Read a Markdown Code Span as Quoted Data and Pass a Semicolon Inside One Token - #4136

Summary

• The prose gate's charset and charset-unknown rules now read a Markdown inline code span as quoted data, the way they already read a fenced block. This applies the maintainer's recorded answer on Let the Prose Gate's Charset Rules Admit a String Quoted Verbatim From an External Source #4058, the first direction, with no new tier or marker. A string quoted verbatim from another source keeps its bytes inside the sentence it sits in.
• Code spans are paired as Markdown pairs them, through a new spanless unit built from markdown-it-py's inline tokens with the existing span-aware MARKDOWN_SPAN pattern. So a span wrapped across a line break, a double-backtick span, and an escaped backtick are each read correctly. Code-file lines, Markdown front matter, and HTML block lines are read whole.
• The semicolon, dash, dupword, spelling, and sentence-split rules read a codeless unit, paired the same way, instead of pairing backticks one line at a time, which hid the prose after a wrapped span. On front matter and HTML block lines, which no inline token holds, that unit still empties a span one line at a time. strip_inline_code now delegates to the same blank_code_spans primitive, and a span empties to its backticks so a label holding one still counts it as one word.
• The semicolon rule no longer reports a semicolon with a word character on both sides, such as the one inside TL;DR. An HTML entity's closing semicolon is still reported.
• The comment-and-doc-style skill's "Character set" section, scripts/README.md, and the gate's semicolon summary in prose-gate.json state both exceptions. The generated skill copies are regenerated with scripts/build_dist.py.

Tests

New cases in tests/test_prose_lint.py each failed against the gate before the change that fixes it:

• an unclassified character, a tier-2 operator with no figure beside it, and a tier-1 dash each pass inside a code span and inside a fence, and still flag outside one
• a wrapped span, a double-backtick span, and an escaped backtick hide only the span's own text
• a code span in a table cell is emptied within its cell, a row is emptied once so text between two spans is read, and front matter, an HTML block, and a shell comment are read whole by charset
• front matter and an HTML block still hide a span from the semicolon and dash rules, and a span in a three-word label keeps the labeled pair's exemption
• dupword, spelling, and sentence-split read the text after a wrapped, double-backtick, or escaped span, and a span wrapped inside a blockquote keeps its quote marker
• TL;DR passes, an HTML entity's semicolon and a spaced splice still flag, and a wrapped span hides no semicolon or dash after it

Pre-existing findings, filed

• pre-existing: .github/actions/prose-gate/prose_lint.py mask_code_and_quotes and rule_dead_path still pair code spans without the span-aware pattern, filed as Pair Code Spans as Markdown Does in sentence-length and dead-path #4135.

Declined findings

• introduced: sentence-split no longer reports a line whose next line opens inside a code span wrapped across the break. The rule judges whether the next prose line opens in lowercase, and a span's text is code rather than prose. On develop a span opening its line was already read as backticks and never as lowercase, so the old report came only from the unpaired closer. test_a_wrapped_code_span_continues_no_prose_line pins the behavior.

• pre-existing: the charset-unknown summary in prose-gate.json, OPERATIONS.md "Local Verification", and the charset-unknown paragraph of scripts/README.md name a Latin letter as the only unreported character in no tier. Each describes the characters the rule reads, and a fenced block was already outside that read without being named there, so the code span joins an exclusion those statements never enumerated.

Closes on promotion: #4058, #3954

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