Slice 14: Stale Token Auto-Update — COMPLETE¶

Date: 2025-10-16 Duration: 2 hours Status: ✅ COMPLETED Gap Resolved: Gap #10 (--update-stale flag)

Objective¶

Implement --update-stale flag to automatically rewrite UPDATED field for stale TESTED/BENCHED tokens.

Implementation¶

1. Added --update-stale Flag¶

File: tools/canary/main.go:75
Added flag: flag.Bool("update-stale", false, "rewrite UPDATED field for stale TESTED/BENCHED tokens")

2. Implemented updateStaleTokens Function¶

File: tools/canary/main.go:290-389
Parses stale diagnostics to extract REQ IDs
Walks directory tree respecting skip patterns
Reads files and searches for CANARY tokens
Updates UPDATED field for stale TESTED/BENCHED tokens only
Writes updated content back to files
Returns map of modified files

3. Modified Main Workflow¶

File: tools/canary/main.go:86-104
When --update-stale is set:
Run initial scan to detect stale tokens
If stale tokens found, call updateStaleTokens()
Re-scan after updates to get fresh status
Print update summary to stderr

4. Added Acceptance Test¶

File: tools/canary/internal/acceptance_test.go:336-418
TestAcceptance_UpdateStale validates:
CBIN-001 (TESTED, stale) → updated
CBIN-002 (TESTED, fresh) → unchanged
CBIN-003 (IMPL, stale) → unchanged (only TESTED/BENCHED updated)
CBIN-004 (BENCHED, stale) → updated

5. Fixed TestAcceptance_SelfCanary¶

File: tools/canary/internal/acceptance_test.go:123
Updated skip pattern to exclude internal/ directory
Prevents scanning test fixture strings in acceptance_test.go
Pattern: (^|/)(.git|.direnv|node_modules|vendor|bin|dist|build|zig-out|.zig-cache|testdata|internal)(/|$)

Test Results¶

Unit Tests (4/4 passing)¶

TestCANARY_CBIN_101_Engine_ScanBasic        PASS
TestCANARY_CBIN_103_API_StatusSchema        PASS
TestCANARY_CBIN_103_API_JSONDeterminism     PASS
TestCANARY_CBIN_102_CLI_Verify              PASS

Acceptance Tests (7/7 passing)¶

TestAcceptance_FixtureSummary               PASS
TestAcceptance_Overclaim                    PASS
TestAcceptance_Stale                        PASS
TestAcceptance_SelfCanary                   PASS
TestAcceptance_CSVOrder                     PASS
TestAcceptance_SkipEdgeCases                PASS
TestAcceptance_UpdateStale                  PASS

Manual Validation¶

$ ./bin/canary --root /tmp/test-stale2 --update-stale --out status.json
Updated 2 stale tokens in 1 files

# Before: CBIN-001 UPDATED=2024-01-01
# After:  CBIN-001 UPDATED=2025-10-16

# Before: CBIN-004 UPDATED=2024-01-01
# After:  CBIN-004 UPDATED=2025-10-16

# CBIN-002 (fresh) remained unchanged
# CBIN-003 (IMPL) remained unchanged

Issues Encountered¶

Issue 1: Assignment Mismatch¶

Error: assignment mismatch: 1 variable but parseKV returns 2 values Fix: Changed attrs := parseKV(match[1]) to attrs, err := parseKV(match[1]) with error handling

Issue 2: TestAcceptance_UpdateStale Validation¶

Error: Test failed with "CBIN-001 should have UPDATED field changed" Fix: Rewrote validation to parse lines individually using findLine helper function

Issue 3: TestAcceptance_SelfCanary Stale Tokens¶

Error: CANARY_STALE REQ=CBIN-001 updated=2024-01-01 Root Cause: Test fixture strings in acceptance_test.go were being scanned Fix: Added internal to skip pattern to exclude test files

Gap Resolution¶

Gap #10: --update-stale flag → ✅ RESOLVED - Automated staleness remediation implemented - Selective updates for TESTED/BENCHED only - Safe file rewriting with error handling - Full test coverage with acceptance test

Files Modified¶

tools/canary/main.go (flag + updateStaleTokens + workflow)
tools/canary/internal/acceptance_test.go (new test + skip pattern fix)

Next Steps¶

Create PHASE_4_COMPLETE.md summary
Update GAP_ANALYSIS.md (Gaps #6, #9, #10 resolved)
Update NEXT.md with Phase 4 completion
Final verification of all 10 gaps addressed