# nav-golden-escape — negative navigation golden (the gate must be able to go red)

Per catalog's requirement that step 0's gate must be able to **fail** (a gate that can
only pass proves nothing), this negative case makes a conformant navigator and a naive one
**provably diverge**. It is the counterpart to `nav-golden-hierarchy` (the positive case).

`bundle/index.md` links one valid sibling and three escaping / trap targets:

| Link | Class | Conformant outcome |
|---|---|---|
| `valid.md` | in-bundle | returned |
| `../SHOULD-NOT-BE-READ.md` | `..` escape (the decoy really exists, one level up) | skipped; decoy never read |
| `../../../../etc/passwd` | deep `..` escape | skipped |
| `/etc/passwd` | root-relative **trap** | skipped |

The trap is the load-bearing one. Under the ratified rule, a leading `/` denotes the
**bundle root**, so `/etc/passwd` resolves to `{bundle}/etc/passwd` (no such file → skip),
NOT the filesystem path. A naive implementation that reads `/` as filesystem-absolute opens
the real `/etc/passwd` — a path-traversal breach. This case fails for any implementation
that raises, reads the decoy, or leaks `/etc/passwd` content; it passes only when the
read-context is exactly `valid.md`.

The malformed-target sub-class (an embedded null byte, other invalid path components) is
covered by the method-spec §11 **Navigation boundary** seam as a unit test — a literal null
byte does not belong in a committed text fixture. (See the relocated finding
`docs/plan/2026-07-20-funn-portfolio-optimiser-nullbyte.local.md` for the concrete
null-byte reproduction that motivates the seam.)