[quality] data/awards.json <-> AwardsTimeline render contract is untested; validate-awards.mjs is blind to 8 mutations that misrender /awards #359

Finding

scripts/validate-awards.mjs is the only gate on data/awards.json, and it is
deliberately tolerant: it checks truthiness, an ^https:// prefix, and a year
floor. src/components/AwardsTimeline/index.js is stricter than that in several
places, so an awards file that passes npm run validate:awards can still render
a wrong or misleading /awards page.

No test asserts the data against the component. tests/validate-awards.test.mjs
exercises the validator against synthetic fixtures only; it never reads the
real data/awards.json, and nothing in tests/ reads
src/components/AwardsTimeline/index.js.

Evidence

Verified on a clean clone at 00b44df, node v26.8.2, 2026-09-20.

Nine single-field mutations were applied to data/awards.json, one at a time.
Eight of the nine pass npm run validate:awards:

The verifiedAgainst case is the sharpest. AwardsTimeline hard-codes the
visible link text:

<a href={awardsData.verifiedAgainst} target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">
  contribute.cncf.io/community/awards
</a>

The validator accepts any https:// URL for verifiedAgainst, so the href and
the label it is rendered under can drift apart and the page then misattributes
the provenance of its own winner history — exactly the claim the banner exists
to make.

Why existing gates miss it

• npm run validate:awards is the tolerant gate described above.
• docusaurus build / onBrokenLinks: 'throw' govern page routes, not JSON
  field shapes or external hrefs.
• There is no JSX transform under node --test, so no test can import the
  component (see [quality] filterArchitectures is untested, and no test can import any src/ React module #228); the contract has to be asserted against the component
  source plus the real data.
• Disjointness from open PRs: no open PR names AwardsTimeline or reads
  data/awards.json top-level fields. [quality] test: cover data/members.json contract and awards.json slug parity (tests/members-data.test.mjs) #253 (tests/members-data.test.mjs)
  touches awards.json only for members.json ↔ award slug parity — it
  asserts nothing about verifiedAt, verifiedAgainst, ordering, duplicates,
  URL resolvability, or label consistency, and does not read any component.
  fix: resolve award logo paths before checking /img/awards/ containment (scripts/validate-awards.mjs) #329 claims award logo path resolution, which this issue deliberately
  leaves alone. test: cover the data/metrics.json render contract (tests/metrics-data.test.mjs) #287 is the same species of contract for metrics.json ↔
  MetricsDashboard; test: assert the data/architectures catalog ↔ records ↔ docs contract (tests/architecture-catalog-contract.test.mjs) #260 is the catalog ↔ records ↔ docs contract. [quality] test: cover src/components/ArchitectureFilters filterArchitectures and add a JSX import path (tests/tools/jsx-hooks.mjs + tests/helpers-jsx.mjs + tests/architecture-filters.test.mjs) #229 covers
  filterArchitectures, test: cover useFocusTrap scroll lock, tab cycling and focus restore #268 useFocusTrap.

Coverage evidence

• Unit: node --test --experimental-test-coverage, node v26.8.2, local run
  at 00b44df, 2026-09-20 — 55 pass. No unit coverage of this contract.
• End-to-end: the repository exposes no end-to-end suite or coverage
  artifact (package.json has no browser/e2e runner; check:links depends on a
  Makefile target that is absent — see fix: rewire check:links off missing Makefile and drop orphan typecheck script #291). End-to-end coverage is therefore
  indeterminate, not absent, and no end-to-end claim is made here. That
  reporting limitation is already tracked by [quality] CI publishes no coverage evidence, so coverage findings cannot be verified #186 and is not re-filed.

Recommendation

One test-only PR closes this. No production change is required — every
assertion below is green against main as it stands today.

• Add tests/awards-data.test.mjs asserting the real data/awards.json
  against the contract AwardsTimeline depends on: top-level keys present;
  verifiedAt a non-future YYYY-MM-DD; verifiedAgainst host+path equal
  to the label the component hard-codes; every rendered text field a
  non-empty string; kebab-case slug and integer year; newest-first
  ordering; no duplicate year/slug; every present link a resolvable
  https URL with a host; every card has a primary link; one display label
  per award slug; and a reverse guard that fails if WinnerCard starts
  destructuring a field the contract does not cover.

Priority

• Impact: medium — the /awards page is the site's public record of CNCF End
  User award winners, and the failure mode is silent misattribution rather than
  a broken build.
• Effort: low — one new test file, no dependencies, no production change.

— hive: agent=quality backend=copilot model=claude-opus-5