Every changed task was seeded, graded untouched, solved and re-graded on a
separate kind cluster. The four sim sets were rehearsed as full sittings (real
baseline, seed everything, solve in order, grade at the end): A 150/150,
B 176/176, C 163/163, D 122/122. Every random-pool task was either passed in a
real session or cycled the same way.
Graders that could never pass, or passed for free:
Q306 (local-path cannot resize; now graded as an in-place resize), Q314 (GNU
grep prefixed file names), Q305 (plain `get events` has no SOURCE column and
events expire; now managedFields), Q410 (kindnet DOES enforce NetworkPolicy;
the expected answer is now derived from the CNI), Q35, Q212 (missing `]`),
Q101 (`can-i create pods/exec` asks about a pod NAMED exec; multi-type get),
Q109 (an emptyDir over nginx's /var/log crash-loops it), Q40 (TTL was
measured at grading time), Q121, Q106, Q104, Q41, Q26, Q403, Q409, Q417,
Q113, Q22, Q24/Q108 (flaky right after a rollout), and free points on
untouched Q24/Q102/Q108/Q119/Q122.
Reference solutions: S[43], S[107], S[121], S[106] rewritten; S[116] (a
Completed Job pod still pins its PVC), S[119] (a pods quota equal to replicas
deadlocks the rollout); DNS checks use FQDNs; the explainer and exam guide
are corrected (etcd restore is etcdutl's job on 3.6+).
Cross-session leaks: the pre-session baseline now also repairs Q114 (the
kube-system NetworkPolicy and CoreDNS replicas), Q117/Q39 kubelet CA paths,
Q317, kubelet drop-in binary paths, a moved scheduler manifest, leftover
static pods and the default StorageClass. Q115 releases its fixed PVs from
claims left by earlier sessions.
Conflicts: `breaks` may be a list and `solo` keeps Q102's etcd restore out of
mixed sessions. Q118, Q5/Q103, Q26 vs the W1 taints, set A 203/204/208/212 and
set B 305/309 no longer sabotage each other. Q317 now disables only CSR
signing (the old break killed the whole controller-manager). Q110/Q311 no
longer compare against the whole cluster at submit time. Two delete/recreate
races in setups are fixed.
Harness: the weak list clears after two clean passes in a row, weak entries
show the latest attempt's failures, domain scores use the exam's own tasks,
history entries can be marked synthetic (entry 11 is), the web UI lists
every sim set, `./exam grade` refuses mid-exam (--force), preflight checks W1.
Set D (`./exam sim d`): 17 original killer.sh-style tasks, ids 501-517,
122 points - control-plane inventory, event forensics with crictl, a broken
kubelet unit, kubelet certificates, manual scheduling with the scheduler
stopped, Helm housekeeping with a stuck release, an enforced AND-vs-OR
NetworkPolicy, dnsPolicy and access-mode troubleshooting, and more.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Pausing is for life happening - a baby needing attention - not a metric worth
keeping, and the numbers were meaningless anyway: the last recorded attempt read
12 pauses / 90,755 seconds, almost all of it sessions left paused overnight.
Removed:
- the st["pauses"] counter in set_paused()
- "pauses" and "paused_seconds" from the history entry in record_attempt()
- "pauses" from the web API session payload
- the "· paused 3× (12:04)" segment on the results screen
Kept, because both are load-bearing rather than telemetry:
- paused_total, which remaining() adds back to the deadline so paused time is
not silently deducted from the clock, and which the web clock reads to do the
same countdown math
- paused_at, which is just "is the session paused right now" and drives the ⏸
indicator
Neither is written to history or surfaced in any report; they exist only for the
lifetime of a live session.
Note for anyone reading a long time_used later: it is computed as
ended_at - started_at - paused_total, and paused_total only accrues while
actually paused, so a session resumed and then left running overnight inflates
it. Attempt #11 logs 28:59:01 for that reason, not a timing bug.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NziZdvBvy7CpEAAbZNgp8i
The UI was light everywhere except the embedded terminal, which felt
disjointed. Switch to a cohesive dark palette with layered surfaces,
tinted state colors for pass/fail/warn/flag, and polish on buttons,
cards, overlays, and the question nav (hover/active states, shadows,
custom scrollbars).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
