changelog.d/200.md

@@ -17,8 +17,12 @@
   wrong three times in one sync — untracked files, a pinned linter, and a
   pinned `jq` whose empty-input exit code differs (#200).
 
-- It says to test the merge RESULT when other PRs are open: Forgejo tests
-  heads, so two green branches can produce a red tree (#200).
+- It says every branch open across a sync is stale afterwards — Forgejo never
+  re-tests an open PR when main moves, so a prior approval is evidence about a
+  tree that no longer exists (#200).
+
+- It says to audit post-merge runs by executed steps rather than colour, and to
+  inventory what the sync changed about workflow triggers and jobs first (#200).
 
 - `.upstream-ref` records the upstream commit this tree carries, in
   machine-readable form beside the CHANGELOG's prose (#200).

docs/UPSTREAM-SYNC.md

@@ -158,20 +158,58 @@ bash actions/changelog-armed/changelog-armed.sh
 
 and run the suite once under the runner's `jq` as well as your own.
 
-**And check the merge result, not just the head.** Forgejo tests branch heads;
-it never tests what two branches produce together. Two PRs can each be green
-and their merge red — that happened in this sync, because a rule the sync
-*introduces* (#262's terminal citation) was not met by a fragment written
-against the base that lacks it. If other PRs are open, merge them together
-locally and run the suite on the result.
+### Every branch that was open during the sync is now stale
 
-### 8. After it merges
+Forgejo tests branch heads; it never tests what two branches produce together,
+and it never re-tests an open PR when `main` moves under it. So after a sync
+lands, **every PR that was open across it is green against a tree that no
+longer exists** — its run did not contain the test files and rules the sync
+introduced.
+
+Both halves of that bit in this sync:
+
+- `#206` and `#207` were cut from the pre-sync base. Their green suites had 22
+  test files; the merged tree has 28.
+- `#206`'s changelog fragment was individually green and made the **combined**
+  tree red, because the terminal-citation rule (#262) arrives *with* the sync
+  and the fragment was written against a base without it.
+
+So, for each PR still open:
+
+```sh
+git merge origin/main            # in the branch — do not rewrite its commits
+CEREMONY_REQUIRE_NPM=1 CEREMONY_REQUIRE_YQ=1 bash test/run.sh
+```
+
+or, if you are only checking rather than updating, merge them into a scratch
+worktree together and run the full current suite and static guards there. A
+prior approval is evidence about the tree it was given on; after a sync it is
+not evidence about the tree the operator would merge.
+
+### 8. After it merges — audit by executed steps, never by colour
 
 The sync issue uses `Refs`, not `Closes`, and stays open until a real sweep on
-the merged `main` is linked to it. A green workflow run is not that evidence by
-itself: verify the run actually **reconciled** something. In this sync the
-first post-merge run was green and had done nothing at all, because upstream's
-restructure moved reconcile behind a dispatch this forge cannot perform.
+the merged `main` is linked to it.
+
+**A green run is not that evidence.** In this sync the first post-merge run was
+green and had reconciled *nothing*: upstream's #209 restructure moved reconcile
+out of the labels caller and behind a dispatch this forge cannot perform, so
+the only job that ran was the refusal. Green, correct, and proof of the
+refusal path only.
+
+So before citing any run:
+
+1. **Inventory what the sync changed about workflow triggers and jobs** — which
+   jobs exist now, which events fire them, and which of those this forge can
+   actually serve. A restructure upstream can move work between workflows
+   without touching a line of the code that does it.
+2. **Read the run's executed steps**, not its status. Name the job that did the
+   thing, and quote the line that shows it did.
+3. A green *skipped-or-refusing* path is valid evidence **for that path**, and
+   never evidence that the work happened.
+
+Neither of these is caught by the no-runtime-`gh` scan in step 4: in this sync
+both failures occurred with that guard green and CI green.
 
 ## Where the forge delta lives