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--- provenance:privacy:browser_extensions [2026/09/22 07:48] – Review layer completed: the six deferred findings from the 2026-09-02 fable pass are closed (vacuous checks 1 and 9, the unfetched MDN quote, the Carnus row, the people-half guard, the freeze naming), and a fifth generic (fable) pass over freeze3 is logge karel.kubicek.claude
+++ provenance:privacy:browser_extensions [2026/09/22 19:06] (current) – Reviewer log: correct the ext-external-assertions helper count (eight) and mutation count (46/46 after pinning the timeline footer date). Authored by Claude karel.kubicek.claude
@@ Line 624: / Line 624: @@
 ===== External sources =====
-Everything below was fetched on **2026-09-02** and is re-checkable with ''bash scripts/external_checks_browser_extensions.sh''. That script prints ''FAILED'' explicitly per check, so a blocked or rate-limited call cannot read as a pass.
+Everything below was fetched on **2026-09-02**, and every row was re-checked on **2026-09-22**, with ''bash scripts/external_checks_browser_extensions.sh''. **All 26 of that script's checks now assert**: each names the needle, status code or floor it requires, a non-200 fetch is itself a failure, and the run exits non-zero when any of them is gone. Until 2026-09-22 only three did, and the sentence that stood here — //"that script prints FAILED explicitly per check, so a blocked or rate-limited call cannot read as a pass"// — was false for the other twenty-three. The conversion and its mutation test are in the reviewer log under ''ext-external-assertions''.
 ==== Verified, and used ====
@@ Line 639: / Line 639: @@
 | ''data_collection_permissions'' coverage | the same API, 400 most-installed | 314 empty (78.5%), 63 ''["none"]'' (15.8%), 23 named (5.8%); ''sandbox/amo_data_collection.py'' |
 | Edge has no bulk listing; Opera has none | Microsoft Learn; ''addons.opera.com'' | Edge's REST API covers your own submissions; Opera's ''robots.txt'' and ''sitemap.xml'' both 404 |
-| Manifest V2 timeline, all six milestones | ''developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/develop/migrate/mv2-deprecation-timeline'' | page footer //"Last updated 2026-07-08 UTC"//; every quoted phrase on the page is verbatim from it |
+| Manifest V2 timeline, all six milestones | ''developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/develop/migrate/mv2-deprecation-timeline'' | page footer //"Last updated 2026-09-09 UTC"// on the 2026-09-22 re-check, //"Last updated 2026-07-08 UTC"// on 2026-09-02; every quoted phrase on the page is verbatim from it. **Google reworded the 2026-08-31 entry in between** and the page's quotes were updated to match — see the reviewer log. Check 8 now asserts each quoted phrase and the footer date |
 | Edge has set no MV2 date | ''learn.microsoft.com'' ''ExtensionManifestV2Availability'' | //"More information about and the timeline of the migration hasn't been established."// |
 | Firefox keeps blocking ''webRequest'' | MDN ''webRequest'' vs Chrome ''webRequest'' | MDN documents ''webRequestBlocking'' as an ordinary permission with no MV3 note; Chrome's says //"only available to policy installed extensions"// |
@@ Line 878: / Line 878: @@
 what was published before any of today's edits were applied. **If you edit one of
 these pages in the browser, back-port it the same day, or the next build eats it.**
+==== ext-external-assertions, closed 2026-09-22 ====
+Pass 5's sharpest finding was that the external-check script could not fail: three
+of its 26 checks called ''fail()'', five printed the word FAILED without
+incrementing anything, and eighteen were regex printers that emit **nothing** on a
+, a 429 or a reworded source. The header was corrected to say so and the
+conversion was filed as the ''ext-external-assertions'' item. This is that item.
+All 26 checks now assert. Each names the needle, status code or floor it requires
+and calls ''fail()'' when it is gone. The mechanism is eight new helpers alongside the
+existing ''expect'': ''fetch'' (anything but HTTP 200 is itself a failure, which
+is the direct fix for //a 403 on the AdGuard store page yields an empty section//),
+''expect_text'' for a phrase the source renders as a list item, ''expect_flat''
+for a phrase that wraps across lines in a source file, ''expect_re'' for a shape,
+''expect_code'' and ''expect_final'' for a status or a redirect the page states as
+a fact, ''expect_dead'' for a host the page asserts is gone, and ''expect_ge'' for
+a count that must not collapse. An ''ONLY="5 13"'' filter runs a subset, which is
+what makes the mutation test affordable.
+**It was mutation-tested, not read.** ''scripts/mutate_external_checks_browser_extensions.py''
+corrupts one needle, constant, status or floor at a time and re-runs only the
+affected check: **46 mutations, 46 killed the run**, at least one per check, log at
+''out/ext/mutation_browser_extensions.txt''. A conversion that cannot be shown to
+fail is not a conversion.
+^ What the conversion found ^ Disposition ^
+| **Check 16 had been fetching a 404.** Its source, ''%%extensionworkshop.com/documentation/develop/best-practices-for-collecting-user-data-consent/%%'', is gone — the live documentation for the ''data_collection_permissions'' key is at ''%%.../develop/firefox-builtin-data-consent/%%''. Because the check was a printer, it emitted an empty section inside a run that exited 0, for an unknown length of time | **accepted, fixed.** The check fetches the live page and asserts two phrases: //"data_collection_permissions key in the manifest"// and the //"none"// value the page's 16.5% bucket counts. This is the predicted failure caught in the act, in the one check nobody had singled out. **No figure on either page depended on the dead URL** — the 78.5/15.8/5.8 split comes from the AMO API, not from that doc — so nothing published was wrong; it was simply unchecked |
+| **Chrome reworded the Manifest V2 timeline and the page went on quoting the old words.** The footer moved from //"Last updated 2026-07-08 UTC"// to //2026-09-09//; //"All remaining Manifest V2 extensions **are** removed"// became //"**have been** removed"//, and //"will remain installed, but will be unable to receive any updates and cannot be reinstalled"// was rewritten to //"Existing installs on Chrome 138 or earlier will continue to run, but they can no longer receive updates or be reinstalled if removed."// The footnote claims every quoted phrase in the table is verbatim, and two were not | **accepted, fixed, and the date is now pinned.** The page's quotes were **verbatim when fetched** — the Internet Archive captures of 2026-08-26, 2026-09-01 and 2026-09-06 all carry the old wording and the old footer — so this is currency, not misquotation. Both quotes and the third instance in the opening WRAP are updated, the footnote gives the new footer date and records the rewording, and check 8 now asserts the footer string itself. Pinning a footer date will fail the run on an edit that leaves the quotes intact; that is deliberate, because the quotes then have to be re-read |
+| **This provenance page carried the same overclaim the script header did.** //"That script prints FAILED explicitly per check, so a blocked or rate-limited call cannot read as a pass"// was false for 23 of 26 checks when it was written, and stayed false after the script's own header was corrected on 2026-09-02 | **accepted, fixed.** A correction applied to one artefact does not propagate to the page that describes it — the //residue table does not fix the prose// failure, one level up |
+| **Eight of the eighteen ''%%external_checks_*.sh%%'' scripts cannot fail either, and four of them carry the same header sentence.** ''crawler_detection'', ''dns'', ''filter_lists'', ''internet_scanning'', ''llm_agents'', ''preregistration'', ''requests'' and ''traffic_files'' have no failure counter, no exit gate, or both; ''dns'' says //"Every check prints FAILED explicitly, so a 403 or a rate limit cannot read as a pass"//, which is word-for-word the claim this file made and did not meet | **recorded, not fixed — out of this item's scope.** The audit, with the verdict read out of each file's fail helper and exit gate rather than grepped for the word FAILED, is at ''out/ext/sibling_assertion_audit.txt''. Ten of the eighteen do assert, including ''email_tracking'', which was fixed by an earlier review of exactly this kind |
+| **The ''expect'' helper cannot see a phrase in a bullet list.** It requires a sentence-terminating period within 200 characters, and the Cyberhaven post renders //"The malicious code was active between 1:32 AM UTC on December 25 and 2:50 AM UTC on December 26"// as a list item. The check failed on a page that carries the quote perfectly well | **accepted, and fixed by a second helper rather than a wider window.** ''expect_text'' drops the sentence requirement and keeps everything else. Widening the window in ''expect'' instead would have let every other needle match across a sentence boundary — a fallback that rescues one case by weakening the check that caught it |
+| **Pinning the Chrome Web Store's live counts was considered and rejected.** 43 sitemap shards, 8,338 ''%%<loc>%%'' entries in shard 0, 103,979 AMO extensions, 83,246 EasyList lines — all drift daily, and all are published on the page as dated snapshots | **rejected, with the reason in the file header.** These go through ''expect_ge'' against a floor far below the quoted figure, so the check fires on an empty parse or a collapsed response and not on ordinary store churn. A check that fails every morning is a check that gets ignored |
+| **What check 5 does not establish.** It asserts that the install count the store //shows// is rounded to a thousand. The page's claim is stronger — //"no precise figure appears anywhere in either response"// — which is a negative over a whole document that no regex here supports | **recorded as a stated limit**, in a comment at the check and here, rather than dressed up. It was read by hand on 2026-09-02 and again on 2026-09-22 |
+Unchanged by the conversion: every figure on both pages. Nothing here moved a
+number. The 26-check run after conversion is at ''out/ext/external.txt'' and
+exits 0.
 ==== What no reviewer caught ====