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Preserve workflow paths and clarify reference normalization in lock-sync checks - #168
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GitHub refuses a run at startup, creating zero jobs, when a workflow carries a `uses:` ref that the lockfile does not record under that workflow's own path. It matches by LITERAL STRING; `gh actions-lock` matches by resolved commit, so a lock entry naming a tag that dereferences to the pinned SHA passes the tool and still kills the run. Regenerate the lock, make it transitively closed, and add a lock-sync gate carrying no `uses:` of its own so it cannot be disabled by the desync it detects. No workflow YAML is modified. Refs: hyperpolymath/standards#968 Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01X3hgXxWm6umMgZkjYyHnnm
A workflow absent from actions.lock can be rejected at startup (startup_failure, jobs=0) even when it carries zero real 'uses:' refs and so has nothing to pin. The gate is deliberately zero-'uses:', which is exactly why it had no entry. Measured on two repos in this batch: adding this single line flipped the gate from 7 consecutive startup_failure runs to success on hyperpolymath/verisimdb (two successes since, nothing else changed) and from 2 of 2 startup_failure to success on hyperpolymath/blocky-writer. Enforcement is not uniform across repos — 13 of the 14 repos in this batch start the byte-identical gate today with the same gap. A repo that passes now is not evidence its lock is complete, only that the behaviour has not reached it. This closes the gap before it bites. Zero-'uses:' workflows take the empty list, matching the entries actions.lock already carries for other zero-'uses:' workflows such as labels.yml. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01X3hgXxWm6umMgZkjYyHnnm
The gate could not defend the fix this PR ships. Clauses 1-3 ask "is every `uses:` locked under its own workflow path?" GitHub asks a DIFFERENT question: "is every workflow FILE represented in the lock?" A workflow with no `uses:` satisfies clauses 1-3 vacuously and GitHub still refuses to start it - which is exactly how lock-sync-gate.yml failed here 7 times running while the checker reported the lock in sync. Thirteen other repositories passed the gate with the same gap present, so a green gate was not evidence of a complete lock. Clause 4 diffs the set of files under .github/workflows/ against the set of lockfile keys, fails on any file with no key, names it, and quotes the empty-list form to add. Remediation step 4 warns that re-running `gh actions-lock` may not fix it, because omitting the file is the tool's own defect. Mutation-tested both ways: deleting the lock-sync-gate key fails the gate, and deleting the unrelated labels.yml key fails it too; the unmutated tree passes. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01X3hgXxWm6umMgZkjYyHnnm
…ifier validity bit The ref is NOT required: GitHub does not enforce job-level reusable `uses:` at startup, and the standards verifier explicitly accepts it (`workflow_references_reusable_dependency`). But `gh actions-lock` v0.1.6 still reports it as `stale`, which flips the tool's `valid` bit to false. That moves the tree off the `valid == true` early return and into the finding loop, where the standards SHA pinned here (8f2ee508) has no advisory-category filter -- so PRE-EXISTING `sha-as-ref` advisories are counted as blocking. Measured on bofj-kitt: `governance / Actions lockfile verify` was success on main and failure here, with the same two advisories present in both trees. Removing the ref (and its now-orphaned `dependencies:` record) restores `valid = true` and the early return. Verified offline against the verifier fetched at the PINNED standards SHA: exit 0, matching main. No workflow YAML is touched. Also corrects the lock-sync checker's own documentation: clause 1 is enforced at STEP level only, so the header and success message no longer claim job-level reusable refs are locked (raised in review; the checker's behaviour is unchanged and still kills a mutant). Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01X3hgXxWm6umMgZkjYyHnnm
Co-authored-by: coderabbitai[bot] <136622811+coderabbitai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com> Signed-off-by: Jonathan D.A. Jewell <6759885+hyperpolymath@users.noreply.github.com>
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hyperpolymath
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Sep 22, 2026
Signed-off-by: Jonathan D.A. Jewell <6759885+hyperpolymath@users.noreply.github.com>
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Preserve actual workflow paths in lock-sync diagnostics, stale-entry detection, and coverage checks instead of reconstructing paths from filenames. Clarify the normalization comment for external action and reusable-workflow references.
The two commits go beyond the docstring-only task: they also change workflow-path matching behavior.
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