Document the 1.4.0 release candidate

ACTIVE_SLICE.md

@@ -96,3 +96,33 @@ The release candidate must prove all of the following from maintained, reproduci
    artifacts.
 
 The completed Milestone 4 contract and exclusions remain preserved in `SLICE_HISTORY.md`.
+
+## Release-candidate evidence — 2026-07-29
+
+The executable implementation is frozen at
+`d2bb95fe6190e659cf66ba57c78be53b63b53240`. The proof-bearing candidate base is
+`2b98059b44f4d46b4d4cce776f163e893c647c76`; it includes exact legacy-tag verification for the
+fresh-clone gate and four maintained aggregate derived-recovery tests.
+
+The clean executable release gate passed formatting, Python and web lint, strict Pyright,
+compilation, lock and dependency checks, builds, generated documentation, three accessibility
+flows, fresh-wheel adoption, artifact reproducibility, secret scans, and the full Milestone 0
+through Milestone 4 benchmark sequence. Its exact test evidence was:
+
+- 142 contract tests plus 272 subtests.
+- 371 complete tests plus 419 subtests.
+- 116 compatibility tests plus 263 subtests.
+- 29 concurrency tests plus 2 subtests.
+- 68 recovery tests plus 62 subtests.
+
+The real migration gate preserves exact canonical and proposal bytes from the annotated `v1.0.0`
+lineage while rebuilding the disposable index from schema 1 to schema 3. The real-package task
+gate uses the lock-pinned `markdown-it-py 4.2.0` tree and proves exact graph-assisted and
+source-only answers for all reviewed tasks.
+
+The later proof-only recovery commit adds four maintained tests without changing executable
+product code. The current recovery aggregate passes 72 tests plus 62 subtests.
+
+Milestone 5 remains active. Documentation closeout, final branch synchronization, a fresh
+anonymous clone at the exact documentation-bearing remote commit, final artifact checksums, the
+annotated `v1.4.0` tag, and the Forgejo release are still pending. No PyPI publication is planned.