Option (a) with riders: the ::before slop stands for bare markers (the
Material mdc-touch-target / Android touch-delegate / iOS hit-inset lineage).
Rider 1: dense coarse stacks must keep pitch >= --touch-target (WCAG excludes
overlapped area; bare boxes still hold AA via 2.5.8 Spacing worst-case).
Rider 2: the Field labeled-row task stays open as the ADDITIVE improvement —
the row becomes the real AAA target (2.5.5 Equivalent) and the slop remains a
harmless net. Chronicle updated in changelog §37; standing in reference §37;
handoff block resolved.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>