Some conditions mean the pipeline itself broke — not that the artifact has bugs. A suite with zero test cases; a built suite that executed none of its declared cases; enumeration yielding zero features; a spec collapsing to a fraction of its enumerated features. These must never be papered over as "complete".
A SEV1 halts the run as failed with the condition recorded, appends to data/sev1.jsonl, emits a red event in the UI, and — if RHA_ALERT_WEBHOOK is set — POSTs an alert so ops hears about it outside business hours. The one unforgivable outcome for a verification product is reporting green over nothing verified.