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LINT.DEBT.ACKNOWLEDGED_GONE — a debt somebody chose to carry has stopped being detected

  • Category: safety
  • Level: 0
  • Stability: stable
  • Suites: lint

The ledger holds an entry with state: acknowledged — a debt somebody looked at, decided to carry, and wrote a reason for — and this run did not detect it.

Why this is not a stale entry

An open entry that vanishes is bookkeeping: nothing was ever decided about it, so removing it loses nothing. An acknowledged one is different. It carries an argument. Dropping it silently throws that argument away — and if the same debt reappears later (a reverted migration, a rule that was briefly blind, a scope that excluded it), it comes back as brand new: age restarted, reason gone, and the decision to be made again from scratch by somebody who no longer has the context.

So a recording run keeps it, and this finding puts the decision in front of a person.

What to do

  • It really is settled → remove the entry from the ledger by hand. That is the explicit confirmation this finding is asking for.
  • It is still there and this run could not see it → leave it. A narrowed scope, a skipped rule or a partial run is the usual reason, and the entry is doing its job.