# Gate 3 increment 6 tournament and operator-interface report

Date: 2026-08-16
Exact base: `e8ac3b65670d696ed5b68f06adf14706bc2ff865`
Exact core implementation and local evidence head:
`77adf119f871ba820f1f02d55fe2760aa24c84b2`
Exact canonical head: `9683e0be4d892e6a6a134b45a065e591e139da3c`
Canonical run: https://github.com/elder-plinius/OBLITERATUS/actions/runs/31941334488
Status: PASS; PR #108 was exact-head audited and canonically merged

## Results

| Gate | Result |
|---|---|
| Focused contracts | 74 new tournament, interactive, local-launcher, and Watchtower-UI tests passed |
| Mandatory CPU lane | Python 3.12: 2,057 passed, 2 expected source-shadow xfails, and 9 conditional tests deselected in 56.15s |
| Repository coverage | 78.69% statements / 66.05% branches before; 82.78% / 69.62% after |
| Mature CPU scope | 93.27% statements / 83.06% branches |
| Changed executable lines | 62/62 (100%) against the exact base |
| Touched production modules | 5/5 pass exact-base line and branch no-regression |
| Tournament lifecycle | `tourney.py`: 12.01% / 0% before; 83.09% statements / 77.78% branches after |
| Interactive decisions | `interactive.py`: 10.49% / 0% before; 76.92% / 73.53% after |
| Local launcher | `local_ui.py`: 48.15% / 15.22% before; 85.19% / 63.04% after |
| Watchtower UI handlers | `ui_watchtower.py`: 0% / 0% before; 72.07% / 85.29% after |
| Pure checkpoint seam | `tourney_contracts.py`: 100% statements / 100% branches |
| Changed-seam mutation | 9/9 checkpoint-parser mutants killed; configured campaign expands from 2,020 to 2,029 mutants |
| Repeatability | 669 tests passed in each of three file orders/hash seeds; 35.353s total; no flake candidates or consistent failures |
| Policy | Ruff F, conditional policy, source-to-test risk map, mutation-target guard, global/mature coverage, changed-line, and touched-module gates passed |

The repository statement and branch exits both exceed the Gate 3 targets. The
canonical run passed all eight required checks, including 2,059 tests on each
of Python 3.10, 3.11, and 3.12; 89.50% selected mutation score (1,816/2,029);
three repeat orders with 669 tests each and no flakes; Windows checkpoint,
package, and supply-chain evidence. The remaining new-work hold is bounded item
7, followed by conditional-evidence reconciliation and final reporting.

## Contracts added

1. Tournament scoring, result ordering, bracket/model-card rendering, round
   ranking, loser cleanup, no-winner behavior, and callback sequencing are
   deterministic without loading a model.
2. Checkpoints reject malformed, non-object, unreadable, unsupported-version,
   and invalid-encoding documents. Completed and interrupted rounds preserve
   direction and spectral-certification metadata, and quota interruption resumes
   at the exact remaining method without repeating completed work.
3. Guided terminal choices map hardware boundaries, custom models, presets,
   strategies, sample sizes, cancellation, and quantized execution into an exact
   study configuration. Remote repository code is disabled by default, and the
   quantized branch returns its study result.
4. The local launcher masks passwords, reports network listeners, forwards the
   full Gradio server contract, avoids hardware work in quiet mode, fails clearly
   when the optional UI runtime is absent, and degrades to CPU when a GPU driver
   probe raises a runtime error.
5. Watchtower pure handlers are mandatory even without Gradio. Actual tab
   construction still requires the optional UI extra, while update mappings,
   scan/history/scheduler callbacks, zero-valued metrics, and failure rendering
   remain CPU-testable.
6. One-click result selection orders numeric iteration identifiers correctly,
   ignores malformed names and unreadable entries, and refuses symlink targets
   outside its managed result root.
7. Dynamic Watchtower status and scan errors are HTML-escaped, and an exact
   `0.0` refusal rate is reported as measured zero rather than `unknown`.

## Defects detected and corrected

The first focused tournament run found that non-object JSON roots raised
`AttributeError` and that interrupted contenders lost direction/certification
metadata on resume. Scripted interactive tests then exposed unconditional
`trust_remote_code=True` and a discarded quantized-study return value. Launcher
tests reproduced a driver-probe exception that prevented CPU fallback.

Watchtower handler tests detected lexicographic iteration ordering (`iter_2`
beating `iter_10`), symlink escape from the managed download root, unescaped
HTML in scan errors and invalid timestamps, and false `unknown` reporting for a
measured zero refusal rate. The initial mandatory run also proved that a
collection-time Gradio stub contaminated conditional test selection; pure
handlers now have a real optional-dependency seam instead.

The first changed-line comparison reported 35/40 covered executable changes.
Negative tests for the installed-Gradio update path, empty model IDs, malformed
iteration names, and unreadable iteration directories raised the final gate to
51/51 without weakening the 95% policy.

The exact-head audit then found that base model-directory aliases (`.` and
`..`) and a symlinked model directory could escape or alias the managed
auto-obliterate root before iteration selection. The download handler now
resolves the root and selected model directory strictly, requires a contained
directory, and returns only a resolved contained iteration. Four focused
outcomes cover both aliases, a model-directory symlink escape, and unreadable
root/model-directory resolution, raising the final changed-line result to
62/62.

## Verification and evidence

- Mandatory Python 3.12 coverage:
  `/tmp/obliteratus-item6-finalfix-coverage.json`
- Mandatory Python 3.12 JUnit:
  `/tmp/obliteratus-item6-finalfix-junit.xml`
- Exact-base Python 3.12 coverage:
  `/tmp/obliteratus-main-e8ac3b6-UGNOIz/coverage-py3.12.json`
- Final repeat evidence:
  `/tmp/obliteratus-item6-finalfix-repeat-p9WOFE/`
- Exact-head package artifacts:
  `/tmp/obliteratus-item6-finalfix-package-mzTdWl/`
- Mutation metadata and prepared selection evidence:
  ignored worktree-local `mutants/` artifacts at the exact implementation head

The exact implementation and canonical heads pass the enforced Ruff F scope,
immutable quality policy, conditional-policy validation, risk-map validation,
mutation required-target guard, 75% statement and 60% branch floors, 95%
changed-line floor, and touched-module no-regression gate. The hosted
2,029-mutant campaign, package matrix, supply-chain checks, exact-head audit,
and canonical reconciliation are complete.

## Scope and release decision

This increment implements bounded delivery item 6. It makes no live model,
network, browser, accelerator, credential, or publication claim. All model and
service behavior uses injected fakes and isolated temporary filesystems. Item 7
and the final Gate 3 release decision remain open, so ordinary feature work does
not resume yet.
