When an interface hides data it usually pretends the data doesn’t exist: the field vanishes, the row collapses, the layout heals itself. This is a small lie, and users feel it. The record has a shape. The screen shows a different one. Something is off.
01 · SHOW THE WITHHOLDING
Redaction done as a first-class state keeps the shape and marks the absence: a field that reads withheld · legal basis: ongoing investigation instead of a field that is simply gone. The reader learns three true things (the data exists, they cannot see it, and there is a stated reason) without learning the datum itself.
Blank space says "nothing is here." Redaction tells the truth: something is here, and here is why you can’t see it.
02 · THE STATE MACHINE, AGAIN
This is the consent-state argument again: absence, withdrawal, and withholding are distinct facts, and an interface that renders them identically is misreporting. The redacted state needs its own visual grammar, quiet and consistent, never decorative.
03 · THE INVENTORY, SO FAR
The Wrenfield build holds the inventory. Each pattern below runs as working code there.
Hold the shape. A withheld field keeps its row, height, and label. The layout never heals around an absence. A healed layout repeats the small lie from the first paragraph.
Name the basis. The reason travels with the field, on the surface, not in a tooltip. A redaction without a stated basis looks identical to a bug.
Count what you withhold. The record header reads "2 of 9 fields withheld," so the reader knows the size of the hidden portion before deciding whether to request access.
Keep the state quiet. Redaction renders in the muted tone, never the warning one. Withholding means the record works as designed. Style withholding like an error and operators learn to treat honest disclosure as a fault.
One pattern failed the cut: blurring. A blurred value leaks shape and length, and invites the reader to guess the rest. Wrenfield ships no blur.
SEE THE WRENFIELD REFERENCE BUILD