diff --git a/serverAppConfigs-docs/LLM/halogen-flash-server.md b/serverAppConfigs-docs/LLM/halogen-flash-server.md
index 8c554d2..bd0243e 100644
--- a/serverAppConfigs-docs/LLM/halogen-flash-server.md
+++ b/serverAppConfigs-docs/LLM/halogen-flash-server.md
@@ -78,9 +78,9 @@ upstream's defaults:
 |---|---|---|
 | `HALOGEN_MODEL_ID` | `frank-large` | fleet identity; no client rename |
 | `HALOGEN_CTX` | `262144` | the model's native context, and what both clients declare |
-| `HALOGEN_KV_POOL_POSITIONS` | `524288` | **doubled 2026-09-12** to upstream's own default (2 × `HALOGEN_CTX`): two full-length conversations resident, or four at 131k, at ~14.4 GiB |
+| `HALOGEN_KV_POOL_POSITIONS` | `524288` | **doubled 2026-09-12** to upstream's own default (2 × `HALOGEN_CTX`): two full-length conversations resident, or four at 131k — 13,312 MiB of KV |
 | `HALOGEN_KV_SLOTS` | `4` | four concurrent generations; slots share the pool and cost ~115 MiB each |
-| `HALOGEN_HOST_RESERVE_GIB` | `24` | RAM kept for the n-gram table the engine reads through the page cache — above upstream's 20 because a dozen containers share this host |
+| `HALOGEN_MAX_TOK` | `16384` | **load-bearing for the doubling.** Halves the prefill arena so the pool fits the 29.5 GiB device budget, at ~8–9 % of prefill throughput. Leave it at upstream's 32768 and `HALOGEN_KV_POOL_FIT` silently reverts the pool to 262144 while the deploy still reports healthy |
 | `HALOGEN_VISION_TOWER` | `1` | image input; the fleet's only image path since [[frank-npu]] was retired |
 | `HALOGEN_DOWNLOAD` | `peonist-ai/halogen-qwen3.8-flash-next` | first-start fetch |
 | `HALOGEN_VERBOSE` | `1` | verbose engine logging — the fullest startup account, on permanently so an incident report needs no restart-into-debug |
@@ -91,8 +91,7 @@ already covers the shared-prefix case), `HALOGEN_CACHE_INPLACE=1` (the snapshot
 stays ~115 MiB at any depth), the speculative drafter `1` (byte-identical at
 temperature 0, and it stands down whenever a second conversation is
 generating), the quality sidecar, `HALOGEN_ADMIT_CHUNK=0` (a non-zero value
-gives up the byte-identity property), the baked `HALOGEN_MAX_TOK=32768`
-(16.7 GiB prefill arena), and the default `HALOGEN_MAX_TOKENS_CAP=65536`.
+gives up the byte-identity property), and the default `HALOGEN_MAX_TOKENS_CAP=65536`.
 
 ## Memory model
 
@@ -117,22 +116,37 @@ Three numbers explain the whole box:
 the pool itself if the configured one will not fit, printing what it chose.
 Read those lines on every restart; they are the ground truth for sizing.
 
-**Measured ledger (prior 262,144 config, read live 2026-09-12).** The
-engine's own startup account: 68.0 GiB of weights locked + 7.2 GiB KV pool +
-21.1 GiB working memory = **96.3 GiB held**, with **12.1 GiB left on the
-host**, only ~7.3 GiB of that in contiguous 2 MiB pieces. The 47.7 GiB n-gram
-lookup table is never held in RAM — it is read through the file cache — and
-the 2.0 GiB firmware carves for the iGPU appears in no `/proc/meminfo`
-figure.
+**Measured ledger, both configs, read live 2026-09-12.** The engine's own
+startup account:
 
-Doubling to 524,288 puts the held total near **103.5 GiB** and the host
-remainder at roughly **5 GiB**, against a measured ~4.3 GiB working set for
-the 25 co-tenant containers on this box. The extra 7.2 GiB comes out of the
-page cache, which falls from ~76 GiB to ~69 GiB — still above the 47.7 GiB
-lookup table, so the table can stay hot. Tight, not an overcommit. If long
-prompts start crawling with the disk busy, `HALOGEN_MAX_TOK=16384` shrinks
-the prefill arena 16.7 → 8.4 GiB and pays for the doubling outright at about
-8 % of prefill throughput.
+| config | weights | KV pool | working mem | held | host left |
+|---|---|---|---|---|---|
+| pool 262144 / max_tok 32768 (prior) | 68.0 | 7.2 | 21.1 | **96.3** | 12.1 |
+| pool 524288 / max_tok 16384 (now) | 68.0 | 14.4 | 12.3 | **94.6** | 13.8 |
+
+The doubled pool is **1.7 GiB cheaper in total** than the config it replaced.
+Halving the prefill arena gives back more than the extra pool takes: the
+arena is ~20.6 GiB regardless of context, while the KV costs only ~28 KiB a
+position.
+
+The first attempt — 524288 with the arena left at 32768 — did not fit, and
+the way it failed is the trap on this host:
+
+```
+kv pool: host RAM 121 GiB, less 67.7 resident weights and 24.0 reserved
+         for the n-gram page cache and the OS = 29.5 GiB for the device
+kv pool: 524288 positions need ~35.0 GiB (plus 1.5 of margin) and host
+         RAM cannot spare it. LOWERING THE POOL TO 262144 (~27.8 GiB).
+```
+
+One budget covers the pool **and** the arena together. `HALOGEN_KV_POOL_FIT`
+lowered the pool, and `deploy.sh` still reported healthy in 12 seconds. A
+green health check does not mean the pool you asked for is the pool you got —
+always read the `kv pool:` lines after a restart.
+
+The 47.7 GiB n-gram lookup table is never held in RAM; it is read through
+the file cache. The 2.0 GiB the firmware carves for the iGPU appears in no
+`/proc/meminfo` figure at all.
 
 **Co-tenancy.** `HALOGEN_FLASH_PIN_TRUNK=1` (default) is what the published
 decode numbers were measured with, and it means this container holds most of