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gate: correct the ratchet's own rationale to match its message #49

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Merged
ualtinok merged 1 commit into from
Sep 18, 2026
+18 −7
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gate: correct the ratchet's own rationale to match its message #49

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25 changes: 18 additions & 7 deletions scripts/gate.sh
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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -255,13 +255,24 @@ stream and pass the arm without ever seeing it skip."

# A FLOOR IS A LOWER BOUND, AND LOWER BOUNDS DO NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT BEING LOWERED.
#
# A branch forked before a floor raise carries the OLD number forward in this file and
# merges green, silently reverting the raise. Nothing goes red: the count still clears
# the (now smaller) minimum, so the gate passes on both sides of the defect. Worse, the
# branch need not touch this file at all -- it inherits the value -- so the hazard is
# invisible in the diff and no marker catches it, because "the gate passes" is true
# either way. Live instance: an open PR sat on a pre-raise master carrying 578 while
# master was at 610, which would have handed back 32 tests' worth of protection.
# A floor that falls hands back protection with nothing going red: the count still clears
# the (now smaller) minimum, so the gate passes on both sides of the defect.
#
# THE MECHANISM IS NOT THE OBVIOUS ONE, and this comment asserted the obvious one until
# 2026-09-17. A branch forked before a raise does NOT carry its stale floor onto master.
# Constructed, rather than reasoned about:
#
# squash stale(610) onto master(616) -> floor 616, gate.sh not even staged
# fork-before-raise, edits the floor -> UU scripts/gate.sh, conflict marker
#
# A squash applies the DIFF, not the branch's file contents, so master's raise survives a
# branch that never touched this line; and a branch that does touch it conflicts loudly
# and cannot merge. Both paths are safe, and neither is what this guard catches.
#
# What it catches is a HUMAN RESOLVING THAT CONFLICT by keeping their own side -- which
# happened on this repo an hour before the ratchet landed, resolved by hand -- and a plain
# hand-edit downward, on a branch or on master. Both are invisible in review for the same

@cubic-dev-ai cubic-dev-ai Bot Sep 18, 2026

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P3: The comment claims the ratchet catches "a plain hand-edit downward, on a branch or on master," but the guard compares this tree's floor against the target's gate.sh (ours -lt theirs). Once a lowering is committed on the target itself (e.g., pushed directly to origin/master), ours == theirs and the comparison passes, so master-side edits are invisible to this guard. Restrict the claim to branch-side edits (the tree under test vs. a target that still carries the higher floor) so the comment doesn't promise coverage the implementation cannot provide.

Prompt for AI agents 
Check if this issue is valid — if so, understand the root cause and fix it. At scripts/gate.sh, line 274:

<comment>The comment claims the ratchet catches "a plain hand-edit downward, on a branch or on master," but the guard compares this tree's floor against the target's `gate.sh` (`ours -lt theirs`). Once a lowering is committed on the target itself (e.g., pushed directly to `origin/master`), `ours == theirs` and the comparison passes, so master-side edits are invisible to this guard. Restrict the claim to branch-side edits (the tree under test vs. a target that still carries the higher floor) so the comment doesn't promise coverage the implementation cannot provide.</comment>

<file context>
@@ -255,13 +255,24 @@ stream and pass the arm without ever seeing it skip."
+#
+# What it catches is a HUMAN RESOLVING THAT CONFLICT by keeping their own side -- which
+# happened on this repo an hour before the ratchet landed, resolved by hand -- and a plain
+# hand-edit downward, on a branch or on master. Both are invisible in review for the same
+# reason: the gate passes either way, so there is no red to notice.
 #
</file context>
Suggested change
# hand-edit downward, on a branch or on master. Both are invisible in review for the same
# hand-edit downward on a branch, while the target still carries the higher floor. Both are invisible in review for the same

# reason: the gate passes either way, so there is no red to notice.
#
# So the floor is RATCHETED: it may rise, and it may not fall below the merge target's.
# The comparison is against the TARGET's value rather than this file's own, because a
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