Just a worry that came up thinking about the request to aspcud: I think it is allowed to come up with solutions that don't involve any package from -proposed/unstable. So I think that if we go this route (and I think we should/must, not only for the issue encountered in this bug), autopkgtest must check that packages from the triggers are NOT from !-proposed/testing.
Hmm, maybe it was just the syntax being wrong. The following line at least succeeded:
--solver aspcud -o APT::Solver: :Strict- Pinning= false -o APT::Solver: :aspcud: :Preferences= '-removed, -changed, -new,+count( solution, APT-Pin: =/995/) '
Next up, checking that it does what I want.
Just a worry that came up thinking about the request to aspcud: I think it is allowed to come up with solutions that don't involve any package from -proposed/unstable. So I think that if we go this route (and I think we should/must, not only for the issue encountered in this bug), autopkgtest must check that packages from the triggers are NOT from !-proposed/testing.