Grammar of Time GT-05: Gauge as Residual Transport Defect

Gauge is what happens when a convention cannot be made globally innocent. GT-05 is a technical sector module of the Grammar of Time programme. It does not claim to derive all gauge theory, Yang-Mills dynamics, the Standard Model, charge quantization, coupling constants, confinement, Higgs structure, or anomalies. Its narrower core claim is that, in a local U(1) phase-reading regime, primitive connection can be declassified. Given local coherent portato readings related on overlaps by psi_beta = exp(i chi_alpha beta) psi_alpha, the ordinary derivative produces an inhomogeneous phase-reading term. Requiring coherent transport to transform covariantly forces the introduction of a connection A with transformation law A_beta = A_alpha + d chi_alpha beta. The curvature F = dA is then the residual object invariant under local re-readings, and the holonomy exp(i integral_gamma A) is the cycle memory of a reading that fails to close as zero. The mathematical novelty claimed here is not the U(1) gauge transformation law. The formulas are standard; the primitive status is not. The GT contribution is the primitive audit: connection enters as residual transport bookkeeping, not as an initial primitive field. Non-abelian gauge, charge, action, and anomaly readings are included only as conditional projections beyond the U(1) core theorem. This is a technical preprint, version v1.0, and has not been peer-reviewed.