README.md

@@ -562,7 +562,7 @@ change here reaches all of them at once. That is what the gate is for.
 | suite | covers |
 |---|---|
 | `cache-root-selftest.sh` | that a lineage nests one level and nothing else moves: no lineage resolves byte-for-byte to the cache root, two lineages on one cache key get disjoint target dirs, seed/publish/prune all stay inside their own lineage, a PR layers over its own lineage's base snapshot — **and one rejection per lineage name a reader elsewhere would stop seeing**, plus the publish-side mismatch guard |
-| `hardlink-clone-selftest.sh` | that a build in a clone cannot mutate its source — with a control proving a raw `cp -al` does. Needs a real compiler, **and a nightly that actually resolves freshness by content for its last scenario**: the source's-next-build check reasons about content rather than mtime, so under mtime freshness it would assert a bug. Whether the toolchain does is settled by experiment on a throwaway crate, not by asking it — 1.100.0-nightly accepts `-Z checksum-freshness` and rebuilds on mtime anyway. Otherwise the scenario is skipped, loudly. The control also reports which mutation families the running Cargo exhibits — a note, not an assertion, since that set moves upstream. |
+| `hardlink-clone-selftest.sh` | that a build in a clone cannot mutate its source — with a control proving a raw `cp -al` does. Needs a real compiler, **and a nightly that actually resolves freshness by content for its last scenario**: the source's-next-build check reasons about content rather than mtime, so under mtime freshness it would assert a bug. Whether the toolchain does is settled by experiment on a throwaway crate, not by asking it — 1.100.0-nightly accepts `-Z checksum-freshness` and rebuilds on mtime anyway. The experiment reports **three** outcomes, not two: active, measured-inactive, and *not measured* when a probe build failed. The scenario is skipped for the last two alike, but a failure to measure is never reported as a measurement. The control also reports which mutation families the running Cargo exhibits — a note, not an assertion, since that set moves upstream. |
 | `seed-target-dir-selftest.sh` | seed-source preference, lock-file stripping, two jobs racing on one cache key, **and one scenario per check a hardlink clone is validated against**: a source rotated wholesale, a subtree silently lost from the walk, a copy that reports failure over a tree both other checks read as whole, and a source identity that resolved at neither end — plus a staging tree that could not be privately owned being discarded rather than published, and the publisher's log showing it waited on the consumer's own reader-lock marker before reclaiming a rotated snapshot |
 | `publish-snapshot-selftest.sh` | the atomic swap, that a live consumer survives a republish, and the publisher's side of the rotation race: deferred reclamation under a live reader, and its sweep once the reader is gone |
 | `prune-cache-selftest.sh` | liveness, protection, locking, eviction order, self-clear, **and that a cache a job claims *inside* the check-to-unlink window survives it** — against a real scratch `origin` |

scripts/hardlink-clone-selftest.sh

@@ -110,33 +110,70 @@ CONTENT_B='pub fn f() -> u32 { 22222 } pub fn g() -> u32 { 7 }'
 # also what makes it a control rather than a restatement of the scenario: the
 # probe establishes that the toolchain rebuilds on content, the scenario
 # establishes that a hardlink clone did not take that away.
+# THREE OUTCOMES, NOT TWO. An experiment that cannot tell a negative result
+# from a failed measurement is not settling the question, and the two are not
+# interchangeable here: "this toolchain resolves freshness by mtime" is a
+# statement about Cargo, while "a probe build failed" is a statement about this
+# machine. Collapsing them — which an earlier cut of this did, by returning
+# non-zero for both — makes a half-installed toolchain print a confident and
+# wrong explanation and quietly drop a scenario. The scenario still has to be
+# skipped in either case; what must not happen is the log claiming to know why.
+#
+#   0  content freshness measured ACTIVE   — both builds ran, the backdated
+#                                            rebuild recompiled
+#   1  measured INACTIVE                   — both builds ran, the backdated
+#                                            rebuild reported Fresh
+#   2  NOT MEASURED                        — a probe step failed; nothing was
+#                                            learned about the toolchain
+#
+# Every step that could fail for a reason other than the experiment's own
+# outcome exits 2 explicitly, so a `set -e` abort can never be mistaken for the
+# `1` that means "measured, and the answer is mtime".
 CHECKSUM_MODE="off"
+CHECKSUM_REASON="no nightly on PATH accepting -Z checksum-freshness"
 CARGO_BIN=(cargo)
-checksum_freshness_active() {
+checksum_freshness_probe() {
   local d="$scratch/freshness-probe" t="$scratch/freshness-probe-target"
-  mkcrate "$d"
+  mkcrate "$d" || return 2
   (
-    cd "$d" || exit 1
-    printf '%s\n' "$CONTENT_A" > src/lib.rs
-    CARGO_TARGET_DIR="$t" cargo +nightly build -q > /dev/null 2>&1 || exit 1
-    printf '%s\n' "$CONTENT_B" > src/lib.rs
-    touch -d '@1000000000' src/lib.rs
-    CARGO_TARGET_DIR="$t" cargo +nightly build -v > "$scratch/freshness-probe.log" 2>&1 || exit 1
-    ! grep -qE '^\s+Fresh probe' "$scratch/freshness-probe.log"
+    cd "$d" || exit 2
+    printf '%s\n' "$CONTENT_A" > src/lib.rs || exit 2
+    CARGO_TARGET_DIR="$t" cargo +nightly build -q > "$scratch/freshness-probe-warm.log" 2>&1 || exit 2
+    printf '%s\n' "$CONTENT_B" > src/lib.rs || exit 2
+    touch -d '@1000000000' src/lib.rs || exit 2
+    CARGO_TARGET_DIR="$t" cargo +nightly build -v > "$scratch/freshness-probe.log" 2>&1 || exit 2
+    if grep -qE '^\s+Fresh probe' "$scratch/freshness-probe.log"; then exit 1; fi
+    exit 0
   )
 }
 if cargo +nightly -Z checksum-freshness locate-project > /dev/null 2>&1; then
   export CARGO_UNSTABLE_CHECKSUM_FRESHNESS=true
-  if checksum_freshness_active; then
+  probe_rc=0
+  checksum_freshness_probe || probe_rc=$?
+  case "$probe_rc" in
+    0)
       CARGO_BIN=(cargo +nightly)
       CHECKSUM_MODE="on"
-  else
+      CHECKSUM_REASON=""
+      ;;
+    1)
       unset CARGO_UNSTABLE_CHECKSUM_FRESHNESS
-    echo "note: this nightly accepts -Z checksum-freshness but still resolves freshness by mtime"
-  fi
+      CHECKSUM_REASON="this nightly accepts -Z checksum-freshness but resolves freshness by mtime"
+      ;;
+    *)
+      unset CARGO_UNSTABLE_CHECKSUM_FRESHNESS
+      CHECKSUM_MODE="unmeasured"
+      CHECKSUM_REASON="a probe build failed, so this was NOT MEASURED — this toolchain may or may not resolve freshness by content"
+      # Loud, because the cost is silently lost coverage on a machine that
+      # might have had it. The suite continues: everything else it asserts is
+      # independent of freshness mode.
+      echo "::warning::hardlink-clone-selftest: could not measure whether this toolchain resolves freshness by content — a probe build failed. This is a failure to measure, not a finding about Cargo."
+      tail -n 15 "$scratch/freshness-probe-warm.log" "$scratch/freshness-probe.log" 2>/dev/null | sed 's/^/    /' >&2 || true
+      ;;
+  esac
 fi
 cd "$crate_dir"
-echo "=== checksum-freshness mode: ${CHECKSUM_MODE} ==="
+echo "=== checksum-freshness mode: ${CHECKSUM_MODE}${CHECKSUM_REASON:+ — ${CHECKSUM_REASON}} ==="
 
 build_base() {
   local dir="$1"
@@ -248,8 +285,8 @@ if [ "$CHECKSUM_MODE" = "on" ]; then
   fi
   ok "source correctly rebuilt its crate after advancing to the clone's content"
 else
-  echo "=== skipped: the source's-next-build scenario needs checksum freshness ==="
-  echo "  (a nightly cargo accepting -Z checksum-freshness; see the probe above)"
+  echo "=== skipped: the source's-next-build scenario needs content-based freshness ==="
+  echo "  reason: ${CHECKSUM_REASON}"
 fi
 
 echo