changelog.d/202.md

@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+### Added
+
+- `drills/README.md` documents the standing runner-probe venue,
+  `heavy-duty/ceremony-runner-probe` — the place runner-only facts are measured
+  on demand, ruled as option A by the operator (#202).
+
+- The runbook states that the drill disposal rule does **not** apply to it.
+  Archiving it defeats its purpose, and that is exactly how the three existing
+  drill repos each became unavailable (#202).
+
+- It records that a probe must run as an Actions job under the workflow token:
+  the same call answers 500 there and 204 under a PAT, so a probe run any other
+  way produces a confident wrong answer (#202).
+
+- Creating the repo is recorded as the operator's step, measured rather than
+  assumed: a fleet identity gets 403 on org repo creation and 201 in its own
+  namespace (#202).

drills/README.md

@@ -70,3 +70,88 @@ evidence in the one file whose job is to be evidence.
 missing or blank. A waived drill is still a record: the file says WAIVED and
 why — a maintainer's call, visible and reviewable in the release PR's diff,
 never a silent skip.
+
+# The runner-probe venue
+
+**Not a drill.** A drill rehearses the release doors on a disposable repo and
+ends. This is the opposite shape: one **standing** repo that exists so that
+runner-only facts can be measured on demand, and it is **never archived**.
+
+`heavy-duty/ceremony-runner-probe` — private, standing, reset between probes.
+Ruled by the operator as option (A) of ceremony#202 (#5631).
+
+## Why a standing repo, when drills are disposable
+
+Some facts are only true inside Actions, under the token Actions injects, and
+no local harness or PAT can reproduce them. The worked example is ceremony#192:
+
+```
+DELETE /issues/{n}/labels/{id}   ->  500   under ${{ github.token }} in a workflow
+DELETE /issues/{n}/labels/{id}   ->  204   under a maintainer PAT, same call
+```
+
+A probe that runs anywhere else passes and proves nothing. Before this venue
+existed the answer was "un-archive a drill repo", which was requested three
+times in two days across two issues and never became anything — the three
+drill repos (`ceremony-drill-0.4.1`, `-0.4.1-final`, `-191`) are all archived,
+and each was minted for one probe and then wanted again.
+
+## The disposal rule above does NOT apply here
+
+The rehearsal section says the builder archives the scratch repo and the
+operator deletes it. **That rule is for drills.** Archiving this repo defeats
+its entire purpose, and it is the failure mode the three archived drill repos
+demonstrate — each was archived correctly, by the rule, and each then had to be
+un-archived or replaced.
+
+So: never archive it, never delete it, and if you find it archived, un-archive
+it rather than minting a fourth one.
+
+## Standing it up is the operator's step
+
+Bot identities cannot create repositories in `heavy-duty`. Measured
+2026-08-05 with a fleet identity holding the `repo` scope:
+
+```
+POST /api/v1/orgs/heavy-duty/repos   ->  403  "not allowed to create repository in organization"
+POST /api/v1/user/repos              ->  201  (personal namespace only)
+```
+
+This is the same shape as the drill delete: a deliberate permission boundary,
+not a misconfiguration, and the same rule applies — do not retry it, and do not
+work around it by putting the venue in a personal namespace, where the org's
+runner and secrets do not reach. Ask the operator.
+
+## Running a probe
+
+1. Reset the repo to a clean state — the probe's own fixtures only, no
+   leftovers from the last one. A probe that inherits state is a probe whose
+   result you cannot attribute.
+2. Install whatever the probe needs: a workflow that exercises the call, and
+   `docs/CONSUMERS.md`'s caller stubs if the probe is about the reconcilers.
+3. **Run it as an Actions job under `${{ github.token }}`.** This is the whole
+   point of the venue and the one step that cannot be shortcut. A `curl` from a
+   laptop with a PAT answers a different question — see the 204/500 split
+   above — and a probe run that way is worse than no probe, because it produces
+   a confident wrong answer.
+4. Write the results **into the forge** — an issue or a comment in this repo —
+   rather than leaving them in a job log. Logs age out; ceremony#192's run 701
+   survived because the job wrote its findings into an issue it created.
+5. Record the run number and the repo in whatever issue the probe serves.
+
+## What must never happen here
+
+No probe touches `heavy-duty/ceremony`'s board. No labels, no comments, no
+runs attributable to a probe. The venue exists so that the live board does not
+have to be the test fixture.
+
+## The probes this venue owes
+
+- **ceremony#192** — that the repaired sweep actually lifts a label under the
+  workflow token, which is the half its acceptance criteria cannot get from
+  the hermetic contract tests.
+- **ceremony#205** — whether `POST /actions/workflows/{file}/dispatches`
+  works on this instance with a valid ref and inputs. Measured so far:
+  `GET /actions/workflows` 404s and the dispatch route answers 500 rather than
+  a 4xx, which is not enough to port against.
+- A 0.6.0 consumer exercise once ceremony#198 has merged.