Your First Enforcement

nolapse run is the enforcement command. It measures coverage in the current working tree, compares it against the baseline, classifies the result as pass, warn, or fail, and exits with a code that CI can act on.

Running the check

nolapse run --repo .

For a Python project, add --lang python if it is not already set in nolapse.yaml:

nolapse run --repo . --lang python

How the check works

At a conceptual level, nolapse run performs these steps:

Reads nolapse.yaml from the repo root for lang, warn_threshold, fail_threshold, and strict_mode.
Applies any flags passed on the command line, which override nolapse.yaml values.
Locates .audit/coverage/baseline.md and reads the coverage: field from the header block.
Runs the test suite with coverage instrumentation (Go: go test -cover ./...; Python: pytest --cov via the runner subprocess).
Parses the total coverage percentage from the tool output.
Calculates delta = current_coverage - baseline_coverage.
Classifies the outcome using the threshold logic (see below).
Prints the results table and summary line to stdout.
Exits with code 0 (pass or warn) or 1 (fail), modified by --strict-mode.

Understanding the output

file  baseline coverage  PR coverage  delta    outcome
.     80.00%             82.30%       +2.30%   pass

outcome: pass  delta: +2.30  coverage: 82.30%  baseline: 80.00%  outcome: pass
warn_threshold: 0.5  fail_threshold: 1.0
Coverage delta: +2.30% (threshold: 0.5%)  pass

Column / Field	Meaning
`file`	Repository path checked (`.` means root).
`baseline coverage`	Coverage recorded in `.audit/coverage/baseline.md`.
`PR coverage`	Coverage measured in the current working tree.
`delta`	Difference in percentage points (`current − baseline`). Positive means improved.
`outcome`	`pass`, `warn`, or `fail` (see logic below).
`warn_threshold`	Active warn threshold (from config or flag).
`fail_threshold`	Active fail threshold (from config or flag).

Pass, warn, and fail

nolapse uses two thresholds expressed as negative percentage-point drops. The defaults are warn_threshold = 0.5 and fail_threshold = 1.0.

Condition	Outcome	Exit code
`delta > -warn_threshold`	pass	`0`
`delta > -fail_threshold` (and not pass)	warn	`0` (or `1` with strict mode)
`delta ≤ -fail_threshold`	fail	`1`

Examples with default thresholds (warn=0.5, fail=1.0)

Delta	Outcome	Why
`+2.30%`	pass	Improved; above warn threshold
`0.00%`	pass	No change; above warn threshold
`-0.30%`	pass	Small drop, still above -0.5
`-0.70%`	warn	Below -0.5 but above -1.0
`-1.00%`	fail	At the fail threshold
`-3.50%`	fail	Well below fail threshold

Strict mode

When strict_mode: true is set in nolapse.yaml (or --strict-mode is passed on the command line), a warn outcome exits with code 1 instead of 0. This is useful when you want zero tolerance for any regression, even small ones, without tightening the thresholds permanently.

nolapse run --repo . --strict-mode

Overriding thresholds at runtime

All threshold values can be overridden per invocation without editing nolapse.yaml:

# Tighter thresholds for a release branch
nolapse run --repo . --warn-threshold 0.1 --fail-threshold 0.5

# Looser thresholds for an experimental branch
nolapse run --repo . --warn-threshold 2.0 --fail-threshold 5.0

Command-line flags always take precedence over nolapse.yaml.

How CI uses exit codes

The exit code is the mechanism by which CI systems enforce the gate:

Exit 0 — the check step succeeds. The pipeline continues. A warn outcome still exits 0 unless --strict-mode is active.
Exit 1 — the check step fails. Most CI systems (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, CircleCI) mark the job as failed and, if the branch protection requires the check to pass, block the merge.
Non-zero (other) — a configuration or runtime error occurred (missing baseline, git not available, test runner crash). The step also fails.

In a GitHub Actions workflow the step looks like:

- name: Enforce coverage
  run: nolapse run --repo .
  # No 'continue-on-error' — let the non-zero exit block the PR

For a softer gate that reports but never blocks, use continue-on-error: true and rely on the PR comment for visibility.

Next step

Set permanent thresholds in nolapse.yaml instead of passing flags every time.
See the full CLI Reference for every flag accepted by nolapse run.
Read Exit Codes for a complete table of all possible exit codes.