The scratch-base probe found a SECOND, independent reason `review-verdict/h10` was
never posted automatically. Fixing the dropped step alone would NOT have restored the
exemptions.
`count_retargets` pages `/issues/{n}/timeline` and trusts its count only on a
validated empty page, gated on `type == "array"`. But a page past the end of that
endpoint is the JSON value `null` — measured at Gitea 1.27.1 on PR #752, four bytes —
so the real terminator read as UNREADABLE. The walk never reached a validated empty
page, `rt_ok` was never `yes` for ANY pull request, and the fence therefore withheld
EVERY exemption `success`. Renovate and docs-only PRs got no status at all: the same
user-visible outcome as the dropped step, by a completely unrelated route.
The instance is not consistent between endpoints — `/issues/{n}/comments` returns `[]`
when empty — so both shapes terminate the walk now, and the regression test is
parameterised over both. The type is read as a VALUE (`case` over `jq -r 'type'`)
rather than through `jq -e`, whose exit-status semantics already bit this workflow at
jq 1.6 (#647).
TWO REASONS THIS LOOKED DELIBERATE RATHER THAN BROKEN, both worth generalising:
* It had never run. This fence shipped in 8f6d4f443 — the same commit whose prose
comment stopped the classify step executing at all. Merging a guard and first
executing it are different events, and only the second tells you anything.
* The test double asserted the wrong shape while claiming to be measured. Its comment
read "Real shapes, measured on this instance and deliberately mirrored" and it
printed `[]` past the end, so the `array`-only gate was never exercised by the suite
either. Correcting the double and restoring the old gate turns 18 TESTS RED — every
one of them had been green for the wrong reason. A fidelity claim in a double is an
assertion and it decays like any other.
The new test asserts the POSTED STATUS, not the log: on the real probe run the log
said `Decision: state=success` and the job still posted nothing, so the decision and
the write are separate events and only the write is what a merge reads.
Also here, both found while editing this code:
* `ci.verdict-write-retarget-fence` stated this as a narrow residual ("a timeline over
the 20-page cap can never be exempted") when the behaviour was universal. Corrected
in place rather than left as a checked-looking claim that talks the next reader out
of verifying.
* The workflow cited `ci.paged-endpoint-completeness`, a key that has never existed as
a record anywhere. Repointed at the record that actually owns this walk.
Marker hardening from the probe: `RUNNER_TEMP` is `/tmp` on this runner, not a private
per-job directory, so the start marker is now keyed on the run id and attempt. The
lane starts a container per job today, which makes a fixed name fresh in practice, but
that is a property of the lane and a stale marker would make the guard PASS on a run
whose step was dropped — the exact silent pass it exists to remove.
Verification: 446 passed; M7 (revert only the type gate, keep the corrected double) →
18 red. Probe evidence in the issue.
Refs: #751
Decisions-Edit: yes
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
timothyandClaude Opus 5
40b3747434