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/rm37562.docent.yaml src/hg/utils/docent/tests/regress/rm37562.docent.yaml
index e86fc7195d5..b994becfd83 100644
--- src/hg/utils/docent/tests/regress/rm37562.docent.yaml
+++ src/hg/utils/docent/tests/regress/rm37562.docent.yaml
@@ -1,46 +1,49 @@
 # #37562 -- a stale lastPosition warning on the search-results page after a quickLift.
 #
 # After a QuickLift hop the cart's lastPosition still held the SOURCE assembly's coordinate,
 # which cannot be resolved on the destination hub assembly, so hgFind put a banner on the
 # search-results page:
 #
 #     Unable to resolve lastPosition '...'
 #
 # (hg/lib/hgFind.c:2270.) A side observation from #36340 -- it never affected the results or
 # the click-through, only the banner.
 #
 # So the recipe has to reach the SEARCH-RESULTS page on the lifted assembly, not the track
 # view: a term that resolves to one place goes straight to the image and never prints this.
 # "brca" is ambiguous on hs1, so goShow submits it and lands on the results list.
 #
 # One track is turned on and lifted so the assertions before the search can tell a drawn
 # view from an error page. mane is deliberately not used: it draws nothing at the window
 # two other quickLift tickets use, and a row check on it would fail for that reason.
+proof:
+  - "assertion-only 2026-09-05 -- written from the ticket after the fix had shipped"
+
 target: genome-test
 db: hg38
 position: chr7:155799529-155812871
 reset: true
 fast: true
 steps:
   - go: chr7:155799529-155812871
   - hide: all
   - track: {knownGeneArchive: show, knownGeneV49: pack}
   - expect: {rows: [knownGeneV49], noText: "Warning/Error"}
 
   - convert: {to: hs1, quicklift: true}
   - open: lift
   - expect: {rows: [knownGeneV49], noText: "Unable to resolve lastPosition"}
 
   # A search from the lifted view. This is where the banner appeared.
   - goShow: "brca"
 
   # The url: and text: halves are not optional. This page has no track image, so `rows:`
   # reports none and a bare noText: would pass just as happily on a blank page or an early
   # error -- which is the failure mode this whole suite has to guard against. Both checks
   # confirm we really are on hgSearch, and on the LIFTED assembly (db=hub_<n>_hs1) rather
   # than back on hg38, since the banner only ever appeared on the destination.
   - expect:
       url: "/hgSearch"
       text: "Search across the Genome Browser site"
       noText: "Unable to resolve lastPosition"
   - expect: {url: "db=hub_"}