45ebd62062de3b3a34cf306c89701089664bc36b
braney
  Fri Sep 11 08:53:21 2026 -0700
hgConfCatalog: catalog showAliases as defaulting on, refs #37925

c69d3e1d9d flipped the showAliases code default to TRUE in hgTracks.c but
left the catalog entry at default="FALSE".  Two reports read that field and
both were wrong because of it.

--redundant skips any gate whose catalog default is not "TRUE", so it walked
past the showAliases=on line at /usr/local/apache/cgi-bin/hg.conf:541 -- the
exact kind of line it was added to find.  With this it reports 3 redundant
lines instead of 2.

--sunset is worse than quiet.  gate_lifecycle() sets shipped from the same
field, and the firstTrue age comes from git history, so it sees the flip.  A
flip date next to a FALSE default is read there as a flip that was reverted,
which is the opposite of what happened.

Same pairing ba5aa085f49 did for showColorPicker ten minutes after the flip.
Found in the 2026-09-11 daily code review.

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

diff --git src/hg/utils/hgConfCatalog/hgConfCatalog.py src/hg/utils/hgConfCatalog/hgConfCatalog.py
index 5fe032f84aa..24152d01a8a 100755
--- src/hg/utils/hgConfCatalog/hgConfCatalog.py
+++ src/hg/utils/hgConfCatalog/hgConfCatalog.py
@@ -362,33 +362,34 @@
                "that requests a new whole-genome alignment.  The assembly "
                "list only offers targets that already have a chain from the "
                "source, so the Convert page is where a user finds out theirs "
                "is missing, but nothing in the tree linked to the request "
                "page.  Off until the request pipeline is confirmed ready to "
                "take traffic from the browser UI."),
         h("groupDropdown", "flag", "hg/hgTracks/hgTracks.c",
           default="FALSE", role="gate", verified=True,
           note="Track group chooser as a dropdown rather than the current "
                "layout."),
         h("gcOnTheFlyCoExist", "flag", "hg/hgTracks/hgTracks.c",
           default="FALSE", role="gate", verified=True,
           note="Let the calculated GC track coexist with the stored one.  A "
                "sub-flag of gcOnTheFly, so it should be deleted with it "
                "rather than outliving it."),
-        h("showAliases", "flag", "hg/hgTracks/hgTracks.c", default="FALSE",
+        h("showAliases", "flag", "hg/hgTracks/hgTracks.c", default="TRUE",
           role="gate", verified=True,
-          note="Show chromosome alias names in the position box."),
+          note="Show chromosome alias names in the position box.  On by "
+               "default; the flag stays so a mirror can switch it back off."),
         h("showColorPicker", "flag", "hg/lib/hui.c", default="TRUE",
           role="gate", verified=True,
           note="The track colour picker in track UI.  On by default; the "
                "flag stays so a mirror can switch it back off."),
         h("doMyVariants", "flag", "hg/hgCustom/hgCustom.c",
           default="FALSE", role="gate", verified=True,
           note="The My Variants track and its upload path.  Thirteen call "
                "sites across seven files, the widest gate in the tree, which "
                "is a fair measure of what deleting a stale one costs."),
         h("hguidIpTracking.enabled", "flag", "hg/lib/botDelay.c",
           default="FALSE", role="gate", verified=True,
           note="Per-hguid IP tracking for abuse detection.  Its three "
                "companion settings (maxIps, table, windowSeconds) are plain "
                "values and are listed under abuse control."),
         h("canColorItems", "flag", "hg/hgTracks/hgTracks.c",