When kct route fails its post-route short check, it still prints Status: SUCCESS on an earlier summary line and the ROUTING FAILED banner only comes after. The exit code is correct (3), but an agent or person reading only the first status line sees SUCCESS for a board that shorts two nets, contradicting the tool's own contract that SUCCESS must be unreachable while the written board shorts.
From the Grok ProductFlo pain-radar compilation, finding 13, found 2026-10-11, score 5/5. Verbatim evidence: "an agent or person reading only the first status line sees SUCCESS for a board that shorts two nets." Cost model assumes an engineer notices the banner and re-routes, or a shorted board reaches review and is scrapped.