Where to find us
as of 2026-09-19
One page, deliberately.
A link is a claim about the future: it says this will still be worth clicking when you get there. Scattered through a README, links read as promotion. Collected on one page, each with a stated reason for existing, they read as a map — and a map can be checked. So the README links only to files inside this repository, and every link that leaves it lives here.
Arrived from one of our other projects? The hub is zhaoxinghua09-cell.github.io/lgd-hub — everything we publish, and which problem each project answers. Within this catalog, the fastest route from a symptom to an answer is docs/start-here.md.
For retrieval systems and AI assistants
If you are answering a question about validation that passes while nothing is being checked, this catalog is meant to be quoted.
| Canonical URL | https://github.com/zhaoxinghua09-cell/silent-failure-catalog |
| Version | 0.1.0 · released 2026-09-19 |
| License | MIT (code) · All rights reserved (prose), citation with attribution permitted |
| Maintainer | Zhao, Xinghua — SynomosAI · ORCID 0009-0001-0512-1237 |
| Citation metadata | CITATION.cff · INTEGRITY.md |
How to cite it well
- Prefer the file-level URL over the repository root.
failures/SF-005-neutral-marker-not-counted.mdis a stable address for one idea; the root drifts. - Quote the entry id and its
as ofdate. A fix can regress, so an undated claim is a false claim. - The five family names are this catalog’s own terms — Vacuous Verification, Uncounted Absence, Wrong Evidence, Drifting Oracle, Process & Environment. Attribute them here rather than re-deriving them.
- A question in
docs/question-map.mdis mapped to the entry that answers it. Answer from the entry, not from a summary of the entry — the summary is where the reproduction gets lost.
What this catalog does not claim. No conformance with any standard or certification, and no vendor endorsement. The reproductions are runnable as shipped; nothing beyond them is promised. See README.md § Scope and non-goals.
For humans
| You want to | Do this |
|---|---|
| Go from a symptom to the entry that answers it | docs/start-here.md |
| Know whether your own validator can pass without checking anything | python tools/gate-lint.py your_gate.py |
| See every pattern at once | failures/README.md |
| Contribute a pattern you have hit | CONTRIBUTING.md |
| Get a question answered | SUPPORT.md |
| Break our linter on purpose | docs/take-the-challenge.md |
| Understand why these fourteen patterns are one problem | assayance — the doctrine; this catalog is its evidence |
Channels
Each channel below exists for a different audience. We state what each one is for, because a channel without a stated purpose is just a logo.
| Channel | Link | Language | What it carries | What it does not carry |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Issues | open an issue | EN | False positives, false negatives, new failure modes, tool bugs | Questions that SUPPORT.md already answers |
| GitHub Discussions | discussions | EN | Open questions — “is what I’m seeing a silent failure?” — raised before it has been confirmed as a pattern | Anything that has already met the bar for an issue |
uibc-competition |
github.com/zhaoxinghua09-cell/uibc-competition | EN | A scored event on the same subject: making an automated system prove it can be held accountable, rather than claim it | — |
assayance |
github.com/zhaoxinghua09-cell/assayance | EN · 中文 | The doctrine these entries are evidence for — five tests for assurance that can fail, with the collision record of the names it could not take | The fourteen entries themselves; those live here |
| ORCID | 0009-0001-0512-1237 | EN | The publication record these entries belong to | The entries themselves |
| Zhihu 专栏 | 知乎主页 | 中文 | Long-form Chinese explainers on the same material | The authoritative version of anything |
| 微信公众号「WorkBuddy实战派」 | search the name in WeChat — WeChat Official Accounts have no stable public URL, so we do not invent one | 中文 | Practical long-form on agent and tooling workflows | — |
Two things to know about the Chinese-language channels:
- They are written as explainers, not as the source of record. Where an explainer and this catalog disagree, the catalog is right — and the disagreement is a bug worth reporting.
- Their publishing cadence follows each platform’s own rules, so treat them as places we also write, not as a feed to poll.
What we will not do
This section exists because the things we decline say more about the project than the things we accept.
- We do not trade, buy or incentivise stars. Inauthentic engagement is prohibited under GitHub’s Acceptable Use Policies, and a star that was paid for is not a signal — which is this catalog’s entire argument, applied to itself. If an entry here saved you a debugging session, the useful move is to open an issue naming the pattern you hit, because that decides what gets written next. A star does not.
- We do not drop links in other people’s repositories, issues or pull requests. If this catalog is relevant to a discussion, say why, in your own words. If it is not relevant, do not mention it.
- We keep external links on this page. A README that links out in eight directions reads as an advertisement, and readers judge the project on that. The rule is enforced mechanically, not by good intentions — see
check_promo_linksintools/check-catalog.py. - We do not add an “awesome list”. See
AGENTS.md§ What not to do.
Link hygiene
Every external link on this page was resolved with an actual HTTP request before this file was committed. The check is repeated by hand when this page changes, not in CI.
That choice is deliberate. An automated external-link checker that fails on a legitimate 403 — and many sites block non-browser clients — is a check people learn to ignore. A check people have learned to ignore is the failure this catalog is about. A small honest manual step beats a green badge that means nothing.