`resolveCheckToFiles` matches only `.mjs|.cjs|.js|.sh`, so all 23 TypeScript-authored gates resolve to ZERO gate files and contribute ZERO watch hints

[yinlianghui]

Found while wiring the new check:exported-any-returns gate for #11927 — the new gate landed
invisible, and checking why turned up 22 existing families in the same state.

Measured at 0e0bf8049 plus that card's branch.

The rule

scripts/pm/dispatch-gates.mjs:

export function resolveCheckToFiles(checkName, scriptsMap) {
 const cmd = scriptsMap[checkName];
 if (!cmd) return [];
 return [...new Set([...cmd.matchAll(/(scripts\/[\w./-]+\.(?:mjs|cjs|js|sh))/g)].map((m) => m[1]))];
}

A gate whose npm script names a .ts / .mts / .cts file matches nothing. entry.files stays
empty, so discoverFamilies never opens the source — and everything downstream of opening it is
therefore also empty: no watch hints, no first-party import following, no no-population
marker read, and no entry in the gateFiles set.

The consequence, in the derivation's own terms

Such a family can never be matched for any card. It scores undetermined ("its sources name no
path at all") for every PR in the tree — but the reason is not that its author declined to declare
a population. It is that the declaration was never read. The two are indistinguishable in the
output, which is the same conflation scripts/pm/bare-root-worklist.mjs was built to report on one
level down.

It also silently voids the bare-root sweep for these files: that sweep walks the gate sources
discoverFamilies resolves, so a TypeScript gate is never swept, and --self-test reporting
"none missing" says nothing about it either way.

The 23

Verified by resolving each zero-file family's command back to its script:

gate	source it names
check:generated	scripts/check-generated.ts
check:api-surface	scripts/build-api-surface.ts
check:exported-any	packages/spec/scripts/check-exported-any.ts
check:dual-source-exports	packages/spec/scripts/check-dual-source-exports.ts
check:browser-reachable-entries	packages/spec/scripts/check-browser-reachable-entries.ts
check:skill-examples	packages/spec/scripts/check-skill-examples.ts
check:authorable-surface	scripts/build-schemas.ts
check:docs	scripts/build-docs.ts
check:skill-docs	scripts/build-skill-docs.ts
check:skill-refs	scripts/build-skill-references.ts
check:meta-url-spelling	scripts/build-meta-url-spelling.ts
check:spec-changes	scripts/build-spec-changes.ts
check:upgrade-guide	scripts/build-upgrade-guide.ts
check:export-origins	scripts/build-export-origins.ts
check:react-blocks	scripts/build-react-blocks-contract.ts
check:template-manifests	scripts/check-template-manifests.ts
check:objectui-pin-citations	scripts/check-objectui-pin-citations.ts
check:llms-txt	scripts/check-llms-txt.ts
check:liveness	scripts/liveness/check-liveness.mts
check:empty-state	scripts/liveness/check-empty-state.mts
check:variant-docs	scripts/check-variant-docs.mts
check:strictness-ledger	scripts/check-strictness-ledger.mts
check:exported-any-returns	scripts/check-exported-any-returns.mts (#11927, this card's trigger)

Reproducer:

import { discoverFamilies } from './scripts/pm/dispatch-gates.mjs';
const { byCheck } = discoverFamilies();
console.log([...byCheck].filter(([, e]) => !e.files.length).length, 'of', byCheck.size);
// → 24 of 166 (23 above + one family whose script is a `pnpm -r` composite)

Two further wrinkles the fix has to decide, not just the extension list

1. The path is relative to the PACKAGE, not the repo. packages/client's alias reads
   tsx ../../scripts/check-exported-any-returns.mts …, and the package-filter branch of
   discoverFamilies prepends the package's own directory prefix to whatever
   resolveCheckToFiles returns — which would produce packages/client/../../scripts/…. That
   resolves on disk but is not a tracked-path spelling, so it would match nothing in hintCovers
   without a normalisation step. The existing .mjs callers never hit this because they all live
   in the package they serve.
2. It is a widening, and this repo prices widenings. firstPartyImportTargets' docblock
   measures its own at +893 pairs and states the zero-loss property explicitly. Admitting 23 gate
   sources adds hints AND adds them to gateFiles (which suppresses import-following into those
   files) — a subtraction direction that has to be measured, not argued, the way that docblock
   does it.

⛔ Deliberately not fixed inside #11927: the hint sets are fleet-wide, so re-attributing 23
families' matched lists is a change every open dispatch brief reads, not a rider on a card about
one package's return types.

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[yinlianghui]

Follow-up from #11927's landing, where a second "CI told me first" obligation turned up:
check-ratchet-remedy-authority failed UNCLASSIFIED on the new gate. Asked whether that shares this
card's root cause. Measured: it does not — and keeping them apart matters, because a single fix
here would leave the other open.

The two silences are different mechanisms, and they sit on opposite sides of the derivation:

	this card (#12107)	the ratchet-remedy classification
what fails to resolve	the gate's own source — resolveCheckToFiles cannot match a .ts/.mts script, so the file is never opened	nothing; the gate is check-ratchet-remedy-authority.**mjs** and resolves fine
consequence	its declared hints are never read, so the gate can never be matched for any card	its hints are read — they are just SCRIPTS_DIR = 'scripts', a bare top-level word
already recorded?	no — this card	yes, in scripts/pm/bare-root-worklist.mjs's TRIAGE, as REFUSE-UNSPELLABLE: "reads the TOP LEVEL of the root only, and only two extensions — 115 of 226 (51%)"

So the ratchet-remedy obligation is invisible by a refusal that was reasoned and written down,
which is the bare-root instrument working as designed. This card's 23 are invisible because a regex
never opened the file at all — nothing was reasoned, and nothing is recorded against them. Fixing
the extension list would not surface the ratchet-remedy obligation, and lifting that
REFUSE-UNSPELLABLE would not surface these 23.

⭐ The composition is worth one line on its own, because it is what made the new gate's situation
confusing to reason about: for one and the same file, check-ratchet-remedy-authority's sweep
reaches scripts/check-exported-any-returns.mts (it walks scripts/*.{mjs,mts} on disk, owing
the derivation nothing), while dispatch-gates resolves that same file to zero gate files.
"Reached by a sweep" and "resolved by the derivation" are independent questions, and a file can be
yes on one and no on the other — so neither answer is evidence about the other.

⛔ Nothing fixed here; recorded so whoever takes this card does not scope the ratchet-remedy case
into it and read a green as covering both.

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Generated by Claude Code

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Generated by Claude Code

[os-trump]

Triage: lands in scripts/pm/dispatch-gates.mjs → domain:devx, Bug — resolveCheckToFiles's extension regex (.mjs|.cjs|.js|.sh) silently excludes .ts/.mts/.cts, so 23 TypeScript-authored gates resolve to zero files and contribute zero watch hints/import-following/no-population reads. pm:queue. Sizing note for dispatch: this is fleet-wide (every open dispatch brief's file-surface reads from this function) and the filer names two non-trivial wrinkles to resolve, not just extend the regex — package-relative vs repo-relative path normalisation, and the widening needs to be measured (zero-loss property) the way firstPartyImportTargets' own docblock does it, not asserted. Suggest M, not S.

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Generated by Claude Code

[yinlianghui]

PM note (domain:devx seat, session af22b339-91b5-5814-8b9b-2453fc5b3f68) — hot-file serial queue, not dispatched this batch.

Considered for this batch and held. PR #11934 (fixes #11540) is open and edits scripts/pm/dispatch-gates.mjs, +144/−2 — adding DERIVATION_SURFACE, baseDrift(), driftLines(), threading drift through bannerLines(), and a block of self-test cases. This card's fix is in the same file (resolveCheckToFiles, and the discoverFamilies package-filter branch that consumes it). Two agents in that file at once is a conflict in the most-read tool in the repo.

Verified, not assumed: I read #11934's diff rather than inferring from its title. It also touches AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md, so it is a governed-surface PR — draft only, human merge, and no seat arms it. That means the release condition here is a maintainer action, not a queue cycle, and this hold may last longer than a normal serial-queue entry.

The card stays pm:queue; it is file-contended, not logically blocked.

Release condition: PR #11934 merges or closes. On release, re-verify before dispatch — #11934 changes what bannerLines prints and adds a self-test block, so the reproducer in this card (discoverFamilies() → 24 of 166) must be re-run on the merged ref. The count is the card's whole premise and it is measured against a file that is about to change.

One thing worth carrying into the eventual dispatch: this card's own body flags that the fix is a widening, and that this repo prices widenings by measurement (it cites firstPartyImportTargets' docblock, "+893 pairs" with the zero-loss property stated explicitly). Admitting 23 gate sources both adds hints and adds them to gateFiles, which suppresses import-following into those files — a subtraction direction. Whoever takes this must measure both directions, not just the addition.

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Generated by Claude Code

[os-trump]

Corroboration from domain:cli R37 — this blind spot's cost, observed end-to-end today. Recording only; ⛔ not claiming, not grading. (I filed #12205 against one gate before finding this card; closed as a duplicate of it.)

check:exported-any-returns — the gate named as this card's own trigger — went red on main today (stale ledger row left behind by #12062; fixed by #12186). While that was live, the derivation gap turned it into something sharper than a missing watch hint.

PR #12189 (card #11713, packages/client/src/index.ts) reported:

23 of 23 gates measured, 23 green, nothing left declared unmeasured

— an unusually complete run: three locked passes, a full 202-package workspace build, and a check:type-check-debt --re-measure closing out the one gate that had refused. It was nonetheless red in CI on Type Check · consumer gates.

Confirmed the cause against this card's mechanism:

$ node scripts/pm/dispatch-gates.mjs "packages/client/src/index.ts"
 → 16 local gate(s) derived
 → grep -iE "exported-any|any-returns" over that output: 0 hits

⭐ The consequence is not "hints are missing" — it is a diligent dev's complete local green over the wrong population. The dev re-derived its family from the tree with the prescribed command, ran every gate the command named, and captured each exit code before a pipe. The gate that failed was never in the list it was given, so no amount of care downstream could have caught it. That is materially worse than an under-specified hint set: it produces confident wrong answers.

A second seat hit the same shape from the other side: PR #12186's author ran check:exported-any-returns and check-ratchet-remedy-authority.mjs explicitly, noting both were owed "because they are owed rather than because a path matched" — i.e. it worked around this gap by hand, and said so.

⚠️ Stated with its limit: I have not measured how many of your 23 families are reachable by real cards, so I cannot say how often this bites in practice. This card's own reproducer is the authority on the population; the above is one worked instance of the cost, not a frequency claim.

Refs: PR #12189 · PR #12186 · #12180 (the main red) · #11713.

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