pin_frozen was prose, and no tool read the build file it cites, so a platform building another revision left the profile holding one nobody ships. pin_build records the platform, its repository, the revision read, the file, the variable and its value. check_freshness reads the file again where the platform's YAML now stands and reports STALE when the value moved. 36 of the 46 held profiles carry it, each value read from the build file at the platform's scraped revision. The other ten name no build file and are counted on one row: six RetroBat binary packages and four holds not tied to a platform build.
Each libretro profile records version_basis and core_version is read
there at its pin. snes9x states 1.63 in snes9x.h, nestopia 2.0.0, mgba
0.11.0, vice 3.10, atari800's libretro tree 7.0.0. Cores whose build
takes its version from git carry the nearest tag in describe form
(flycast v2.7-90-ge88b0ce, ppsspp, duckstation, gearcoleco), placeholders
copied from .info files (Git, SVN) are replaced by the code's statement,
and a code that states none is null with kind none.