From 85f3b2546b14a8f43e15c2706d8d7e310d881d76 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Steve Dudenhoeffer <steve@stevedudenhoeffer.com>
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2026 17:59:42 -0400
Subject: [PATCH] fix: don't emit findings from clean "No material issues"
 lenses
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A lens whose verdict is "No material issues found" still tends to write
path:line references — but as verification notes ("verified X at
file:line is safe"), not problems. The telemetry was extracting those as
findings, which (a) pollutes the gadfly-reports store with false
positives and (b) unfairly penalizes thorough reviewers that do clean
passes — the FP penalty hit clean security passes from claude-code/sonnet,
deepseek, and minimax even though they correctly found nothing.

emit() now skips findings extraction for a clean-verdict lens (the run is
still recorded). Surfaced by grading the dogfood reviews: a large share
of "false positives" were exactly these clean-verification bullets.

Added TestEmit_SkipsCleanVerdictLens; README telemetry section updated.
gofmt clean, go vet quiet, go test -race green.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
---
 README.md               | 10 +++++++---
 cmd/gadfly/emit.go      |  8 ++++++++
 cmd/gadfly/emit_test.go | 40 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 3 files changed, 55 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 19c0da4..77870e1 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -350,9 +350,13 @@ context (`GADFLY_REPO`, `GADFLY_PR`) automatically.
 
 Findings are extracted heuristically from each lens's markdown — a `path:line`
 reference anchors a finding, titled by the nearest preceding heading / numbered
-item / bold lead-in. The emit is strictly best-effort: a short (~10s) timeout,
-any error (or a non-2xx response) is logged to stderr only, and it **never**
-changes the review output or the exit code.
+item / bold lead-in. A lens whose verdict is **"No material issues found"**
+emits **no** findings: its `path:line` references are verification notes
+("verified X is safe"), not problems, so extracting them would record false
+positives and unfairly penalize thorough clean-pass reviewers. The emit is
+strictly best-effort: a short (~10s) timeout, any error (or a non-2xx response)
+is logged to stderr only, and it **never** changes the review output or the exit
+code.
 
 ## Building locally
 
diff --git a/cmd/gadfly/emit.go b/cmd/gadfly/emit.go
index 6e83fce..2cfc9c0 100644
--- a/cmd/gadfly/emit.go
+++ b/cmd/gadfly/emit.go
@@ -121,6 +121,14 @@ func emit(results []specialistResult, elapsed time.Duration) {
 		if r.errored {
 			continue // a failed lens contributes no findings
 		}
+		// A lens that reports "No material issues found" has nothing to flag —
+		// its path:line references are verification notes ("verified X at
+		// file:line is safe"), not problems. Extracting them pollutes the
+		// findings store with false positives and unfairly penalizes thorough
+		// reviewers that do clean passes, so a clean lens emits no findings.
+		if r.verdict == verdictClean {
+			continue
+		}
 		sev := r.verdict.label()
 		for _, f := range parseFindings(r.spec, r.out) {
 			reports = append(reports, reportPayload{
diff --git a/cmd/gadfly/emit_test.go b/cmd/gadfly/emit_test.go
index a9fca88..fe1b29b 100644
--- a/cmd/gadfly/emit_test.go
+++ b/cmd/gadfly/emit_test.go
@@ -179,6 +179,46 @@ func TestEmit_PostsRunsAndReports(t *testing.T) {
 	}
 }
 
+// A clean "No material issues found" lens must NOT emit findings, even though
+// its markdown contains path:line references (those are verification notes, not
+// problems). /runs is still posted; /reports is not.
+func TestEmit_SkipsCleanVerdictLens(t *testing.T) {
+	var runs, reports int32
+	srv := httptest.NewServer(http.HandlerFunc(func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
+		switch r.URL.Path {
+		case "/runs":
+			atomic.AddInt32(&runs, 1)
+			w.WriteHeader(http.StatusOK)
+			_, _ = w.Write([]byte(`{"run_id":"x"}`))
+		case "/reports":
+			atomic.AddInt32(&reports, 1)
+			w.WriteHeader(http.StatusOK)
+		default:
+			http.Error(w, "not found", http.StatusNotFound)
+		}
+	}))
+	defer srv.Close()
+
+	t.Setenv("GADFLY_FINDINGS_URL", srv.URL)
+	t.Setenv("GADFLY_REPO", "owner/repo")
+	t.Setenv("GADFLY_PR", "7")
+	t.Setenv("GADFLY_MODEL", "ollama-cloud/qwen3")
+
+	// Clean verdict, but the markdown is full of path:line "verified X" notes.
+	cleanMarkdown := "No material issues found.\n\nVerified `run/executor.go:166` handles the error.\n"
+	results := []specialistResult{
+		{spec: Specialist{Name: "security"}, out: cleanMarkdown, verdict: verdictClean},
+	}
+	emit(results, time.Second)
+
+	if got := atomic.LoadInt32(&runs); got != 1 {
+		t.Fatalf("/runs received %d times, want 1 (the run is still recorded)", got)
+	}
+	if got := atomic.LoadInt32(&reports); got != 0 {
+		t.Fatalf("/reports received %d times, want 0 (clean lens emits no findings)", got)
+	}
+}
+
 func TestEmit_DisabledMakesNoRequests(t *testing.T) {
 	var hits int32
 	srv := httptest.NewServer(http.HandlerFunc(func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {