Sitemap lastmod dates audited against git: all 69 match, but nothing enforces them

A developer found that their sitemap takes each page's last-modified date from a hand-typed field in a content registry rather than generating it. An audit comparing those 69 manual dates against git history showed every one agreeing with the last commit touching the page's file. The sitemap carries three distinct dates across 72 URLs, mostly reflecting a bulk content build-out and one copy change. The author notes the dates stay accurate mainly because the field sits next to the text it describes, which lowers the chance of it going stale. Their existing tests only check that the date looks valid, so an outdated date would still pass; a git-based check would catch it but is hard to run in CI because shallow checkouts lack history.