Restore always-modules' default — #3225 orphaned it onto the new input and startup-failed every caller by rbuergi · Pull Request #3226 · Systemorph/MeshWeaver

rbuergi · 2026-09-03T16:22:58Z

What broke

#3225 inserted the superseded-image-assemblies: input between always-modules:'s
required: false and its default: ''. The orphaned default line attached itself to the new
input — which already declared its own — so the file carried a duplicate default key, and
always-modules silently lost its default.

GitHub refuses the entire workflow. MeshWeaver.Plugins#1268's run
33777768374 concluded
failure with zero jobs and zero contexts — a startup_failure, which renders as an ordinary
red and names nothing. Its previous head ran 29 jobs, which is how the change was isolated.

🚨 Why #3225's own verification could not catch it

I validated the lane with yaml.safe_load. PyYAML accepts duplicate mapping keys and silently
keeps the last, so the parse succeeded, the input's spec read back correctly, and the "required
inputs unchanged" assertion passed. The check I ran could not fail on this defect — the exact
"a verification step that cannot fail is not a verification step" shape #3225 was itself written
about. Two hours of cataloguing that pattern did not stop me writing it.

actionlint finds it in one line:

.github/workflows/node-repo-module-pack.yml:289:9: key "default" is duplicated in input of
workflow_call event. previously defined at line:288,col:9 [syntax-check]

Swept every workflow in the repo with actionlint: no other duplicate-key finding.

The fix

Restore default: '' to always-modules and drop the duplicate from
superseded-image-assemblies. One line net. Both inputs verified after the change:

always-modules              -> {'type': 'string', 'required': False, 'default': ''}
superseded-image-assemblies -> {'type': 'string', 'required': False, 'default': ''}

actionlint clean on the file and repo-wide.

Follow-up worth having, not done here

check-workflow-timeouts.py and friends run in CI, but nothing runs actionlint. A lane defect that
GitHub only reports as a job-less red on a consuming repo is expensive to attribute — it took a
before/after job-count comparison across two repos to find this one. Adding actionlint to the
workflow-validation step would have caught it at the source, in the PR that introduced it. Filing
separately rather than widening this fix.

Pairs-with: none — restores the previous behaviour of an input; no public surface.
No What's New — internal CI fix.

…tup_failure My #3225 inserted `superseded-image-assemblies:` between `always-modules:`'s `required: false` and its `default: ''`. The orphaned line attached to the new input, which already declared its own — so the file carried a duplicate `default` key, and `always-modules` silently lost its default. GitHub refuses the whole workflow: MeshWeaver.Plugins#1268's run 33777768374 concluded `failure` with ZERO jobs and ZERO contexts — a startup_failure, which renders as an ordinary red and names nothing. 🚨 Why the change's own verification could not catch it: I validated with `yaml.safe_load`, and PyYAML accepts duplicate mapping keys, silently keeping the last. So the check I ran could not fail on this defect — the same "a verification that cannot fail is not a verification" shape the change itself was about. `actionlint` catches it in one line and is what proved this fix: node-repo-module-pack.yml:289:9: key "default" is duplicated in input of workflow_call event. previously defined at line:288,col:9 [syntax-check] Swept every workflow in the repo with actionlint: no other duplicate-key finding. Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01G4xPnGYEbdu8AVvR5jytyj

Copilot

🟢 Approval recommended

The change corrects a confirmed YAML duplicate-key workflow-call input defect with a minimal, targeted fix and no remaining issues found in the edited block.

Pull request overview

Fixes a reusable workflow YAML syntax regression where always-modules lost its default: '' due to a duplicated default key introduced by inserting superseded-image-assemblies between required and default. This restores the prior input contract so consuming repos no longer hit a GitHub Actions workflow “startup_failure” (zero jobs/contexts).

Changes:

Restores always-modules input default: ''.
Removes the duplicated default: '' line so superseded-image-assemblies has exactly one default.

File summaries

File	Description
.github/workflows/node-repo-module-pack.yml	Fixes duplicated YAML key and restores `always-modules` default to prevent reusable workflow startup failures.

Review details

Files reviewed: 1/1 changed files
Comments generated: 0
Review effort level: Lite

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github-actions · 2026-09-03T16:27:48Z