SYS.55 / GLOSSARY

Every word

This product is careful about words, which sometimes makes it hard to read. Each term is here with what it means and how it would be said in ordinary language.

Surfaces8 SECTIONS

What a check concluded

5 terms in this vocabulary.

FAIL — a problem: The rule checked this and found something wrong.
WARN — worth a look: The rule checked this and found something that may be wrong, depending on what you intended.
PASS — checked and fine: The rule actually evaluated this and the condition held. Nothing here is ever called fine merely because no problem was found.
UNKNOWN — could not tell: The rule ran and could not decide — the file would not parse, or the evidence was missing. This is a result, not a gap: it is worth looking at yourself.
NOT_SUPPORTED — does not apply here: The rule does not apply to a project like this one, so it was not run. Nothing is being claimed about your code either way.

How much it matters

5 terms in this vocabulary.

CRITICAL — fix now: Exploitable or breaking, and worth interrupting other work for.
HIGH — fix soon: Serious, and worth planning into the current work.
MEDIUM — fix when you can: Real, but it can wait for a quieter moment.
LOW — minor: Small, and reasonable to leave alone if you disagree.
INFO — for information: Not a problem. Something about the code worth knowing.

Which part of the work

6 terms in this vocabulary.

SECURITY — security: Whether the code can be attacked or made to leak something.
SUPPLY_CHAIN — the code you depend on: The libraries this project pulls in, and what they bring with them.
ARCHITECTURE — how the pieces fit together: The shape of the system — what depends on what, and where that will hurt.
QUALITY — how the code reads: Whether the code is clear enough for the next person to change safely.
TESTING — tests: What is covered by tests, and what the tests actually establish.
DELIVERY — building and shipping: How the project gets built, checked and released.

How the check reached its answer

3 terms in this vocabulary.

VERIFIED — read from your code: Established outright by a parser, a manifest, or the file index.
INFERRED — worked out from your code: Reached by a heuristic from facts about the project. Usually right; worth checking before acting on.
UNKNOWN — not established: The rule could not establish this one way or the other.

Where a stated fact came from

4 terms in this vocabulary.

VERIFIED — found in your code: Checked against the code itself.
STATED — you told us: You said so — in an answer, a README, or a description. Not checked against the code.
INFERRED — we worked it out: Concluded from other facts rather than read directly.
UNKNOWN — we do not know: Nothing established this, and nothing is being claimed.

Words this product uses about itself

7 terms in this vocabulary.

snapshot — one reading of your code: Everything this product knew about your project at one moment. A new analysis makes a new one; the old one stays as it was.
ordinal — which reading: The number of a snapshot in order — the first, the second, and so on.
detector — one check: A single rule that looks for one kind of thing and reports what it found.
finding — something a check found: One thing a rule concluded about one place in your code.
evidence — the reason we say so: The lines of your code a finding rests on, re-checked against the file index.
coverage — how much was looked at: Which checks ran and which did not. A result with gaps in its coverage is not the same as a clean one.
pillar — area of the work: One of the six areas findings are grouped into.

What one constraint concluded

8 terms in this vocabulary.

PASS — checked and held: The check actually evaluated the condition on this snapshot and it held. Never earned by a check that did not run.
WARN — held, with a warning: The check ran and found something below the bar, or a failure that an exception excused.
FAIL — did not hold: The check ran and the condition did not hold.
NOT_RUN — never ran: Nothing evaluated this constraint on this snapshot. Not a pass and not a failure.
RUNNING — still running: The check is in progress and has not concluded.
SKIPPED — not this time: The check applies to this project but had nothing to run against on this snapshot — a first snapshot with no change set, or a rule that is switched off.
NOT_SUPPORTED — cannot be run here: This installation has no way to perform the check — a project script it does not execute, a metric nothing measures. The constraint is recorded so the gap is visible.
UNKNOWN — could not conclude: The check ran but could not reach a conclusion — a detector failed, or a count is only a floor because something was capped. Not a pass.

What a project’s constraints concluded together

5 terms in this vocabulary.

PASS — every constraint checked and held: Every enabled constraint was actually evaluated on this snapshot and held. None failed, none warned, none was left unrun.
WARN — held, with warnings: Every enabled constraint concluded; something warned or a non-blocking one failed.
FAIL — a blocking constraint failed: At least one blocking constraint did not hold on this snapshot.
INCOMPLETE — not every constraint could be checked: An enabled constraint did not conclude — it did not run, was skipped, cannot be run here or could not decide. This is not a pass, and it is not a failure either.
NONE — no constraints to check: The project has no enabled constraints. Nothing was held to anything.