Silent catches: a bare catch{} swallows the error with no reason on record #205

What

Shipped sources contain catch clauses whose block is completely empty — no statement, no comment, no named error. The failure is swallowed and nothing on record says why that is safe. Today:

• core/src/host/diagnostics.js:108, core/src/host/diagnostics.js:110 (version probing)
• core/src/host/hooks.js:819 (cancelling a mentioned session)
• core/src/host/home-lock.js:53, :83, :92 (lock touch / unlink races)
• core/src/client/index.js:50 (providing the client flybot service)
• core/src/client/flybot-registry.js:99 (change polling)
• plugins/social/index.js:35, :37; plugins/social/client.js:900; plugins/social/src/social.js:297, :392, :1100; plugins/social/src/mcp-client.js:148

Actual behavior

Nothing distinguishes "the error cannot matter here" from "nobody looked". The oxlint config (no-undef, no-unused-vars) gates nothing about this, so nothing stops the next silent catch from landing.

Expected behavior

A catch that swallows an error says why — at minimum a comment in the block naming the reason (racing unlink, best-effort refresh, retry on next poll), and a named binding whenever the handler could act on the error. A repo check fails the build on a bare catch, the way plugin-imports fails the build on an out-of-package import.

Where it sits

The list above; the natural gate home is .github/scripts/ + its .test.mjs, which the package job of tests-ok and root npm run verify already run — no workflow change needed.

Suggested direction (for discussion, not prescriptive)

1. Add .github/scripts/check-empty-catch.mjs: scan core/src/**, core/index.js, core/web-search.js, plugins/*/src/**, plugins/*/index.js, plugins/*/client.js; flag a catch clause (statement form — the .catch(() => {}) promise form is a separate, deliberate void idiom and stays out of scope) whose block holds neither a statement nor a comment. Test helpers under test/ stay out of scope.
2. Annotate each bare catch above with the truthful reason.
3. Record the rule in docs/code-standards.md.

Not user-visible: no changelog fragment.

Reliability angle: the README promises a Bot's results can be checked; a swallowed error is exactly where that breaks silently.