#6217: the other half of Help Desk Settings reaches the Changes log

`registerAuditedModels()` (#4781) declared four models. The Settings page
has seven tabs, and a sweep found Groups and Agents fully audited beside
Priorities, Statuses, Projects, Email connections and Automation writing
nothing at all — zero rows for any of their routes in the whole store.

`PriorityLevel`, `TicketStatus` and `TicketingProject` are now declared,
in the shape the existing four use. `color` and `description` are left
out of all three for the reason the group's colour is.

The Email tab could not be declared. Its mailbox host, port, username and
PASSWORD live in one `config` JSON column, and `Audit::redact()` masks by
top-level field name only — `normalize()` walks into an array and never
redacts inside one — so declaring `config` would write the school's
mailbox credential in clear into a table read under `logs.view` alone.
Declaring only the scalar columns is the other trap: an update that moved
no declared field records nothing, so re-pointing a connection at a
different mailbox would still have been silent, which is the write the
card was filed about. `EmailConnectionAudit` is therefore the one writer
for that tab, flattening `config` into `config.host` / `config.password`
keys — the spelling the central redaction masks — and masking the secret
at source as well, so the credential never reaches the logger at all.
`EmailConnectionAuditLabels` declares the label with no observer, the
shape `PulseAuditLabels` and `GroupAuditLabels` use, so those rows are
not doubled.

The Automation tab writes shell `Setting` rows, which no declaration here
could reach; `AutomationSettingsAudit` records one row per save naming
only what moved.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

src/Http/Controllers/TicketingSettingsController.php

@@ -12,6 +12,8 @@ use Dashboard\Ticketing\Models\TicketingAgentAccess;
 use Dashboard\Ticketing\Models\TicketingGroup;
 use Dashboard\Ticketing\Models\TicketingProject;
 use Dashboard\Ticketing\Models\TicketStatus;
+use Dashboard\Ticketing\Support\AutomationSettingsAudit;
+use Dashboard\Ticketing\Support\EmailConnectionAudit;
 use Dashboard\Ticketing\Support\MergedTicketRepair;
 use Illuminate\Http\Request;
 use Illuminate\Routing\Controller;
@@ -906,13 +908,17 @@ class TicketingSettingsController extends Controller
 
         $this->requireManagerAccess($validated['group_id']);
 
-        EmailConnection::create([
+        $connection = EmailConnection::create([
             'group_id' => $validated['group_id'],
             'type' => $validated['type'],
             'active' => $request->boolean('active', true),
             'config' => $request->input('config', []),
         ]);
 
+        // #6217 — by hand, not by declaration: the password lives in `config`
+        // and the registry would copy it into the log. See EmailConnectionAudit.
+        EmailConnectionAudit::created($connection);
+
         return back()->with('success', 'Email connection saved.');
     }
 
@@ -932,12 +938,18 @@ class TicketingSettingsController extends Controller
             'config.mailbox' => 'nullable|string|max:255',
         ]);
 
+        // #6217 — read BEFORE the save: an update's two sides have to be read
+        // the same way, and after `update()` the old config is gone.
+        $before = EmailConnectionAudit::state($connection);
+
         $connection->update([
             'type' => $request->type,
             'active' => $request->boolean('active', true),
             'config' => $this->mergedConnectionConfig($request, $connection),
         ]);
 
+        EmailConnectionAudit::updated($connection, $before);
+
         return back()->with('success', 'Email connection updated.');
     }
 
@@ -977,6 +989,11 @@ class TicketingSettingsController extends Controller
         $this->requireAgentAccess();
         $this->requireManagerAccess($connection->group_id);
         $connection->delete();
+
+        // #6217 — the confirm says the saved credentials go with it. This is
+        // the row that says they were ever there.
+        EmailConnectionAudit::deleted($connection);
+
         return back()->with('success', 'Email connection removed.');
     }
 
@@ -1069,6 +1086,9 @@ class TicketingSettingsController extends Controller
             'auto_repair_merged_on_deploy' => 'sometimes|boolean',
         ]);
 
+        // #6217 — both keys as they stand, read before anything writes.
+        $before = AutomationSettingsAudit::snapshot();
+
         Setting::set('ticketing.auto_close_days', $validated['auto_close_days']);
 
         // #938 option A is a behaviour rule, so it is a setting, and it defaults
@@ -1080,6 +1100,10 @@ class TicketingSettingsController extends Controller
             );
         }
 
+        // One row for the save, naming only what moved — a tab that re-posts
+        // both boxes every time must not record "somebody pressed Save".
+        AutomationSettingsAudit::record($before);
+
         return back()->with('success', 'Automation settings saved.');
     }
 }

src/Support/AutomationSettingsAudit.php

@@ -0,0 +1,142 @@
+<?php
+
+namespace Dashboard\Ticketing\Support;
+
+use App\Models\Setting;
+
+/**
+ * THE AUTOMATION TAB, ON THE SHELL'S CHANGES LOG — [central-ticketing] #6217.
+ *
+ * Help Desk Settings → Automation decides two behaviour rules that run with
+ * nobody watching: how many days after a ticket is resolved the nightly sweep
+ * closes it ({@see \Dashboard\Ticketing\Console\Commands\AutoCloseTickets}),
+ * and whether a DEPLOY may rewrite inconsistently-merged rows
+ * ({@see MergedTicketRepair::SETTING}). Both were saved with no trace at all:
+ * `ticketing.settings.automation.update` is not in the census of every
+ * `app=ticketing` row ever written.
+ *
+ * ── WHY THIS IS NOT `registerAuditedModels()` ───────────────────────────────
+ *
+ * The other four tabs this card is about are fixed by declaring models to
+ * `AuditRegistry`. That cannot reach here: this tab writes `App\Models\Setting`
+ * rows, which are SHELL rows and not a ticketing model — declaring a ticketing
+ * model would not pick the path up, and declaring `Setting` itself would put
+ * every platform-wide toggle in Central on the `ticketing` filter and write a
+ * row per KEY. So this half is an explicit domain event, the shape
+ * central-admissions' `SettingsAudit` (#5117) and central-absent-sms' use for
+ * the same kind of panel.
+ *
+ * Three things it exists to get right, and they are that class's three:
+ *
+ *  1. ONE ROW PER SAVE, NOT PER KEY.
+ *  2. ONLY WHAT ACTUALLY MOVED. The tab re-posts both boxes on every save, so
+ *     "somebody pressed Save" is not news.
+ *  3. THE ROW LANDS UNDER `ticketing`. `Audit::appFor()` answers `shell` for
+ *     every non-model subject, and this subject is a string — so without the
+ *     explicit override the row would exist and still be invisible to the
+ *     `App = ticketing` filter, which is the same failure in a smaller package.
+ *
+ * Guarded on `class_exists` throughout: central-logs is optional on any given
+ * host.
+ */
+final class AutomationSettingsAudit
+{
+    /**
+     * The ONE action an automation save is filed under.
+     *
+     * Not the bare `updated` the model-backed tabs use: those rows carry a
+     * subject an operator can click through to, and this one cannot — the
+     * subject is a screen, not a record — so the verb is where the row has to
+     * say what it is about.
+     */
+    public const ACTION = 'ticketing.automation.changed';
+
+    /** The app the row is filed under — see rule 3 in the class docblock. */
+    public const APP = 'ticketing';
+
+    /** The frozen subject label: what an operator would call this screen. */
+    public const SUBJECT = 'Help desk automation settings';
+
+    /**
+     * The settings this tab writes, and what a box reads as when no row exists.
+     *
+     * ABSENT IS NOT BLANK: a school that has never opened this tab is living
+     * under these defaults, and they are what `index()` renders the boxes from
+     * (`Setting::get('ticketing.auto_close_days', 0)` and
+     * `MergedTicketRepair::enabledOnDeploy()`, which defaults `'0'`). Diffing
+     * against `null` instead would call the very first Save a change from
+     * nothing to 0 — the trail's first word about the nightly sweep being a
+     * change nobody made.
+     *
+     * @var array<string,string>
+     */
+    private const DEFAULTS = [
+        'ticketing.auto_close_days' => '0',
+        MergedTicketRepair::SETTING => '0',
+    ];
+
+    /**
+     * The settings as they stand right now. Call BEFORE the writes and hand the
+     * result to {@see record()}.
+     *
+     * ONE query and not one `Setting::get()` apiece, and every key is present in
+     * the answer, so `record()` can read the key list off the snapshot and the
+     * two halves cannot drift apart.
+     *
+     * @return array<string,string>
+     */
+    public static function snapshot(): array
+    {
+        $stored = Setting::query()
+            ->whereIn('key', array_keys(self::DEFAULTS))
+            ->pluck('value', 'key')
+            ->all();
+
+        $out = [];
+        foreach (self::DEFAULTS as $key => $default) {
+            $out[$key] = (string) ($stored[$key] ?? $default);
+        }
+
+        return $out;
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Diff the snapshot against what is stored now and record one row for what
+     * moved. Call AFTER the writes, with the array `snapshot()` handed back.
+     *
+     * @param  array<string,string>  $before
+     */
+    public static function record(array $before): void
+    {
+        if ($before === [] || ! class_exists(\Central\Logs\Support\Audit::class)) {
+            return;
+        }
+
+        $after   = static::snapshot();
+        $changes = [];
+
+        foreach ($before as $key => $was) {
+            $now = $after[$key] ?? null;
+
+            // Settings are a TEXT column, so everything stored is a string and
+            // the only pair worth special-casing is "no row" against "a row
+            // holding nothing" — both read as the shipped default.
+            if ((string) ($was ?? '') === (string) ($now ?? '')) {
+                continue;
+            }
+
+            $changes[$key] = ['from' => $was, 'to' => $now];
+        }
+
+        if ($changes === []) {
+            return;   // rule 2
+        }
+
+        \Central\Logs\Support\Audit::record(
+            self::ACTION,
+            self::SUBJECT,
+            $changes,
+            ['app' => self::APP],
+        );
+    }
+}

src/Support/EmailConnectionAudit.php

@@ -0,0 +1,225 @@
+<?php
+
+namespace Dashboard\Ticketing\Support;
+
+use Dashboard\Ticketing\Models\EmailConnection;
+
+/**
+ * THE ONE WRITER OF THE EMAIL TAB'S AUDIT TRAIL — [central-ticketing] #6217.
+ *
+ * An email connection is a mailbox the help desk collects FROM: mail that
+ * arrives in it becomes a ticket on the group named beside it. So the row
+ * decides which mailbox the school's help-desk mail is pulled out of, with what
+ * credentials, and whose queue it lands in — and until this class, creating
+ * one, re-pointing one at a different mailbox or deleting one wrote NOTHING to
+ * Admin → Logs → Changes. The delete confirm even says the credentials go
+ * ("Tickets already created from it are kept; the saved credentials are not");
+ * nothing recorded that they had been there.
+ *
+ * ── WHY THIS IS NOT `registerAuditedModels()` ───────────────────────────────
+ *
+ * Its three siblings on the same Settings page — `PriorityLevel`,
+ * `TicketStatus`, `TicketingProject` — ARE declared to `AuditRegistry`, because
+ * every column worth recording on them is a column. This one is different in
+ * exactly one way, and it is the way that matters: the mailbox host, port,
+ * username and PASSWORD all live inside a single `config` JSON column
+ * (`EmailConnection::$casts = ['config' => 'array']`).
+ *
+ *   - Declaring `config` copies the PASSWORD into `audit_events.changes`.
+ *     `Audit::redact()` masks by TOP-LEVEL FIELD NAME, and `normalize()` walks
+ *     into an array without redacting inside it, so a declared `config` is a
+ *     credential written in clear to a table read under `logs.view` alone.
+ *   - Declaring only `group_id` / `type` / `active` — the scalar columns — is
+ *     silent on the write the card is actually about: the observer records
+ *     nothing when no DECLARED field moved, so re-pointing a connection at a
+ *     different host, or changing its password, would still leave no trace.
+ *
+ * So the config is FLATTENED here into `config.host`, `config.username`,
+ * `config.password`, … — which is the spelling `Audit::isSecretField()` masks,
+ * because it matches the substring `password`. {@see write()} masks it at the
+ * source as well, so the real credential is never handed to the logger at all
+ * and the central redaction is the second of two layers rather than the only
+ * one.
+ *
+ * ── THE RULES IT KEEPS, WHICH ARE THE OBSERVER'S OWN ────────────────────────
+ *
+ *  1. ONE ROW PER SAVE. A save that moves the type AND the host is one edit and
+ *     reads as one row, the way an observer-written row would.
+ *  2. NOTHING MOVED, NOTHING RECORDED. The Email tab re-posts every box it
+ *     renders, so "somebody pressed Save" is not news. A blank password box
+ *     means "keep the one you have" ({@see
+ *     \Dashboard\Ticketing\Http\Controllers\TicketingSettingsController::mergedConnectionConfig()}),
+ *     and keeping it is not a change.
+ *  3. THE VERBS ARE `created` / `updated` / `deleted`. Not a private
+ *     `ticketing.email.*` spelling: the other six tabs on this page are
+ *     observer-written under exactly these three, the Changes page's Action
+ *     filter is a SELECT DISTINCT over them, and an operator asking "what was
+ *     deleted in Help Desk today" should not have to know that one tab writes
+ *     its rows by hand.
+ *
+ * The `app` is left to `Audit::appFor()`, which answers `ticketing` from the
+ * `Dashboard\Ticketing\…` namespace of the subject. The subject is the MODEL
+ * and not a string for the same reason: a string subject files under `shell`
+ * and leaves `EmailConnection` out of the Changes log's Subject-type facet,
+ * which is the census the card read the gap off.
+ *
+ * central-logs is optional on any given host — guarded once, in {@see write()},
+ * and not at the three call sites.
+ */
+final class EmailConnectionAudit
+{
+    /**
+     * The config keys the Email tab writes, in the order the form asks for them.
+     *
+     * A fixed list and not `array_keys($config)`: the audit row should say the
+     * same thing about every connection, and an unknown key arriving in the blob
+     * is not something to copy into the log sight-unseen.
+     */
+    private const CONFIG_KEYS = ['host', 'port', 'encryption', 'username', 'password', 'mailbox'];
+
+    public static function created(EmailConnection $connection): void
+    {
+        static::write('created', $connection, static::sided(static::state($connection), 'to'));
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * @param  array<string,mixed>  $before  {@see state()}, taken BEFORE the save
+     */
+    public static function updated(EmailConnection $connection, array $before): void
+    {
+        $changes = [];
+
+        foreach (static::state($connection) as $key => $now) {
+            $was = $before[$key] ?? null;
+
+            if (static::unchanged($was, $now)) {
+                continue;
+            }
+
+            $changes[$key] = ['from' => $was, 'to' => $now];
+        }
+
+        if ($changes === []) {
+            return;   // rule 2
+        }
+
+        static::write('updated', $connection, $changes);
+    }
+
+    public static function deleted(EmailConnection $connection): void
+    {
+        // What the row HELD when it was deleted is usually the whole question
+        // being asked — the same side the observer snapshots on a delete.
+        static::write('deleted', $connection, static::sided(static::state($connection), 'from'));
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * The connection as the log describes it: the scalar columns, plus `config`
+     * flattened one level into dotted keys.
+     *
+     * Public because `updateEmailConnection()` has to take the BEFORE side
+     * itself, before the save — the two halves of an update's diff must be read
+     * the same way or they cannot be compared.
+     *
+     * `last_polled_at` is deliberately absent: it is written by the collector,
+     * not by a person, and a timestamp moving on its own is not a change
+     * anybody made.
+     *
+     * @return array<string,mixed>
+     */
+    public static function state(EmailConnection $connection): array
+    {
+        $config = is_array($connection->config) ? $connection->config : [];
+
+        $state = [
+            'group_id' => $connection->group_id === null ? null : (int) $connection->group_id,
+            'type'     => $connection->type,
+            'active'   => (bool) $connection->active,
+        ];
+
+        foreach (self::CONFIG_KEYS as $key) {
+            $value = $config[$key] ?? null;
+
+            $state['config.'.$key] = ($value === '' ? null : $value);
+        }
+
+        return $state;
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * A whole state as one-sided {from,to} pairs, for a create (`to`) or a
+     * delete (`from`). Unset fields are dropped: an empty box is noise, not
+     * information — `AuditObserver::snapshot()` drops them for the same reason.
+     *
+     * @param  array<string,mixed>  $state
+     * @return array<string, array{from:mixed,to:mixed}>
+     */
+    private static function sided(array $state, string $side): array
+    {
+        $out = [];
+
+        foreach ($state as $key => $value) {
+            if ($value === null) {
+                continue;
+            }
+
+            $out[$key] = $side === 'from'
+                ? ['from' => $value, 'to' => null]
+                : ['from' => null, 'to' => $value];
+        }
+
+        return $out;
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Did this field move?
+     *
+     * Compared as strings because the two sides come from different places — the
+     * stored JSON on one and a freshly-posted form on the other — so a port that
+     * was saved as `993` and re-posted as `"993"` is the same port, and recording
+     * it as a change would make every Save look like an edit.
+     */
+    private static function unchanged(mixed $was, mixed $now): bool
+    {
+        return static::scalar($was) === static::scalar($now);
+    }
+
+    private static function scalar(mixed $value): string
+    {
+        if (is_bool($value)) {
+            return $value ? '1' : '0';
+        }
+
+        return is_array($value) ? json_encode($value) : (string) ($value ?? '');
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Write one row, with every secret masked before it leaves this class.
+     *
+     * The mask is `Audit::isSecretField()`'s own answer, applied to the same
+     * flattened key the row will carry, so this and `Audit::redact()` cannot
+     * disagree about what a secret is. NULL is preserved on either side: "was
+     * unset, now set" is information that gives nothing away, and it is the one
+     * thing the trail can honestly say about a credential.
+     *
+     * @param  array<string, array{from:mixed,to:mixed}>  $changes
+     */
+    private static function write(string $action, EmailConnection $connection, array $changes): void
+    {
+        if (! class_exists(\Central\Logs\Support\Audit::class)) {
+            return;
+        }
+
+        foreach ($changes as $key => $pair) {
+            if (! \Central\Logs\Support\Audit::isSecretField((string) $key)) {
+                continue;
+            }
+
+            $mask = fn ($v) => ($v === null || $v === '') ? null : \Central\Logs\Support\Audit::REDACTED;
+
+            $changes[$key] = ['from' => $mask($pair['from'] ?? null), 'to' => $mask($pair['to'] ?? null)];
+        }
+
+        \Central\Logs\Support\Audit::record($action, $connection, $changes);
+    }
+}

src/Support/EmailConnectionAuditLabels.php

@@ -0,0 +1,105 @@
+<?php
+
+namespace Dashboard\Ticketing\Support;
+
+use Central\Logs\Support\AuditRegistry;
+use Closure;
+use Dashboard\Ticketing\Models\EmailConnection;
+
+/**
+ * WHAT THE CHANGES LOG CALLS AN EMAIL CONNECTION ROW — [central-ticketing] #6217.
+ *
+ * `Central\Logs\Support\Audit::subjectLabel()` asks
+ * `AuditRegistry::labelClosureFor()` for a label and falls back to
+ * `class_basename().' #'.$key` when there is none. For an email connection that
+ * fallback is `EmailConnection #2`, and the row an auditor most needs to read is
+ * the DELETE — at which point that id names nothing at all. The label is frozen
+ * into the `subject_label` COLUMN at write time, so it is also the only place
+ * the mailbox's name survives the row it described.
+ *
+ * ── WHY THIS DECLARES WITHOUT `AuditRegistry::audit()` ──────────────────────
+ *
+ * `audit()` ATTACHES `AuditObserver` as it declares, and the observer diffs
+ * DECLARED FIELDS by reading them off the model. `EmailConnection`'s mailbox
+ * host, port, username and PASSWORD all live inside one `config` JSON column
+ * (`$casts = ['config' => 'array']`), and `Audit::redact()` masks by TOP-LEVEL
+ * FIELD NAME only — `normalize()` walks into an array but never redacts inside
+ * one. So declaring `config` would copy the mailbox password verbatim into
+ * `audit_events.changes`, and declaring only the scalar columns would say
+ * nothing at all when somebody re-points the connection at a different mailbox,
+ * which is the write this card was filed about.
+ *
+ * {@see EmailConnectionAudit} is therefore the one writer of this trail — it
+ * flattens `config` into `config.host` / `config.password` / … keys, which is
+ * the spelling `Audit::isSecretField()` masks. That leaves only the label to
+ * declare, and it must be declared WITHOUT an observer or every row
+ * `EmailConnectionAudit` writes would be written a second time.
+ *
+ * Same shape and same reason as central-pulse's `PulseAuditLabels` (#5980), the
+ * shell's `App\Support\Groups\GroupAuditLabels` (#6046) and
+ * central-verification's `VerificationAuditLabels` (#5276): `AuditRegistry`
+ * holds its declarations in a `protected static` array and attaches the
+ * observer in the same call, so the only way to put a label closure in front of
+ * `Audit::subjectLabel()` without attaching anything is to subclass the registry
+ * and write the declaration directly — a subclass shares the parent's static
+ * storage, so this IS `AuditRegistry`'s own array and `labelClosureFor()` reads
+ * it back.
+ */
+final class EmailConnectionAuditLabels extends AuditRegistry
+{
+    /**
+     * Declare `EmailConnection`'s label to the Changes log.
+     *
+     * Called from `TicketingServiceProvider::registerAuditedModels()`, behind
+     * the `class_exists()` that method already keeps on the registry —
+     * central-logs is optional on any given host.
+     */
+    public static function register(): void
+    {
+        self::declareLabel(EmailConnection::class, fn (EmailConnection $connection) => static::label($connection));
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * The mailbox, then the host, then the group — the SAME order the Email tab
+     * itself names a row in (`emailConnectionLabel()` in `Settings.vue`), so the
+     * log calls a connection what the page the operator was looking at called it.
+     *
+     * `config['mailbox']` is deliberately NOT in that list: on this form it is
+     * the IMAP FOLDER and defaults to `INBOX`, so falling back to it would label
+     * every half-filled connection "INBOX".
+     *
+     * The group comes second because it is the other half of what the row
+     * decides — which desk's queue this mailbox's mail lands in.
+     */
+    private static function label(EmailConnection $connection): string
+    {
+        $config = is_array($connection->config) ? $connection->config : [];
+
+        $mailbox = (string) ($config['username'] ?? $config['host'] ?? '');
+
+        return ($mailbox !== '' ? $mailbox : 'Mailbox')
+            .' → '.($connection->group?->name ?: 'a help desk group');
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * One label closure, and no observer.
+     *
+     * `fields: []` and `sensitive: false` are stated rather than left out so the
+     * shape of the declaration is the shape `AuditRegistry::audit()` writes —
+     * `fieldsFor()`, `isSensitive()` and `all()` all read this array.
+     */
+    private static function declareLabel(string $modelClass, Closure $label): void
+    {
+        try {
+            static::$models[$modelClass] = [
+                'fields'    => [],
+                'label'     => $label,
+                'sensitive' => false,
+            ];
+        } catch (\Throwable $e) {
+            // The registry changed shape under us. Reported so it is visible,
+            // never rethrown: the cost is the id-label we have always had.
+            report($e);
+        }
+    }
+}

src/TicketingServiceProvider.php

@@ -106,11 +106,27 @@ class TicketingServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
      * the record.
      *
      * Declaring a model is the whole job. The registry attaches `AuditObserver`
-     * itself, so every create / declared-field update / delete on these four
+     * itself, so every create / declared-field update / delete on these seven
      * classes lands in the Changes tab under app `ticketing` (derived from the
      * namespace by `Audit::appForClass()`), with the actor and the subject's
      * label frozen into the row at write time.
      *
+     * ── HALF A SETTINGS PAGE IS NOT A DECISION — #6217 ───────────────────────
+     *
+     * #4781 declared four models. Help Desk Settings has SEVEN tabs, and a
+     * second sweep a fortnight later found that Groups and Agents were fully
+     * audited while Priorities, Statuses, Projects, Email connections and
+     * Automation — same page, same buttons, same super admin — wrote nothing at
+     * all. The census was flat: zero rows for `settings.priorities.*`,
+     * `settings.statuses.*`, `settings.projects.*`, `settings.email.*` and
+     * `settings.automation.update` in the whole store, and none of those models
+     * in the Changes log's Subject-type facet. QA had driven the Priorities
+     * routes on the box inside 48 hours and the log held none of it.
+     *
+     * `PriorityLevel`, `TicketStatus` and `TicketingProject` join the list
+     * below. The other two could not, and are handled in their own classes for
+     * reasons that are theirs and not an omission — see the next section.
+     *
      * ── THE FIELD LISTS ARE THE VOLUME CONTROL ───────────────────────────────
      *
      * Only declared fields are diffed and an update touching none of them
@@ -134,6 +150,32 @@ class TicketingServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
      * declared; reads, not. If ticketing ever needs "who read this ticket", that
      * is its own card and its own conversation about volume.
      *
+     * ── WHAT IS AUDITED, BUT NOT FROM HERE ───────────────────────────────────
+     *
+     * `EmailConnection` and the Automation tab are both on the record; neither
+     * can be put there by a declaration.
+     *
+     * `EmailConnection` keeps its mailbox host, port, username and PASSWORD in
+     * one `config` JSON column. The registry diffs declared fields by reading
+     * them, and `Audit::redact()` masks by TOP-LEVEL FIELD NAME only — it never
+     * redacts inside an array — so declaring `config` would write the school's
+     * mailbox password in clear into `audit_events.changes`, a table readable
+     * under `logs.view` alone. Declaring only the scalar columns is the other
+     * trap: an update that moved no DECLARED field records nothing, so
+     * re-pointing a connection at a different mailbox would still be silent,
+     * and that is the exact write #6217 was filed about.
+     * {@see Support\EmailConnectionAudit} therefore writes the three verbs by
+     * hand with `config` flattened into `config.host` / `config.password` / …
+     * keys — the spelling the central redaction masks — and
+     * {@see Support\EmailConnectionAuditLabels} declares the LABEL here with no
+     * observer, so the hand-written rows are not doubled.
+     *
+     * The Automation tab writes `App\Models\Setting` rows, which are SHELL rows
+     * and not a ticketing model at all: no declaration here could reach them,
+     * and declaring `Setting` would put every platform-wide toggle in Central
+     * on the `ticketing` filter. {@see Support\AutomationSettingsAudit} records
+     * it as one explicit domain event per save.
+     *
      * ── WHAT IS DELIBERATELY NOT DECLARED ────────────────────────────────────
      *
      * `TicketMessage`. The reporter expected a row for the reply they posted,
@@ -216,6 +258,52 @@ class TicketingServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
                 label: fn ($participant) => (\App\Models\User::find($participant->user_id)?->name ?? 'Deleted user')
                     .' on ticket '.($participant->ticket?->number ?? '#'.$participant->ticket_id),
             );
+
+            // ── THE SETTINGS CATALOGUES ([central-ticketing] #6217) ──────────
+            //
+            // The three tabs below are a shared vocabulary: every ticket in the
+            // school is filed under one of these rows, so renaming, reordering
+            // or removing one re-labels work that is already done. `color` is
+            // left out of all three for the reason the group's is — a palette
+            // tweak is not an audit event — and so is `description`, which is
+            // help text under a box rather than a fact about the desk.
+
+            // What a priority is CALLED and where it RANKS. `sort_order` is
+            // declared because it is the order the pickers and the board read:
+            // moving "Urgent" below "Low" changes what the office sees first.
+            \Central\Logs\Support\AuditRegistry::audit(
+                \Dashboard\Ticketing\Models\PriorityLevel::class,
+                fields: ['name', 'sort_order'],
+                label: fn ($priority) => 'Priority: '.($priority->name ?: '#'.$priority->getKey()),
+            );
+
+            // `slug` is declared beside `name` and never changes after creation
+            // — which is exactly why it is worth the row: `tickets.status`
+            // stores the SLUG, so the slug on a `deleted` entry is the only
+            // thing that says which tickets' status just stopped resolving to
+            // anything. `is_closed` is behaviour, not decoration: it decides
+            // whether a ticket in this status counts as finished, and the board
+            // reads it to decide which tickets are still open
+            // (`TicketController::index()`'s `$closedSlugs`).
+            \Central\Logs\Support\AuditRegistry::audit(
+                \Dashboard\Ticketing\Models\TicketStatus::class,
+                fields: ['slug', 'name', 'sort_order', 'is_closed'],
+                label: fn ($status) => 'Status: '.($status->name ?: $status->slug ?: '#'.$status->getKey()),
+            );
+
+            // A project is a folder of tickets on one desk. `group_id` is
+            // declared because it is which desk — the same fact `Ticket`
+            // declares it for.
+            \Central\Logs\Support\AuditRegistry::audit(
+                \Dashboard\Ticketing\Models\TicketingProject::class,
+                fields: ['group_id', 'name', 'status'],
+                label: fn ($project) => 'Project: '.($project->name ?: '#'.$project->getKey())
+                    .' ('.($project->group?->name ?? 'a help desk group').')',
+            );
+
+            // The LABEL only, and deliberately no observer — see the class, and
+            // the "WHAT IS AUDITED, BUT NOT FROM HERE" section above.
+            Support\EmailConnectionAuditLabels::register();
         } catch (\Throwable) {
             // Never let a declaration break boot.
         }