Five findings, all real.
**The chain prompts carried the target skill's own trigger.** `test-servers`
claims "a change needs a real server to exercise it", and both cases said
"against a real/live server" — so the model could load `testing`, then pick
`test-servers` from the ORIGINAL prompt, in that order, and score a hit that
would have survived deleting the pointer from `testing` entirely. Rewritten to
carry no server cue ("end to end"), and the measured rate fell from 100% / 67%
to 33% / 33%. That is the size of the artefact, and 33% is what the pointer
alone is worth. Both cases are now red against the 0.5 bar and stay that way:
`skills:eval` is not a gate, the number IS the finding, and lowering the bar to
turn the column green would discard the only signal this feature adds. Filed as
#2247 with the trap written down so a fix cannot re-measure the artefact.
**A deny list cannot bound a 14-turn run.** It only names tools known when it
was written, and this checkout configures an HTTP `mcp-docs` server in
`.mcp.json` while a contributor's own MCP servers and plugins add more. Now
`--allowedTools Read,Glob,Grep,Skill` (what the harness actually needs) plus
`--strict-mcp-config` with no `--mcp-config`, which drops every configured
server. The deny list stays alongside, since a deny is unconditional while an
allow list governs pre-approval. What remains outside all three is a
contributor's plugin tools; `--bare` would remove those and skills with them,
which would measure nothing — so that residual is stated rather than papered
over.
**The chain threshold compared inclusively.** "More often than not" is `> 0.5`,
and `>=` passes exactly half whenever RUNS is even — 2/4 would report a result
the criterion does not license. `passesThreshold` is now strict for chains and a
floor for first moves, and a strict bound of 1.0 is rejected up front rather
than failing every case while looking like a trigger problem.
**The doc's probe command still denied only four tools**, contradicting the
section's own promise that a probe and a scored case see the same policy.
Updated, with a note that it must move with the harness, plus a hand-off probe
form.
**The reporting had no automated coverage** — the one thing that could silently
merge the two measurements lived inside `main`. Extracted as `formatReport` and
tested: both headings, per-group thresholds, the two separate summaries, the
combined exit, and both single-kind selections.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01ABdTnqyBodw6mHVVkGehqe
Signed-off-by: cliffhall <cliff@futurescale.com>