werkator/docs/prs/2026-10-09-PR#130-repository-privacy-answer-steps.md

PR#130: Repository Privacy Answer Kept and Renewed in Steps

WARNING: This document describes only the change applied in this PR. It may already be outdated once the next PR is merged. Historic PR-documentation is not maintained along with new PRs — treat it as a snapshot, not as current documentation.

The Problem

RepositoryPrivacy.isPrivate is above the Mutation-CRAP target of 15 in the nightly mutation build of 2026-10-07 and 2026-10-09:

Method	Mutation-CRAP	Complexity	Killed / eligible
RepositoryPrivacy.isPrivate	16.40	10	9 / 15

One method decided whether the cached answer still stands, asked the forge, warned about a silent forge and stored the new answer. The tests never touched the exact moment an answer expires, and nothing checked that a silent forge is reported once and not on every retry.

Non-Goals

• No change of the behaviour: the same answers, the same expiry times, the same warning.

The Scenarios

Feature: The privacy answer of a repository

Scenario#130.01: A cached answer expires at exactly its validity

So that a repository that changed its visibility is followed within the stated time, and not one poll later or earlier.

• Given the forge answered for a repository
• When one second less than the answer's validity has passed
• Then the cached answer is returned and the forge is not asked
• When the full validity has passed
• Then the forge is asked again
• The validity is REFRESH_AFTER (15 minutes) for a confirmed answer and RETRY_UNKNOWN_AFTER (1 minute) for a guess.

Verified by

• RepositoryPrivacyUnitTest: a confirmed answer stands for exactly REFRESH_AFTER
• RepositoryPrivacyUnitTest: a guess stands for exactly RETRY_UNKNOWN_AFTER

Scenario#130.02: A forge that stops answering is reported once

So that the log names the outage without repeating it every minute while the forge stays silent.

• Given the forge answered for a repository
• When the forge stops answering and is asked three times in a row
• Then the warning "Cannot tell whether … is private" is logged once

Verified by

• RepositoryPrivacyUnitTest: a forge that stops answering is reported once

The Solution

• Answer.standsAt(now) says whether a cached answer is still valid.
• isPrivate returns the cached answer or calls ask.
• ask reads the visibility, warns when a known answer turns unknown, and stores the new answer.

Measured locally with PIT on RepositoryPrivacy:

Method	Mutation-CRAP before	after
RepositoryPrivacy.isPrivate	16.40	6.04
RepositoryPrivacy.ask	new	6.11
Answer.standsAt	new	3.00

The gate stays at 15.

Prerequisite PRs

• PR#129 — this branch is stacked on it, for the version and the release notes.

Follow-up PRs

• PR#131 splits two more methods of ConfigLoader into smaller steps, so that their scores drop below 15. ConfigLoader.renameLegacySandbox is at 15.93. ConfigLoader.checkRestartsInstance is at exactly 15.00: one more surviving mutant would put it above the gate.