The original title is "Exit 0 Is Not Success: Automation Assurance That Verifies Outcomes"

Short summary

A cron job that exits zero but produces nothing is a silent failure wearing a green badge. This post details an automation execution assurance system on Intent-OS that uses a registry, a fail-closed status ladder, and active drills to verify outcomes beyond exit codes. The first-run scorecard tested 34 predicates including stuck heartbeats, exit-0-no-output scenarios, and watchdog failures, all with no false greens.

• •Exit code 0 only proves no crash path—it hides empty success, skipped work, and wrong targets
• •Assurance system uses registry.json policies, assure.py fail-closed checks, and watchdog-of-watchdog escalation
• •Disposable drills inject minimum failure sets to verify detect-receipt-recover chains, not just dashboard greens

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