Physics by Constraint: From Consistency Conditions to Physical Claims

Physics by Constraint: From Consistency Conditions to Physical Claims is a source-bound comparative study of how theoretical-physics programmes use consistency conditions and how bounded formal outputs connect to physical claims. "Physics by constraint" is descriptive vocabulary, not a new classifier or a claim that a scientific field exists. A frozen documentary codebook and a bounded full-source audit of nine units yield 21 fits, one failure, and no unresolved units across 22 coded units. All four established antecedent comparators and the ordinary state-solving control fit the four-part architecture, so it does not distinguish the selected recent core set from those comparators or that control. Eight purposively selected claim-provenance analyses identify ten bridge components across seven chains. QICT-01 requires no bridge within its bounded scope; SBT-02 excludes a proposed component and supports a negative conclusion. The contribution is a version-bound, source-located method for recovering the placement, provenance, documentary status, support type, necessity, and role of particular commitments. The chains were selected for contrast, not drawn from an enumerated candidate pool. The study establishes neither programme validity nor frequency, distribution, or prevalence. It is substantially AI-assisted; the manuscript discloses the workflow, its limitations, and the author's relationship to the Six Birds programme. Third-party source documents are not redistributed.