---
name: condition-reproduced-race-did-not
description: "An end-to-end green after a race fix can be VACUOUS — separate 'the condition was present' from 'the race landed', and never let the ladder's green stand in for the fix's evidence."
metadata: 
  node_type: memory
  type: feedback
  originSessionId: 1e15e6ca-6830-40c8-b051-25a9b1850b5c
  modified: 2026-08-19T01:06:10.640Z
---

A fix for a race gets a green run and it reads as convergence. Ask what the run
actually EXERCISED. If the collision did not occur, the fixed path never ran, and
the green is evidence about the ladder — not about the fix.

Measured (releases#193, run 32203048811, both legs green, ladder 3/3): the
instrument showed ONE serve of the redemption — one `serves_for_rec=1`, one arm,
one reply — so the echo the fix adds was never reached. The pre-registered
prediction "no REDEEMED/REFUSED pair" was satisfied VACUOUSLY, which is the
non-reproduction arm I had registered as C5, not the convergence arm C1.

The distinction the instrument made, and the reason it was worth building: the
CONDITION reproduced (both dispatcher processes live on the box again — 716
serves from one, 154 from the other, 2 of 2 instrumented runs) while the RACE on
that particular stream did not (1 of 2). "Didn't reproduce" would have been the
lazy sentence; the true one is "the condition was there, the collision wasn't",
and it carries a denominator.

**Why:** a fix that makes an outcome HONEST cannot make the collision stop
happening — that was a different issue in a different lane. So the ladder's green
could never have been the fix's evidence, and saying so before the run is what
kept the report straight when the green arrived.

**How to apply:** register the non-reproduction arm BEFORE the run (mine was C5)
so the vacuous case has a name to land in. Report which arm fired, not just the
color. State what the run could not exercise, and name what the real evidence is
instead (here: both-polarity unit cells + a negative control that turns exactly
the new-behaviour cells red). When someone wants the unexercised path witnessed,
offer a DETERMINISTIC rig rather than re-firing a probabilistic one — re-running
against a 1-of-2 rate is buying a rerun. Kin:
[[intermittent-green-is-zero-information]],
[[base-rate-is-over-cell-executions-not-suite-runs]],
[[make-a-new-rig-red-on-purpose]], [[non-vacuity-check-can-fail-for-the-defects-reason]].