atomically, replace the provisional view with the canonical result even if it is shorter or empty. Otherwise stale provisional turns can survive corrections or final cleanup. Test both shorter and empty terminal results and reject late responses for another selected record. If terminal status and content are saved separately, first establish a reliable completion contract before stopping polls.

Applies when: A live transcript switches from streaming turns to a final saved transcript. Keywords: canonical terminal transcript provisional length atomic completion stale final replacement