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Real, simulated, recorded
One table that says what is real PayPal sandbox, what is the fake PayPal, what is simulated and what is recorded.
Proven so far: gates G0, G1, G2 and G4 on the real PayPal sandbox, a real server process kill on a CI runner that settled with one capture, live speech through the /audio socket (24 of 24 synthetic clips answered, no bid accepted without a confirm), the hosted API checks, and a live judge flow on the hosted site. The scope of each result is in the table below.
Four words are used with care on this site.
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Real | A call to the PayPal , with committed evidence or a run log. |
| Fake | The project's built-in , a test double. Behaviour there says nothing about PayPal. |
| The code run over simulated days with a fake clock against a model of PayPal. | |
| Recorded | A replay of recorded events or cached speech outputs. |
By area
| Area | Status | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Auction rules, price, soft close, hammer | Real code | Deterministic , the same in every mode. Covered by unit, property and fixture tests. |
| Hold creation (AUTHORIZE) | Real on the sandbox | PASS: wallet buyer and guest card authorized with the PayPal JS SDK v6. |
Partial capture with final_capture | Real on the sandbox | Gate G1 PASS for two PayPal-account buyers. An early G3 probe also captured 1.00 on a guest card authorization; a final_capture there is the next step. |
| Remainder release | Inferred | The authorization reads CAPTURED and a void answers 422 PREVIOUSLY_CAPTURED. A 9 Nov attempt to read the buyer balance was blocked (the account pages asked for a sign-in again), so the release stays inferred. |
| Webhook signature verification | Real on the sandbox | Gate PASS: six real deliveries verified. Rejecting a tampered event is covered against the fake PayPal; a sandbox run of it is next. |
| Whole-auction settlement | Fake, plus sandbox lots | Settlement against the fake PayPal. On the real sandbox, nightly specs R7 and R8 settled one lot of three holds (runs 42200708552 and 42317068784, redacted reports committed) and 20 settlements of 6 holds were measured end to end (run 42346811713). Driving a whole auction through a server is the next step. |
| Crash recovery | Fake, plus one sandbox crash | Injected crashes against the fake PayPal. Spec R10 recovered from one in-process crash on the sandbox. A real server process was killed once on a CI runner against the sandbox and recovered with one capture (run 42558021614); the deployed host is not yet killed. |
| Honor period and reauthorize | Timed probe running | Gate G3 is a real sandbox probe: day 0 recorded 7 Nov 03:06 UTC, final reading about 12 Nov 06:17 UTC. The 30 day run is simulated. |
| Voice | Recorded | Cached transcripts by default. Live speech only with VOICE_STT set. One live socket run is recorded (24 synthetic clips, both providers). Gate PARTIAL: measured on synthetic audio, live-room confirmation is the next step; bids always confirm. |
| Hosted demo | Hosted in sandbox mode | Web at gavel.dualmindlab.tech, API at api.gavel.dualmindlab.tech, persistent disk. A live walkthrough passed all 17 steps, including the hammer, on 9 Nov (judge smoke run 42584326641); an earlier run that morning (42561627128) passed all but step 16, which a later fix addressed. |
The gates at a glance
| Gate | Question | Result | Run |
|---|---|---|---|
| G0 | sandbox app and buyer accounts | PASS | 2026-11-04 by harshbhx (workflow gate-g0, run 41815593520, branch gate/g0) |
| G1 | partial capture and remainder release | PASS | 2026-11-04 by harshbhx (wallet); 2026-11-05 by harshbhx (card, run G1-20261105T123116Z) |
| G2 | card and guest AUTHORIZE | PASS | 2026-11-05 by harshbhx (owner laptop, run G2-20261105T115228Z) |
| G3 | honor period versus validity and reauthorize | IN PROGRESS | Real probe. Day 0 was 7 Nov 2026 03:06 UTC. Final reading about 12 Nov 06:17 UTC. |
| G4 | real webhook signature verification | PASS | 2026-11-05 by harshbhx (workflow gate-g4, run 41947655945) |
| G5 | STT accuracy on noisy bids | PARTIAL | 2026-11-07, cached eval over recorded provider outputs (PR #1940, issue #1864; second clip set PR VOI-01; error analysis, parser fixes and option trials PR VOI-02) |
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