Every list in setup/packages/ is annotated -- which package exists for which
settings page, why an exception was made -- and install-packages passed the whole
file to dnf, comment lines included.
dnf does not ignore an argument it cannot match. It reports "No match for
argument: #" and exits 1, and with set -euo pipefail at the top of that script
the first annotated list ends the stage. initial-packages carries four comments
and is the first list read, so a fresh machine got the repositories, the group
updates, and then nothing.
Two things hid it. On a machine that already has everything, a re-run matches
every real name and fails only on the comments, so the failure looks like noise
rather than the stage dying. And every contract that reads these lists strips
comments with sed before comparing -- the tests were reading a file the installer
was not, which is why a repository with a dependency contract, an assets contract
and a doctor still reported PASS across the board.
The fix is one filter used at all five call sites. The contract lifts that filter
out of the script and runs it, rather than describing what it should do, so
deleting or renaming it fails here instead of passing quietly. It also checks the
inverse -- that stripping comments does not strip packages -- because trading a
loud failure for a silent one would be worse than the bug.
Found while adding the extras lists for phase 4, which are annotated the same way
and would have hit the same wall.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NvgBuSWB5sE43yWmg21ozj
Gabriel Brown
b319d1a5e1