fix: let the doc-content tests survive R CMD check

CI failed on the previous commit. testthat::test_local() from a checkout was green, but rcmdcheck was not: under R CMD check the suite runs against the INSTALLED package, where README.md, vignettes/ and man/ do not exist. Both newly-activated tests read them through test_path("..", "..", ...) and died on `cannot open the connection`. The defect was latent in the committed tests, not introduced here -- they shipped skip()ped, so CI had never executed either one. Removing the skips is what exposed it, which is the mechanism working as intended. Guarded with skip_if_no_source_tree(), so they skip in the installed-package context that structurally cannot satisfy them. They are NOT thereby unchecked in CI: the workflow runs testthat::test_local() from the checkout as its own step before rcmdcheck, and there the paths resolve and the assertions run. Deliberately not split: test-peer-summary-scope.R's numeric pin needs only the corpus and would survive check on its own, but it exists to protect the sentence above it. Separating them would let the prose drift while the pin kept passing. Verified locally: test_local 629 pass / 0 fail / 3 skip; rcmdcheck 0 errors / 0 warnings / 0 notes.
fix: literal name search, units docs, peer-summary semantics (#16 , #15 , #14 )
2026-07-30 11:31:28 -04:00 · 2026-07-30 11:23:53 -04:00 · 2026-07-30 10:33:24 -04:00 · 2026-07-30 10:32:40 -04:00 · 2026-07-30 10:27:48 -04:00 · 2026-07-30 10:20:09 -04:00
52 changed files with 3733 additions and 127 deletions
@@ -16,3 +16,4 @@
 ^Meta$
 ^\.gitea$
 ^CLAUDE\.md$
+^\.superpowers$
@@ -9,3 +9,6 @@ docs/
 /Meta/
 .DS_Store
 /.quarto/
+
+# SDD working artifacts (ledger, briefs, review packages) — plans/ stays tracked
+.superpowers/sdd/
@@ -1,5 +1,51 @@
 # uscogdata 0.1.0 (development)

+## Corpus-wide series breaks now reach users (`corpus_break_refs`)
+
+* Four catalogued series breaks carry `fin_code = "ALL"` — caveats about the
+  corpus as a whole rather than about one item code. `series_break_refs` is
+  built by matching `fin_code` against the item codes in the result, and no
+  row's `item_code` is ever the literal `"ALL"`, so **none of them could ever
+  be surfaced**: `SB085` (dollar precision across the 1976/1977 boundary),
+  `SB087` (imputation exclusion from FY2002), `SB194` (the dense → sparse
+  representation change at FY2012) and `SB086` (the government id scheme
+  change at FY2017).
+* Provenance gains `corpus_break_refs`, selected on the break-year window
+  alone and disjoint from `series_break_refs` by construction, so a consumer
+  can tell a whole-result caveat from a break in one series. `cog_explain()`
+  prints them under their own "Corpus-wide caveats" heading. cog-api passes
+  provenance through verbatim, so the field appears there without an API
+  change.
+* `SB194` is the one that made this urgent: a query spanning FY2011 → FY2012
+  crosses the boundary where an absent cell stops meaning "Census published
+  `$0`" and starts meaning "not reported", and until now nothing said so.
+
+## Bundled fixture regenerated against the sparsified corpus
+
+* `inst/extdata/fixture_corpus/` now tracks the corpus published on
+  2026-07-29 (`pipeline_commit 83f9715`, schema v6). The wide era no longer
+  stores explicit zeros: FY2011 fell from 2,864,212 rows to 496,004, of
+  which none are `$0`. **Absence now means two different things** — in a
+  `dense_source` year (≤ FY2011) an absent cell means Census published `$0`;
+  in a `sparse_source` year (≥ FY2012) it means not reported. The corpus
+  carries that rule in two new tables the fixture now ships,
+  `representation.parquet` and `code_set.parquet`, alongside
+  `census_collection_coverage.parquet` and `lineage_events.parquet`
+  (all ten publish-tree metadata tables, up from six). Catalogued upstream
+  as series break `SB194`.
+* `cog_categories()` gains an `assistance` spending subtype: the J-prefix
+  aid/benefit codes (`J19`, `J67`, `J68`, `J85`) are categorised now that
+  the upstream crosswalk covers every flow code carrying dollars.
+* Two consequences worth knowing about, both visible in provenance rather
+  than in returned dollars. The harmonization block's `na_rows_excluded`
+  counts only rows that exist, so wide-era codes that were zero-padded no
+  longer appear there. Coverage-gap `suggestions` are presence-based for the
+  same reason, so a recipe whose component codes were all `$0` for a given
+  government-year is no longer suggested for it.
+* `tests/testthat/test-fixture-vintage.R` pins these structural facts, so a
+  fixture left behind by a future publish fails loudly instead of letting the
+  suite pass against a corpus that no longer exists.
+
 ## Breaking: corpus schema_version 4 (Phase P canonical ids)

 * The package now requires corpus `schema_version = 4` (`MinCorpusSchema` /
@@ -60,6 +60,21 @@ cog_explain <- function(result, format = c("print", "list")) {
    cli::cli_text("Basis: {prov$basis}{note}")
  }

+  if (!is.null(prov$expenditure_concept)) {
+    concept_note <- if (!is.null(prov$expenditure_concept_note) &&
+                         !is.na(prov$expenditure_concept_note)) {
+      sprintf(" (%s)", prov$expenditure_concept_note)
+    } else {
+      ""
+    }
+    cli::cli_text("Concept: {prov$expenditure_concept}{concept_note}")
+    if (isTRUE(prov$expenditure_concept_direct_suppressed)) {
+      cli::cli_alert_warning(
+        "Direct leg unavailable for at least one requested (year, category) -- affected rows report intergovernmental dollars alone, not Direct + IG. See each row's notes."
+      )
+    }
+  }
+
  cli::cli_h2("Codes observed")
  codes <- prov$codes_summed$observed
  if (length(codes) == 0L) {
@@ -108,6 +123,14 @@ cog_explain <- function(result, format = c("print", "list")) {
    cli::cli_ul(.series_break_story_lines(prov$series_break_refs))
  }

+  # Kept in a section of its own: these qualify the whole result, so folding
+  # them in with the per-code breaks above would invite reading them as a
+  # caveat about one series.
+  if (length(prov$corpus_break_refs) > 0L) {
+    cli::cli_h2("Corpus-wide caveats")
+    cli::cli_ul(.series_break_story_lines(prov$corpus_break_refs))
+  }
+
  cli::cli_h2("Transformations")
  uc <- prov$transformations$units_conversion
  if (isTRUE(uc$applied)) {
@@ -133,7 +133,9 @@ cog_find_peers <- function(target_govid,
 #' [cog_find_peers()] result or a character vector of `canonical_govid`) and
 #' appends peer-distribution summary rows (`summary_p25`, `summary_p50`,
 #' `summary_p75`) so the result can be faceted by `role` in a single ggplot
-#' call.
+#' call. Those summary rows are quantiles **within each category**, not
+#' quantiles of each peer's total — see the `@return` section before summing
+#' them.
 #'
 #' @param target_govid Character scalar.
 #' @param peers A tibble from [cog_find_peers()] or a character vector of
@@ -143,6 +145,10 @@ cog_find_peers <- function(target_govid,
 #' @param per_capita Default `TRUE` — peer compare usually normalizes by
 #'   population.
 #' @param adjust_to_year Integer base year for CPI-U conversion or `NULL`.
+#' @param expenditure_concept `"direct"` (default) or `"total"`. Currently only
+#'   `"direct"` is accepted; the `"total"` option exists in [cog_spending()] for
+#'   single-government queries but cannot be used here because combining Total
+#'   across peer sets counts intergovernmental transfers twice.
 #' @return Tibble matching [cog_spending()]'s columns, plus a `role`
 #'   column taking values `"target"`, `"peer"`, `"summary_p25"`,
 #'   `"summary_p50"`, or `"summary_p75"`, `target_rank` (target's rank
@@ -151,10 +157,41 @@ cog_find_peers <- function(target_govid,
 #'   `attr(peers, "cohort_year")`; `NA` when `peers` was a bare character
 #'   vector). Provenance reports `verb = "cog_peer_compare"`, `peer_count`,
 #'   `cohort_year`, and `cohort_govids`.
+#'
+#'   **The `summary_*` rows are per-category quantiles: they are not additive.**
+#'   Each one is computed **within each `(year, spend_subtype,
+#'   category)` cell** across the peer set, so a `summary_p50` row is *the
+#'   median peer's value in that one category*, not *the value of the median
+#'   peer's total*. The median peer for Police and the median peer for Fire
+#'   are usually different governments, so summing `summary_*` rows across
+#'   categories does not give any peer's total and misstates the band it
+#'   appears to describe — measured at −32.7% to +251.0% across 24 years on
+#'   one cohort, with a sign flip at FY2012.
+#'
+#'   Facet by `role` **and** `category` (the documented use, and what the
+#'   rows are built for). For a genuine "median peer's total spending" line,
+#'   sum each peer's own categories first and take the quantile of those
+#'   per-government totals:
+#'
+#'   ```r
+#'   library(dplyr)
+#'   cmp |>
+#'     filter(role %in% c("target", "peer")) |>
+#'     group_by(year, role, canonical_govid) |>
+#'     summarise(total = sum(amt_per_capita_real, na.rm = TRUE), .groups = "drop") |>
+#'     filter(role == "peer") |>
+#'     group_by(year) |>
+#'     summarise(p50 = quantile(total, 0.5, na.rm = TRUE))
+#'   ```
 #' @export
 cog_peer_compare <- function(target_govid, peers, category, years,
-                             per_capita = TRUE, adjust_to_year = NULL) {
+                             per_capita = TRUE, adjust_to_year = NULL,
+                             expenditure_concept = c("direct", "total")) {
  call <- match.call()
+  expenditure_concept <- match.arg(expenditure_concept)
+  if (identical(expenditure_concept, "total")) {
+    .abort_concept_not_aggregatable("cog_peer_compare")
+  }
  if (!is.character(target_govid) || length(target_govid) != 1L) {
    cli::cli_abort("`target_govid` must be a length-1 character string.")
  }
@@ -6,6 +6,9 @@
                              per_capita, adjust_to_year, result, sql,
                              subtype_col, basis = NA_character_,
                              basis_note = NA_character_,
+                              expenditure_concept = "direct",
+                              expenditure_concept_note = NA_character_,
+                              expenditure_concept_direct_suppressed = FALSE,
                              harmonization = NULL, recipe = NULL,
                              suggestions = list()) {
  manifest <- .uscogdata_env$manifest
@@ -34,11 +37,20 @@

  schema_version <- suppressWarnings(as.integer(manifest$schema_version %||% 0L))
  con <- .uscogdata_env$con
-  break_refs <- if (!is.null(con) && DBI::dbIsValid(con)) {
+  have_con <- !is.null(con) && DBI::dbIsValid(con)
+  break_refs <- if (have_con) {
    .build_series_break_refs(con, codes_observed, years, schema_version)
  } else {
    character(0)
  }
+  # Corpus-wide caveats travel separately: they qualify the whole result
+  # rather than one series, and they do not depend on codes_observed (see
+  # .build_corpus_break_refs()).
+  corpus_refs <- if (have_con) {
+    .build_corpus_break_refs(con, years, schema_version)
+  } else {
+    character(0)
+  }

  list(
    verb = verb,
@@ -51,6 +63,9 @@
    category = category,
    basis = basis,
    basis_note = basis_note,
+    expenditure_concept = expenditure_concept,
+    expenditure_concept_note = expenditure_concept_note,
+    expenditure_concept_direct_suppressed = isTRUE(expenditure_concept_direct_suppressed),
    harmonization = harmonization %||% list(
      applied = FALSE, na_rows_excluded = 0L, na_amount_excluded = 0,
      note = NA_character_
@@ -110,6 +125,7 @@
      )
    ),
    series_break_refs = break_refs,
+    corpus_break_refs = corpus_refs,
    manifest = list(
      schema_version = as.integer(manifest$schema_version),
      pipeline_commit = manifest$pipeline_commit %||% NA_character_,
@@ -25,6 +25,12 @@
 #'   population from `gov_population_yearly`. Govs with missing population
 #'   are excluded from the result.
 #' @param adjust_to_year Integer base year for CPI-U conversion, or `NULL`.
+#' @param expenditure_concept `"direct"` (default) or `"total"`. Currently only
+#'   `"direct"` is accepted; the `"total"` option exists in [cog_spending()] for
+#'   single-government queries but cannot be used here because combining Total
+#'   across multiple layers of government double-counts intergovernmental
+#'   transfers (a state's payment to a school district is the same dollar the
+#'   district reports as its own Direct spending).
 #' @return Tibble with columns `year`, `layer`, `canonical_govid`, `gov_name`,
 #'   `spend_subtype`, `category`, `amt_nominal`, optional `amt_real` /
 #'   `amt_per_capita_nominal` / `amt_per_capita_real`, optional `pop_source`,
@@ -33,8 +39,13 @@
 #'   and `rollup$included_govids` / `rollup$excluded_govids`.
 #' @export
 cog_geographic_rollup <- function(govids, category, years,
-                                  per_capita = FALSE, adjust_to_year = NULL) {
+                                  per_capita = FALSE, adjust_to_year = NULL,
+                                  expenditure_concept = c("direct", "total")) {
  call <- match.call()
+  expenditure_concept <- match.arg(expenditure_concept)
+  if (identical(expenditure_concept, "total")) {
+    .abort_concept_not_aggregatable("cog_geographic_rollup")
+  }
  .validate_rollup_layers(govids)

  govids <- lapply(govids, .coerce_govid_input, arg = "govids[[layer]]")
@@ -6,8 +6,11 @@
 #' the cross-vintage canonical-government registry. Operates in two modes:
 #'
 #' * **Utility mode** (single `name`, the original behavior): returns all
-#'   rows whose `gov_name` matches the regex case-insensitively, sorted by
-#'   `population_acs` descending. Useful for exploratory lookups.
+#'   rows whose `gov_name` contains `name` as a **literal, case-insensitive
+#'   substring**, sorted by `population_acs` descending. Useful for
+#'   exploratory lookups. Regex metacharacters in `name` are escaped, so a
+#'   government is findable by its own complete name even when that name
+#'   contains parentheses or a period.
 #' * **Basket mode** (`length(name) > 1`): resolves each input row to a
 #'   single canonical govid and returns a tibble in input order, suitable
 #'   for piping straight into [cog_spending()] / [cog_revenue()] /
@@ -19,7 +22,8 @@
 #' 1. Filter `canonical_fips_xwalk` by `state` and (if non-NA) `type`.
 #' 2. **Exact pass:** case-insensitive equality against `gov_name`.
 #'    Single hit -> resolved. Multiple -> step 4.
-#' 3. **Substring fallback:** case-insensitive regex against `gov_name`.
+#' 3. **Substring fallback:** case-insensitive literal substring against
+#'    `gov_name` (metacharacters escaped).
 #'    Single hit -> resolved (`match_method = "substring"`). Zero hits ->
 #'    `status = "no_match"`. Multiple hits -> step 4.
 #' 4. **Disambiguation:** if matches share one `govs_type`, pick the
@@ -48,7 +52,7 @@
 #'   [cog_spending()], [cog_revenue()].
 #' @examples
 #' \dontrun{
-#' # Utility mode — exploratory regex lookup
+#' # Utility mode — exploratory substring lookup
 #' cog_gov_search("broward", state = "FL")
 #'
 #' # Basket mode — resolve a known cohort
@@ -98,9 +102,16 @@ cog_gov_search <- function(name = NULL, state = NULL, type = NULL) {
    if (!is.character(name) || length(name) != 1L) {
      cli::cli_abort("`name` must be a length-1 character string.")
    }
+    # Escaped, so `name` is a literal case-insensitive substring -- the same
+    # treatment basket mode has always given it. Interpolating it raw made a
+    # government unfindable by its own name whenever that name contains a
+    # metacharacter (FREDONIA (BRISCOE) CITY), turned a bare "." into a
+    # match-everything wildcard, and let malformed pattern text reach the
+    # engine as an error -- which cog-api surfaced as a 500, reachable by
+    # typing a real name one character at a time (uscogdata#16, F-025).
    preds <- c(preds,
               sprintf("regexp_matches(gov_name, %s, 'i')",
-                       .sql_lit_chr(name)))
+                       .sql_lit_chr(.escape_regex(name))))
  }
  if (!is.null(state)) {
    st_fips <- .coerce_state_to_fips(state)
@@ -136,8 +147,9 @@ cog_gov_search <- function(name = NULL, state = NULL, type = NULL) {
 #' @noRd
 .escape_regex <- function(x) {
  # Backslash-escape POSIX regex metacharacters so `name` is treated as a
-  # literal substring in the DuckDB regexp_matches call (substring fallback
-  # only; utility-mode intentionally preserves regex behavior).
+  # literal substring in the DuckDB regexp_matches call. Used by BOTH modes:
+  # utility mode used to interpolate raw, which was a defect rather than a
+  # feature -- see the call site and uscogdata#16.
  gsub("([\\^$.|?*+(){}\\[\\]])", "\\\\\\1", x, perl = TRUE)
 }

@@ -14,9 +14,41 @@
  sql <- sprintf(
    "SELECT DISTINCT break_id
     FROM series_breaks_pq
-     WHERE fin_code IN (%s) AND break_year BETWEEN %d AND %d
+     WHERE fin_code IN (%s) AND fin_code <> 'ALL'
+       AND break_year BETWEEN %d AND %d
     ORDER BY break_id",
    .sql_lit_chr(codes_observed), min(as.integer(years)), max(as.integer(years))
  )
  DBI::dbGetQuery(con, sql)$break_id
 }
+
+#' Corpus-wide caveats: catalogued breaks whose `fin_code` is the literal
+#' `"ALL"` rather than an item code. They qualify the whole result, so they
+#' cannot be matched the way `.build_series_break_refs()` matches -- no row's
+#' `item_code` is ever `"ALL"`, which is exactly why they reached no user
+#' before uscogdata#19. Selection is on the break_year window alone: which
+#' codes a result happens to contain is irrelevant to a caveat about the
+#' corpus.
+#'
+#' All four catalogued entries are *boundary* caveats (dollar precision
+#' across 1976/1977, imputation exclusion from 2002, the dense -> sparse
+#' representation change at 2012, the id scheme change at 2017), so the same
+#' `break_year BETWEEN min(years) AND max(years)` rule the code-specific
+#' path uses is the right one -- a request that never crosses the boundary
+#' is not affected by it.
+#'
+#' Returned separately from `series_break_refs` so a consumer can tell a
+#' whole-result caveat from a break in one series; the two are disjoint by
+#' construction.
+#' @noRd
+.build_corpus_break_refs <- function(con, years, schema_version) {
+  if (schema_version < 5L || length(years) == 0L) return(character(0))
+  sql <- sprintf(
+    "SELECT DISTINCT break_id
+     FROM series_breaks_pq
+     WHERE fin_code = 'ALL' AND break_year BETWEEN %d AND %d
+     ORDER BY break_id",
+    min(as.integer(years)), max(as.integer(years))
+  )
+  DBI::dbGetQuery(con, sql)$break_id
+}
@@ -42,6 +42,34 @@
 #'   `basis = "recipe"` with an inert `harmonization` block (`applied =
 #'   FALSE`, pointing at the `recipe` block instead) rather than a
 #'   possibly-misleading `"harmonized"`/`"raw"` value.
+#' @param expenditure_concept `"direct"` (default) returns only the
+#'   government's own direct spending (item codes `E`/`F`/`G`), unchanged
+#'   from prior releases. `"total"` additionally UNIONs in the
+#'   intergovernmental leg -- payments to local governments (`M` codes) and
+#'   to the state government (`L` codes, excluding the `L--` family-total
+#'   rollup) -- so results gain rows with `spend_subtype ==
+#'   "intergovernmental"`. Requires the active corpus's `summary_categories`
+#'   to carry M/L rows (added by cog_pipeline PR #59); aborts with class
+#'   `uscogdata_ig_categories_unsupported` on an older corpus rather than
+#'   silently under-reporting. Mutually exclusive with `recipe` (a recipe
+#'   already defines its own component codes). **Do not sum `"total"`
+#'   results across levels of government** (e.g. state + county + city):
+#'   a state's `M12` payment to a school district is the same dollar the
+#'   district reports as its own direct `E12`, so summing both double-counts
+#'   it. This matters in particular with [cog_geographic_rollup()], which
+#'   sums across exactly that kind of multi-layer government set.
+#'
+#'   In the legacy wide era (<= FY2011), some functions are published ONLY
+#'   as an aggregate-flagged family total (e.g. Corrections' `E04`/`E05`
+#'   split), which the Direct leg excludes by construction but the IG leg
+#'   deliberately keeps (see `inst/sql/24-ig_long.sql`). For a `"total"`
+#'   query, any (year, category) where this leaves intergovernmental rows
+#'   with NO Direct counterpart is flagged: the affected rows' `notes`
+#'   name the harmonization recipe that recovers the missing Direct
+#'   component (when one exists), and
+#'   `provenance$expenditure_concept_direct_suppressed` is `TRUE` -- the
+#'   figure in those rows is the intergovernmental leg alone, not Direct +
+#'   IG.
 #' @return Tibble with columns `year`, `canonical_govid`, `gov_name`,
 #'   `spend_subtype`, `category`, `amt_nominal`, optional `amt_real`,
 #'   optional `amt_per_capita_nominal`, optional `amt_per_capita_real`,
@@ -50,12 +78,13 @@
 #' @export
 cog_spending <- function(govid, years, category = NULL,
                         per_capita = FALSE, adjust_to_year = NULL,
-                         basis = c("harmonized", "raw"), recipe = NULL) {
+                         basis = c("harmonized", "raw"), recipe = NULL,
+                         expenditure_concept = c("direct", "total")) {
  .verb_spendrev(
    verb          = "cog_spending",
    view_base     = "spending_annotated",
    subtype_col   = "spend_subtype",
-    flow_prefixes = c("E", "F", "G", "K"),
+    flow_prefixes = c("E", "F", "G"),
    call          = match.call(),
    govid         = govid,
    years         = years,
@@ -63,22 +92,79 @@ cog_spending <- function(govid, years, category = NULL,
    per_capita    = per_capita,
    adjust_to_year = adjust_to_year,
    basis         = basis,
-    recipe        = recipe
+    recipe        = recipe,
+    expenditure_concept = expenditure_concept
  )
 }

+#' @noRd
+.abort_concept_not_aggregatable <- function(verb) {
+  cli::cli_abort(c(
+    "{.code expenditure_concept = \"total\"} cannot be used in {.fn {verb}}.",
+    "*" = "Use {.code expenditure_concept = \"direct\"} (the default) for any \\
+           comparison or sum that spans more than one government.",
+    "i" = "Why: Census \"Total\" is a government's own Direct spending PLUS the \\
+           money it hands to other governments. The receiving government reports \\
+           that same dollar again as its own Direct when it actually spends it, \\
+           so combining Total across governments double-counts intergovernmental \\
+           transfers.",
+    "i" = "For one government's own Total, use \\
+           {.code cog_spending(expenditure_concept = \"total\")}."
+  ), class = "uscogdata_concept_not_aggregatable")
+}
+
 #' @noRd
 .verb_spendrev <- function(verb, view_base, subtype_col, flow_prefixes, call,
                           govid, years, category,
                           per_capita, adjust_to_year,
-                           basis = c("harmonized", "raw"), recipe = NULL) {
+                           basis = c("harmonized", "raw"), recipe = NULL,
+                           expenditure_concept = c("direct", "total")) {
  basis_explicit <- length(basis) == 1L
  basis <- match.arg(basis, c("harmonized", "raw"))
+  # match.arg() itself throws a base `simpleError`, not an rlang-classed
+  # condition; wrap it so an invalid expenditure_concept aborts consistently
+  # with the rest of this package's validation (cli::cli_abort -> rlang_error).
+  expenditure_concept <- tryCatch(
+    match.arg(expenditure_concept, c("direct", "total")),
+    error = function(e) {
+      cli::cli_abort(
+        "`expenditure_concept` must be one of {.val direct} or {.val total}.",
+        class = "uscogdata_invalid_expenditure_concept",
+        parent = e
+      )
+    }
+  )

  govid <- .coerce_govid_input(govid, arg = "govid")
  .validate_verb_inputs(govid, years, category, per_capita, adjust_to_year,
                        recipe)

+  if (!is.null(recipe) && identical(expenditure_concept, "total")) {
+    cli::cli_abort(c(
+      "`recipe` and `expenditure_concept = \"total\"` are mutually exclusive.",
+      i = "A recipe defines its own component codes; pass one or the other.",
+      i = "For a recipe's intergovernmental counterpart, use the matching IG recipe (e.g. `corrections_ig_local_combined`)."
+    ), class = "uscogdata_recipe_concept_conflict")
+  }
+
+  # .verb_spendrev() is shared with cog_revenue(), which never exposes
+  # expenditure_concept and always resolves it to "direct" -- so nothing on
+  # the public API can reach this today. But it's a cheap guard against a
+  # future call (direct or via a modified cog_revenue()) that would UNION
+  # the IG leg's expenditure M/L rows into a revenue result, which has no
+  # matching IG view and no sensible meaning.
+  if (identical(expenditure_concept, "total") &&
+      !identical(view_base, "spending_annotated")) {
+    cli::cli_abort(
+      paste0(
+        "`expenditure_concept = \"total\"` is only supported for spending ",
+        "(view_base = \"spending_annotated\"); got view_base = ",
+        "{.val {view_base}}."
+      ),
+      class = "uscogdata_expenditure_concept_unsupported"
+    )
+  }
+
  years   <- as.integer(years)
  if (!is.null(adjust_to_year)) adjust_to_year <- as.integer(adjust_to_year)

@@ -105,7 +191,13 @@ cog_spending <- function(govid, years, category = NULL,
    category_for_prov <- recipe_label
  } else {
    view <- .select_view(view_base, resolved$basis)
-    sql <- .build_verb_sql(view, subtype_col, govid, years, category)
+    ig_view <- if (identical(expenditure_concept, "total")) {
+      .require_ig_categories(con)
+      .select_ig_view(resolved$basis)
+    } else {
+      NULL
+    }
+    sql <- .build_verb_sql(view, subtype_col, govid, years, category, ig_view)
    result <- tibble::as_tibble(DBI::dbGetQuery(con, sql))
  }

@@ -114,8 +206,6 @@ cog_spending <- function(govid, years, category = NULL,
    result <- .attach_real_dollars(result, adjust_to_year, per_capita)
  }

-  result$notes <- .notes_column(result)
-
  # A recipe result doesn't go through spending_annotated(_harmonized) /
  # revenue_annotated(_harmonized) at all -- .run_recipe()'s generic join
  # reads `long` directly -- so `basis` and the `harmonization` exclusion
@@ -141,7 +231,64 @@ cog_spending <- function(govid, years, category = NULL,
    harmonization <- .build_harmonization_block(
      con, govid, years, resolved, flow_prefixes
    )
-    suggestions <- .build_suggestions(con, govid, years, category, result, resolved$basis)
+    # C1(a): gap detection must run against the Direct leg alone. `result`
+    # can also carry UNION'd intergovernmental rows (expenditure_concept =
+    # "total"), and the wide era (<= FY2011) routinely has legacy IG dollars
+    # surviving (ig_long deliberately keeps aggregate rows) for a
+    # (year, category) whose legacy Direct dollars were suppressed (spending_
+    # long/spending_long_harmonized both filter NOT is_aggregate). Passing
+    # the UNION'd result here would let a surviving IG row count as coverage
+    # and silently cancel the recipe-hint suggestion that should fire.
+    direct_leg_result <- if (identical(expenditure_concept, "total")) {
+      result[!(result[[subtype_col]] %in% "intergovernmental"), , drop = FALSE]
+    } else {
+      result
+    }
+    suggestions <- .build_suggestions(con, govid, years, category,
+                                       direct_leg_result,
+                                       resolved$basis, flow_prefixes)
+  }
+
+  # C1(b): when expenditure_concept = "total", flag any row where the IG
+  # leg has dollars but the Direct leg has none for that same (year,
+  # canonical_govid, category) AND a harmonization recipe actually recovers
+  # the missing Direct dollars for that exact triple -- see
+  # .detect_direct_suppressed() for why bare Direct-row absence alone is NOT
+  # sufficient (the dominant real cause is a government that simply has no
+  # direct spending in that category, which is correct, ordinary data). When
+  # a covering recipe is found, both the row-level notes and the provenance
+  # say so rather than pass silently as a plausible Total.
+  direct_suppressed_info <- if (identical(expenditure_concept, "total")) {
+    .detect_direct_suppressed(con, result, subtype_col)
+  } else {
+    list(flag = rep(FALSE, nrow(result)), notes = rep(NA_character_, nrow(result)))
+  }
+  direct_suppressed <- direct_suppressed_info$flag
+  direct_suppressed_flag <- isTRUE(any(direct_suppressed))
+
+  result$notes <- .notes_column(result, direct_suppressed_info$notes)
+
+  # Determine expenditure_concept_note: only non-empty for "total", explains
+  # how the IG leg was assembled from legacy-era aggregates. When the Direct
+  # leg is suppressed for at least one requested (year, category), append an
+  # explicit warning rather than let the base note's "Total = Direct + IG"
+  # framing stand unqualified for rows where that arithmetic didn't happen.
+  expenditure_concept_note_for_prov <- if (identical(expenditure_concept, "total")) {
+    base_note <- "Total = Direct + intergovernmental (M to local govts + L to state govts). Legacy-era IG is assembled from aggregate-flagged rows, which are year-disjoint from their modern leaf components; the L-- family total is excluded."
+    if (direct_suppressed_flag) {
+      paste0(
+        base_note,
+        " NOTE: for at least one requested (year, category) the Direct leg ",
+        "has NO rows in this corpus (a legacy aggregate-only family) -- the ",
+        "affected result rows report the intergovernmental leg alone, not ",
+        "Direct + IG. See `expenditure_concept_direct_suppressed` and each ",
+        "affected row's `notes`."
+      )
+    } else {
+      base_note
+    }
+  } else {
+    NA_character_
  }

  prov <- .build_provenance(
@@ -157,6 +304,9 @@ cog_spending <- function(govid, years, category = NULL,
    subtype_col    = subtype_col,
    basis          = basis_for_prov,
    basis_note     = basis_note_for_prov,
+    expenditure_concept = expenditure_concept,
+    expenditure_concept_note = expenditure_concept_note_for_prov,
+    expenditure_concept_direct_suppressed = direct_suppressed_flag,
    harmonization  = harmonization,
    recipe         = recipe_block,
    suggestions    = suggestions
@@ -211,6 +361,43 @@ cog_spending <- function(govid, years, category = NULL,
  if (identical(basis, "harmonized")) paste0(view_base, "_harmonized") else view_base
 }

+#' @noRd
+.select_ig_view <- function(basis) {
+  if (identical(basis, "harmonized")) "ig_annotated_harmonized" else "ig_annotated"
+}
+
+#' Abort unless the active corpus's `summary_categories` actually carries
+#' intergovernmental (M/L) rows.
+#'
+#' The 66 M/L category rows arrived via cog_pipeline PR #59 with NO
+#' `schema_version` bump (`DESCRIPTION` still declares `MinCorpusSchema: 4`),
+#' so `schema_version` alone cannot gate `expenditure_concept = "total"` --
+#' a pre-#59 corpus can validly report schema_version 4, 5, or 6 and still
+#' have zero M/L rows in `summary_categories`. Against such a corpus,
+#' `ig_annotated`'s LEFT JOIN to `summary_categories` silently produces NA
+#' `category`/`spend_subtype` for every IG row: with a `category` filter
+#' this returns 0 rows (reads as "no intergovernmental spending" rather than
+#' "can't tell"), and with `category = NULL` every IG dollar collapses into
+#' one NA-subtype group that is invisible to the `spend_subtype ==
+#' "intergovernmental"` filter this package's own tests, roxygen, and
+#' vignette all rely on. Checking the data directly (rather than
+#' schema_version) is the only reliable gate.
+#' @noRd
+.require_ig_categories <- function(con, what = "expenditure_concept = \"total\"") {
+  n <- DBI::dbGetQuery(con,
+    "SELECT COUNT(*) AS n FROM summary_categories WHERE LEFT(item_code, 1) IN ('M', 'L')"
+  )$n
+  if (identical(as.integer(n), 0L)) {
+    cli::cli_abort(c(
+      sprintf("%s requires a corpus with intergovernmental category rows.", what),
+      x = "The active corpus's `summary_categories` has no M/L (intergovernmental) rows.",
+      i = "This corpus predates the intergovernmental category rows added by cog_pipeline PR #59.",
+      i = "Point USCOGDATA_URL at a newer corpus that includes the M/L summary_categories rows."
+    ), class = "uscogdata_ig_categories_unsupported")
+  }
+  invisible(TRUE)
+}
+
 #' @noRd
 .sql_lit_chr <- function(x) {
  safe <- gsub("'", "''", x, fixed = TRUE)
@@ -218,7 +405,8 @@ cog_spending <- function(govid, years, category = NULL,
 }

 #' @noRd
-.build_verb_sql <- function(view, subtype_col, govid, years, category) {
+.build_verb_sql <- function(view, subtype_col, govid, years, category,
+                            ig_view = NULL) {
  govid_lit <- .sql_lit_chr(govid)
  years_lit <- paste(as.integer(years), collapse = ",")
  category_pred <- if (is.null(category)) {
@@ -227,6 +415,26 @@ cog_spending <- function(govid, years, category = NULL,
    sprintf("AND category IN (%s)", .sql_lit_chr(category))
  }

+  # expenditure_concept = "total" adds the intergovernmental leg. UNION ALL,
+  # never UNION: the two legs are disjoint by item_code prefix (E/F/G vs M/L),
+  # so de-duplication would be pure cost, and a silent row-drop if two
+  # governments ever reported identical values.
+  source_expr <- if (is.null(ig_view)) {
+    view
+  } else {
+    sprintf("(SELECT * FROM %s UNION ALL SELECT * FROM %s)", view, ig_view)
+  }
+
+  # bool_or(), not bool_and(): a no-op for the Direct/revenue legs (those
+  # views filter NOT is_aggregate, so no row in any group is ever aggregate),
+  # but load-bearing for the IG leg, which deliberately keeps aggregate rows
+  # (see inst/sql/24-ig_long.sql). The wide era is dense -- every government
+  # has a row for every code in a family, most of them $0 -- so a $0 leaf
+  # commonly lands in the same (year, gov, subtype, category) group as the
+  # real aggregate row. bool_and() would then read FALSE for that group even
+  # though its dollars came entirely from an aggregate row, silently
+  # suppressing the "Aggregate fallback applied" note on exactly the rows
+  # this feature exists to surface.
  sprintf(
    "SELECT
       year,
@@ -236,14 +444,14 @@ cog_spending <- function(govid, years, category = NULL,
       category,
       SUM(amt) * 1000.0 AS amt_nominal,
       string_agg(DISTINCT item_code, ',' ORDER BY item_code) AS codes_included,
-       bool_and(is_aggregate) AS aggregate_fallback
+       bool_or(is_aggregate) AS aggregate_fallback
     FROM %2$s
     WHERE canonical_govid IN (%3$s)
       AND year IN (%4$s)
       %5$s
     GROUP BY year, canonical_govid, gov_name, xwalk_gov_name, %1$s, category
     ORDER BY year, canonical_govid, %1$s, category",
-    subtype_col, view, govid_lit, years_lit, category_pred
+    subtype_col, source_expr, govid_lit, years_lit, category_pred
  )
 }

@@ -296,11 +504,131 @@ cog_spending <- function(govid, years, category = NULL,
  result
 }

+#' Detect rows where expenditure_concept = "total" is reporting the
+#' intergovernmental leg with NO Direct counterpart in the same (year,
+#' canonical_govid, category) group AND a harmonization recipe actually
+#' recovers the missing Direct dollars for that exact (year, canonical_govid,
+#' category) triple.
+#'
+#' Bare Direct-row absence is deliberately NOT sufficient on its own: the
+#' dominant real cause of "no Direct sibling row" is a government that simply
+#' has no direct spending in that category (e.g. a state that funds K-12
+#' entirely through school districts), which is correct, ordinary data, not
+#' suppression. Genuine suppression -- a legacy aggregate-only family whose
+#' Direct-leg basis query excludes it by construction (spending_long/
+#' spending_long_harmonized both filter NOT is_aggregate) -- always has a
+#' covering harmonization recipe, because that is exactly what the recipe
+#' catalog exists to recover (see R/suggestions.R and `cog_recipes()`). So
+#' checking "does a recipe actually cover this triple" cleanly separates the
+#' two cases instead of conflating them.
+#'
+#' Returns `list(flag, notes)`, both the same length as `result`: `flag` is
+#' `TRUE` only for the `spend_subtype == "intergovernmental"` row(s) in a
+#' suppressed group, and `notes` names the recovering recipe(s) for those
+#' rows (`NA` everywhere else).
 #' @noRd
-.notes_column <- function(result) {
+.detect_direct_suppressed <- function(con, result, subtype_col) {
+  n <- nrow(result)
+  empty_notes <- rep(NA_character_, n)
+  if (n == 0L) return(list(flag = logical(0), notes = character(0)))
+  is_ig <- result[[subtype_col]] %in% "intergovernmental"
+  if (!any(is_ig)) return(list(flag = rep(FALSE, n), notes = empty_notes))
+
+  key <- paste(result$year, result$canonical_govid, result$category, sep = "\r")
+  has_direct <- key %in% unique(key[!is_ig])
+  candidate <- is_ig & !has_direct
+
+  flag <- rep(FALSE, n)
+  notes <- empty_notes
+  if (!any(candidate)) return(list(flag = flag, notes = notes))
+
+  idx <- which(candidate)
+  rows <- unique(result[idx, c("year", "canonical_govid", "category")])
+  covering <- .covering_recipes(con, rows)
+  cov_key <- paste(covering$year, covering$canonical_govid, covering$category,
+                    sep = "\r")
+
+  for (i in idx) {
+    k <- paste(result$year[i], result$canonical_govid[i], result$category[i],
+               sep = "\r")
+    m <- match(k, cov_key)
+    if (is.na(m)) next
+    ids <- covering$recipe_ids[[m]]
+    if (length(ids) == 0L) next
+    flag[i] <- TRUE
+    notes[i] <- sprintf(
+      "Direct component is unavailable through this basis for this year; recover it via recipe = '%s' (see cog_recipes()).",
+      paste(sort(unique(ids)), collapse = "', '")
+    )
+  }
+  list(flag = flag, notes = notes)
+}
+
+#' For each (year, canonical_govid, category) triple potentially affected by
+#' a suppressed Direct leg, find the harmonization recipe(s) that (a) cover
+#' this `category` (share a component item_code via `summary_categories`,
+#' excluding any recipe that is itself entirely intergovernmental M/L -- the
+#' same exclusion `.build_suggestions()` applies, see I2) and (b) actually
+#' produce a `long` row for this exact (canonical_govid, year) via the same
+#' generic join `.run_recipe()` uses (component year_min/year_max +
+#' gov_type_scope, no is_aggregate filter -- a recipe's whole point is to
+#' recover data that's aggregate-only). Adds a list-column `recipe_ids`
+#' (possibly length-0) to `rows`.
+#' @noRd
+.covering_recipes <- function(con, rows) {
+  rows$recipe_ids <- vector("list", nrow(rows))
+  cats <- unique(rows$category[!is.na(rows$category)])
+  if (length(cats) == 0L) return(rows)
+
+  cand <- DBI::dbGetQuery(con, sprintf(
+    "SELECT DISTINCT sc.category, r.recipe_id
+     FROM harmonization_recipes r
+     JOIN summary_categories sc ON sc.item_code = r.component_code
+     WHERE sc.category IN (%s)
+       AND r.recipe_id NOT IN (
+         SELECT DISTINCT recipe_id FROM harmonization_recipes
+         WHERE LEFT(component_code, 1) IN ('M', 'L')
+       )",
+    .sql_lit_chr(cats)
+  ))
+  if (nrow(cand) == 0L) return(rows)
+
+  recipe_ids_all <- unique(cand$recipe_id)
+  govids <- unique(rows$canonical_govid)
+  years  <- unique(rows$year)
+  covered <- DBI::dbGetQuery(con, sprintf(
+    "SELECT DISTINCT r.recipe_id, l.canonical_govid, l.year
+     FROM long l
+     JOIN harmonization_recipes r
+       ON l.item_code = r.component_code
+      AND l.year BETWEEN r.year_min AND r.year_max
+      AND (r.gov_type_scope = 'all'
+           OR (r.gov_type_scope = 'state' AND l.type = 0)
+           OR (r.gov_type_scope = 'local' AND l.type BETWEEN 1 AND 3))
+     WHERE r.recipe_id IN (%s)
+       AND l.canonical_govid IN (%s)
+       AND l.year IN (%s)",
+    .sql_lit_chr(recipe_ids_all), .sql_lit_chr(govids), paste(years, collapse = ",")
+  ))
+
+  for (i in seq_len(nrow(rows))) {
+    cat_i <- rows$category[i]
+    if (is.na(cat_i)) next
+    cat_recipe_ids <- cand$recipe_id[cand$category == cat_i]
+    if (length(cat_recipe_ids) == 0L) next
+    sub <- covered[covered$canonical_govid == rows$canonical_govid[i] &
+                   covered$year == rows$year[i] &
+                   covered$recipe_id %in% cat_recipe_ids, ]
+    rows$recipe_ids[[i]] <- sort(unique(sub$recipe_id))
+  }
+  rows
+}
+
+#' @noRd
+.notes_column <- function(result, direct_suppressed_notes = NULL) {
  n <- nrow(result)
  if (n == 0L) return(character(0))
-  parts <- vector("list", 2L)
+  parts <- vector("list", 3L)
  agg <- result[["aggregate_fallback"]]
  parts[[1]] <- if (!is.null(agg)) {
    ifelse(agg %in% TRUE,
@@ -317,6 +645,11 @@ cog_spending <- function(govid, years, category = NULL,
  } else {
    rep(NA_character_, n)
  }
+  parts[[3]] <- if (!is.null(direct_suppressed_notes)) {
+    direct_suppressed_notes
+  } else {
+    rep(NA_character_, n)
+  }
  out <- character(n)
  for (i in seq_len(n)) {
    pieces <- vapply(parts, `[[`, character(1), i)
@@ -22,6 +22,13 @@
 # positives from ordinary reporting variance -- most governments don't use
 # every sibling code in a multi-code category every year, and that is not
 # a format-boundary gap worth signposting.
+#
+# C1(a): for expenditure_concept = "total" callers, `result` here must
+# already be the Direct-leg subset (the caller filters out
+# spend_subtype == "intergovernmental" rows before calling in). A gap year
+# is "the requested year has no Direct rows", never "no rows at all" --
+# an IG row surviving on a legacy aggregate that Direct excludes must not
+# read as coverage and cancel the very suggestion that would recover it.

 #' Build the `prov$suggestions` list for a (non-recipe) basis = "harmonized"
 #' verb call: recipes whose generic join would fill a real gap in `result`.
@@ -33,18 +40,41 @@
 #' @param category `category` argument as passed to the verb (character
 #'   vector or `NULL`; suggestions are only computed when non-NULL).
 #' @param result The verb's already-computed result tibble (post basis
-#'   query, pre per_capita/adjust_to_year).
+#'   query, pre per_capita/adjust_to_year), pre-filtered to the Direct leg
+#'   only when the caller's `expenditure_concept = "total"` (see C1(a)).
 #' @param basis The *resolved* basis (`"harmonized"` or `"raw"`).
-#' @return List of `list(recipe_id, label, available_years, hint)`, possibly
-#'   empty.
+#' @param flow_prefixes The calling verb's own flow-type prefixes (e.g.
+#'   `c("E", "F", "G")` for `cog_spending()`, `c("T", "A", "U", "B", "C",
+#'   "D")` for `cog_revenue()` -- see `.verb_spendrev()`). Passed through to
+#'   `.attach_ig_counterparts()` to keep the intergovernmental-counterpart
+#'   lookup scoped to the calling verb's own flow family.
+#' @return List of `list(recipe_id, label, available_years, hint,
+#'   ig_recipe_id)`, possibly empty.
 #' @noRd
-.build_suggestions <- function(con, govid, years, category, result, basis) {
+.build_suggestions <- function(con, govid, years, category, result, basis,
+                                flow_prefixes) {
  if (!identical(basis, "harmonized") || is.null(category)) return(list())

+  # Exclude any recipe that is ITSELF an intergovernmental (M/L) recipe --
+  # i.e. every one of its own component codes is M/L-prefixed. Without this,
+  # a category whose summary_categories rows span both a Direct family
+  # (e.g. E04/E05, "Corrections") and its M/L counterpart (M04/M05, same
+  # category since Task 1) makes the M/L recipe itself (e.g.
+  # `corrections_ig_local_combined`) a raw top-level candidate for a plain
+  # (Direct) cog_spending() call -- following that hint would silently
+  # return intergovernmental dollars under `expenditure_concept = "direct"`
+  # provenance. This is a stronger, unconditional exclusion than the
+  # flow-prefix gate below/in `.attach_ig_counterparts()`: an M/L recipe
+  # should never be suggested as a coverage-gap filler for EITHER verb, not
+  # just kept from being named as the *counterpart* of another suggestion.
  candidates <- DBI::dbGetQuery(con, sprintf(
    "SELECT DISTINCT recipe_id FROM harmonization_recipes
     WHERE component_code IN (
       SELECT DISTINCT item_code FROM summary_categories WHERE category IN (%s)
+     )
+     AND recipe_id NOT IN (
+       SELECT DISTINCT recipe_id FROM harmonization_recipes
+       WHERE LEFT(component_code, 1) IN ('M', 'L')
     )",
    .sql_lit_chr(category)
  ))$recipe_id
@@ -98,19 +128,121 @@
      hint = sprintf("re-run with recipe = '%s'", rid)
    )
  }
-  suggestions
+  .attach_ig_counterparts(con, suggestions, flow_prefixes)
+}
+
+#' Attach `ig_recipe_id` to each suggestion: the intergovernmental-expenditure
+#' recipe (an M-to-local or L-to-state recipe) whose component codes cover
+#' exactly the same set of function suffixes as the firing recipe's own
+#' components, e.g. `corrections_combined`'s {E04, E05} -> suffixes {"04",
+#' "05"} matches `corrections_ig_local_combined`'s {M04, M05} -> the same
+#' {"04", "05"}. `NULL` when no such recipe exists, which also covers the
+#' case where the firing recipe already IS the IG recipe (self-matches are
+#' excluded, so an IG recipe never names itself as its own counterpart).
+#'
+#' Matching is deliberately an exact set match, not "any suffix in common":
+#' the two-digit suffix only means the same "function" across recipes that
+#' share the underlying Census functional-classification scheme (E/F/G/L/M
+#' all use "04"/"05" for corrections). M/L "combined other" codes (47/89/
+#' 91-94) reuse digits for an unrelated catch-all construct, so e.g.
+#' `general_gov_e89_wide`'s {E85, E89} -> {"85", "89"} must NOT match
+#' `ige_local_m89_wide`'s {"89", "91", "92", "93"} on the shared "89" alone.
+#' Checked by hand against the full harmonization_recipes catalog: only the
+#' corrections family (E/F/G/M, suffixes 04/05) has an exact-set match in
+#' this corpus.
+#'
+#' Exact-set suffix matching is NOT enough on its own, though: the same
+#' reused-digit problem exists ACROSS the revenue-side IG families too.
+#' `ig_local_d47_wide` (D47/D94, suffixes {"47","94"}) is an exact-set match
+#' for `ige_local_m47_wide` (M47/M94, same suffixes) even though one is
+#' intergovernmental REVENUE received from local governments and the other is
+#' intergovernmental EXPENDITURE paid to local governments -- unrelated flows
+#' that happen to reuse "47"/"94" for their own "transit/utilities" and
+#' "other/combined" catch-alls. `ig_federal_b47_wide`, `ig_state_c47_wide`,
+#' and their `*_89` siblings all collide the same way. None of this is
+#' reachable via `cog_revenue()` in the bundled fixture today (its B/C/D
+#' recipes never happen to have a covered gap year for any fixture govid),
+#' but it IS reachable via a mis-scoped `cog_spending()` call on a
+#' revenue-only category, e.g. `cog_spending(gov, category = "IG Federal")`
+#' fires `ig_federal_b47_wide`/`ig_federal_b89_wide` for real in the fixture
+#' -- so this is a live, not merely theoretical, gap.
+#'
+#' Two flow-family checks close this, both required (see
+#' `tests/testthat/test-expenditure-concept.R`, "revenue-flavored ... never
+#' receives an M/L counterpart" tests, for the pairwise verification):
+#'   1. `own_prefix %in% flow_prefixes`: the firing recipe's own component
+#'      codes must belong to the calling verb's own flow family (the same
+#'      `flow_prefixes` `.build_harmonization_block()` uses, see
+#'      `R/basis.R`). This blocks a recipe surfaced through a mis-scoped
+#'      category from ever reaching the M/L search, e.g. `cog_spending()`'s
+#'      flow_prefixes are `c("E","F","G")`, which `ig_federal_b47_wide`'s own
+#'      `"B"` is not part of.
+#'   2. `own_prefix %in% c("E","F","G")`: M/L only ever pairs with the
+#'      DIRECT-expenditure family, never with revenue (`cog_revenue()`'s
+#'      flow_prefixes already fold B/C/D in as ordinary revenue -- there is
+#'      no separate "Total" bolt-on for revenue the way `expenditure_concept`
+#'      adds one for spending) and never with ANOTHER M/L recipe (without
+#'      this check, `ige_local_m47_wide` would wrongly match sibling
+#'      `ige_state_l47_wide` on their shared {"47","94"} suffix set).
+#'      Condition 1 alone does not catch this: under `cog_revenue()`,
+#'      `ig_federal_b47_wide`'s own `"B"` IS inside revenue's own
+#'      `flow_prefixes`, so only this second, family-specific check blocks
+#'      the search.
+#' @noRd
+.attach_ig_counterparts <- function(con, suggestions, flow_prefixes) {
+  if (length(suggestions) == 0L) return(suggestions)
+
+  comp <- DBI::dbGetQuery(con,
+    "SELECT recipe_id, component_code FROM harmonization_recipes")
+  comp$prefix <- substr(comp$component_code, 1L, 1L)
+  comp$suffix <- substr(comp$component_code, 2L, nchar(comp$component_code))
+  suffix_sets <- lapply(split(comp$suffix, comp$recipe_id), function(x) sort(unique(x)))
+  prefix_sets <- lapply(split(comp$prefix, comp$recipe_id), function(x) sort(unique(x)))
+
+  ig_recipe_ids <- unique(comp$recipe_id[comp$prefix %in% c("M", "L")])
+
+  find_counterpart <- function(rid) {
+    own_prefix <- prefix_sets[[rid]]
+    own_suffix <- suffix_sets[[rid]]
+    if (is.null(own_prefix) || is.null(own_suffix)) return(NULL)
+    if (!all(own_prefix %in% flow_prefixes)) return(NULL)
+    if (!all(own_prefix %in% c("E", "F", "G"))) return(NULL)
+    for (cand in ig_recipe_ids) {
+      if (identical(cand, rid)) next
+      if (setequal(suffix_sets[[cand]], own_suffix)) return(cand)
+    }
+    NULL
+  }
+
+  lapply(suggestions, function(s) {
+    # `s$ig_recipe_id <- NULL` would DELETE the element rather than set it
+    # (standard R list-assignment gotcha), leaving no-match entries missing
+    # the key entirely instead of carrying it as NULL. Single-bracket
+    # assignment with a wrapped list preserves a NULL-valued element so the
+    # field is always present, per the brief's "NULL when there is none".
+    s["ig_recipe_id"] <- list(find_counterpart(s$recipe_id))
+    s
+  })
 }

 #' Emit the single cli::cli_inform() message summarizing all suggestions
 #' for a verb call (the brief's "one message", not one per suggestion).
 #' Bullet text is pre-formatted plain text (no cli/glue `{}` markup) since
 #' recipe ids/labels are untrusted-ish data values, not literal call-site
-#' expressions.
+#' expressions. When a suggestion has an `ig_recipe_id`, one indented
+#' continuation line is appended naming the intergovernmental counterpart
+#' recipe (embedded `\n` renders as a hanging-indent continuation of the
+#' same bullet under cli, not a new bullet).
 #' @noRd
 .inform_suggestions <- function(suggestions) {
  bullets <- vapply(suggestions, function(s) {
-    sprintf("%s (%d-%d): %s", s$recipe_id,
+    bullet <- sprintf("%s (%d-%d): %s", s$recipe_id,
            s$available_years[1], s$available_years[2], s$hint)
+    if (!is.null(s$ig_recipe_id)) {
+      bullet <- paste0(bullet, sprintf(
+        "\n  intergovernmental counterpart: recipe = '%s'", s$ig_recipe_id))
+    }
+    bullet
  }, character(1))
  cli::cli_inform(c(
    i = "Coverage gap detected for the requested years; a harmonization recipe may fill it:",
@@ -1,23 +1,35 @@
 # R/views.R

-# SQL files whose view definitions read schema-v5-only parquet tables
+# SQL files that cannot be registered unconditionally against a v4 corpus,
+# for one of two distinct reasons -- both fail at CREATE VIEW time (DuckDB
+# resolves a view's source schema eagerly, even though it defers execution),
+# so a v4 corpus can't tolerate either unconditionally:
+#
+#  (a) Missing FILE. 33-/34-/35- read_parquet() a v5-only parquet table
 #      (harmonization_map.parquet, harmonization_recipes.parquet,
-# series_breaks.parquet) or select from views built on top of them. DuckDB's
-# read_parquet() resolves the file at CREATE VIEW time (even for a view, it
-# still needs the source schema) and errors immediately -- "IO Error: No
-# files found" -- if the path doesn't exist, so these cannot be registered
-# unconditionally against a v4 corpus the way the rest of inst/sql/ is.
-# Registration is therefore gated on manifest$schema_version >= 5; verb-level
-# *usage* of the resulting views is separately gated by .resolve_basis() /
-# .require_schema_v5().
+#      series_breaks.parquet) that doesn't exist at all on a v4 corpus --
+#      "IO Error: No files found".
+#
+#  (b) Missing COLUMN. 22-/23-/25- reference `long.harmonized_code`, a
+#      column that does not exist on a v4 corpus's `long` table (harmonized
+#      space was introduced in schema v5) -- "Binder Error: Referenced
+#      column harmonized_code not found". 42-/43-/45- are on this list only
+#      because they SELECT s.* FROM the (a)/(b) views above, so they'd fail
+#      to resolve their own source view if it weren't already skipped.
+#
+# Registration is therefore gated on manifest$schema_version >= 5 for all of
+# them; verb-level *usage* of the resulting views is separately gated by
+# .resolve_basis() / .require_schema_v5().
 .harmonization_view_files <- c(
  "22-spending_long_harmonized.sql",
  "23-revenue_long_harmonized.sql",
+  "25-ig_long_harmonized.sql",
  "33-harmonization_map.sql",
  "34-harmonization_recipes.sql",
  "35-series_breaks_pq.sql",
  "42-spending_annotated_harmonized.sql",
-  "43-revenue_annotated_harmonized.sql"
+  "43-revenue_annotated_harmonized.sql",
+  "45-ig_annotated_harmonized.sql"
 )

 #' Register DuckDB views from inst/sql/ SQL files
@@ -19,20 +19,59 @@ package implements.
 # pak::pkg_install("gitea.civilytics.org/Civilytics/uscogdata")
 ```

+## Amounts are in full US dollars
+
+Every amount column this package returns — `amt_nominal`, `amt_real`,
+`amt_per_capita_nominal`, `amt_per_capita_real` — is in **full US dollars**.
+
+The raw Census source files report **thousands of dollars**, and the corpus's
+own `amt` column preserves that. The verbs multiply by 1000 on the way out, so
+you never have to. The conversion is recorded in every result:
+
+```r
+r <- cog_spending("552025209777", 2020L)
+attr(r, "provenance")$transformations$units_conversion
+#> $applied TRUE  $source_unit "$1,000s (raw Census)"  $target_unit "$USD"  $multiplier 1000
+```
+
+**Do not multiply again.** If you have read elsewhere that COG amounts are in
+`$1,000s` — true of the raw corpus, and of `cog_explorer`'s conventions doc —
+that rule does not apply to anything a `cog_*()` verb hands you. Applying it
+twice overstates every figure by 1000x, and the result looks plausible rather
+than obviously wrong.
+
 ## Configuration

 - `USCOGDATA_URL` — corpus root URL (public Nextcloud share, trailing slash)
 - `USCOGDATA_CACHE_DIR` — optional override for the manifest cache directory
 - `USCOGDATA_MANIFEST_TTL_SECS` — optional manifest re-fetch TTL (default 3600)

+## Direct vs Total spending
+
+`cog_spending(..., expenditure_concept = c("direct", "total"))` controls
+whose spending a result counts. `"direct"` (the default) is a government's
+own current operations, capital outlay, and other direct spending. `"total"`
+additionally adds in the intergovernmental legs — money it hands to other
+governments to spend on its behalf — which is meaningful for describing one
+government's own budget over time, but double-counts when summed across
+governments (a state's payment to a county is the same dollar the county
+reports as its own direct spending).
+
+**Rule of thumb: any figure that spans more than one government uses
+`direct`.** `cog_geographic_rollup()` and `cog_peer_compare()` enforce this
+by refusing `expenditure_concept = "total"`. See
+`vignette("total-spending", package = "uscogdata")` for the full
+explanation with worked examples.
+
 ## Developer notes

 ### Testing

 The package ships a bundled fixture corpus at `inst/extdata/fixture_corpus/` —
-a 3.6 MB two-year slice (2019 + 2020) of the full corpus covering all 50
-states. `tests/testthat/setup.R` automatically points `USCOGDATA_URL` at this
-fixture, so the full test suite runs offline with no network dependency:
+a 15 MB four-year slice (2011, 2012, 2019, 2020) of the full corpus covering
+all 50 states. `tests/testthat/setup.R` automatically points `USCOGDATA_URL`
+at this fixture, so the full test suite runs offline with no network
+dependency:

 ```r
 devtools::test()   # uses bundled fixture, no credentials required
@@ -11,12 +11,14 @@
 #      Each partition is a full year (all states/govs) as published, so
 #      Broward County FL and every other previously-pinned government stay
 #      covered without any per-gov slicing logic.
-#   2. Copies the full canonical_fips_xwalk.parquet, canonical_alias.parquet,
-#      summary_categories.parquet, harmonization_map.parquet,
-#      harmonization_recipes.parquet, and series_breaks.parquet metadata
-#      tables as-is (these are small cross-vintage registries, not
-#      partitioned by year, so the fixture ships the complete tables rather
-#      than a year-scoped subset).
+#   2. Copies every metadata parquet the publish tree ships (see
+#      .FIXTURE_METADATA_FILES) as-is. These are small cross-vintage
+#      registries, not partitioned by year, so the fixture ships the complete
+#      tables rather than a year-scoped subset. representation.parquet and
+#      code_set.parquet are what make the sparse wide era interpretable --
+#      absence means "$0" in a dense_source year and "not reported" in a
+#      sparse_source one -- so a fixture without them cannot represent the
+#      published corpus.
 #   3. Resyncs the four reference docs (data_dictionary.md,
 #      reader-specification.md, README.md, series_breaks.md) from the
 #      publish tree's docs/.
@@ -38,6 +40,22 @@
 #   source("data-raw/regenerate_fixture_corpus.R")
 #   regenerate_fixture_corpus(publish_cache_dir = "/path/to/publish_cache")

+# Every metadata parquet the publish tree ships, in the order they appear in
+# the corpus manifest. Single source of truth for both the copy step and the
+# fixture manifest, so the two can never drift apart.
+.FIXTURE_METADATA_FILES <- c(
+  "canonical_alias.parquet",
+  "canonical_fips_xwalk.parquet",
+  "census_collection_coverage.parquet",
+  "code_set.parquet",
+  "harmonization_map.parquet",
+  "harmonization_recipes.parquet",
+  "lineage_events.parquet",
+  "representation.parquet",
+  "series_breaks.parquet",
+  "summary_categories.parquet"
+)
+
 regenerate_fixture_corpus <- function(
    publish_cache_dir = file.path(
      "..", "cog_pipeline", "_targets", "publish_cache"
@@ -100,20 +118,11 @@ regenerate_fixture_corpus <- function(
  invisible(NULL)
 }

-# Copy the full (not year-scoped) canonical_fips_xwalk, canonical_alias,
-# summary_categories, and (schema v5+) harmonization_map/
-# harmonization_recipes/series_breaks parquet tables.
+# Copy the full (not year-scoped) metadata tables listed in
+# .FIXTURE_METADATA_FILES.
 #' @noRd
 .copy_metadata_parquets <- function(publish_cache_dir, fixture_dir) {
-  files <- c(
-    "canonical_fips_xwalk.parquet",
-    "canonical_alias.parquet",
-    "summary_categories.parquet",
-    "harmonization_map.parquet",
-    "harmonization_recipes.parquet",
-    "series_breaks.parquet"
-  )
-  for (f in files) {
+  for (f in .FIXTURE_METADATA_FILES) {
    src <- file.path(publish_cache_dir, "data", f)
    dst <- file.path(fixture_dir, "data", f)
    if (!file.exists(src)) {
@@ -179,15 +188,7 @@ regenerate_fixture_corpus <- function(
    )
  })

-  metadata_files <- c(
-    "canonical_alias.parquet",
-    "canonical_fips_xwalk.parquet",
-    "summary_categories.parquet",
-    "harmonization_map.parquet",
-    "harmonization_recipes.parquet",
-    "series_breaks.parquet"
-  )
-  metadata <- lapply(metadata_files, function(f) {
+  metadata <- lapply(.FIXTURE_METADATA_FILES, function(f) {
    rel <- file.path("data", f)
    path <- file.path(fixture_dir, rel)
    list(
@@ -203,13 +204,16 @@ regenerate_fixture_corpus <- function(
    pipeline_commit = source_manifest$pipeline_commit,
    fixture_note = paste(
      "Four-year (2011, 2012, 2019, 2020) fixture for uscogdata tests. Full",
-      "corpus available via USCOGDATA_URL. Regenerated for Phase R2",
-      "(schema_version 5, harmonization_map/harmonization_recipes/",
-      "series_breaks parquet tables added). 2011/2012 straddle the",
-      "wide-aggregate -> modern-leaf format boundary exercised by basis=",
-      "\"harmonized\" and recipe= queries; 2019/2020 retain the prior",
-      "per-capita/CPI regression anchors. Full canonical_fips_xwalk master",
-      "and canonical_alias lookup table included via",
+      "corpus available via USCOGDATA_URL. Regenerated from the sparsified",
+      "schema-v6 corpus: the wide era (<= FY2011) no longer stores explicit",
+      "zeros, so FY2011 absence means Census published $0 while FY2012+",
+      "absence means not reported. representation.parquet and",
+      "code_set.parquet carry that rule and ship in full, as do every other",
+      "metadata table in the publish tree. 2011/2012 straddle both the",
+      "wide-aggregate -> modern-leaf format boundary (exercised by",
+      "basis=\"harmonized\" and recipe= queries) and the dense -> sparse",
+      "representation boundary (SB194); 2019/2020 retain the prior",
+      "per-capita/CPI regression anchors. Regenerated via",
      "data-raw/regenerate_fixture_corpus.R."
    ),
    data_vintage    = source_manifest$data_vintage,
@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 {
  "schema_version": 6,
-  "built_at": "2026-07-23T16:14:30Z",
-  "pipeline_commit": "4f992a0",
-  "fixture_note": "Four-year (2011, 2012, 2019, 2020) fixture for uscogdata tests. Full corpus available via USCOGDATA_URL. Regenerated for Phase R2 (schema_version 5, harmonization_map/harmonization_recipes/ series_breaks parquet tables added). 2011/2012 straddle the wide-aggregate -> modern-leaf format boundary exercised by basis= \"harmonized\" and recipe= queries; 2019/2020 retain the prior per-capita/CPI regression anchors. Full canonical_fips_xwalk master and canonical_alias lookup table included via data-raw/regenerate_fixture_corpus.R.",
+  "built_at": "2026-07-30T14:07:36Z",
+  "pipeline_commit": "83f9715",
+  "fixture_note": "Four-year (2011, 2012, 2019, 2020) fixture for uscogdata tests. Full corpus available via USCOGDATA_URL. Regenerated from the sparsified schema-v6 corpus: the wide era (<= FY2011) no longer stores explicit zeros, so FY2011 absence means Census published $0 while FY2012+ absence means not reported. representation.parquet and code_set.parquet carry that rule and ship in full, as do every other metadata table in the publish tree. 2011/2012 straddle both the wide-aggregate -> modern-leaf format boundary (exercised by basis=\"harmonized\" and recipe= queries) and the dense -> sparse representation boundary (SB194); 2019/2020 retain the prior per-capita/CPI regression anchors. Regenerated via data-raw/regenerate_fixture_corpus.R.",
  "data_vintage": {
    "source_vintages": {
      "2012": "10162019",
@@ -36,9 +36,9 @@
      {
        "year": 2011,
        "path": "data/long/year=2011/part-0.parquet",
-        "sha256": "84302ab364dc9fc3b3fbbc3c3f8b826e3508b4d73ff7c42d094d3863cd1e37b5",
-        "row_count": 2864212,
-        "size_bytes": 3845911
+        "sha256": "7848e18497080c8980a4f89c5b386205b2c5bc90db6773827ea01ab3943d16b1",
+        "row_count": 496004,
+        "size_bytes": 2202455
      },
      {
        "year": 2012,
@@ -74,9 +74,14 @@
        "description": "canonical_fips_xwalk.parquet"
      },
      {
-        "path": "data/summary_categories.parquet",
-        "sha256": "8e6fcd4dd9bb4723841a67233b19388c9762dfc23b4479501183cebf7ea3c1b5",
-        "description": "summary_categories.parquet"
+        "path": "data/census_collection_coverage.parquet",
+        "sha256": "143e025616cde684da7c4442bc00d07fbd1556fabb0ea96223931b737e5d10a4",
+        "description": "census_collection_coverage.parquet"
+      },
+      {
+        "path": "data/code_set.parquet",
+        "sha256": "4cffcb0198dd51e4ff2b694050bb371a5f9965cdac12f25521cb628fb8e118a9",
+        "description": "code_set.parquet"
      },
      {
        "path": "data/harmonization_map.parquet",
@@ -88,10 +93,25 @@
        "sha256": "1133e9a0b02f8f34f5f936e55c5ecd596bb8a55d8425dcce76767f0f3203581c",
        "description": "harmonization_recipes.parquet"
      },
+      {
+        "path": "data/lineage_events.parquet",
+        "sha256": "36c16acfbe621d61010984767f1c566993b8a5f481a2c1e134c4c0a600e4502f",
+        "description": "lineage_events.parquet"
+      },
+      {
+        "path": "data/representation.parquet",
+        "sha256": "31ec328a7dd505a321b45f97aafff12e53d68a1a986f63509863035b22a4360d",
+        "description": "representation.parquet"
+      },
      {
        "path": "data/series_breaks.parquet",
-        "sha256": "b0b6794b6887a4f300079adfa10029c2a77109faa4952fbff1c5a270793cc02b",
+        "sha256": "5ae050dd7a76c4d25e5f99e7c2e81c1896482e3504e0443b47ab5d78ba148953",
        "description": "series_breaks.parquet"
+      },
+      {
+        "path": "data/summary_categories.parquet",
+        "sha256": "e71d6d70d767c26c983fe56213baf204355f879582aa94841e62d9aea1877f83",
+        "description": "summary_categories.parquet"
      }
    ]
  },
@@ -12,6 +12,19 @@
    "category":       { "type": ["string", "array", "null"] },
    "basis":          { "type": ["string", "null"] },
    "basis_note":     { "type": ["string", "null"] },
+    "expenditure_concept": {
+      "type": "string",
+      "enum": ["direct", "total"],
+      "description": "Which spending concept produced this result. 'direct' is the government's own E/F/G spending; 'total' adds its intergovernmental payments (M to local governments, L to state governments). Only 'direct' is valid for results combined across governments."
+    },
+    "expenditure_concept_note": {
+      "type": ["string", "null"],
+      "description": "How the intergovernmental leg was assembled; null for 'direct'."
+    },
+    "expenditure_concept_direct_suppressed": {
+      "type": "boolean",
+      "description": "TRUE when expenditure_concept = 'total' and at least one requested (year, category) has intergovernmental rows but NO Direct rows in this corpus (typically a legacy aggregate-only family) -- those result rows report the intergovernmental leg alone, not Direct + IG. Always FALSE for expenditure_concept = 'direct'. See the affected rows' `notes` for the recovering recipe, if any."
+    },
    "harmonization":  { "type": "object" },
    "recipe":         { "type": ["object", "null"] },
    "suggestions":    { "type": "array" },
@@ -20,6 +33,11 @@
    "aggregate_fallback": { "type": ["object", "null"] },
    "transformations":{ "type": "object" },
    "series_break_refs": { "type": "array", "items": { "type": "string" } },
+    "corpus_break_refs": {
+      "type": "array",
+      "items": { "type": "string" },
+      "description": "Ids of catalogued series breaks whose fin_code is the literal 'ALL' -- caveats about the corpus as a whole (dollar precision across 1976/1977, imputation exclusion from 2002, the dense -> sparse representation change at 2012, the government id scheme change at 2017) rather than about one item code. Selected on the break_year window alone, so they do not depend on which codes a result contains. Disjoint from series_break_refs by construction: an entry qualifies the whole result, not one series."
+    },
    "manifest":       { "type": "object" },
    "sql_query":      { "type": "string" }
  }
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW spending_long AS
 SELECT *
 FROM long
-WHERE LEFT(item_code, 1) IN ('E', 'F', 'G', 'K')
+WHERE LEFT(item_code, 1) IN ('E', 'F', 'G')
  AND NOT is_aggregate;
@@ -3,4 +3,4 @@ SELECT * REPLACE (harmonized_code AS item_code)
 FROM long
 WHERE NOT is_aggregate
  AND harmonized_code IS NOT NULL
-  AND LEFT(harmonized_code, 1) IN ('E', 'F', 'G', 'K');
+  AND LEFT(harmonized_code, 1) IN ('E', 'F', 'G');
@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+-- Intergovernmental expenditure rows (M = to local govts, L = to state govts).
+--
+-- Deliberately does NOT filter `NOT is_aggregate`, unlike spending_long. In the
+-- wide era (<= FY2011) the IG families M05/M12/M47/M89/L47/L89 are published
+-- ONLY as aggregate-flagged rows -- filtering them would hide ~70% of legacy IG
+-- dollars and make Total silently collapse to Direct. This is safe because the
+-- aggregate codes and their modern leaf components are strictly year-disjoint
+-- (M47 ends 2011 / M94 starts 2012; M89 is aggregate only <= 2011 and a leaf
+-- from 2012 alongside M91-93), so no row is ever counted twice. Same argument
+-- the pipeline's recipe joins use.
+--
+-- `L--` IS excluded: it is the IG-to-state FAMILY TOTAL and genuinely rolls up
+-- the L-NN codes, so including it would double-count.
+CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW ig_long AS
+SELECT *
+FROM long
+WHERE LEFT(item_code, 1) IN ('M', 'L')
+  AND item_code NOT LIKE '%--';
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+-- Harmonized-basis IG rows. Uses COALESCE(harmonized_code, item_code) rather
+-- than harmonized_code alone: aggregate rows carry NO harmonized_code by
+-- construction (harmonized space is leaf-only), so a plain
+-- `harmonized_code IS NOT NULL` filter would drop every legacy IG aggregate --
+-- in the bundled fixture corpus (year 2011; 2012+ all carry a harmonized_code)
+-- that is $379,016,063k across 25,688 M rows and $2,277,458k across 19,266 L
+-- rows (`SELECT year, LEFT(item_code,1), SUM(amt), COUNT(*) FROM ig_long
+-- WHERE harmonized_code IS NULL GROUP BY 1, 2`). COALESCE keeps the one real
+-- IG collapse rule (M38 -> M36, SB012, year-disjoint 1967-2011 vs 2012+)
+-- while never dropping a row.
+CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW ig_long_harmonized AS
+SELECT * REPLACE (COALESCE(harmonized_code, item_code) AS item_code)
+FROM long
+WHERE LEFT(item_code, 1) IN ('M', 'L')
+  AND item_code NOT LIKE '%--';
@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW ig_annotated AS
+SELECT
+  s.*,
+  x.gov_name       AS xwalk_gov_name,
+  x.govs_type,
+  x.type_label,
+  x.fips_state     AS xwalk_fips_state,
+  x.fips_county    AS xwalk_fips_county,
+  x.fips_place,
+  x.population_acs,
+  c.category,
+  c.category_type,
+  c.spend_subtype
+FROM ig_long s
+LEFT JOIN canonical_fips_xwalk x USING (canonical_govid)
+LEFT JOIN summary_categories   c USING (item_code);
@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW ig_annotated_harmonized AS
+SELECT
+  s.*,
+  x.gov_name       AS xwalk_gov_name,
+  x.govs_type,
+  x.type_label,
+  x.fips_state     AS xwalk_fips_state,
+  x.fips_county    AS xwalk_fips_county,
+  x.fips_place,
+  x.population_acs,
+  c.category,
+  c.category_type,
+  c.spend_subtype
+FROM ig_long_harmonized s
+LEFT JOIN canonical_fips_xwalk x USING (canonical_govid)
+LEFT JOIN summary_categories   c USING (item_code);
@@ -9,7 +9,8 @@ cog_geographic_rollup(
  category,
  years,
  per_capita = FALSE,
-  adjust_to_year = NULL
+  adjust_to_year = NULL,
+  expenditure_concept = c("direct", "total")
 )
 }
 \arguments{
@@ -27,6 +28,13 @@ population from `gov_population_yearly`. Govs with missing population
 are excluded from the result.}

 \item{adjust_to_year}{Integer base year for CPI-U conversion, or `NULL`.}
+
+\item{expenditure_concept}{`"direct"` (default) or `"total"`. Currently only
+`"direct"` is accepted; the `"total"` option exists in [cog_spending()] for
+single-government queries but cannot be used here because combining Total
+across multiple layers of government double-counts intergovernmental
+transfers (a state's payment to a school district is the same dollar the
+district reports as its own Direct spending).}
 }
 \value{
 Tibble with columns `year`, `layer`, `canonical_govid`, `gov_name`,
@@ -32,8 +32,11 @@ the cross-vintage canonical-government registry. Operates in two modes:
 }
 \details{
 * **Utility mode** (single `name`, the original behavior): returns all
-  rows whose `gov_name` matches the regex case-insensitively, sorted by
-  `population_acs` descending. Useful for exploratory lookups.
+  rows whose `gov_name` contains `name` as a **literal, case-insensitive
+  substring**, sorted by `population_acs` descending. Useful for
+  exploratory lookups. Regex metacharacters in `name` are escaped, so a
+  government is findable by its own complete name even when that name
+  contains parentheses or a period.
 * **Basket mode** (`length(name) > 1`): resolves each input row to a
  single canonical govid and returns a tibble in input order, suitable
  for piping straight into [cog_spending()] / [cog_revenue()] /
@@ -45,7 +48,8 @@ the cross-vintage canonical-government registry. Operates in two modes:
 1. Filter `canonical_fips_xwalk` by `state` and (if non-NA) `type`.
 2. **Exact pass:** case-insensitive equality against `gov_name`.
   Single hit -> resolved. Multiple -> step 4.
-3. **Substring fallback:** case-insensitive regex against `gov_name`.
+3. **Substring fallback:** case-insensitive literal substring against
+   `gov_name` (metacharacters escaped).
   Single hit -> resolved (`match_method = "substring"`). Zero hits ->
   `status = "no_match"`. Multiple hits -> step 4.
 4. **Disambiguation:** if matches share one `govs_type`, pick the
@@ -58,7 +62,7 @@ inputs (`ambiguous` / `no_match`) appear only in the sidecar.
 }
 \examples{
 \dontrun{
-# Utility mode — exploratory regex lookup
+# Utility mode — exploratory substring lookup
 cog_gov_search("broward", state = "FL")

 # Basket mode — resolve a known cohort
@@ -10,7 +10,8 @@ cog_peer_compare(
  category,
  years,
  per_capita = TRUE,
-  adjust_to_year = NULL
+  adjust_to_year = NULL,
+  expenditure_concept = c("direct", "total")
 )
 }
 \arguments{
@@ -27,6 +28,11 @@ cog_peer_compare(
 population.}

 \item{adjust_to_year}{Integer base year for CPI-U conversion or `NULL`.}
+
+\item{expenditure_concept}{`"direct"` (default) or `"total"`. Currently only
+`"direct"` is accepted; the `"total"` option exists in [cog_spending()] for
+single-government queries but cannot be used here because combining Total
+across peer sets counts intergovernmental transfers twice.}
 }
 \value{
 Tibble matching [cog_spending()]'s columns, plus a `role`
@@ -37,11 +43,39 @@ Tibble matching [cog_spending()]'s columns, plus a `role`
  `attr(peers, "cohort_year")`; `NA` when `peers` was a bare character
  vector). Provenance reports `verb = "cog_peer_compare"`, `peer_count`,
  `cohort_year`, and `cohort_govids`.
+
+  **The `summary_*` rows are per-category quantiles: they are not additive.**
+  Each one is computed **within each `(year, spend_subtype,
+  category)` cell** across the peer set, so a `summary_p50` row is *the
+  median peer's value in that one category*, not *the value of the median
+  peer's total*. The median peer for Police and the median peer for Fire
+  are usually different governments, so summing `summary_*` rows across
+  categories does not give any peer's total and misstates the band it
+  appears to describe — measured at −32.7% to +251.0% across 24 years on
+  one cohort, with a sign flip at FY2012.
+
+  Facet by `role` **and** `category` (the documented use, and what the
+  rows are built for). For a genuine "median peer's total spending" line,
+  sum each peer's own categories first and take the quantile of those
+  per-government totals:
+
+  ```r
+  library(dplyr)
+  cmp |>
+    filter(role %in% c("target", "peer")) |>
+    group_by(year, role, canonical_govid) |>
+    summarise(total = sum(amt_per_capita_real, na.rm = TRUE), .groups = "drop") |>
+    filter(role == "peer") |>
+    group_by(year) |>
+    summarise(p50 = quantile(total, 0.5, na.rm = TRUE))
+  ```
 }
 \description{
 Pulls spending for the target plus a peer set (either a
 [cog_find_peers()] result or a character vector of `canonical_govid`) and
 appends peer-distribution summary rows (`summary_p25`, `summary_p50`,
 `summary_p75`) so the result can be faceted by `role` in a single ggplot
-call.
+call. Those summary rows are quantiles **within each category**, not
+quantiles of each peer's total — see the `@return` section before summing
+them.
 }
@@ -11,7 +11,8 @@ cog_spending(
  per_capita = FALSE,
  adjust_to_year = NULL,
  basis = c("harmonized", "raw"),
-  recipe = NULL
+  recipe = NULL,
+  expenditure_concept = c("direct", "total")
 )
 }
 \arguments{
@@ -55,6 +56,35 @@ argument is ignored and the result's provenance reports
 `basis = "recipe"` with an inert `harmonization` block (`applied =
 FALSE`, pointing at the `recipe` block instead) rather than a
 possibly-misleading `"harmonized"`/`"raw"` value.}
+
+\item{expenditure_concept}{`"direct"` (default) returns only the
+government's own direct spending (item codes `E`/`F`/`G`), unchanged
+from prior releases. `"total"` additionally UNIONs in the
+intergovernmental leg -- payments to local governments (`M` codes) and
+to the state government (`L` codes, excluding the `L--` family-total
+rollup) -- so results gain rows with `spend_subtype ==
+"intergovernmental"`. Requires the active corpus's `summary_categories`
+to carry M/L rows (added by cog_pipeline PR #59); aborts with class
+`uscogdata_ig_categories_unsupported` on an older corpus rather than
+silently under-reporting. Mutually exclusive with `recipe` (a recipe
+already defines its own component codes). **Do not sum `"total"`
+results across levels of government** (e.g. state + county + city):
+a state's `M12` payment to a school district is the same dollar the
+district reports as its own direct `E12`, so summing both double-counts
+it. This matters in particular with [cog_geographic_rollup()], which
+sums across exactly that kind of multi-layer government set.
+
+In the legacy wide era (<= FY2011), some functions are published ONLY
+as an aggregate-flagged family total (e.g. Corrections' `E04`/`E05`
+split), which the Direct leg excludes by construction but the IG leg
+deliberately keeps (see `inst/sql/24-ig_long.sql`). For a `"total"`
+query, any (year, category) where this leaves intergovernmental rows
+with NO Direct counterpart is flagged: the affected rows' `notes`
+name the harmonization recipe that recovers the missing Direct
+component (when one exists), and
+`provenance$expenditure_concept_direct_suppressed` is `TRUE` -- the
+figure in those rows is the intergovernmental leg alone, not Direct +
+IG.}
 }
 \value{
 Tibble with columns `year`, `canonical_govid`, `gov_name`,
@@ -6,6 +6,33 @@ fixture_corpus_path <- function() {
  if (nzchar(p)) paste0(p, "/") else ""
 }

+# Path to a file in the SOURCE tree (README.md, man/*.Rd, vignettes/*.Rmd),
+# or "" when it isn't there.
+#
+# Tests that assert on documentation content have to read the sources, and the
+# sources only exist when the suite runs from a checkout. Under R CMD check the
+# suite runs from the INSTALLED package, where man/ and vignettes/ are not
+# shipped and `../../README.md` does not resolve -- so those tests must skip
+# rather than error. CI runs testthat::test_local() from the checkout BEFORE
+# rcmdcheck, so the assertions are still enforced on every push; this only
+# stops them from failing a context that structurally cannot satisfy them.
+source_tree_path <- function(...) {
+  p <- testthat::test_path("..", "..", ...)
+  if (file.exists(p)) p else ""
+}
+
+# Skip unless every named source file is present (see source_tree_path()).
+skip_if_no_source_tree <- function(...) {
+  paths <- vapply(list(...), function(rel) do.call(source_tree_path, as.list(rel)),
+                  character(1))
+  missing <- vapply(paths, function(p) !nzchar(p), logical(1))
+  testthat::skip_if(
+    any(missing),
+    "package source tree not available (running against the installed package)"
+  )
+  invisible(paths)
+}
+
 # Skip a test if no corpus is reachable (bundled fixture or explicit remote URL).
 skip_if_no_corpus <- function() {
  p <- fixture_corpus_path()
@@ -57,3 +84,37 @@ with_doctored_schema_version <- function(version, code) {
  }, add = TRUE)
  force(code)
 }
+
+# Copy the bundled fixture to a temp dir with summary_categories.parquet
+# rewritten to drop every M/L (intergovernmental) row, then run `code`
+# against it with a clean session (mirrors with_fixture_corpus()/
+# with_doctored_schema_version()). Models a real pre-cog_pipeline-PR#59
+# corpus: the 66 M/L category rows shipped with NO schema_version bump (see
+# C2 in the expenditure-concept review), so schema_version is left
+# untouched here -- only the category data itself is rolled back.
+with_corpus_missing_ig_categories <- function(code) {
+  src <- fixture_corpus_path()
+  tmp <- withr::local_tempdir(.local_envir = parent.frame())
+  file.copy(list.files(src, full.names = TRUE), tmp, recursive = TRUE)
+
+  cats_path <- file.path(tmp, "data", "summary_categories.parquet")
+  filtered_path <- file.path(tmp, "data", "summary_categories_filtered.parquet")
+  write_con <- DBI::dbConnect(duckdb::duckdb())
+  on.exit(DBI::dbDisconnect(write_con, shutdown = TRUE), add = TRUE)
+  DBI::dbExecute(write_con, sprintf(
+    "COPY (SELECT * FROM read_parquet(%s) WHERE LEFT(item_code, 1) NOT IN ('M', 'L'))
+     TO %s (FORMAT PARQUET)",
+    uscogdata:::.sql_lit_chr(cats_path), uscogdata:::.sql_lit_chr(filtered_path)
+  ))
+  file.remove(cats_path)
+  file.rename(filtered_path, cats_path)
+
+  old_url <- Sys.getenv("USCOGDATA_URL", unset = NA)
+  uscogdata:::cog_close()
+  Sys.setenv(USCOGDATA_URL = paste0(tmp, "/"))
+  on.exit({
+    uscogdata:::cog_close()
+    if (is.na(old_url)) Sys.unsetenv("USCOGDATA_URL") else Sys.setenv(USCOGDATA_URL = old_url)
+  }, add = TRUE)
+  force(code)
+}
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+# Helper for the Madison-walkthrough finding tests (uscogdata #11-#16).
+#
+# Those tests all assert something about what a `cog_*` verb includes or
+# excludes. The expected amounts must therefore come from the RAW corpus, never
+# from the verb under test: verifying an absence through the filter that creates
+# it proves nothing. `wt_raw_*()` opens its own DuckDB connection straight onto
+# the corpus's `long` parquet partitions, bypassing uscogdata's SQL views (and
+# therefore its `flow_prefixes` filtering) entirely.
+
+wt_corpus_glob <- function() {
+  url <- Sys.getenv("USCOGDATA_URL")
+  if (!nzchar(url)) testthat::skip("USCOGDATA_URL is not set")
+  paste0(sub("/$", "", url), "/data/long/**/*.parquet")
+}
+
+wt_raw_query <- function(sql) {
+  con <- DBI::dbConnect(duckdb::duckdb())
+  on.exit(DBI::dbDisconnect(con, shutdown = TRUE), add = TRUE)
+  DBI::dbGetQuery(con, sql)
+}
+
+# Sum of `amt` (in $1,000s, as the corpus stores it) for one government-year,
+# restricted either to an explicit set of item codes or to a set of first-letter
+# prefixes. Aggregate rows are excluded, matching every published verb.
+wt_raw_amt <- function(govid, year, codes = NULL, prefixes = NULL) {
+  stopifnot(xor(is.null(codes), is.null(prefixes)))
+  filter_sql <- if (!is.null(codes)) {
+    paste0("item_code IN (", paste0("'", codes, "'", collapse = ", "), ")")
+  } else {
+    paste0("LEFT(item_code, 1) IN (", paste0("'", prefixes, "'", collapse = ", "), ")")
+  }
+  out <- wt_raw_query(paste0(
+    "SELECT COALESCE(SUM(amt), 0) AS amt FROM read_parquet('", wt_corpus_glob(), "') ",
+    "WHERE canonical_govid = '", govid, "' AND year = ", year,
+    " AND NOT is_aggregate AND ", filter_sql
+  ))
+  out$amt[[1]]
+}
+
+# The item codes a verb reports having summed, flattened out of the
+# comma-separated `codes_included` column.
+wt_codes_included <- function(df) {
+  sort(unique(trimws(unlist(strsplit(stats::na.omit(df$codes_included), ",")))))
+}
@@ -0,0 +1,52 @@
+# Madison walkthrough audit -- finding F-004. Tracked as uscogdata#15.
+# See docs/walkthroughs/FINDINGS.md in cog_explorer.
+#
+# The raw Census files report thousands of dollars; this package multiplies by
+# 1000 and returns full US dollars. That is the friendlier choice and is not
+# wrong -- but cog_explorer's CLAUDE.md states "All raw `amt` values are in
+# $1,000s", so a reader who applies that rule to amt_nominal overstates every
+# figure by 1000x, and gets a plausible-looking number rather than an obvious
+# error. The audit rates this the highest-consequence definitional gap it found.
+#
+# Deliberately NOT asserted here: man/cog_spending.Rd and man/cog_revenue.Rd,
+# which ALREADY carry the statement in their @return sections (verified
+# 2026-07-29), as does cog-api's data-dictionary.md (since 2b71b41). The gap is
+# in the surfaces a reader meets first and in cog_explorer's own conventions
+# doc -- see uscogdata#15 for the full surface-by-surface table and for the two
+# secondary tasks (cog_explorer/CLAUDE.md, which has no git remote, and
+# cog-api's llms.txt, which is silent on units).
+
+test_that("returned amounts are documented as full US dollars where readers meet the package", {
+
+  # README and vignettes ship only in the source tree, not in the installed
+  # package, so these assertions cannot run under R CMD check -- CI's earlier
+  # testthat::test_local() step is what enforces them. See
+  # skip_if_no_source_tree() in helper-fixture.R.
+  docs <- skip_if_no_source_tree(
+    "README.md",
+    c("vignettes", "total-spending.Rmd"),
+    c("vignettes", "population-denominators.Rmd")
+  )
+
+  says_units <- function(path) {
+    txt <- paste(readLines(path, warn = FALSE), collapse = " ")
+    grepl("full US dollars|full U\\.S\\. dollars", txt, ignore.case = TRUE) &&
+      grepl("\\$1,000s|thousands of dollars", txt, ignore.case = TRUE)
+  }
+
+  for (path in docs) expect_true(says_units(path))
+
+  # Pin the documented claim to the actual behaviour, so the two cannot drift.
+  # The expected raw amount is read straight from the corpus's parquet
+  # partitions -- never through cog_spending(), which is the thing being
+  # described. Madison FY2020: E/F/G = 623,347 ($1,000s) -> $623,347,000.
+  raw_thousands <- wt_raw_amt("552025209777", 2020L, prefixes = c("E", "F", "G"))
+  expect_equal(raw_thousands, 623347)
+
+  returned <- cog_spending(govid = "552025209777", years = 2020L)
+  expect_equal(sum(returned$amt_nominal), raw_thousands * 1000)
+
+  units <- attr(returned, "provenance")$transformations$units_conversion
+  expect_true(units$applied)
+  expect_equal(units$multiplier, 1000)
+})
@@ -15,7 +15,22 @@ test_that("cog_categories(type = 'spending') returns only expenditure rows", {
  skip_if_no_corpus()
  r <- cog_categories(type = "spending")
  expect_true(all(r$category_type == "expenditure"))
-  expect_true(all(r$subtype %in% c("operations", "capital")))
+  # "assistance" (the J-prefix aid/benefit codes) joined the vocabulary with
+  # the crosswalk completion in cog_pipeline#60/#65 -- every flow code
+  # carrying dollars now maps to a category.
+  expect_true(all(r$subtype %in%
+                  c("operations", "capital", "intergovernmental", "assistance")))
+})
+
+test_that("cog_categories surfaces the intergovernmental spending subtype", {
+  skip_if_no_corpus()
+  r <- cog_categories(type = "spending")
+  expect_true("intergovernmental" %in% r$subtype)
+  # IG rows reuse the existing functional categories -- they add a subtype,
+  # not new category values.
+  ig_cats     <- sort(unique(r$category[r$subtype == "intergovernmental"]))
+  direct_cats <- sort(unique(r$category[r$subtype != "intergovernmental"]))
+  expect_true(all(ig_cats %in% c(direct_cats, "Other Education")))
 })

 test_that("cog_categories(type = 'revenue') returns only revenue rows", {
@@ -0,0 +1,94 @@
+# tests/testthat/test-corpus-breaks.R
+#
+# uscogdata#19. Four catalogued series breaks carry fin_code = "ALL" -- they
+# are caveats about the corpus itself rather than about one item code:
+#
+#   SB085  1977  dollar precision across the 1976/1977 boundary
+#   SB087  2002  imputation exclusion FY2002-2006
+#   SB194  2012  dense -> sparse representation change
+#   SB086  2017  government ID scheme change
+#
+# .build_series_break_refs() matches `fin_code IN (<codes in the result>)`,
+# and no row's item_code is ever the literal "ALL", so none of them could
+# ever reach a user. They now travel in their own provenance field,
+# `corpus_break_refs`, which keeps them distinguishable from the
+# code-specific `series_break_refs` (an ALL caveat qualifies the whole
+# result, not one series).
+
+test_that("corpus_break_refs surfaces an ALL-scoped break the year range spans", {
+  skip_if_no_corpus()
+  with_fixture_corpus({
+    # SB194 sits at FY2012 -- the dense/sparse boundary. A query spanning
+    # 2011 -> 2012 straddles it, and this is the case cog_pipeline#64's
+    # DoD 4 intended to reach users.
+    r <- cog_spending("121011212191", 2011:2012, "Police")
+    prov <- attr(r, "provenance")
+    expect_true("SB194" %in% prov$corpus_break_refs)
+  })
+})
+
+test_that("corpus_break_refs stays empty when no ALL break falls in the range", {
+  skip_if_no_corpus()
+  with_fixture_corpus({
+    # 2019-2020 spans no catalogued corpus-wide break.
+    r <- cog_spending("121011212191", 2019:2020, "Police")
+    expect_equal(attr(r, "provenance")$corpus_break_refs, character(0))
+  })
+})
+
+test_that("corpus_break_refs and series_break_refs stay disjoint", {
+  skip_if_no_corpus()
+  with_fixture_corpus({
+    r <- cog_spending("121011212191", 2011:2012, "Police")
+    prov <- attr(r, "provenance")
+    expect_type(prov$series_break_refs, "character")
+    expect_type(prov$corpus_break_refs, "character")
+    # An ALL caveat must never masquerade as a break in a specific series.
+    expect_length(intersect(prov$series_break_refs, prov$corpus_break_refs), 0L)
+    expect_false("SB194" %in% prov$series_break_refs)
+  })
+})
+
+test_that(".build_corpus_break_refs matches on the break_year window alone", {
+  skip_if_no_corpus()
+  con <- cog_open()
+  on.exit(cog_close())
+
+  # SB085's boundary is 1976/1977, outside the fixture's partitions -- the
+  # series_breaks table is a full cross-vintage registry, so the matching
+  # logic is testable there even though no long partition covers it.
+  expect_true("SB085" %in% uscogdata:::.build_corpus_break_refs(
+    con, years = 1975:1980, schema_version = 6L
+  ))
+  # ... and does not fire for a range that misses it, unlike a filter keyed
+  # on the era rather than the boundary.
+  expect_false("SB085" %in% uscogdata:::.build_corpus_break_refs(
+    con, years = 1978:1980, schema_version = 6L
+  ))
+
+  # Unlike code-specific refs, these do not depend on which codes a result
+  # happens to contain -- that dependency is the whole defect.
+  expect_setequal(
+    uscogdata:::.build_corpus_break_refs(con, years = 2001:2003, schema_version = 6L),
+    "SB087"
+  )
+
+  # Gated on schema_version >= 5: series_breaks_pq is not registered below it.
+  expect_equal(
+    uscogdata:::.build_corpus_break_refs(con, years = 2011:2012, schema_version = 4L),
+    character(0)
+  )
+})
+
+test_that("cog_explain() prints corpus-wide caveats under their own heading", {
+  skip_if_no_corpus()
+  with_fixture_corpus({
+    r <- cog_spending("121011212191", 2011:2012, "Police")
+    out <- paste(c(
+      capture.output(cog_explain(r)),
+      capture.output(cog_explain(r), type = "message")
+    ), collapse = "\n")
+    expect_match(out, "Corpus-wide caveats", fixed = TRUE)
+    expect_match(out, "SB194", fixed = TRUE)
+  })
+})
@@ -0,0 +1,92 @@
+# Madison walkthrough audit -- findings F-020 and F-023. Tracked as uscogdata#13.
+# See docs/walkthroughs/FINDINGS.md in cog_explorer.
+#
+# The owner's settled design (2026-07-28): a `coverage` argument on
+# cog_geographic_rollup(), cog_find_peers()/cog_peer_compare() and their
+# cog-api equivalents --
+#   "all"        every unit that reported that year (today's behaviour, DEFAULT)
+#   "census"     census years only (years ending 2 or 7)
+#   "consistent" only units reporting in every requested year (balanced panel)
+# -- PLUS always-on coverage metadata on every result regardless of mode:
+# n_units_reporting, n_units_expected, is_census_year.
+#
+# Motivating principle: using these verbs correctly must not require the user to
+# know that the Census of Governments is a complete census only in years ending
+# in 2 and 7.
+#
+# The helper below accepts that metadata either as columns on the returned
+# tibble or as a per-year table in provenance$coverage -- the design fixes the
+# three field names and that they reach the caller, not the container.
+
+wt_coverage <- function(x) {
+  prov <- attr(x, "provenance")
+  cov <- prov$coverage
+  if (is.null(cov)) {
+    needed <- c("year", "n_units_reporting", "n_units_expected", "is_census_year")
+    expect_true(all(needed %in% names(x)))
+    cov <- unique(x[, needed])
+  }
+  cov[order(cov$year), ]
+}
+
+test_that("multi-government aggregates disclose reporting coverage on every result", {
+  testthat::skip("Blocked on uscogdata#13 (findings F-020, F-023)")
+
+  # -- F-020: geographic rollups -------------------------------------------
+  # Wisconsin's city/village universe is 608 governments. On the bundled
+  # fixture, FY2012 (a census year) has 597 of them reporting while FY2019 and
+  # FY2020 (sample years) have 112 and 114 -- an 18%-98% swing that today's
+  # return value says nothing about. Counts cross-checked against the raw
+  # corpus, not through cog_geographic_rollup(), which is under test.
+  wi <- cog_gov_search(name = NULL, state = "WI", type = "city")
+  expect_equal(nrow(wi), 608L)
+
+  roll <- cog_geographic_rollup(govids = list(city = wi$canonical_govid),
+                                category = NULL, years = c(2011L, 2012L, 2019L, 2020L))
+  cov <- wt_coverage(roll)
+
+  expect_equal(cov$n_units_expected, rep(608L, 4L))
+  expect_equal(cov$n_units_reporting, c(152L, 597L, 112L, 114L))
+  expect_equal(cov$is_census_year, c(FALSE, TRUE, FALSE, FALSE))
+
+  raw_2012 <- wt_raw_query(paste0(
+    "SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT canonical_govid) n FROM read_parquet('", wt_corpus_glob(), "') ",
+    "WHERE type = 2 AND fips_state = 55 AND year = 2012 ",
+    "AND LEFT(item_code, 1) IN ('E','F','G') AND NOT is_aggregate"))
+  expect_equal(cov$n_units_reporting[cov$year == 2012], as.integer(raw_2012$n[[1]]))
+
+  # -- F-023: peer cohorts --------------------------------------------------
+  # CHILTON CITY, WI (ACS population 4,017): a 15-peer cohort fixed at FY2012
+  # reports 15 of 15 in FY2012 and only 3 of 15 in FY2019 and FY2020. Nothing
+  # in cog_peer_compare()'s return distinguishes those years today.
+  chilton <- "552015177095"
+  peers <- cog_find_peers(chilton, year = 2012L, max_peers = 15L)
+  expect_equal(nrow(peers), 15L)
+
+  cmp <- cog_peer_compare(target_govid = chilton, peers = peers, category = NULL,
+                          years = c(2012L, 2019L, 2020L), per_capita = TRUE)
+  cov_peers <- wt_coverage(cmp)
+  expect_equal(cov_peers$n_units_expected, rep(15L, 3L))
+  expect_equal(cov_peers$n_units_reporting, c(15L, 3L, 3L))
+  expect_equal(cov_peers$is_census_year, c(TRUE, FALSE, FALSE))
+
+  # -- the three coverage modes --------------------------------------------
+  expect_equal(attr(cog_peer_compare(target_govid = chilton, peers = peers,
+                                     category = NULL, years = c(2012L, 2019L, 2020L),
+                                     per_capita = TRUE),
+                    "provenance")$coverage_mode, "all")     # unchanged default
+
+  consistent <- cog_peer_compare(target_govid = chilton, peers = peers,
+                                 category = NULL, years = c(2012L, 2019L, 2020L),
+                                 per_capita = TRUE, coverage = "consistent")
+  n_by_year <- tapply(consistent$canonical_govid[consistent$role == "peer"],
+                      consistent$year[consistent$role == "peer"],
+                      function(g) length(unique(g)))
+  expect_equal(unname(as.integer(n_by_year)), c(3L, 3L, 3L))  # balanced panel
+
+  census_only <- cog_geographic_rollup(govids = list(city = wi$canonical_govid),
+                                       category = NULL,
+                                       years = c(2011L, 2012L, 2019L, 2020L),
+                                       coverage = "census")
+  expect_equal(sort(unique(census_only$year)), 2012)
+})
@@ -0,0 +1,544 @@
+test_that("the corpus contains no K-prefix rows, so the Direct leg omits K", {
+  con <- .ensure_session()
+  n <- DBI::dbGetQuery(con,
+    "SELECT COUNT(*) AS n FROM long WHERE LEFT(item_code, 1) = 'K'")$n
+  expect_equal(n, 0)
+
+  sql_files <- c("20-spending_long.sql", "22-spending_long_harmonized.sql")
+  for (f in sql_files) {
+    txt <- paste(readLines(system.file("sql", f, package = "uscogdata")),
+                 collapse = " ")
+    expect_false(grepl("'K'", txt, fixed = TRUE),
+                 label = paste(f, "must not reference the inert K prefix"))
+  }
+})
+
+test_that("expenditure_concept defaults to direct and preserves today's numbers", {
+  gov <- "010000226085"                      # Alabama state government
+  base <- cog_spending(gov, years = 2019, category = "Police")
+  expl <- cog_spending(gov, years = 2019, category = "Police",
+                       expenditure_concept = "direct")
+  expect_equal(base$amt_nominal, expl$amt_nominal)
+  expect_false("intergovernmental" %in% base$spend_subtype)
+})
+
+test_that("expenditure_concept = 'total' adds an intergovernmental subtype", {
+  gov <- "010000226085"
+  d <- cog_spending(gov, years = 2019, category = "Police",
+                    expenditure_concept = "direct")
+  t <- cog_spending(gov, years = 2019, category = "Police",
+                    expenditure_concept = "total")
+  expect_true("intergovernmental" %in% t$spend_subtype)
+  # Direct rows are untouched; Total only ever ADDS. Use %in% rather than
+  # != : a category = NULL result can contain a NULL-subtype group (codes
+  # with no summary_categories row, e.g. E16/E21/E85/F16/F85/G16/G21/G85),
+  # and `NA != "intergovernmental"` is NA, not TRUE, which would silently
+  # smuggle an all-NA phantom row into dt.
+  dt <- t[!(t$spend_subtype %in% "intergovernmental"), ]
+  expect_equal(sort(dt$amt_nominal), sort(d$amt_nominal))
+  expect_gt(sum(t$amt_nominal), sum(d$amt_nominal))
+})
+
+test_that("legacy-era Total does not collapse to Direct (the is_aggregate trap)", {
+  # In the wide era the IG dollars live almost entirely on aggregate-flagged
+  # rows. A Total leg that inherited the Direct leg's NOT is_aggregate filter
+  # would silently return Total == Direct here.
+  gov <- "010000226085"
+  d <- cog_spending(gov, years = 2011, category = "Education K-12",
+                    expenditure_concept = "direct")
+  t <- cog_spending(gov, years = 2011, category = "Education K-12",
+                    expenditure_concept = "total")
+  expect_true("intergovernmental" %in% t$spend_subtype)
+  ig <- sum(t$amt_nominal[t$spend_subtype == "intergovernmental"])
+  expect_gt(ig, 0)
+  expect_gt(sum(t$amt_nominal), sum(d$amt_nominal))
+})
+
+test_that("the IG leg never includes the L-- family total", {
+  con <- .ensure_session()
+  codes <- DBI::dbGetQuery(con,
+    "SELECT DISTINCT item_code FROM ig_long")$item_code
+  expect_false(any(grepl("--$", codes)))
+  expect_true(all(substr(codes, 1, 1) %in% c("M", "L")))
+})
+
+test_that("expenditure_concept rejects unknown values", {
+  expect_error(
+    cog_spending("010000226085", years = 2019, expenditure_concept = "gross"),
+    class = "rlang_error"
+  )
+})
+
+test_that("total composes with basis = 'raw' and basis = 'harmonized'", {
+  gov <- "010000226085"
+  h <- cog_spending(gov, years = 2011, category = "Education K-12",
+                    expenditure_concept = "total", basis = "harmonized")
+  r <- cog_spending(gov, years = 2011, category = "Education K-12",
+                    expenditure_concept = "total", basis = "raw")
+  ig_h <- sum(h$amt_nominal[h$spend_subtype == "intergovernmental"])
+  ig_r <- sum(r$amt_nominal[r$spend_subtype == "intergovernmental"])
+  # The only IG harmonization rule is M38 -> M36 (year-disjoint), so the IG
+  # total must agree between bases even though the code labels may differ.
+  expect_equal(ig_h, ig_r)
+})
+
+test_that("recipe = and expenditure_concept = 'total' together aborts", {
+  expect_error(
+    cog_spending("121011212191", 2020L, recipe = "corrections_combined",
+                expenditure_concept = "total"),
+    class = "uscogdata_recipe_concept_conflict"
+  )
+})
+
+test_that("aggregate-sourced IG dollars are flagged aggregate_fallback = TRUE (bool_or, not bool_and)", {
+  # Regression test: .build_verb_sql() originally used bool_and(is_aggregate)
+  # for aggregate_fallback, which is correct for the Direct leg (a group can
+  # never mix aggregate and non-aggregate rows there -- spending_long filters
+  # NOT is_aggregate) but wrong for the IG leg. The wide era is dense -- every
+  # government has a $0 row for every code in a family -- so a $0 leaf sits in
+  # the same (year, gov, subtype, category) group as the real aggregate row
+  # and flips bool_and() to FALSE. Measured: AL state 2011 had $5,740,775,000
+  # of aggregate-sourced IG dollars (Corrections $31,358,000 + Education K-12
+  # $5,152,385,000 + General Government $557,032,000) reporting
+  # aggregate_fallback = FALSE under bool_and(), with the only TRUE row being
+  # Transit Utilities at $0. bool_or() reports all of them correctly.
+  gov <- "010000226085"
+  t <- cog_spending(gov, years = 2011, category = "Education K-12",
+                    expenditure_concept = "total")
+  ig <- t[t$spend_subtype == "intergovernmental", ]
+  expect_equal(nrow(ig), 1L)
+  expect_true(ig$aggregate_fallback)
+  expect_true(nzchar(ig$notes))
+  expect_match(ig$notes, "Aggregate fallback applied", fixed = TRUE)
+})
+
+test_that("legacy aggregate IG codes are year-disjoint from their modern leaf components", {
+  # The safety of ig_long's deliberate omission of `NOT is_aggregate` (see
+  # inst/sql/24-ig_long.sql) rests entirely on each legacy code's AGGREGATE
+  # instance being year-disjoint from the modern leaf codes it rolls up --
+  # if a future corpus rebuild ever back-filled a leaf into a year where the
+  # code is still flagged aggregate, `total` would silently double-count and
+  # this suite would still pass. This test fails loudly if that ever
+  # happens.
+  #
+  # Note the invariant is scoped to the AGGREGATE flag, not bare code
+  # presence: M89/L89 do NOT disappear after the wide era the way M47/L47
+  # do -- they continue past 2011 as their OWN independent leaf line item
+  # (is_aggregate = FALSE) alongside M91-93/L91-93, which is fine because a
+  # non-aggregate M89/L89 no longer represents a rollup of those codes.
+  # (Verified in the fixture: M89/L89 are is_aggregate = TRUE only in 2011,
+  # when M91-93/L91-93 don't exist yet; from 2012 on M89/L89 are
+  # is_aggregate = FALSE leaves coexisting with M91-93/L91-93.)
+  #
+  # Pairs are the M/L-prefixed components (this package's ig_long only
+  # covers M/L; other prefixes in the same rollup, e.g. N/O/P/Q/R, fall
+  # outside its domain and are irrelevant here) enumerated in
+  # cog_pipeline's data/wide_to_long_xwalk.csv `full_desc` column (read
+  # once at authoring time, not at test time -- this test stays offline):
+  #   M47 "To local governments, total (includes N47, O47, P47, R47, and M94)"
+  #   M89 "To local governments, total (incl N89, O89, P89, R89, M91, M92, and M93)"
+  #   L47 "To state government (includes L94)"
+  #   L89 "To state government (includes L91, L92, and L93)"
+  con <- .ensure_session()
+  pairs <- list(
+    list(aggregate = "M47", components = "M94"),
+    list(aggregate = "M89", components = c("M91", "M92", "M93")),
+    list(aggregate = "L47", components = "L94"),
+    list(aggregate = "L89", components = c("L91", "L92", "L93"))
+  )
+  agg_years_by_code <- DBI::dbGetQuery(con,
+    "SELECT DISTINCT year, item_code FROM ig_long WHERE is_aggregate")
+  codes_by_year <- DBI::dbGetQuery(con, "SELECT DISTINCT year, item_code FROM ig_long")
+
+  for (p in pairs) {
+    agg_years <- agg_years_by_code$year[agg_years_by_code$item_code == p$aggregate]
+    for (yr in agg_years) {
+      codes_yr <- codes_by_year$item_code[codes_by_year$year == yr]
+      has_component <- any(p$components %in% codes_yr)
+      expect_false(
+        has_component,
+        label = sprintf(
+          "year %s has aggregate-flagged %s co-occurring with a modern component (%s)",
+          yr, p$aggregate, paste(p$components, collapse = ",")
+        )
+      )
+    }
+  }
+})
+
+test_that(".verb_spendrev rejects expenditure_concept = 'total' for a non-spending view_base", {
+  # cog_revenue() never exposes expenditure_concept and always resolves it
+  # to the "direct" default, so there is no revenue codepath that reaches
+  # this today -- but .verb_spendrev() is shared, and nothing else stops a
+  # future caller from passing expenditure_concept = "total" alongside
+  # view_base = "revenue_annotated", which would UNION expenditure M/L rows
+  # into a revenue result. Exercise the internal helper directly.
+  expect_error(
+    uscogdata:::.verb_spendrev(
+      verb = "cog_revenue_test", view_base = "revenue_annotated",
+      subtype_col = "revenue_subtype",
+      flow_prefixes = c("T", "A", "U", "B", "C", "D"),
+      call = quote(cog_revenue_test()),
+      govid = "010000226085", years = 2019L, category = NULL,
+      per_capita = FALSE, adjust_to_year = NULL, basis = "raw",
+      recipe = NULL, expenditure_concept = "total"
+    ),
+    class = "uscogdata_expenditure_concept_unsupported"
+  )
+})
+
+test_that("cog_geographic_rollup refuses expenditure_concept = 'total'", {
+  expect_error(
+    cog_geographic_rollup(
+      govids = list(state = "010000226085"),
+      category = "Police", years = 2019,
+      expenditure_concept = "total"
+    ),
+    class = "uscogdata_concept_not_aggregatable"
+  )
+})
+
+test_that("cog_peer_compare refuses expenditure_concept = 'total'", {
+  expect_error(
+    cog_peer_compare(
+      target_govid = "010000226085", peers = "010000226085",
+      category = "Police", years = 2019,
+      expenditure_concept = "total"
+    ),
+    class = "uscogdata_concept_not_aggregatable"
+  )
+})
+
+test_that("the refusal message names the fix and the reason", {
+  err <- tryCatch(
+    cog_geographic_rollup(govids = list(state = "010000226085"),
+                          category = "Police", years = 2019,
+                          expenditure_concept = "total"),
+    condition = function(e) e
+  )
+  msg <- paste(conditionMessage(err), collapse = " ")
+  expect_match(msg, "direct")
+  expect_match(msg, "double-count|double count")
+  expect_match(msg, "cog_geographic_rollup")
+
+  # Test that cog_peer_compare's message names its own function
+  err2 <- tryCatch(
+    cog_peer_compare(target_govid = "010000226085", peers = "010000226085",
+                     category = "Police", years = 2019,
+                     expenditure_concept = "total"),
+    condition = function(e) e
+  )
+  msg2 <- paste(conditionMessage(err2), collapse = " ")
+  expect_match(msg2, "direct")
+  expect_match(msg2, "double-count|double count")
+  expect_match(msg2, "cog_peer_compare")
+})
+
+test_that("both cross-government verbs still accept the direct default", {
+  expect_no_error(
+    cog_geographic_rollup(govids = list(state = "010000226085"),
+                          category = "Police", years = 2019)
+  )
+  expect_no_error(
+    cog_peer_compare(target_govid = "010000226085", peers = "010000226085",
+                     category = "Police", years = 2019)
+  )
+})
+
+test_that("provenance always records the expenditure concept", {
+  d <- cog_spending("010000226085", years = 2019, category = "Police")
+  t <- cog_spending("010000226085", years = 2019, category = "Police",
+                    expenditure_concept = "total")
+  expect_equal(attr(d, "provenance")$expenditure_concept, "direct")
+  expect_equal(attr(t, "provenance")$expenditure_concept, "total")
+  # The note explains the non-obvious part: how legacy IG was assembled.
+  expect_true(nzchar(attr(t, "provenance")$expenditure_concept_note))
+  expect_true(is.na(attr(d, "provenance")$expenditure_concept_note) ||
+              !nzchar(attr(d, "provenance")$expenditure_concept_note))
+})
+
+test_that("the provenance schema documents expenditure_concept", {
+  sch <- jsonlite::fromJSON(
+    system.file("schemas", "provenance-v1.json", package = "uscogdata"),
+    simplifyVector = FALSE
+  )
+  expect_true("expenditure_concept" %in% names(sch$properties))
+})
+
+test_that("a firing suggestion names the intergovernmental counterpart recipe", {
+  # Corrections has no legacy leaf rows, so the coverage-gap suggestion fires;
+  # corrections_ig_local_combined is its IG counterpart.
+  r <- suppressMessages(
+    cog_spending("010000226085", years = c(2005, 2011), category = "Corrections")
+  )
+  sugg <- attr(r, "provenance")$suggestions
+  expect_gt(length(sugg), 0L)
+  ids <- vapply(sugg, function(s) s$recipe_id %||% "", character(1))
+  expect_true("corrections_combined" %in% ids)
+  ig <- unlist(lapply(sugg, function(s) s$ig_recipe_id))
+  expect_true("corrections_ig_local_combined" %in% ig)
+})
+
+test_that("no suggestion fires for a healthy query", {
+  r <- cog_spending("010000226085", years = 2019, category = "Police")
+  expect_length(attr(r, "provenance")$suggestions, 0L)
+})
+
+test_that("a mis-scoped cog_spending() call never attaches an M/L counterpart to a revenue-flavored recipe", {
+  # "IG Federal" is a revenue-only category (summary_categories maps it to
+  # B-prefixed component codes only; its recipes are ig_federal_b47_wide /
+  # ig_federal_b89_wide). A cog_spending() call scoped to it returns zero
+  # spending rows for every requested year -- there is no spending
+  # component in this category at all -- so the coverage-gap machinery
+  # fires for real (not hypothetically) even though this isn't the kind of
+  # format-boundary gap the recipe catalog is meant to signpost. This is
+  # exactly the live-corpus risk flagged in review: ig_federal_b47_wide's
+  # own component codes (B47/B94, suffixes {"47","94"}) are an EXACT
+  # suffix-set match for the expenditure recipe ige_local_m47_wide
+  # (M47/M94, same suffixes) -- a coincidence of reused digits, not a real
+  # Direct/Total pairing. The flow-family gate in
+  # .attach_ig_counterparts() must keep ig_recipe_id NULL here.
+  #
+  # Anchored on FL state government, not AL. Coverage is presence-based: a
+  # recipe is only suggested when its component codes have rows for the
+  # requested government-year. AL state's only FY2011 B47 cell was an
+  # explicit zero, which the corpus no longer stores after sparsification
+  # (SB194, cog_pipeline#64), so the recipe stopped being a candidate there.
+  # FL state carries a real FY2011 B47 amount, so this exercises the guard
+  # against a suggestion that genuinely fires.
+  r <- suppressMessages(
+    cog_spending("120000226351", years = c(2005, 2011), category = "IG Federal")
+  )
+  sugg <- attr(r, "provenance")$suggestions
+  expect_gt(length(sugg), 0L)
+  ids <- vapply(sugg, function(s) s$recipe_id %||% "", character(1))
+  expect_true("ig_federal_b47_wide" %in% ids)
+  ig <- unlist(lapply(sugg, function(s) s$ig_recipe_id))
+  expect_length(ig, 0L)
+})
+
+test_that("C1: 'total' on a legacy aggregate-only family reports the IG-only figure honestly, not as Direct + IG", {
+  # AL state government, Corrections, 2011. Measured pre-fix: 'total'
+  # returned $31,358,000 (the IG leg alone, on an aggregate-flagged M04/M05
+  # row) with 0 suggestions (the surviving IG row made the gap-detection
+  # machinery think the Direct leg was covered) and a note asserting
+  # "Total = Direct + intergovernmental" with no caveat. True Direct (via
+  # recipe = "corrections_combined") is $521,651,000 -- the IG-only figure
+  # is ~6% of it.
+  gov <- "010000226085"
+
+  d <- cog_spending(gov, years = 2011, category = "Corrections",
+                    expenditure_concept = "direct")
+  expect_equal(nrow(d), 0L)
+
+  t <- suppressMessages(cog_spending(
+    gov, years = 2011, category = "Corrections", expenditure_concept = "total"
+  ))
+  expect_equal(nrow(t), 1L)
+  expect_equal(t$spend_subtype, "intergovernmental")
+  expect_equal(t$amt_nominal, 31358000)
+
+  r <- cog_spending(gov, years = 2011, recipe = "corrections_combined")
+  expect_equal(r$amt_nominal, 521651000)
+
+  # C1(a): the recipe hints must fire for "total" exactly as they do for
+  # "direct" -- the surviving IG row must not be mistaken for Direct
+  # coverage.
+  prov <- attr(t, "provenance")
+  expect_gt(length(prov$suggestions), 0L)
+  ids <- vapply(prov$suggestions, function(s) s$recipe_id %||% "", character(1))
+  expect_true("corrections_combined" %in% ids)
+
+  # C1(b): the affected row's notes name a recovering recipe rather than
+  # staying silent, and the provenance carries a flag a downstream consumer
+  # (e.g. cog-api, which passes provenance through verbatim) can test.
+  expect_true(nzchar(t$notes))
+  expect_match(t$notes, "unavailable", fixed = TRUE)
+  expect_match(t$notes, "corrections_combined", fixed = TRUE)
+  expect_true(prov$expenditure_concept_direct_suppressed)
+
+  # The base "Total = Direct + IG" note must NOT stand unqualified when that
+  # arithmetic didn't actually happen for this row.
+  expect_match(prov$expenditure_concept_note, "NOTE", fixed = TRUE)
+  expect_match(prov$expenditure_concept_note,
+              "expenditure_concept_direct_suppressed", fixed = TRUE)
+})
+
+test_that("C1(b): expenditure_concept_direct_suppressed is FALSE when the Direct leg is present", {
+  d <- cog_spending("010000226085", years = 2019, category = "Police",
+                    expenditure_concept = "direct")
+  t <- cog_spending("010000226085", years = 2019, category = "Police",
+                    expenditure_concept = "total")
+  expect_false(isTRUE(attr(d, "provenance")$expenditure_concept_direct_suppressed))
+  expect_false(isTRUE(attr(t, "provenance")$expenditure_concept_direct_suppressed))
+  expect_false(any(nzchar(t$notes[t$spend_subtype == "intergovernmental"]) &
+                   grepl("unavailable", t$notes[t$spend_subtype == "intergovernmental"])))
+})
+
+# M/I fix: .detect_direct_suppressed() was equating "no Direct sibling row"
+# with "Direct was suppressed", but the dominant real cause is a government
+# that simply has no direct spending in that category -- correct, ordinary
+# data. The fix gates the flag (and its row note) on a harmonization recipe
+# ACTUALLY covering that exact (year, canonical_govid, category) triple.
+
+test_that("M/I: true positive, category supplied explicitly (unchanged behavior)", {
+  al <- "010000226085"
+  t_cat <- suppressMessages(cog_spending(
+    al, years = 2011, category = "Corrections", expenditure_concept = "total"
+  ))
+  expect_true(attr(t_cat, "provenance")$expenditure_concept_direct_suppressed)
+  expect_match(t_cat$notes, "corrections_combined", fixed = TRUE)
+  expect_match(t_cat$notes, "unavailable", fixed = TRUE)
+})
+
+test_that("M/I: true positive, category = NULL now also names the recipe (was the fallback bug)", {
+  # Root bug: .build_suggestions() short-circuits to list() when category is
+  # NULL, so the note previously always hit its "no covering recipe found"
+  # fallback here even though corrections_combined genuinely covers this row.
+  al <- "010000226085"
+  t_null <- suppressMessages(cog_spending(
+    al, years = 2011, category = NULL, expenditure_concept = "total"
+  ))
+  corr_row <- t_null[t_null$category %in% "Corrections", ]
+  expect_equal(nrow(corr_row), 1L)
+  expect_true(attr(t_null, "provenance")$expenditure_concept_direct_suppressed)
+  expect_match(corr_row$notes, "corrections_combined", fixed = TRUE)
+  expect_match(corr_row$notes, "unavailable", fixed = TRUE)
+  expect_false(grepl("no covering recipe found", corr_row$notes, fixed = TRUE))
+})
+
+test_that("M/I: false positive -- Virginia Education K-12 FY2019 total is NOT flagged", {
+  # States fund K-12 through school districts, so the Direct leg (E12/F12/
+  # G12) is genuinely, correctly zero -- not suppressed. Must not be flagged
+  # and must carry no suppression note.
+  va <- "510000227542"
+  t_va <- suppressMessages(cog_spending(
+    va, years = 2019, category = "Education K-12", expenditure_concept = "total"
+  ))
+  expect_equal(nrow(t_va), 1L)
+  expect_equal(t_va$spend_subtype, "intergovernmental")
+  expect_equal(t_va$amt_nominal, 8028179000)
+  expect_false(isTRUE(attr(t_va, "provenance")$expenditure_concept_direct_suppressed))
+  expect_false(nzchar(t_va$notes) && grepl("unavailable", t_va$notes))
+})
+
+test_that("M/I: false positive by construction -- 'Other Education' has no E/F/G code, never flagged", {
+  # "Other Education" maps only to M21/L21 in summary_categories -- there is
+  # no E/F/G code for it in this corpus at all, so no Direct-recovering
+  # recipe can exist and it must never be flagged, in any fixture year.
+  con <- uscogdata:::.ensure_session()
+  years_all <- DBI::dbGetQuery(con, "SELECT DISTINCT year FROM long ORDER BY year")$year
+  states <- DBI::dbGetQuery(con,
+    "SELECT DISTINCT canonical_govid FROM long WHERE type = 0")$canonical_govid
+  oe <- suppressMessages(cog_spending(
+    states, years = years_all, category = "Other Education",
+    expenditure_concept = "total"
+  ))
+  expect_false(isTRUE(attr(oe, "provenance")$expenditure_concept_direct_suppressed))
+  expect_false(any(nzchar(oe$notes) & grepl("unavailable", oe$notes)))
+})
+
+test_that("M/I: a clean FY2019 category = NULL total query flags far fewer than the pre-fix 32/50 states", {
+  con <- uscogdata:::.ensure_session()
+  states <- DBI::dbGetQuery(con,
+    "SELECT DISTINCT canonical_govid FROM long WHERE type = 0")$canonical_govid
+  r <- suppressMessages(cog_spending(
+    states, years = 2019, category = NULL, expenditure_concept = "total"
+  ))
+  ig <- r[r$spend_subtype == "intergovernmental", ]
+  flagged <- ig[nzchar(ig$notes) & grepl("unavailable", ig$notes), ]
+  expect_lt(length(unique(flagged$canonical_govid)), 32L)
+  # Every remaining flagged row must actually name a covering recipe --
+  # never the old no-recipe-found fallback.
+  expect_true(all(grepl("recipe = '", flagged$notes, fixed = TRUE)))
+  expect_false(any(grepl("no covering recipe found", flagged$notes, fixed = TRUE)))
+})
+
+test_that("C2: expenditure_concept = 'total' aborts on a corpus with no intergovernmental category rows", {
+  with_corpus_missing_ig_categories({
+    con <- uscogdata:::.ensure_session()
+    n <- DBI::dbGetQuery(con,
+      "SELECT COUNT(*) AS n FROM summary_categories WHERE LEFT(item_code, 1) IN ('M', 'L')"
+    )$n
+    expect_equal(n, 0)
+
+    err <- tryCatch(
+      cog_spending("010000226085", years = 2019, category = "Police",
+                  expenditure_concept = "total"),
+      condition = function(e) e
+    )
+    expect_s3_class(err, "uscogdata_ig_categories_unsupported")
+    msg <- conditionMessage(err)
+    expect_match(msg, "PR #59|predates", perl = TRUE)
+  })
+
+  # 'direct' is unaffected on the same corpus -- the guard is scoped to
+  # expenditure_concept = "total" only.
+  with_corpus_missing_ig_categories({
+    expect_no_error(
+      cog_spending("010000226085", years = 2019, category = "Police",
+                  expenditure_concept = "direct")
+    )
+  })
+})
+
+test_that("C2: expenditure_concept = 'total' still works on a corpus that DOES carry M/L category rows", {
+  expect_no_error(
+    cog_spending("010000226085", years = 2019, category = "Police",
+                expenditure_concept = "total")
+  )
+})
+
+test_that("I2: an intergovernmental (M/L) recipe never appears as its own top-level suggestion", {
+  # Task 1's M04/M05 category rows share the "Corrections" summary_categories
+  # category with the Direct-flavored E04/E05, so `corrections_ig_local_
+  # combined` (entirely M-prefixed) becomes a raw *candidate* in
+  # .build_suggestions()'s component_code-driven query. Following a
+  # "re-run with recipe = 'corrections_ig_local_combined'" hint on a plain
+  # cog_spending() call would silently return intergovernmental dollars
+  # under provenance$expenditure_concept = "direct". Task 6's gate
+  # (.attach_ig_counterparts()) already protects the *counterpart* lookup;
+  # this exercises that the candidate list itself is filtered too.
+  r <- suppressMessages(
+    cog_spending("010000226085", years = c(2005, 2011), category = "Corrections")
+  )
+  sugg <- attr(r, "provenance")$suggestions
+  ids <- vapply(sugg, function(s) s$recipe_id %||% "", character(1))
+  expect_true("corrections_combined" %in% ids)
+  expect_false("corrections_ig_local_combined" %in% ids)
+})
+
+test_that(".attach_ig_counterparts() never pairs a revenue-side recipe with its coincidental M/L suffix twin", {
+  # Broader version of the case above, run at the matching-helper level
+  # (the same level code review's pairwise enumeration was done at) rather
+  # than end-to-end: the fixture has no (govid, year) combination where
+  # cog_revenue() itself produces a covered gap for any B/C/D recipe, so an
+  # end-to-end repro for THIS specific set of recipes isn't reachable
+  # today. Each of these six recipes shares an exact suffix set with an
+  # M/L expenditure recipe purely by reused-digit coincidence:
+  #   ig_federal_b47_wide {"47","94"} == ige_local_m47_wide / ige_state_l47_wide
+  #   ig_federal_b89_wide {"89","91","92","93"} == ige_local_m89_wide / ige_state_l89_wide
+  #   ig_state_c47_wide   {"47","94"} == ige_local_m47_wide / ige_state_l47_wide
+  #   ig_state_c89_wide   {"89","91","92","93"} == ige_local_m89_wide / ige_state_l89_wide
+  #   ig_local_d47_wide   {"47","94"} == ige_local_m47_wide / ige_state_l47_wide
+  #   ig_local_d89_wide   {"89","91","92","93"} == ige_local_m89_wide / ige_state_l89_wide
+  # None of them may receive an ig_recipe_id under cog_revenue()'s own
+  # flow_prefixes, since M/L only ever pairs with the direct-expenditure
+  # (E/F/G) family.
+  con <- uscogdata:::.ensure_session()
+  fake_suggestion <- function(rid) {
+    list(recipe_id = rid, label = "x", available_years = c(1967L, 2023L),
+         hint = "h")
+  }
+  fake_suggestions <- lapply(
+    c("ig_federal_b47_wide", "ig_federal_b89_wide",
+      "ig_state_c47_wide", "ig_state_c89_wide",
+      "ig_local_d47_wide", "ig_local_d89_wide"),
+    fake_suggestion
+  )
+  out <- uscogdata:::.attach_ig_counterparts(
+    con, fake_suggestions, c("T", "A", "U", "B", "C", "D")
+  )
+  ig <- unlist(lapply(out, function(s) s$ig_recipe_id))
+  expect_length(ig, 0L)
+})
@@ -0,0 +1,75 @@
+# Madison walkthrough audit -- findings F-012, F-017, F-018.
+# Tracked as uscogdata#11. See docs/walkthroughs/FINDINGS.md in cog_explorer.
+#
+# The owner's settled three-concept model (2026-07-28):
+#   total   = primary + interest + intergovernmental transfers
+#   direct  = primary + interest          (Census's published Direct Expenditure)
+#   primary = direct minus debt service   (the NEW DEFAULT)
+# implemented by reclassifying on the crosswalk's `spend_type` column, NOT on
+# item-code first letters -- F-018 shows prefix `Y` carries both revenue
+# (Y01/Y02) and expenditure (Y05/Y06) codes, so no first-letter allowlist can
+# route them correctly.
+#
+# Fixture reproducibility: the finding's headline reconciliation is Madison
+# FY2022, where the corpus carries I89 = 46,609 (thousands) and Census's
+# published Direct Expenditure is $654,893,000 against cog_spending()'s
+# $608,284,000 (-7.1%). FY2022 is outside the bundled fixture's year window
+# (2011/2012/2019/2020), so the same invariant is asserted on FY2020, where the
+# fixture carries I89 = 27,704. Anyone running against the full corpus should
+# also check the FY2022 numbers above.
+
+test_that("expenditure concepts classify on spend_type, not item-code prefix", {
+  testthat::skip("Blocked on uscogdata#11 (findings F-012, F-017, F-018)")
+
+  mad      <- "552025209777"   # MADISON CITY, WI
+  wi_state <- "550000227544"   # WISCONSIN (state government)
+
+  # -- F-012: `primary` is the new default, and equals today's E/F/G figure ---
+  primary <- cog_spending(govid = mad, years = 2020L)
+  expect_equal(attr(primary, "provenance")$expenditure_concept, "primary")
+  expect_equal(sum(primary$amt_nominal), 623347000)
+
+  # -- F-012: `direct` adds interest on long-term debt ------------------------
+  # Expected interest read from the RAW corpus, never through cog_spending(),
+  # which is the filter under test.
+  interest <- wt_raw_amt(mad, 2020L, prefixes = "I")
+  expect_equal(interest, 27704)                       # I89, in $1,000s
+
+  direct <- cog_spending(govid = mad, years = 2020L, expenditure_concept = "direct")
+  expect_equal(sum(direct$amt_nominal), 651051000)    # 623,347 + 27,704 thousands
+  expect_equal(sum(direct$amt_nominal) - sum(primary$amt_nominal), interest * 1000)
+  expect_true("I89" %in% wt_codes_included(direct))
+
+  # -- F-017: `total` carries Q12/Q18, state IG transfers to school districts --
+  # Wisconsin FY2019: Q12 = 6,431,530 and Q18 = 533,391 (thousands). Today
+  # neither verb's flow_prefixes contains "Q", so both are dropped from the one
+  # concept that is supposed to include intergovernmental transfers.
+  ig_expected <- wt_raw_amt(wi_state, 2019L, prefixes = c("M", "L", "Q"))
+  expect_equal(ig_expected, 11609814)                 # M 4,644,893 + Q 6,964,921
+
+  wi_direct <- cog_spending(govid = wi_state, years = 2019L,
+                            expenditure_concept = "direct")
+  wi_total  <- cog_spending(govid = wi_state, years = 2019L,
+                            expenditure_concept = "total")
+
+  # total - direct is exactly the intergovernmental component. Asserted as a
+  # delta rather than a grand total so this stays correct however the J and Y
+  # families land inside `primary`.
+  expect_equal(sum(wi_total$amt_nominal) - sum(wi_direct$amt_nominal),
+               ig_expected * 1000)
+  expect_true(all(c("Q12", "Q18") %in% wt_codes_included(wi_total)))
+
+  # -- F-018: prefix Y splits revenue from expenditure, by spend_type ---------
+  # Y01/Y02 are Insurance Trust revenue; Y05/Y06 are Insurance Trust benefit
+  # payments. All four share the first letter `Y` and the spend_type
+  # "Insurance Trust", so this pair of assertions is the concrete proof that
+  # classification is no longer keyed on the first letter.
+  wi_revenue <- cog_revenue(govid = wi_state, years = 2019L)
+  spend_codes <- wt_codes_included(wi_total)
+  rev_codes   <- wt_codes_included(wi_revenue)
+
+  expect_true("Y05" %in% spend_codes)
+  expect_false("Y05" %in% rev_codes)
+  expect_true("Y01" %in% rev_codes)
+  expect_false("Y01" %in% spend_codes)
+})
@@ -70,6 +70,37 @@ test_that("cog_explain prints a Suggestions section when the provenance has one"
  expect_true(grepl("re-run with recipe", txt))
 })

+test_that("cog_explain prints the expenditure concept (I1)", {
+  skip_if_no_corpus()
+  d <- cog_spending("010000226085", years = 2019, category = "Police")
+  t <- cog_spending("010000226085", years = 2019, category = "Police",
+                    expenditure_concept = "total")
+  txt_d <- paste(c(
+    capture.output(cog_explain(d)),
+    capture.output(cog_explain(d), type = "message")
+  ), collapse = "\n")
+  txt_t <- paste(c(
+    capture.output(cog_explain(t)),
+    capture.output(cog_explain(t), type = "message")
+  ), collapse = "\n")
+  expect_true(grepl("Concept: direct", txt_d))
+  expect_true(grepl("Concept: total", txt_t))
+})
+
+test_that("cog_explain surfaces the C1(b) direct-suppressed flag as a warning", {
+  skip_if_no_corpus()
+  t <- suppressMessages(cog_spending(
+    "010000226085", years = 2011, category = "Corrections",
+    expenditure_concept = "total"
+  ))
+  expect_true(attr(t, "provenance")$expenditure_concept_direct_suppressed)
+  txt <- paste(c(
+    capture.output(cog_explain(t)),
+    capture.output(cog_explain(t), type = "message")
+  ), collapse = "\n")
+  expect_true(grepl("Direct leg unavailable", txt))
+})
+
 test_that("cog_explain prints denominator + popyear_range + counts", {
  skip_if_no_corpus()
  with_fixture_corpus({
@@ -0,0 +1,112 @@
+# tests/testthat/test-fixture-vintage.R
+#
+# The bundled fixture is a slice of a real cog_pipeline publish tree, and
+# every test in this package -- plus the whole cog-api suite -- runs against
+# it. When the published corpus changes shape and the fixture does not, both
+# suites stay green against a corpus that no longer exists (uscogdata#18).
+#
+# These tests pin the structural facts that distinguish the current published
+# vintage from its predecessor, so a stale fixture fails loudly instead of
+# passing quietly. They assert shape, never dollar values: re-running
+# data-raw/regenerate_fixture_corpus.R against a newer publish tree should
+# keep them green.
+
+# Open a bare DuckDB connection on the fixture's parquet files. Deliberately
+# not the package session: these assertions are about what the fixture
+# CONTAINS, and routing them through the reader's own views would let a
+# filter hide the very absence being checked.
+fixture_query <- function(sql, ...) {
+  con <- DBI::dbConnect(duckdb::duckdb())
+  on.exit(DBI::dbDisconnect(con, shutdown = TRUE), add = TRUE)
+  path <- function(rel) {
+    sprintf("read_parquet(%s)",
+            DBI::dbQuoteString(con, file.path(fixture_corpus_path(), rel)))
+  }
+  DBI::dbGetQuery(con, do.call(sprintf, c(list(sql), lapply(c(...), path))))
+}
+
+test_that("fixture ships every metadata table the publish tree does", {
+  skip_if_no_corpus()
+  # representation/code_set are what make a sparse corpus interpretable; a
+  # fixture without them predates sparsification (cog_pipeline#64).
+  expected <- c(
+    "canonical_alias.parquet", "canonical_fips_xwalk.parquet",
+    "census_collection_coverage.parquet", "code_set.parquet",
+    "harmonization_map.parquet", "harmonization_recipes.parquet",
+    "lineage_events.parquet", "representation.parquet",
+    "series_breaks.parquet", "summary_categories.parquet"
+  )
+  on_disk <- basename(list.files(
+    file.path(fixture_corpus_path(), "data"), pattern = "\\.parquet$"
+  ))
+  expect_true(all(expected %in% on_disk))
+
+  # The manifest must list them too -- consumers read the manifest, not ls().
+  in_manifest <- with_fixture_corpus(
+    basename(vapply(cog_manifest()$files$metadata, function(f) f$path, character(1)))
+  )
+  expect_true(all(expected %in% in_manifest))
+})
+
+test_that("fixture carries the dense/sparse representation contract", {
+  skip_if_no_corpus()
+  rep <- fixture_query(
+    "SELECT year, representation, absence_means FROM %s
+     WHERE year IN (2011, 2012, 2019, 2020) ORDER BY year",
+    "data/representation.parquet"
+  )
+  expect_equal(nrow(rep), 4L)
+  expect_equal(rep$representation, c("dense_source", rep("sparse_source", 3L)))
+  expect_equal(rep$absence_means, c("census_zero", rep("not_reported", 3L)))
+})
+
+test_that("the fixture's wide era is sparse, not zero-padded", {
+  skip_if_no_corpus()
+  # FY2011 is a dense_source year: the corpus publishes only the cells Census
+  # reported non-zero, and an absent cell means Census published $0. Before
+  # sparsification this partition was 2,864,212 rows, ~83% of them explicit
+  # zeros. A single explicit zero here means the fixture predates the change.
+  zeros_2011 <- fixture_query(
+    "SELECT COUNT(*) AS n FROM %s WHERE amt = 0",
+    "data/long/year=2011/part-0.parquet"
+  )$n
+  expect_equal(zeros_2011, 0L)
+
+  # The modern era is a different regime: a reported zero there is real data
+  # (the government filed $0), so zeros legitimately survive and must not be
+  # asserted away.
+  expect_gt(
+    fixture_query("SELECT COUNT(*) AS n FROM %s", "data/long/year=2012/part-0.parquet")$n,
+    0L
+  )
+})
+
+test_that("code_set covers every fixture year with the reader-spec columns", {
+  skip_if_no_corpus()
+  cs <- fixture_query(
+    "SELECT * FROM %s WHERE year IN (2011, 2012, 2019, 2020)",
+    "data/code_set.parquet"
+  )
+  expect_true(all(
+    c("code_set_id", "year", "type", "item_code", "is_aggregate", "n_units")
+    %in% names(cs)
+  ))
+  expect_setequal(unique(cs$year), c(2011L, 2012L, 2019L, 2020L))
+})
+
+test_that("every flow code carrying dollars has a category, J-prefix included", {
+  skip_if_no_corpus()
+  # The J (assistance/benefit) codes were uncategorised until the crosswalk
+  # completion shipped (cog_pipeline#60/#65, J19 held back until #64's
+  # duplication fix landed). Their absence is how a pre-crosswalk fixture
+  # gives itself away.
+  j <- fixture_query(
+    "SELECT item_code, category, category_type, spend_subtype FROM %s
+     WHERE LEFT(item_code, 1) = 'J' ORDER BY item_code",
+    "data/summary_categories.parquet"
+  )
+  expect_true("J19" %in% j$item_code)
+  expect_true(all(j$category_type == "expenditure"))
+  expect_true(all(j$spend_subtype == "assistance"))
+  expect_false(any(is.na(j$category)))
+})
@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+# Madison walkthrough audit -- finding F-025. Tracked as uscogdata#16.
+# See docs/walkthroughs/FINDINGS.md in cog_explorer.
+#
+# cog_gov_search()'s UTILITY mode interpolates `name` into
+#   regexp_matches(gov_name, <name>, 'i')
+# unescaped (R/search.R:102), while BASKET mode in the same file already routes
+# it through .escape_regex() (R/search.R:307) with the comment "so `name` is
+# treated as a literal substring". Two failure modes result:
+#   correctness -- a real government cannot be found by its own exact name, and
+#                  a single "." matches everything (HTTP 200 both ways via the API);
+#   robustness  -- malformed regex reaches the engine and errors, which cog-api
+#                  surfaces as a 500, reachable by typing a real name one
+#                  character at a time.
+#
+# NOT asserted here: the finding's `q=St. Louis` example. Under correct literal
+# matching that search still returns 0 rows, because the stored name is
+# "ST LOUIS CITY" with no period -- it demonstrates today's over-matching
+# semantics, not a row the fix makes findable.
+
+test_that("cog_gov_search() matches name literally, not as an unescaped regex", {
+
+  # -- correctness (1): a government must be findable by its own exact name ---
+  # FREDONIA (BRISCOE) CITY is real; today the parentheses are read as regex
+  # grouping, so its own complete name matches nothing.
+  fredonia <- cog_gov_search(name = "FREDONIA (BRISCOE) CITY")
+  expect_equal(nrow(fredonia), 1L)
+  expect_equal(fredonia$canonical_govid, "052117184386")
+  expect_equal(cog_gov_search(name = "FREDONIA (BRISCOE)")$canonical_govid,
+               "052117184386")
+
+  # -- correctness (2): a metacharacter must not become a wildcard ------------
+  # No Wisconsin city or village name contains a literal period -- established
+  # against the raw registry below, NOT through the verb under test. A literal
+  # search for "." must therefore return nothing; today it returns all 608.
+  con <- DBI::dbConnect(duckdb::duckdb())
+  on.exit(DBI::dbDisconnect(con, shutdown = TRUE), add = TRUE)
+  xwalk <- paste0(sub("/$", "", Sys.getenv("USCOGDATA_URL")),
+                  "/data/canonical_fips_xwalk.parquet")
+  with_dot <- DBI::dbGetQuery(con, paste0(
+    "SELECT COUNT(*) n FROM read_parquet('", xwalk, "') ",
+    "WHERE fips_state = '55' AND govs_type = 2 AND gov_name LIKE '%.%'"))
+  expect_equal(as.integer(with_dot$n[[1]]), 0L)
+
+  expect_equal(nrow(cog_gov_search(name = ".", state = "WI", type = "city")), 0L)
+  expect_equal(nrow(cog_gov_search(name = "M.dison", state = "WI", type = "city")), 0L)
+  expect_equal(nrow(cog_gov_search(name = "Mad(i|o)son", state = "WI", type = "city")), 0L)
+
+  # A metacharacter-free name still resolves exactly as before.
+  expect_equal(nrow(cog_gov_search(name = "Madison", state = "WI", type = "city")), 1L)
+
+  # -- robustness: malformed pattern text returns no rows, and does not error --
+  # "[" alone, and "Athens-Clarke County (bal" -- an in-progress substring of
+  # ATHENS-CLARKE COUNTY (BALANCE), a real government -- both currently raise
+  # (DuckDB: "Invalid Input Error: missing ]").
+  expect_equal(nrow(cog_gov_search(name = "[")), 0L)
+  expect_equal(nrow(cog_gov_search(name = "Athens-Clarke County (bal")), 0L)
+})
@@ -0,0 +1,51 @@
+# Madison walkthrough audit -- finding F-021. Tracked as uscogdata#14.
+# See docs/walkthroughs/FINDINGS.md in cog_explorer.
+#
+# .peer_summary_rows() computes stats::quantile() separately INSIDE each
+# (year, spend_subtype, category) cell. A summary_p50 row is therefore "the
+# median peer's value in that one category", not "the value of the median
+# peer's total". Summing those rows across categories -- the obvious move for a
+# caller who wants one peer-median total line and reads only the column names --
+# misstated a total-spending band by -32.7% to +251.0% across the 24 years the
+# audit tested, with a sign flip at FY2012.
+#
+# The verb is not wrong and its documented use (faceting by role AND category)
+# is unaffected, so the fix is documentation: one sentence in @return.
+
+test_that("cog_peer_compare() documents that summary_* rows are per-category quantiles", {
+
+  # man/ ships only in the source tree (the installed package carries a
+  # compiled help database instead), so the prose assertions below cannot run
+  # under R CMD check -- CI's earlier testthat::test_local() step enforces
+  # them. The numeric pin further down needs only the corpus, but it lives in
+  # the same test_that() as the sentence it protects, deliberately: they are
+  # one claim, and splitting them would let the prose drift while a separate
+  # test kept passing.
+  rd_path <- skip_if_no_source_tree(c("man", "cog_peer_compare.Rd"))
+  rd <- paste(readLines(rd_path, warn = FALSE), collapse = " ")
+
+  # The @return section must say the quantile is computed within each cell...
+  expect_match(rd, "within each|per-category|per category", ignore.case = TRUE)
+  # ...and must warn that the rows are not additive across category.
+  expect_match(rd, "not additive|do(es)? not sum|cannot be summed", ignore.case = TRUE)
+  # ...naming the grouping explicitly.
+  expect_match(rd, "spend_subtype", fixed = TRUE)
+
+  # Pin the mechanism numerically so a future refactor that quietly changes the
+  # quantile grouping fails here rather than silently invalidating the sentence
+  # above. Fixture: Madison, 10 peers found at FY2020, category = NULL.
+  peers <- cog_find_peers("552025209777", year = 2020L, max_peers = 10L)
+  cmp <- cog_peer_compare(target_govid = "552025209777", peers = peers,
+                          category = NULL, years = 2020L, per_capita = TRUE)
+
+  naive <- sum(cmp$amt_per_capita_nominal[cmp$role == "summary_p50"], na.rm = TRUE)
+
+  peer_rows <- cmp[cmp$role == "peer", ]
+  per_gov <- tapply(peer_rows$amt_per_capita_nominal, peer_rows$canonical_govid,
+                    sum, na.rm = TRUE)
+  correct <- unname(stats::quantile(per_gov, 0.5, na.rm = TRUE))
+
+  expect_equal(round(naive), 6180)     # summing the built-in summary rows
+  expect_equal(round(correct), 2043)   # quantile of each peer's OWN total
+  expect_gt(naive / correct, 2)        # a +200% misstatement on this cohort
+})
@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+# Madison walkthrough audit -- finding F-014. Tracked as uscogdata#12.
+# See docs/walkthroughs/FINDINGS.md in cog_explorer.
+#
+# cog_revenue()'s flow_prefixes = c("T","A","U","B","C","D") never returns
+# item-code prefix X (Employee Retirement) or Y (other Insurance Trust). Per
+# Census's standard identity, Total Revenue = General + Utility + Liquor Store +
+# Insurance Trust Revenue, and Employee Retirement System contributions and
+# earnings ARE the Insurance Trust Revenue component -- so prefix X sits inside
+# a published Census revenue concept exactly the way I89 sits inside Census's
+# Direct Expenditure concept (finding F-012).
+#
+# CAVEAT FOR WHOEVER PICKS THIS UP: the argument name below (`revenue_concept =
+# "total"`) is this test's *proposal*, not a settled decision. The owner's
+# 2026-07-28 resolution covers expenditure concepts only; no revenue-side
+# naming has been ruled on. If the eventual argument is named differently,
+# change the two calls here -- the asserted dollar invariants are what matter
+# and are independent of the naming.
+#
+# Fixture reproducibility: Madison's own X-prefix revenue (FY1970-FY1986,
+# $15,098,000 nominal, $0 thereafter) is outside the bundled fixture's year
+# window (2011/2012/2019/2020), so the same invariant is asserted on Wisconsin
+# state government FY2012, where the fixture carries nonzero X01/X05/X08.
+
+test_that("cog_revenue() can return Census Total Revenue including Insurance Trust (prefix X)", {
+  testthat::skip("Blocked on uscogdata#12 (finding F-014)")
+
+  wi_state <- "550000227544"   # WISCONSIN (state government)
+
+  # Revenue-shaped Employee Retirement codes, read from the RAW corpus rather
+  # than through cog_revenue(), which is the filter under test:
+  #   X01 local employee contribution, X04/X05 contributions and transfers from
+  #   other governments, X08 earnings on investments.
+  x_revenue <- wt_raw_amt(wi_state, 2012L, codes = c("X01", "X04", "X05", "X08"))
+  expect_equal(x_revenue, 2038800)   # 615,835 + 0 + 560,382 + 862,583 ($1,000s)
+
+  general <- cog_revenue(govid = wi_state, years = 2012L)
+  expect_equal(sum(general$amt_nominal), 31338293000)
+
+  total <- cog_revenue(govid = wi_state, years = 2012L, revenue_concept = "total")
+  expect_equal(sum(total$amt_nominal) - sum(general$amt_nominal), x_revenue * 1000)
+  expect_equal(sum(total$amt_nominal), 33377093000)
+  expect_true(all(c("X01", "X05", "X08") %in% wt_codes_included(total)))
+
+  # Sibling codes under the SAME first letter must stay out: X11/X12 are
+  # benefit payments (an expenditure) and X21/X30/X47 are cash and securities
+  # holdings (a balance-sheet stock). This is the F-018 point restated on the
+  # revenue side -- the split has to come from the crosswalk's spend_type, not
+  # from the letter X.
+  expect_false(any(c("X11", "X12", "X21", "X30", "X47") %in% wt_codes_included(total)))
+
+  # Every returned row still resolves to a category. summary_categories has
+  # zero rows for prefix X today, so relaxing the prefix filter alone would
+  # produce category = NA rows -- see census_of_governments_finance_pipeline#60.
+  expect_false(any(is.na(total$category)))
+})
@@ -80,8 +80,11 @@ test_that("cog_geographic_rollup provenance reports the outer verb", {

 test_that("cog_geographic_rollup accepts data.frames per layer", {
  skip_if_no_corpus()
-  fl_state  <- cog_gov_search("^FLORIDA$", type = "state")
-  broward   <- cog_gov_search("^BROWARD COUNTY$", state = "FL", type = "county")
+  # Unanchored: utility mode matches literally now, so "^...$" would be
+  # searched for as characters rather than read as anchors (uscogdata#16).
+  # Both still resolve to exactly one row once scoped by type/state.
+  fl_state  <- cog_gov_search("FLORIDA", type = "state")
+  broward   <- cog_gov_search("BROWARD COUNTY", state = "FL", type = "county")
  r <- cog_geographic_rollup(
    govids = list(state = fl_state, county = broward),
    category = "Police", years = 2020L
@@ -98,7 +98,11 @@ test_that("cog_spending rejects invalid inputs", {

 test_that("cog_spending accepts a cog_gov_search result directly", {
  skip_if_no_corpus()
-  picks <- cog_gov_search("^BROWARD COUNTY$", state = "FL", type = "county")
+  # Unanchored: utility mode matches `name` as a literal substring now, so
+  # "^...$" would be searched for as those characters rather than read as
+  # anchors (uscogdata#16). Scoped by state and type, the bare name still
+  # resolves to exactly one row.
+  picks <- cog_gov_search("BROWARD COUNTY", state = "FL", type = "county")
  expect_gt(nrow(picks), 0L)
  r <- cog_spending(picks, 2020L, "Corrections")
  expect_equal(unique(r$canonical_govid), "121011212191")
@@ -244,24 +248,42 @@ test_that("basis defaults to 'harmonized' when not passed", {
 test_that("provenance carries basis + harmonization block with na_rows_excluded", {
  skip_if_no_corpus()
  with_fixture_corpus({
-    r <- cog_spending("121011212191", 2011:2012, "Corrections")
+    # FL state government. The harmonization block is scoped by government,
+    # year and flow prefix -- NOT by category -- so a Corrections query still
+    # counts every E/F/G-prefixed row the harmonized basis drops for having
+    # no harmonized_code. The three that apply here are E21/F21/G21
+    # (Education NEC, SB184-186, "discontinued_na", wide-era window ending
+    # FY2011); the other discontinued_na rulings live outside E/F/G.
+    # See docs/phase_r_harmonization_review.md § 1.3/1.4 and cog_pipeline
+    # data/harmonization_map.csv.
+    r <- cog_spending("120000226351", 2011:2012, "Corrections")
    prov <- attr(r, "provenance")
    expect_equal(prov$basis, "harmonized")
    expect_true(prov$harmonization$applied)
-    expect_true(prov$harmonization$na_rows_excluded >= 0L)
-    expect_true(prov$harmonization$na_amount_excluded >= 0)
-    # Data-verified for the v6 fixture (corpus 2026-07-22). The Task 18 map
-    # extension added E/F/G-prefix discontinued_na rulings the earlier pin's
-    # comment predated: E21/F21/G21 (Education NEC local, SB184-186,
-    # "trivial; explicit-NA, full wide-era window"). Broward's 2011 legacy
-    # partition zero-pads exactly those three codes, so this query now
-    # excludes 3 NA-harmonized rows -- all with amt = 0, hence the excluded
-    # AMOUNT stays exactly zero. (The other discontinued_na rulings -- S74,
-    # Z61, X04, X06, the debt-detail family, L24 -- remain outside the
-    # E/F/G/K prefixes.) See docs/phase_r_harmonization_review.md § 1.3/1.4
-    # and cog_pipeline data/harmonization_map.csv E21/F21/G21 rows.
    expect_equal(prov$harmonization$na_rows_excluded, 3L)
-    expect_equal(prov$harmonization$na_amount_excluded, 0)
+    # $2,825,439 thousands of FY2011 E21 + F21 + G21, reported in full USD.
+    # Pinning a non-zero amount is the point: the earlier Broward anchor's
+    # three rows were all explicit zeros, so the AMOUNT accounting was
+    # asserted only against 0 and could not have caught a bug.
+    expect_equal(prov$harmonization$na_amount_excluded, 2825439 * 1000)
+  })
+})
+
+test_that("sparsification removed the wide era's zero-pads from the exclusion count", {
+  skip_if_no_corpus()
+  with_fixture_corpus({
+    # Broward County FY2011 used to carry E21/F21/G21 rows of exactly $0 --
+    # the wide era stored every government x every code, zeros included. The
+    # published corpus no longer does (SB194, cog_pipeline#64), so there is
+    # now nothing for the harmonized basis to exclude. Absence in a
+    # dense_source year means Census published $0; it does not mean the
+    # exclusion machinery stopped working, which the FL state anchor above
+    # proves independently.
+    r <- cog_spending("121011212191", 2011:2012, "Corrections")
+    h <- attr(r, "provenance")$harmonization
+    expect_true(h$applied)
+    expect_equal(h$na_rows_excluded, 0L)
+    expect_equal(h$na_amount_excluded, 0)
  })
 })

@@ -303,11 +325,13 @@ test_that("provenance$series_break_refs is a populated-when-applicable character
    r <- cog_spending("121011212191", 2020L, "Corrections")
    refs <- attr(r, "provenance")$series_break_refs
    expect_type(refs, "character")
-    # No catalogued series_breaks_pq row falls inside this fixture's
-    # 2011/2012/2019/2020 window for the codes this query touches (E04/G04)
-    # -- data-verified; the mechanism itself is what's under test here, via
-    # a query-shaped unit test in test-views.R since the fixture has no
-    # positive case to pin against.
+    # No catalogued code-specific series_breaks_pq row falls inside this
+    # fixture's 2011/2012/2019/2020 window for the codes this query touches
+    # (E04/G04) -- data-verified; the mechanism itself is what's under test
+    # here, via a query-shaped unit test in test-views.R since the fixture
+    # has no positive case to pin against. Corpus-wide ("ALL") entries never
+    # appear in this field by construction -- they travel in
+    # corpus_break_refs; see test-corpus-breaks.R.
    expect_equal(refs, character(0))
  })
 })
@@ -9,7 +9,9 @@ test_that("all expected views register on session open", {
  expected <- c(
    "long", "spending_long", "revenue_long",
    "canonical_fips_xwalk", "summary_categories",
-    "spending_annotated", "revenue_annotated"
+    "spending_annotated", "revenue_annotated",
+    "ig_long", "ig_annotated",
+    "ig_long_harmonized", "ig_annotated_harmonized"
  )
  expect_true(all(expected %in% views$table_name))
 })
@@ -110,12 +112,78 @@ test_that("inst/sql/22- and 23- harmonized views enforce every WHERE predicate (
  expect_equal(rev$amt, 225)
 })

+test_that("inst/sql/24- and 25- IG views retain aggregates, COALESCE NULL harmonized_code, and exclude the L-- family total (real SQL text, synthetic parquet)", {
+  # ig_long / ig_long_harmonized have the subtlest predicates in the package:
+  # a deliberately ABSENT `NOT is_aggregate` (unlike every other *_long view),
+  # and COALESCE(harmonized_code, item_code) instead of a plain
+  # `harmonized_code IS NOT NULL` filter. The only end-to-end guard on this
+  # today is bound to AL state / 2011 / Education K-12, where M12 happens to
+  # be the sole IG code present -- regenerate the fixture without that one
+  # row and the guard would die silently while staying green. As with the
+  # 22-/23- test above, this reads the real inst/sql/24-/25- text off disk
+  # and executes it against a synthetic hive-partitioned parquet tree, so a
+  # regression in either predicate changes which rows survive.
+  skip_if_no_corpus()
+
+  tmp <- withr::local_tempdir()
+  part_dir <- file.path(tmp, "data", "long", "year=2004")
+  dir.create(part_dir, recursive = TRUE)
+  part_path <- file.path(part_dir, "part-0.parquet")
+
+  write_con <- DBI::dbConnect(duckdb::duckdb())
+  on.exit(DBI::dbDisconnect(write_con, shutdown = TRUE), add = TRUE)
+  DBI::dbExecute(write_con, sprintf("
+    COPY (
+      SELECT * FROM (VALUES
+        ('ig-A', 'M04', 100,   false, 'M04'), -- control: passes through as-is
+        ('ig-B', 'M38', 50,    false, 'M36'), -- fold control: real SB012 rule, renamed to M36 under harmonized basis
+        ('ig-C', 'M47', 99999, true,  NULL),  -- legacy aggregate, NO harmonized_code: must survive BOTH views
+        ('ig-D', 'L--', 55555, false, 'L--'), -- family total: excluded from BOTH views
+        ('ig-E', 'T29', 44444, false, 'T29')  -- wrong prefix (revenue, not M/L): excluded from BOTH views
+      ) AS t(canonical_govid, item_code, amt, is_aggregate, harmonized_code)
+    ) TO %s (FORMAT PARQUET)
+  ", uscogdata:::.sql_lit_chr(part_path)))
+
+  sql_dir <- system.file("sql", package = "uscogdata")
+  .read_view_sql <- function(filename) {
+    txt <- paste(readLines(file.path(sql_dir, filename), warn = FALSE), collapse = "\n")
+    gsub("\\{url\\}", paste0(tmp, "/"), txt, fixed = FALSE)
+  }
+
+  con <- DBI::dbConnect(duckdb::duckdb())
+  on.exit(DBI::dbDisconnect(con, shutdown = TRUE), add = TRUE)
+  DBI::dbExecute(con, .read_view_sql("10-long.sql"))
+  DBI::dbExecute(con, .read_view_sql("24-ig_long.sql"))
+  DBI::dbExecute(con, .read_view_sql("25-ig_long_harmonized.sql"))
+
+  raw <- DBI::dbGetQuery(con,
+    "SELECT item_code, SUM(amt) AS amt FROM ig_long
+     GROUP BY item_code ORDER BY item_code"
+  )
+  # L-- (family total) and T29 (wrong prefix) are gone; the aggregate row
+  # M47 survives -- proof `NOT is_aggregate` is absent from ig_long.
+  expect_equal(raw$item_code, c("M04", "M38", "M47"))
+  expect_equal(raw$amt, c(100, 50, 99999))
+
+  harmonized <- DBI::dbGetQuery(con,
+    "SELECT item_code, SUM(amt) AS amt FROM ig_long_harmonized
+     GROUP BY item_code ORDER BY item_code"
+  )
+  # M38 folds to M36 (real harmonized_code present); M47 keeps its raw code
+  # via COALESCE(NULL, 'M47') -- proof the aggregate row is NOT dropped by
+  # a plain `harmonized_code IS NOT NULL` filter. L-- and T29 stay excluded.
+  expect_equal(harmonized$item_code, c("M04", "M36", "M47"))
+  expect_equal(harmonized$amt, c(100, 50, 99999))
+})
+
 test_that(".build_series_break_refs matches fin_code + break_year window", {
-  # No series_breaks_pq row falls inside the bundled fixture's 2011-2020
-  # window (data-verified; see the "series_break_refs" test in
+  # No CODE-SPECIFIC series_breaks_pq row falls inside the bundled fixture's
+  # 2011-2020 window (data-verified; see the "series_break_refs" test in
  # test-spending.R), so this proves the matching logic itself against the
  # live view + a synthetic year window that DOES hit a cataloged break
-  # (SB075, fin_code E62, break_year 2005).
+  # (SB075, fin_code E62, break_year 2005). The corpus-wide entries are a
+  # separate path with its own coverage -- SB194 does sit at 2012, inside
+  # the fixture window; see test-corpus-breaks.R.
  skip_if_no_corpus()
  con <- cog_open()
  on.exit(cog_close())
@@ -152,6 +220,108 @@ test_that("schema v5 harmonization views register when the corpus supports them"
  expect_true(all(expected_v5 %in% views$table_name))
 })

+test_that(".harmonization_view_files guard is necessary: registration against a v4-shaped corpus (no harmonized_code column at all) succeeds only because the harmonized views are skipped", {
+  # with_doctored_schema_version() (used elsewhere in this suite) only
+  # rewrites manifest.json's schema_version -- the underlying `long` parquet
+  # is still the bundled v6 fixture, which DOES have a harmonized_code
+  # column, so it only proves the skip *happens*, not that it is *required*.
+  # This test builds a genuinely v4-shaped corpus: `long` has no
+  # harmonized_code column at all, matching a real pre-Phase-R2 publish
+  # tree, and then shows two things: (1) the real .register_views(), gated
+  # on manifest$schema_version, registers cleanly against it; (2) the exact
+  # SQL text of a gated file (25-ig_long_harmonized.sql), executed directly
+  # against the same corpus without the gate, fails -- proving the gate is
+  # load-bearing, not incidental.
+  tmp <- withr::local_tempdir()
+  part_dir <- file.path(tmp, "data", "long", "year=2004")
+  dir.create(part_dir, recursive = TRUE)
+  part_path <- file.path(part_dir, "part-0.parquet")
+
+  write_con <- DBI::dbConnect(duckdb::duckdb())
+  on.exit(DBI::dbDisconnect(write_con, shutdown = TRUE), add = TRUE)
+  DBI::dbExecute(write_con, sprintf("
+    COPY (
+      SELECT * FROM (VALUES
+        ('gov-1', 'E36', 100, false, 500000, 2020)
+      ) AS t(canonical_govid, item_code, amt, is_aggregate, population, popyear)
+    ) TO %s (FORMAT PARQUET)
+  ", uscogdata:::.sql_lit_chr(part_path)))
+
+  xwalk_path <- file.path(tmp, "data", "canonical_fips_xwalk.parquet")
+  DBI::dbExecute(write_con, sprintf("
+    COPY (
+      SELECT * FROM (VALUES
+        ('gov-1', 'Test Gov', 1, 'County', '01', '001', NULL, 500000)
+      ) AS t(canonical_govid, gov_name, govs_type, type_label, fips_state,
+             fips_county, fips_place, population_acs)
+    ) TO %s (FORMAT PARQUET)
+  ", uscogdata:::.sql_lit_chr(xwalk_path)))
+
+  cats_path <- file.path(tmp, "data", "summary_categories.parquet")
+  DBI::dbExecute(write_con, sprintf("
+    COPY (
+      SELECT * FROM (VALUES
+        ('E36', 'Test Category', 'expenditure', 'direct', NULL)
+      ) AS t(item_code, category, category_type, spend_subtype, revenue_subtype)
+    ) TO %s (FORMAT PARQUET)
+  ", uscogdata:::.sql_lit_chr(cats_path)))
+
+  # Confirm the synthetic `long` genuinely lacks harmonized_code (not just
+  # NULL values -- the column itself must be absent) before trusting the
+  # rest of this test.
+  cols <- DBI::dbGetQuery(write_con, sprintf(
+    "DESCRIBE SELECT * FROM read_parquet(%s)", uscogdata:::.sql_lit_chr(part_path)
+  ))$column_name
+  expect_false("harmonized_code" %in% cols)
+
+  url <- paste0(tmp, "/")
+
+  # (1) Full .register_views() against this v4-shaped corpus must succeed --
+  # this is the behavior the guard exists to protect.
+  con <- DBI::dbConnect(duckdb::duckdb())
+  on.exit(DBI::dbDisconnect(con, shutdown = TRUE), add = TRUE)
+  expect_no_error(
+    uscogdata:::.register_views(con, url, manifest = list(schema_version = 4L))
+  )
+  views <- DBI::dbGetQuery(con,
+    "SELECT table_name FROM information_schema.tables
+     WHERE table_schema = 'main' AND table_type = 'VIEW'")$table_name
+  expect_true(all(c("ig_long", "ig_annotated", "spending_annotated") %in% views))
+  expect_false(any(c("ig_long_harmonized", "ig_annotated_harmonized",
+                      "spending_long_harmonized") %in% views))
+
+  # (2) Prove the gate is load-bearing: the exact SQL text of the skipped
+  # file, executed directly (bypassing .register_views()'s schema_version
+  # check) against the SAME corpus, fails because it references
+  # long.harmonized_code, a column this corpus's `long` does not have.
+  sql_dir <- system.file("sql", package = "uscogdata")
+  .read_view_sql <- function(filename) {
+    txt <- paste(readLines(file.path(sql_dir, filename), warn = FALSE), collapse = "\n")
+    gsub("\\{url\\}", url, txt, fixed = FALSE)
+  }
+  con2 <- DBI::dbConnect(duckdb::duckdb())
+  on.exit(DBI::dbDisconnect(con2, shutdown = TRUE), add = TRUE)
+  DBI::dbExecute(con2, .read_view_sql("10-long.sql"))
+  expect_error(DBI::dbExecute(con2, .read_view_sql("25-ig_long_harmonized.sql")))
+
+  # Reconciling this test with the C2 guard (expenditure-concept review):
+  # `ig_annotated`/`spending_annotated` registering cleanly above proves
+  # only that CREATE VIEW binds against a `summary_categories` with no M/L
+  # rows at all (this synthetic corpus's own summary_categories has a
+  # single E36 row, see the COPY above) -- a LEFT JOIN never fails to
+  # resolve regardless of what the joined-to table contains. It does NOT
+  # mean querying expenditure_concept = "total" against this shape is safe:
+  # exactly this corpus (schema_version reported as supported, but
+  # summary_categories predates the M/L rows cog_pipeline PR #59 added) is
+  # what .require_ig_categories() exists to catch at the *verb* level,
+  # since PR #59 shipped those rows with no schema_version bump. Confirm
+  # the new runtime guard actually fires against this same `con`.
+  expect_error(
+    uscogdata:::.require_ig_categories(con),
+    class = "uscogdata_ig_categories_unsupported"
+  )
+})
+
 test_that("spending_long filters to E/F/G/K prefixes and excludes aggregates", {
  skip_if_no_corpus()
  con <- cog_open()
@@ -13,6 +13,8 @@ knitr::opts_chunk$set(eval = FALSE, collapse = TRUE, comment = "#>")

 # Why per-year population matters

+A note on units first, since every figure below is a rate: the numerator is in **full US dollars**. The raw Census files report **thousands of dollars** and the corpus keeps them that way in its own `amt` column, but `cog_spending()` and `cog_revenue()` multiply by 1000 on the way out, so `amt_per_capita_nominal` is already dollars per person. Do not scale it again.
+
 Per-capita finance numbers divide each year's spending or revenue by a population denominator. The choice of denominator is a research decision, not an implementation detail: a 24-year corpus paired with a single 5-year ACS estimate produces biased per-capita values whose magnitude scales with each government's population change.

 `uscogdata` defaults to the **Census F-33 population value Census itself uses to compute its published per-capita tables.** That value is recorded on every COG row as `population`, with `popyear` indicating the vintage. For a city that grew from 200,000 to 300,000 between 2000 and 2023, this default reproduces the per-capita value Census published. A static ACS denominator would have understated 2000 per-capita by ~33%.
@@ -0,0 +1,236 @@
+---
+title: "Total spending: Direct, Total, and when each is right"
+output: rmarkdown::html_vignette
+vignette: >
+  %\VignetteIndexEntry{Total spending: Direct, Total, and when each is right}
+  %\VignetteEngine{knitr::rmarkdown}
+  %\VignetteEncoding{UTF-8}
+---
+
+```{r setup, include = FALSE}
+knitr::opts_chunk$set(collapse = TRUE, comment = "#>")
+```
+
+# Two questions that sound the same but aren't
+
+"Total spending" means two different things depending on whether the question
+is about one government or several:
+
+1. **"What did my county spend in total, a decade ago vs today?"** — one
+   government, tracked over time. Either `direct` or `total` spending answers
+   this correctly, as long as the same concept is used for both years.
+2. **"How do all the counties in my state compare, a decade ago vs today,
+   against the neighboring state?"** — several governments, summed together.
+   Here only `direct` gives the right answer; summing `total` across
+   governments double-counts money that passes between them.
+
+`cog_spending()`'s `expenditure_concept` argument (`"direct"` or `"total"`)
+controls which of these a query answers. This vignette walks through both
+questions with code that actually runs against the package's bundled fixture
+corpus, then explains why the second question refuses `"total"` outright.
+
+Before any of the numbers below: every amount column here — `amt_nominal`,
+`amt_real`, and their `amt_per_capita_*` counterparts — is in **full US
+dollars**. The raw Census files report **thousands of dollars** and the
+corpus preserves that in its own `amt` column, but the verbs multiply by 1000
+on the way out. So `amt_nominal = 1317000` means $1.317 million, not $1.317
+billion. Do not scale it again.
+
+```{r}
+library(uscogdata)
+
+# Point at the bundled offline fixture (years 2011, 2012, 2019, 2020, all 50
+# states) so this vignette knits without network access. In real use,
+# USCOGDATA_URL is instead set to the published corpus URL -- see README.md.
+Sys.setenv(USCOGDATA_URL = paste0(
+  system.file("extdata/fixture_corpus", package = "uscogdata"), "/"
+))
+```
+
+The fixture doesn't carry 2017 or the present year, so the examples below use
+the closest years it does ship -- **2012 and 2020** -- in place of "2017 vs
+today" / "ten years ago vs today". Point `USCOGDATA_URL` at the published
+corpus and swap in real years; the mechanics are identical.
+
+# Archetype 1: one government's own trend
+
+For a single government, `total` is a legitimate way to describe "everything
+this government spent, including money it handed to other governments to
+spend on its behalf":
+
+```{r}
+al_total <- cog_spending(
+  "010000226085",                 # Alabama, the state government
+  years = c(2012, 2020),
+  category = "Highways",
+  expenditure_concept = "total"
+)
+al_total
+```
+
+The `intergovernmental` rows are what `"total"` adds on top of `"direct"`
+(`capital` + `operations`): Alabama's own payments out to counties and
+cities for highway work. Because this query only ever concerns Alabama,
+including that piece is safe -- there's no other government's number it
+could be double-counted against.
+
+`"direct"` (the default) answers the same trend question just as validly:
+
+```{r}
+al_direct <- cog_spending(
+  "010000226085", years = c(2012, 2020), category = "Highways"
+  # expenditure_concept = "direct" is the default; shown here for contrast
+)
+al_direct
+```
+
+Both are internally consistent series. What breaks the comparison is
+**switching concepts between the two years being compared** -- e.g. `direct`
+for 2012 and `total` for 2020 -- which manufactures a trend that isn't
+really there. Pick one concept for a given question and hold it fixed across
+every year in the series.
+
+# Archetype 2: a cross-government rollup
+
+`cog_geographic_rollup()` sums spending across state/county/city layers for
+a place. Its default -- and, as shown below, its *only* accepted value for
+`expenditure_concept` -- is `"direct"`:
+
+```{r}
+fl_rollup <- cog_geographic_rollup(
+  govids = list(
+    state  = "120000226351",                   # Florida
+    county = c("121011212191", "121099101897") # Broward + Palm Beach
+  ),
+  category = "Highways",
+  years = c(2012, 2020)
+)
+fl_rollup
+```
+
+For the neighboring state, the comparison is a single government, so it's a
+plain `cog_spending()` call rather than a rollup:
+
+```{r}
+ga_state <- cog_spending(
+  "130000226087", years = c(2012, 2020), category = "Highways" # Georgia
+)
+ga_state
+```
+
+Now the same rollup, but asking for `expenditure_concept = "total"`:
+
+```{r, error = TRUE}
+cog_geographic_rollup(
+  govids = list(state = "120000226351", county = "121011212191"),
+  category = "Highways",
+  years = 2020,
+  expenditure_concept = "total"
+)
+```
+
+`cog_geographic_rollup()` (and `cog_peer_compare()`, for the same reason)
+refuses `"total"` outright rather than silently returning an inflated
+number. The next section is why.
+
+# The mechanism
+
+Suppose Alabama gives a county $10M toward a highway project. That $10M
+shows up **twice** in the underlying corpus:
+
+- Once on Alabama's own record, coded `M44` ("to local governments,
+  Highways") -- Alabama's intergovernmental leg.
+- Again on the county's record, coded `E44` / `F44` ("Highways, current
+  operations" / "capital outlay") -- the county's direct spending, because
+  the county is the government that actually lets the contract and pays the
+  paving crew.
+
+`direct` (item codes `E`/`F`/`G`) only ever counts the second of those --
+the government that actually did the spending. `total` (Direct plus the
+`M`/`L` intergovernmental legs) counts the first one *as well*, which is
+exactly right for describing Alabama's own budget: Alabama's `total`
+genuinely includes the $10M it committed to highways, whether it built the
+road itself or paid the county to. But sum `total` across Alabama **and**
+the county, and that $10M is counted twice -- once as Alabama's payment out,
+once as the county's spending in -- reporting $20M of highway work for $10M
+actually spent.
+
+This is exactly the shape of query `cog_geographic_rollup()` exists to run
+(summing across layers of government), so it refuses `"total"` rather than
+silently overstating every multi-layer figure it produces.
+
+# How big is the risk in practice
+
+Intergovernmental transfers aren't evenly distributed by government type.
+Measured against the bundled fixture corpus (all 50 states, each of its
+four years -- 2011, 2012, 2019, 2020), intergovernmental spending as a
+share of a government's own Direct spending is:
+
+| Government type | Intergovernmental / Direct |
+|---|---|
+| State  | 16.7%-48.4% (varies by year; 24.0% pooled across all four) |
+| County | 3.4%-5.1% (varies by year) |
+| City   | 2.6%-3.1% (varies by year) |
+
+So the Direct/Total choice matters overwhelmingly for **state** governments
+-- a state's Total genuinely differs from its Direct by a meaningful margin,
+while for a county or city the two are close. The state range is also far
+wider than a single flat figure would suggest: legacy wide-era years (2011:
+48.4%) carry proportionally more intergovernmental spending than the modern
+era (2019-2020: 16.7%-17.0%), so a state's Direct/Total gap can be nearly
+3x larger a decade earlier than it is today. That's also why the mistake
+this vignette warns about is easy to make unnoticed at the county/city level
+and costly at the state level: rolling up every government in a state using
+`total` instead of `direct` overstates the true figure -- measured at 7.6%
+for Alabama in FY2019, and 11.6% nationally.
+
+# Why Total = Direct + M + L, not Direct + M
+
+It's tempting to assume `total` only needs to add `M`. But `M` and `L` are
+both money the queried government itself pays **out** -- they're not two
+different accounts of a receiving government's revenue. `M` is what it
+pays to other **local** governments (e.g. a county paying a city for a
+shared paving contract); `L` is what it pays **up** to its **state**
+government (e.g. a county's contribution to a state-administered program).
+A local government's Total genuinely includes both legs, because both are
+its own spending, just routed to a different kind of recipient. On the
+bundled fixture corpus (all 50 states, 2011/2012/2019/2020), `L` is 0 for
+state governments (a state has no "payments to the state government" leg of
+its own) but is 43%-51% the size of `M` for counties (varies by year) and
+144%-189% the size of `M` for cities (varies by year; 166% pooled across
+all four) -- so a `total` that omitted `L` would silently undercount Total
+specifically for local governments, and for cities `L` is often the
+*larger* of the two legs.
+`cog_spending(expenditure_concept = "total")` includes both legs (excluding
+the `L--` family-total rollup row, which would double-count its own
+components).
+
+# Composition rules
+
+- `expenditure_concept` (whose spending counts -- Direct vs Direct plus
+  intergovernmental) is **orthogonal** to `basis` (which vintage of the
+  item-code space a query resolves against -- `"harmonized"` vs `"raw"`).
+  They combine freely: `expenditure_concept = "total", basis = "raw"` is a
+  valid, meaningful query, and so is every other pairing.
+- `expenditure_concept = "total"` is **mutually exclusive** with `recipe`: a
+  recipe already defines its own component codes (some recipes have their
+  own matching intergovernmental counterpart recipe instead -- see
+  `cog_recipes()` and the "firing suggestion" notes surfaced in
+  `cog_spending()`'s provenance), so layering a second, generic `total`
+  union on top of a recipe query has no well-defined meaning. Passing both
+  together aborts with an error naming the conflict.
+- `expenditure_concept` is a **spending-only** concept: `cog_revenue()`
+  doesn't expose it (revenue's own intergovernmental codes are a different
+  axis -- see `?cog_revenue`).
+
+# Summary
+
+- Comparing one government to itself over time: `"direct"` or `"total"`
+  both work -- pick one and hold it fixed across every year compared.
+- Comparing or summing across governments -- counties within a state, a
+  state against its neighbor, cities against counties: use `"direct"`.
+  `cog_geographic_rollup()` and `cog_peer_compare()` enforce this by
+  refusing `"total"`.
+- `"total"` = Direct (`E`/`F`/`G`) + intergovernmental (`M` to local
+  governments + `L` to the state government, excluding the `L--`
+  family-total row).