Approving a pending entry created with a reference (e.g. invoice
"42-144") 404'd with "Pending entry unknown not found": the list
endpoints recovered the entry id by parsing links for a libra- prefix,
but reference-bearing entries displace that link with the fused
"{reference}-{entry_id}" form, so the id surfaced as the literal
"unknown" and the approve call round-tripped it.
Make the entry-id transaction metadata the single canonical identity:
- _extract_entry_id() resolves metadata-first (libra- link parsing kept
only for pre-dfdcc44 ledger history); used by /entries/user,
/entries/pending, approve, and reject.
- Creation endpoints no longer fuse the reference with the entry id —
the user reference becomes its own sanitized link and round-trips
verbatim in API responses. Typed exp-/rcv-/inc- links stay as the
settlement-tracking handles.
- format_revenue_entry now writes entry-id metadata like its siblings
and sanitizes its reference link (was appended raw); generic
POST /entries sanitizes its reference link too.
- User-journal reference extraction skips all system link prefixes
(typed links used to leak into the reference field).
Contract documented in CLAUDE.md (Data Integrity → Entry Identity &
Links), pinned by tests/test_entry_identity_api.py and formatter
contract tests in test_unit.py.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
