The issue is with automaton; you're trying to use a macro (mkrule) like a function with map1. Did you turn mkrule into [mkrule _] because you got this error?
Can't coerce #(tagged mac #<procedure: mkrule>) fn
Simply using square brackets isn't going to fix that.
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In general, creating macro helpers for macros is harder to debug. Instead create function helpers to create the right code as a list and invoke it within the top-level macro to turn it into code. Here mkrule should probably be a function.
(This is what people usually mean when they say *don't overuse macros". And then the dictum gradually gets over-generalized into "macros bad" and finally, "lisp? blub blub.")
