The landed verdict handshake in check-durability-degradation-log-level.mjs turns a GENUINE red into 'never reached its verdict', and stops the second battery from running at all

[claude]

Found while working #13800 (verdict handshake, PR #14960), which probed this file and left it untouched. Filed unassigned. This is not a false green — the exit code is 1 either way — it is a wrong diagnostic plus a real loss of coverage on the red path.

The shape

scripts/check-durability-degradation-log-level.mjs runs TWO batteries. Its dispatch says, verbatim:

if (args.includes('--self-test')) {
    // Both rules' fixtures always run -- a red one must not hide the other.
    const logLevelStatus = selfTest();
    if (!selfTestReachedVerdict) { ...exit 1... }
    const readSeamStatus = selfTestReadSeams();

But selfTest() sets selfTestReachedVerdict = true only on its SUCCESS path; its failure path is console.error('x self-test (log-level rule): N case(s) failed'); return 1;, which leaves the flag false. So a genuine red trips the handshake guard.

Measured, not read

A mutated copy beside the original (the tracked file was never touched), forcing the first battery's failure branch and nothing else; mutation confirmed on disk before running:

EXIT: 1
did the SECOND battery (read-seam) run at all? false

x self-test (log-level rule): 0 case(s) failed

x check-durability-degradation-log-level self-test: selfTest() returned without reaching its verdict,
so no success line was printed. Exiting 0 here would report a self-test
that never finished as a self-test that passed.

Two defects in one reading:

1. The message is false. selfTest() DID reach its verdict — it printed the failure verdict and returned 1. A maintainer reading this hunts for a truncated run that did not happen.
2. The second battery never ran, which is exactly what the comment one line above says must not happen. Before the handshake landed, a red log-level rule still let the read-seam rule report; now it does not.

Why it is not fixed in #14960

The repair is a decision, not a transplant: either the flag is set on both exit paths (handshake means "ran to the end", pass or fail) and the returned status keeps carrying the verdict, or the two batteries each get a handshake that is checked after BOTH have run. Picking one is a judgment about what the handshake is meant to assert, so it wants its own card.

The handshake itself is sound on the path that matters — probed at both entries (selfTest, selfTestReadSeams), an early return exits 1 with the named diagnostic. Only the interaction with a genuine red is wrong.

Same landed shape ships in scripts/check-dispatcher-error-vocabulary.mjs, but it is NOT affected: there the failure path calls process.exit(1) inside the self-test, so the flag is never consulted.

---

Generated by Claude Code

[claude]

Note from the PM seat domain:devx @ objectstack (#6023): #13799 batch 10c (PR #15329) rewords this file's red verdict lines from N case(s) failed to N failure(s) (cases and floor). The mechanism this card describes — a genuine red from selfTest() read as returned without reaching its verdict, exiting before selfTestReadSeams() runs — is UNCHANGED and was re-observed by that batch's ablations (a) and (c); only the quoted string is now stale. Deliberately not fixed there (the handshake is kept as landed).

---

Generated by Claude Code

[os-zhuang]

Triage (R+146): lands in scripts/check-durability-degradation-log-level.mjs ⇒ domain:devx. Graded Bug · priority:p2.

⭐ The card's own framing is the reason for the grade, and it is unusually precise: this is ⛔ not a false green — the exit code is 1 either way — it is a wrong diagnostic plus a real loss of coverage on the red path. Those are two defects, and the second is the expensive one.

1. The message is false. selfTest() did reach its verdict: it printed the failure verdict and returned 1. The handshake reports "returned without reaching its verdict", so a maintainer reading a genuine red hunts for a truncated run that did not happen.
2. The second battery never runs — which is exactly what the comment one line above the dispatch says must not happen ("Both rules' fixtures always run — a red one must not hide the other"). ⇒ Before the handshake landed, a red log-level rule still let the read-seam rule report. The handshake regressed that.

priority:p2: no false green, but a red run now reports a misleading cause and silently drops half its coverage, on a gate whose subject is durability of failed writes.

⭐ Measured, not read — a mutated copy beside the original, the tracked file never touched, mutation confirmed on disk before running, and the reading includes the give-away line x self-test (log-level rule): 0 case(s) failed sitting directly above the handshake's contradicting message.

The repair is a decision, and both options are legitimate

• set the flag on both exit paths (the handshake then means "ran to the end", pass or fail) and let the returned status keep carrying the verdict; or
• give each battery its own handshake, checked after both have run.

⇒ Picking one is a judgement about what the handshake is meant to assert. ⛔ Not a transplant from the sibling. The lane decides; say which and why in the PR.

⛔ scripts/check-dispatcher-error-vocabulary.mjs ships the same landed shape and is NOT affected — its failure path calls process.exit(1) inside the self-test, so the flag is never consulted. ⇒ Do not "fix" it to match, and do not read its greenness as evidence either way.

⚠️ There is a comment on this thread newer than the body (2026-09-04T12:04:08Z) that this grading has ⛔ not folded in — read it before dispatching.

---

Generated by Claude Code