werkator/docs/prs/2026-10-14-PR#159-gate-status-misreported.md

PR#159: A Misreported Build Status Waits for the Human

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 It may already be outdated once the next PR is merged.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.

Related Links

• werkrevisor PR#106: werkrevisor did not see a weakened gate, Codex did.
• werkrevisor PR#107: the category gate_weakened of werkrevisor.

Problem

The commit statuses of Werkator are required checks of all werk repositories. A change that reports a failed or unfinished build as a success lets PRs merge without their checks. A change that lets a pull-request target build take its settings from the PR lets the PR choose its own checks. werkrevisor rated neither as risky in a measurement: weakens_checks and security stayed at 0.07 or less for a timed-out build reported as success.

Non-Goals

• No change of the code of Werkator.
• No ORANGE: two misreported statuses are too few to calibrate orange_min.

Solution

• .werkrevisor.toml: a risk category status_misreported of its own, for main code, action = "yellow", yellow_min = 0.6.
• .werkrevisor.toml: **/BuildSettingsSource* is a hard path: it decides whether a pull-request target build takes its settings from the primary checkout or from the PR; like the other hard paths, it also matches the tests of the class.
• Werkbaum: the node of the Codex review below #process gets the two rules.
• Version v1.42.3, internal.

Measurement

On 2026-10-14 Jev judged each changed main-code file of two kinds of changes: the 22 merged PRs #136 to #157, which need no human, and three weakenings of the gate that were made for the measurement only. Each value is the probability that Jev gave to one question.

The questions:

• weakens_checks and security: the questions that werkrevisor asks today.
• gate_weakened: the category of werkrevisor PR#107.
• status_misreported: the new category of this PR.
• pr_decides_checks: a candidate for the trust boundary, not used.

Change	weakens_checks	security	gate_weakened	status_misreported	pr_decides_checks
an interrupted build reports success	0.05	0.02	0.35	0.85	0.04
a timed-out build reports success	0.07	0.02	0.46	0.75	0.04
a pull-request target build takes the settings of the PR	0.50	0.04	0.15	0.14	0.39
the highest value of the 22 merged PRs	0.50	0.52	0.17	0.25	0.25

The results:

• Only status_misreported finds the two misreported statuses: 0.75 and 0.85, against at most 0.25 for the merged PRs. The threshold 0.6 lies between 0.25 and 0.75.
• No question finds the settings taken from the PR. The diff is one line, and Jev does not see what target means there. The file is small and is the trust boundary of pull-request target builds, so it becomes a hard path.
• The measurement cost less than 0.01 USD.

Open Questions

None.