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ng-eventually/.project/concepts/app-contract/bug_an-empty-inbox-list-can-mean-a-failure.md
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type, severity, summary, opened, last_checked
type severity summary opened last_checked
bug normal When the account record cannot be resolved, the inbox enumeration reports a COMPLETE list holding zero inboxes, so a total failure is indistinguishable from an identity that legitimately has none 2026-08-17 2026-08-17

An empty inbox list can mean a failure

Enumerating the inboxes an identity may read reports, alongside the list, whether that list is complete or short — and a shortfall is logged so a lost watch is at least visible.

That signal has a hole. When resolving the account record yields nothing rather than raising, the enumeration reports a list that is complete and empty. Every inbox is missing, including the identity's own, and nothing distinguishes it from an identity that genuinely has none yet — which is a real and ordinary state, since a first-visit identity connects with no account.

So the worst outcome — watching nothing at all — is reported as the most benign one. This is the family this package has closed repeatedly: a failure wearing the shape of an absence.

The fix is not to make the enumeration throw. Reaching the registers is infrastructure and may fail; what is missing is that resolving nothing and there being nothing are the same answer here, and they are not the same event.

Verifying it: make the account resolution return nothing (rather than reject) and observe that the enumeration reports a complete list with no entries, and that no shortfall is logged.

Related, and distinct: bug_a-lost-inbox-watch-is-never-retried — that one is about a watch that failed to open; this one is about never learning there was a watch to open.