Developer admits mislabeling a build failure as 'unknown' to avoid a hard negative result

A developer building a check system that uses three result states — pass, fail, and unknown — incorrectly marked a detected dependency cycle as 'unknown' instead of 'fail', a mistake caught by a teammate. The author argues the 'unknown' state should only apply when a check cannot reach a conclusion, such as when an input file is missing or a human-produced record cannot be re-run. A completed graph traversal that confirms a cycle is a definitive negative answer, making it a clear failure. The error was compounded by the fact that the 'unknown' label felt principled and humble, while quietly removing a red flag from the build summary. The author's key takeaway is that if a check ran to completion and returned a negative result, it must be recorded as a failure — 'unknown' is for the absence of an answer, not for an answer that is inconvenient.