Digital Artist · L0001 · 2026-07-18

Slice digital-artist/0001 · Level 0001 (Web Fundamentals) · Apprentice tier · Engine verdict ❌ fail (avg 61.4%) · Walked 2026-07-18

🔗 Perfection run · 🏠 Perfection dashboard · 📄 Raw report · 🕘 Change history

🎯 Session Summary

I walked a 5-quest window (window 3 of 6, offset 15) of the Digital Artist → Level 0001 “Web Fundamentals” (🌱 Apprentice) path, as sealed by walk-plan.json, and read every quest in plan order while consuming the pre-computed execute-mode evidence in walk-evidence.json. The engine ran the quests’ safe commands for real in a disposable sandbox; I reasoned about the linked journey on top of that.

Headline verdict: FAIL. The engine returned 0 pass · 4 warn · 1 fail, average 61.4%. The single hard fail is the opening main quest, Forging the Stats Portal (45%) — its two centerpiece artifacts (the Ruby stats generator and the pages/stats.md template) are broken exactly as printed and were reproduced as real failures in the sandbox, so a learner following it verbatim cannot complete it. The four warns share one systemic defect: every quest in the contributor arc assumes an already-cloned, bundle install-ed IT-Journey repo but never states it as a prerequisite or teaches the setup, so their verification commands (bundle exec jekyll serve, make contributor-stats) fail out of the box. Maintainer action: fix the three verified Ruby bugs + the {​% raw %​} artifacts in stating-the-stats, and add a shared “run this from your cloned, bundled repo” prerequisite block to the contributor quests.

🗺️ The Journey

Walked in walk-plan.json order:

🔬 Evidence

All outcomes below are from the sealed execute-mode run (walk-evidence.json, weight_covered: 1.0 on every quest). Command labels (passed/failed/skipped/reasoned) are the engine’s recorded status; I quote its findings, trimmed.

1. Forging the Stats Portal — 45% ❌ (ran 7/5 runnable snippets · 3✓ 4✗ · 2 skipped · 3 reasoned)

• failed — ruby: scripts/generation/generate_statistics.rb (the full generator, lines 252-408). Verified on Ruby 3.2.3:
  • Time.now.iso8601 → NoMethodError: undefined method 'iso8601' for Time — the script only requires yaml and date, never time (the stdlib that defines Time#iso8601).
  • After patching that: @site_root = File.expand_path('../..', __FILE__) resolves one level too shallow (<root>/scripts, not <root>), so the output path <root>/scripts/_data/… doesn’t exist → Errno::ENOENT on write. Needs '../../..'.
  • After patching that: YAML.safe_load($1) (Psych 5) raises Psych::DisallowedClass: Tried to load unspecified class: Date on normal unquoted Jekyll date: frontmatter, caught by the script’s own rescue → posts silently dropped, Total posts: 0, no hard error surfaced. Needs permitted_classes: [Date].
• failed — bash: update_statistics.sh wrapper — inherits all three failures because it just calls the broken script.
• failed — markdown/liquid: pages/stats.md template (lines 484-769). Rendered with the real Liquid gem (v5.13.0), the fenced block still contains its {​% raw %​}…{​% endraw %​} wrapper tags around every Liquid tag; copy-pasted as shown it renders literal {​% if site.data… %​} text instead of live data — a completely broken page. The quest never tells the learner to strip them.
• content_accuracy finding: {​{ … | number_with_delimiter }​} is a Rails helper, not a Jekyll/Liquid filter; Liquid silently ignores the unregistered filter, so the number renders unformatted (contradicting the implied behavior), and the “Create custom Liquid filters” mastery claim is never fulfilled.
• passed: the _data/content_statistics.yml example YAML and _data/navigation.yml example YAML both parse; chmod +x … && ./update_statistics.sh runs (the shell wrapper itself is valid). The date/divided_by/times/minus/first Liquid usages verify correct once fed correctly-shaped data.
• skipped/reasoned: docker-compose up / bundle exec jekyll serve / macOS open (no docker/gems, macOS-only) reasoned, not run; “Total posts: 76” Expected-Output block reasoned (it’s the live-site number, not a general result).

2. Terminal Mastery — 60% ⚠️ (ran 15/21 · 11✓ 4✗ · 3 skipped · 3 reasoned)

• passed: Chapter 1 (whoami, pwd, ls -la/-lah, tree/ls -R), Chapter 2 Step 3 (mkdir/mkdir -p/cd), Chapter 3 Step 1 (touch/echo >/cat heredoc), Chapter 4 Steps 1 & 3 (cat/less/head/tail/wc; pipelines with grep/wc/sort), and both easy Mastery Challenges (Scavenger Hunt brace-expansion, Log Analysis heredoc) all ran cleanly.
• failed — Chapter 2 Step 1: cd Documents errors because Documents was never created earlier in the sequence.
• failed — Chapter 3 Steps 2 & 3: cp *.js scripts/, cp -r projects/ …, mv … backups/, cp -i important-file.txt backup/, rm temp-file.txt, rm -rf old-project/ all reference targets/dirs the walkthrough never created — they read identically to the fully-sequential earlier blocks but break when followed in order.
• failed — Chapter 4 Step 2: grep "terminal" learning-notes.txt returns no match against the file the quest itself generated (the file’s text is capitalized “Terminal”); needs grep -i or lowercased sample text.
• Completeness finding: the Process Management Primary Objective (and a requirement of the Master Challenge) is essentially untaught — no ps/top/kill/jobs chapter exists.
• skipped: the macOS/Windows/Linux setup paths (curl | bash Homebrew install, wsl --install, sudo apt/dnf) — correctly not executed in the sandbox. reasoned: expected-output transcripts and the Master Challenge (comments only).

3. Forge Your Character — 68% ⚠️ (ran 6/9 · 6✓ 0✗ · 5 skipped · 2 reasoned)

• passed: cp _data/contributors/_template.yml …, the YAML profile/stats/level template block, cp -r …/_template …, the README front-matter block, cat …yml, and the Step-6 git branch/add/commit sequence all verified against a faithful mock of the described repo structure. Zero failed commands — the cleanest quest in the slice.
• skipped: git clone, make contributor-stats, bash/ruby generate_contributor_stats.*, bundle exec jekyll serve — the real stats-generator scripts and Makefile target live in the it-journey repo the offline sandbox can’t reach, so they couldn’t be verified.
• Content findings (reasoned): Step 5 calls bundle exec jekyll serve with no preceding bundle install (a fresh clone has no gems); and the fresh template’s next_level_xp: 100 contradicts the documented formula floor(log₂(xp/100)), which puts the level-1 threshold at xp=200.

4. Avatar Forge — 70% ⚠️ (ran 4/2 · 2✓ 2✗ · highest score in slice)

• passed: both profile: avatar: YAML snippets (GitHub .png URL trick and repo-relative path) are valid.
• failed — Step 3: mkdir -p assets/images/contributors && cp /path/to/your/avatar.png … errors — /path/to/your/avatar.png is an unmarked placeholder run verbatim (“No such file”).
• failed — Step 4: bundle exec jekyll serve fails outright (bundle: command not found in a clean sandbox) — the quest never states the “run from your cloned, bundle install-ed repo” prerequisite.

5. Badge Collector — 64% ⚠️ (ran 4/2 · 1✓ 3✗)

• passed: the badges_pinned: YAML block is valid and the badge catalog/threshold pseudo-code are internally consistent (verified matching).
• failed: make contributor-stats USERNAME=…, cat _data/contributors/YOUR_USERNAME.yml (the file doesn’t exist without the forge step), and bundle exec jekyll serve all fail in a clean sandbox — same unstated repo/toolchain prerequisite as Avatar Forge.

🐞 Issues Found

Every item below is backed by a command actually run (tested) or an exact quoted line (reasoned). Grouped by quest, highest severity first.

1. HIGH · Stating the Stats · scripts/generation/generate_statistics.rb (lines 252-408) · tested — Script crashes/silently fails three ways as printed: missing require 'time' (NoMethodError on Time.now.iso8601), File.expand_path('../..', __FILE__) off-by-one path, and YAML.safe_load without permitted_classes: [Date] dropping every post. Fix: add require 'time', use '../../..', pass permitted_classes: [Date]. All three reproduced on Ruby 3.2.3 / Psych 5.
2. HIGH · Stating the Stats · pages/stats.md code block (Ch.3 Step 1, lines 484-769) · tested — The copy-pasteable template still carries {​% raw %​}…{​% endraw %​} wrappers around every Liquid tag; pasted verbatim it renders literal Liquid source. Fix: strip the raw wrappers from the fence, or explicitly instruct the learner to remove them before saving.
3. MEDIUM · Stating the Stats · number_with_delimiter filter (line ~539) · tested — Not a real Jekyll/Liquid filter; silently ignored, number renders unformatted; also leaves the “Create custom Liquid filters” mastery indicator unfulfilled. Fix: remove the filter or add a real custom-filter _plugins/ step.
4. HIGH · Terminal Mastery · Chapter 3 Steps 2 & 3 (cp/mv/rm blocks) · tested — Reference scripts/, backups/, styles/, backup/, important-file.txt, old-project/, *.js, *.css never created earlier; break when followed in sequence. Fix: create the targets earlier, or clearly label the blocks as standalone syntax examples.
5. HIGH · Terminal Mastery · Process Management objective · reasoned — A Primary Objective + Master-Challenge requirement that no chapter teaches. Fix: add a chapter covering ps/top/kill/jobs/df/free before the Master Challenge.
6. MEDIUM · Terminal Mastery · Chapter 4 Step 2 grep (line ~462) · tested — grep "terminal" learning-notes.txt returns no match against the file the quest created (text is capitalized). Fix: use grep -i or lowercase the sample.
7. HIGH · Forge Your Character · Step 5 (line ~283) · reasoned — bundle exec jekyll serve with no preceding bundle install; a fresh clone has no gems. Fix: add a bundle install step + a link to an environment-setup guide.
8. MEDIUM · Forge Your Character · XP formula vs. template (lines 187 & 355) · reasoned — Template default next_level_xp: 100 contradicts floor(log₂(xp/100)) (level-1 threshold = 200). Fix: set the template default to 200 or correct the formula.
9. HIGH · Avatar Forge · Step 4 verify (line ~128) · tested — bundle exec jekyll serve fails with no stated prerequisite. Fix: state “run from the root of your cloned IT-Journey repo with bundle install done.”
10. MEDIUM · Avatar Forge · Step 3 cp (line ~120) · tested — /path/to/your/avatar.png is an unmarked placeholder that errors when run verbatim. Fix: mark it <path-to-your-local-avatar.png> per the YOUR_USERNAME convention.
11. HIGH · Badge Collector · Steps 1 & 3 (lines ~127, ~155) · tested — make contributor-stats and bundle exec jekyll serve both fail without the never-stated cloned/bundled-repo context. Fix: add a one-line “run from the root of your IT-Journey checkout with bundle install done” prerequisite.
12. LOW · Badge Collector · Step 3 verify · reasoned — No profile-page URL is given (e.g. http://localhost:4000/contributors/YOUR_USERNAME/) nor a Ctrl+C stop note. Fix: state the URL and stop instruction.

🔗 Chain Continuity

Reading the five as one learner’s path surfaced two structural observations the isolated per-quest scores don’t capture:

• The slice is a windowed cross-section, not a native chain. walk-plan.json is window 3 of 6 (offset 15) over the 26-quest level, so it splices the standalone Data Analytics arc (Stating the Stats) next to the Contributor Chronicles arc (Forge Your Character → Avatar Forge → Badge Collector) plus the general Terminal Mastery. Quests 3→4→5 are a real declared chain (forge-your-character unlocks avatar-forge & badge-collector, both of which declare it required), and that sub-chain is coherent: Forge Your Character creates _data/contributors/YOUR_USERNAME.yml, and the two side quests edit exactly that file. Quests 1 and 2 are unrelated neighbors, not prerequisites — fine for a sweep, but a maintainer should read this as “5 quests audited,” not “one 5-step journey.”
• A shared, unstated prerequisite is the dominant chain defect. Forge Your Character (3) is the only contributor quest that walks the learner through fork/clone and file creation — yet it never runs bundle install, and its two dependents (4, 5) both jump straight to bundle exec jekyll serve / make contributor-stats assuming a fully provisioned repo. In the sandbox those commands failed for exactly that reason. So even a learner who completes quest 3 correctly is not left ready for 4 and 5 as written: the environment-setup rung is missing from the whole ladder. The single highest-leverage fix for this slice is a shared “Prerequisites: cloned + bundle install-ed repo” block referenced by all three contributor quests (and echoed in Stating the Stats, which also assumes a live Jekyll site it never sets up).
• Ordering nit: Forge Your Character lists Terminal Mastery as a recommended prior quest, which the window respects (2 before 3). Good — a learner hitting the git/cp/cd steps in quest 3 benefits from quest 2 first. But note quest 2 itself doesn’t cleanly deliver the file-manipulation confidence it promises, because its own cp/mv blocks break mid-sequence (issue 4).

🧠 Reasoning & Method

• Mode: execute (real). I did not run the engine — I consumed the sealed, workflow-minted walk-evidence.json / walk-evidence.md as-is per the skill’s step 2, and read all five quest sources in plan order for the linked-journey pass. weight_covered is 1.0 on every quest, so the engine exercised the full runnable weight of each.
• What is tested vs reasoned: every passed/failed above is a command the engine actually ran in its disposable sandbox (I quote its recorded status and findings). Items I label reasoned are ones the engine skipped/reasoned (network installs, docker/bundler-dependent serves, real-repo-only scripts) or that I judged statically from the quest text — I did not re-run or invent any of them.
• Coverage caps / limits: This is a 5-of-26 window — I make no claim about the other 21 quests in Level 0001; the ledger accumulates those across runs. Genuinely un-run in-sandbox and therefore lower-confidence: anything requiring bundle/docker/jekyll serve or the real it-journey stats scripts (Forge Your Character’s actual stat generation, all three quests’ page renders) and the platform setup commands in Terminal Mastery. Confidence is high on the reproduced code bugs in Stating the Stats (concrete stack traces) and the broken sequential commands in Terminal Mastery; medium on the “missing prerequisite” warns, which are inferred from clean-sandbox failures plus the quest text rather than from a full end-to-end provisioned run.
• Session cost: $4.1662, 5/5 quests scored, 0 errored (per evidence meta).
• Deliverable discipline: one report, zero quest-content edits. Fixable bugs are in Issues Found for a content pass to action; I did not branch, commit, or open a PR — the workflow handles git.