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/rm37388.docent.yaml src/hg/utils/docent/tests/regress/rm37388.docent.yaml
index c9e573bf553..195fc4bdb18 100644
--- src/hg/utils/docent/tests/regress/rm37388.docent.yaml
+++ src/hg/utils/docent/tests/regress/rm37388.docent.yaml
@@ -1,28 +1,31 @@
 # #37388 -- clicking an item in a QuickLifted hub track sent hgc looking for a MySQL
 # database named after the source assembly:
 #
 #     Couldn't set connection database to GCA_018466835.2
 #
 # The session is kept for this one. It is braney/crash1 on genome-test, and it pins a
 # state that is genuinely awkward to build: hg38 at chrM:577-16569 with a quickLift hub
 # active, its chain from GCA_018466835.2, and an xenoRefGene track from that hub. Building
 # that in steps would mean attaching a hub and running a convert whose target is a
 # GenArk assembly, which is more moving parts than the bug needs.
 #
 # click: {track:, item:} follows the item's own map-box link, which is how hgc is reached.
 # A raw click on the image is swallowed by hgTracks' drag-select handler.
+proof:
+  - "assertion-only 2026-09-04 -- written from the ticket after the fix had shipped"
+
 target: genome-test
 db: hg38
 reset: true
 fast: true
 steps:
   - loadSession: {user: braney, name: crash1}
 
   # The guard. A session that has been renamed or deleted is not an error: hgTracks
   # answers 200 with an early-error page carrying no track image, and every noText check
   # on that page passes. Without this line a deleted session turns this test green.
   - expect: {noText: "Could not find session"}
 
   - click: {track: xenoRefGene, item: "NM_126741.2"}
 
   # hgc has no track image, so there is no row to assert on here: the whole check is that