[oharboe]

Before, global_route.tcl threaded early returns and return codes through a global_route_helper wrapper so that GENERATE_ARTIFACTS_ON_FAILURE=1 could turn a failed global route into a 5_1_grt.odb and exit 0, and detail_route.tcl had to catch that a step later.
Now the code is simpler: a failed global route writes 5_1_grt-failed.odb and fails like every other step, and the obsolete use case is cleaned out.

The obsolete use case

The variable was added for bazel-orfs: a failed Bazel action leaves no outputs behind, and back then carrying a patch in bazel-orfs to get one was expensive. Today bazel-orfs is never patch-free, and a feature like this would be carried there as a patch. A failed step is debugged in bazel-orfs's dirty lane, a plain ORFS tree driven by make, where 5_1_grt-failed.odb simply appears. Nothing needs the variable, and bazel-orfs drops it at its next bump.

Removing it also takes away the only failure path that writes the file a successful step writes (TclContract: "a failing step never writes the file a successful step writes").

Changes

• global_route.tcl: on failure, write 5_1_grt-failed.odb, then error. The early-return plumbing goes, and with it the global_route_helper wrapper, which existed only to allow those returns (the rest of the diff is the body losing one level of indentation).
• detail_route.tcl: the grt::have_routes check could only fire on a 5_1_grt.odb written by a failed route, and it pointed at a stale make gui_grt. Removed.
• variables.yaml: GENERATE_ARTIFACTS_ON_FAILURE removed; variables.json and FlowVariables.md regenerated.
• The other -failed.odb writers (pdn, global_place, detail_place) and make gui_5_1_grt-failed are unchanged.

Behaviour

At the default (0), nothing changes. With the variable set to 1, a failed global route now exits non-zero and leaves 5_1_grt-failed.odb instead of 5_1_grt.odb. No design, test or CI in ORFS sets it.

Testing

• asap7/gcd through route, on master and on this branch: 5_1_grt.odb and 5_route.odb are byte-identical.
• make do-5_1_grt GLOBAL_ROUTE_ARGS=-no_such_option (global_route itself errors): exit code 2, 5_1_grt-failed.odb written, no 5_1_grt.odb.
• tclint/tclfmt clean; variables.json and FlowVariables.md regenerated with the pinned requirements.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[gemini-code-assist]

Code Review

This pull request removes the GENERATE_ARTIFACTS_ON_FAILURE configuration variable and its associated logic across the flow scripts and documentation. Specifically, the global_route_helper wrapper in global_route.tcl has been flattened, and run_global_route_and_catch_failures now consistently writes a failed database and errors out on failure instead of conditionally generating successful artifacts. Additionally, the check for existing routes in detail_route.tcl has been removed. I have no feedback to provide as there are no review comments.

[oharboe]

@maliberty A nice cleanup.

Note! View with hide whitespace changes, there's less churn here than the number of lines indicate.

[openroad-ci]

🔍 QoR check

Metrics reflect the PR merge build — i.e. what will land on the target branch.

Commit aaa4f49 · Jenkins build #2 · Baseline: build · View build on dashboard

62 design(s) checked — 0 with regression(s), 0 without a comparable baseline.