Ribbons & Braids: A Combinatorial Constructor for Fermion Mass Exponents

We present a finite, auditable constructor—Ribbons and Braids—that collapses the Standard-Model (SM) mass residue at a single, universal anchor mu_star to a closed form in one integer. From a reduced Dirac word W_i we extract integers (L_i, tau_g, Delta_B) and a word-charge Z(W_i) computed from a small motif dictionary regrouping the SM anomalous-dimension insertions. At mu_star each motif contributes +1 in a phi-normalized flow, yielding

f_i(mu_star, m_i) = ln(1 + Z(W_i)/phi)/ln(phi),

with Z = 4 + Q_tilde^2 + Q_tilde^4 for quarks, Z = Q_tilde^2 + Q_tilde^4 for charged leptons (Q_tilde = 6Q is an integer), and Z = 0 for Dirac neutrinos. Equal-Z families are therefore residue-degenerate at the anchor, and when Z_i = Z_j the anchor mass ratios are exact, m_i/m_j|mu_star = phi^(r_i - r_j) with r_k = L_k + tau_g + Delta_B in Z. The build uses standard kernels only (QCD 4L, QED 2L with fixed thresholds) and ships an executable audit (CSV/CI) verifying charged-fermion equality at 10^(-6) without per-species parameters.