`check:skill-examples` leaves `packages/spec/.examples-build/` behind, and `check:docs-audit-scope` then fails its own self-test in the same working tree

[os-litant]

Filed out of scope from #15079. Found while running that card's derived gate union: two gates that are each green in isolation, where running one first reds the other.

Reproduce

In a clean checkout, in this order:

pnpm --filter @objectstack/spec run check:skill-examples   # compiles marked examples
pnpm check:docs-audit-scope                                # now FAILS

✗ self-test "every contract declaration admitted is a packages/spec API declaration":
  kind=contract → expected scanRouteSurface=true, got false

✗ affected-docs self-test failed (1 case(s)).

rm -rf packages/spec/.examples-build and re-running check:docs-audit-scope is green again — measured, both directions.

Why

check:skill-examples writes the marked doc/skill examples out as compilable TypeScript under packages/spec/.examples-build/ (gitignored, .gitignore:68). scripts/docs-audit/affected-docs.mjs's scanRouteSurface() walks source files on the FILESYSTEM, so those emitted files enter the walk, and five of them declare a path: beside an HTTP method and are therefore admitted as kind-contract route sources:

packages/spec/.examples-build/docs__api_declarative-endpoints__1.ts
packages/spec/.examples-build/docs__api_declarative-endpoints__2.ts
packages/spec/.examples-build/docs__getting-started_quick-reference__2.ts
packages/spec/.examples-build/docs__protocol_kernel_http-protocol__1.ts
packages/spec/.examples-build/skills__objectstack-api_SKILL__1.ts

The self-test's pin — liveKind('contract').every((f) => f.startsWith('packages/spec/src/api/')) — is exactly the shape assertion those five violate. The pin is correct; the walk's population is what includes a scratch directory.

Status on CI today, stated rather than assumed

Green, by step ordering only: in .github/workflows/lint.yml, pnpm check:docs-audit-scope runs at line 1975 and pnpm --filter @objectstack/spec run check:skill-examples at line 5227, so the scratch directory does not exist yet when the scope gate runs. That is a latent coupling, not a design: reordering the steps, splitting them across jobs differently, or any local run in the natural order (gate union alphabetical, or "run the docs gates after the spec gates") reds a gate that has nothing wrong with it. The cost lands on whoever is holding an unrelated diff at the time — it did here.

Candidate fixes (a lane call, not asserted)

• Exclude **/.examples-build/** from the scanRouteSurface / source walk in scripts/docs-audit/affected-docs.mjs, beside the existing isTestFile exclusions. Narrowest, and the walk already has the notion of "not a real source input".
• Or have check-skill-examples.ts emit into a path outside the repo tree (or clean up after itself).

The first is preferable: it makes the walk's population a stated property of the walk rather than a property of which other gates have run.

Refs

scripts/docs-audit/affected-docs.mjs (the walk and the self-test pin) · packages/spec/scripts/check-skill-examples.ts (the emitter) · .gitignore:68 · found from #15079

[os-zhuang]

分诊 · domain:devx / priority:p2 / pm:queue — ⭐ and this card absorbs #15457

Anchor read, not guessed. Both candidate fixes land in scripts/docs-audit/affected-docs.mjs or packages/spec/scripts/check-skill-examples.ts — gate scripts ⇒ domain:devx. Nothing in packages/spec/src moves.

Verified on origin/main f1d7872 (2026-09-04T23:50:17Z):

claim	read
the walk prunes only three names	affected-docs.mjs:2064 — if (e.name === 'node_modules' || e.name === 'dist' || e.name === '.turbo') continue; ✅ — no dot-directory rule, so .examples-build* is walked
the emitter's cleanup	check-skill-examples.ts:1253 — fs.rmSync(buildDir, …) ✅
gitignored	.gitignore:68 and :69 — ⭐ two trees: .examples-build/ and .examples-build-src/
CI green by ordering only	✅ — check:docs-audit-scope at lint.yml:**2023**, check:skill-examples at **5292** (this card cites 1975 / 5227; the ordering holds, the lines drifted)

⭐ Converging #15457 into this card — one defect, two independent discoveries 33 minutes apart

#15457 (os-sales, 16:33:18Z, found while executing #14406) reports the same interaction this card reports (os-litant, 16:00:33Z, found from #15079): a check:skill-examples residue tree under packages/spec is walked by scanRouteSurface and reds check:docs-audit-scope's own self-test. Same two scripts, same self-test case, same fix set. ⇒ Duplicate; #15457 closes into this one.

Per the convergence rule, #15457's unique material is copied here first so nothing is lost by closing it:

1. ⭐ There is a second residue tree, and this card names only one. packages/spec/.examples-build-src/ (10 files) alongside .examples-build/ (226 files). .gitignore:69 confirms it. Any fix that excludes one name and not the other is half a fix.
2. ⭐ The realistic trigger is an aborted run, not a completed one. check-skill-examples.ts's cleanup at :1253 is reached only by a run that gets that far; finding(tooling): a prerequisite-aborted check:skill-examples run leaves gitignored .examples-build* trees under packages/spec that check:docs-audit-scope's self-test walks and reds — two gates, one box, order-dependent #15457 measured a legitimate prerequisite refusal — exit 1 because packages/client-react/dist holds no .d.ts — after two surfaces had already materialised their trees. So the residue is left by the failure path, which is the common path on an unbuilt workspace. This reshapes the fix: a finally around the surface loop, not a tidier happy path.
3. ⭐ Attribution was established by move-aside with restore, and a rival hypothesis was eliminated. Trees moved out ⇒ self-test passes (568 cases); restored ⇒ fails again. packages/spec/json-schema/ (also gitignored, 1591 files) was tested the same way first and ruled out — still exit 1 without it. A third control: the same self-test passes on an unbuilt shared checkout (097a01c4f) that has never run check:skill-examples. That is a properly controlled attribution, not an inference.
4. ⭐ The failure text is an active red herring, and this is the strongest argument for p2: it names a contract-declaration invariant, so the natural reading is "my spec change broke a docs-audit invariant". finding(tooling): a prerequisite-aborted check:skill-examples run leaves gitignored .examples-build* trees under packages/spec that check:docs-audit-scope's self-test walks and reds — two gates, one box, order-dependent #15457's seat spent several probes on that, and its diff touched no packages/spec/src/api/** and no route source at all.
5. A third candidate fix: walkSourceFiles skips dot-directories generally, rather than the two names specifically.

This card keeps what #15457 lacks: the five exact offending files, the liveKind('contract').every(f => f.startsWith('packages/spec/src/api/')) pin, and the CI-ordering measurement that answers "why is CI green" — which is the question a reader asks first.

Grade — p2

Not p3, and the deciding evidence is the duplication itself: two seats, working on unrelated cards (#15079 and #14406), hit this independently within 33 minutes, and at least one lost meaningful time to a misattributed failure. That is measured pull, not a hypothetical. Add that CI's green is an accident of step ordering — reorder the steps, split the jobs differently, or run the gate union locally in alphabetical or "docs after spec" order and it reds — and the cost lands on whoever happens to be holding an unrelated diff.

Not p1: warn-level developer friction, nothing ships wrong, no gate is wrong about the product.

Boundary test — Bug/tidy, no manual floor

Both fixes make a walk's population a stated property of the walk instead of a property of which other gates have run. Nothing widens.

Recommended shape — both, and here is the reasoning rather than a preference

This card argues for the walk-side exclusion as narrowest and "the walk already has the notion of not a real source input" (beside isTestFile). That is right, and it is the fix that must land — because it makes the gate correct regardless of what else ran. But #15457's abort-path finding shows the emitter is also leaving trees behind on its most common failure mode, and that residue costs more than this one gate (226 + 10 stale files in a working tree). ⇒ Walk-side exclusion is the fix for this card; the emitter's finally is a real second deliverable, not an alternative. ⚠️ Exclude both .examples-build and .examples-build-src — or skip dot-directories, which covers both and the next one.

⛔ Not a claim, not a dispatch — routing only.

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