---
name: start-event-is-not-proof-nothing-ran
description: "RETRACTED probe-miss claim inside — kept for what survives: a start event proves a start happened, not that one was needed; swallowed-output absence is not evidence; a silent exit-1 arm is un-RCA-able from CI output."
metadata: 
  node_type: memory
  type: project
  originSessionId: 4dc44016-b3d5-40c6-a592-a99f070b1e1a
  modified: 2026-08-01T23:13:43.052Z
---

RETRACTION FIRST (doyle, same day, 2026-08-01): this memory originally claimed the box's real daemon (pid 15788) probed as ABSENT under load — `is_running()` false for a live daemon. That claim is WITHDRAWN. Daemon socket names are SPT_HOME-derived (`endpoint.rs` `home_tag`: "parallel test processes never collide on one machine"), so the pid-15788 daemon serves the DEFAULT home; the failing test's isolated tempdir home correctly had no daemon, and its autostart was the design working. The process-table-vs-wall-clock check answered a question about the wrong home. Do not resurrect the probe-miss reading; releases#94 comment 5153909834 is the correction of record.

What SURVIVES from the releases#94 RCA:

1. **A start event proves a start happened, never that one was needed.** Classifying an autostart as anomalous requires first establishing the SCOPE of the probed resource (machine vs home vs user vs session). I skipped that and built a wrong chain on a right-looking process-table check.
2. **Swallowed-output absence is not evidence.** nextest suppresses passing tests' captured output, so "this notice appears in no green log" is an absence proxy over a channel that only prints on failure — unfalsifiable both directions. Same family as [[absence-proxy-breaks-when-success-writes]].
3. **A silent exit-1 arm is a defect on its own terms.** Every `gated()` refusal arm names itself and is RCA-able from one CI sample; the arm that printed nothing cost hours of archaeology and stayed unresolved (releases#94 scope item a). When walking exit paths, flag any arm that can return non-zero without printing.

**How to apply:** before ruling a start/spawn event anomalous, name the resource's owner-scope and check THAT scope. Before citing log absence, check whether the channel only surfaces on failure. Related: [[derived-view-vs-on-disk-record]], [[instrument-soundness-guards]], [[isolated-home-isolates-broker-socket]].