diff --git a/docs/changes/unreleased/904-dev-red-anchored-workspace.md b/docs/changes/unreleased/904-dev-red-anchored-workspace.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..08fb1b71a1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/changes/unreleased/904-dev-red-anchored-workspace.md
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+---
+kind: fixed
+title: A conversation's anchor writes a whole identity, so an older snapshot cannot undo it
+pr: 904
+surface: [chat, engine]
+invalidates:
+  - "`/workspace` and the model's `workspace` tool wrote meta.json by reading it, replacing two fields and saving what came back. Since #876 deferred the opening message's stamp, that read can be of a file that does not exist yet — and the anchor then saved an identity-less meta.json, which [LoadMeta] answers with a blank Meta exactly as it answers a missing file. The anchoring was on disk in a record nothing could read. The anchor now fills the identity whole when its read came back blank."
+  - "A metadata transaction carrying a snapshot taken BEFORE an anchor then met that identity-less file, took [Agent.updateMeta]'s seeding branch and wrote the snapshot's ownership and workspace back over the anchoring: a conversation the person had pointed at a project came back project-less. #695's contract is unchanged and holds; what was wrong was the door that left a file the transaction had to rebuild."
+  - "An anchor over a conversation that ALREADY has an identity still writes exactly the two fields it owns — the workspace and the ownership — and nothing else. The totals, the name, the model and the folders another window wrote are left where they are, which is what the folder's lock is for (#695)."
+---
+
+dev went red on the push of #876 with one test in `internal/session`:
+`TestOldNamingAndSpendSnapshotsPreserveAnAnchoredWorkspace`, which is #695's law
+that an old snapshot never undoes a workspace anchored after it was taken. The
+failure is scheduling-sensitive rather than environment-sensitive — the deferred
+stamp loses on a loaded runner a race it wins on an idle laptop, and `-cpu=1`
+reproduces it every time — so what changed was not the contract but which writer
+reaches meta.json first. #876 moved WHEN the stamp lands on the disk; it did not
+change what a metadata transaction owes.
diff --git a/internal/session/anchor_workspace_test.go b/internal/session/anchor_workspace_test.go
index ad67968a22..a5176ce8f4 100644
--- a/internal/session/anchor_workspace_test.go
+++ b/internal/session/anchor_workspace_test.go
@@ -11,6 +11,90 @@ import (
 	"github.com/Agent-Field/aforge-v2/internal/exec/bare"
 )
 
+// An anchor can be the first writer of a conversation's identity now that the
+// opening-message stamp lands behind the person's path. It must write a whole
+// identity, and an older metadata transaction must preserve that anchoring.
+func TestAnchoringBeforeTheFirstStampWritesAWholeIdentity(t *testing.T) {
+	dir := filepath.Join(t.TempDir(), "0123456789abcdef")
+	place := Place{Dir: dir, Owned: true}
+	place.Workspace = place.Work()
+	if err := os.MkdirAll(place.Work(), 0o700); err != nil {
+		t.Fatal(err)
+	}
+	agent, err := newAgent(Config{
+		Workspace: place.Work(), Place: place, SessionFile: place.Transcript(), Model: "test/model",
+	}, &scriptedCompleter{})
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatal(err)
+	}
+	t.Cleanup(func() { _ = agent.Close() })
+
+	if _, err := os.Stat(place.MetaPath()); !os.IsNotExist(err) {
+		t.Fatalf("new conversation already has meta.json: %v", err)
+	}
+	stale := agent.metaSnapshot()
+	anchored, err := agent.AnchorWorkspace(t.TempDir())
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatal(err)
+	}
+	meta, err := LoadMeta(dir)
+	if err != nil || meta.ID == "" || meta.Workspace != anchored || meta.Owned {
+		raw, _ := os.ReadFile(place.MetaPath())
+		t.Fatalf("first anchor wrote an unreadable identity: %+v %v\n%s", meta, err, raw)
+	}
+
+	agent.updateMeta(dir, stale, func(meta *Meta) { meta.Title = "parser migration failures" })
+	agent.writeSpendSnapshot(dir, stale, .5, 270)
+	meta, err = LoadMeta(dir)
+	if err != nil || meta.Owned || meta.Workspace != anchored || meta.Title != "parser migration failures" || meta.Tokens != 270 {
+		t.Fatalf("old snapshot undid first-write anchoring: %+v %v", meta, err)
+	}
+}
+
+// And an anchor over a conversation that already has one owns its two fields and
+// no others: the totals and the model another writer put there are still there
+// afterwards, which is the whole point of the folder's lock (#695).
+func TestAnchoringOverAWrittenIdentityKeepsTheFieldsItDoesNotOwn(t *testing.T) {
+	dir := filepath.Join(t.TempDir(), "0123456789abcdef")
+	place := Place{Dir: dir, Owned: true}
+	place.Workspace = place.Work()
+	if err := os.MkdirAll(place.Work(), 0o700); err != nil {
+		t.Fatal(err)
+	}
+	agent, err := newAgent(Config{
+		Workspace: place.Work(), Place: place, SessionFile: place.Transcript(), Model: "test/model",
+	}, &scriptedCompleter{})
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatal(err)
+	}
+	t.Cleanup(func() { _ = agent.Close() })
+	agent.mu.Lock()
+	agent.stampUserLocked("diagnose parser migration failures")
+	agent.mu.Unlock()
+	agent.SettleWrites()
+
+	written, err := LoadMeta(dir)
+	if err != nil || written.ID == "" {
+		t.Fatalf("the stamp left no identity to anchor over: %+v %v", written, err)
+	}
+	written.Model, written.SpentUSD, written.Tokens = "other/model", .5, 270
+	if err := SaveMeta(dir, written); err != nil {
+		t.Fatal(err)
+	}
+
+	anchored, err := agent.AnchorWorkspace(t.TempDir())
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatal(err)
+	}
+	meta, err := LoadMeta(dir)
+	if err != nil || meta.Workspace != anchored || meta.Owned {
+		t.Fatalf("the anchor did not land: %+v %v", meta, err)
+	}
+	if meta.Model != "other/model" || meta.Tokens != 270 || meta.SpentUSD != .5 {
+		t.Fatalf("the anchor wrote over a field it does not own: %+v", meta)
+	}
+}
+
 func TestAnchoringAnOwnedSessionPersistsAndReloadsProjectInstructions(t *testing.T) {
 	repo := newTestRepo(t)
 	if err := os.Mkdir(filepath.Join(repo, "subdir"), 0o755); err != nil {
diff --git a/internal/session/tools_anchor_workspace.go b/internal/session/tools_anchor_workspace.go
index 446c8b3202..be9778b8a2 100644
--- a/internal/session/tools_anchor_workspace.go
+++ b/internal/session/tools_anchor_workspace.go
@@ -111,6 +111,19 @@ func (a *Agent) anchorMetaLocked(dir, workspace string) error {
 		if err != nil {
 			return fmt.Errorf("read conversation place: %w", err)
 		}
+		// AN ANCHOR CAN BE THE FIRST WRITER OF THIS FILE, now that the opening
+		// message's stamp is owed behind the person's path rather than written on
+		// it (placemeta.go's [Agent.metaStamp]). [LoadMeta] answers an identity-less
+		// meta.json with a blank Meta exactly as it answers a missing one, so an
+		// anchor that saved back what it had just read would leave the anchoring in
+		// a file nothing can read — and the next transaction carrying a snapshot
+		// taken before the anchor would seed ownership and workspace out of that
+		// snapshot and undo it. A blank read is therefore filled whole here. A file
+		// that already holds an identity is left alone: this transaction owns two
+		// fields, and every other one belongs to whoever wrote it.
+		if strings.TrimSpace(meta.ID) == "" {
+			meta = a.fillMetaLocked(meta)
+		}
 		meta.Workspace, meta.Owned = workspace, false
 		if err := SaveMeta(dir, meta); err != nil {
 			return fmt.Errorf("save conversation place: %w", err)