# Stage 5b — post-run policy drift on sleep-trial slots

**Authored:** 2026-05-11 after PM verdict APPROVED, before commit to main.
**Status:** Bundle ships as-is; this note supersedes two slots within it.

## The drift

The Stage 5b brief listed `"100-night sleep trial"` as `status: unverified` in the claims manifest, so copy-writer correctly rendered two `{{ claim-needed: 100-night sleep trial }}` placeholders per the v1.4 shipping rule:

1. `design/copy.html` — `sleep-trial-and-warranty.trial-copy` slot in the trust strip / trial pill.
2. `design/copy.html` — FAQ accordion Q (paraphrased: "Is there a sleep trial?").

These appear visually in `prototype/index.html` as orange-highlighted `{{ claim-needed: 100-night sleep trial }}` markers.

Immediately after the run completed, the brand owner clarified that Huxberry **does not and will not offer a sleep trial** on any product. The cultural / logistical / unit-economics reality of the Middle East market makes try-then-return CRO mechanics non-viable. This is an affirmative no, not unverified-pending-policy.

The policy is now codified in `stores/huxberry.yaml.forbidden_claim_patterns.storewide.sleep_trial_claims` (12 forbidden patterns, `drop_slot_rather_than_placeholder: true`). Future runs will not produce these slots at all.

## What the Liquid Implementation Crew must do

When implementing this bundle into the Huxberry theme, the trial slots are **dropped, not implemented**:

- **Trust strip pill:** remove the trial pill row entirely from the EXTENDed `snippets/product-trust-stack.liquid` for NHC PDPs. The trust strip ships with Delivery / Warranty / Free shipping etc. but no Trial.
- **FAQ accordion:** drop the "Is there a sleep trial?" Q + A from the FAQ section. The FAQ ships with one fewer entry than the wireframe specifies.
- **`design/schema.jsonld`:** already clean — the placeholder was correctly suppressed from JSON-LD by the v1.4 mechanical rule. No JSON-LD edit needed.
- **`prototype/index.html`:** treat the two visible `{{ claim-needed: 100-night sleep trial }}` markers as design-time discussion artifacts, not implementation specs.

## What ships unchanged

Every other warning in `handoff/liquid-implementation.html` carries forward as-is, including the **10-year warranty** placeholder (`status: partial`, distinct from the trial — the warranty may ship once Huxberry's warranty terms doc is attached to the brief; the trial never ships).

## Why we didn't re-run

A re-run (Stage 5c) to regenerate the bundle without these two slots would cost ~$25 and ~2h for a ~30-line change to two artifacts. Net policy outcome is identical: this note + the new `forbidden_claim_patterns.storewide.sleep_trial_claims` block ensure (a) the implementation crew strips the slots and (b) every future run is mechanically clean.

If you want a clean re-run anyway, re-author `briefs/stage-5b-natural-harmony-pdp.yaml` with the sleep-trial claim entry removed entirely and dispatch as Stage 5c.