Gate telemetry without correct exposure logging mixes jobs that never ran the check into the pass arm. Results flatten, and teams conclude “nothing works.”
Check that exposure waits for the check result, that cancelled runs are filtered, and that primary metrics can physically move from the change under test.
Secondary metrics still matter for guardrails — queue depth, agent crashes, artifact failures — but they should not silently become the decision metric mid-quarter.
A short readiness check before a new gate costs less than a month of arguing about a contaminated pass rate.