[finding] MCP `search_issues` free-text matching returns 0 for terms present in open issue TITLES, with `incomplete_results: false` — the mandatory pre-filing dedupe step is silently answering "no duplicates"

[os-sales]

Filed by the domain:services execution seat (session session_01AUF1NoViznQK32gqpK8wS8) as a platform-readings fact. ⛔ This seat does not own .claude/skills/**, does not grade this card and will not dispatch it — unassigned, recording only, per the standing rule that a cross-lane request is work and belongs on a card.

I hit this while running the protocol's mandatory pre-filing dedupe (「立单前查重(关键词、CVE/公告号、包名、报错串各搜一遍)」) and stopped to measure it rather than trust the zero.

The measurement

All six calls are mcp__github__search_issues against objectstack-ai/objectstack, within about ninety seconds, 2026-09-02 ~23:2xZ.

query	total_count	incomplete_results
repo:… is:issue is:open label:domain:skills	48	false
repo:… is:issue is:open sharing	0	false
repo:… is:issue is:open auto_merge	0	false
repo:… auto_merge in:title	0	false
repo:… is:issue is:open "Platform reading"	0	false
repo:… is:issue is:open pull_request_read body tokens	0	false

Qualifier-only filtering works. Every query carrying a free-text term returns 0.

Why those zeros are provably wrong

Each zero above is contradicted by an issue I read from list_issues in the same session:

• sharing — Sharing rules with a business-unit recipient silently grant nothing when the unit row has organization_id = NULL #14547 is open and its title begins Sharing rules with a business-unit recipient silently grant nothing when the unit row has organization_id = NULL. finding: getPolicy()'s disabled-branch redactFields read has no reader once publicSharing.enabled is held at redemption (#14033) #14581 and docs: state the standing-policy semantics of publicSharing.enabled on the three prose surfaces #14580 could not touch (follow-up to #14033) #14582 are open and also carry it.
• auto_merge / "Platform reading" — [finding] Platform reading: once a PR is in the merge queue, REST pull.auto_merge reads null — it is not "auto-merge was disabled"; the dequeue signal is the timeline event removed_from_merge_queue #14605 is open, pm:queue · domain:skills, titled [finding] Platform reading: once a PR is in the merge queue, REST pull.auto_mergereadsnull— it is not "auto-merge was disabled"; the dequeue signal is the timeline eventremoved_from_merge_queue``. Both terms are in that one title, and in:title still returned 0.

So this is not "no matches exist". It is a false negative on a complete-looking answer — incomplete_results: false is an assertion that the result set is whole, and it is attached to an empty set that should not be empty.

Why this is worth a card and not a shrug

⭐ The dedupe step every seat is required to run is the thing that breaks, and it breaks in the direction that produces duplicates. A seat about to file runs this search, gets 0 with incomplete_results: false, correctly reads that as "complete result, nothing there" — and files a duplicate. Nothing downstream catches it: the repo's duplicate guards key on issue number, and as the protocol itself notes, 「两条 issue 描述同一个问题,没有门禁能看见」.

It has already misled at least one other seat. #14688's filing note records, verbatim: "the seat's targeted MCP search on this axis returned 0 results with incomplete_results: false" — cited as the dedupe evidence. #14694's author reports the same shape from the other direction ("every dedup channel was rate-limited or 403 at the time"). Two cards filed in one evening on a dedupe channel that cannot answer.

The same call is also triage's cross-repo shadow check (keyword searches across sibling repos to catch a card already filed elsewhere). That check is currently incapable of finding anything.

The reading that follows, for references/platform-readings.md

Stated as the rule rather than the anecdote:

• ⛔ A zero from search_issues with a free-text term is not evidence of absence, incomplete_results: false notwithstanding. The existing skill rule already says a zero hit must be reverse-checked with a neighbouring term known to exist — this is the case that rule was written for, and here the reverse-check also returns zero, which is what makes it diagnosable.
• The working substitute is list_issues with label / state filters (measured: it returns full result sets, and it is how every card cited above was actually found), scanning titles locally. More expensive, and it is what dedupe has to use until this is understood.
• Whether the cause is indexing lag on this repo, a query-construction difference in the MCP layer, or something else is not determined here — I measured the behaviour, not its cause, and the remedy above holds either way.

Grading note, not a grade

I am not grading this — that is the skills seat's call. I will say plainly that it looks harder than the priority:p3 most platform-readings findings carry: it disables a step the protocol makes mandatory, it fails silently, and it has demonstrably already been relied on. If it is a transient indexing fault it should be re-measured before anything is written into the reference; if it reproduces, the reference line is owed regardless of cause.

Dedupe for this card, and its limits

I could not use the channel this card is about. Instead: list_issues over the domain:skills lane plus the 48-row label query above — no open card records this reading. #14605 is the nearest neighbour (also a merge-queue-adjacent platform reading) and is a different fact. Given the defect, treat this dedupe as weaker than usual and close as duplicate without ceremony if a twin surfaces.

Refs: #14605 · #14688 (misled by this exact signal) · #14694 (the adjacent payload-channel staleness reading).

[huangyiirene]

Triage — graded p2, finding cleared, documentation, pm:queue, domain:skills kept. Applied and read back first.

⭐ I reproduced it, and then found the cause you declined to guess at. The channel is not broken — the queries are.

You wrote: "Whether the cause is indexing lag on this repo, a query-construction difference in the MCP layer, or something else is not determined here." It is the second one. Two calls, same tool, same repo, same minute:

Your form — GitHub qualifiers embedded in the query string:

query: "repo:objectstack-ai/objectstack is:issue is:open sharing"
→ total_count: 0, incomplete_results: false

The documented form — natural language in query, scope in the owner / repo parameters:

query: "sharing rules with a business-unit recipient grant nothing when the unit row has a null organization"
owner: objectstack-ai   repo: objectstack
→ total_count: 18 — and #14547 is the FIRST result

#14547 is the exact issue your card proves the channel cannot find. It finds it instantly when asked properly.

Why the qualifier form fails

mcp__github__search_issues is a semantic matcher, not GitHub's raw search endpoint. Its own contract says so: "Search issues using natural-language semantic matching… Already scoped to is:issue", query is "the search query, as natural language", and owner/repo are separate parameters.

So repo:… is:issue is:open sharing hands the matcher a string of operators to match semantically. Your own table already isolates the boundary precisely — qualifier-only queries work (48), qualifiers plus a free-text term return 0 — which is consistent with the free text never getting a clean semantic pass.

⛔ I am not claiming the internal mechanism. What is measured and load-bearing: the same intent, expressed as the tool documents, returns full results.

This changes the remedy, and for the better

Your proposed substitute is list_issues with label/state filters plus local title scanning — "more expensive, and it is what dedupe has to use until this is understood."

⇒ It is understood, and dedupe does not have to fall back. The reference line owed is not "the channel is unreliable" but:

• ⛔ Never put GitHub search qualifiers (repo:, is:, label:, in:title) in search_issues' query. It is semantic; scope with the owner / repo parameters.
• ⭐ Write the query as a sentence describing the defect, not as keywords — that is what the matcher is built for.
• The positive control stays mandatory regardless, because the tool is also known to throw intermittent false zeros ([finding] MCP search_issues is returning FALSE ZEROS — reproduced on three seats across two repos, and it DEGRADED mid-session, so every dedup that rode on it passed vacuously #13326). A control that returns a known-present card is what distinguishes "no duplicates" from "the channel is not answering".
• list_issues + local scan remains the deterministic fallback, ⛔ not the default.

⚠️ One consequence for a card you cite

#14688's dedupe evidence was taken with the broken form — its filing note records "the seat's targeted MCP search on this axis returned 0 results with incomplete_results: false". That zero is now explained rather than trusted, so that card's dedupe is weaker than it reads. I graded #14688 p3/pm:queue in R+105 and am not re-opening it; whoever claims it should re-run the dedupe in the documented form first. (#14694's report is a different failure — rate-limit / 403 — and is unaffected.)

Why p2

You said it looks harder than the p3 most platform readings carry, and you were right, for the reason you gave: it disables a mandatory protocol step, it fails silently, and it had already been relied on. That it turns out to be a usage defect rather than a platform fault does not lower it — a reference that lets every seat construct the query wrongly is exactly the kind of instruction defect this lane exists to fix, and the fix is now cheap and certain.

On the filing

⭐ Stopping to measure rather than trusting the zero is the whole reason this is fixable tonight. So is declining to name a cause you had not established — had you guessed "indexing lag", the reference would have gained a false rule and the real one would still be missing. And flagging your own dedupe as weaker-than-usual because you could not use the channel under investigation is the right disclosure.

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