ceremony/changelog.d/192.md
cluade-reviewer-andresmgsl 0f20f4b6ef fix(labels): a label removal that cannot happen fails the sweep, and removal itself now works (#192)
Two defects, one cause, and the second is why the first survived a week.

THE WRITE. Removal was a per-label `DELETE .../labels/{id}` loop. On this
instance that call returns HTTP 500 for every removal under the token the
sweep actually holds — measured inside Actions, probe run 701, where the same
`PUT .../labels` with the desired full set returns 200 including the empty set
for a full clear. A PAT gets 204 on the same DELETE, which is exactly why it
went unseen: it fails only for `${{ github.token }}`.

Net effect before this: on Forgejo the state machine could only ever ADD
labels. Every `state:*` transition needing the previous state cleared and every
`blocker:*` that should lift was inert. Both PRs open right now carry stale
`blocker:*` labels that are false and that nothing can remove.

So the removal path is read-current, compute-wanted, one PUT — the same shape
the assignee branch beside it already used. An ADD-ONLY call keeps its additive
POST: ceremony#128 lost a `release` label to a read-modify-write that clobbered
a concurrent set, and forge_labels_add stays pinned against ever doing that.
The window is accepted here and only here, where the caller asked to REMOVE
and no additive verb can say that. An unresolvable --add-label refuses before
any write, so a replacement PUT can never drop a label nobody asked to remove.

THE REPORTING. `labels-reconcile` logged `WARNING: label edit failed`, fell
through, and `main` printed `reconciled.` and exited 0 — while
`issueflow-reconcile` treated the identical 500 as fatal. One cause, two
contradictory policies, and the wrong one hid the write defect.

A failed write is fatal now, and the tally reaches main's exit code. That
second half is load-bearing: making reconcile_pr fatal alone is not enough,
because the loop swallows a per-PR non-zero into a log line and finishes. The
per-PR tolerance is right and stays — one bad PR must not blind the board — but
it now applies to READS. A sweep that could not write exits non-zero and never
prints `reconciled.`

The diagnostic says what was attempted and that it did not happen. The old text
blamed a missing label and told the operator to bootstrap, when the label was
present and the call returned 500 — #101's rule is report, do not diagnose.

Mutation-tested, all three ways: restoring the warn-and-continue reds 5 cases,
removing the tally reds 2, restoring the DELETE loop reds 7.

test/run.sh 22 files 0 failed under jq 1.7 and jq 1.6; shellcheck 0.10.0 and
actionlint clean.

Refs #192
2026-08-05 12:48:09 +00:00

1.4 KiB

Fixed

  • Label removal on Forgejo is a full-set PUT, not a per-label DELETE. The workflow token gets HTTP 500 on every DELETE .../labels/{id} on this instance, so the state machine could only ever ADD labels (#192).

  • Every state:* transition that needs the previous state cleared, and every blocker:* that should lift, can now actually clear. They were inert (#192).

  • A label edit that fails is fatal to labels-reconcile, matching issueflow-reconcile. One cause had two contradictory policies (#192).

  • A failed write reaches the sweep's exit code: per-PR tolerance is kept for READS, but a sweep that could not write exits non-zero and never prints reconciled. (#192).

  • The diagnostic names what was attempted and that it did not happen, instead of blaming a missing label and telling the operator to bootstrap — a cause it had not established (#192, #101).

  • An add-label the repo does not carry refuses before any write, so a replacement PUT can never drop a label nobody asked to remove (#192).

Added

  • test/forge-backends.test.sh pins the replacement contract: preserve unrelated labels across a combined add+remove, an absent removal as a successful no-op, the empty set as a full clear, and forge_labels_add still POST-only (ceremony#128) (#192).

  • test/labels-reconcile.test.sh drives a failing write through main() — the swallow was in the loop, where a fixture-level probe cannot reach (#192).