Branch protection treats matching-name check runs as a SET — any SKIPPED
member fails the required-check eval, even with SUCCESS siblings. The
two-jobs-sharing-name pattern (no-op + real-job) emits one SKIPPED + one
SUCCESS check run per workflow run; with multiple runs at the same SHA
(detect-changes triggers + auto-promote re-runs) the SET fills with
SKIPPED entries that block branch protection.
Verified live on PR #2264 (staging→main auto-promote): mergeStateStatus
stayed BLOCKED for 18+ hours despite APPROVED + MERGEABLE + all gates
green at the workflow level. `gh pr merge` returned "base branch policy
prohibits the merge"; `enqueuePullRequest` returned "No merge queue
found for branch 'main'". The check-runs API showed `E2E API Smoke
Test` and `Canvas tabs E2E` each had 2 SKIPPED + 2 SUCCESS at head SHA
66142c1e.
Fix: collapse no-op + real-job into ONE job with no job-level `if:`,
gating real work via per-step `if: needs.detect-changes.outputs.X ==
'true'`. The job always runs and emits exactly one SUCCESS check run
under the required-check name regardless of paths-filter outcome —
branch-protection-clean.
Same pattern as ci.yml's earlier conversion of Canvas/Platform/Python/
Shellcheck (PR #2322). Closes the parity-fix that should have been
applied to all four path-filtered required checks at once.
c79cf1cfa9