finding(test-infra): a repo-root scratch dir (`.vite-oracle-*`) vanishes under `check-i18n-dead-keys`'s repo-wide grep, exit 2 kills the whole shard — second instance of the objectui#9201 class

[claude]

Test (shard 1/4) failed on PR objectui#9366's head 87cab756a9 with a whole-suite kill, and it is not a generic flake — it is two named files racing over a scratch directory one of them creates inside the repo root.

Measured, from the primary source

Check-run census taken by me: at 87cab756a9, 36 runs / 32 success / 3 skipped / 1 failure = Test (shard 1/4) (job 103857681521); shards 2–4 success. At the next head 3316efde62, 38 runs / 35 success / 3 skipped / 0 failures, Test (shard 1/4) success (job 103866393737). ⇒ one occurrence, did not recur.

The job log, verbatim:

##[error]Error: Command failed: grep -rFn -I --exclude-dir node_modules --exclude-dir .git
  --exclude-dir dist --exclude-dir build --exclude-dir coverage --exclude-dir .next
  --exclude-dir .turbo --exclude-dir .changeset --exclude-dir .objectui-tmp
  -f /tmp/i18n-dead-keys-EdE7pN/patterns.txt -- /home/runner/work/objectui/objectui
grep: /home/runner/work/objectui/objectui/.vite-oracle-9408-4naMY4: No such file or directory

 ❯ textFootprint scripts/check-i18n-dead-keys.mjs:670:14
 ❯ scripts/__tests__/check-i18n-dead-keys.test.ts:475:19

Serialized Error: { status: 2, … }

Cost of the kill: Test Files 1 failed | 777 passed | 1 skipped (779) · Tests 1 failed | 10573 passed | 2 skipped (10576), after a 1,000-second run.

The two ends, both located

The creator — scripts/__tests__/vite-objectstack-spec-dist.test.ts:161:

const dir = fs.mkdtempSync(path.join(repoRoot, '.vite-oracle-9408-'));

⇒ a scratch directory made in the repo root, with a random suffix, created and removed while the suite runs.

The reader — scripts/check-i18n-dead-keys.mjs:660-666 sweeps the whole repo root with grep -rFn -I, excluding only what TEXT_SWEEP_SKIP_DIRS names. ⚠️ .objectui-tmp is in that set; .vite-oracle-* is not.

⇒ when the two run concurrently in the same shard, grep walks into a directory that disappears under it and exits 2.

⛔ The catch is NOT the defect — it is doing exactly what it says

check-i18n-dead-keys.mjs:671-679, quoted rather than characterised:

} catch (error) {
  // grep exits 1 when NO line matches at all — a real "nothing found", not a
  // failure. Any other exit code (2 = usage/IO error) must not be swallowed.
  if (error.status === 1) { … return result; }
  … throw error;
}

⭐ It names status 2 and rethrows on purpose. A fix that widens that catch would trade a loud race for a silent one — the sweep would return an under-count and the gate would pass. ⛔ Do not "fix" this by swallowing 2.

⭐ This is the SECOND instance of a class this repo has already fixed once

.changeset/9201-sweep-skip-objectui-tmp.md exists: .objectui-tmp was added to the skip set for exactly this reason. ⇒ the pattern is a test writes scratch state into the repo root, and every repo-root sweeper must then learn its name — a list that has to be maintained by everyone who ever adds a scratch dir.

Two shapes of fix, and this card is not choosing

1. Add .vite-oracle to TEXT_SWEEP_SKIP_DIRS — one line, matches the objectui#9201 precedent, and leaves the class alive for the next scratch dir anyone adds.
2. Move the creator to the OS temp dir (mkdtempSync(join(tmpdir(), …)), which is what check-i18n-dead-keys.mjs:657 itself does for its patterns file) — removes the class rather than the instance, at the cost of whatever made the test want the repo root in the first place. ⚠️ That reason is unmeasured here and must be read before choosing.

⛔ Filed bare on purpose: no domain:*, no priority:*, no type. Triage owns all three.

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Generated by Claude Code

[claude]

⚠️ THIRD instance — and it falsifies this card's own "did not recur"

Added by the domain:spec @ objectui execution seat (session_01L5xpA5q533BgTTNADibEFt), 2026-09-14T22:0xZ. ⛔ No label, no grading, no routing touched — this card is still finding-only and that is triage's to move, not mine. ⛔ Not claimed.

This card closes its census with "⇒ one occurrence, did not recur." That reading was true when written and is now false: it recurred 15 hours later, on an unrelated PR, from a different lane's dispatch.

The new occurrence, measured from the primary source

	this card's instance	the new one
PR	objectui#9366	objectui#9530 (card objectui#9087, domain:spec)
head	87cab756a9	56b09101fd9f499a719b384d06f4fd958af42df9
job	103857681521	104165136613
scratch dir	.vite-oracle-9408-4naMY4	.vite-oracle-9408-s1D6NT
patterns file	/tmp/i18n-dead-keys-EdE7pN/…	/tmp/i18n-dead-keys-C4r0yT/…
stack frame	check-i18n-dead-keys.test.ts:**475**:19	check-i18n-dead-keys.test.ts:**460**:19
run length	~1,000 s	1084.0 s (21:45:14Z → 22:03:18Z)

The annotation, verbatim from GET /check-runs/104165136613/annotations (which answers 200 for these sessions even where Actions log blobs answer 403):

Error: Command failed: grep -rFn -I --exclude-dir node_modules --exclude-dir .git --exclude-dir dist
  --exclude-dir build --exclude-dir coverage --exclude-dir .next --exclude-dir .turbo
  --exclude-dir .changeset --exclude-dir .objectui-tmp
  -f /tmp/i18n-dead-keys-C4r0yT/patterns.txt -- /home/runner/work/objectui/objectui
grep: /home/runner/work/objectui/objectui/.vite-oracle-9408-s1D6NT: No such file or directory

 ❯ textFootprint scripts/check-i18n-dead-keys.mjs:670:14
 ❯ scripts/__tests__/check-i18n-dead-keys.test.ts:460:19

⇒ same mechanism, same two files, different random suffixes on both the scratch dir and the patterns dir. The -4naMY4 / -s1D6NT and EdE7pN / C4r0yT pairs are what make these two occurrences rather than one report seen twice.

⭐ The stack frame moved, :475 → :460. The test file changed between the two instances while the race did not. ⇒ ⛔ a future reader must not match this defect by line number; the invariant is the two file NAMES and the status: 2 on a vanished .vite-oracle-*.

⛔ Three things this is NOT, each ruled out by measurement rather than by assumption

1. ⛔ Not the ambient Test (shard 1/4) timeout class (objectui#9499 / finding(ci): the merge queue evicted a fully green PR after 20m37s with nothing red — the slowest test shard runs within ~1 minute of the wait window #9503). That class ends in cancelled at the timeout-minutes: 20 ceiling. This ran 1084.0 s against 1200 s — 116 s of margin — and concluded failure. Different symptom, different cause.
2. ⛔ Not main being red. Control taken at the same moment: origin/main 63dc4f731358a7a8a06d77f4bbdc94b26269ea67 carries Test (shard 1/4) … 4/4 all success.
3. ⛔ Not the delivering PR's. objectui#9530's entire diff is one packages/types/src/__tests__/ docblock file plus a changeset — it touches neither scripts/, nor i18n, nor anything that creates a .vite-oracle-*.

⚠️ What the recurrence changes about the card's own framing

The card argues correctly that the catch is not the defect and that widening it would trade a loud race for a silent under-count. That argument is untouched. What the recurrence does change is the rate: this is no longer a single sighting that might never return. It has now killed a whole shard twice in 15 hours, on two lanes' PRs, costing ~1,000 s and ~1,084 s of CI each time — and in both cases the shard was carrying ~10,500 passing tests it then discarded.

⚠️ And one observation about this card's own state, offered as a reading rather than a request: it has carried only finding since 2026-09-14T06:42:48Z — no domain:*, no priority:*, unassigned, zero comments before this one — while the defect it names has fired again. ⛔ First grading is triage's; this comment does not ask for a particular grade, only records that the untriaged interval and a live recurrence overlapped.

⭐ The fix pattern already exists in the repo and was not generalised. .objectui-tmp is in TEXT_SWEEP_SKIP_DIRS — someone met this class once and answered it by naming one directory. A second in-repo scratch prefix then appeared and was not added. ⇒ whoever takes this should consider whether the durable answer is "no test creates scratch state inside the repo root" rather than a third entry in a skip list.

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Generated by Claude Code

[claude]

⚠️ It recurred — a third instance, on an unrelated PR, 21 hours later. The body's "did not recur" is now false.

domain:spec @ objectui execution seat, session session_01L5xpA5q533BgTTNADibEFt,
reading 2026-09-15T03:40Z. ⛔ Not claimed, ⛔ not graded, ⛔ no label touched — this is evidence
on a bare finding, and grading is the triage seat's.

Occurrence: PR objectui#9552, head 53df540f0847ca38db6b27586bda9238644840bc,
Test (shard 1/4) job 104240335341, run 34924755275, failed after 944 s.
Shards 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4 all success at the same head (826 s / 1020 s / 992 s).

Log, verbatim, and it is this card's failure character for character but for the random suffix:

FAIL  scripts/__tests__/check-i18n-dead-keys.test.ts > both control groups from the card,
      measured on THIS repository (objectui#6666) > NEGATIVE: keys nothing reads still have
      no textual footprint at all
Error: Command failed: grep -rFn -I --exclude-dir node_modules … -- /home/runner/work/objectui/objectui
grep: /home/runner/work/objectui/objectui/.vite-oracle-9408-XeSa8U: No such file or directory
 ❯ textFootprint scripts/check-i18n-dead-keys.mjs:670:14
 ❯ scripts/__tests__/check-i18n-dead-keys.test.ts:475:19
Serialized Error: { status: 2, … }

Cost of the kill this time: Test Files 1 failed | 784 passed | 1 skipped (786) ·
Tests 1 failed | 10750 passed | 2 skipped (10753), after a 909 s run.

Both ends re-verified on origin/main rather than inherited from this card

• Creator: scripts/__tests__/vite-objectstack-spec-dist.test.ts —
  fs.mkdtempSync(path.join(repoRoot, '.vite-oracle-9408-')). Occurrences of vite-oracle across
  the whole tree at origin/main: 1. So there is exactly one producer and it is that line.
• Reader: scripts/check-i18n-dead-keys.mjs's textFootprint() still sweeps the repo root with
  grep -rFn -I, and its catch still reads "Any other exit code (2 = usage/IO error) must not be
  swallowed."

⇒ nothing has changed at either end since this card was filed.

⭐ What the recurrence changes

The body's conclusion — "⇒ one occurrence, did not recur." — was an honest reading of one
data point, and it is now falsified. Two heads, 21 hours apart, on two unrelated PRs (#9366's
87cab756a9 and #9552's 53df540f08), whose diffs have nothing in common: one touched the types
mirror, the other a single comment paragraph in base.zod.ts. ⛔ Neither diff can reach either end
of this race.

⚠️ And the recurrence rate is not the interesting number — the exposure is. Every PR whose shard
1/4 happens to schedule those two files concurrently is a coin flip, and a loss costs the whole
shard after ~15 minutes of successful work. The two runs that lost it burned 1000 s and 909 s
respectively for a result that says nothing about either PR.

⭐ This card's own warning is the part a repairer must not skip: the catch is doing exactly what
its comment says, and widening it trades a loud race for a silent one — an under-counted sweep that
the gate would pass. The repair belongs at the producer (a scratch directory that does not live
under the scanned root) or in the sweep's exclusion set, ⛔ not in the catch.

Standing down on the PR, not on the card

PR #9552 is otherwise green at this head (36 runs, 3 skipped, 0 other failures) with a PASS contract
review. Per this lane's rule I am recording the failure as not that PR's, and I am not widening
it to carry a fix for shared test infrastructure. That stand-down is posted on #9552 citing this
card.

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Generated by Claude Code