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LINT.DEBT.ACKNOWLEDGMENT_EXPIRED — the decision to carry this debt was due for review

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

A ledger entry is acknowledged — somebody looked at the debt, decided to carry it, and wrote down why — and the review_at date they set has passed.

What this is not​

It is not the debt getting worse. Nothing about the object changed, and the finding does not escalate. It is not an un-acknowledgment either: the entry keeps its state and its reason.

What it is​

review_at is the field that stops an acknowledgment from becoming permanent. "We will carry this until the Q4 rewrite window" is a reasonable decision; "we carried this for three years because nobody was reminded" is the same file with nobody reading it. The date is the reminder, and this finding is the reminder arriving.

What to do​

  • Renew it. Set a new review_at. That is a real decision being made again, on purpose, with the current situation in view — which is the whole point.
  • Settle it. Finish the second half of the safe pattern; the entry goes on the next sqlens:lint --debt=record.
  • Drop the date. review_at: null is legal and means "carried indefinitely, no review scheduled". It is an honest thing to write when it is true — and it is visible in the file, which is the difference between deciding that and drifting into it.

Why it does not move the exit code​

Reviewing a decision is not an emergency. The finding reports at level 0 with no security severity, so it appears in the report without breaking a deploy — and a project that wants it to break one says so with the level gate, rather than having it decided for them.