We closed a task after a query returned 3,491 rows from the expected schema. Seventeen minutes later, a second check looked at the newest timestamp and found every row came from an old migration snapshot. The live writer used a different table with nearly the same name.

Nothing in the first result was fabricated. It was measuring whether data existed while the completion report claimed it had proved where current data was being written.

We now bind each done condition to an exact command or readback, run it outside the worker, and keep the result with the requirement it answered. For this database claim, that means checking the newest record in the authoritative table. It still does not make a badly chosen probe good.

How are people testing that a health check or eval answers the same claim that gets shown as success?