fix(verify): make the collection floor an EQUALITY so drift cannot be silent

.verify-floor.json

@@ -4,5 +4,5 @@
  "skipped_max": 26,
  "selftest_skipped_max": 7,
  "gate_skipped_max": 2,
- "note": "Recorded by verify.py --update-floor, except the *_max ceilings, which are edited BY HAND and never re-measured. `collected` catches tests that stopped being collected; `passed` is compared against passed+skipped, so a check may move between passing and consciously-skipped but the two together may never shrink. The *_max ceilings bound the skipped side: 24/7/2 is exactly what a machine with none of this instance's local prerequisites skips (a GitHub runner: no agent CLIs, no ~/.codex/skills, no /Applications/ChatGPT.app, no populated capability ledger), measured 2026-08-21. On the owner's machine all prerequisites exist and nothing skips at all. Raising a ceiling is a deliberate act: it means agreeing that one more thing is allowed to go unchecked, so say which and why in the commit. LOWERED 26 -> 24 on 2026-08-22, reverting the raise made earlier the same day. The two kill-switch exemption tests no longer need to skip on a bare runner: their declarations moved out of the running instance's ledger and into capabilities.KNOWN_DECLARATIONS, so they assert code-derived truth and run everywhere. Moving a test back below the ceiling is the preferred way to lower it -- fix what made it machine-dependent, rather than agreeing to check less. FLOOR 345 -> 353 on 2026-08-22: 345 was measured on a branch cut before #13 (research panels/rounds/domain studies) merged, so the recorded floor sat 8 tests BELOW what main actually collects. A floor below reality is the permissive direction -- those 8 could have silently stopped being collected and still cleared the check, which is exactly the hole this file exists to close. Measure the floor on the merge result, not on the branch. Raised again on 2026-08-22 by the producer-identity-scope branch, which adds tests on top of the 353 recorded by #15; re-measured after rebasing rather than assumed. NOTE: `verify.py --update-floor` REPLACES this note with a generic one, so it must be restored by hand after every use — the ceiling rationale is the only record of which prerequisite justifies each skip. FLOOR 365 -> 366 on 2026-08-22 (heartbeat-ordering work, PR #18): exactly one new test, test_capabilities.test_no_tick_producer_runs_above_the_heartbeat_export. No ceiling moved and nothing new is skipped -- it reads source files rather than a populated ledger, so it runs on any machine. The branch recorded 354 because it was cut before #16 merged; re-measured on the MERGE RESULT per the rule above, which is exactly the mistake that put the floor 8 below reality last time. FLOOR 366 -> 368 on 2026-08-23: main collected 368 while this file recorded 366, drift left by #34 (evidence-acquisition landed, +1) and #37 (tick capability evidence, +1) whose authors each measured against a branch cut before the other merged. A floor BELOW reality is the permissive direction this file exists to close -- those two could have silently stopped being collected and still cleared the check. Measured on the merge result per the rule above: 368 passed, 0 failed, 0 skipped, 83/83 selftests, 43/43 can-fire, 5/5 gates. CEILING 24 -> 26 and FLOOR 368 -> 387 on 2026-08-23 (profiles/provenance branch, PR #42). This file CONFLICTED with #50, which raised the floor 366 -> 368 on main while this branch raised it to 387; resolved as the UNION rather than by taking a side -- #50's rationale is retained above and the count was RE-MEASURED on the new merge result instead of keeping either number. 368 (main) + 19 (this branch's net new tests) = 387; #50 corrected recorded drift rather than adding coverage, which is why 387 is unchanged from the pre-conflict measurement. Measured in a runner sandbox reproducing CI exactly (361 passed, 26 skipped, 387 collected) AND on the owner's machine (387 passed, 0 skipped, 5/5 gates). The two new skips are drift detectors against a REAL installed agent runtime, so neither can be moved below the ceiling -- the preferred way to lower one: (1) agy advertised-models cache absent, since comparing declared model ids against the catalogue agy actually advertises needs that catalogue, and a fixture would exercise the comparison while detecting no real drift; (2) vibe config absent (~/.vibe/config.toml), since active_model cannot be read to check for drift when there is no config to read. Both name their missing prerequisite, so a green run still states what it did not check. A third candidate skip was REFUSED: dispatcher's per-run agy-log assertion failed on a bare runner because adapters.advertised_models shells out to `agy models` when its disk cache is cold, and that probe landed inside a monkeypatched subprocess.run and overwrote the captured command. That is a stub leak, so it was fixed by ISOLATING the double rather than by skipping -- which makes CI run MORE. FLOOR 387 -> 391 on 2026-08-23 (improvement-log accessor, PR #59): exactly four new tests, all in test_improvement_log.py -- three read tracked files in the tree (the pointer's size and content, and that CLAUDE.md 0 step 3 and 5 name the accessor rather than a bare path) and one runs the accessor as a subprocess against a path that cannot exist. None reads a populated ledger, an agent CLI or ~/.codex, so all four RUN on a bare runner and NO ceiling moved: nothing new is skipped. Measured on the MERGE RESULT after rebasing onto origin/main af6654d, which collected 387 -- not on the branch base, per the rule above. FLOOR 391 -> 402 on 2026-08-23 (Gate python-ci configuration, the PR that adds the missing .github/workflows/autofix-versions.env): exactly 11 new tests, all in test_ci_gate_config.py, which read committed files only -- the pin file, ruff.toml, mypy.ini, pr-00-gate.yml's toggle annotations and docs/CI_LINT_BASELINE.md. NO ceiling moved. On any CHECKOUT -- CI, the owner's tree, a second instance -- all 11 run: they need no installed linter and no populated ledger. In the EXEC-MIRROR layout all 11 skip with one named reason, because orch-sync-mirror.sh copies root-level *.py only, so .github/workflows, docs/ and scripts/ are genuinely absent there (env_prereq.repo_files_absent). That lands at 11/26 on a machine that otherwise skips nothing, and CI stays at 26/26, so no ceiling needed raising. The skip gate is the presence of those DIRECTORIES, never of the pin file itself -- gating on the file would have made the test that checks for it unable to fail. Measured on the merge result, twice: the branch was rebuilt on origin/main after #42 and #59 merged, and re-measured after #61 merged and was merged in -- 393 passed + 9 skipped = 402 collected both times, so #61 added no collected tests and this floor is not sitting below reality. #61 itself left main's floor at 391, which is exactly main-without-these-11, so there is no inherited drift to correct."
+ "note": "Recorded by verify.py --update-floor, except the *_max ceilings, which are edited BY HAND and never re-measured. `collected` catches tests that stopped being collected; `passed` is compared against passed+skipped, so a check may move between passing and consciously-skipped but the two together may never shrink. The *_max ceilings bound the skipped side: 24/7/2 is exactly what a machine with none of this instance's local prerequisites skips (a GitHub runner: no agent CLIs, no ~/.codex/skills, no /Applications/ChatGPT.app, no populated capability ledger), measured 2026-08-21. On the owner's machine all prerequisites exist and nothing skips at all. Raising a ceiling is a deliberate act: it means agreeing that one more thing is allowed to go unchecked, so say which and why in the commit. LOWERED 26 -> 24 on 2026-08-22, reverting the raise made earlier the same day. The two kill-switch exemption tests no longer need to skip on a bare runner: their declarations moved out of the running instance's ledger and into capabilities.KNOWN_DECLARATIONS, so they assert code-derived truth and run everywhere. Moving a test back below the ceiling is the preferred way to lower it -- fix what made it machine-dependent, rather than agreeing to check less. FLOOR 345 -> 353 on 2026-08-22: 345 was measured on a branch cut before #13 (research panels/rounds/domain studies) merged, so the recorded floor sat 8 tests BELOW what main actually collects. A floor below reality is the permissive direction -- those 8 could have silently stopped being collected and still cleared the check, which is exactly the hole this file exists to close. Measure the floor on the merge result, not on the branch. Raised again on 2026-08-22 by the producer-identity-scope branch, which adds tests on top of the 353 recorded by #15; re-measured after rebasing rather than assumed. NOTE: `verify.py --update-floor` REPLACES this note with a generic one, so it must be restored by hand after every use \u2014 the ceiling rationale is the only record of which prerequisite justifies each skip. FLOOR 365 -> 366 on 2026-08-22 (heartbeat-ordering work, PR #18): exactly one new test, test_capabilities.test_no_tick_producer_runs_above_the_heartbeat_export. No ceiling moved and nothing new is skipped -- it reads source files rather than a populated ledger, so it runs on any machine. The branch recorded 354 because it was cut before #16 merged; re-measured on the MERGE RESULT per the rule above, which is exactly the mistake that put the floor 8 below reality last time. FLOOR 366 -> 368 on 2026-08-23: main collected 368 while this file recorded 366, drift left by #34 (evidence-acquisition landed, +1) and #37 (tick capability evidence, +1) whose authors each measured against a branch cut before the other merged. A floor BELOW reality is the permissive direction this file exists to close -- those two could have silently stopped being collected and still cleared the check. Measured on the merge result per the rule above: 368 passed, 0 failed, 0 skipped, 83/83 selftests, 43/43 can-fire, 5/5 gates. CEILING 24 -> 26 and FLOOR 368 -> 387 on 2026-08-23 (profiles/provenance branch, PR #42). This file CONFLICTED with #50, which raised the floor 366 -> 368 on main while this branch raised it to 387; resolved as the UNION rather than by taking a side -- #50's rationale is retained above and the count was RE-MEASURED on the new merge result instead of keeping either number. 368 (main) + 19 (this branch's net new tests) = 387; #50 corrected recorded drift rather than adding coverage, which is why 387 is unchanged from the pre-conflict measurement. Measured in a runner sandbox reproducing CI exactly (361 passed, 26 skipped, 387 collected) AND on the owner's machine (387 passed, 0 skipped, 5/5 gates). The two new skips are drift detectors against a REAL installed agent runtime, so neither can be moved below the ceiling -- the preferred way to lower one: (1) agy advertised-models cache absent, since comparing declared model ids against the catalogue agy actually advertises needs that catalogue, and a fixture would exercise the comparison while detecting no real drift; (2) vibe config absent (~/.vibe/config.toml), since active_model cannot be read to check for drift when there is no config to read. Both name their missing prerequisite, so a green run still states what it did not check. A third candidate skip was REFUSED: dispatcher's per-run agy-log assertion failed on a bare runner because adapters.advertised_models shells out to `agy models` when its disk cache is cold, and that probe landed inside a monkeypatched subprocess.run and overwrote the captured command. That is a stub leak, so it was fixed by ISOLATING the double rather than by skipping -- which makes CI run MORE. FLOOR 387 -> 391 on 2026-08-23 (improvement-log accessor, PR #59): exactly four new tests, all in test_improvement_log.py -- three read tracked files in the tree (the pointer's size and content, and that CLAUDE.md 0 step 3 and 5 name the accessor rather than a bare path) and one runs the accessor as a subprocess against a path that cannot exist. None reads a populated ledger, an agent CLI or ~/.codex, so all four RUN on a bare runner and NO ceiling moved: nothing new is skipped. Measured on the MERGE RESULT after rebasing onto origin/main af6654d, which collected 387 -- not on the branch base, per the rule above. FLOOR 391 -> 402 on 2026-08-23 (Gate python-ci configuration, the PR that adds the missing .github/workflows/autofix-versions.env): exactly 11 new tests, all in test_ci_gate_config.py, which read committed files only -- the pin file, ruff.toml, mypy.ini, pr-00-gate.yml's toggle annotations and docs/CI_LINT_BASELINE.md. NO ceiling moved. On any CHECKOUT -- CI, the owner's tree, a second instance -- all 11 run: they need no installed linter and no populated ledger. In the EXEC-MIRROR layout all 11 skip with one named reason, because orch-sync-mirror.sh copies root-level *.py only, so .github/workflows, docs/ and scripts/ are genuinely absent there (env_prereq.repo_files_absent). That lands at 11/26 on a machine that otherwise skips nothing, and CI stays at 26/26, so no ceiling needed raising. The skip gate is the presence of those DIRECTORIES, never of the pin file itself -- gating on the file would have made the test that checks for it unable to fail. Measured on the merge result, twice: the branch was rebuilt on origin/main after #42 and #59 merged, and re-measured after #61 merged and was merged in -- 393 passed + 9 skipped = 402 collected both times, so #61 added no collected tests and this floor is not sitting below reality. #61 itself left main's floor at 391, which is exactly main-without-these-11, so there is no inherited drift to correct. RULE CHANGE 2026-08-23: `collected` is now an EQUALITY, not a minimum. Every floor entry above this one records the number being found BELOW reality and hand-raised after the fact -- 21 low at the worst, then 8, then 1, then 2 -- because nothing ever required a test-adding PR to touch this file, so the permissive direction was silent by construction and the rule 'measure on the merge result' had to be restated three times with nothing enforcing it. verify.py now FAILS when collected exceeds the floor, printing the two integers to write. That also makes the concurrency case self-enforcing: once every test-adding branch must edit these same two lines, two concurrent branches CONFLICT IN GIT, so the second cannot merge without rebasing onto the first and re-measuring on the actual merge result. Demonstrated repeatedly on the change itself: six merges landed on main in the two hours it took to write, moving this file 368 -> 387 -> 391 -> 402, and every one would have left the floor below reality under the old one-directional rule. `passed` deliberately stays a MINIMUM on passed+skipped: only collection is machine-invariant (a skipped test is still collected), measured across machines at 391 collected on both, with pass/skip splits of 365/26 on CI against 391/0 locally. The *_max ceilings are untouched by this change and nothing new is skipped. `--update-floor` also stops REPLACING this note -- it appends -- so the warning above about restoring it by hand no longer applies; and drift does NOT block --update-floor, since a gate that forbade its own only remedy would be a deadlock (the first draft was exactly that)."
 }

CLAUDE.md

@@ -207,6 +207,20 @@ Do not create a second event log, model registry, or capability inventory.
   real pytest, reads the COUNTS rather than the exit status, enforces a collection floor so tests
   silently ceasing to run cannot look like tests passing, treats a silent zero-exit selftest as a
   failure, and runs the five capability gates. CI runs the same command on a clean machine.
+- **The collection floor is an EQUALITY, so adding tests means bumping it in the same PR.**
+  `collected` in `.verify-floor.json` must EQUAL what pytest collects: too few fails (tests
+  stopped running), and since 2026-08-23 too many fails as well. A floor BEHIND reality is
+  permissive by exactly the gap, and that direction was silent for as long as it existed — four
+  drifts (21 low at the worst, then 8, then 1, then 2) each caught only because somebody happened
+  to look, because nothing required a test-adding PR to touch the file at all. CI prints the two
+  integers to write. **If a branch merged under you, REBASE before re-measuring** — the number is
+  a property of the merge result, not of your branch. You will rarely have to remember that: once
+  every test-adding branch edits these same two lines, two concurrent branches conflict in git,
+  and the second cannot merge without rebasing onto the first. `passed` stays a MINIMUM on
+  `passed + skipped`, because only collection is machine-invariant — a skipped test is still a
+  collected one, so a bare runner and the owner's machine collect the same number while their
+  pass/skip split differs. `--update-floor` is not blocked by drift (that would be a gate
+  forbidding its own drain) and now APPENDS to the note rather than replacing it.
 - **A check whose PREREQUISITE is absent skips with the missing thing NAMED, and skipping is
   bounded.** Some checks need what only a running instance has: the populated capability ledger,
   an installed agent CLI, `~/.codex/skills`, the version-capable Codex binary. Those gates live in