The hand-written image/ck/tokenizer gates are require_image, require_bytes and
require_dir_files from scripts/lib/llm-gates.sh. The serve seam is unchanged
and still green (its podman stub now models `podman image exists`, the
primitive the gate uses). Behaviour preserved: every refusal names the
artifact, the endpoint and the fetch script.
The serve scripts and the deployer each hand-wrote the same missing/truncated
artifact gates; the 2026-10-01 crash-loop was those twins disagreeing
mid-cutover. scripts/lib/llm-gates.sh is the single place the refusal lives:
require_file / require_bytes / require_min_mib / require_dir_files /
require_image, each returning 1 and naming the endpoint, the artifact and the
remedy. New seam tests/llm_gates.bats pins the contract at the arguments-in /
status-and-stderr-out boundary.
Frank