4697bbddd881c72cccb85b9ff0aacd769396b9d0
braney
  Thu Sep 10 07:34:35 2026 -0700
docent: record what evidence each regression test has, and count it

A regression test written after the fix asserts the right answer, but nobody
has watched it fail for the reason it exists, and a loose assertion in that
state is indistinguishable from no test at all. Four of the 37 scripts here
have actually been watched to flip. That was recorded only as prose in each
script's header, so answering "how many of these are real regression tests"
meant a grep and a read, and the number could not be quoted.

Every script now carries a top-level `proof:` key, one quoted line per piece
of evidence, `<level> <YYYY-MM-DD> -- <what was seen>`. docent.js reads only
the keys it names off the parsed document, so this costs a run nothing.

tests/proof.js reads them and tallies, wired up as `make proof` in the shared
docentTest.mk. It exits 1 on a malformed line, an unknown level, or a line
left unquoted -- that last one because nearly every note names a ticket and a
bare # in an unquoted YAML scalar silently truncates the sentence at the
ticket number, which is how the first pass of this change lost half its text.

The levels, weakest first: assertion-only, xfail, sandbox-ab, server-flip,
caught-regression. Today that reads 31 / 2 / 0 / 3 / 1.

nightly.sh now records the flips it finds. An xfail that PASSES is the best
evidence this suite produces -- the same server, the same fixtures, the same
script, one real build apart -- and until now it arrived as a red mail and was
thrown away with the log 60 days later. It is appended to
/hive/users/braney/docentNightly/flips.log, one line per script ever, outside
the checkout because --update resets the tree. The mail says what to do with
it. The three flips that already happened (rm38272 2026-09-06, rm36212
2026-09-09, rm38310 2026-09-10) were recovered from the old logs and seeded
there by hand.

Full suite run after the change: 37 scripts, all ok. refs #38252

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

diff --git src/hg/utils/docent/tests/regress/rm36702.docent.yaml src/hg/utils/docent/tests/regress/rm36702.docent.yaml
index 1e972ac8377..ae383a2ba97 100644
--- src/hg/utils/docent/tests/regress/rm36702.docent.yaml
+++ src/hg/utils/docent/tests/regress/rm36702.docent.yaml
@@ -1,30 +1,33 @@
 # #36702 -- QuickLift from hg19 to hs1 and to the human GenArk assemblies failed with
 #
 #     Couldn't set connection database to hub_3671779_hs1
 #     mySQL error 1049: Unknown database 'hub_3671779_hs1'
 #
 # The hub id in the message is per-run, so the assertion names the stem of the message and
 # not the whole string.
 #
 # Self-contained: the ticket's steps are a cart reset and a convert, with no session and
 # no particular track needed. One track is turned on anyway, so the lifted view has
 # something to draw and the row check below can mean something.
 # Asserts on `ncbiRefSeqCurated`, a leaf track (hg19 has no mane track). Naming a container here does not work: refSeqComposite
 # is a compositeTrack, and a container never gets an img_data_ row of its own -- the rows
 # carry its children's names (ncbiRefSeqCurated and the rest). Check a name against
 # trackDb before asserting on it.
+proof:
+  - "assertion-only 2026-09-04 -- written from the ticket after the fix had shipped"
+
 target: genome-test
 db: hg19
 position: chr7:155604967-155612966
 reset: true
 fast: true
 steps:
   - go: chr7:155604967-155612966
   - hide: all
   - track: {ncbiRefSeqCurated: pack}
   - expect: {rows: [ncbiRefSeqCurated], noText: "Warning/Error"}
 
   - convert: {to: hs1, quicklift: true}
   - open: lift
 
   # Both halves matter. The failure was an early-error page that draws no image, so