Glossary · stale-and-correct
GLOSSARY
Stale and correct
The state a certified system prefers when a check fails: last week's numbers, visibly labelled as last week's, with a newer cut under review. Stale and correct beats fresh and wrong, because a reader can discount an old figure and has no defence at all against a current one that is untrue.
Principle 5 · Fail closed and stale
Where does Stale and correct come from?
Principle 5 of the Kymira doctrine, Fail closed and stale. Stale and correct is the name the doctrine gives to what that principle requires in practice.
What failure is Stale and correct named after?
The blocked run that ate the good pack. A build hit its blocking condition, cleared the output directory, and moved a failed run into its place, destroying the last certified pack. The page it left behind said the previous pack was untouched.
What does it look like on a real file?
The board sees last week's figures under a review banner rather than this week's figures from a file that failed its tie.
Not for
Not an excuse to leave an old pack unmarked. The prior version stays live only while it is visibly labelled and a person has been told.
Nearest terms
Last updated 2026-09-02 · Dylan, founder · one of 40 terms in the Kymira glossary, each one named after something we watched go wrong in a real build or in our own audits.