For example at https://integration.wikimedia.org/ci/job/mediawiki-quibble-vendor-mysql-php72-docker/5393
15:21:40 INFO:zuul.Cloner.mediawiki/skins/Vector:Updating origin remote in repo mediawiki/skins/Vector to https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/mediawiki/skins/Vector
15:21:40 ERROR:zuul.Repo:Unable to initialize repo for https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/npm-test
15:21:40 Traceback (most recent call last):
15:21:40 File "/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/zuul/merger/merger.py", line 51, in __init__
15:21:40 self._ensure_cloned()
15:21:40 File "/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/zuul/merger/merger.py", line 63, in _ensure_cloned
15:21:40 git.Repo.clone_from(self.remote_url, self.local_path)
15:21:40 File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/git/repo/base.py", line 925, in clone_from
15:21:40 return cls._clone(git, url, to_path, GitCmdObjectDB, progress, **kwargs)
15:21:40 File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/git/repo/base.py", line 880, in _clone
15:21:40 finalize_process(proc, stderr=stderr)
15:21:40 File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/git/util.py", line 341, in finalize_process
15:21:40 proc.wait(**kwargs)
15:21:40 File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/git/cmd.py", line 291, in wait
15:21:40 raise GitCommandError(self.args, status, errstr)
15:21:40 git.exc.GitCommandError: Cmd('git') failed due to: exit code(128)
15:21:40 cmdline: git clone -v https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/npm-test /workspace/src/npm-test
15:21:40 stderr: 'Cloning into '/workspace/src/npm-test'...
15:21:40 fatal: remote error: npm-test unavailable
15:21:40 '
15:21:41 INFO:zuul.Cloner.mediawiki/vendor:Updating origin remote in repo mediawiki/vendor to https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/mediawiki/vendorI don't know what this repo is supposed to be, but looks like not supposed to be in the list of repos for Zuul-cloner to clone?
Also, while it is a good thing that this particular case is a non-fatal error, at the same time it is worrying that the job is not marked as failure when Zuul-cloner had a fatal error in cloning one of the specified repositories.
Given how much automation we have for detecting what to install and do, it seems plausible that this could in the future be hiding errors. E.g. where an extension can't be cloned for some reason, and thus it is running fewer tests as if it's all good.