chore(release): complete v1.9.8 representative workflow qualification

Purpose

Turn the roadmap's 1.9.8 representative-workflow claims into executable, archive-owned evidence while preserving the frozen 1.9 public interface.

Change boundary

• Add three maintained multi-domain end-to-end workflow programs and a bundled sensor fixture.
• Add a standard-library Python contract validator/checker and regression tests.
• Publish the machine-readable workflow manifest and a human guide.
• Integrate the checker into CI and release qualification.
• Advance release identity and current documentation to 1.9.8.
• Do not change a src/*.pas interface or implementation, add a dependency, or add a public algorithm family.

Decisions

1. Express numerical expectations as named line_prefix/minimum/maximum bounds parsed from deterministic workflow output, not exact floating-point strings, so qualification is bounded rather than bit-fragile. 2. Verify determinism by running each workflow twice from an isolated work directory and byte-comparing output and exported artifacts, not by comparing against a separately maintained golden file. 3. Record host/compiler observations in generated qualification output; the manifest holds only stable, host-independent contracts. 4. Keep desirable new algorithm families out of 1.9.8; no workflow required a new public API.

Review focus

• Correctness: workflows assert results, diagnostics, and deterministic export; the checker validates every path against the manifest.
• Architecture: qualification tooling remains outside the numerical runtime; no new unit, dependency, or public symbol is introduced.
• Security: the checker reads local JSON as untrusted structured data and runs only repository-owned programs compiled locally.
• Performance: release runtime paths are unchanged; workflow programs are bounded and compile only during validation.
• Documentation: manifest, guide, changelog, README, support/releasing guidance, release notes, and roadmap agree on the 1.9.8 boundary.

Verification

python tools/test_workflow_qualification.py

python tools/check_workflow_qualification.py --compiler fpc

python tools/test_example_output.py

python tools/check_docs.py

The complete release gate is:

python tools/qualify_release.py --release 1.9.8 --compiler fpc \

  --lazbuild lazbuild