Sentinel-released processes exposed a second bare-sample assertion in the
same file. The unread-dot check ran a synchronous .count() 140ms after the
running dot cleared:
15.91s poll "dot should disappear" -> 2
16.05s ... -> 0 (running dot gone)
16.05s bare .count() for unread dot -> 0 FAIL
"Finished — unread" is an event-driven transition that lands just after the
running dot clears. The old fixed `sleep 5` happened to leave enough slack
between the two that a single sample usually caught it; releasing the
process deterministically removed that incidental slack and made the latent
race deterministic instead.
Poll for it, matching how sidebar-states.spec.ts already asserts this exact
dot. The split-tile assertion at line 234 stays a bare sample on purpose —
it asserts an absence (toBe(0)), where polling would only wait for something
that must never appear.
Hermes Agent
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