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diff --git a/‎.changeset/21516-objectql-unresolved-name-refusal.md‎
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diff --git a/‎packages/cli/src/commands/migrate/account-issuer.ts‎
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diff --git a/‎packages/cli/src/utils/schema-migrate.host-composition.integration.test.ts‎
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diff --git a/‎packages/metadata-protocol/src/protocol.ts‎
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diff --git a/‎packages/metadata-protocol/src/seed-loader.ts‎
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@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+---
+'@objectstack/core': minor
+---
+
+New export `objectNotFoundError(object)`: the one `OBJECT_NOT_FOUND` envelope the data door and the engine's in-process verbs refuse an unresolved object name with
+
+Clause-②: yes
+
+`@objectstack/core` exports `objectNotFoundError(object: string): Error`. The error it returns carries `code: 'OBJECT_NOT_FOUND'`, `status: 404`, the requested name on `object`, and the message `Object '<name>' not found`. It lives here beside `recordNotFoundError`, and for the same reason: the engine cannot import `@objectstack/metadata-protocol`, where the data door first wrote this envelope (ADR-0076 D2). The data door's object-existence gate and `@objectstack/objectql`'s resolver both build their refusal from it, so the two answer one name space with one envelope. Additive: nothing that existed before changes.
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+---
+'@objectstack/metadata-protocol': patch
+---
+
+The data door's object-existence gate builds its `OBJECT_NOT_FOUND` from the shared factory, and two best-effort readers treat the engine's refusal of their own object as the not-provisioned case
+
+Clause-②: no
+
+- `assertObjectRegistered` (the data door's object-existence gate) now throws `objectNotFoundError(object)` from `@objectstack/core`. The code, the status, the `object` field and the message are unchanged, byte for byte.
+- `SeedLoaderService.resolveSoleOrganizationId` and the history counters `SysMetadataRepository` reads (`version`, `event_seq`) already answered a missing table of their own object as "nothing here yet". `@objectstack/objectql` now refuses an object name its registry does not hold with `OBJECT_NOT_FOUND` instead of reaching the driver, so each reader also answers that refusal as the same absence when the error's own `object` is the object it read. A refusal naming another object, and every other read failure, still propagate. With a registered object nothing changes.
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+---
+'@objectstack/objectql': minor
+---
+
+An in-process engine verb refuses an object name the registry does not resolve, with the data door's own `OBJECT_NOT_FOUND`, instead of handing it to the driver as a raw table name
+
+Clause-②: no (narrowing)
+
+<!-- adr-0087: not-required (no-migration-prescription) An accept-set narrowing at the engine's name resolution: no authorable spec key, export or metadata shape is removed, renamed or re-shaped, so there is no tombstone and nothing for `objectstack migrate meta` to rewrite. What a caller meant by a name the registry does not hold is not decidable by a conversion entry. The other categories are closed on facts: the package publishes (not unpublished); no ADR-0087 id covers this rule and this diff adds none (not registered / already-registered); and the change narrows what runtime verbs accept, not a runtime interface or a type surface alone (not runtime-interface-only / type-surface-only). -->
+
+**BREAKING** accept-set narrowing of the engine's in-process verbs, shipped as `minor` under the repo's launch-window convention for breaking changes.
+
+**What was accepted before.** `find`, `findOne`, `count`, `aggregate`, `insert` (and `insertMany`), `update`, `delete` and `validate` resolved their target through the schema registry and, for a name the registry did not resolve, handed the name to the driver as a raw table name. A caller in the process (a sandboxed action or hook body's `ctx.api`, an action handler, host code) could therefore read or write a table by a name the generic data door refuses with `404 OBJECT_NOT_FOUND`, and every in-process guard keyed by a registered object name could be stepped around by naming the target another way.
+
+**What is refused now.** Such a name is refused with the data door's own envelope (`OBJECT_NOT_FOUND`, `status: 404`, the name on `object`, built by `objectNotFoundError` from `@objectstack/core`) before any hook, middleware or driver runs. A registered name resolves exactly as before. `judgeFilter` still judges the filter for a name the registry does not hold, because it reads nothing and reaches no driver; execution refuses that object before admission.
+
+**Inside the engine.** The single-tenant organization probe asks the registry first: an install that registers no organization object is the lean case it always was, with no organization to derive, and the write proceeds unstamped without a driver read.
+
+**The fix.** Register the object (in the stack, with `registry.registerObject`, or through a plugin manifest) before addressing it through the engine. Host code that must reach storage without a registry entry addresses the driver itself (`datasource(name)`, `getDriverForObject(name)`), a path a sandboxed body cannot reach.
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+---
+'@objectstack/spec': patch
+---
+
+The `IObjectQLEngine.judgeFilter` docblock states that execution refuses an object the registry does not know before admission
+
+Clause-②: no
+
+The comment ships in the package's type declarations (`dist/*.d.ts`); `src/contracts/objectql-engine.ts` itself is not in `files[]`. It used to say that, for an object the registry does not know, the schema-free doors still judge "as at execution". Execution now refuses such an object before admission (`OBJECT_NOT_FOUND`, 404), so the comment says that answer is about the object, not the filter, and is not this member's verdict. ⛔ No schema, parse, export or accept-set change.
@@ -17,6 +17,14 @@ import {
 } from '../../utils/format.js';
 import { bootSchemaStack } from '../../utils/schema-migrate.js';
 
+/** The table this pre-flight inventories. Never written. */
+const SYS_ACCOUNT = 'sys_account';
+
+/** The driver read this pre-flight issues: `find` only, read-only by construction. */
+interface AccountTableDriver {
+  find(object: string, query: Record<string, unknown>): Promise<unknown>;
+}
+
 /**
  * `os migrate account-issuer` — the PLAN leg of the `sys_account.issuer`
  * retirement (#17440).
@@ -126,26 +134,44 @@ export default class MigrateAccountIssuer extends Command {
       const engine = (stack.kernel as { getService?: (n: string) => unknown }).getService?.call(
         stack.kernel,
         'objectql',
-      );
+      ) as { getDriverForObject?: (object: string) => AccountTableDriver | undefined } | undefined;
 
       if (!flags.json) printStep('Scanning sys_account…');
 
+      // The pre-flight reads the PHYSICAL `sys_account` table through the
+      // driver the engine routes that name to, not through the engine's
+      // `find`. This boot composes no `AuthPlugin`, so `sys_account` is not a
+      // registered object here, and the engine refuses a name its registry
+      // does not resolve (`OBJECT_NOT_FOUND`) before any driver is asked. That
+      // refusal is a fact about this boot's composition, never about the
+      // database: ⛔ reading it as "no rows" would report a table full of
+      // accounts as a clean pre-flight and authorise the drop. The table is
+      // read in its legacy shape, `issuer` included, which is the very column
+      // the registered schema no longer declares, so the driver (the path the
+      // engine leaves to host code) is the reader this inventory needs.
+      //
       // [#21552] A database with no `sys_account` table holds no account, so no
       // two rows collide: the probe reads it as no rows. The read is not
-      // avoided, measured: this boot composes no `AuthPlugin`, so `sys_account`
-      // is not a registered object and the held-back sync never lists it, and
+      // avoided, measured: `sys_account` is not a registered object on this
+      // boot, so the held-back sync never lists it, and
       // `stack.tableAbsent('sys_account')` answers false on every database.
-      // The refusal is therefore recognised, with the shared predicate and for
-      // this command's own table only. ⛔ No other refused read is softened: it
-      // still throws the probe's refusal below and is never read as clean.
+      // The driver's missing-table refusal is therefore recognised, with the
+      // shared predicate and for this command's own table only. ⛔ No other
+      // refused read is softened: it still throws the probe's refusal below
+      // and is never read as clean.
       let noAccountTable = false;
-      const readEngine = engine as Parameters<typeof probeAccountIdentityCollisions>[0];
-      const readView: typeof readEngine = {
-        find: async (object, query, options) => {
+      const readView: Parameters<typeof probeAccountIdentityCollisions>[0] = {
+        find: async (object, query) => {
+          // No driver is not an empty table: the probe turns this into its
+          // refusal, never into a clean report.
+          const driver = engine?.getDriverForObject?.(object);
+          if (!driver || typeof driver.find !== 'function') {
+            throw new Error(`no driver serves ${object} on this stack`);
+          }
           try {
-            return await readEngine.find(object, query, options);
+            return await driver.find(object, query);
           } catch (error) {
-            if (object !== 'sys_account' || !isMissingTableError(error, object)) throw error;
+            if (object !== SYS_ACCOUNT || !isMissingTableError(error, object)) throw error;
             noAccountTable = true;
             return [];
           }
 
@@ -908,7 +908,8 @@ describe('a plan runs no app lifecycle hook (#21054)', () => {
         "  ctx.hook('kernel:bootstrapped', async () => {",
         "    appendFileSync(LOG, 'app|kernel:bootstrapped\\n');",
         `    for (const object of ${JSON.stringify(PROBE_TABLES)}) {`,
-        "      try { await ctx.ql.find(object, { where: { name: 'x' }, limit: 1, context: SYS }); } catch { /* answered */ }",
+        "      try { await ctx.ql.find(object, { where: { name: 'x' }, limit: 1, context: SYS }); appendFileSync(LOG, `app|read|${object}|ok\\n`); }",
+        "      catch (e: any) { appendFileSync(LOG, `app|read|${object}|${e && e.code}\\n`); }",
         '    }',
         '  });',
         '};',
@@ -963,9 +964,15 @@ describe('a plan runs no app lifecycle hook (#21054)', () => {
       expect(log).toContain('app|onEnable');
       expect(log).toContain('app|kernel:bootstrapped');
       expect(log).toContain('host|kernel:bootstrapped');
+      // [#21516] The engine now refuses a name its registry does not hold
+      // before any driver, so a read of an object this boot never declared is
+      // answered `OBJECT_NOT_FOUND` and no driver line is printed. The witness
+      // that the hooks' reads were ISSUED — what the plan legs below prove
+      // absent — is therefore each read's recorded answer, not a driver line.
       for (const table of PROBE_TABLES) {
-        expect(captured.lines.some((l) => l.includes(`'${table}'`))).toBe(true);
+        expect(log).toContain(`app|read|${table}|OBJECT_NOT_FOUND`);
       }
+      expect(captured.lines.filter((l) => PROBE_TABLES.some((t) => l.includes(`'${t}'`)))).toEqual([]);
     } finally {
       captured.restore();
       await stack.shutdown();
 
@@ -155,6 +155,11 @@ export * from './utils/metadata-activation-store.js';
 // with. `@objectstack/metadata-protocol` re-exports it from its original home.
 export * from './utils/record-not-found.js';
 
+// The one `OBJECT_NOT_FOUND` envelope: the data door's object-existence gate
+// and the engine's in-process verbs refuse a name the registry does not
+// resolve with it (one name space for both doors).
+export * from './utils/object-not-found.js';
+
 // Export in-memory fallbacks for core-criticality services
 export * from './fallbacks/index.js';
 
 
@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+// Copyright (c) 2026 ObjectStack. Licensed under the Apache-2.0 license.
+
+/**
+ * The 404 an object name answers when the schema registry does not resolve it.
+ *
+ * One name space, two doors. The generic data door (the protocol's
+ * object-existence gate) and the engine's in-process verbs (`find`, `findOne`,
+ * `count`, `aggregate`, `insert`, `update`, `delete`, `validate`) resolve an
+ * object name through the same registry, and a name the registry does not hold
+ * is refused by both with this one envelope: `code: 'OBJECT_NOT_FOUND'`,
+ * `status: 404`, and the name the caller asked for on `object`.
+ *
+ * Why the engine refuses too: an in-process verb used to hand an unresolved
+ * name to the driver as a raw table name. Every guard keyed by a registered
+ * object name then judged a name that named no object, while the driver read
+ * whatever table the spelling reached. The door already refused that name, so
+ * an in-process caller (a sandboxed body, an action handler, a hook) could
+ * read what the door would not serve.
+ *
+ * Why it lives in `@objectstack/core`: ADR-0076 D2's boundary ratchet
+ * (`core-boundary.ratchet.test.ts`) keeps `engine.ts` from importing
+ * `@objectstack/metadata-protocol`, where the door's envelope was first
+ * written. `recordNotFoundError` moved down here for the same reason, and both
+ * doors call this factory rather than each spelling the envelope.
+ *
+ * The wire answer is the data-error classifier's (`mapDataError`,
+ * `@objectstack/types`), which reads `code` and `object`; this message is the
+ * operator-facing text and stays the door's original sentence.
+ */
+export function objectNotFoundError(object: string): Error {
+    const err = new Error(`Object '${object}' not found`) as Error & {
+        code?: string;
+        status?: number;
+        object?: string;
+    };
+    err.code = 'OBJECT_NOT_FOUND';
+    err.status = 404;
+    err.object = object;
+    return err;
+}
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 import type {
     DataProtocol, MetadataProtocol, PackageProtocol,
 } from '@objectstack/spec/api';
-import { IDataEngine, engineCanRollBack, recordNotFoundError } from '@objectstack/core';
+import { IDataEngine, engineCanRollBack, objectNotFoundError, recordNotFoundError } from '@objectstack/core';
 import { declaredUserMessage, readEnvWithDeprecation, resolveTenancyPosture, resolveThrownHttpError } from '@objectstack/types';
 // [#6285] ADR-0105 D1's authority on "does this deployment wall organizations?".
 // `resolveMultiOrgEnabled()` is DEMOTED and its own doc comment says answering
@@ -10371,21 +10371,24 @@ export class ObjectStackProtocolImplementation implements
      *
      * The REST API-exposure gate (`enforceApiAccess`, ADR-0049 / #1889) skips
      * objects it cannot find in metadata, and justified that with "the data
-     * path will 404 anyway". It would not. `engine.find` resolves an
-     * UNREGISTERED name straight to a physical table name
-     * (`resolveObjectName` → `StorageNameMapping.resolveTableName({ name })`),
-     * so the request only 404'd as a *side effect* of the driver complaining
-     * about a missing table (which the REST layer recognises by matching the
-     * driver's error string) — and did not 404 at all when a table with that
-     * name happened to exist: out-of-band DDL, a registration that failed
-     * after `syncObjectSchema` had already run, a registration race. In that
-     * window the exposure gate was silently skipped and the rows were served.
+     * path will 404 anyway". It would not. `engine.find` then resolved an
+     * UNREGISTERED name straight to a physical table name, so the request
+     * only 404'd as a *side effect* of the driver complaining about a missing
+     * table (which the REST layer recognises by matching the driver's error
+     * string) — and did not 404 at all when a table with that name happened
+     * to exist: out-of-band DDL, a registration that failed after
+     * `syncObjectSchema` had already run, a registration race. In that window
+     * the exposure gate was silently skipped and the rows were served.
      *
      * The gate lives HERE, at the protocol ingress, for the same reason
-     * `enforceApiAccess` does: this is the external API boundary. Internal
-     * callers (hooks, flows, migrations, raw ObjectQL) talk to the engine
-     * directly and are deliberately unaffected — `apiEnabled` and this check
-     * both control automatic API exposure, not data access.
+     * `enforceApiAccess` does: this is the external API boundary, and it
+     * answers before the query is parsed. `apiEnabled` controls automatic API
+     * exposure, not data access, and internal callers (hooks, flows,
+     * migrations, raw ObjectQL) are unaffected by it. The object-existence
+     * half is no longer the door's alone: the engine's in-process verbs now
+     * refuse a name the registry does not resolve with this same envelope
+     * (`objectNotFoundError`, `@objectstack/core`), so an in-process caller
+     * cannot read a table by a name this gate refuses.
      *
      * ## Tiering — mirrors the #3545 decision recorded in `api-exposure.ts`
      *
@@ -10474,11 +10477,9 @@ export class ObjectStackProtocolImplementation implements
             }
             return;
         }
-        const err: any = new Error(`Object '${object}' not found`);
-        err.code = 'OBJECT_NOT_FOUND';
-        err.status = 404;
-        err.object = object;
-        throw err;
+        // The one envelope, shared with the engine's in-process verbs, which
+        // refuse an unresolved name the same way (`objectNotFoundError`).
+        throw objectNotFoundError(object);
     }
 
     /**
 
@@ -1649,12 +1649,24 @@ export class SeedLoaderService implements ISeedLoaderService {
       // makes below — never a hand-rolled message test, so one vocabulary of
       // "benign driver error" serves every seam that needs one.
       //
+      // [#21516] The same absence in a composition that registers no
+      // `sys_organization` object at all (a single-tenant/lean runtime): the
+      // engine's in-process verbs now refuse an unresolved name with
+      // `OBJECT_NOT_FOUND` before any driver is asked, rather than reaching a
+      // table by that raw name. It is the not-provisioned case the missing-table
+      // arm already covers — no organization object here, so "no sole
+      // organization" is the truth and the historical NULL is right. Attributed
+      // on the error's own `object`, like the predicate above: a refusal naming
+      // a different object is not evidence about `sys_organization`.
+      //
       // Everything else (connection loss, a timeout, a permission denial, a
       // driver fault) means organizations may well exist and simply were not
       // seen. It propagates, envelope intact: the seed run fails loudly instead
       // of writing a batch of rows nobody will be able to see. No new error code
       // and no new result field — the caller receives the read's own failure.
-      if (!isMissingTableError(error, 'sys_organization')) throw error;
+      const refused = error as { code?: unknown; object?: unknown } | null | undefined;
+      const refusedThisObject = refused?.code === 'OBJECT_NOT_FOUND' && refused.object === 'sys_organization';
+      if (!isMissingTableError(error, 'sys_organization') && !refusedThisObject) throw error;
     }
     return undefined;
   }