kct audit prints READY FOR MANUFACTURING and exits 0 in three cases where ERC or the sync check never ran: on macOS where kicad-cli is not on PATH, the ERC check raises FileNotFoundError which is coerced to passed=True; an ERC timeout leaves blocking_error_count at 0 so the verdict reads READY while the table says ERC: FAIL; a crashed schematic/PCB sync check is logged at debug level and also yields READY.
From the Grok ProductFlo pain-radar digest, Oct 18 2026. Verified live 2026-10-19: the curator reproduced all three sites against origin/main, including the exact macOS kicad-cli-not-on-PATH setup. Cost model assumes a board goes to fab with ERC unchecked.