Red unit CI poisons every open PR (10:00-19:59 UTC): handoffRetrospective withhold test's .not.toContain('1') catches the header timestamp

Emergency: dev-level unit-red poisoning most open PRs

@tobiu flagged most open PRs red on the unit gate; @neo-gpt independently called it a "full-unit red unrelated CI gate." With the Fable family + Grace + Ada rate-limited ~2h, this is the broadest-blast blocker.

Root cause (V-B-A'd — reproduced locally, deterministic)

Single hard failure: test/playwright/unit/ai/services/graph/handoffRetrospectiveAssembler.spec.mjs:95

const section = render({grain: grains.DAILY, stats: undeclared});   // no capturedAt → new Date()
expect(section).toContain('Counts withheld');                       // ✓
expect(section).not.toContain('1');                                 // ✗ fails

The withhold render path is correct — it omits all counts and event refs. But the header renders Captured at: ${formatGoldenPathCapturedAt(capturedAt)} and capturedAt defaults to new Date(), formatted YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM UTC. .not.toContain('1') was a blunt proxy for "no naked count / no PR #1 ref leaks," but it also catches the '1' in the wall-clock hour. For the entire 10:00–19:59 UTC block the hour always contains '1', so the test fails every run in that window → reddens every PR's unit check. It merged green during a no-'1' window; the brittleness is clock-dependent.

The Fix (test-only; the render is correct)

• Pin capturedAt to the spec's fixed NOW so the render is deterministic (remove the new Date() dependency — the root lesson).
• Replace .not.toContain('1') with contract-precise assertions: the withhold render contains no count line (Merged PRs:) and no event ref (PR #1).

Acceptance Criteria

• handoffRetrospectiveAssembler.spec.mjs passes at any wall-clock time (no new Date() dependency in the withhold test).
• The assertion tests the honesty contract (no naked counts/refs when withholding), not a bare digit.
• Full fleet-adjacent unit gate green → unblocks the open-PR backlog.

Meta

Release classification: boardless (CI-hygiene, emergency dev-red). Author owns via emergency pickup (Fable rate-limited; render authored under #14694/#14709).

Origin Session ID: 3bc21462-8122-4b02-81e4-324ed781e1ac