docs: record the CI episode — three instrument defects, and the two-homes rule (R-260)
gates / gates (push) Failing after 13m54s

The gate's third instrument defect and the reusable lesson underneath it: a gate needing a sibling
clone passes on a workstation and is INCONCLUSIVE in CI, and a gate must not shell out to a tool the
CI image may not have. Three red runs (260-262), each of which mailed the operator, before 263 went
green. CONTEXT S-38 gains the two-homes rule.
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@@ -41,6 +41,15 @@ Campaign 12 tried it.
section keys are decoded by `hostHalfShape` / `appHalfShape`, and those are allow-lists that
already silently swallowed `offsite_restic` for months (R-122). The sections are checked.
5. **A NEW GATE MUST BE CHECKED IN BOTH AUTOMATED HOMES.** The pre-push hook runs on a workstation
where every sibling repo is a real clone; CI checks out ONE repo, shallow. A gate needing a
sibling therefore passes locally and exits 2 INCONCLUSIVE in CI — measured here, three red runs
before it was right. Give the gate what it needs in `.gitea/workflows/gates.yml`; **never let it
skip when a sibling is absent**, which is the fail-open shape and leaves it running in neither
home (R-29). And **a gate must not shell out to a tool the CI image may not have**: this one used
`grep --include`, which the runner's grep does not support, and read the empty output as a
finding — convicting all 174 tags. Pure-Python searching now.
**Scenario F's choice, and why (the same ruling's second half).** When the receiving side gains a
field, the absence of that field from an older emitter must not read as a value. `operator_key_configured`
decodes as a **pointer**: nil means the agent never said, and is reported **distinctly** from a
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@@ -76,12 +76,36 @@ turned out blind to one of the three shapes it was written for:
`--selftest` plants an unreachable tag on a real root in a throwaway copy and asserts conviction:
**exit 1, planted tag named**; unplanted tree **exit 0**.
**Two instrument defects the CONTROL caught before the gate was trusted:**
**THREE instrument defects this gate's own controls caught before it was trusted.** None was found
by review; each was found by making the gate prove something.
1. **A substring false negative**`grep -F healed_at` also matched `privsep_healed_at`. R-260 named
`healed_at`, so its absence from the output was the tell. Now a whole-token regex; 40 not 39.
`healed_at`, so its absence from the output was the tell. Whole-token now; 40, not 39.
2. **`dr_recipe` is not wholly opaque** — its top-level section keys ARE decoded, through allow-lists
that already swallowed `offsite_restic` for months (R-122). Now opaque only **below depth 1**.
3. **The search shelled out to `grep` and read its failure as a finding.** CI convicted **all 174**
checked tags while the pre-push hook was green. The CI runner's image carries python3 and git and
deliberately little else, and its `grep` does not support `--include`, so stdout was empty and
empty was read as "absent". **A gate that silently turns a tool failure into a finding is worse
than no gate**, and its green would have been as untrustworthy as its red. Removed the dependency
rather than working around it: the search is pure Python now, one token index per receiving repo.
**The BEFORE capture was RE-VERIFIED, not re-generated** — the stronger claim. All 40 recorded fields
were re-tested against the new implementation: **agree=40, disagree=0**, i.e. exactly the four this
session fixed are now present and the other 36 still absent. The number stands under both
implementations.
**And the reusable half, which is about the gates and not about this gate.** The pre-push hook runs on
a workstation where every sibling repo is a real clone; CI checks out one repo, shallow. **A gate
that needs a sibling passes locally and is INCONCLUSIVE in CI — the two automated homes are not
interchangeable, and a new gate must be checked in BOTH.** The workflow's own alarm mail says a
hook-versus-CI disagreement "outranks whatever the push was for"; it did. Fixed by fetching the agent
clone in CI (`.gitea/workflows/gates.yml`), never by letting the gate skip when a sibling is absent —
that is the fail-open shape and would leave it running in neither home (R-29).
**Cost, stated plainly:** three CI runs went red (260, 261, 262) and each sent the operator an alarm
mail before run **263** went green. The alarm working is the system behaving correctly; the noise was
mine.
## 6. What `oobDegraded` says when it fails