Bug: Allow the canonical benchmark workflow to finish its declared suite

[smiggleworth]

Type

Bug

Affected subsystem

Canonical benchmark evidence workflow and Tier 1-6 artifact retention.

User/operator impact

Operators cannot retain a complete same-commit Tier 1-6 manifest because the workflow timeout is shorter than the declared suite's observed lead-in plus its mandatory endurance floor. Canonical evidence issue #7 therefore cannot complete even when every benchmark owner is healthy.

Current behavior

.github/workflows/benchmarks.yml sets timeout-minutes: 180. The performance contract requires exactly two Tier 6 scenarios with at least 3,600 measured seconds each, so Tier 6 alone requires at least 120 minutes. Canonical run 32764029001 spent more than 80 minutes reaching and passing the repaired Tier 3 startup boundary; Tier 4 and all Tier 5 owners still precede Tier 6. The declared suite therefore cannot fit within 180 minutes.

Expected behavior/outcome

Give the canonical workflow the maximum bounded GitHub Actions job budget of 360 minutes and enforce that budget with a focused workflow contract test. This changes only orchestration time allowance; it must not shorten Tier 6, filter owners, weaken manifest gates, or change benchmark semantics.

Deterministic evidence

• Workflow source: .github/workflows/benchmarks.yml:26 declares timeout-minutes: 180.
• Contract source: docs/performance-contracts.md:202-204 rejects Tier 6 durations below 3,600 seconds and requires two one-hour scenarios.
• Live run: https://github.com/cntryl/cassie/actions/runs/32764029001 crossed 80 minutes while still inside the unfiltered owner-suite step, before Tier 4/5 and Tier 6 completion.
• Baseline commit: 00bd0e1e4710716da2fd17e30aabbb253eac5ce2.

Confidence and support status

High confidence. This is deterministic arithmetic over the workflow timeout, observed lead-in, benchmark ordering, and mandatory Tier 6 duration. It is an evidence-orchestration bug, not benchmark variance and not a product runtime regression.

Acceptance criteria

• Add a focused red/green contract proving the canonical workflow allows 360 minutes.
• Raise only the benchmark-evidence job timeout to 360 minutes.
• Preserve the unfiltered wildcard command, 3,600-second Tier 6 input, complete-manifest validator, and artifact upload.
• Pass the repository validation ladder and exact-head backend CI.
• Squash-merge the repair before dispatching the next final-main canonical run.

Related: #7.

[smiggleworth]

Implementation is complete locally on branch fix/169-benchmark-workflow-timeout, commit b013adf. Red/green evidence and the full required local validation ladder pass, including 3/3 test-quality compliance.

Push is currently blocked by GitHub credential scope: the active HTTPS token has repo but not workflow, and GitHub rejects any commit that modifies .github/workflows/benchmarks.yml. SSH has no authorized key. A one-time gh auth refresh -s workflow device authorization is pending; after authorization, the next action is push, exact-head CI, squash merge, and a new final-main canonical dispatch. Run 32764029001 continues under the immutable old 180-minute timeout.