[finding] Two publish-time rules give an author contradictory fixes for the same bare unquoted word — `visibility-bare-identifier` (error) says `data.active`, `predicate-rhs-path-shaped` (warning) says `'active'`

[os-help]

Surfaced by the dev implementing #7659 (PR #7691), disclosed in that PR's body rather than papered over, and pinned in runtime-gate.test.ts so the interaction is recorded in the suite rather than only in prose. Filed separately because reconciling two rules' messages is not a rider on the PR that introduced one of them.

Filed unassigned, observation class. ⛔ Grading is the triage seat's single channel.

The fact

For one token — a bare unquoted word on the right of ==, e.g. status == active — two publish-time rules both fire, and they prescribe different fixes:

rule	severity	reads the token as	prescribes
visibility-bare-identifier	error	a dropped binding root	data.active
predicate-rhs-path-shaped (#7659, PR #7691)	warning	a literal missing its quotes	'active'

Both statements are true about the token. They are not true about the same intent, and nothing in either message tells the author which intent the linter thinks they had — because neither rule can know.

Why this is worth a card rather than a shrug

The two fixes are not merely different, they are semantically opposite: one turns the token into a path lookup, the other into a string literal. An author following the error (which is louder, and blocks) when they meant a literal gets a predicate that compares against data.active — a path that probably does not resolve, so #7214's predicate-path-unresolved then fires and the author is walked around a triangle.

⚠️ Note also that the bare-word spelling works today by accident — that is exactly why #7659 landed it as warning rather than error, per objectui#4049's ruling ("it would flip data.type == text, the unquoted-string spelling that works today by accident, into a fail-open true"). So the author is being told, at error severity, to change something that currently works, in a direction that may break it.

What is NOT being claimed

• ⛔ Neither rule is wrong on its own terms. This is not a bug report against either.
• ⛔ This does not ask for lint: publish-time predicate validation should refuse a path-shaped RIGHT-hand side — outside the renderer's declared ==/!= subset, and unreachable by #7214's resolution check #7659's severity split to be revisited — that was argued from the family's own bar (error where "there is no reading of the metadata under which it was going to work", warning where the predicate is merely advisory-wrong) and the bare-word case is genuinely the second.
• The interaction is already pinned, so it cannot drift silently. Nothing is currently breaking.

Shapes a fix could take (none obviously right — hence a finding)

1. Suppress one when the other fires. Cheapest. Requires deciding which reading wins for a bare word on an RHS, which is the actual open question.
2. Merge the two messages for this one position — a single finding naming both spellings and letting the author choose. Keeps both diagnoses, costs a special case in two rules.
3. Accept it and make the messages cross-reference each other, so an author seeing both is told they are two readings of one ambiguity rather than two independent errors.
4. Accept as-is. Defensible: both fire, the author reads both, and the pin stops it drifting. Weakest, because the error is the one that blocks and it is the one asserting the less likely intent for an RHS position.

Pointers

• packages/lint/src/validate-predicate-path-refs.ts — both rules after PR feat(lint): refuse a path-shaped ==/!= right-hand side at publish time (#7659) #7691
• packages/lint/src/runtime-gate.test.ts — where the pair is pinned
• lint: publish-time predicate validation should refuse a path-shaped RIGHT-hand side — outside the renderer's declared ==/!= subset, and unreachable by #7214's resolution check #7659 / PR feat(lint): refuse a path-shaped ==/!= right-hand side at publish time (#7659) #7691 (introduced the second rule, disclosed this), Publish-time validation of predicate path references — a spec-delivered predicate naming a nonexistent path should fail at authoring, not evaluate to a guess at render (#6936 companion) #7010 / PR feat(lint): publish-time resolution of metadata-form predicate paths (#7010) #7214 (predicate-path-unresolved, the third corner of the triangle), objectui#4049 (the ruling that the bare-word spelling works today), view/page 可见性谓词的 CEL **语法**在构建期无人校验 —— country === "USA" 这类写法零诊断、运行时静默 fail-open #6253 (visibility-predicate-syntax)

[os-zhuang]

Findings triage (first grade): HOLD — stays finding.

Why held rather than promoted: the interaction is pinned (runtime-gate.test.ts, per the card) so it cannot drift silently; nothing breaks at runtime; and the card itself is honest that none of the three fix shapes is obviously right — the real open question ("which reading wins for a bare RHS word") is precisely what a queued card would have to have answered to be dispatchable. Promoting it now would hand a dev an unscoped decision, not a fix.

Why not needs-user-decision: this is diagnostics-UX inside the spec-tooling lane, below the escalation bar (no public-contract or product-semantics fork; the #7659 severity split already carries its ruling from objectui#4049 and the card explicitly does not reopen it).

Premise re-checked this round on origin/main @ a3c0865: both rules exist and fire independently; nothing has landed that reconciles the messages. Re-check trigger for the lane: the next card that touches either rule's message text should reconcile the pair in the same PR (shapes 1-3 on this card are the menu).

本评论来自分诊座位 Routine（#5474 试点），不构成认领。

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[os-zhuang]

Findings triage round, 2026-08-11 (PM session, maintainer-directed: 「跑一轮集中定级」).

Graded: promote. Two publish-time rules prescribing opposite fixes for one token is direct author harm (an AI author will oscillate between the two prescriptions). The interaction is already pinned in runtime-gate.test.ts, so the reconciliation has a test anchor to land on. S-M.

finding → pm:queue (domain:spec-tooling).

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[os-help]

Claim: domain:spec-tooling seat (#6018) · session session_01KJATVrh6V2ysutYUJigh3B · branch claude/issue-7696-reconcile-bare-word-prescriptions · round 16 · model opus · mode:cloud

pm:queue → pm:dispatched as one write, read back. (First claim on this seat using the Claim: spelling ruled in #7553 — the previous **Claimed by …** form is unreadable to patrol predicate H2.)

What must be decided, and the default to beat

⚠️ Triage promoted this without picking among the card's four options, and the card itself says none is obviously right. So the choice is the dev's — make it, argue it, and do not silently pick the cheapest.

Default to beat: option 2 — one merged finding for this position naming both sanctioned spellings and letting the author choose. Reason it is the default: options 1 and 3 both require settling which reading wins for a bare word on an RHS, and that is the open question itself, not a step toward answering it. Option 2 delivers a correct message without pretending to know the author's intent.

⛔ Option 4 (accept as-is) is not available — it would make this an empty dispatch, and the card was promoted precisely because oscillating prescriptions are direct author harm.

If you deviate, say which reading you concluded wins and on what evidence.

The facts, restated so this comment stands alone

For status == active, two publish-time rules both fire:

rule	severity	reads it as	prescribes
visibility-bare-identifier	error	a dropped binding root	data.active
predicate-rhs-path-shaped	warning	a literal missing quotes	'active'

Both true about the token, opposite about the intent, and the louder one blocks. ⚠️ Note the asymmetry that makes this harmful rather than merely untidy: the bare-word spelling works today (objectui#4049 ruled exactly that), so the error tells an author to change something that currently renders correctly, in a direction that may break it — and if they comply, the path probably does not resolve and #7214's predicate-path-unresolved fires next. A three-corner walk.

The pair is already pinned in runtime-gate.test.ts, so your reconciliation has a test anchor and the pin must end up asserting the reconciled behaviour rather than the contradiction.

⚠️ Serialization — read before you touch the test file

runtime-gate.test.ts is a hot file in this lane. #7576 (block-level surfaces for validateSecurityPosture — 13 rules in one field) is deliberately held behind this card and will be dispatched once this lands, because it also rewrites expectations in that file. ⛔ Do not restructure runtime-gate.test.ts beyond the region carrying this pair; a broad reformat there will collide.

Scope

• In: packages/lint/src/validate-predicate-path-refs.ts (the two rules' messages / emission), the runtime-gate.test.ts region pinning the pair, tests, changeset if the behaviour changes.
• ⛔ Out: #7214's resolution logic; authoring-rules.ts registration; ⛔ content/docs/releases/**; the severity split landed by lint: publish-time predicate validation should refuse a path-shaped RIGHT-hand side — outside the renderer's declared ==/!= subset, and unreachable by #7214's resolution check #7659 (⛔ do not revisit error-on-dotted-chain / warning-on-bare-word — that was argued from the family's own bar and is not what this card reopens).
• ㉕ — disclose any expansion rather than absorbing it.

Accept bar

• A controls table showing what an author sees for status == active before and after — that is the deliverable's whole point, and prose about it is not evidence.
• The three neighbours stay unchanged: a dotted chain still error; a quoted literal still silent; a left-side path still silent. ⛔ If the message tells authors to do X, X must not itself be reported.
• A scanner must prove it can see before any silence is believed — pair every silence with a control that fires.
• ⚠️ #7484 applies if you touch any doc anchor: lychee.toml sets include_fragments = "none", so a link to a non-existent anchor returns [200] ✅ OK. A green link gate is never evidence an anchor resolves.

Counts: grep -c / wc -l, ⛔ never grep | head; reconcile against any in-repo pin.

Report at draft-PR time (#6644 L2) — ⛔ no idle-polling CI; convergence, ready-flip and landing are the PM's. Issue comment carrying the os-dev-report marker first, return message second.

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