fix(codec): the waveform body is a record chain, not a tag stream

Supersedes the segment-header model entirely, including the fixes made
earlier today.  Found via multi-agent structural analysis of the 25 files
that stalled the walker, then verified independently.

Records are self-delimiting: off+2 is a uint16 BE length, next_record =
off + 2 + len, and the chain ends on a record whose chan_id is 0x06.
off+8 carries a 3-valued mode enum:
  02 00  14-byte header, 2 anchors, then CUMULATIVE delta blocks
  01 00  10-byte header, no anchors, blocks are ABSOLUTE values
  00 03  10-byte header, NO TAGS AT ALL - raw 12-bit packed absolute

`40 NN` is an ordinary int16 BE data block (2*NN + 2), never a header.
Reading it as a 2*NN + 16 header is what made walks drift — the
"variable-prefix segment descriptors" reported earlier today were not a
format feature, just walker drift of exactly
4 - (old_stop - true_record_start), on all 25 affected files.

Measured on the production snapshot:
  all four channels equal length   156/1388 -> 1388/1388
  ASCII sample-count exact           72/75  ->   75/75
  ASCII fully exact                  70/75  ->   73/75
  device PPV waveform (live)       1288/1306 -> 1306/1306  (mean err 0.00000)
  device PPV histogram (live)      4434/4459 -> 4458/4459

Also eliminates the walker-over-read class: 24 of those 35 files were
histograms that read_blastware_file fed to the waveform codec first; the
old walker accepted them and returned garbage (one yielded 98,923
"intervals"), while the record-chain decoder returns None so they fall
through to histogram_codec.

00 03 records are DECODED, not skipped.  Skipping them silently shifts
the time base of everything after them on that channel — BE9558/
K558LOF2.820W had MicL displaced by exactly 512 samples with nothing
marking the gap.

Footer detection now prefers the 0e 08 candidate whose body yields a
chain terminating on 0x06; the signature can occur inside a sample
stream.  Blast radius 1 file of 1388.

The superseded model survives as decode_waveform_legacy, pinned by
micromate/idf_file.py: its Thor IDFW body-offset search trial-decodes
candidates and keeps whichever yields the most samples, so the new
decoder returning None where the old returned garbage changes that
heuristic's winner.  Deferred until that search uses the record chain.

Tests: 253 passed (+11), failure list unchanged from baseline.  The 9
tests pinning the superseded model are retargeted at
decode_waveform_legacy, which still implements it.

NOTE: stored .h5 files need regenerating — nearly all get longer.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01HgTe8CamXAHcAmaQ6QNcog

micromate/idf_file.py

@@ -47,7 +47,19 @@ from dataclasses import dataclass
 from pathlib import Path
 from typing import Optional, Union
 
-from minimateplus.waveform_codec import decode_waveform_v2
+# Thor IDFW bodies are pinned to the SUPERSEDED tag-dispatch decoder.
+#
+# _find_waveform_body_offset() trial-decodes every candidate offset and keeps
+# whichever yields the most samples.  The series-3 record-chain decoder
+# correctly returns None where the legacy walker returned garbage, which
+# changes that heuristic's winner on 33 of 577 files.  The net effect measured
+# 2026-08-25 was positive (all-channels-equal 8/577 -> 506/577, mean abs PPV
+# error 0.228 -> 0.173 in/s) but Thor has no ASCII ground truth in the corpus
+# and its geo scaling is separately suspect, so the switch is deferred until
+# the body-offset search is reworked to use the record chain directly.
+from minimateplus.waveform_codec import (
+    decode_waveform_legacy as decode_waveform_v2,
+)
 
 from .models import IdfEvent, IdfPeaks, IdfReport