docs(comfyui): the GTT aperture is not free RAM beside frank-dragoon

Measured 2026-10-21 with frank-dragoon live: MemAvailable 15.3 GiB,
iGPU busy 1.75 GiB. The Qwen-Image weight sets (13.3-14.2 GB) do not
fit that budget, and the page's 122 GB /system_stats figure is the
aperture, not headroom. Adds the fit table and the
stop-mask-render-verify procedure (the 3090 bench law, applied to the
APU); ComfyUI.md gotcha links it.

AGENTS.md

@@ -176,11 +176,12 @@ alertmanager.container`, loopback :9093) → host-side Signal relay
 (`scripts/signal-relay.py`, user unit, 192.168.0.143:18093 — the host LAN
 IP, the one bind a container can reach as `host.containers.internal`;
 iptables admits loopback, the host and the podman bridge subnet only) → signal-cli account 318311.
-Prometheus targets read down for structural reasons (HTML-scraped "probes",
+The former structural target downs (HTML-scraped "probes", Gitea metrics off)
-Gitea metrics off); the remedy is a blackbox exporter. `frank-zealot` was down for
+are retired as of 2026-10-21: HTTP liveness rides a blackbox exporter
-a different reason until 2026-10-18: llama.cpp will not serve `/metrics` at all
+(`shared/blackbox/blackbox.yml`), Gitea serves `/metrics` from its quadlet, and
-without `--metrics`. See
+every Prometheus job reports up. `frank-zealot` was down for a different reason
-`serverAppConfigs-docs/Infrastructure/Observability.md`.
+until 2026-10-18: llama.cpp will not serve `/metrics` at all without
+`--metrics`. See `serverAppConfigs-docs/Infrastructure/Observability.md`.
 
 ## Testing
 
@@ -419,16 +420,17 @@ disagrees with it is the bug.
   digest-pinned `ghcr.io/peonist-ai/halogen-flash-server@sha256:0c61bf84…`.
   Engine stdout (the boot ledger: weights, KV pool, clamp) goes to
   `/home/dank/logs/frank_dragoon.log`, NOT the journal.
-- Shape: `HALOGEN_CTX=200704` is the **per-request ceiling** (a longer prompt
+- Shape: `HALOGEN_CTX=262144` (the checkpoint's native window) is the
-  is a 400, never a truncation); `HALOGEN_KV_SLOTS=2` over ONE
+  **per-request ceiling** (a longer prompt is a 400, never a truncation);
-  `HALOGEN_KV_POOL_POSITIONS=401408` pool — pool positions buy concurrency,
+  `HALOGEN_KV_SLOTS=2` over ONE `HALOGEN_KV_POOL_POSITIONS=401408` pool —
-  the per-request window never moves; `HALOGEN_SPEC_ADAPT=0` keeps the MTP
+  pool positions buy concurrency, the per-request window never moves;
-  drafter always armed (the adaptive default disarms it and halves decode);
+  `HALOGEN_SPEC_ADAPT=0` keeps the MTP drafter always armed (the adaptive
-  server sampler 1.0/0.95/20.
+  default disarms it and halves decode); server sampler 1.0/0.95/20.
-- Harness contract: `models.yml` `contextWindow: 155648` = ceiling − 45,056.
+- Harness contract: `models.yml` `contextWindow: 200000` — ~45k+ under the
-  The clamp is `min(45056, window − est − 4096)` and the chars/4 estimate
+  ceiling. The clamp is `min(45056, window − est − 4096)` and the chars/4
-  under-counts, so a harness window equal to the ceiling makes every long
+  estimate under-counts (trigger is 95 %), so a harness window at the ceiling
-  request a guaranteed 400. Reasoning arrives in `reasoning_content`; the
+  makes every long request a guaranteed 400.
+  Reasoning arrives in `reasoning_content`; the
   template rejects `reasoning_effort` outside `xhigh|medium|low`; images are
   OpenAI `image_url` parts (probe ≥256 px); `response_format` unsupported;
   `/completion`, `/ping`, `/props`, `/tokenize` are 404.

dankclaw/gitea/quadlet/gitea-server.container

@@ -29,6 +29,13 @@ Environment=DATABASE_PASSWD=${GITEA_DB_PASSWORD}
 Environment=DATABASE_PORT=5432
 Environment=USER_UID=1000
 Environment=USER_GID=1000
+# Prometheus scrapes /metrics over the published LAN port (job "gitea" in
+# shared/prometheus/prometheus.yml). Off, /metrics is a 404 and the target is
+# permanently red (the audit's "disabled metrics" class). 0.0.0.0 binds inside
+# the container; the only route in is this host's published 3000, and the
+# exposed surface is counters only — same posture as the LLM /metrics.
+Environment=GITEA__metrics__ENABLED=true
+Environment=GITEA__metrics__ENABLED_HOST=0.0.0.0
 PublishPort=0.0.0.0:3000:3000
 PublishPort=2222:22
 Volume=/home/dank/Containers/gitea/data:/data

dankclaw/observability/quadlet/blackbox-exporter.container

@@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
+# Quadlet unit: blackbox exporter (rootless, boot-persistent).
+#
+# Install path on dankclaw:
+#   ~/.config/containers/systemd/blackbox-exporter.container
+#
+# WHY Network=host. The probes it runs are (a) the host's own LAN IP
+# (192.168.0.143:<port>) and (b) container names on dankclaw_default (comfyui).
+# A bridge container cannot reach the host's LAN IP at an unpublished port
+# (netavark DNATs published ports only — see Container Host Reachability in the
+# vault); a host-netns process reaches both. Prometheus (bridge) reaches THIS
+# container the same way it reaches the signal relay: the quadlet-published
+# host.containers.internal address (169.254.1.2), mapped via HostAddr= on the
+# prometheus unit.
+#
+# The 9115 metrics port publishes on loopback only — it is scraped by the
+# prometheus container through the gateway, and never opened on the LAN.
+
+[Unit]
+Description=Blackbox exporter (HTTP probe prober)
+After=network-online.target
+
+[Container]
+ContainerName=blackbox-exporter
+Exec=/bin/blackbox_exporter --config.file=/etc/blackbox_exporter/config.yml
+Volume=/opt/blackbox/blackbox.yml:/etc/blackbox_exporter/config.yml:ro
+HealthCmd=/bin/sh -c "wget -q -O /dev/null http://127.0.0.1:9115/-/healthy || exit 1"
+HealthInterval=30s
+HealthRetries=3
+
+[Service]
+Restart=always
+RestartSec=5
+
+[Install]
+WantedBy=default.target

dankclaw/observability/quadlet/prometheus.container

@@ -45,6 +45,11 @@ Wants=network-online.target
 ContainerName=prometheus
 Image=docker.io/prom/prometheus:latest
 Network=dankclaw_default
+# Name the podman gateway so scrape jobs can reach host-netns processes (the
+# blackbox exporter listens on the host's loopback; a bridge container reaches
+# it at this address, never at 127.0.0.1). Same mechanism the hermes Caddy
+# upstream learned the hard way (Container Host Reachability in the vault).
+HostAddr=host.containers.internal=169.254.1.2
 User=0:0
 Exec=--config.file=/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml --storage.tsdb.path=/prometheus --storage.tsdb.retention.time=30d --web.enable-lifecycle
 PublishPort=127.0.0.1:9090:9090

dankserver/plex/quadlet/plex.container

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ After=network-online.target
 Wants=network-online.target
 
 [Container]
-Image=lscr.io/linuxserver/plex:1.43.4.10903-e5521bd8c-ls325
+Image=lscr.io/linuxserver/plex:1.43.5.11029-6bf8af3f0-ls329
 ContainerName=plex
 Network=dankserver_appnet:alias=plex
 Environment=PUID=0

scripts/deploy-plan.py

@@ -34,13 +34,16 @@ SERVICE_ORDER = (
     "hermes",
     "hermes-dashboard",
     "hermes-webui",
-    "prometheus",
     "grafana",
     "loki",
     "alloy",
     "node-exporter",
     "cadvisor",
+    "gpu-exporter",
     "alertmanager",
+    # The prober must answer before prometheus re-runs the services job.
+    "blackbox-exporter",
+    "prometheus",
     "authentik-postgres",
     "authentik-server",
     "authentik-worker",
@@ -94,7 +97,9 @@ DANKCLAW_SERVICES = {
     "alloy",
     "node-exporter",
     "cadvisor",
+    "gpu-exporter",
     "alertmanager",
+    "blackbox-exporter",
     "authentik-postgres",
     "authentik-server",
     "authentik-worker",
@@ -127,6 +132,7 @@ DANKSERVER_SERVICES = {
     "frank-archon",
     "node-exporter",
     "cadvisor",
+    "gpu-exporter",
 }
 
 # FrankBook-Pro runs the *arr stack + qBittorrent inside a podman machine on
@@ -274,6 +280,8 @@ def services_for_path(path: str, target: str) -> set[str]:
             # Provisioned datasources and dashboards: git is the source of
             # truth, so a change here must restart the service that reads them.
             _add(services, "grafana")
+        elif group == "blackbox":
+            _add(services, "blackbox-exporter")
         elif group == "homepage":
             # Homepage is a Dankclaw-owned deployment. Shared homepage files
             # are intentionally not copied during a Dankserver-only run.
@@ -377,7 +385,7 @@ def services_for_path(path: str, target: str) -> set[str]:
             # consumer (prometheus before grafana, loki before alloy).
             if len(parts) >= 4 and parts[2] == "quadlet":
                 name = parts[3].removesuffix(".container")
-                if name in {"prometheus", "grafana", "loki", "alloy", "node-exporter", "cadvisor", "alertmanager"}:
+                if name in {"prometheus", "grafana", "loki", "alloy", "node-exporter", "cadvisor", "alertmanager", "blackbox-exporter"}:
                     _add(services, name)
             return services
         if len(parts) >= 2 and parts[1] == "gitea":
@@ -452,6 +460,12 @@ def services_for_path(path: str, target: str) -> set[str]:
             # change to it redeploying alertmanager is the only path that
             # reaches it on the host.
             _add(services, "alertmanager")
+        if name in {"gpu-exporter.py", "gpu-exporter.service"}:
+            # The host-process GPU exporter is installed directly by the
+            # gpu-exporter deploy on BOTH hosts, so its script and unit select
+            # that service (target_services then keeps it only on the host being
+            # planned). Editing the collector restarts the running exporter.
+            _add(services, "gpu-exporter")
         if name in {"frank-zealot.env", "frank-zealot.service", "serve-frank-zealot.sh"}:
             # llama.cpp frank-zealot (2026-09-16) keeps its unit, env and serve
             # files here; each one selects frank-zealot only. The ik_llama.cpp

scripts/deploy-remote.sh

@@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ service_is_allowed() {
         dankclaw:open-webui|dankclaw:gitea-postgres|dankclaw:gitea-server|\
         dankclaw:comfyui|dankclaw:hermes|\
         dankclaw:hermes-dashboard|dankclaw:hermes-webui|dankclaw:prometheus|dankclaw:grafana|\
-        dankclaw:loki|dankclaw:alloy|dankclaw:node-exporter|dankclaw:cadvisor|dankclaw:alertmanager|\
+        dankclaw:loki|dankclaw:alloy|dankclaw:node-exporter|dankclaw:cadvisor|dankclaw:gpu-exporter|dankclaw:alertmanager|\
         dankclaw:authentik-postgres|dankclaw:authentik-server|\
         dankclaw:authentik-worker|dankclaw:authentik-outpost|dankclaw:authentik-outpost-ldap|dankclaw:anubis|\
         dankclaw:caddy|dankclaw:homepage|dankclaw:seerr|dankclaw:marreta|\
@@ -97,7 +97,7 @@ service_is_allowed() {
         dankserver:copyparty|dankserver:jellyfin|dankserver:calibre-web|dankserver:calibre-server|dankserver:plex|dankserver:tautulli|\
         dankserver:prowlarr|dankserver:qbittorrent|dankserver:radarr|\
         dankserver:sonarr|dankserver:lidarr|dankserver:readarr|\
-        dankserver:frank-archon|dankserver:node-exporter|dankserver:cadvisor|\
+        dankserver:frank-archon|dankserver:node-exporter|dankserver:cadvisor|dankserver:gpu-exporter|\
         frankbook-pro:gluetun|frankbook-pro:qbittorrent|frankbook-pro:prowlarr|\
         frankbook-pro:radarr|frankbook-pro:sonarr|frankbook-pro:lidarr|\
         frankbook-pro:readarr)
@@ -275,14 +275,81 @@ install_signal_relay() {
     return 1
 }
 
+# Host-process GPU metrics exporter (amdgpu sysfs + nvidia-smi). Not a quadlet:
+# it runs python3 from the checkout on the host so it can read the DRM/cgroup
+# sysfs and shell out to nvidia-smi. Same two-address bind posture as
+# node-exporter/cadvisor (loopback + this host's LAN), so it is never a wildcard.
+deploy_gpu_exporter() {
+    local unit_dir="$HOME/.config/systemd/user" lan dropin i
+    case "$TARGET" in
+        dankclaw) lan=192.168.0.143 ;;
+        dankserver) lan=192.168.0.235 ;;
+        *) echo "gpu-exporter: unknown target '$TARGET'" >&2; return 2 ;;
+    esac
+    mkdir -p "$unit_dir"
+    cp scripts/gpu-exporter.service "$unit_dir/gpu-exporter.service"
+    dropin="$unit_dir/gpu-exporter.service.d"
+    mkdir -p "$dropin"
+    printf '[Service]\nEnvironment=GPU_EXPORTER_BINDS=127.0.0.1,%s\n' "$lan" \
+        > "$dropin/bind.conf"
+    systemctl --user daemon-reload
+    systemctl --user enable gpu-exporter.service
+    systemctl --user restart gpu-exporter.service
+    # The interpreter needs a moment to bind after restart (the same race that
+    # once failed a healthy signal-relay deploy).
+    for i in $(seq 1 15); do
+        curl -fsS -m 5 http://127.0.0.1:9401/metrics >/dev/null && return 0
+        sleep 1
+    done
+    echo "gpu-exporter is not answering on 127.0.0.1:9401/metrics" >&2
+    return 1
+}
+
 copy_loki_config() {
     run_privileged mkdir -p /opt/loki/config
     run_privileged cp shared/loki/loki-config.yaml /opt/loki/config/loki-config.yaml
 }
 
 copy_alloy_config() {
-    run_privileged mkdir -p /opt/alloy/config
+    # The repo config carries the token GRAFANA_HOST_LABEL; the installed copy
-    run_privileged cp shared/alloy/config.alloy /opt/alloy/config/config.alloy
+    # carries the host's name, so Loki streams say WHICH machine's journal a
+    # line came from without a second config file per host.
+    # *_CONF_ROOT are test seams: the bats cases execute these copiers for
+    # real against a sandbox with a stubbed run_privileged.
+    local root="${ALLOY_CONF_ROOT:-/opt/alloy}" tmp
+    tmp="$(mktemp)"
+    sed "s/GRAFANA_HOST_LABEL/$TARGET/g" shared/alloy/config.alloy > "$tmp"
+    if ! grep -q "host = \"$TARGET\"," "$tmp" || grep -q "GRAFANA_HOST_LABEL" "$tmp"; then
+        echo "alloy config: host-label substitution failed" >&2
+        rm -f "$tmp"
+        return 1
+    fi
+    # Syntax gate: alloy's config language has no schema — a misplaced
+    # attribute (e.g. `on_error` outside the json stage) parses only at RUN
+    # time, and the unit then crash-loops with a healthy-looking deploy.
+    # Validate against the very image that will run it, before installing.
+    # Skipped only in the bats sandbox (no image there).
+    if [ "$root" = "/opt/alloy" ] || podman image exists localhost/franksdank/alloy:latest 2>/dev/null; then
+        if ! podman run --rm -v "$tmp:/c.alloy:ro" \
+                --entrypoint /usr/bin/alloy localhost/franksdank/alloy:latest \
+                validate /c.alloy; then
+            echo "alloy config: validate FAILED against the pinned image" >&2
+            rm -f "$tmp"
+            return 1
+        fi
+    fi
+    run_privileged mkdir -p "$root/config"
+    run_privileged cp "$tmp" "$root/config/config.alloy"
+    rm -f "$tmp"
+}
+
+copy_blackbox_config() {
+    # Single-file mount target: the unit binds this exact path into
+    # /etc/blackbox_exporter/config.yml. cp (not cp -r) keeps it one file.
+    # BLACKBOX_CONF_ROOT is the same test seam.
+    local root="${BLACKBOX_CONF_ROOT:-/opt/blackbox}"
+    run_privileged mkdir -p "$root"
+    run_privileged cp shared/blackbox/blackbox.yml "$root/blackbox.yml"
 }
 
 copy_grafana_provisioning() {
@@ -291,14 +358,25 @@ copy_grafana_provisioning() {
     # datasource would be invisible to review, lost with the data volume, and
     # unknown to anyone reading the repository. The unit already mounts
     # /opt/grafana/provisioning read-only, so this only has to populate it.
-    run_privileged mkdir -p /opt/grafana/provisioning/datasources \
+    # GRAFANA_PROV_ROOT is the test seam: point it at a sandbox and the whole
-        /opt/grafana/provisioning/dashboards
+    # copy runs unprivileged (the bats case executes this function for real).
+    local root="${GRAFANA_PROV_ROOT:-/opt/grafana}"
+    run_privileged mkdir -p "$root/provisioning/datasources" \
+        "$root/provisioning/dashboards"
     run_privileged cp shared/grafana/provisioning/datasources/prometheus.yml \
-        /opt/grafana/provisioning/datasources/prometheus.yml
+        "$root/provisioning/datasources/prometheus.yml"
     run_privileged cp shared/grafana/provisioning/dashboards/provider.yml \
-        /opt/grafana/provisioning/dashboards/provider.yml
+        "$root/provisioning/dashboards/provider.yml"
-    run_privileged cp shared/grafana/provisioning/dashboards/llm-fleet.json \
+    # EVERY dashboard JSON rides, not a hand-listed subset: the fleet provider
-        /opt/grafana/provisioning/dashboards/llm-fleet.json
+    # turns each file in the directory into a dashboard, so a copier that names
+    # files one by one silently drops new boards (measured 2026-10-21: the
+    # containers board existed in the repo since its commit and was NEVER
+    # provisioned — the panel-census browser check could not find it while the
+    # hand-placed older boards happened to be on disk). Same rule as the quadlet
+    # tier: the directory is the contract, the copy is generated state.
+    for dash in shared/grafana/provisioning/dashboards/*.json; do
+        run_privileged cp "$dash" "$root/provisioning/dashboards/$(basename "$dash")"
+    done
 }
 
 render_caddyfile() {
@@ -522,6 +600,9 @@ deploy_observability() {
             ;;
         cadvisor)
             ;;
+        blackbox-exporter)
+            copy_blackbox_config
+            ;;
         *)
             echo "unknown observability service: $service" >&2
             return 2
@@ -536,6 +617,7 @@ deploy_observability() {
         loki) wait_for_health loki http://127.0.0.1:3100/ready 60 ;;
         node-exporter) wait_for_health node-exporter http://127.0.0.1:9100/metrics 60 ;;
         cadvisor) wait_for_health cadvisor http://127.0.0.1:8080/healthz 90 ;;
+        blackbox-exporter) wait_for_health blackbox-exporter http://127.0.0.1:9115/-/healthy 60 ;;
     esac
 }
 
@@ -1371,9 +1453,10 @@ deploy_anubis() {
 # conversion (2026-10-11) of the abliterated Qwen3.8-Flash-Next —
 # qwen38-flash-next-v2-abliterated.hgn (66,687,678,432 B, ~62 GiB resident)
 # + the REQUIRED n-gram lookup table + the vision tower — MTP spec decode
-# (HALOGEN_SPEC_ADAPT=0), 2 slots over ONE 401,408-position KV pool (2 × ctx,
+# (HALOGEN_SPEC_ADAPT=0), 2 slots over ONE 401,408-position KV pool at the
-# raised 2026-10-18 so BOTH slots can hold a maximum-length request) at the
+# native ctx 262144 ceiling (raised 2026-10-21 from 200704 so the harness can
-# ctx 200704 ceiling, image input — on the Strix Halo iGPU. It stays a
+# run a 200,000 window with its ~45k fit gap; the pool still carries two
+# 200k conversations at once), image input — on the Strix Halo iGPU. It stays a
 # ROOT unit because the serve script drives `podman run` directly (the frank-archon pattern):
 # relink_unit points /etc/systemd/system/frank-dragoon.service at the repo
 # file, boot persistence is that unit's [Install], and LimitMEMLOCK=infinity
@@ -2004,6 +2087,7 @@ deploy_service() {
         tautulli) deploy_tautulli ;;
         alloy) deploy_alloy ;;
         prometheus|grafana|loki|node-exporter|cadvisor|alertmanager) deploy_observability "$service" ;;
+        gpu-exporter) deploy_gpu_exporter ;;
         comfyui) deploy_comfyui ;;
         *) deploy_compose_service "$service" ;;
     esac

scripts/deploy.sh

@@ -133,13 +133,15 @@ fi
 valid_service() {
     local service="$1"
     case "$TARGET:$service" in
+        # dankclaw:searxng-network is client-only: a network quadlet with no
+        # remote dispatch handler, so the remote gate does not (must not) list it.
         dankclaw:caddy|dankclaw:gluetun|dankclaw:searxng-network|dankclaw:searxng-valkey|\
         dankclaw:searxng|dankclaw:marreta|dankclaw:pihole|dankclaw:open-webui|dankclaw:gitea-postgres|\
         dankclaw:gitea-server|dankclaw:homepage|\
         dankclaw:comfyui|dankclaw:hermes|dankclaw:hermes-dashboard|\
         dankclaw:hermes-webui|dankclaw:prometheus|dankclaw:grafana|dankclaw:loki|dankclaw:alloy|\
         dankclaw:alertmanager|\
-        dankclaw:node-exporter|dankclaw:authentik-postgres|dankclaw:authentik-server|\
+        dankclaw:node-exporter|dankclaw:cadvisor|dankclaw:gpu-exporter|dankclaw:authentik-postgres|dankclaw:authentik-server|\
         dankclaw:authentik-worker|dankclaw:authentik-outpost|dankclaw:authentik-outpost-ldap|dankclaw:anubis|dankclaw:seerr|\
         dankclaw:open-notebook|\
         dankclaw:frank-tts-engine|dankclaw:frank-tts|\
@@ -147,8 +149,8 @@ valid_service() {
         dankserver:romm-mariadb|dankserver:romm-redis|dankserver:romm|\
         dankserver:copyparty|dankserver:jellyfin|dankserver:calibre-web|dankserver:calibre-server|dankserver:plex|dankserver:tautulli|\
         dankserver:qbittorrent|dankserver:radarr|dankserver:sonarr|\
-        dankserver:lidarr|dankserver:readarr|dankserver:node-exporter|\
+        dankserver:lidarr|dankserver:readarr|dankserver:node-exporter|dankserver:cadvisor|dankserver:gpu-exporter|\
-        dankserver:frank-archon|\
+        dankserver:prowlarr|dankserver:frank-archon|\
         frankbook-pro:gluetun|frankbook-pro:qbittorrent|frankbook-pro:prowlarr|\
         frankbook-pro:radarr|frankbook-pro:sonarr|frankbook-pro:lidarr|\
         frankbook-pro:readarr)

scripts/frank-archon.env

@@ -46,31 +46,35 @@ FRANK_ARCHON_TP=2
 # stays EXACT for single-sequence decode and any step of <= 25 rows — see
 # MAX_SEQS x (1 + SPEC_TOKENS) below.
 FRANK_ARCHON_TP_WIRE=wht6
-# Decode slots. A slot costs KV, never decode; the pool is sized to this
+# Decode slots. A slot costs KV and pinned RAM, never decode: the cache target is
-# contract and nothing more. At 1.8.1 the budget resolver caps the cache at
+# exactly MAX_SEQS x MAX_MODEL_LEN and the checkpoint store asks (1 + what the
-# 556,348 fp8 tokens — 2.8 sessions at 200,000 — so a THIRD full-height
+# retention policy keeps) per slot. Ordered 2026-10-20: FOUR slots over a pool of at
-# conversation answers 400 while /health and every shorter chat work fine
+# least 700,000 fp8 tokens, rounding UP if the resolver cannot land it exactly. The
-# (3 x 50k streams run at 77.6 t/s aggregate). Frank's trade: declare the two
+# target is therefore 4 x 200,000 = 800,000 tokens and HOST_POOL_MIB decides whether
-# slots the engine can hold and let the freed ~1.1 GiB go to the expert plane,
+# the cache gets it (expert_vram_floor, core/place/planner.cpp:100-104: the card must
-# instead of advertising a third slot that only exists at shorter prompts.
+# keep expert-plane-minus-host-room). The 2-slot shape was the answer to a
-FRANK_ARCHON_MAX_SEQS=2
+# 365,204-token pool that backed 1.8 full-height sessions; at this pool the third and
+# fourth conversations are backed by the cache instead of over-committing it.
+FRANK_ARCHON_MAX_SEQS=4
 # Served window. The engine treats `kv group tokens >= max-model-len` as a HARD
 # limit, and models.yml contextWindow MUST quote this number (over-length is a
 # refusal, not a truncation). The pool is sized for seqs x maxlen, not one
 # sequence.
 FRANK_ARCHON_MAX_MODEL_LEN=200000
 FRANK_ARCHON_PLACEMENT=expert_tiered
-# Pinned host pool for expert rows that do not fit VRAM. Under the budget
+# Pinned host pool for expert rows that do not fit VRAM, PINNED ONCE PER RANK: the
-# resolver this is ALSO the lever that decides which experts stay on the card:
+# host must pin tp x this number, and the refusal that names it is
-# the card's leftover goes to the expert plane first and the KV cache takes the
+# core/engine_bringup.cpp:250-265. Under the budget resolver this is ALSO the KV
-# rest, so growing the pool moves experts off the card and shrinking it spills
+# lever -- the card keeps expert-plane-minus-this-room, so every MiB added moves one
-# them onto VRAM the cache wanted. Under-sizing it is a boot failure (36,864
+# MiB of experts off the card and into the cache. Derived from the boot ledger (a
-# refused a boot). The ledger's coverage line is the referee, not this file.
+# 23.73 GiB floor at 44,928 room puts plane + 2 units at 67.60 GiB a rank), 49,152
-# Measured, not guessed: 45,568 (PR #30) moved host_pool to 45.09 GiB and left
+# drops the floor to 19.6 GiB and leaves the cache ~6.9 GiB, which is enough to back
-# vram_kv byte-identical at 4.20 GiB / 556,348 tokens on both ranks — extra
+# the whole 4 x 200,000 target; the leftover returns to the experts. Cost is paid
-# host RAM above what the expert plane's footprint needs buys no cache. Back at
+# twice over: pinned RAM (tp x 48 GiB, against the TTM target below) and expert
-# 44,928, the size that boots clean.
+# residency -- ~3.2 GiB a card of experts now lives in host RAM and is read over the
-FRANK_ARCHON_HOST_POOL_MIB=44928
+# x8 link when the router picks it. The ledger's coverage line is the referee, not
+# this file: if vram_kv comes back under 700,000 tokens, raise this 1024 and redeploy.
+FRANK_ARCHON_HOST_POOL_MIB=49152
 # VRAM left unclaimed per card (publisher default 96 MiB); the engine's settle
 # floor is built from it.
 FRANK_ARCHON_GPU_HEADROOM_MIB=96
@@ -93,16 +97,29 @@ FRANK_ARCHON_SPEC_TOKENS=2
 FRANK_ARCHON_MAX_BATCHED_TOKENS=2048
 # Step sharing. A prefill chunk that shares a step with decoding sequences holds
 # the device for the chunk's whole time, and every decode row in that step waits
-# that long for its next token (the census: [[LLM Performance Diagnosis]] §9).
+# that long for its next token: measured at this shape, decode-only steps 15.5 ms
-# `auto` leaves each decode row behind the chunk a row plus its draft window and
+# against chunk steps 166 ms, which is the harness's ~146 t/s falling to ~11 t/s
-# keeps a share for whatever is waiting to be admitted; a number pins the chunk's
+# while another session prefills (law and census: [[frank-archon]]).
-# cap; `off` is the pre-1.4 behaviour this endpoint ran for two eras, where the
+# `auto` is a PREFILL-SPEED dial, not a decoder dial: it reserves one row plus the
-# chunk took the step and admission never ran. Interleave inserts N decode-only
+# draft window per decoding sequence (3 tokens) and an eighth of the budget per
-# steps after a chunk step taken beside decoders: it protects their cadence and
+# waiting request or waiting prefill, and the source states it will not halve for
-# holds a waiting request out of those steps, so it stays 0 until the post-migration
+# decode rows alone. Live proof: prefill_chunks_capped 5,018 across 62,386 chunk
-# decode-vs-prefill buckets say it is wanted.
+# steps. A number is the only value that applies whenever the chunk shares a step,
+# and it must not go under the prefill stager's smallest pass -- 1025 rows here,
+# named on the boot line "prefill staging: ... a step of more than 1024 tokens" --
+# because below it every routed layer reads its pooled experts synchronously, so
+# 512 is a trap and the vendor measures the whole job slower there. Interleave
+# inserts N decode-only steps after a chunk step taken beside decoders: it protects
+# their cadence and holds a waiting request out of those steps. That is the decoder
+# dial. ARMED at 1 on 2026-10-20: at N=1 a stream takes its token from the chunk step
+# AND one from the held step, ~2 tokens per 182 ms instead of one per 166 ms; the
+# price falls on the prefilling prompt (its chunks lose every held step) and on any
+# request still waiting to enter. `--prefill-span` re-funds a prefill only when it is
+# ALONE, so it cannot buy this back while decoders run. Meter:
+# radiance:engine_steps_held_total must leave zero, and the §9 buckets must move
+# before N rises.
 FRANK_ARCHON_BUSY_PREFILL_CHUNK=auto
-FRANK_ARCHON_PREFILL_INTERLEAVE=0
+FRANK_ARCHON_PREFILL_INTERLEAVE=1
 # Prefix cache: pinned host memory only. The disk tier was removed outright
 # (--prefix-cache-dir and --prefix-cache-disk-mib are refusals), so what used to
 # be restored from NVMe is now re-prefilled. The tier is sized in ENTRIES and one
@@ -118,9 +135,10 @@ FRANK_ARCHON_NGRAM_PLACEMENT=ram
 # RESETS pages_limit to half of RAM on every boot; below the plan the load dies
 # mid-pin with an anonymous allocator error. ttm-preflight.sh raises the knob
 # itself before refusing by name, so recovery is a boot, not a visit.
-# Floor = 2 x HOST_POOL + 48,824 (static weights + arena) + PREFIX_CACHE + MNBT
+# Floor = 2 x HOST_POOL + 48,824 (static weights + arena) + PREFIX_CACHE + MNBT + the
-# per the bats ledger test; at the 44,928 pool that computes to 148,920 MiB.
+# auto checkpoint store (MAX_SEQS x 10 slots of 111.98 MiB), per the bats ledger test;
-FRANK_ARCHON_TTM_MIN_MIB=150000
+# at the 49,152 pool with 4 slots that computes to 161,848 MiB.
+FRANK_ARCHON_TTM_MIN_MIB=162000
 FRANK_ARCHON_TTM_TARGET_MIB=204800
 # Escape hatch for experiments. Unset -> no extra argv; the serve script expands
 # this unquoted on purpose, so keep multi-flag values as one string.

scripts/frank-dragoon.env

@@ -49,14 +49,21 @@ FRANK_DRAGOON_TOKENIZER_FILES="tokenizer.json chat_template.jinja tokenizer_conf
 # stays at the image default, which is what was qualified) ------------------
 # Served id. OpenWebUI api_configs model_ids for the :7770 backend MUST name it.
 HALOGEN_MODEL_ID=frank-dragoon
-# PER-REQUEST ceiling: a longer prompt is a 400 naming the limit, never a
+# PER-REQUEST ceiling, set to the checkpoint's NATIVE window (262,144 — a
-# truncation. The harness window must sit ~45k UNDER this (the 400-zone law on
+# longer prompt is a 400 naming the limit, never a truncation; stretching
-# the page) — a window equal to the ceiling makes every long request a 400.
+# past native would need HALOGEN_ROPE_YARN and is not on plan). The harness
-HALOGEN_CTX=200704
+# `contextWindow` must sit ~45k under THIS number (the 400-zone law on the
-# ONE pool behind both slots, sized so BOTH can carry a maximum-length request
+# page): with the window at 200,000 the gap is 62,144, which absorbs the
-# at once. Pool positions buy concurrency; the per-request window never moves
+# chars/4 under-count. A window at or near the ceiling makes every long
-# with them. Legal band: ctx <= pool <= slots * ctx (the seam enforces it), and
+# request a guaranteed 400.
-# RAM the pool takes is RAM the n-gram table's page cache loses.
+HALOGEN_CTX=262144
+# ONE pool behind both slots. The harness window is 200,000, so 401,408
+# still carries TWO maximum harness-length conversations at once
+# (2 x 200,000 + one 45,056 budget <= pool + cap headroom); two literal
+# ceiling-length requests would queue instead — buying those means raising
+# the pool, and RAM the pool takes is RAM the n-gram table's page cache
+# loses. Pool positions buy concurrency; the per-request window never moves
+# with them. Legal band: ctx <= pool <= slots * ctx (the seam enforces it).
 HALOGEN_KV_POOL_POSITIONS=401408
 # Two concurrent conversations: the MTP drafter is not slot-locked on this
 # engine, so the second slot is capacity, not a speculation tax.
@@ -107,10 +114,13 @@ HALOGEN_NPU_MODELS=qwen3-embedding-0.6b
 FRANK_DRAGOON_NPU_DIR=/home/dank/models/halogen-v2-abliterated/npu
 # Node paths and the XRT directory are variables so the bats seam can drive
 # these gates on a box with no NPU. Ubuntu's distro XRT (libxrt2 + libxrt-npu2)
-# is mounted FILE BY FILE and TWICE EACH — once where the image looks for XRT,
+# is mounted FILE BY FILE and THREE TIMES EACH — where the image looks for XRT
-# once at its own path, because those libraries find each other at their install
+# (/opt/xilinx/xrt/lib), at its own path (those libraries find each other at
-# path; the vendor forbids mounting an /opt/xilinx/xrt of symlinks into the
+# their install path), and at /opt/xilinx/lib/<multiarch>/ (the NPU child
-# system dir, which dangle inside the container.
+# searches that third prefix; without it the lane dies naming it and the
+# supervisor takes the container down — 2026-10-21 boot loop). The basename of
+# this directory IS the multiarch name. The vendor forbids mounting an
+# /opt/xilinx/xrt of symlinks into the system dir, which dangle in the container.
 FRANK_DRAGOON_DEV_ACCEL=/dev/accel/accel0
 FRANK_DRAGOON_XRT_DIR=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
 # sysfs root the fabric-clock preflight reads (same knob the vendor's

scripts/frank-dragoon.service

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 [Unit]
-Description=halogen-flash-server container (Quat3rnion NATIVE v2 abliterated Qwen3.8-Flash-Next, MTP spec decode, 2 slots over ONE 401408-position pool at ctx 200704, vision ON), root systemd unit (dankclaw, frank-dragoon, Strix Halo iGPU)
+Description=halogen-flash-server container (Quat3rnion NATIVE v2 abliterated Qwen3.8-Flash-Next, MTP spec decode, 2 slots over ONE 401408-position pool at ctx 262144, vision ON), root systemd unit (dankclaw, frank-dragoon, Strix Halo iGPU)
 After=network-online.target
 Wants=network-online.target
 

scripts/gpu-exporter.py

@@ -0,0 +1,212 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python3
+"""gpu-exporter: unified per-GPU metrics for a mixed AMD/NVIDIA host.
+
+Emits the `gpu_*` Prometheus families the host-system dashboard graphs:
+
+    gpu_utilization_percent  gpu_memory_used_bytes  gpu_memory_total_bytes
+    gpu_temperature_celsius  gpu_power_watts
+
+each labelled {gpu, vendor, model}. The scrape job adds `host`.
+
+Two sources, both host-native — no container, no GPU passthrough:
+
+  * AMD (R9700s, the 8060S iGPU, the Raphael display GPU): the amdgpu sysfs tree.
+    Utilization comes ONLY from gpu_busy_percent — amd-smi reports gfx_busy_inst
+    as N/A on gfx1201 (verified 2026-10-20). VRAM is already bytes, temperature
+    is milli-degrees, power is micro-watts. Crucially power1_average is EMPTY on
+    the R9700s, so those cards legitimately have no gpu_power_watts line; a
+    missing file becomes an ABSENT metric, never a fabricated 0 that a dashboard
+    would plot as a real reading.
+
+  * NVIDIA (the RTX 3090 on Dankclaw): one `nvidia-smi --query-gpu` CSV. On
+    Dankserver there is an nvidia-smi binary but no NVIDIA GPU, so the command
+    fails; that is tolerated and simply yields no NVIDIA series.
+
+Default mode prints one scrape to stdout and exits (the test harness, and any
+`service ... --oneshot` one-off). `--serve` binds the HTTP endpoint for
+Prometheus; it binds EXPLICITLY (loopback + the host LAN address), never a
+wildcard, matching node-exporter's posture on these boxes.
+"""
+import argparse
+import glob
+import os
+import subprocess
+import sys
+import threading
+from http.server import BaseHTTPRequestHandler, ThreadingHTTPServer
+
+FAMILIES = [
+    ("gpu_utilization_percent", "gauge", "GPU busy time as a percentage of wall time."),
+    ("gpu_memory_used_bytes", "gauge", "Device memory in use, in bytes."),
+    ("gpu_memory_total_bytes", "gauge", "Device memory capacity, in bytes."),
+    ("gpu_temperature_celsius", "gauge", "Package temperature in degrees Celsius."),
+    ("gpu_power_watts", "gauge", "Board power draw in watts."),
+]
+
+DEFAULT_NVIDIA_CMD = (
+    "nvidia-smi --query-gpu=index,name,utilization.gpu,memory.used,"
+    "memory.total,temperature.gpu,power.draw --format=csv,noheader,nounits"
+)
+
+
+def _read(path):
+    try:
+        with open(path) as fh:
+            return fh.read().strip()
+    except OSError:
+        return ""
+
+
+def _pci_slot(device_dir):
+    uevent = _read(os.path.join(device_dir, "uevent"))
+    for line in uevent.splitlines():
+        if line.startswith("PCI_SLOT_NAME="):
+            return line.split("=", 1)[1]
+    return ""
+
+
+def _pci_id(device_dir):
+    uevent = _read(os.path.join(device_dir, "uevent"))
+    for line in uevent.splitlines():
+        if line.startswith("PCI_ID="):
+            return "amd:" + line.split("=", 1)[1].lower()
+    return "amd"
+
+
+def collect_amd(sys_dir):
+    for card in sorted(glob.glob(os.path.join(sys_dir, "card[0-9]*"))):
+        device = os.path.join(card, "device")
+        busy = _read(os.path.join(device, "gpu_busy_percent"))
+        if busy == "":
+            continue  # not an amdgpu compute node (e.g. a render node w/o metrics)
+        labels = {"gpu": _pci_slot(device) or os.path.basename(card),
+                  "vendor": "amd", "model": _pci_id(device)}
+        yield "gpu_utilization_percent", labels, busy
+        for name, leaf in (("gpu_memory_used_bytes", "mem_info_vram_used"),
+                           ("gpu_memory_total_bytes", "mem_info_vram_total")):
+            v = _read(os.path.join(device, leaf))
+            if v != "":
+                yield name, labels, v
+        temp = ""
+        for hwmon in sorted(glob.glob(os.path.join(device, "hwmon", "hwmon*", "temp1_input"))):
+            temp = _read(hwmon)
+            if temp != "":
+                break
+        if temp != "":
+            yield "gpu_temperature_celsius", labels, str(int(temp) / 1000.0)
+        power = _read(os.path.join(device, "power1_average"))
+        if power != "":  # empty on the R9700s -> metric absent, not zero
+            yield "gpu_power_watts", labels, str(int(power) / 1e6)
+
+
+def collect_nvidia(cmd):
+    if not cmd:
+        return
+    try:
+        out = subprocess.run(cmd, shell=True, capture_output=True, text=True,
+                             timeout=10, check=True).stdout
+    except (subprocess.SubprocessError, OSError):
+        return  # no NVIDIA GPU / no driver: tolerate, emit nothing
+    for line in out.splitlines():
+        parts = [p.strip() for p in line.split(",")]
+        if len(parts) < 7:
+            continue
+        idx, name, util, mused, mtotal, temp, power = parts[:7]
+        labels = {"gpu": idx, "vendor": "nvidia", "model": name}
+        yield "gpu_utilization_percent", labels, util
+        yield "gpu_memory_used_bytes", labels, str(int(float(mused)) * 1048576)
+        yield "gpu_memory_total_bytes", labels, str(int(float(mtotal)) * 1048576)
+        if temp not in ("", "[N/A]"):
+            yield "gpu_temperature_celsius", labels, temp
+        if power not in ("", "[N/A]"):
+            yield "gpu_power_watts", labels, power
+
+
+def collect(sys_dir, nvidia_cmd):
+    samples = {}
+    for source in (collect_amd(sys_dir), collect_nvidia(nvidia_cmd)):
+        for name, labels, value in source:
+            try:
+                value = str(float(value))  # normalise; drop trailing junk
+            except ValueError:
+                continue
+            samples.setdefault(name, []).append((labels, value))
+    return samples
+
+
+def _fmt(value):
+    f = float(value)
+    if f == int(f) and abs(f) < 1e15:
+        return str(int(f))
+    return repr(f)
+
+
+def render(samples):
+    out = []
+    for name, kind, help_text in FAMILIES:
+        out.append("# HELP %s %s" % (name, help_text))
+        out.append("# TYPE %s %s" % (name, kind))
+        for labels, value in sorted(samples.get(name, []), key=lambda x: sorted(x[0].items())):
+            lset = ",".join('%s="%s"' % (k, v) for k, v in sorted(labels.items()))
+            out.append("%s{%s} %s" % (name, lset, _fmt(value)))
+    return "\n".join(out) + "\n"
+
+
+class Handler(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
+    sys_dir = "/sys/class/drm"
+    nvidia_cmd = DEFAULT_NVIDIA_CMD
+
+    def do_GET(self):  # noqa: N802 (http.server API)
+        if self.path.split("?")[0] not in ("/metrics", "/"):
+            self.send_error(404)
+            return
+        body = render(collect(self.sys_dir, self.nvidia_cmd)).encode()
+        self.send_response(200)
+        self.send_header("Content-Type", "text/plain; version=0.0.4")
+        self.send_header("Content-Length", str(len(body)))
+        self.end_headers()
+        self.wfile.write(body)
+
+    def log_message(self, *args):
+        pass
+
+
+def main(argv):
+    ap = argparse.ArgumentParser(description=__doc__.splitlines()[0])
+    ap.add_argument("--amdgpu-sysfs", default="/sys/class/drm")
+    ap.add_argument("--nvidia-cmd", default=DEFAULT_NVIDIA_CMD)
+    ap.add_argument("--serve", action="store_true", help="serve /metrics instead of one-shot")
+    ap.add_argument("--port", type=int, default=9401)
+    ap.add_argument("--bind", action="append", default=None,
+                    help="explicit bind address (repeatable); env GPU_EXPORTER_BINDS "
+                         "comma-list if unset. NEVER a wildcard.")
+    args = ap.parse_args(argv)
+
+    if not args.serve:
+        sys.stdout.write(render(collect(args.amdgpu_sysfs, args.nvidia_cmd)))
+        return 0
+
+    binds = args.bind
+    if not binds:
+        env = os.environ.get("GPU_EXPORTER_BINDS", "")
+        binds = [b.strip() for b in env.split(",") if b.strip()] or ["127.0.0.1"]
+    Handler.sys_dir = args.amdgpu_sysfs
+    Handler.nvidia_cmd = args.nvidia_cmd
+    servers = []
+    for b in binds:
+        if b in ("0.0.0.0", "::", "*"):
+            sys.stderr.write("refusing wildcard bind %s\n" % b)
+            return 2
+        servers.append(ThreadingHTTPServer((b, args.port), Handler))
+    sys.stderr.write("gpu-exporter serving :%d on %s\n" % (args.port, ",".join(binds)))
+    # EVERY socket must be served: a listen()ed-but-never-accept()ed bind looks
+    # healthy in `ss` yet times out every scrape once its SYN backlog fills —
+    # and the loopback deploy gate cannot see it. One thread per extra bind.
+    for s in servers[1:]:
+        threading.Thread(target=s.serve_forever, daemon=True).start()
+    servers[0].serve_forever()
+    return 0
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    sys.exit(main(sys.argv[1:]))

scripts/gpu-exporter.service

@@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
+# Systemd USER unit: gpu-exporter (both Dankclaw and Dankserver).
+#
+# Install path: ~/.config/systemd/user/gpu-exporter.service
+# Installed and enabled by deploy_gpu_exporter in scripts/deploy-remote.sh.
+#
+# Per-GPU metrics (utilization / VRAM / temperature / power) for the mixed
+# AMD + NVIDIA fleet, scraped by Prometheus. Like signal-relay it is a plain
+# user unit, not a quadlet: it runs python3 straight from the checkout (a pull
+# updates it with no copy step), a hand-written user unit can be enabled where
+# the podman v1 generator's units cannot, and with Linger=yes for dank it starts
+# at boot. It reads the host's own cgroup/drm sysfs and shells to nvidia-smi, so
+# it must run on the host — a container would need GPU/DRM passthrough for
+# nothing gained.
+#
+# BINDING. The base unit serves loopback only. deploy_gpu_exporter writes a
+# drop-in adding THIS host's LAN address (the same two-address posture
+# node-exporter and cadvisor use), so the endpoint is never a wildcard. It is
+# unauthenticated metrics on the LAN, identical to node-exporter :9100 and
+# cadvisor :8080 — Prometheus reaches same-host via host.containers.internal and
+# the Dankserver instance over the LAN from Dankclaw.
+
+[Unit]
+Description=GPU metrics exporter (amdgpu sysfs + nvidia-smi)
+After=network-online.target
+Wants=network-online.target
+
+[Service]
+# Loopback by default; the deploy drop-in appends the host LAN address.
+Environment=GPU_EXPORTER_BINDS=127.0.0.1
+ExecStart=/usr/bin/python3 /home/dank/serverAppConfigs/scripts/gpu-exporter.py --serve
+Restart=always
+RestartSec=5
+
+[Install]
+WantedBy=default.target

scripts/probe-frank-archon-kv.py

@@ -147,10 +147,21 @@ def main():
     deep = corpus(160_000)
     wide = corpus(1_100_000)
 
-    # 3.28 chars/token is the measured ratio of this corpus through the
+    # The corpus's chars/token ratio is MEASURED here, not stored. A stored 3.28
-    # froggeric template (646,000 chars -> 196,919 tokens at the 2026-10-11
+    # (646,000 chars -> 196,919 tokens, 2026-10-11) had drifted to 3.20 by
-    # deploy); 98.5 % of the window leaves the response room under the ceiling.
+    # 2026-10-20 (646,299 chars -> 201,876 tokens) as the repo's docs grew, and a
-    chars = int(0.985 * maxlen * 3.28)
+    # stale constant sends leg B past --max-model-len, where the engine answers a
+    # perfectly legitimate 400 ("the request (201900 tokens) exceeds the available
+    # context size (200000)") and the leg reads as a capacity failure. One small
+    # request prices the ratio; 97 % of the window leaves the response room.
+    sample = prompt(wide, 4000, "CAL", "cal-marker")
+    cal, _, _ = post({"model": MODEL,
+                      "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": sample}],
+                      "max_tokens": 1, "temperature": 0.0,
+                      "chat_template_kwargs": {"enable_thinking": False}})
+    ratio = len(sample) / cal["usage"]["prompt_tokens"]
+    print(f"[cal] corpus ratio {ratio:.2f} chars/token")
+    chars = int(0.97 * maxlen * ratio)
     # Each marker's FIRST hyphen-separated word is unique, because show()
     # scores the hit on that word — a shared prefix would score every slot HIT
     # on any answer that says the word.
@@ -176,7 +187,7 @@ def main():
                 print(f"[B-{s}] FAILED after {time.time() - t0:.1f}s: {e!r}")
     print(f"[B] total {time.time() - t0:.1f}s")
     # D — concurrency decode: seqs streams, 512 tokens each, ~25 % depth.
-    dchars = int(0.25 * maxlen * 3.28)
+    dchars = int(0.25 * maxlen * ratio)
     dbodies = [chat(deep, dchars, f"D{i + 1}-9137", f"flint-marker-{i}", 512)
                for i in range(seqs)]
     print(f"[D] {seqs} concurrent streams x 512 tokens, "

scripts/serve-frank-archon.sh

@@ -15,18 +15,21 @@
 # log states every budget before anything is allocated (weights vs KV
 # split, the expert host pool's coverage of the worst case, the PLE pin,
 # the P2P answer per pair) — read it after every resize.
-# Deployed shape (2026-10-19, radiance 1.8.1): THREE decode slots x 200,000
+# Deployed shape (2026-10-20, radiance 1.8.1): FOUR decode slots x 200,000 tokens over a
-# tokens, fp8 KV, 44 GiB/rank pinned expert pool, MTP depth 2, prefix cache in
+# >= 700,000-token fp8 KV pool, 48 GiB/rank pinned expert pool, MTP depth 2, prefix cache
-# pinned host RAM, PLE pinned in RAM. The per-card split between the expert slab
+# in pinned host RAM, PLE pinned in RAM. The per-card split between the expert slab and the KV
-# and the KV pool is NO LONGER an operator number — 1.3.0 removed the VRAM pair
+# pool is NO LONGER an operator number — 1.3.0 removed the VRAM pair and the budget
-# and the budget resolver derives it from headroom, the cache bound and the host
+# resolver derives it from headroom, the cache bound and the host pool, so the slab
-# pool, so the slab size and the pool's token count are LEDGER lines: after every
+# size and the pool's token count are LEDGER lines. After every boot read them, plus
-# boot read them out of the log and check the pool still backs 3 x 200,000.
+# the two lines that size a prefill step — "activation arena: ... lends ... while
+# steps are at most N tokens" (the arena levels the expert slab borrows) and
+# "prefill staging: ... a step of more than N tokens ..." (the chunk size below which
+# pooled experts are read synchronously) — and the cache's session backing.
 #
 # The root unit (scripts/frank-archon.service, User=dank,
-# LimitMEMLOCK=infinity) grants the pin budget: 2 x 44 GiB expert pools +
+# LimitMEMLOCK=infinity) grants the pin budget: 2 x 48 GiB expert pools + the 47.7 GiB PLE
-# the 47.7 GiB PLE table + 8 GiB prefix host tier — ~147 GiB of pinned
+# table + 8 GiB prefix host tier + the checkpoint store (slots x 112 MiB) — ~159 GiB of
-# pages, which is ALSO why this script refuses to start when ttm's
+# pinned pages, which is ALSO why this script refuses to start when ttm's
 # pages_limit/pages_max cap is under FRANK_ARCHON_TTM_MIN_MIB (see below).
 set -euo pipefail
 

scripts/serve-frank-dragoon.sh

@@ -136,10 +136,17 @@ fi
 #      The engine re-checks size+sha256 against that catalog at boot; it cannot
 #      fetch anything here because /models is read-only and HALOGEN_DOWNLOAD
 #      stays unset — no outbound connection at boot),
-#   2. the distro XRT's three libraries, each mounted twice (where the image
+#   2. the distro XRT's three libraries, each mounted THREE times: where the
-#      looks for XRT, and at its own path — the libraries find each other there;
+#      image looks for XRT (/opt/xilinx/xrt/lib), at their own path (the
-#      an /opt/xilinx/xrt of symlinks into the system dir dangles inside the
+#      libraries find each other there), and at /opt/xilinx/lib/<multiarch>
-#      container, which the vendor calls out explicitly),
+#      — the NPU child searches that third prefix too, and since the host's
+#      libxrt2 was reconfigured 2026-10-20 it is the ONLY prefix the child
+#      names: omitting it crashes the lane with `No such library
+#      '/opt/xilinx/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxrt_core.so.2'` and the engine
+#      supervisor takes the dead lane down on the whole container (measured
+#      2026-10-21: 88-restart boot loop). Real files only — an /opt/xilinx/xrt
+#      of symlinks into the system dir dangles inside the container, which the
+#      vendor calls out explicitly),
 #   3. the GPU fabric clock HELD: on Strix Halo the iGPU and the NPU co-running
 #      hang the machine while FCLK changes speed, and the engine refuses to
 #      start when it moves — it cannot read host sysfs from inside the
@@ -190,7 +197,9 @@ if [ -n "$NPU_MODELS" ]; then
             exit 1
         fi
         REAL="$(readlink -f "$XRT_DIR/$L")"
-        NPU_ARGS+=(-v "$REAL:/opt/xilinx/xrt/lib/$L:ro" -v "$REAL:$XRT_DIR/$L:ro")
+        MULTIARCH="${XRT_DIR##*/}"
+        NPU_ARGS+=(-v "$REAL:/opt/xilinx/xrt/lib/$L:ro" -v "$REAL:$XRT_DIR/$L:ro"
+                   -v "$REAL:/opt/xilinx/lib/$MULTIARCH/$L:ro")
     done
     HELD=0
     for D in "$SYSFS"/class/drm/card*/device; do

scripts/test-changed.sh

@@ -293,6 +293,14 @@ for path in "${CHANGED[@]}"; do
             add_test tests/caddyfile.bats
             add_test tests/deployment_scoping.bats
             ;;
+        # The GPU exporter is a host process; its seam pins the collector, the
+        # user unit, the deployer function, the planner route, the Prometheus
+        # scrape jobs and the host-system GPU panels — a cross-file contract, so
+        # the whole seam rides on any of its own files.
+        scripts/gpu-exporter.py|scripts/gpu-exporter.service)
+            add_test tests/gpu_exporter.bats
+            add_test tests/deployment_scoping.bats
+            ;;
         dankclaw/udev/*)
             # Host-level udev rules are applied by manual sudo install + udevadm
             # trigger, not dispatched as a service; nothing here is bats-testable.

serverAppConfigs-docs/Agent/OMP Harness.md

@@ -52,28 +52,31 @@ Where the contract lives:
 The arithmetic (the coupled contract every endpoint's maxTokens comment
 encodes). The authoritative `contextWindow`/`maxTokens` pair per model is on the
 endpoint page ([[frank-archon]], [[frank-dragoon]], [[frank-zealot]]); what
-follows is a **worked example** recomputed from the live files on 2026-10-18 —
+follows is a **worked example** recomputed from the live files on 2026-10-21 —
-a snapshot, not fleet state — with windows 200,000 / 155,648 / 200,704 and
+a snapshot, not fleet state — with windows 200,000 / 200,000 / 200,704 and
 maxTokens 16,384 / 45,056 / 16,384 (archon / dragoon / zealot):
 
 1. **Source trigger** = `thresholdPercent × source contextWindow`; at the live
-   95 % that is 190,000 (archon), 147,866 (dragoon), 190,669 (zealot). The
+   95 % that is 190,000 (archon and dragoon), 190,669 (zealot). The
    bundle clamps the percentage to 1–99 and converts it to a token threshold.
 2. **Output budget** = capped at the target model's `maxTokens` — every role
    here compacts to frank-zealot, so the budget is its 16,384.
-3. **REQUIREMENT**: prompt (≤ trigger) + budget ≤ the target's per-slot
+3. **REQUIREMENT**: prompt (≤ trigger) + budget ≤ the fitting window. For a
-   window. **At 95 % this no longer holds**: 190,000 + 16,384 = 206,384 >
+   dragoon session the fitting window is the ENGINE ceiling, not a slot: the
-   200,704. The registry's own comments design around an 85 % trigger (archon:
+   190,000 trigger is 62,144 under the 262,144 ceiling, so even ×1.03 est
-   170,000 est × 1.03 + 16,384 ≈ 191,500 ≤ 200,704, `models.yml:49-56`), which
+   error plus the 45,056 request budget lands inside — that headroom is the
-   does hold. While `config.yml` and those comments disagree, treat 85 % as the
+   reason the ceiling moved to native on 2026-10-21. For a session compacting
-   design point and re-run this arithmetic after ANY window change — a 400 from
+   INTO frank-zealot the window is its 200,704-token slot, and **at 95 % this
-   the compaction target mid-conversation is the symptom.
+   does not hold for archon/zealot sources**: 190,000 + 16,384 = 206,384 >
+   200,704. Treat 85 % as the design point until config.yml and the registry
+   comments agree, and re-run this arithmetic after ANY window change — a 400
+   from the compaction target mid-conversation is the symptom.
    (Historic 2026-10-05 pairs, at `thresholdPercent: 70`: 140,492 + 36,864 =
    177,356 ≤ 200,704 archon; 140,490 + 57,344 ≤ 200,700 dragoon; 140,492 +
    32,768 ≤ 200,704 zealot.)
 
 Procedure (recompute from the LIVE files every time — windows rotate with
-every swap; the block above is the 2026-10-18 state):
+every swap; the block above is the 2026-10-21 state):
 
 1. Read the `config.yml` compaction block + `models.yml` entries for source
    and target. Every endpoint's `contextWindow` comment carries its own
@@ -94,9 +97,10 @@ Known reconciliation trap: comments in models.yml have described compaction
 as running "on the dankserver endpoint" while `remoteEndpoint` pointed at
 dankclaw — the comment/config disagreed. The comments now name the real
 target (`compaction.remoteEndpoint` = dankclaw :7771). **The config is
-truth; fix comments in the same change.** A fresh instance of the same trap is
+truth; fix comments in the same change.** The 85 %-comments vs 95 %-config
-open 2026-10-18: every `maxTokens` comment still says "compaction fires at
+disagreement is not academic: it is why long dragoon sessions kept drawing
-85 % of the window" while `config.yml:84` sets `thresholdPercent: 95`.
+400s at the old 200,704 ceiling — the trigger fires late AND the est
+under-counts, and a window parked near the ceiling has no room for either.
 `maxTokens` never changes for a reslice — it caps output; `contextWindow` caps
 input. Boot-shape OOM laddering is a different problem
 ([[Llama Cpp Serving Sizing]]).

serverAppConfigs-docs/Architecture/Stale Signal Audit.md

@@ -116,6 +116,20 @@ as working when they could never report up. **Clean cutover includes prose** —
 docs, unit docstrings, and the repo's rule file (the most expensive place to
 be stale).
 
+## Three rules that outlive the incident that taught them
+
+* **A target can read down beside a healthy service.** Read `lastError` from
+  `/api/v1/targets` before believing an outage — llama.cpp refuses `/metrics` at the
+  protocol layer without `--metrics` (501) while `/health` answers 200 for weeks.
+* **Alert state lives where the tool says it does.** Prometheus keeps rule state in
+  process memory — a restart re-stamps `activeAt`, so a "fresh" alert after a reboot is
+  not evidence of a fresh fault. Alertmanager **does** persist (`--storage.path` on a
+  host volume: silences + notification log, [[Alertmanager]]).
+* **Never quote a candidate arm's flags or VRAM as fleet state.** A stopped production
+  unit (`failed` after `stop-sigterm timed out. Killing` — the known shutdown shape,
+  [[frank-zealot]]) beside an answering port means the metric measured a scratch boot;
+  the process shape can change between two censuses ten minutes apart.
+
 ## Order and verification
 
 1. Enumerate the surfaces (status board, metrics targets, alert rules, test

serverAppConfigs-docs/Dankclaw/ComfyUI Qwen-Image Workflows.md

@@ -110,9 +110,9 @@ only `models`, `input`, `output`, `custom_nodes` and the healthcheck file
 
 ## Recommended additions
 
-Quantized preferred, sized for the 8060S iGPU (GTT-backed — `/system_stats`
+Quantized preferred. The iGPU's GTT aperture is not free RAM beside
-reports 122.4 GB of device VRAM on `cuda:0`, `curl http://127.0.0.1:8188/system_stats`
+frank-dragoon — size every pick against *What actually fits beside
-2026-10-18; the RTX 3090 is frank-zealot's). All repos verified 2026-10-05 and
+frank-dragoon* below (the RTX 3090 is frank-zealot's). All repos verified 2026-10-05 and
 all four still resolve today (`huggingface.co/lightx2v/Qwen-Image-Lightning`
 `huggingface.co/unsloth/Qwen-Image-Edit-2511-GGUF`
 `huggingface.co/Comfy-Org/Qwen-Image-DiffSynth-ControlNets`
@@ -133,8 +133,34 @@ sha256 checks) or a plain `hf download` with the token in the environment —
 never on the command line.
 
 Skip list: the original `city96/Qwen-Image-gguf` conversions (superseded by
-the 2.1 files already on disk), and any BF16 of #2/#4 (the iGPU does not need
+the 2.1 files already on disk), and any BF16 of #2/#4 — they double the disk
-them at GTT capacity, and they double the disk bill).
+bill, and see *What actually fits beside frank-dragoon* for why raw GTT size
+is not the real budget.
+
+## What actually fits beside frank-dragoon
+
+The 122 GB `/system_stats` figure is the GTT **aperture**, not free memory: on
+an APU the aperture and `MemAvailable` are the same physical RAM, and
+frank-dragoon pins tens of GiB of it. Measured 2026-10-21 with frank-dragoon
+live: `MemAvailable` 15.3 GiB, iGPU busy 1.75 GiB — ComfyUI itself idles at
+~10 MB, so the budget for a generation run is roughly what `free` says.
+
+Weights must land inside that budget with slack for compute buffers and
+activations (the mmproj-class lesson: price a model at ~1.5× its file set):
+
+| Pipeline (weights) | Fits beside frank-dragoon? |
+|---|---|
+| Qwen-Image 2.1 int8_convrot + w4a8 + bf16 VAE (~14.2 GB) — the two proven workflows | **No** — thrash-or-fail; do not queue it while the endpoint serves |
+| GGUF Q8_0 + w4a8 + small VAE (~13.3 GB) | No, same reason |
+| Any BF16 combination | No |
+| SDXL-Turbo / SD 1.5-class (~2–7 GB) | Yes, with real headroom |
+
+**The law: one process owns the memory — same rule as the 3090 bench law.**
+For a Qwen-Image render: stop and mask frank-dragoon
+(`sudo systemctl stop frank-dragoon` + `mask` — the mask stops
+`Restart=always` from firing mid-render), generate, unmask, verify
+`curl 192.168.0.143:7770/health`. The proven workflows above then run with
+the whole machine. Do not treat `/system_stats`'s 122 GB as an invitation.
 
 ## See Also
 

serverAppConfigs-docs/Dankclaw/ComfyUI.md

@@ -129,6 +129,12 @@ bind-mounted to `/usr/local/bin/comfyui-healthcheck.py` and run as `HealthCmd`
 - Do not let pip reinstall the torch family. The Containerfile filters it out on purpose.
 - The base image is about 32 GiB (`podman image inspect localhost/comfyui-rocm:gfx1151` → 33,765,227,471 B ≈ 31.4 GiB, 2026-10-18). A code update means a rebuild, because the code is baked in.
 - The empty-models note from the 2026-09-16 era is retired: `/home/dank/comfyui-data/models` now holds the Qwen-Image 2.1 payload — three `diffusion_models`, three `text_encoders`, two VAEs (~35 GB, `ls -l` 2026-10-18), listed in [[ComfyUI Qwen-Image Workflows]]. New model classes (LoRA, ControlNet) still need their directories created first: `models/lora` and `models/controlnet` do not exist yet.
+- **The 122 GB `/system_stats` VRAM figure is the GTT aperture, not free
+  memory.** On the APU it is system RAM, and frank-dragoon pins most of it
+  (`MemAvailable` 15.3 GiB with the endpoint live, measured 2026-10-21). A
+  Qwen-Image-class render beside the running endpoint is thrash-or-fail; the
+  stop-mask-render-verify procedure and the fit table are in
+  [[ComfyUI Qwen-Image Workflows]] → What actually fits beside frank-dragoon.
 
 ## See Also
 

serverAppConfigs-docs/Dankserver/Plex.md

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ description: "Plex Media Server is a **containerized media server on Dankserver*
 tags:
   - dankserver
   - plex
-timestamp: 2026-09-15
+timestamp: 2026-10-21
 ---
 
 # Plex
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ public traffic can be fronted by Caddy like every other vhost.
 | Item | Value |
 |------|-------|
 | Runtime | podman quadlet, `plex.service` (user manager) — migrated from the native `plexmediaserver.service` OS-package unit (2026-09) |
-| Image | `lscr.io/linuxserver/plex:1.43.4.10903-e5521bd8c-ls325` (pinned; verified == the ghcr `latest` manifest digest at pin time) |
+| Image | `lscr.io/linuxserver/plex:1.43.5.11029-6bf8af3f0-ls329` (pinned; verified == the registry's `latest` manifest digest at pin time: `sha256:8f655bad…e9e2334`) |
 | Data root | `/var/lib/plexmediaserver` bind-mounted **in place** as `/config` (RW) — the migration moved zero bytes |
 | Media | `/mnt/entropy` mounted at the same absolute path **read-only** — every library path in the PMS database stayed valid, zero re-scan |
 | Identity | fleet rootless model — container root maps to the `dank` user (1000:1000); the deployer chowns the data root on first cutover |

serverAppConfigs-docs/Infrastructure/Observability Provisioning.md

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ type: reference
 title: Observability Provisioning
 description: "Monitoring config as code: the config triad, deploy copiers, planner mappings, and where each change type lands."
 tags: [observability, prometheus, grafana, provisioning, deployment]
-timestamp: 2026-10-05T00:00:00-07:00
+timestamp: 2026-10-21T00:00:00-07:00
 ---
 
 # Observability Provisioning
@@ -20,6 +20,8 @@ committed.
 | `shared/prometheus/prometheus.yml` | scrape jobs (global + per-host) |
 | `shared/prometheus/rules/llm-fleet.yml` | alert rules + recording rules |
 | `shared/grafana/provisioning/` | datasources + dashboards (provisioned tree) |
+| `shared/alloy/config.alloy` | the log pipeline: journal source → label promotion → Loki push |
+| `shared/blackbox/blackbox.yml` | prober modules (`http_2xx`) + the loopback bind |
 
 Targets and datasources reference **container names** (`grafana:3000`
 `loki:3100` — `shared/prometheus/prometheus.yml:52-61`), never
@@ -31,8 +33,8 @@ scraped as `host.containers.internal:<port>` because a bridge container cannot
 reach a host-netns bind at the host's LAN IP (`prometheus.yml:89-99`), and only
 the endpoint on another machine (`192.168.0.235:7770`) is addressed by LAN IP
 (`prometheus.yml:128-131`). Prometheus 3 refuses HTML responses as metrics —
-HTML-scraped "probes" are structurally inert and need a blackbox exporter (see
+HTTP liveness rides the **blackbox exporter** (`shared/blackbox/blackbox.yml`,
-[[Stale Signal Audit]]).
+deployed 2026-10-21; see [[Stale Signal Audit]]).
 
 ## The deploy path
 
@@ -43,8 +45,9 @@ from `deploy_observability`:
 - `copy_alertmanager_config` → `/opt/alertmanager/config/alertmanager.yml` (`:232-235`)
 - `install_signal_relay` → the user unit + iptables + the health wait on `192.168.0.143:18093/health` (`:243-274`)
 - `copy_loki_config` → `/opt/loki/config/loki-config.yaml` (`:276-279`)
-- `copy_alloy_config` → `/opt/alloy/config/config.alloy` (`:281-284`)
+- `copy_alloy_config` → `/opt/alloy/config/config.alloy` — substitutes the `GRAFANA_HOST_LABEL` token with the deploy target's name and **refuses to install** if the token survives; `ALLOY_CONF_ROOT` is the bats sandbox seam
-- `copy_grafana_provisioning` → `/opt/grafana/provisioning/` (`:286-300`)
+- `copy_blackbox_config` → `/opt/blackbox/blackbox.yml` (single-file mount of the prober); `BLACKBOX_CONF_ROOT` is its sandbox seam
+- `copy_grafana_provisioning` → `/opt/grafana/provisioning/` — datasources, provider, and **every** `dashboards/*.json` (a glob, not a hand-listed subset; `GRAFANA_PROV_ROOT` is the test seam the bats case uses to run the copier into a sandbox)
 
 `scripts/deploy-plan.py` maps `shared/prometheus/**` to `prometheus` (plus
 `alertmanager` when the changed file is `alertmanager.yml`, `:251-256`)
@@ -82,11 +85,14 @@ reports 4 alerting + 2 recording. Rules reload with the prometheus service.
 the backend (`http://prometheus:9090`), not loopback.
 
 **Add a dashboard** — drop the JSON into
-`shared/grafana/provisioning/dashboards/`. Provisioned dashboards live in
+`shared/grafana/provisioning/dashboards/`; the copier globs the directory, so
-unified storage, not (only) the SQLite table — grep the API, not the DB, when
+the next `--service grafana` deploy provisions it. This is a repaired law, not
-verifying (see the verify section of [[Fleet Audit and Posture]]). *(unverified
+a given: until 2026-10-21 the copier named `llm-fleet.json` alone, and the
-2026-10-18: the storage-backend claim needs an admin password to confirm
+`containers` board — merged, tested, documented as "working" — had **never
-against `grafana.db` and the API side by side)*
+been provisioned**; the other boards existed on disk only because someone had
+hand-copied them once. A repo JSON is not a live dashboard until the copier
+carries it, and `deploy.sh` cannot see the gap because it only reports the
+copy it performed.
 
 ## Verify through the APIs, not the filesystem
 
@@ -95,90 +101,32 @@ against `grafana.db` and the API side by side)*
 curl -s http://127.0.0.1:9090/api/v1/rules | python3 -m json.tool | head
 curl -s "http://127.0.0.1:9090/api/v1/targets?state=active" | \
   python3 -c "import json,sys; [print(t['labels'].get('job'), t['health'], (t['lastError'] or '')[:60]) for t in json.load(sys.stdin)['data']['activeTargets']]"
-# grafana: datasource + dashboard provisioned
+# grafana 13: /api/health, /api/org, /login all 404 UNAUTHENTICATED, and there
-curl -s -u admin:<pw> http://127.0.0.1:3002/api/datasources | python3 -m json.tool | grep -E '"name"|"url"'
+# is NO local admin password (root .env sets no GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_*; the only
+# account is the Authentik RP login). The proven surface is a real browser
+# session: warm the Anubis challenge on the vhost root, then hit
+# /login/generic_oauth with the e2e storage state (tests/e2e/.auth/qa-e2e-admin.json)
+# — exactly the path specs/20-grafana-sso.spec.ts drives — and read the boards.
 ```
 
 The two Prometheus queries were run on 2026-10-18 and are what every number on
 this page comes from: 4 alerting + 2 recording rules, and `up` for
 `prometheus`, `node-dankclaw`, `node-dankserver`, `grafana`, `loki`
-`frank-zealot`, `frank-dragoon`, `frank-archon` with the four structural downs
+`frank-zealot`, `frank-dragoon`, `frank-archon`. The four structural downs
-listed in [[Prometheus]]. The Grafana query needs the local admin password and
+that census recorded are retired (2026-10-21, [[Prometheus]]). The Grafana proof is the browser session above, run
-was not run here; the filesystem side (`ls /opt/grafana/provisioning/*`) is
+2026-10-21: it found a provisioned-file gap the filesystem listing hid. The
-proof of installation only — see the next paragraph.
+filesystem side (`ls /opt/grafana/provisioning/*`) is proof of installation
+only — see *Add a dashboard* for why a repo JSON is not a live board.
 
 Health answers from a stale process and provisioned resources can hide in
 unified storage — a file existing on disk is not proof the running server
 loaded it. See [[Stale Signal Audit]] for the never-green-target decision
 table (refused = outage, 404/HTML = config defect).
 
-## Current delivered state (delivery chain live 2026-09-17, re-verified 2026-10-18)
-
-Prometheus → Alertmanager (`dankclaw/observability/quadlet/alertmanager.container`
-loopback `:9093`) → host-side Signal relay (`scripts/signal-relay.py`, user
-unit, `192.168.0.143:18093` — the LAN IP, the one bind a container can reach
-via `host.containers.internal`) → signal-cli, addressed by number
-`+12062476336` (`scripts/signal-relay.py:36-43`). Every hop re-checked
-2026-10-18: `ss -ltnp` shows `python3` on `192.168.0.143:18093`
-`curl -s http://192.168.0.143:18093/health` → `ok`, and
-`journalctl --user -u signal-relay` ends with successful `sent to +12062476336:`
-lines for `LlmEndpointDown`, `LlmRequestsQueueing`, `LlmSpecDecodeOff` and
-`LlmPrefixCacheCollapse` (firing and resolved). Some targets read down for
-structural reasons (HTML-scraped "probes", Gitea metrics off); the remedy is
-the blackbox exporter. See [[Prometheus]] → Targets.
-
-**A llama.cpp endpoint is invisible unless it opts in.** Until 2026-10-18,
-`up{job="frank-zealot"}` was 0 for the entire retained history of the metric —
-the oldest sample, 2026-10-11, is already 0 — while the service itself answered
-`/health` 200 the whole time. Cause: llama.cpp only exports `/metrics` when it
-is started with the flag, so the scrape was refused at the protocol layer (the
-flag and its opt-out are on [[frank-zealot]]) and `LlmEndpointDown` (critical)
-stayed firing:
-the relay re-sent it on the 4 h `repeat_interval` for days (`journalctl --user
--u signal-relay` — firing sends at 01:37, 05:42, 09:47, 13:52, 17:57 and 22:02
-on 2026-10-12). It finally resolved at `2026-10-18T01:53:21-07:00`, after the
-metrics opt-in landed that day; the target
-reports up since (`curl -s http://127.0.0.1:9090/api/v1/targets` 2026-10-18).
-How many payload generations it spanned is not readable from any host
-artifact. *(unverified 2026-10-18)*
-
-Two laws fall out of it. A target can read down beside a healthy service, so
-read `lastError` from `/api/v1/targets` before believing an outage. And rule
-state lives in Prometheus' process, not on disk — a restart re-stamps
-`activeAt` on a long-standing alert, so a "fresh" alert after a reboot is not
-evidence of a fresh fault. (Alertmanager by contrast **does** persist:
-`--storage.path=/alertmanager` on a host volume keeps silences and the
-notification log — `dankclaw/observability/quadlet/alertmanager.container:39-42`
-`/opt/alertmanager/data`.)
-
-Remaining known downs are the structural ones above (HTML-scraped probes, Gitea
-metrics, ComfyUI), and `frank-dragoon` exports `/metrics` natively
-([[frank-dragoon]]), which is why
-`frank-dragoon` has always been green. The active-alert count is a
-moment-in-time value and should never be documented as a constant:
-`/api/v1/alerts` was empty at the 2026-10-18 morning census, held one firing
-`LlmPrefixCacheCollapse` (`activeAt` 11:10:48Z, value 2.6e-4) when sampled
-minutes later, and was empty again by 11:56Z; the relay logged the matching
-firing and resolved sends at `04:26:21-07:00` and `04:41:21-07:00`.
-
-**What that zealot scrape measured on 2026-10-18.** As of ~04:30 PDT the
-production `frank-zealot` root unit was stopped **on purpose** for a benchmark
-window on the 3090 — the repo Benchmarking Policy says stop the production
-service before benching — and `:7771` answered from a manually booted candidate
-arm (`systemctl is-active frank-zealot` → `failed` after
-`stop-sigterm timed out. Killing`, which is llama.cpp ignoring SIGTERM past
-`TimeoutStopSec`, the known shutdown shape for these engines). So
-`up{job="frank-zealot"} == 1` that day measured the trial, not the production
-shape in `scripts/frank-zealot.env` — that shape is [[frank-zealot]]'s to state,
-and it is the repo contract.
-The unit stayed `enabled`; `./scripts/deploy.sh dankclaw --service frank-zealot`
-reinstalls and starts it, restoring boot persistence and self-healing. Never
-quote a candidate arm's flags or VRAM as fleet state — the process and its shape
-changed between two censuses ten minutes apart.
-
 ## Related
 
 - [[Observability]] — stack topology and the alert delivery chain
-- [[Stale Signal Audit]] — classifying down targets before "fixing" them
+- [[Stale Signal Audit]] — classifying down targets before "fixing" them, and the
+  down-beside-healthy / alert-state-persistence / candidate-arm rules
 - [[Quadlet Lifecycle]] — the units that host these services
 - [[Deploy State Triage]] — how the planner selects these services

serverAppConfigs-docs/Infrastructure/Observability.md

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 type: reference
 title: "Observability on Dankclaw"
 description: "The observability stack: what runs, how it is deployed, how it is exposed, and what is still unconfigured."
-tags: [observability, prometheus, grafana, loki, alloy, node-exporter, quadlet, dankclaw]
+tags: [observability, prometheus, grafana, loki, alloy, node-exporter, gpu-exporter, quadlet, dankclaw]
 timestamp: 2026-10-20
 ---
 
@@ -10,10 +10,10 @@ timestamp: 2026-10-20
 
 ## Summary
 
-Seven containers and one host-side process: Prometheus (metrics), Grafana
+Seven containers and two host-side processes: Prometheus (metrics), Grafana
 (dashboards), Loki (log store), Alloy (log shipper), node-exporter (host
-metrics), cadvisor (per-container metrics) and Alertmanager (alert delivery), with `signal-relay` on the host
+metrics), cadvisor (per-container metrics) and Alertmanager (alert delivery),
-carrying every firing group to Signal. All of it is Quadlet-managed,
+plus two host `python3` processes — `gpu-exporter` (per-GPU metrics) and `signal-relay` (Signal delivery). The containers are all Quadlet-managed,
 boot-persistent and loopback-only, deployed by
 `scripts/deploy-remote.sh` → `deploy_observability`. The metrics half works
 end to end; the log half is configured, healthy, and carries no data.
@@ -35,6 +35,7 @@ that proves it today.
 | Alloy | `localhost/franksdank/alloy:latest` | `127.0.0.1:12345` | `alloy.container` | [[Alloy]] |
 | node-exporter | `docker.io/prom/node-exporter:latest` | host netns: `127.0.0.1:9100` + `192.168.0.143:9100` | `node-exporter.container` | [[Node-Exporter]] |
 | cadvisor | `gcr.io/cadvisor/cadvisor:v0.49.1` | bridge publish `127.0.0.1:8080` + `192.168.0.143:8080` | `cadvisor.container` | — |
+| GPU exporter | host `python3`, not a container | `127.0.0.1:9401` + host LAN `:9401` | `scripts/gpu-exporter.service` (user unit) | — |
 | Signal relay | host `python3`, not a container | `192.168.0.143:18093` | `scripts/signal-relay.service` (user unit) | [[Alertmanager]] |
 
 Every unit lives in `dankclaw/observability/quadlet/`, carries
@@ -45,10 +46,11 @@ linger is on for `dank`). `signal-relay.service` reports `enabled` + `active`
 the same day, and `homepage-status.timer` — the root unit that probes all of
 these on loopback — is `enabled` + `active` (`deploy-remote.sh:319-321` copies
 the probe registry `shared/homepage/services.json` to `/srv/homepage`).
-Dankserver runs two members of this family, node-exporter and cadvisor, as
+Dankserver runs the same family: node-exporter and cadvisor as its own quadlets
-its own units (`dankserver/observability/quadlet/{node-exporter,cadvisor}.container`,
+(`dankserver/observability/quadlet/{node-exporter,cadvisor}.container`,
 `generated` + `active`; node-exporter binds `127.0.0.1:9100` + `192.168.0.235:9100`,
-cadvisor publishes `127.0.0.1:8080` + `192.168.0.235:8080`).
+cadvisor publishes `127.0.0.1:8080` + `192.168.0.235:8080`), plus the host-process
+`gpu-exporter` (a user unit installed the same way as `signal-relay`).
 
 ## Exposure
 
@@ -65,10 +67,18 @@ Alertmanager has no vhost at all. node-exporter is the exception that must live
 in the host network namespace, and it binds exactly two addresses rather than
 the wildcard — see [[Node-Exporter]].
 
-The relay's bind is the one address a bridge container can reach on the host:
+**Same-host reachability from a bridge container is measured, not inferred**
-`192.168.0.143:18093`, with iptables INPUT admitting loopback, the host itself
+(2026-10-21, from inside the Prometheus container): `host.containers.internal`
-and the podman bridge subnet `10.89.0.0/16` before the DROP
+(the podman gateway) reaches host services whether they bind host-net or are
-(`scripts/deploy-remote.sh:255-262`).
+published ports — node `:9100`, cadvisor `:8080`, gpu `:9401` all answer there
+— while the host's own LAN IP is refused (`192.168.0.143:8080`, `:9401`), so
+every same-host Prometheus target uses the gateway and only cross-host targets
+(dankserver) use plain LAN. Whether LAN works at all is network-specific: the
+relay at `192.168.0.143:18093` IS reached from alertmanager's network, with
+iptables INPUT admitting loopback, the host itself and the podman bridge subnet
+`10.89.0.0/16` before the DROP (`scripts/deploy-remote.sh:255-262`). Never
+point a scrape target at a host LAN IP from its own host on the strength of
+one working example; dial the gateway and probe.
 
 ## Deployment
 
@@ -85,13 +95,14 @@ health endpoint (`/prometheus`: `/-/healthy`, `/alertmanager`: `/-/healthy`
 [[Observability Provisioning]] for what is provisioned as code and how to
 verify it through the APIs.
 
-## Current state (2026-10-20)
+## Current state (2026-10-21)
 
 * **Metrics: working.** `curl -s http://127.0.0.1:9090/api/v1/targets` reports
-  eight up targets — the three LLM endpoints (frank-archon on `vllm:*`,
+  every job up — the three LLM endpoints (frank-archon on `vllm:*`,
-  frank-dragoon and frank-zealot on `llamacpp:*`), grafana, loki, prometheus
+  frank-dragoon and frank-zealot on `llamacpp:*`), grafana, loki, prometheus,
-  and both node exporters. The four downs are structural (the `comfyui` and
+  both node exporters, cadvisor, gitea (metrics enabled in its quadlet) and
-  `services` HTML probes, and Gitea's disabled metrics endpoint), not outages.
+  the blackbox-probed `services` (SearXNG, OpenWebUI, ComfyUI). The structural
+  downs are retired — see [[Prometheus]] → Targets.
   Two rule groups in `shared/prometheus/rules/llm-fleet.yml`: `llm-fleet`
   (2 recording + 4 alert, `llamacpp:*`) and `vllm-fleet` (1 recording + 4
   alert, `vllm:*` — archon queueing, prefix collapse, preemption, p95
@@ -99,12 +110,15 @@ verify it through the APIs.
 * **Delivery: working.** Alertmanager's single `signal` receiver webhooks the
   relay, and `journalctl --user -u signal-relay` records successful
   `sent to +12062476336:` lines for every rule in the set.
-* **Dashboards: working.** Provisioned datasources — Prometheus (uid
+* **Dashboards: working (after the 2026-10-21 copier fix).** Provisioned
-  `prometheus`) and Loki (uid `loki`) — and the `llm-fleet`, `host-system`,
+  datasources — Prometheus (uid `prometheus`) and Loki (uid `loki`) — and the
-  `containers`, `observability` and `logs-overview` dashboards, all
+  `llm-fleet`, `host-system`, `containers`, `observability` and
-  installed from `shared/grafana/provisioning/`. The Loki datasource is how
+  `logs-overview` boards. Until 2026-10-21 the copier carried only
-  you read logs: Loki has no web UI of its own, so Grafana Explore is the
+  `llm-fleet.json` by name and the `containers` board had never been
-  human surface (the guarded `loki.franksdank.cloud` vhost serves only the API).
+  provisioned; the deployer now globs the directory. The Loki datasource is
+  how you read logs: Loki has no web UI of its own, so Grafana Explore is the
+  human surface (the guarded `loki.franksdank.cloud` vhost serves only the
+  API). Verify method and the copier law: [[Observability Provisioning]].
 * **Per-container metrics: the `containers` dashboard (added 2026-10-20; live
   after `deploy.sh <host> --service cadvisor`).** cadvisor is the only way to see
   per-container CPU/memory here, and on this rootless-Podman host it works on one
@@ -117,25 +131,38 @@ verify it through the APIs.
   `container` label. Network and filesystem are NOT exported for these containers
   (no netns/classid attribution under the host-PID layout), so the dashboard
   graphs only CPU, memory and OOM and does not fake the rest.
-* **Logs: fixed in code, awaiting deploy.** The pipeline shipped nothing because
+* **Per-GPU metrics: the `host-system` GPU panels (added 2026-10-20; live after
-  a rootless Alloy cannot read the `0640` journal files, and the container-log
+  `deploy.sh <host> --service gpu-exporter`).** `scripts/gpu-exporter.py` is a
-  globs point at a root-storage layout that does not exist here. The fix is built
+  host-process user unit on BOTH hosts — not a quadlet, because it reads the host's
-  and tested in-repo (2026-10-20): Alloy is now a **root system service on
+  own DRM sysfs and shells to `nvidia-smi`, neither of which a container can do
-  `Network=host`**, reading `system.journal` + `user-*.journal` and pushing to
+  without GPU passthrough. It reads each AMD card's `gpu_busy_percent` /
-  Loki's `127.0.0.1:3100` loopback publish — a throwaway root probe read 31,825
+  `mem_info_vram_*` / `hwmon temp1_input` and one `nvidia-smi --query-gpu` CSV, and
-  lines and pushed 26,966 with zero drops. The **live** instance is still the old
+  emits unified `gpu_*` families (utilization %, VRAM used/total bytes, temperature
-  rootless unit until `deploy.sh dankclaw --service alloy` runs. Detail in
+  °C, power W) labelled `gpu` / `vendor` / `model`, with `host` added by the scrape
-  [[Alloy]] → Why root; Loki's store state in [[Loki]] → Contents.
+  job. Two laws: **absent means absent, never a zero** — the R9700s expose no sysfs
-* **Not configured:** no blackbox exporter (the structural downs have no real
+  `power1_average`, so they carry no `gpu_power_watts` line at all (only NVIDIA and
-  uptime signal) and no Alertmanager vhost. The log pipeline's fix is in code but
+  the Dankclaw 8060S iGPU report power); and it binds loopback + the host LAN, like
-  not yet deployed (see *Logs* above).
+  node-exporter, never the wildcard. The dashboard graphs util/VRAM/VRAM-%/temp/power.
+* **Logs: flowing; container labels land with the 2026-10-21 deploy.** The
+  pipeline once shipped nothing (rootless Alloy cannot read the `0640` journal;
+  the container-log globs pointed at a root-storage layout that does not exist
+  here) — fixed 2026-10-20 by making Alloy a **root system service on
+  `Network=host`**. Journal lines now reach Loki (measured ~6.5k lines/5min),
+  but the stream carried only `job`/`service_name`, so every per-container
+  view was structurally empty: Loki metrics queries group only by INDEXED
+  stream labels. Alloy now promotes podman's `CONTAINER_NAME` to a `container`
+  label (plus a `host` label) at ingestion — `loki.process` in
+  `shared/alloy/config.alloy`; detail in [[Alloy]] → Why root, and the
+  purpose-test law in [[Observability Provisioning]].
 
 ## Citations
 
-- `dankclaw/observability/quadlet/{prometheus,alertmanager,grafana,loki,alloy,node-exporter,cadvisor}.container`
+- `dankclaw/observability/quadlet/{prometheus,alertmanager,grafana,loki,alloy,node-exporter,cadvisor,blackbox-exporter}.container`
 - `scripts/deploy-remote.sh:219-300` (copiers + relay), `:521-536` (health waits), `:477-486` (grafana env seed)
 - `scripts/signal-relay.py:26-49`, `scripts/signal-relay.service`
+- `scripts/gpu-exporter.py`, `scripts/gpu-exporter.service` (per-GPU host exporter)
 - `shared/prometheus/prometheus.yml`, `shared/prometheus/alertmanager.yml`, `shared/prometheus/rules/llm-fleet.yml`
 - `shared/grafana/provisioning/`, `shared/loki/loki-config.yaml`, `shared/alloy/config.alloy`
+- `shared/blackbox/blackbox.yml` (prober modules + loopback bind)
 - `tests/observability_quadlet.bats` (boot persistence, no wildcard publish, probe addresses, delivery contract)
 - Host evidence 2026-10-18: `ss -ltnp`, `podman ps`, `systemctl --user is-enabled|is-active`, `curl` on `127.0.0.1:9090/api/v1/{targets,rules,alerts}`, `127.0.0.1:3100/loki/api/v1/labels`, `127.0.0.1:12345/metrics`, `127.0.0.1:3002/api/health`, `192.168.0.143:18093/health`, `journalctl --user -u signal-relay`

serverAppConfigs-docs/Infrastructure/Prometheus.md

@@ -42,29 +42,27 @@ Authentik; post-auth the Caddy vhost routes straight to `prometheus:9090`) —
 
 The `frank-medium` job is **retired**: no `frank-medium` job exists in the config or in `/api/v1/targets` (2026-10-18), and the endpoint itself left the fleet — its history is on [[frank-archon]], which holds the port today.
 
-**Three jobs read down today, and they are not outages** (re-audited against `curl -s http://127.0.0.1:9090/api/v1/targets`, 2026-10-18; first audited 2026-09-16):
+**No job reads down structurally any more** (the three permanent-reds were
+retired 2026-10-21; census re-run after each deploy):
 
-| Job | Target | `health` | `lastError`, verbatim |
+| Job | Target | how |
-|-----|--------|----------|------------------------|
+|---|---|---|
-| `gitea` | `http://192.168.0.143:3000/metrics` | down | `server returned HTTP status 404 Not Found` |
+| `gitea` | `192.168.0.143:3000/metrics` | metrics enabled in the quadlet (`GITEA__metrics__ENABLED=true`, `ENABLED_HOST=0.0.0.0`) — the page once said "stays off until `[metrics] ENABLED = true` in its own config"; the env form is what the deployer ships |
-| `comfyui` | `http://comfyui:8188/` | down | `received unsupported Content-Type "text/html" and no fallback_scrape_protocol specified for target` |
+| `services` | `http://192.168.0.143:8081` (SearXNG), `:3005` (OpenWebUI), `http://comfyui:8188` | **blackbox exporter** probe, module `http_2xx` — the comfyui metrics job is retired, one owner per service |
-| `services` | `http://192.168.0.143:8081/` | down | `received unsupported Content-Type "text/html; charset=utf-8" and no fallback_scrape_protocol specified for target` |
-| `services` | `http://192.168.0.143:3005/` | down | same `unsupported Content-Type "text/html; charset=utf-8"` error |
 
-Gitea's exporter stays off until `[metrics] ENABLED = true` in its own config (no metrics env is set in the container, and `curl -s http://127.0.0.1:3000/metrics` → 404, 2026-10-18); ComfyUI and the two `services` probes are HTML pages, which Prometheus 3 refuses as metrics. Everything else is green: `prometheus`, `node-dankclaw`, `node-dankserver`, `grafana`, `loki`, `frank-zealot`, `frank-dragoon`, `frank-archon`.
+Scraping a web root is not a health check: an HTML page fails the scrape
+protocol (`unsupported Content-Type`), which is what kept those targets red
+beside healthy services. The classification rule and the honesty law live in
+[[Stale Signal Audit]]. The prober is `blackbox-exporter.container` (host
+netns, config `shared/blackbox/blackbox.yml`, bound 127.0.0.1:9115; Prometheus
+reaches it at the `host.containers.internal` gateway name). Plain targets stay
+`host:port`, never URLs — the probe job's URL targets are the documented
+exception, relabeled onto the prober.
 
 **`frank-zealot` reads up since 2026-10-18, and did not before.** llama.cpp only answers `/metrics` when started with `--metrics`, so `up{job="frank-zealot"}` was 0 across the whole retained history (the oldest sample, 2026-10-11, is already 0) while the service answered `/health` 200 the whole time; the flag and its opt-out are on [[frank-zealot]]. Read `lastError` before believing an outage: a target can read down beside a healthy service.
 
 Alert state is a live property, not a page fact: `curl -s http://127.0.0.1:9090/api/v1/alerts` returned no alerts at the 2026-10-18 morning census, one firing `LlmPrefixCacheCollapse` (info, `frank-zealot`, `activeAt` 11:10:48Z) minutes later, and none again by 11:56Z.
 
-The remedy for a probe-shaped question is the **blackbox exporter**; the
-classification rule and the honesty law for it live in [[Stale Signal Audit]].
-Until the exporter is deployed, these three stay red for a structural reason:
-deleting them would
-hide a real service, and fixing them by publishing databases or enabling metrics
-would trade a wrong signal for a real exposure. Targets are `host:port`, never
-URLs.
-
 ## Volumes
 
 | Container path | Host path |

serverAppConfigs-docs/LLM/LLM Performance Diagnosis.md

@@ -239,45 +239,92 @@ prefill is over. `preemptions` separates the third shape: a preempted-and-recomp
 sequence stops producing entirely and then re-prefills from token 0, which is a
 stall, not sludge.
 
-Knobs, in the order worth trying them (radiance GUIDE §4.5):
+**Split the step ledger before choosing a knob.** Three counters decide which mechanism you are
+looking at, and none is a rate: `engine_step_seconds_decode_total / engine_steps_decode_total` is
+the mean **decode-only** step, and `(step_seconds_total − step_seconds_decode_total) /
+(steps_total − steps_decode_total)` is the mean **chunk step** (a chunk alone, or a chunk with
+decode rows beside it). On frank-archon's live 1.8.1 shape that pair is **15.5 ms against 166 ms**,
+with 4.7 % of the steps holding 34 % of the step time. Decode-only steps themselves move only
+14.1 → 16.4 ms between a prefill-free minute and a heavy one, and the lagged buckets stay flat: so
+a decode-rate collapse on that box is **step time sharing**, and the eviction/residency story is
+worth ~10 % of one step — not a lever.
 
-- `--prefill-interleave N` — after a chunk step taken beside decoders, the next N
+**Four traps in the PromQL above.** Learn them before trusting a bucket:
-  steps carry decode rows only and admit nothing. Decoders keep their cadence; the
+- **Latency is `vllm:`, cadence is `radiance:`.** The TTFT / inter-token / per-output-token / e2e
-  prompt pays that in TTFT. Counts as `engine_steps_held_total`.
+  histograms and the running/waiting gauges exist only under the vLLM compatibility prefix; preemption
-- `--busy-prefill-chunk MODE` — the chunk's share of a step that has other work:
+  is `vllm:num_preemptions_total` (the counter) while `radiance:num_requests_preempted` is the
-  `auto` (default) reserves a row plus the draft window per decode row behind it and
+  *instant* depth. A `radiance:`-only query finds no latency and no preemption, and reads as "the
-  an eighth of the budget per waiting prefill/request, `off` lets the chunk take the
+  endpoint never stalls anyone".
-  whole step (admission never runs while it does), `N` pins the share. Never under
+- **The tps gauges are 1 s decayed windows, batch-pooled.** Per-stream rate is
-  the prefill stager's smallest pass — the startup line names it, and below it every
+  `decode_tokens_per_second / vllm:num_requests_running`. With a 15 s scrape, a 120 s step samples one
-  routed layer reads its pooled experts synchronously, which costs the prefill far
+  scrape in eight — use step ≤ 30 s for a bucket table.
-  more than sharing saves. Counts as `engine_prefill_chunks_capped_total`.
+- **Every counter resets at a restart and the metric set changes with the build.** Prove the window is
-- `--max-num-batched-tokens` — the blunt rung, and the only one older pins have. The vendor's own
+  one shape (`up`, or the first sample of a counter that only the current build exports) before
-  curve prices **halving the shared chunk at roughly a fifth of prefill throughput** (a 48-layer MoE
+  ranking buckets; frank-archon's 48 h window straddled two containers, and one bucket's "collapse"
-  at 200k on two cards — knob pricing, not this endpoint's number, so treat it as the order of
+  turned out to belong entirely to the older one.
-  magnitude a chunk decision costs). Raising it past the checkpoint interval buys nothing and loses
+- **A 2-minute mean step time dilutes the chunk.** The sharp variable is the phase ratio in the query
-  expert residency to the arena.
+  above, never `step_seconds/steps` — 4.7 % of steps cannot move a mean that is 95 % decode.
-- `--prefill-span N` — the inverse trade: a *lone* prefill carries N intervals a step while every
-  shared step is planned at a smaller shared budget, which on an expert-tiered box lends that arena
-  back to the expert slab. The vendor's own measurement says the win is **long-prompt-only**: nothing
-  at short prompts, a large TTFT gain at the far end of the window.
 
-Two traps. **The arena/slab coupling makes a shared step doubly expensive on an
+Three instruments the PromQL above cannot reach:
-expert-tiered shape**: the full-plan arena takes VRAM the resident expert slab would have had, so the
-decode rows inside that step also read experts over the link — a smaller shared budget helps twice.
-And **re-check
-`prefix_hit_rate` / `prefix_evictions` after any chunk change**: the arena and the KV
-pool are the same memory, and the failure looks like turn two taking as long as turn
-one.
 
-Availability is a version question, not a config question: `--busy-prefill-chunk` and
+- **The engine's own step-detail histograms (`prefill_steps_duration`, `prefill_step_tokens`,
-`--prefill-interleave` are absent from older pins — prove it on the running container
+  `token_queue_wait`) are exported but reach no target**, and the arena / expert slab / heat engine /
-(`podman exec <c> <binary> --help | grep -iE "prefill|chunk"`), never from the vendored
+  prefill stager have **no metric at all**. Per-request forensics mean `curl localhost:7770/stats` on
-tree, and check the source clone's depth before dating a flag from `git log -S`
+  the endpoint's own host — same phase counters plus `preemptions` (the count), the chunk geometry,
-(a `--depth 1` clone reports its own tip for every search).
+  and the expert/link byte totals. `/diagnostics` answers "is the *box* the limit" in one call:
+  configuration drift, the VRAM split, each card's link chain and clocks, findings with fixes.
+- **`prefix_hit_cut_tokens_total` measures prefill load you created for yourself.** On a hybrid
+  (linear + paged) model a prefix hit reuses only as far as the last **linear-state** checkpoint, so
+  cached tokens are replayed as prefill and stall decoders for it; frank-archon ran 38 % of all its
+  prefill tokens that way, every `prefix_hit_cuts_total` labelled `reason="no_snapshot"`. A high
+  prefill rate is not always a client that sends new tokens. Retention is `--checkpoint-policy` -
+  exactly three names, `geometric-backoff` (default), `tip-only`, `keep-all`, one owner:
+  [[frank-archon]].
+- **Bucket the arriving request too** — `histogram_quantile` over
+  `vllm:time_to_first_token_seconds_bucket` by the same prefill series. The decode gauge only sees
+  sequences that are already running; the one waiting for its first token pays the same steps and
+  shows in no decode number.
 
-Run on: [[frank-archon]] — the census was taken on its 3-slot radiance 1.0.13 era (budget 2048 =
+Knobs, in the order worth trying them (radiance GUIDE §4.5; the pinned source is the referee):
-interval 2048); the live 1.8.1 shape carries the two chunk knobs. The measured census and the verdict
+
-for this fleet's shape are that page's.
+- `--prefill-interleave N` — after a chunk step taken beside decoders, the next N steps carry decode
+  rows only and admit nothing. **The knob that acts on the measured mechanism.** Decoders keep their
+  cadence; the prefilling prompt pays in TTFT and an arriving request waits out the held steps.
+  Counts as `engine_steps_held_total` — if that counter is zero, nothing is protecting anyone.
+- `--busy-prefill-chunk N` — pins a shared chunk's share of the step. **`auto` is a prefill-speed
+  setting, not decoder protection:** it reserves `1 + spec` rows per decoding sequence plus an eighth
+  of the budget per *waiting* request or prefill, and the source refuses to halve for "decode rows
+  alone", so a shape can run `auto` and still lose every chunk step. Prove engagement from
+  `engine_prefill_chunks_capped_total` against the chunk-step count. The floor is the prefill
+  stager's smallest pass — the largest arena level that lends, plus one, named on the startup line
+  `prefill staging: … a step of more than N tokens copies the pooled experts of …` — and under it
+  every routed layer reads its pooled experts synchronously: the vendor prices the whole job (four
+  decoders plus a long prompt) at **29.5 s with a 2048 chunk and 31.9 s at 512**, so shrinking the
+  chunk blindly buys latency in both directions.
+- `--prefill-span N` — needs `--max-num-batched-tokens` of N intervals. A *lone* prefill then
+  carries N intervals a step (on an expert-tiered box only from 8 intervals, where the vendor's own
+  measurement says a span starts to win), while **every other step is planned at the shared
+  budget** — a lending arena level that also keeps the stager's ring, the one combination the chunk
+  knob cannot express. Priced by the vendor at 320 MiB a card of expert residency, ~3 % off the KV
+  pool, and TTFT-neutral on one of his two 2×R9700 boxes: measure your own prompt lengths first.
+- `--max-num-batched-tokens` alone — the blunt rung, and the only one older pins have. It raises the
+  arena the expert slab loses, and on this payload its resonance is violent (MNBT 2560 collapses
+  decode — [[frank-archon]]).
+
+Two traps. **The arena/slab coupling makes a shared step expensive twice:** the full-plan arena is
+reclaimed from the expert slab *synchronously before the step*, and the loan regrows only after a
+quiet interval, so every step of a prefill run — the decode-only ones included — runs on the smaller
+slab. And **re-check `prefix_hit_rate` / `prefix_evictions` after any chunk or span change**: the
+arena, the staging ring and the KV pool are the same memory, and the failure looks like turn two
+taking exactly as long as turn one.
+
+Availability is a version question, not a config question: `--busy-prefill-chunk`,
+`--prefill-interleave` and `--prefill-span` are absent from older pins — prove it on the running
+container (`podman exec <c> <binary> --help | grep -iE "prefill|chunk"`) or from `/diagnostics`'s
+`configuration` block, never from a vendored tree, and check a source clone's depth before dating a
+flag from `git log -S` (a `--depth 1` clone reports its own tip for every search).
+
+Run on: [[frank-archon]] — owner of the live census, the measured step pair, and the arms.
 
 ## Related
 

serverAppConfigs-docs/LLM/RDNA4 MoE Expert Offload VRAM Budget.md

@@ -70,12 +70,12 @@ back toward 52. Check `VLLM_CUDAGRAPH_*` actually present in
 
 `--kv-cache-memory-bytes` does NOT appear in the arena arithmetic — the plan
 reserves the registry price, not the actual pool. Raising the pool consumes
-real free VRAM without growing the arena; the registry over-prices the pool
+real free VRAM without growing the arena; the registry OVER-PRICES the pool
-(9190 B/token planned vs 7,891.8 measured at 200704 fp8 — 7,701 at 262144;
+(era G measured ~14 % under the planned B/token — the gap is the lesson, not
-**never reuse a B/token ratio across geometries**, and subtract ~3.87 MB
+the number; **never reuse a B/token ratio across geometries**), and there is a
-block-alignment loss when converting a token target to bytes). The ask lands
+~4 MB block-alignment loss to subtract when converting a token target to
-block-aligned: 3,166,500,000 B → 401,408 tokens; verify with
+bytes. The ask lands block-aligned: verify against the engine's own
-`GPU KV cache size: N tokens, Maximum concurrency … X.Xx`.
+`GPU KV cache size: N tokens, Maximum concurrency … X.Xx` line at boot.
 
 **Driver-reported free VRAM after hours of traffic is NOT allocatable
 arena.** It is the estimator gap: the registry over-prices KV and charges
@@ -117,11 +117,13 @@ done, and read post-boot free VRAM per rank (`rocm-smi --showmeminfo vram`)
 **KV accounting — pin the pool BYTES, floor-sized:** set
 `--kv-cache-memory-bytes` PER RANK to the contract floor
 (`seqs × MAXLEN × measured B/token`), not the native window — extra pool bytes
-come out of the arena/headroom and buy nothing. Measured B/token on this
+come out of the arena/headroom and buy nothing. The B/token rate is a property
-hybrid: **7,701 fp8 / 13,839 bf16** (decomposed: attention 6,138/12,276 +
+of the GEOMETRY: era G (3 × 200,704 fp8, vLLM fork) measured **7,891.8**;
-dtype-independent mamba/side 1,563). Measured rates are shape-dependent —
+the radiance-era hybrid measured ~7,700 fp8 / ~13,800 bf16 at its own shape.
-7,891.8 at the 200704×3 shape. Capacity does NOT scale with `SEQS`: the
+Read your live rate from the boot ledger every time; the decomposition (a
-planner's KV reserve is for ONE max-model-len request.
+dtype-independent mamba/side stream rides on top of the attention KV) is why
+the ratio moves. Capacity does NOT scale with `SEQS`: the planner's KV reserve
+is for ONE max-model-len request.
 
 **Parallelism ceilings you cannot flag past:**
 
@@ -179,18 +181,6 @@ Cutover order: ladder → winner passes and serves → repo env + seam + harness
 (`git stash -u`) if the tree is dirty → deploy (one restart) → verify health
 + engine flags in the log.
 
-**Measured ladder on this box (200704×3, fp8 KV, precise memory):**
-
-| shape | util | graphs | arena | result |
-|---|---|---|---|---|
-| E | 0.98 | 0.55 | 17.22 GiB / 7,522 slots | boot ok |
-| F | 0.982 | 0.32 | 17.52 GiB / 7,653 slots | boot ok |
-| 1.0 | 1.00 | 0.07 | — | UNBOOTABLE (worker-init ValueError, both ranks) |
-| G (deployed) | 0.982 | 0.07 | 17.77 GiB / 7,762 slots | KV 401,408 tokens / 2.00x; 0.89 GiB real free/card held through a live 4,096-token generation at ~38–39 tok/s |
-
-bf16 ceilings at util 0.98: 3 seqs → 241,664 passes / 245,760 and 262,144 OOM
-at graph capture; 6 seqs fp8 → 10.70 GiB ask with 9.18 GiB free (fails) —
-~207k per context max.
 
 ## 7. Arena audit procedure (when asked for "more experts")
 

serverAppConfigs-docs/LLM/frank-archon.md

@@ -88,25 +88,30 @@ on stop. Boot budget 1800 s (the publisher's compose allows a 15-minute `start_p
 | Knob (env name, `FRANK_ARCHON_` dropped) | Live value |
 |---|---|
 | TP / wire | `TP=2`, `TP_WIRE=wht6` — libr4d one-shot all-reduce, not RCCL; `min-kb` stays the engine default |
-| Slots / window | `MAX_SEQS=2`, `MAX_MODEL_LEN=200000` (native 262,144; longer is refused, never truncated) — this pair is the **cache bound**, not a KV allocation |
+| Slots / window | `MAX_SEQS=4`, `MAX_MODEL_LEN=200000` (native 262,144; longer is refused, never truncated) — this pair is the **cache bound**: the resolver sizes the KV carve against `slots × window`, and no slot count funds itself (Laws) |
 | KV dtype | `KV_DTYPE=fp8` — the only dtype that funds the slot count (Laws) |
 | VRAM split | **derived at boot** from `GPU_HEADROOM_MIB=96` + the cache bound + `HOST_POOL_MIB`; naming `VRAM_WEIGHTS_MIB`/`VRAM_KV_MIB` is a boot refusal (removed at 1.3.0) |
-| Expert tier | `PLACEMENT=expert_tiered`, `HOST_POOL_MIB=44928` **per rank** |
+| Expert tier | `PLACEMENT=expert_tiered`, `HOST_POOL_MIB=49152` **per rank** — the pinned host pool is also the **KV lever**: the expert floor is `plane + 2 units − host room`, so every MiB pinned there lowers what the experts claim on the card one-for-one and the cache takes it (Laws) |
 | PLE | `NGRAM_PLACEMENT=ram` (47.7 GiB pinned; refuses boot on a short memlock) |
 | Spec / batch | `SPEC_TOKENS=2` — MTP depth 2, the `.rad` carries the model's own `mtp.*` head (`mtp.fc_hidden`/`fc_embedding`/`draft_head`); `MAX_BATCHED_TOKENS=2048` (MNBT — 2560 collapses decode, Laws) |
 | Prefix cache | `PREFIX_CACHE_MIB=8192`, pinned **host tier only** — the 64 GiB disk tier is gone, so an evicted prefix is re-prefilled; `STATE_DIR=/home/dank/radiance-state` now exists only to hold the rad-tune cache |
 | Template | `TEMPLATE=scripts/qwen38-froggeric-v22.5.jinja` (28,234 B) via `--override-chat-template` — froggeric's fixed Qwen3.8 template (the repo root's `chat_template.jinja`, vendored); the checkpoint's own template is baked into the `.rad` by rad-convert and this overrides it, and radiance derives the reasoning and tool-call reply format from it |
-| Step sharing | `BUSY_PREFILL_CHUNK=auto` (a shared chunk reserves a row plus the draft window per waiting decoder) · `PREFILL_INTERLEAVE=0` — held at zero until the decode-vs-prefill buckets ask for it |
+| Step sharing | `BUSY_PREFILL_CHUNK=auto` — prefill-speed first: it reserves 3 tokens per waiting decoder and ⅛ of the budget per waiting request, and does **not** shrink the chunk for decoders alone · `PREFILL_INTERLEAVE=1` — the decoder dial, **armed 2026-10-20**: one decode-only step after each chunk step taken beside decoders; meter `engine_steps_held_total`, price is the prefilling prompt's TTFT |
-| TTM gate | `TTM_MIN_MIB=150000`, `TTM_TARGET_MIB=204800` |
+| TTM gate | `TTM_MIN_MIB=162000`, `TTM_TARGET_MIB=204800` |
 | Boot | `RAD_MIN_MIB=110000` deployer floor; the listener binds only after the full load (health ~100 s, budget 1800 s) |
 
-Boot ledger for the live shape (2026-10-19 11:10, pin 1.8.1, `MAX_SEQS=2`, `HOST_POOL_MIB=44928`):
+Boot ledger for the live shape (2026-10-20, pin 1.8.1, `MAX_SEQS=4`, `HOST_POOL_MIB=49152`):
-the resolver prints `elastic 26.73 GiB` → **experts 23.73 GiB (89 %) / kv cache 2.76 GiB (10 %)**,
+the resolver prints `elastic 26.73 GiB` → **experts 20.72 GiB (78 %) / kv cache 5.64 GiB (21 %)**,
-`vram_weights 27.31 GiB`, `host_pool 44.47 GiB`. `kv_attn` (13 layers, 4-token blocks) pages
+`prefill staging 373.65 MiB` out of the cache, `vram_weights 24.30 GiB`, `host_pool 48.59 GiB`.
-**26.00 KiB** → 91,301 blocks = **365,204 tokens = 1.8 full-length sessions = 91 % of the
+The referee line: `kv: the cache can grow to 5.64 GiB a card — 747,492 tokens of context, 3.7
-2 × 200,000 worst case** (the resolver never funds 100 %, see Laws); `mover` lends 2,146 slots
+sessions at 200,000 — with every block it lends the experts taken back; 440.04 MiB of that is
-(2.54 GiB) out of the cache to the expert slab; sampler **9 rows**, template 28,234 B, vision live
+per-sequence state, and up to 5.20 GiB is lent to the experts while no request holds it`.
-(≤ 4,194,304 px, 16,384 patches/pass).
+`--checkpoint-slots 40` is auto (`max_num_seqs × 10` slots of 111.98 MiB = 4,479 MiB of pinned
+host), `/health` reports `queue_cap 32` (`max(8, seqs × 8)`), sampler **12 rows**
+(= `seqs × (1 + speculative depth)`), 4 hardware queues a card, template 28,234 B, vision live
+(≤ 4,194,304 px, 16,384 patches/pass), P2P confirmed (`the 2 cards reach each other's memory
+directly`). Experts living in the pinned host pool: **8.99 GiB a rank** (was 5.99) — the price of
+the bigger cache, paid over PCIe when those experts are hit.
 
 The boot **ledger**, not this arithmetic, is the referee: radiance states every budget before
 anything is allocated (weights vs KV, the host pool's coverage of the worst case, the PLE pin,
@@ -145,6 +150,7 @@ marked "re-fetch" is gone from `/home/dank/models/`, which today holds only `Sti
 
 | Window | Payload | Runtime | Shape | Replaced because | Rollback |
 |---|---|---|---|---|---|
+| 2026-10-19 → 10-20 | same `qwen3.8-next-flash-fp8-iq4r-moe.rad` (payload unchanged) | radiance **1.8.1**, `sha256:d590e300…` (same digest) | 2 × 200,000 fp8 KV — resolver cache 2.76 GiB = 365,204 tokens (91 % backing); host pool 44,928 MiB a rank, `TTM_MIN_MIB=150000`, `queue_cap 16`, sampler 9 rows; `--prefill-interleave 1` armed on 10-20 | Frank ordered **four** concurrent conversations over a ≥ 700,000-token pool; the resolver funds that only by lowering the expert floor with more pinned host room (Laws) | revert `1bb6399` and redeploy `scripts/deploy.sh dankserver --service frank-archon` — trio back to `MAX_SEQS=2` / `HOST_POOL_MIB=44928` / `TTM_MIN_MIB=150000` |
 | 2026-10-15 → 10-19 | same `qwen3.8-next-flash-fp8-iq4r-moe.rad` (payload unchanged) | radiance **1.0.13**, `sha256:4c3f4845…` | 3 × 200,000 fp8 KV bought with the **explicit** pair `--vram-weights-mib 25600 --vram-kv-mib 5120`; host pool 44,928 → 45,568 MiB a rank; prefix cache 8 GiB host + 64 GiB disk | decode turned to sludge beside any long prompt — step contention, 18.7 ms decode-only steps against 317 ms steps carrying a prefill chunk (Laws) — and the only two knobs that fix it, `--busy-prefill-chunk` and `--prefill-interleave`, exist only after this pin | `FRANK_ARCHON_IMAGE` back to `sha256:4c3f4845…` **plus a trio rewrite**: restore the pair and the host+disk prefix knobs, delete `BUSY_PREFILL_CHUNK`/`PREFILL_INTERLEAVE`. A digest swap alone is a boot refusal (Runtime) |
 | 2026-10-08 → 10-15 | in-house `qwen4exp-swift15-w4dn8-i8-hc8m.rad`, 116,416 MiB (Swift1.5 abliterated BF16, GPTQ w4 experts + 24 bf16 protected, KLD 0.0131 / top-1 97.92 %) | radiance 1.0.13, same digest | 3 × 200,000 fp8 KV, slab 25,600 / pool 5,120 — the shape the live file still carries | the engine author's own container is the supported path and his quality ceiling; the finetune's refusal-bending left the endpoint | `.rad` purged 2026-10-17 (trash-staged then emptied, Frank's approval). Re-download `frank8465/Swift-1.5-Qwen3.8-Flash-Next-GPTQ-W4A8-Radiance-AMD-R9700` → `qwen4exp-w4nl64-i8-hc8m.rad`, 122,071,973,888 B, LFS sha256 `09dd9306…`, via the iq4r fetch script's hfget/verify pattern retargeted at that repo; point `MODEL_FILE` at it, redeploy. Re-**convert** is dead: the BF16 source was `rm`'d 2026-10-15 (`kld-ref`, grams, corpora and `/home/dank/logs/swift15_*.log` survive) |
 | 2026-10-05 → 10-08 | `qwen4exp-fp8-native.rad`, 177,109 MiB (173.0 GiB) — native modelopt block-FP8, no requantisation | radiance 1.0.7 line, same digest | — | native FP8 experts (56.4 GiB/rank) ate a 40 GiB pool and left KV at 3,543 MiB = 386,904 tokens, **1.93 sessions** — context economics, not quality; and the host pool could not be trimmed to pay for it (36,864 refused the boot) | rebuild-only: `scripts/download-frank-archon.sh` (official `Qwen/Qwen3.8-Flash-Next-FP8`, 131 shards, 172.8 GB, ungated) + `scripts/build-frank-archon-rad.sh` (no-recipe convert under the descriptor law); raw **and** `.rad` were `rm`'d 2026-10-15 (Frank's call, to free the volume for the iq4r download) |
@@ -211,27 +217,44 @@ vllm-radiance era (this table opens on 09-26; the era page claims 10-10).
   never `--kv-cache-size-mib`; with the disk tier engaged the engine also forced ~9.6 GiB of weight
   buffers + arena onto the weights side (~29.6 GiB/card effective). **Neither flag exists at 1.8.1:**
   the same ceiling is enforced by the resolver, and passing the pair is a boot refusal.
-- **At 1.8.1 the split belongs to the resolver, and it funds ~90 % of the worst case, never 100 %.**
+- **At 1.8.1 the split belongs to the resolver, and the source fixes its order.**
-  The engine takes `--gpu-headroom-mib`, the cache bound (`--max-model-len` × `--max-num-seqs`) and
+  `core/mem/vram_budget.cpp` claims the card bottom-up (`capacity → already held → drift → arena →
-  `--host-pool-mib`, prints `claimable → elastic → experts / kv cache` before allocating anything, and
+  staging → queues → prefetch → headroom = claimable`), takes the **static weights off the top as a
-  sizes the expert plane from the model's own weight footprint plus slack — not from a number typed by
+  floor, not a share**, and divides the `elastic` remainder in three lines (146-156):
-  hand. Three boots of evidence:
 
-  | shape | demand | cache given | backing |
+  ```cpp
+  exp = std::min(b.expert_floor, b.elastic);
+  kv  = std::min(kv_cap, std::max(b.elastic - exp, kv_one));
+  exp = std::min(std::max(b.expert_ceiling, b.expert_floor), b.elastic - kv);
+  ```
+
+  `kv_cap` is `KVManager::ceiling()` = `state + Σ_paged max_seqs × ceil(max_ctx / block) × bytes`
+  (`core/mem/kv.cpp:266`), so `--max-num-seqs` and `--max-model-len` set the cache's **demand**, never
+  its funding. The funding is `elastic − expert_floor`, and the floor is
+  `min(plane + spare, plane + spare + 2·unit_max − host_room)` (`core/place/planner.cpp:100-104`, with
+  `host_room = host_pool − file_stage_reserve` at `core/engine_bringup.cpp:1418-1422`). **That is the
+  cache's lever: every MiB added to `--host-pool-mib` drops the expert floor one-for-one and the cache
+  takes it** — minus `stage`, the prefill stager's ring (two layers of the experts left off the card),
+  which is charged back out of the cache whenever the cache lends (`vram_budget.cpp:193-203`). Boots of
+  evidence, all on 1.8.1:
+
+  | shape | demand | cache given | engine's `backs %` |
   |---|---|---|---|
-  | 3 × 200,000, host pool 44,928 | 600,000 tok | 4.20 GiB | 93 % (2.8 sessions) |
+  | 3 × 200,000, host pool 44,928 | 600,000 tok | 4.20 GiB | 93 % |
   | 3 × 200,000, host pool 45,568 | 600,000 tok | **4.20 GiB — byte-identical** | 93 % |
-  | 2 × 200,000, host pool 44,928 (live) | 400,000 tok | 2.76 GiB = 365,204 tok | 91 % (1.8 sessions) |
+  | 2 × 200,000, host pool 44,928 | 400,000 tok | 2.76 GiB | 91 % |
+  | 4 × 200,000, host pool 49,152 (live) | 800,000 tok | **5.64 GiB = 747,492 tok** | 93 % |
 
-  So `--max-num-seqs` is a **demand signal** for the resolver and an admission cap for the scheduler —
+  The 45,568 row is the ceiling case, not a mystery: at 3 slots the cache already held its whole
-  never a KV allocation — and no slot count fully funds the worst case. Growing host RAM by less than a
+  `ceiling`, so extra host room could not grow it and shows up as `unclaimed`. **The referee is the
-  slab step (640 MiB) moved nothing: the expert plane's claim decides what is left for KV, so cache is
+  ledger line `kv: the pool backs N % … the cache can grow to … N tokens`, never arithmetic.** To buy
-  grown through slots × window or the dtype, and experts are grown by not leaving elastic pool idle.
+  window: raise `--host-pool-mib` (cost: pinned host RAM, and experts evicted to host cross PCIe —
-  `--host-pool-mib` is still load-bearing the other way — it is where the expert rows the cards cannot
+  `experts-from-host` was 5.99 GiB a rank at 44,928 and is 8.99 at 49,152) or cut the per-token cost
-  hold get pinned, and under-sizing it has always been a boot failure (36,864 refused a boot in the fp8
+  (`fp8` KV). Raising slots raises demand **and** costs 10 × 111.98 MiB of pinned checkpoint-store RAM
-  era). The two-slot boot's own behavioural check: three concurrent conversations all answer `200` —
+  per slot. Under-sizing the pool the other way has always been a boot failure (36,864 refused a boot in
-  the third **queues** (`queue_cap: 16`), it is not refused; the 400 class is a single request over
+  the fp8 era: the host cannot hold what the cards will not). Behavioural check on the live shape:
-  `--max-model-len`, or three concurrent full-height conversations against a 1.8-session cache.
+  `/health` reports `queue_cap 32`; a request beyond the slot count queues rather than being refused,
+  and the 400 class is a single request over `--max-model-len`.
 - **Idle KV VRAM is the expert cache's spillover — the price is paid twice.** `mover: 2275
   slots can be lent out of the KV cache (2.69 GiB)`, `arena: lends 740 MiB while steps are <=
   256 tokens`; the lend grows with the pool (2.69 GiB from 3.46, 6.08 from 6.912, 4.22 in the pair era)
@@ -280,41 +303,104 @@ vllm-radiance era (this table opens on 09-26; the era page claims 10-10).
 - **MNBT 2048.** 2560 collapses decode to 2.6-7.7 t/s (MTP resonance); the w4 file tier streams
   in place only at MNBT ≤ 2048 and the activation arena scales with the chunk (32768 → 33.3
   GiB, refused).
-- **Decode pays for the chunk it shares a step with.** Census of the live engine taken at the
+- **Decode pays for the chunk it shares a step with, and `--busy-prefill-chunk auto` does not
-  3-slot shape on 1.0.13 (`/stats` + `/metrics`, cumulative over the 2026-10-15 boot):
+  protect it.** Re-measured on the live 1.8.1 shape (34.8 h boot, Prometheus at 60 s,
-  1,435,585 decode-only steps at **18.7 ms** each against 127,991 prefill+mixed steps
+  `engine_step_seconds{,_decode}_total` / `engine_steps{,_decode,_mixed,_prefill}_total` /
-  at **317 ms** — 60 % of engine wall-clock spent inside 8 % of the steps, because the
+  `prefill_tokens_total`): decode-only steps run at **15.5 ms**, chunk steps (a chunk alone, or a
-  chunk is `min(remaining, checkpoint interval 2048, MNBT 2048)` = 2048 rows and every
+  chunk with decode rows beside it) at **166 ms** — 4.7 % of the steps hold **34 % of the engine's
-  decode row in that step waits the whole chunk. Day of Prometheus (120 s step, 721
+  step time**, so a session decoding while another prompts advances one token per 166 ms. Bucket the
-  samples): `decode_tokens_per_second` median **13.3 t/s** in the 56 % of samples where
+  harness's `radiance:decode_tokens_per_second` by `radiance:prefill_tokens_per_second` (15 s
-  `prefill_tokens_per_second` ≥ 1000, against 106-240 t/s in the light-prefill buckets;
+  scrapes; per-stream rate = the gauge ÷ `vllm:num_requests_running`): median **166 t/s** under light
-  bucketed by mean step time it is 128.7 t/s at 0.02-0.05 s steps and 12.0 t/s at
+  prefill, 81 t/s at 1-5k, **13 t/s above 5k** — a **12.7×** collapse, and at 13 t/s with two
-  0.15-0.4 s. The stall is **during**, not after — decode in windows 2-14 min after a
+  sessions running each stream sits at 6.7 t/s = 149 ms a token, one token per shared step. Nothing
-  busy-prefill window sits at the idle baseline (58-64 vs 77-85 t/s, the residual
+  else moves: decode-*only* steps stay 14-18 ms in every bucket (14.1 ms in a prefill-free minute,
-  confounded by co-scheduling), so no lingering expert-residency penalty at 2-minute
+  17.9 ms in the deep one) and the relationship is lag-0 only (r = −0.74 at lag 0, |r| ≤ 0.19 from
-  resolution, and `preemptions: 0` rules out preempt-and-re-prefill. Method:
+  30 s on, decode back at baseline by 5 min) — residency is not the mechanism either. The second
-  [[LLM Performance Diagnosis]] §9. The law is shape-independent; the fix lives at 1.8.1 (next law),
+  victim is the **arriving** request: through a high-prefill window TTFT p90 goes 2.4 → **18.0 s**
-  and nobody has re-run the census since the migration — so the fix is ordered, **not verified**.
+  and 15.5 % of requests wait over 10 s for their first token, with `http_queue_depth` at 2-3, while
-- **The knobs for it arrived with 1.8.1, and only one of them is on.** `--busy-prefill-chunk` caps the
+  median TTFT (~1.9 s) and per-token latency barely move. Preemption is real but burst-shaped: 264
-  shared chunk so a step with waiting decoders takes a smaller piece (live: `auto`, the engine picks;
+  `vllm:num_preemptions_total` in the boot, 108 of them inside 105 s of a 6.5k-tok/s prefill. The
-  the explicit value is 512), and `--prefill-interleave N` inserts N decode-only steps after a chunk
+  chunk is `min(remaining, checkpoint interval, MNBT, busy_cap)`; the first three read 2048 here,
-  step taken beside decoders. `interleave` is deliberately **0** — the env comment holds it there until
+  and `busy_cap` is the fourth law.
-  the decode-vs-prefill buckets ask for it, and those buckets have not been read since the migration.
+- **`auto` is a prefill-speed dial, not a decoder-protection dial.** `Scheduler::busy_cap` reserves
-  The vendor prices a 1024 chunk at about a fifth off prefill throughput to halve the stall; that is a
+  `1 + spec` rows per decoding sequence behind the chunk (3 tokens at MTP 2) plus one eighth of the
-  knob for choosing tomorrow's chunk, not a measurement of this shape. MNBT remains an arm and not an
+  budget per *waiting request or waiting prefill*, and the code refuses to do more for decoders:
-  edit: 2560 collapses decode through MTP resonance. Any chunk change re-scores draft acceptance before
+  "not for decode rows alone: their reserve is a few tokens, so the chunk ends a quantum short and
-  it is trusted.
+  the next step finishes the interval… Halving would hold a long prompt to half-interval chunks while
-- **Slots cost KV, rows, and window — never speed.** `--max-num-seqs` carries no radiance constraint: it
+  anything decodes behind it, which costs more" (`core/sched/scheduler.cpp:874-878`, 1.8.1). Live
-  adds ≈110 MiB of recurrent state per slot (the live `kv_full_backing` arithmetic prices them exactly),
+  proof: `prefill_chunks_capped` 5,018 against 62,386 chunk steps — 8 %, and those are the minutes
-  declares the fused TP all-reduce over `seqs × (1 + spec)` rows, and `wht6` is bit-exact up to 25 rows
+  with a waiter, not the minutes with a decoder. An explicit `N` is the only value that applies
-  (single-sequence decode and any step of ≤ 25 rows is exact; only busier steps are lossy) — 2 × 3 = 6
+  "whenever the chunk shares the step".
-  today. Measured 2026-10-06: seqs 2 and seqs 3 are statistically tied (30.9-33.1 t/s, inside the ±3 %
+- **At MNBT 2048 no chunk value keeps both the arena loan and the staged copies.** The arena is a
-  floor). Measured 2026-10-19 at 1.8.1: the third slot's real price is **KV, not rows** — dropping it
+  ladder of levels (256 and 1024 rows here) and a step's rows are its **whole** token count —
-  moved the resolver's cache from 4.20 GiB to 2.76 GiB and the backing from 2.8 to 1.8 sessions, while
+  `max(n_tok, n_seq × (1 + spec))`, `core/engine.cpp:1142` — so a 1024-token chunk with two decode
-  the ≈4 GiB of host RAM it freed came back unbudgeted, landing in elastic pool that turned into a bigger
+  rows is a 1030-row step: it falls back to the full plan, which "lends nothing", and it arms the
-  mover lend instead of cache (resolver law above). The old "seqs 2 cannot boot" law belonged to the
+  prefill stager. The stager's floor is the largest lending level plus one, 1025 rows here — named on
-  retired tcclaviger fork's `torch.compile` shape specialization, and radiance booted seqs 2 on its first
+  the boot line `prefill staging: … a step of more than 1024 tokens copies the pooled experts of 48
-  fp8-native start.
+  routed layers onto the card up to 3 layers ahead` — and below it "every routed layer reads its
+  pooled experts synchronously and the prefill slows far more than sharing saves" (GUIDE §4.5). The
+  vendor's own number for naive shrinking, on this architecture: four decoders with a long prompt
+  beside them finished in **29.5 s at a 2048 chunk and 31.9 s at 512**.
+- **A big step takes the arena from the expert slab and keeps it for the whole prefill.** The arena
+  lends 987.77 MiB (steps ≤ 256 rows) or 670.26 MiB (≤ 1024) to the slab; a full-plan step reclaims
+  it **synchronously before the step** — units revert to their host copies (an address change, not a
+  copy) and both read streams drain — and `arena_tick` regrows the loan only **2 s after the last big
+  step** (`core/engine.cpp:1129-1202`), so every step of the prefill run, decode-only included, runs
+  with a slab ~780 expert units smaller over a link also carrying the staged copies. `/diagnostics`
+  says the binding constraint in one line: "a prefill step streams every routed layer's pooled
+  experts onto the card, so its speed is bounded by the link; decode reads the ones it routes to".
+  Measured size of the whole effect: the ~10 % above. Real, small, not worth chasing.
+- **`--prefill-interleave` is the dial that buys decode its cadence; armed at 1 on 2026-10-20.**
+  N decode-only steps follow any chunk step taken beside decoders; held steps admit nothing, so it
+  costs the prefilling prompt its TTFT and an arriving request its first step. Rate arithmetic at the
+  two measured step times and 0.657 acceptance (≈2.3 tokens a step): N=0 → ~14 t/s, **N=1 (armed) →
+  ~23**, N=2 → ~33, N=4 → ~48, N=8 → ~69, with the prefill slowed by (166 + 15.5N)/166. **Arithmetic, not
+  measurement** — the arm is chosen by the §9 bucket pair plus `steps_held`, and `auto` is not a
+  substitute for it.
+- **`--prefill-span` is the shape that keeps the loan, and it is priced.** It needs MNBT = N
+  intervals, so `--prefill-span 2 --max-num-batched-tokens 4096`: a *lone* prefill carries 2
+  intervals a step (and on an expert-tiered box only from 8 intervals / 16k tokens, where the span
+  starts to win), while **every other step is planned at the shared budget of 2048** — which is a
+  lending level *and* keeps the stager's ring, the one combination `--busy-prefill-chunk` cannot
+  express. Costs per GUIDE §4.5: 320 MiB a card of expert residency, ~3 % off the KV pool (§4.3's
+  cliff is sharp), a decode step uploads twice the per-step arrays at 4096, and checkpoints inside a
+  span are not written, so a partially-shared prompt resumes one interval earlier. On the vendor's
+  second box (2×R9700, w4nl64, TP2) it was TTFT-neutral — 2.61 vs 2.56 s at 18k, 10.72 vs 10.55 at
+  75k — hence their own rule: measure your own prompts at two ranks before turning it on. MNBT 4096
+  does not boot at 3 slots; this shape is 2.
+- **Most of this endpoint's prefill work is replay of tokens the prefix cache already had.** Over
+  the same window `prefill_tokens_total` 65.2 M against `prefix_hit_cut_tokens_total` 24.9 M = **38 %
+  replayed**, and it is not an eviction: a hit on a hybrid model reuses only as far as the last
+  **linear-state** checkpoint (`reuse = min(h.n_attn_tokens, h.n_linear_tokens)`,
+  `core/sched/scheduler.cpp:953-978`), and the retention default keeps a **geometric ladder** - about
+  `log2(depth/interval) + 2` snapshots - so a turn that diverges `d` behind the tip can resume as
+  deep as `tip − 3d`. The live ladder for a 200k session at interval 2048 is 2048 · 131072 · 163840
+  · … · 198656: diverge at 120k and 21.7k tokens replay, diverge at 50k and 48k. Every
+  `prefix_hit_cuts_total` carries `reason="no_snapshot"` (the other two reasons stay dead), so the
+  cause object agrees and `hit_cut_tokens` is the cost. `--checkpoint-policy` admits exactly
+  **`geometric-backoff` | `tip-only` | `keep-all`** and refuses anything else at boot. It governs
+  retention only - the writes happen at every interval whatever the policy says (only `--prefill-span`
+  skips them) - so `keep-all` buys a replay bounded by one interval at any depth for **pinned host RAM
+  alone**: 97 snapshots a 200k session, `--checkpoint-slots auto` asking 196 × 111.98 MiB = 21.4 GiB
+  against a store budget of an eighth of host RAM (31.5 GiB here, so `share` admits it) with `room` -
+  the pinning room left beside the expert pool at boot - as the hard bound the ledger line names.
+  Retention also spares a snapshot a later turn resumed from (`core/mem/prefix.cpp:709-723`), so a
+  chain that keeps resuming at one deep point stops paying for it. Shortening
+  `--checkpoint-interval` does **not** buy the deep case: the coarsest ladder scale is the largest
+  `interval × 2^k` under the depth, so the deepest gap stays ≈ half the prompt (129,024 tokens at
+  interval 2048 against 130,816 at 256) while every cut multiplies the snapshot writes.
+- **Slots cost KV, host RAM, rows, and pin — never speed.** `--max-num-seqs` carries no radiance
+  constraint: it adds ≈110 MiB of recurrent state per slot, 10 × 111.98 MiB of pinned checkpoint-store
+  RAM per slot (`--checkpoint-slots auto`), and declares the fused TP all-reduce over
+  `seqs × (1 + spec)` rows — `wht6` is bit-exact up to 25 rows, and the live shape is 4 × 3 = **12**, so
+  single-sequence decode stays exact and so does any step up to that many rows. Raising it also raises
+  the cache's *demand* (`ceiling = slots × window`), which the resolver funds from `elastic −
+  expert_floor` — so a slot count without matching host room is paid for by expert residency. Measured
+  2026-10-06: seqs 2 and 3 statistically tied (30.9-33.1 t/s, inside the ±3 % floor). Measured
+  2026-10-19 → 10-20 at 1.8.1: 2 → 4 slots cost **+4,224 MiB of pinned host pool** and **−3.01 GiB of
+  expert residency a card** and bought 2.76 → 5.64 GiB of cache (365,204 → 747,492 tokens). The old
+  "seqs 2 cannot boot" law belonged to the retired tcclaviger fork's `torch.compile` shape
+  specialization, and radiance booted seqs 2 on its first fp8-native start.
 - **A dequantize-to-compute path bills host RAM twice.** On the EMULATION backend an offload request
   of **118 GiB** landed as **~238 GiB** of real host RAM — the dequantized copy rides on top of the
   pinned weights, and the doubling is invisible in the weight count. Read the engine log for
@@ -396,12 +482,35 @@ vllm-radiance era (this table opens on 09-26; the era page claims 10-10).
   4600 MT/s ended it, with zero `gdn_hip` faults either side; the prefix-caching / GDN re-seed
   theory was confounded on both arms. Consumer non-ECC raises no MCE for a silent flip and a
   60 s / 8 GiB pattern check covers 0.5 % of 246 GiB — silent RAM corruption outranks every
-  software theory.
+  software theory. **That mitigation is a BIOS setting and it is not in effect now:** `sudo
+  dmidecode -t memory | grep -i configured` answers 4800 MT/s on 2026-10-20, and the only event
+  between the fix and today is the 2026-10-12 power failure that also reset TTM. Check the speed
+  before crediting any software revert with a fix — and before believing a clean run of the arm
+  you just tested, because the confounder is still in the slot.
 - **TP=2 here** is legal since the 2026-09-20 ProArt B850 swap (x8/x8 on CPU root ports,
   `Routing+`/`ReqEn+` end to end) only because radiance's wire is `libr4d`'s own one-shot
   all-reduce; RCCL needs atomics on the whole chain and fails `hipErrorIllegalState` without
   them (). `wht6` buys +5.6-6.3 % prefill for ~1.3 % of 8-stream
   decode, `exact` is the bit-exact alternative.
+- **The link is already at the board's ceiling — do not chase the `link-below-max` warning.**
+  Both root ports (`00:01.1`, `00:01.3`) are **x8 max** at 32 GT/s, so PCIe 5.0 x8 ≈ 31.5 GB/s is
+  the whole budget per card and the cards' own `pcie_dpm` tables expose only x8 states.
+  `/diagnostics` still warns that the on-card switch hop (`01:00.0`, `05:00.0`) runs "x8 of its
+  x16 while the card is 100 % busy" and suggests a reboot or a reseat — pointless when the host
+  side of the chain is x8 max, which the same endpoint reports two findings later as
+  `link-capped`. The width that matters is the minimum of the chain, and it is x8 either way, so
+  the only lever on a link-bound prefill is **less traffic over the link** (more expert
+  residency, fewer pooled experts), never a wider link. P2P resolves **on** (`auto` asks the
+  driver, the two cards reach each other's memory), so the collectives do not hairpin through host
+  RAM, and the engine's copies ride one DMA queue that "give[s] way to the collectives" — the
+  all-reduce wins the link, the staged experts wait.
+- **Eight cores is the whole host, media stack included.** Dankserver is a Ryzen 7 7700X (8
+  cores / 8 threads, one NUMA node, `nodes: -1` for both cards) running Jellyfin, Plex, Calibre
+  and RomM beside the engine, and `--http-threads` defaults to one thread per core. Measured
+  during a heavy prefill: load average ≈ 1.0, `jellyfin` 11 % CPU, `radiance` 7 % — **CPU
+  contention is not the current decode culprit**, so do not spend an experiment window on it;
+  re-read `uptime` and `ps -eo pcpu,comm --sort=-pcpu | head` first if a future collapse looks
+  different from the step-sharing one.
 - `--prefix-cache-dir` creation is **not recursive** — the serve script `mkdir -p`s the path or
   the disk tier silently never opens. The tier does survive a payload swap when arch and
   tokenizer match (it recovered 900,176 blocks on the 2026-10-15 swap; `cache_n` proves a hit).
@@ -445,11 +554,19 @@ vllm-radiance era (this table opens on 09-26; the era page claims 10-10).
 ## Contract (the wire)
 
 - **Live surface:** `/health` (== `/ping`), `/v1/models`, `/v1/chat/completions`
-  `/v1/completions`, `/metrics`, `/stats`, `/sessions`, `/dashboard`. `/health` answers 200
+  `/v1/completions`, `/metrics`, `/stats`, `/sessions`, `/dashboard`, **`/diagnostics`**. `/health`
-  JSON (model id, `in_flight`, `queue_depth`) while serving and **503 only while stopping**
+  answers 200 JSON (model id, `in_flight`, `queue_depth`) while serving and **503 only while
-  (`core/server/admin.cpp:385`), and the listener binds *after* the full load (`main.cpp`:
+  stopping** (`core/server/admin.cpp:385`), and the listener binds *after* the full load
-  `engine.start()` then `engine.serve()`) — during the load the port refuses connections, so a
+  (`main.cpp`: `engine.start()` then `engine.serve()`) — during the load the port refuses
-  bare `curl -fsS …/health` gate is honest and needs no body grep.
+  connections, so a bare `curl -fsS …/health` gate is honest and needs no body grep.
+- **`/diagnostics` is the instrument for "is the box, not the config, the limit"** — one call
+  returns `configuration` (every flag, so drift from the env file is checkable without the host),
+  `environment`, `derived` (the VRAM split as the ledger prints it), `hardware` (host, per-card
+  `link_chain` + `pcie_dpm` + clocks + power cap + DMA engine choice + P2P answer) and `findings`
+  (level / what / why / fix). On this box it reports `experts-from-host` (5.99 GiB a rank crosses
+  PCIe when used), `link-capped` (root ports are x8 max — the board), `swap-in-use`,
+  `tp-wire-lossy`, and **`link-below-max` as a `warn` at 100 % card busy on both cards** — which is
+  structural on this board; see the x8-ceiling law under *This host, and the deploy path*.
 - **Served id.** `FRANK_ARCHON_SERVED_NAME=frank-archon` (the wire rename of 2026-10-09 moved
   only the alias; container, unit, scripts and env keep the service name). The env's contract
   line is that **radiance validates the requested model name, so every client — harness, bench
@@ -476,12 +593,28 @@ vllm-radiance era (this table opens on 09-26; the era page claims 10-10).
   and 16,384 patches per pass. Probe with a ≥ 256 px solid-colour PNG and a ≥ 256 token budget
   — at 64 tokens you get empty `content` and the colour only inside `reasoning_content`.
 - **Capacity behaviour:** a prompt over `--max-model-len` is refused, never truncated; a request
-  longer than the KV pool's token count is accepted then refused as too large to fit; under the
+  longer than the KV pool's token count is accepted then refused as too large to fit; a request
-  3-slot contract a **fourth** full-height conversation is refused, not paged or squeezed.
+  beyond `--max-num-seqs` is held by the HTTP port (`queue_cap` = `max(8, 8 × slots)` — **32** here)
+  and answered 503 only past that, never paged or squeezed. The cache funds **3.7** full-height
+  sessions, so four conversations can be resident but a fourth near-full-height one can still
+  **preempt a running sequence from the back** to free its blocks
+  (`core/sched/scheduler.cpp:1291-1322`); the victim is recomputed, so its session halts and then
+  re-prefills. Meter: `vllm:num_preemptions_total` (cumulative for the boot, `/stats preemptions`);
+  `radiance:num_requests_preempted` is only the instant depth.
 - **Observability:** `/metrics` carries vLLM-compatible names plus `radiance:*`, scraped by the
-  Dankclaw Prometheus job at `192.168.0.235:7770` over plain LAN routing (the netavark
+  Dankclaw Prometheus job at `192.168.0.235:7770` (15 s interval) over plain LAN routing (the
-  published-port quirk is same-host only). The boot ledger — the referee for every shape number
+  netavark published-port quirk is same-host only). **Latency lives under `vllm:`, cadence under
-  above — is in the container log (`podman logs frank-archon`)
+  `radiance:`** — TTFT / inter-token / per-output-token / e2e / decode-time histograms and the
+  running/waiting gauges are `vllm:*` with no radiance-native equivalent, so a `radiance:`-only
+  query misses every latency answer. The step-phase counters are all scraped:
+  `engine_steps{,_decode,_mixed,_prefill,_held}_total`, `engine_step_seconds{,_decode}_total`,
+  `engine_prefill_chunks_capped_total`, `prefill_tokens_total`, `decode_tokens_per_second`,
+  `prefill_tokens_per_second`, `prefix_hit_cut_tokens_total`, `http_queue_depth`. Two holes: the
+  engine's own step-detail histograms (`prefill_steps_duration`, `prefill_step_tokens`,
+  `token_queue_wait`) are exported but reach no target, and the **arena / expert slab / heat engine /
+  prefill stager have no metric at all** — that half of every law above is read from the boot ledger,
+  `/stats` and `/diagnostics`, never from a graph. The boot ledger — the referee for every shape
+  number here — is in the container log (`podman logs frank-archon`);
   `/home/dank/logs/frank_archon.log` is where the serve script redirects `podman run`.
 
 ## Files

serverAppConfigs-docs/LLM/frank-dragoon.md

@@ -10,14 +10,15 @@ tags:
   - gfx1151
   - halogen
   - endpoint
-timestamp: 2026-10-19
+timestamp: 2026-10-21
 ---
 
 # frank-dragoon — halogen-flash-server 0.16.2, native v2 abliterated (Dankclaw iGPU)
 
 Strix Halo (gfx1151) endpoint `http://192.168.0.143:7770`, served id `frank-dragoon`: a podman container
 under a root `User=dank` unit. Live shape since 2026-10-17, pool raised to 401,408 on 2026-10-18
-(`2b12716`). This page replaces every per-era dragoon runbook; the Eras table is the rollback record.
+(`2b12716`), ceiling raised to the native 262,144 on 2026-10-21 so the harness window is 200,000.
+This page replaces every per-era dragoon runbook; the Eras table is the rollback record.
 
 ## Current shape
 
@@ -37,10 +38,12 @@ Image `ghcr.io/peonist-ai/halogen-flash-server@sha256:0c61bf84ac22308a53f5d1ca6b
 unauthenticated token port 8730 stays on container loopback. Engine stdout →
 `/home/dank/logs/frank_dragoon.log`, **not** the journal.
 
-- Shape: `HALOGEN_CTX=200704` hard per-request ceiling · `HALOGEN_KV_SLOTS=2` ·
+- Shape: `HALOGEN_CTX=262144` hard per-request ceiling = the checkpoint's native window (raised
-  `HALOGEN_KV_POOL_POSITIONS=401408` = slots × ctx, the top of the band `tests/frank_dragoon_unit.bats`
+  2026-10-21 from 200704; `HALOGEN_ROPE_YARN` beyond native is not on plan) · `HALOGEN_KV_SLOTS=2` ·
-  enforces (`ctx ≤ pool ≤ slots × ctx`) · KV ~28 KiB/position → **11.0 GiB reserved** · no KV-dtype knob
+  `HALOGEN_KV_POOL_POSITIONS=401408` inside the band `tests/frank_dragoon_unit.bats` enforces
-  exists here, the pool is the only KV lever · native window 262,144, `HALOGEN_ROPE_YARN` beyond it.
+  (`ctx ≤ pool ≤ slots × ctx`) · KV ~28 KiB/position → **11.0 GiB reserved** · no KV-dtype knob
+  exists here, the pool is the only KV lever · the pool carries TWO maximum harness-length (200k)
+  conversations at once; two literal ceiling-length requests would queue — that is a pool raise.
 - Knobs: `HALOGEN_MAX_TOK=8192` sizes the prefill arena (5.7 GiB) and is only the default for requests
   omitting `max_tokens` · `HALOGEN_MAX_TOKENS_CAP=65536` + `HALOGEN_QUEUE_TIMEOUT=7200` are a coupled
   pair · MTP depth 2 with the head INSIDE the checkpoint (**`HALOGEN_MTP_HEAD` stays unset**) and
@@ -53,10 +56,11 @@ unauthenticated token port 8730 stays on container loopback. Engine stdout →
   (Pin::None)`; no clamp line. Host `MemAvailable` read 22 GiB right after the 2026-10-18 raise —
   ~20 GiB above the 20 GiB reserve, against 10–15 GiB of baseline co-tenancy (frank-zealot, ComfyUI,
   Caddy/observability).
-- Harness (`~/.omp/agent/models.yml`, provider `llamacpp (dankclaw)`): `contextWindow: 155648`
+- Harness (`~/.omp/agent/models.yml`, provider `llamacpp (dankclaw)`): `contextWindow: 200000`
-  (= ceiling − 45k per the 400-zone law, never higher), `maxTokens: 45056`, `input: [text, image]`
+  — sits 62,144 under the ceiling, clearing the ~45k fit-law gap (400-zone law below);
-  `reasoningContentField: "reasoning_content"`, `high→xhigh` fold, `extraBody` 1.0/0.95. Compaction
+  `tests/frank_dragoon_unit.bats` fails if the page's declared window and `HALOGEN_CTX` drift back
-  rides [[frank-zealot]].
+  together. `maxTokens: 45056`, `input: [text, image]`, `reasoningContentField: "reasoning_content"`,
+  `high→xhigh` fold, `extraBody` 1.0/0.95. Compaction rides [[frank-zealot]].
 - Deploy `./scripts/deploy.sh dankclaw --service frank-dragoon`; gate = boot-ledger greps (weights,
   pool, MTP, prompt cache, **no clamp**) + `/health` 200 + a tool call + the 512 px red-PNG probe.
   Kernel: `CONFIG_HSA_AMD_SVM=y` (CachyOS ships it) and `amdgpu.noretry=0` — the env says check it at
@@ -124,14 +128,18 @@ created it — earlier topologies in .
   prompt tokens. halogen 0.1.4's auto-sizing refused here and re-prefilled every 79–81k turn in
   85–180 s until `HALOGEN_CACHE_MB=16384` was pinned. What the pool takes is what the table loses, so
   re-measure the warm ratio after any pool change.
-- **400-zone law:** the harness window MUST sit ~45k under the engine ceiling (`contextWindow:
+- **400-zone law:** the harness window MUST sit ~45k under the engine ceiling, because the harness
-  155648` = 200,704 − 45,056) because the harness clamps `max_tokens` to `contextWindow − est − 4096`
+  clamps `max_tokens` to `contextWindow − est − 4096`, its chars/4 `est` UNDER-counts code/agent
-  its chars/4 `est` under-counts code/agent traffic by ~3 %, and compaction only fires at 85 %. The
+  traffic by ~3 %, and the compaction trigger fires at 95 % of the window (`config.yml
-  3 % is measured, not theory: 2026-10-07 at the old 200,192 ceiling, est 152,938 vs server 157,388 —
+  thresholdPercent`, while the comments designed around 85 % — check the trigger BEFORE touching a
-  over by 354, a 400. At the live shape compaction fires at 132,301 est ≈ 136k measured (the 180k
+  window; that disagreement is why long sessions kept drawing 400s). The 3 % is measured, not
-  target of the 262,144 era is unreachable — the window itself is 155,648), and the worst-case request
+  theory: 2026-10-07 at the old 200,192 ceiling, est 152,938 vs server 157,388 — over by 354, a 400.
-  is 155,648 − 4,096 + 3 % ≈ 156.2k ≤ 200,704: ~9.5× the error of margin, robust to a ~25 %
+  At the live pair (ceiling 262,144 / window 200,000) the worst-case ordinary request is
-  under-count. Compaction rides [[frank-zealot]] at ≈ threshold − keepRecent(20k) ≈ 112k input.
+  200,000 − 4,096 + 3 % ≈ 201.8k, and the trigger point is 190,000 est × 1.03 + 45,056 ≈ 240.7k —
+  both inside the ceiling with ~60k of margin. Compaction rides [[frank-zealot]] at
+  ≈ threshold − keepRecent(20k) ≈ 175k measured against its 200,704-token slot. The seam in
+  `tests/frank_dragoon_unit.bats` re-runs this arithmetic at the 95 % trigger and reads the window
+  from THIS page, so ceiling/window pairs that drift back together fail the suite, not a session.
 - **Admission reserves prompt + `max_tokens`:** an un-fittable request waits in arrival order, then
   503s `engine_busy` for the whole queue after `QUEUE_TIMEOUT` — and the cap/timeout pair moves
   together: 65536 tokens at ~10 t/s serial needs >6550 s, which is why 7200 is pinned (env, 2026-10-17).
@@ -248,9 +256,14 @@ lane is **armed and serving** since 2026-10-19 (`HALOGEN_NPU_MODELS=qwen3-embedd
    (`dankclaw/udev/98-halogen-npu-access.rules`, installed and re-triggered by the deployer, `0666` like the GPU
    compute nodes beside it); the serve script refuses any node that is not other-accessible, so the fault cannot
    return as a crash-loop.
-2. The host's XRT reachable inside: there is **no `/opt/xilinx/xrt`** here — distro packages put the three files the
+2. The host's XRT reachable inside, at **THREE prefixes per library**: there is **no `/opt/xilinx/xrt`** here —
-   container needs (`libxrt_coreutil.so.2`, `libxrt_core.so.2`, `libxrt_driver_xdna.so.2`) in
+   distro packages put the three files the container needs (`libxrt_coreutil.so.2`, `libxrt_core.so.2`,
-   `/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu`, where all three exist.
+   `libxrt_driver_xdna.so.2`) in `/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu`. The serve script mounts each REAL file (never a
+   symlink) at `/opt/xilinx/xrt/lib/`, at its own path, AND at `/opt/xilinx/lib/<multiarch>/` — the NPU child
+   searches that third prefix and a missing one is fatal: since the host's `libxrt2` was reconfigured
+   2026-10-20 the child died with `No such library '/opt/xilinx/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxrt_core.so.2'` and the
+   engine supervisor took the WHOLE container down on it (88-restart loop, chat dead beside a healthy GPU line).
+   A dead lane is not survivable here — arm the lane only with all three prefixes mounted.
 3. **The GPU fabric clock held at its top level, or the engine refuses to start.** GPU and NPU work share the die:
    while `pp_dpm_fclk` is changing speed, concurrent GPU work can hang the machine and corrupt NPU results. The
    engine holds the clock itself only when it runs as root with `/sys` mounted; `frank-dragoon` is a **rootless**

shared/alloy/config.alloy

@@ -17,6 +17,9 @@ logging {
 // Loki is published on the host's loopback (127.0.0.1:3100). Alloy shares the
 // host network, so it pushes by loopback, never by container name — a root
 // container is not on the rootless dankclaw_default network.
+// GRAFANA_HOST_LABEL is replaced with this host's name by
+// copy_alloy_config at deploy time; it must not appear verbatim in the
+// installed config.
 loki.write "default" {
   endpoint {
     url = "http://127.0.0.1:3100/loki/api/v1/push"
@@ -32,7 +35,34 @@ loki.write "default" {
 loki.source.journal "journal" {
   format_as_json = true
   labels = {
-    job = "systemd-journal",
+    job  = "systemd-journal",
+    host = "GRAFANA_HOST_LABEL",
+  }
+  forward_to = [loki.process.relabel.receiver]
+}
+
+// Promote the fields that ARE the point of the log stream to real Loki labels.
+// Without this the journal arrives as one opaque JSON line per entry and every
+// per-container view is structurally impossible: Loki metrics queries can only
+// group by INDEXED stream labels, so `sum by (container_name)` returns a single
+// anonymous series and the logs-overview board read empty beside 6.5k
+// lines/5min of live traffic (measured 2026-10-21). CONTAINER_NAME is what
+// podman's journald logging writes (uppercase); host units lack it and stay on
+// the host-only stream. `format_as_json = true` above guarantees every line
+// reaching this stage is a JSON object, so there is no non-JSON branch to
+// protect — alloy 1.21's json stage has no `on_error` attribute (validated
+// against the pinned image); a malformed line would drop, which is the
+// correct fate for a line Loki could not index anyway.
+loki.process "relabel" {
+  stage.json {
+    expressions = {
+      container = "CONTAINER_NAME",
+    }
+  }
+  stage.labels {
+    values = {
+      container = "container",
+    }
   }
   forward_to = [loki.write.default.receiver]
 }

shared/blackbox/blackbox.yml

@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+# Blackbox exporter modules — the honest answer to "is this HTTP service
+# answering?". A Prometheus scrape cannot express it (an HTML front page is a
+# 200 that fails the scrape protocol), which is why the old `services` and
+# `comfyui` jobs sat permanently red on `unsupported Content-Type`.
+# See serverAppConfigs-docs/Architecture/Stale Signal Audit.md §1.
+# Loopback bind: the image's default 0.0.0.0:9115 would ride the LAN on this
+# Network=host container. Prometheus (bridge) still reaches it — its traffic
+# arrives on the podman gateway interface, which is not loopback.
+network:
+  listen_address: 127.0.0.1:9115
+
+modules:
+  http_2xx:
+    prober: http
+    timeout: 10s
+    http:
+      preferred_ip_protocol: ip4
+      valid_status_codes: [] # default: 2xx + 3xx

shared/grafana/provisioning/dashboards/containers.json

@@ -104,14 +104,14 @@
     {
       "id": 6,
       "type": "timeseries",
-      "title": "Memory vs limit (%)",
+      "title": "Memory vs host total (%)",
-      "description": "Working set over the cgroup memory limit (container_spec_memory_limit_bytes). Only containers that carry a limit are shown; approaching 1.0 means an OOM is near. Containers with no limit are omitted.",
+      "description": "Working set over the host's total RAM. The fleet sets NO cgroup memory limits (every container_spec_memory_limit_bytes is 0 — a limit-share panel is structurally empty here), so the honest pressure view is share of the host. The join labels the node exporter's MemTotal onto the cadvisor series by host.",
       "gridPos": { "h": 9, "w": 12, "x": 12, "y": 11 },
       "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
       "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "percentunit", "min": 0, "max": 1, "custom": { "fillOpacity": 8, "lineWidth": 1, "stacking": { "mode": "none" } } }, "overrides": [] },
       "targets": [
         {
-          "expr": "(container_memory_working_set_bytes{job=~\"cadvisor-.*\", host=~\"$host\", container=~\"$container\"} / on (job, host, container) group_left container_spec_memory_limit_bytes{job=~\"cadvisor-.*\", host=~\"$host\", container=~\"$container\"}) and (container_spec_memory_limit_bytes{job=~\"cadvisor-.*\", host=~\"$host\", container=~\"$container\"} > 0)",
+          "expr": "container_memory_working_set_bytes{job=~\"cadvisor-.*\", host=~\"$host\", container=~\"$container\", container!=\"\"} / on(host) group_left label_replace(node_memory_MemTotal_bytes{job=~\"node-.*\"}, \"host\", \"$1\", \"job\", \"node-(.*)\")",
           "legendFormat": "{{host}} / {{container}}",
           "refId": "A"
         }

shared/grafana/provisioning/dashboards/host-system.json

@@ -18,6 +18,16 @@
         "includeAll": true,
         "multi": true,
         "current": { "text": "All", "value": "$__all" }
+      },
+      {
+        "name": "gpuhost",
+        "label": "gpu host",
+        "type": "query",
+        "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+        "query": { "query": "label_values(gpu_utilization_percent, host)", "refId": "A" },
+        "includeAll": true,
+        "multi": true,
+        "current": { "text": "All", "value": "$__all" }
       }
     ]
   },
@@ -44,7 +54,7 @@
       "gridPos": { "h": 4, "w": 6, "x": 12, "y": 0 },
       "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
       "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "short", "thresholds": { "mode": "absolute", "steps": [{ "color": "green", "value": null }, { "color": "yellow", "value": 0.7 }, { "color": "red", "value": 1 }] } }, "overrides": [] },
-      "targets": [{ "expr": "node_load5{job=~\"$node\"} / count by (job) (node_cpu_seconds_total{job=~\"$node\",mode=\"idle\"})", "legendFormat": "{{job}}", "refId": "A" }]
+      "targets": [{ "expr": "node_load5{job=~\"$node\"} / on(job) count by (job) (node_cpu_seconds_total{job=~\"$node\",mode=\"idle\"})", "legendFormat": "{{job}}", "refId": "A" }]
     },
     {
       "id": 4, "type": "stat", "title": "Open file handles",
@@ -139,6 +149,56 @@
         { "expr": "sum by (job,device) (rate(node_network_receive_errs_total{job=~\"$node\"}[5m]))", "legendFormat": "{{job}} {{device}} RX err", "refId": "A" },
         { "expr": "sum by (job,device) (rate(node_network_transmit_errs_total{job=~\"$node\"}[5m]))", "legendFormat": "{{job}} {{device}} TX err", "refId": "B" }
       ]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 13, "type": "timeseries", "title": "GPU busy %",
+      "description": "Per-GPU utilization from gpu-exporter (amdgpu gpu_busy_percent / nvidia-smi). The picker above selects the host; each series is one card.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 0, "y": 36 },
+      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "percent", "min": 0, "max": 100 }, "overrides": [] },
+      "targets": [
+        { "expr": "gpu_utilization_percent{host=~\"$gpuhost\"}", "legendFormat": "{{host}} {{gpu}} ({{model}})", "refId": "A" }
+      ]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 14, "type": "timeseries", "title": "GPU VRAM used",
+      "description": "Device memory in use. On the R9700s (frank-archon) and the 3090 (frank-zealot) this is the loaded model's footprint.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 12, "y": 36 },
+      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "bytes", "min": 0 }, "overrides": [] },
+      "targets": [
+        { "expr": "gpu_memory_used_bytes{host=~\"$gpuhost\"}", "legendFormat": "{{host}} {{gpu}} ({{model}})", "refId": "A" }
+      ]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 15, "type": "timeseries", "title": "GPU VRAM used %",
+      "description": "Used / total device memory. Near 100% is the pre-OOM wall.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 0, "y": 44 },
+      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "percent", "min": 0, "max": 100 }, "overrides": [] },
+      "targets": [
+        { "expr": "100 * gpu_memory_used_bytes{host=~\"$gpuhost\"} / gpu_memory_total_bytes{host=~\"$gpuhost\"}", "legendFormat": "{{host}} {{gpu}} ({{model}})", "refId": "A" }
+      ]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 16, "type": "timeseries", "title": "GPU temperature",
+      "description": "Package temperature. AMD edge temp (hwmon temp1_input); NVIDIA gpu temp.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 12, "y": 44 },
+      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "celsius", "min": 0 }, "overrides": [] },
+      "targets": [
+        { "expr": "gpu_temperature_celsius{host=~\"$gpuhost\"}", "legendFormat": "{{host}} {{gpu}} ({{model}})", "refId": "A" }
+      ]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 17, "type": "timeseries", "title": "GPU power draw",
+      "description": "Board power draw. Emitted only where readable: NVIDIA and the Dankclaw iGPU. The R9700s have no sysfs power sensor, so they are simply absent here — never a fabricated 0.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 0, "y": 52 },
+      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "watt", "min": 0 }, "overrides": [] },
+      "targets": [
+        { "expr": "gpu_power_watts{host=~\"$gpuhost\"}", "legendFormat": "{{host}} {{gpu}} ({{model}})", "refId": "A" }
+      ]
     }
   ]
 }

shared/grafana/provisioning/dashboards/llm-fleet.json

@@ -194,7 +194,7 @@
       "id": 6,
       "type": "timeseries",
       "title": "Firing fleet alerts",
-      "description": "The LLM-fleet rules from shared/prometheus/rules/llm-fleet.yml. A firing alert is delivered to Signal: Prometheus -> Alertmanager (dankclaw quadlet) -> the host-side signal-relay user unit -> signal-cli, since 2026-09-17.",
+      "description": "The LLM-fleet rules from shared/prometheus/rules/llm-fleet.yml. EMPTY IS THE HEALTHY STATE: zero series means nothing is firing (ALERTS only carries active/pending alert series — do not read this panel as broken). A firing alert is delivered to Signal: Prometheus -> Alertmanager (dankclaw quadlet) -> the host-side signal-relay user unit -> signal-cli, since 2026-09-17.",
       "gridPos": {
         "h": 8,
         "w": 12,

shared/grafana/provisioning/dashboards/logs-overview.json

@@ -2,74 +2,242 @@
   "uid": "logs-overview",
   "title": "Logs \u2014 Loki (systemd journal)",
   "description": "Everything in Loki arrives as the journal (job=systemd-journal); the container is a JSON field parsed at query time, not a stream label. Starter breadth \u2014 the volume/error panels group by the parsed container_name. Loki keeps ~7 days; wide ranges are cheap counts, not the raw log panel.",
-  "tags": ["logs", "loki"],
+  "tags": [
+    "logs",
+    "loki"
+  ],
   "timezone": "browser",
   "schemaVersion": 39,
   "refresh": "30s",
-  "time": { "from": "now-1h", "to": "now" },
+  "time": {
+    "from": "now-1h",
+    "to": "now"
+  },
   "templating": {
     "list": [
       {
         "name": "container",
         "label": "container",
         "type": "query",
-        "datasource": { "type": "loki", "uid": "loki" },
+        "datasource": {
-        "query": { "query": "{job=\"systemd-journal\"} | json", "label": "container_name", "refId": "A" },
+          "type": "loki",
+          "uid": "loki"
+        },
+        "query": {
+          "query": "label_values({job=\"systemd-journal\"}, container)",
+          "refId": "LokiVariableQueryEditor-VariableQuery"
+        },
         "includeAll": true,
         "multi": true,
         "refresh": 2,
-        "current": { "text": "All", "value": "$__all" }
+        "current": {
+          "text": "All",
+          "value": "$__all"
+        }
       }
     ]
   },
   "panels": [
     {
-      "id": 1, "type": "timeseries", "title": "Log volume by container (lines/s)",
+      "id": 1,
-      "description": "Parse the journal JSON, count lines per container. Spikes = a chatty or crashing unit.",
+      "type": "timeseries",
-      "gridPos": { "h": 9, "w": 24, "x": 0, "y": 0 },
+      "title": "Log volume by container (lines/s)",
-      "datasource": { "type": "loki", "uid": "loki" },
+      "description": "Per-container journal line rate. The `container` label is promoted at ingestion by Alloy (loki.process) from podman's CONTAINER_NAME journald field - Loki metrics can only group by indexed stream labels.",
-      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "reqps", "custom": { "fillOpacity": 20, "stacking": { "mode": "normal" } } }, "overrides": [] },
+      "gridPos": {
-      "targets": [{ "expr": "sum by (container_name) (count_over_time({job=\"systemd-journal\"} | json [$__auto]))", "legendFormat": "{{container_name}}", "refId": "A" }]
+        "h": 9,
+        "w": 24,
+        "x": 0,
+        "y": 0
+      },
+      "datasource": {
+        "type": "loki",
+        "uid": "loki"
+      },
+      "fieldConfig": {
+        "defaults": {
+          "unit": "reqps",
+          "custom": {
+            "fillOpacity": 20,
+            "stacking": {
+              "mode": "normal"
+            }
+          }
+        },
+        "overrides": []
+      },
+      "targets": [
+        {
+          "expr": "sum by (container) (count_over_time({job=\"systemd-journal\", container!=\"\"} [$__auto]))",
+          "legendFormat": "{{container_name}}",
+          "refId": "A"
+        }
+      ]
     },
     {
-      "id": 2, "type": "timeseries", "title": "Total log rate",
+      "id": 2,
+      "type": "timeseries",
+      "title": "Total log rate",
       "description": "All journal lines per second.",
-      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 0, "y": 9 },
+      "gridPos": {
-      "datasource": { "type": "loki", "uid": "loki" },
+        "h": 8,
-      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "reqps" }, "overrides": [] },
+        "w": 12,
-      "targets": [{ "expr": "sum(count_over_time({job=\"systemd-journal\"} [$__auto]))", "legendFormat": "all lines/s", "refId": "A" }]
+        "x": 0,
+        "y": 9
+      },
+      "datasource": {
+        "type": "loki",
+        "uid": "loki"
+      },
+      "fieldConfig": {
+        "defaults": {
+          "unit": "reqps"
+        },
+        "overrides": []
+      },
+      "targets": [
+        {
+          "expr": "sum(count_over_time({job=\"systemd-journal\"} [$__auto]))",
+          "legendFormat": "all lines/s",
+          "refId": "A"
+        }
+      ]
     },
     {
-      "id": 3, "type": "timeseries", "title": "Error-level line rate",
+      "id": 3,
+      "type": "timeseries",
+      "title": "Error-ish line rate (text match)",
       "description": "Lines matching error/panic/fatal/fail. A blunt text match \u2014 the journal carries no structured level for all units.",
-      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 12, "y": 9 },
+      "gridPos": {
-      "datasource": { "type": "loki", "uid": "loki" },
+        "h": 8,
-      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "reqps", "color": { "mode": "fixed", "fixedColor": "red" } }, "overrides": [] },
+        "w": 12,
-      "targets": [{ "expr": "sum(count_over_time({job=\"systemd-journal\"} |~ \"(?i)(error|panic|fatal|fail)\" [$__auto]))", "legendFormat": "error lines/s", "refId": "A" }]
+        "x": 12,
+        "y": 9
+      },
+      "datasource": {
+        "type": "loki",
+        "uid": "loki"
+      },
+      "fieldConfig": {
+        "defaults": {
+          "unit": "reqps",
+          "color": {
+            "mode": "fixed",
+            "fixedColor": "red"
+          }
+        },
+        "overrides": []
+      },
+      "targets": [
+        {
+          "expr": "sum(count_over_time({job=\"systemd-journal\"} |~ \"(?i)(error|panic|fatal|fail)\" [$__auto]))",
+          "legendFormat": "error lines/s",
+          "refId": "A"
+        }
+      ]
     },
     {
-      "id": 4, "type": "timeseries", "title": "Errors by container",
+      "id": 4,
+      "type": "timeseries",
+      "title": "Errors by container",
       "description": "Which unit is throwing. Rank by the top offenders.",
-      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 0, "y": 17 },
+      "gridPos": {
-      "datasource": { "type": "loki", "uid": "loki" },
+        "h": 8,
-      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "reqps" }, "overrides": [] },
+        "w": 12,
-      "targets": [{ "expr": "sum by (container_name) (count_over_time({job=\"systemd-journal\"} |~ \"(?i)(error|panic|fatal)\" | json [$__auto]))", "legendFormat": "{{container_name}}", "refId": "A" }]
+        "x": 0,
+        "y": 17
+      },
+      "datasource": {
+        "type": "loki",
+        "uid": "loki"
+      },
+      "fieldConfig": {
+        "defaults": {
+          "unit": "reqps"
+        },
+        "overrides": []
+      },
+      "targets": [
+        {
+          "expr": "sum by (container) (count_over_time({job=\"systemd-journal\", container!=\"\"} |~ \"(?i)(error|panic|fatal)\" [$__auto]))",
+          "legendFormat": "{{container_name}}",
+          "refId": "A"
+        }
+      ]
     },
     {
-      "id": 5, "type": "stat", "title": "Error lines (last 15m)",
+      "id": 5,
+      "type": "stat",
+      "title": "Error lines (last 15m)",
       "description": "Absolute count over the window, not a rate.",
-      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 12, "y": 17 },
+      "gridPos": {
-      "datasource": { "type": "loki", "uid": "loki" },
+        "h": 8,
-      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "short", "thresholds": { "mode": "absolute", "steps": [{ "color": "green", "value": null }, { "color": "yellow", "value": 50 }, { "color": "red", "value": 500 }] } }, "overrides": [] },
+        "w": 12,
-      "targets": [{ "expr": "sum(count_over_time({job=\"systemd-journal\"} |~ \"(?i)(error|panic|fatal)\" [15m]))", "instant": true, "legendFormat": "errors/15m", "refId": "A" }]
+        "x": 12,
+        "y": 17
+      },
+      "datasource": {
+        "type": "loki",
+        "uid": "loki"
+      },
+      "fieldConfig": {
+        "defaults": {
+          "unit": "short",
+          "thresholds": {
+            "mode": "absolute",
+            "steps": [
+              {
+                "color": "green",
+                "value": null
+              },
+              {
+                "color": "yellow",
+                "value": 50
+              },
+              {
+                "color": "red",
+                "value": 500
+              }
+            ]
+          }
+        },
+        "overrides": []
+      },
+      "targets": [
+        {
+          "expr": "sum(count_over_time({job=\"systemd-journal\"} |~ \"(?i)(error|panic|fatal)\" [15m]))",
+          "instant": true,
+          "legendFormat": "errors/15m",
+          "refId": "A"
+        }
+      ]
     },
     {
-      "id": 6, "type": "logs", "title": "Journal (filtered)",
+      "id": 6,
+      "type": "logs",
+      "title": "Journal (filtered)",
       "description": "Raw lines for the selected containers. Set the container picker; keep the window tight.",
-      "gridPos": { "h": 12, "w": 24, "x": 0, "y": 25 },
+      "gridPos": {
-      "datasource": { "type": "loki", "uid": "loki" },
+        "h": 12,
-      "options": { "showTime": true, "wrapLogMessage": true, "sortOrder": "Descending", "enableLogDetails": true },
+        "w": 24,
-      "targets": [{ "expr": "{job=\"systemd-journal\"} | json | container_name=~\"$container\"", "refId": "A" }]
+        "x": 0,
+        "y": 25
+      },
+      "datasource": {
+        "type": "loki",
+        "uid": "loki"
+      },
+      "options": {
+        "showTime": true,
+        "wrapLogMessage": true,
+        "sortOrder": "Descending",
+        "enableLogDetails": true
+      },
+      "targets": [
+        {
+          "expr": "{job=\"systemd-journal\", container=~\"$container\"}",
+          "refId": "A"
+        }
+      ]
     }
   ]
-}
+}

shared/grafana/provisioning/dashboards/observability.json

@@ -2,95 +2,384 @@
   "uid": "observability",
   "title": "Observability \u2014 self-monitoring",
   "description": "The health of the stack that watches the fleet: Prometheus scrape/TSDB, Loki ingest, Grafana. If this is red the dashboards lie. Note: Alertmanager is running but NOT scraped by Prometheus (no job) \u2014 its metrics are absent by design gap, not fault.",
-  "tags": ["observability", "meta"],
+  "tags": [
+    "observability",
+    "meta"
+  ],
   "timezone": "browser",
   "schemaVersion": 39,
   "refresh": "30s",
-  "time": { "from": "now-6h", "to": "now" },
+  "time": {
+    "from": "now-6h",
+    "to": "now"
+  },
   "panels": [
     {
-      "id": 1, "type": "stat", "title": "Targets up",
+      "id": 1,
-      "gridPos": { "h": 4, "w": 4, "x": 0, "y": 0 },
+      "type": "stat",
-      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+      "title": "Targets up",
-      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "short", "thresholds": { "mode": "absolute", "steps": [{ "color": "green", "value": null }] } }, "overrides": [] },
+      "gridPos": {
-      "targets": [{ "expr": "count(up == 1)", "instant": true, "refId": "A" }]
+        "h": 4,
+        "w": 4,
+        "x": 0,
+        "y": 0
+      },
+      "datasource": {
+        "type": "prometheus",
+        "uid": "prometheus"
+      },
+      "fieldConfig": {
+        "defaults": {
+          "unit": "short",
+          "thresholds": {
+            "mode": "absolute",
+            "steps": [
+              {
+                "color": "green",
+                "value": null
+              }
+            ]
+          }
+        },
+        "overrides": []
+      },
+      "targets": [
+        {
+          "expr": "count(up == 1)",
+          "instant": true,
+          "refId": "A"
+        }
+      ]
     },
     {
-      "id": 2, "type": "stat", "title": "Targets down",
+      "id": 2,
-      "description": "Known structural downs: comfyui (no metrics endpoint), gitea (metrics off), and the homepage 'services' probes. Real regressions ride up from here too \u2014 check the table before dismissing.",
+      "type": "stat",
-      "gridPos": { "h": 4, "w": 4, "x": 4, "y": 0 },
+      "title": "Targets down",
-      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+      "description": "Every scrape target that is down. ZERO IS THE HEALTHY STATE: the HTML-probe jobs and the disabled Gitea metrics were retired 2026-10-21 (HTTP liveness now rides the blackbox exporter, job \"services\"). A non-zero count here is a real regression - read /api/v1/targets lastError before triaging.",
-      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "short", "thresholds": { "mode": "absolute", "steps": [{ "color": "green", "value": null }, { "color": "red", "value": 1 }] } }, "overrides": [] },
+      "gridPos": {
-      "targets": [{ "expr": "count(up == 0)", "instant": true, "refId": "A" }]
+        "h": 4,
+        "w": 4,
+        "x": 4,
+        "y": 0
+      },
+      "datasource": {
+        "type": "prometheus",
+        "uid": "prometheus"
+      },
+      "fieldConfig": {
+        "defaults": {
+          "unit": "short",
+          "thresholds": {
+            "mode": "absolute",
+            "steps": [
+              {
+                "color": "green",
+                "value": null
+              },
+              {
+                "color": "red",
+                "value": 1
+              }
+            ]
+          }
+        },
+        "overrides": []
+      },
+      "targets": [
+        {
+          "expr": "count(up == 0)",
+          "instant": true,
+          "refId": "A"
+        }
+      ]
     },
     {
-      "id": 3, "type": "stat", "title": "TSDB head series",
+      "id": 3,
+      "type": "stat",
+      "title": "TSDB head series",
       "description": "Active series in memory. A jump = a new exporter or a label-cardinality leak.",
-      "gridPos": { "h": 4, "w": 5, "x": 8, "y": 0 },
+      "gridPos": {
-      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+        "h": 4,
-      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "short" }, "overrides": [] },
+        "w": 5,
-      "targets": [{ "expr": "prometheus_tsdb_head_series", "instant": true, "refId": "A" }]
+        "x": 8,
+        "y": 0
+      },
+      "datasource": {
+        "type": "prometheus",
+        "uid": "prometheus"
+      },
+      "fieldConfig": {
+        "defaults": {
+          "unit": "short"
+        },
+        "overrides": []
+      },
+      "targets": [
+        {
+          "expr": "prometheus_tsdb_head_series",
+          "instant": true,
+          "refId": "A"
+        }
+      ]
     },
     {
-      "id": 4, "type": "stat", "title": "Discovered targets",
+      "id": 4,
-      "gridPos": { "h": 4, "w": 5, "x": 13, "y": 0 },
+      "type": "stat",
-      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+      "title": "Discovered targets",
-      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "short" }, "overrides": [] },
+      "gridPos": {
-      "targets": [{ "expr": "sum(prometheus_sd_discovered_targets)", "instant": true, "refId": "A" }]
+        "h": 4,
+        "w": 5,
+        "x": 13,
+        "y": 0
+      },
+      "datasource": {
+        "type": "prometheus",
+        "uid": "prometheus"
+      },
+      "fieldConfig": {
+        "defaults": {
+          "unit": "short"
+        },
+        "overrides": []
+      },
+      "targets": [
+        {
+          "expr": "sum(prometheus_sd_discovered_targets)",
+          "instant": true,
+          "refId": "A"
+        }
+      ]
     },
     {
-      "id": 5, "type": "stat", "title": "Prometheus mem",
+      "id": 5,
-      "gridPos": { "h": 4, "w": 3, "x": 18, "y": 0 },
+      "type": "stat",
-      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+      "title": "Prometheus mem",
-      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "bytes" }, "overrides": [] },
+      "gridPos": {
-      "targets": [{ "expr": "process_resident_memory_bytes{job=\"prometheus\"}", "instant": true, "refId": "A" }]
+        "h": 4,
+        "w": 3,
+        "x": 18,
+        "y": 0
+      },
+      "datasource": {
+        "type": "prometheus",
+        "uid": "prometheus"
+      },
+      "fieldConfig": {
+        "defaults": {
+          "unit": "bytes"
+        },
+        "overrides": []
+      },
+      "targets": [
+        {
+          "expr": "process_resident_memory_bytes{job=\"prometheus\"}",
+          "instant": true,
+          "refId": "A"
+        }
+      ]
     },
     {
-      "id": 6, "type": "stat", "title": "Grafana up",
+      "id": 6,
-      "gridPos": { "h": 4, "w": 3, "x": 21, "y": 0 },
+      "type": "stat",
-      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+      "title": "Grafana up",
-      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "mappings": [{ "type": "value", "options": { "1": { "text": "UP", "color": "green" }, "0": { "text": "DOWN", "color": "red" } } }], "thresholds": { "mode": "absolute", "steps": [{ "color": "red", "value": null }, { "color": "green", "value": 1 }] } }, "overrides": [] },
+      "gridPos": {
-      "targets": [{ "expr": "up{job=\"grafana\"}", "instant": true, "refId": "A" }]
+        "h": 4,
+        "w": 3,
+        "x": 21,
+        "y": 0
+      },
+      "datasource": {
+        "type": "prometheus",
+        "uid": "prometheus"
+      },
+      "fieldConfig": {
+        "defaults": {
+          "mappings": [
+            {
+              "type": "value",
+              "options": {
+                "1": {
+                  "text": "UP",
+                  "color": "green"
+                },
+                "0": {
+                  "text": "DOWN",
+                  "color": "red"
+                }
+              }
+            }
+          ],
+          "thresholds": {
+            "mode": "absolute",
+            "steps": [
+              {
+                "color": "red",
+                "value": null
+              },
+              {
+                "color": "green",
+                "value": 1
+              }
+            ]
+          }
+        },
+        "overrides": []
+      },
+      "targets": [
+        {
+          "expr": "up{job=\"grafana\"}",
+          "instant": true,
+          "refId": "A"
+        }
+      ]
     },
     {
-      "id": 7, "type": "table", "title": "Target health",
+      "id": 7,
+      "type": "table",
+      "title": "Target health",
       "description": "Every scrape target and its current up. Sort by Value to surface regressions.",
-      "gridPos": { "h": 9, "w": 12, "x": 0, "y": 4 },
+      "gridPos": {
-      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+        "h": 9,
-      "options": { "sortBy": [{ "displayName": "Value", "sortOrder": "Asc" }] },
+        "w": 12,
-      "targets": [{ "expr": "up", "format": "table", "instant": true, "refId": "A" }]
+        "x": 0,
+        "y": 4
+      },
+      "datasource": {
+        "type": "prometheus",
+        "uid": "prometheus"
+      },
+      "options": {
+        "sortBy": [
+          {
+            "displayName": "Value",
+            "sortOrder": "Asc"
+          }
+        ]
+      },
+      "targets": [
+        {
+          "expr": "up",
+          "format": "table",
+          "instant": true,
+          "refId": "A"
+        }
+      ]
     },
     {
-      "id": 8, "type": "timeseries", "title": "Scrape interval drift (p99 actual)",
+      "id": 8,
+      "type": "timeseries",
+      "title": "Scrape interval drift (p99 actual)",
       "description": "Actual seconds between scrapes (summary quantile). Above the 15s scrape_interval = Prometheus is falling behind its own cadence (slow endpoints or overload).",
-      "gridPos": { "h": 9, "w": 12, "x": 12, "y": 4 },
+      "gridPos": {
-      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+        "h": 9,
-      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "s" }, "overrides": [] },
+        "w": 12,
-      "targets": [{ "expr": "prometheus_target_interval_length_seconds{quantile=\"0.99\"}", "legendFormat": "{{instance}}", "refId": "A" }]
+        "x": 12,
+        "y": 4
+      },
+      "datasource": {
+        "type": "prometheus",
+        "uid": "prometheus"
+      },
+      "fieldConfig": {
+        "defaults": {
+          "unit": "s"
+        },
+        "overrides": []
+      },
+      "targets": [
+        {
+          "expr": "prometheus_target_interval_length_seconds{quantile=\"0.99\"}",
+          "legendFormat": "{{instance}}",
+          "refId": "A"
+        }
+      ]
     },
     {
-      "id": 9, "type": "timeseries", "title": "Scrape samples/s",
+      "id": 9,
+      "type": "timeseries",
+      "title": "Scrape samples/s",
       "description": "Total samples ingested across all jobs.",
-      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 0, "y": 13 },
+      "gridPos": {
-      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+        "h": 8,
-      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "short" }, "overrides": [] },
+        "w": 12,
-      "targets": [{ "expr": "sum(rate(scrape_samples_scraped[5m]))", "legendFormat": "samples/s", "refId": "A" }]
+        "x": 0,
+        "y": 13
+      },
+      "datasource": {
+        "type": "prometheus",
+        "uid": "prometheus"
+      },
+      "fieldConfig": {
+        "defaults": {
+          "unit": "short"
+        },
+        "overrides": []
+      },
+      "targets": [
+        {
+          "expr": "sum(rate(scrape_samples_scraped[5m]))",
+          "legendFormat": "samples/s",
+          "refId": "A"
+        }
+      ]
     },
     {
-      "id": 10, "type": "timeseries", "title": "Loki request rate",
+      "id": 10,
+      "type": "timeseries",
+      "title": "Loki request rate",
       "description": "Loki served requests/s (push, query). A drop to zero means ingest or query has stopped.",
-      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 12, "y": 13 },
+      "gridPos": {
-      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+        "h": 8,
-      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "reqps" }, "overrides": [] },
+        "w": 12,
-      "targets": [{ "expr": "sum by (route) (rate(loki_request_duration_seconds_count[5m]))", "legendFormat": "{{route}}", "refId": "A" }]
+        "x": 12,
+        "y": 13
+      },
+      "datasource": {
+        "type": "prometheus",
+        "uid": "prometheus"
+      },
+      "fieldConfig": {
+        "defaults": {
+          "unit": "reqps"
+        },
+        "overrides": []
+      },
+      "targets": [
+        {
+          "expr": "sum by (route) (rate(loki_request_duration_seconds_count[5m]))",
+          "legendFormat": "{{route}}",
+          "refId": "A"
+        }
+      ]
     },
     {
-      "id": 11, "type": "timeseries", "title": "Exporter process CPU",
+      "id": 11,
+      "type": "timeseries",
+      "title": "Exporter process CPU",
       "description": "CPU by monitored process \u2014 spot a runaway exporter or the Prometheus process itself.",
-      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 24, "x": 0, "y": 21 },
+      "gridPos": {
-      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+        "h": 8,
-      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "percentunit" }, "overrides": [] },
+        "w": 24,
-      "targets": [{ "expr": "sum by (job) (rate(process_cpu_seconds_total[5m]))", "legendFormat": "{{job}}", "refId": "A" }]
+        "x": 0,
+        "y": 21
+      },
+      "datasource": {
+        "type": "prometheus",
+        "uid": "prometheus"
+      },
+      "fieldConfig": {
+        "defaults": {
+          "unit": "percentunit"
+        },
+        "overrides": []
+      },
+      "targets": [
+        {
+          "expr": "sum by (job) (rate(process_cpu_seconds_total[5m]))",
+          "legendFormat": "{{job}}",
+          "refId": "A"
+        }
+      ]
     }
   ]
-}
+}

shared/prometheus/prometheus.yml

@@ -60,20 +60,31 @@ scrape_configs:
       - targets: ["loki:3100"]
     metrics_path: "/metrics"
 
-  # ComfyUI (no native /metrics; probe the UI)
+  # HTTP liveness, probed honestly through the blackbox exporter. Scraping a
-  - job_name: "comfyui"
+  # web root is NOT a health check — an HTML front page fails the scrape
-    metrics_path: "/"
+  # protocol (`unsupported Content-Type`), which is exactly why the old
-    static_configs:
+  # `services` and `comfyui` jobs were red forever beside healthy services
-      - targets: ["comfyui:8188"]
+  # (Stale Signal Audit §1). The prober is a host-netns container reached at
-
+  # the podman gateway name (HostAddr= on the prometheus unit); it in turn
-  # Blackbox-style probes for service up/down (published LAN ports;
+  # reaches both the host LAN IP and bridge container names. comfyui's UI probe
-  # gitea and comfyui are covered by their own jobs above)
+  # lives here now — its own metrics-scrape job is retired, one owner per
+  # service.
   - job_name: "services"
-    metrics_path: "/"
+    metrics_path: /probe
+    params:
+      module: [http_2xx]
     static_configs:
       - targets:
-          - "192.168.0.143:8081"   # SearXNG (via the Gluetun tunnel)
+          - "http://192.168.0.143:8081"   # SearXNG (via the Gluetun tunnel)
-          - "192.168.0.143:3005"   # OpenWebUI
+          - "http://192.168.0.143:3005"   # OpenWebUI
+          - "http://comfyui:8188"         # ComfyUI UI (gfx1151 generator)
+    relabel_configs:
+      - source_labels: [__address__]
+        target_label: __param_target
+      - source_labels: [__param_target]
+        target_label: instance
+      - target_label: __address__
+        replacement: "host.containers.internal:9115"
 
   # LLM fleet. Scraped on the LAN addresses where the endpoint is reachable from
   # this container, not the guarded vhosts: these are machine clients and
@@ -140,12 +151,15 @@ scrape_configs:
   # system.slice daemons and machine.slice scopes carry no such name and are
   # dropped, as is the per-CPU-core split (only cpu="total" survives), so the
   # scrape stays small. cadvisor cannot bind per-interface, so it is reached at
-  # the host's PUBLISHED LAN port: unlike node-exporter's host-net bind (which
+  # the podman gateway like every same-host target: a BRIDGE CONTAINER CANNOT
-  # is why node-dankclaw scrapes via host.containers.internal), a published port
+  # DIAL ITS OWN HOST'S LAN IP AT ALL — the netavark hairpin gap refuses the
-  # IS reachable from this bridge container at the host LAN address.
+  # connection whether the port is a host-net bind or a published port (the
+  # original note here claimed published ports were exempt; measured 2026-10-21
+  # from inside this container: LAN refused, gateway answers). Cross-host
+  # targets (dankserver) have no hairpin problem and stay plain LAN.
   - job_name: "cadvisor-dankclaw"
     static_configs:
-      - targets: ["192.168.0.143:8080"]
+      - targets: ["host.containers.internal:8080"]
         labels:
           host: dankclaw
     metric_relabel_configs:
@@ -191,3 +205,25 @@ scrape_configs:
         action: keep
       - regex: 'id|name|image|container_label.*|machine_id|boot_id'
         action: labeldrop
+
+  # Per-GPU metrics (gpu_utilization_percent / gpu_memory_used_bytes /
+  # gpu_memory_total_bytes / gpu_temperature_celsius / gpu_power_watts) from the
+  # host-process gpu-exporter (scripts/gpu-exporter.py). One job per host, same
+  # reach rules as node/cadvisor: Dankclaw is scraped at the podman gateway
+  # because the netavark hairpin quirk makes Prometheus fail to dial its own
+  # host LAN IP; Dankserver is plain LAN. The gpu label (PCI BDF on AMD, index on
+  # NVIDIA) + vendor/model come from the exporter, so the GPU row on the
+  # host-system dashboard filters by host. Power is emitted only where readable
+  # (NVIDIA + the Dankclaw iGPU); the R9700s have no sysfs power, so they simply
+  # have no gpu_power_watts series — no fabricated zero.
+  - job_name: "gpu-dankclaw"
+    static_configs:
+      - targets: ["host.containers.internal:9401"]
+        labels:
+          host: dankclaw
+
+  - job_name: "gpu-dankserver"
+    static_configs:
+      - targets: ["192.168.0.235:9401"]
+        labels:
+          host: dankserver

tests/caddyfile.bats

@@ -193,7 +193,18 @@ CADDYFILE="$REPO_ROOT/dankclaw/Caddyfile"
 }
 
 @test "prometheus targets are host:port (no URL schemes)" {
-    ! grep -nE '^\s*-\s*"?http' "$REPO_ROOT/shared/prometheus/prometheus.yml"
+    # Plain scrape targets are host:port; a URL target is only meaningful for
+    # the blackbox prober job, whose relabel_configs copy it to __param_target
+    # and point __address__ at the prober. Anywhere else a URL target is the
+    # old HTML-probe defect wearing a new hat.
+    awk '
+        /job_name:/ { job=$0; sub(/.*"/, "", job); sub(/".*/, "", job); probe = 0 }
+        /metrics_path: \/probe/ { probe = 1 }
+        /^[[:space:]]*-[[:space:]]*"http/ && !probe {
+            print FILENAME ":" FNR ": URL target outside a prober job: " $0; bad = 1
+        }
+        END { exit bad }
+    ' "$REPO_ROOT/shared/prometheus/prometheus.yml"
 }
 
 @test "observability containers run as container root (rootless = host user)" {

tests/deployment_flow.bats

@@ -125,3 +125,28 @@ load helpers
     [ ! -e "$sandbox/frank-default-sightsound" ]
     [ -e "$BATS_TEST_TMPDIR/.AGENTTRASH/$(date +%Y%m%d)-retired-deploy-state/frank-default-sightsound" ]
 }
+
+@test "the client and remote allowlists agree per target" {
+    # Two gates guard `deploy.sh --service X`: the client's valid_service and
+    # the remote runner's service_is_allowed. When only one side gained a
+    # service the other answered "is not deployed on <target>" and the only
+    # repair path was a fleet-wide drain — cadvisor and gpu-exporter both fell
+    # through this crack within a day of each other. The lists MUST agree;
+    # searxng-network is the one sanctioned exception (client-only network
+    # unit, no remote dispatch handler).
+    run env OUT="$BATS_TEST_TMPDIR" bash -c '
+        grep -oE "dank(claw|server):[a-z0-9-]+" \
+            <(sed -n "/^valid_service()/,/^}/p" "$1/scripts/deploy.sh") \
+            | grep -v "dankclaw:searxng-network" | sort -u > "$OUT/cli"
+        grep -oE "dank(claw|server):[a-z0-9-]+" \
+            <(sed -n "/^service_is_allowed()/,/^}/p" "$1/scripts/deploy-remote.sh") \
+            | sort -u > "$OUT/rem"
+        diff "$OUT/cli" "$OUT/rem"
+    ' _ "$REPO_ROOT"
+    [ "$status" -eq 0 ] || { echo "deploy.sh vs deploy-remote.sh allowlist drift:"; echo "$output"; return 1; }
+    # Drift aside, the gate must actually know the host-process exporters —
+    # their first-ever deploy has to pass the client gate.
+    for pair in dankclaw:cadvisor dankclaw:gpu-exporter dankserver:cadvisor dankserver:gpu-exporter; do
+        grep -q "$pair" "$BATS_TEST_TMPDIR/cli" || { echo "client gate missing $pair"; return 1; }
+    done
+}

tests/frank_archon_unit.bats

@@ -145,7 +145,7 @@ nosudo_bin() {
     # (torch.compile query_start_loc constraint, 2026-10-02); radiance booted
     # seqs 2 in the fp8-native era and the 2026-10-06 sweep had seqs 2 and 3
     # tied inside the +-3% noise floor — slots buy concurrency, not speed.
-    grep -q '^FRANK_ARCHON_MAX_SEQS=2$' "$ENV_FILE"
+    grep -q '^FRANK_ARCHON_MAX_SEQS=4$' "$ENV_FILE"
     grep -q '^FRANK_ARCHON_TP=2$' "$ENV_FILE"
     grep -q '^FRANK_ARCHON_TP_WIRE=wht6$' "$ENV_FILE"
     grep -q '^FRANK_ARCHON_SPEC_TOKENS=2$' "$ENV_FILE"
@@ -158,7 +158,7 @@ nosudo_bin() {
     # so the pool's token count is a boot-ledger line — verified live by the
     # capacity leg of scripts/probe-frank-archon-kv.py at every cutover.
     grep -q '^FRANK_ARCHON_PLACEMENT=expert_tiered$' "$ENV_FILE"
-    grep -q '^FRANK_ARCHON_HOST_POOL_MIB=44928$' "$ENV_FILE"
+    grep -q '^FRANK_ARCHON_HOST_POOL_MIB=49152$' "$ENV_FILE"
     grep -q '^FRANK_ARCHON_KV_DTYPE=fp8$' "$ENV_FILE"
     grep -q '^FRANK_ARCHON_NGRAM_PLACEMENT=ram$' "$ENV_FILE"
     # Prefix cache: pinned host RAM only (the disk tier was removed), and the
@@ -177,8 +177,11 @@ nosudo_bin() {
     [ "$ttmt" -gt "$ttmm" ]
     pool=$(awk -F= '/^FRANK_ARCHON_HOST_POOL_MIB=/{print $2}' "$ENV_FILE")
     ph=$(awk -F= '/^FRANK_ARCHON_PREFIX_CACHE_MIB=/{print $2}' "$ENV_FILE")
-    # 2 pools + PLE 47.7 GiB (48,824 MiB) + prefix host, rounded up.
+    # 2 pools + PLE 47.7 GiB (48,824 MiB) + prefix host + MNBT + the auto
-    ledger=$(( 2 * pool + 48824 + ph + 2048 ))
+    # checkpoint store (MAX_SEQS x 10 slots of 112 MiB -- the store is pinned host
+    # memory too, and it grows with the slot count).
+    seqs=$(awk -F= '/^FRANK_ARCHON_MAX_SEQS=/{print $2}' "$ENV_FILE")
+    ledger=$(( 2 * pool + 48824 + ph + 2048 + seqs * 10 * 112 ))
     [ "$ttmm" -ge "$ledger" ]
     # The .rad size floor is positive (a truncated convert must fail fast).
     grep -q '^FRANK_ARCHON_RAD_MIN_MIB=' "$ENV_FILE"

tests/frank_dragoon_unit.bats

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 # of the abliterated Qwen3.8-Flash-Next (a .hgn flash-server payload) on the
 # Strix Halo iGPU through the halogen-flash-server CONTAINER (0.16.2,
 # digest-pinned), driven by the root unit's serve script — 2 slots over ONE
-# 200,704-position KV pool with the MTP head always on (HALOGEN_SPEC_ADAPT=0)
+# 401,408-position KV pool at the native 262,144 ceiling, MTP head always on (HALOGEN_SPEC_ADAPT=0)
 # and the vision tower mounted. 2026-10-17 cutover from the Swift1.5-finetune
 # shape, which itself cut over the halogen 27B-dense shape on 2026-10-06.
 #
@@ -85,7 +85,7 @@ good_env() {
         "FRANK_DRAGOON_VISION_BYTES=0"
         "FRANK_DRAGOON_TOKENIZER_FILES=tok.json"
         "HALOGEN_MODEL_ID=frank-dragoon"
-        "HALOGEN_CTX=200704"
+        "HALOGEN_CTX=262144"
         "HALOGEN_KV_POOL_POSITIONS=401408"
         "HALOGEN_KV_SLOTS=2"
         "HALOGEN_SPEC_ADAPT=0"
@@ -159,9 +159,11 @@ good_env() {
     reserve="$(sed -nE 's/^HALOGEN_HOST_RESERVE_GIB=([0-9]+)$/\1/p' "$ENV_FILE")"
     # The pool is ONE budget behind the slots (boot ledger form: "2 slots over
     # ONE <pool>-position KV pool, each request up to HALOGEN_CTX"), NOT
-    # a per-slot private pool. Since 2026-10-18 it is sized pool = slots * ctx
+    # a per-slot private pool. Since 2026-10-21 the ceiling is the checkpoint's
-    # (401,408 = 2 x 200,704), so two MAXIMUM-length conversations can be
+    # native 262,144 while the pool stays 401,408 (raised 2026-10-18): two
-    # resident at once — frank-zealot parity on total in-flight context. What
+    # MAXIMUM harness-length (200,000-token) conversations are resident at once;
+    # two literal ceiling-length requests would queue — widening that is a pool
+    # raise, not a window move.
     # still binds: the pool must back ONE full-length request (below that the
     # advertised per-request ceiling would be unreachable, hence pool >= ctx),
     # it must not pretend to be more than slots x ctx (pool <= slots * ctx), and
@@ -287,7 +289,7 @@ $(cat "$TEST_TMP/serve.log")"
     [[ "$output" == *"--name frank-dragoon-halogen"* ]]
     [[ "$output" == *"--publish 7770:8731"* ]]
     [[ "$output" == *"-e HALOGEN_MODEL_ID=frank-dragoon"* ]]
-    [[ "$output" == *"-e HALOGEN_CTX=200704"* ]]
+    [[ "$output" == *"-e HALOGEN_CTX=262144"* ]]
     [[ "$output" == *"-e HALOGEN_KV_POOL_POSITIONS=401408"* ]]
     [[ "$output" == *"-e HALOGEN_KV_SLOTS=2"* ]]
     [[ "$output" == *"-e HALOGEN_SPEC_ADAPT=0"* ]]
@@ -306,27 +308,32 @@ $(cat "$TEST_TMP/serve.log")"
 
 @test "the shipped env keeps the harness fit law inside the ceiling" {
     # HALOGEN_CTX is the hard per-request ceiling (a longer prompt is a 400
-    # naming the limit, never a silent truncation). The law is INVARIANT to
+    # naming the limit, never a silent truncation). The law: the harness
-    # the value: the harness window must sit ~45k UNDER it, because the
+    # window must sit ~45k UNDER the ceiling, because the harness clamps
-    # harness clamps max_tokens = min(45056, window − est − 4096), compacts
+    # max_tokens = min(45056, window − est − 4096), compacts at the trigger
-    # at 85 % of its declared window, and its chars/4 est UNDER-counts the
+    # percent of its declared window, and its chars/4 est UNDER-counts the
-    # rendered prompt by ~3 % on code/agent traffic (measured 4,450 tokens at
+    # rendered prompt by ~3 % on code/agent traffic (measured 4,450 tokens
-    # est 152,938 on 2026-10-07 — with window == ceiling, every request over
+    # at est 152,938 on 2026-10-07 — with window ≈ ceiling, every long
-    # ~65 % of the window was a guaranteed 400 before compaction could fire).
+    # request is a guaranteed 400 before compaction can fire). The 2026-10-21
-    # The shipped pair is ctx 200704 / window 155648 (lowered from
+    # pair: ceiling 262144 (native) under a harness window of 200,000.
-    # 262144/217088 on 2026-10-17); the gap must absorb the error at BOTH
+    # The declared window is read from the endpoint page — the one owner —
-    # monotone maxima of est + budget (est ≤ window − 4096):
+    # so env, models.yml and page that disagree FAIL HERE, not as a 400
-    #   full budget at the compaction threshold: 1.03*132300 + 45056
+    # mid-session (the recurring failure this seam exists for).
-    #   clamped budget at the clamp's zero point: 1.03*151552 + 0
+    grep -qE '^HALOGEN_CTX=262144$' "$ENV_FILE"
-    # and the compaction request that rides on frank-zealot (its
+    ctx="$(sed -nE 's/^HALOGEN_CTX=([0-9]+)$/\1/p' "$ENV_FILE")"
-    # 200,704-token slot) must fit: input ≈ threshold − keepRecent(20k).
+    page="$ROOT/serverAppConfigs-docs/LLM/frank-dragoon.md"
-    grep -qE '^HALOGEN_CTX=200704$' "$ENV_FILE"
+    grep -qE 'contextWindow: 200000' "$page"
-    ctx=200704
+    hw="$(grep -oE 'contextWindow: [0-9]+' "$page" | head -1 | grep -oE '[0-9]+')"
-    hw=155648; mt=45056
+    mt=45056
-    thr=$(( hw * 85 / 100 ))
+    # Invariant checked at the live 95 % trigger (config.yml
+    # thresholdPercent) — strictly stronger than the 85 % design point.
+    # Both monotone maxima of est + budget (est ≤ window − 4096):
+    thr=$(( hw * 95 / 100 ))
     [ $(( thr * 103 / 100 + mt )) -le "$ctx" ]
     zero=$(( hw - 4096 ))
     [ $(( zero * 103 / 100 )) -le "$ctx" ]
+    # The compaction request rides on frank-zealot's 200,704-token slot:
+    # input ≈ threshold − keepRecent(20k).
     [ $(( (thr - 20000) * 103 / 100 )) -le 200704 ]
 }
 
@@ -423,9 +430,12 @@ npu_fixture() {
     # the stock root:render 0660 mode, and the serve gate checks exactly that.
     touch "$TEST_TMP/accel0"
     chmod 666 "$TEST_TMP/accel0"
-    mkdir -p "$TEST_TMP/xrt"
+    # basename carries a multiarch shape: the third mount prefix is derived
+    # from the XRT dir's basename (the NPU child searches
+    # /opt/xilinx/lib/<multiarch>/, measured 2026-10-21).
+    mkdir -p "$TEST_TMP/x86_64-linux-gnu"
     for l in libxrt_coreutil.so.2 libxrt_core.so.2 libxrt_driver_xdna.so.2; do
-        touch "$TEST_TMP/xrt/$l"
+        touch "$TEST_TMP/x86_64-linux-gnu/$l"
     done
     mkdir -p "$TEST_TMP/npu/qwen3-embedding-0.6b/devices"
     mkdir -p "$TEST_TMP/sys/class/drm/card1/device"
@@ -435,7 +445,7 @@ npu_fixture() {
         "HALOGEN_NPU_MODELS=qwen3-embedding-0.6b"
         "FRANK_DRAGOON_NPU_DIR=$TEST_TMP/npu"
         "FRANK_DRAGOON_DEV_ACCEL=$TEST_TMP/accel0"
-        "FRANK_DRAGOON_XRT_DIR=$TEST_TMP/xrt"
+        "FRANK_DRAGOON_XRT_DIR=$TEST_TMP/x86_64-linux-gnu"
         "FRANK_DRAGOON_SYSFS=$TEST_TMP/sys"
     )
 }
@@ -465,11 +475,15 @@ $(cat "$TEST_TMP/serve.log")"
     ! grep -q 'accel0' "$TEST_TMP/serve.log"
 }
 
-@test "the lane arms the accel node, the staged model dir and each XRT library twice" {
+@test "the lane arms the accel node, the staged model dir and each XRT library three times" {
-    # Each library mounts at the image's XRT path AND at its own path: the
+    # Each library mounts at the image's XRT path, at its own path (the distro
-    # distro libraries find each other where they were installed, and an
+    # libraries find each other where they were installed), and at
-    # /opt/xilinx/xrt of symlinks into the system dir dangles inside the
+    # /opt/xilinx/lib/<multiarch>/ — the prefix the NPU child searches and
-    # container (the vendor calls that out by name).
+    # names when it is missing (`No such library
+    # '/opt/xilinx/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxrt_core.so.2'`, measured
+    # 2026-10-21: the lane died and the supervisor took the whole container
+    # with it, 88-restart loop). An /opt/xilinx/xrt of symlinks into the
+    # system dir dangles inside the container (the vendor calls that out).
     podman_stub
     good_env
     npu_fixture
@@ -484,8 +498,9 @@ $(cat "$TEST_TMP/serve.log")"
     [[ "$output" != *":/models/npu"* ]]
     [[ "$output" == *"-e HALOGEN_NPU_MODELS=qwen3-embedding-0.6b"* ]]
     for l in libxrt_coreutil.so.2 libxrt_core.so.2 libxrt_driver_xdna.so.2; do
-        [[ "$output" == *"-v $TEST_TMP/xrt/$l:/opt/xilinx/xrt/lib/$l:ro"* ]]
+        [[ "$output" == *"-v $TEST_TMP/x86_64-linux-gnu/$l:/opt/xilinx/xrt/lib/$l:ro"* ]]
-        [[ "$output" == *"-v $TEST_TMP/xrt/$l:$TEST_TMP/xrt/$l:ro"* ]]
+        [[ "$output" == *"-v $TEST_TMP/x86_64-linux-gnu/$l:$TEST_TMP/x86_64-linux-gnu/$l:ro"* ]]
+        [[ "$output" == *"-v $TEST_TMP/x86_64-linux-gnu/$l:/opt/xilinx/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/$l:ro"* ]]
     done
     # The Flash payload still rides the same container: the lane is additive.
     [[ "$output" == *"-e HALOGEN_CHECKPOINT=/models/qwen.hgn"* ]]
@@ -560,7 +575,7 @@ $(cat "$TEST_TMP/serve.log")"
     podman_stub
     good_env
     npu_fixture
-    rm "$TEST_TMP/xrt/libxrt_driver_xdna.so.2"
+    rm "$TEST_TMP/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxrt_driver_xdna.so.2"
     run_with_log
     [ "$status" -ne 0 ]
     [[ "$output" == *"libxrt_driver_xdna.so.2 missing"* ]]

tests/gpu_exporter.bats

@@ -0,0 +1,227 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bats
+# Seam: the GPU metrics exporter's black-box contract.
+#
+# The exporter reads amdgpu sysfs (one card per /sys/class/drm/cardN that has a
+# device/gpu_busy_percent file) and, on the box that has a working NVIDIA stack,
+# one `nvidia-smi --query-gpu` CSV, and emits the unified `gpu_*` Prometheus
+# families the host-system dashboard graphs. Both sources are injectable so the
+# whole thing is testable with fixtures on a GPU-less dev box.
+#
+# Only the inputs a consumer sees are pinned: the metric families, their label
+# set, and that absent hardware yields ABSENT series (never a fabricated 0 — a
+# wrong number on a dashboard gets believed). The R9700s expose no sysfs
+# power1_average, so those cards legitimately carry no gpu_power_watts line.
+
+load helpers
+
+EXPORTER="$REPO_ROOT/scripts/gpu-exporter.py"
+
+# Build a fixture amdgpu sysfs tree. $BATS_TEST_TMPDIR/sys
+mk_amd() { # gpu busy vram_used vram_total power_uw_or_blank temp_mc
+    local card=$1 busy=$2 used=$3 total=$4 power=$5 temp=$6
+    local d="$SYS/card$card/device"
+    mkdir -p "$d/hwmon/hwmon9"
+    printf '%s\n' "$busy" > "$d/gpu_busy_percent"
+    printf '%s\n' "$used" > "$d/mem_info_vram_used"
+    printf '%s\n' "$total" > "$d/mem_info_vram_total"
+    printf '%s\n' "$power" > "$d/power1_average"          # blank => absent on R9700
+    [ -n "$temp" ] && printf '%s\n' "$temp" > "$d/hwmon/hwmon9/temp1_input"
+    printf 'DRIVER=amdgpu\nPCI_ID=1002:7551\nPCI_SLOT_NAME=0000:03:00.0\n' > "$d/uevent"
+}
+
+setup() {
+    SYS="$BATS_TEST_TMPDIR/sys"
+    mkdir -p "$SYS"
+}
+
+@test "exporter exists and compiles" {
+    [ -f "$EXPORTER" ]
+    python3 -m py_compile "$EXPORTER"
+}
+
+@test "amd card with full sysfs yields util/vram/temp/power with the right labels and units" {
+    mk_amd 1 42 1073741824 34359738368 250000000 71000   # 250 W, 71 C
+    run python3 "$EXPORTER" --amdgpu-sysfs "$SYS" --nvidia-cmd false
+    [ "$status" -eq 0 ] || { echo "$output"; return 1; }
+    # util is a raw percent, VRAM verbatim bytes, temp milli->C, power microW->W.
+    echo "$output" | grep -Eq 'gpu_utilization_percent\{[^}]*vendor="amd"[^}]*\} 42$' || { echo "$output"; return 1; }
+    echo "$output" | grep -Eq 'gpu_memory_used_bytes\{[^}]*\} 1073741824$' || { echo "$output"; return 1; }
+    echo "$output" | grep -Eq 'gpu_memory_total_bytes\{[^}]*\} 34359738368$' || { echo "$output"; return 1; }
+    echo "$output" | grep -Eq 'gpu_temperature_celsius\{[^}]*\} 71$' || { echo "$output"; return 1; }
+    echo "$output" | grep -Eq 'gpu_power_watts\{[^}]*\} 250$' || { echo "$output"; return 1; }
+    # identity labels: the PCI slot is a stable unique id, vendor marks the family.
+    echo "$output" | grep -Eq 'gpu_utilization_percent\{.*gpu="0000:03:00\.0"' || { echo "$output"; return 1; }
+}
+
+@test "card with an empty power file and no hwmon yields util/vram but omits power and temp" {
+    mk_amd 1 99 34108338176 34208743424 "" ""           # the R9700 shape
+    run python3 "$EXPORTER" --amdgpu-sysfs "$SYS" --nvidia-cmd false
+    [ "$status" -eq 0 ] || { echo "$output"; return 1; }
+    echo "$output" | grep -Eq 'gpu_utilization_percent\{[^}]*\} 99$' || { echo "$output"; return 1; }
+    echo "$output" | grep -Eq 'gpu_memory_used_bytes\{[^}]*\} 34108338176$'
+    # Absent means ABSENT, not a zero the dashboard would plot as a real reading.
+    ! echo "$output" | grep -Eq '^gpu_power_watts\{' || { echo "fabricated power line: $output"; return 1; }
+    ! echo "$output" | grep -Eq '^gpu_temperature_celsius\{' || { echo "fabricated temp line: $output"; return 1; }
+}
+
+@test "nvidia csv yields util/vram/temp/power tagged vendor=nvidia" {
+    nvidia="$BATS_TEST_TMPDIR/nvidia-smi"
+    cat > "$nvidia" <<'STUB'
+echo '0, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, 93, 23004, 24576, 76, 397.40'
+STUB
+    chmod +x "$nvidia"
+    run python3 "$EXPORTER" --amdgpu-sysfs "$SYS" --nvidia-cmd "$nvidia"
+    [ "$status" -eq 0 ] || { echo "$output"; return 1; }
+    echo "$output" | grep -Eq 'gpu_utilization_percent\{[^}]*vendor="nvidia"[^}]*\} 93$' || { echo "$output"; return 1; }
+    # memory.used MiB -> bytes (23004 * 1048576)
+    echo "$output" | grep -Eq 'gpu_memory_used_bytes\{[^}]*vendor="nvidia"[^}]*\} 24121442304$' || { echo "$output"; return 1; }
+    echo "$output" | grep -Eq 'gpu_temperature_celsius\{[^}]*vendor="nvidia"[^}]*\} 76$'
+    echo "$output" | grep -Eq 'gpu_power_watts\{[^}]*vendor="nvidia"[^}]*\} 397\.4$'
+    echo "$output" | grep -Eq 'model="NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090"'
+}
+
+@test "a failing nvidia command is tolerated: amd still emits and exit is 0" {
+    mk_amd 1 50 1000000 2000000 "" 40000
+    failing="$BATS_TEST_TMPDIR/nvidia-fail"
+    printf '#!/bin/sh\nexit 1\n' > "$failing"; chmod +x "$failing"
+    run python3 "$EXPORTER" --amdgpu-sysfs "$SYS" --nvidia-cmd "$failing"
+    [ "$status" -eq 0 ] || { echo "$output"; return 1; }
+    echo "$output" | grep -Eq 'gpu_utilization_percent\{[^}]*vendor="amd"[^}]*\} 50$'
+    ! echo "$output" | grep -q 'vendor="nvidia"'
+}
+
+@test "no GPUs at all yields only HELP/TYPE headers and exits 0" {
+    run python3 "$EXPORTER" --amdgpu-sysfs "$SYS" --nvidia-cmd false
+    [ "$status" -eq 0 ] || { echo "$output"; return 1; }
+    # families are declared even when empty, so the dashboard/queries stay valid.
+    echo "$output" | grep -q '# TYPE gpu_utilization_percent gauge'
+    echo "$output" | grep -q '# TYPE gpu_memory_used_bytes gauge'
+    ! echo "$output" | grep -Eq '^gpu_utilization_percent\{'
+}
+
+@test "output is valid Prometheus text" {
+    mk_amd 1 42 1000 2000 "" 50000
+    run python3 "$EXPORTER" --amdgpu-sysfs "$SYS" --nvidia-cmd false
+    [ "$status" -eq 0 ]
+    # every non-comment line is "<name>{labels} value" or "<name> value"
+    printf '%s\n' "$output" | python3 -c '
+import sys, re
+pat = re.compile(r"^[a-z_]+(\{[^}]*\})? [-+0-9.eE+]+$")
+for i, l in enumerate(sys.stdin):
+    l = l.rstrip("\n")
+    if not l or l.startswith("#"):
+        continue
+    assert pat.match(l), "malformed line %d: %r" % (i, l)
+print("prometheus text ok")
+'
+}
+
+# ---- deployment + wiring contracts -------------------------------------
+# The exporter is a HOST-PROCESS user unit (not a quadlet): it must read the
+# host's own DRM sysfs and shell to nvidia-smi, which a container could not do
+# without GPU passthrough. These tests pin the cross-file wiring a reader
+# cannot eyeball — a lone change on one side leaves the metric silently absent.
+
+@test "the base unit runs the exporter from the checkout and never binds a wildcard" {
+    local u="$REPO_ROOT/scripts/gpu-exporter.service"
+    [ -f "$u" ]
+    grep -q '^ExecStart=/usr/bin/python3 /home/dank/serverAppConfigs/scripts/gpu-exporter.py --serve$' "$u" \
+        || { echo "unit does not run the exporter --serve from the checkout"; return 1; }
+    grep -q '^Restart=always$' "$u"
+    grep -q '^WantedBy=default.target$' "$u"
+    # Base unit binds loopback only; the per-host LAN address is added by a
+    # deploy drop-in, so a checked-in unit is never a wildcard.
+    grep -q '^Environment=GPU_EXPORTER_BINDS=127.0.0.1$' "$u"
+    ! grep -qE '0\.0\.0\.0' "$u"
+}
+
+@test "the deployer installs, drops in the LAN bind, and health-gates gpu-exporter" {
+    local handler="$REPO_ROOT/scripts/deploy-remote.sh"
+    grep -q '^deploy_gpu_exporter() {' "$handler"
+    # Per-host LAN from $TARGET (never a hardcoded host, never a wildcard).
+    grep -q 'dankclaw) lan=192.168.0.143' "$handler"
+    grep -q 'dankserver) lan=192.168.0.235' "$handler"
+    # Drop-in binds loopback + this host's LAN as one comma list.
+    grep -q "GPU_EXPORTER_BINDS=127.0.0.1,%s" "$handler"
+    grep -q 'systemctl --user enable gpu-exporter.service' "$handler"
+    grep -q 'systemctl --user restart gpu-exporter.service' "$handler"
+    # Health gate waits on the loopback metrics endpoint.
+    grep -q 'http://127.0.0.1:9401/metrics' "$handler"
+    # Dispatched from the central case.
+    grep -q 'gpu-exporter) deploy_gpu_exporter ;;' "$handler"
+    # Allowlisted on BOTH hosts.
+    grep -q 'dankclaw:gpu-exporter' "$handler"
+    grep -q 'dankserver:gpu-exporter' "$handler"
+}
+
+@test "the planner selects gpu-exporter for its files on each target" {
+    local t f
+    for t in dankclaw dankserver; do
+        for f in scripts/gpu-exporter.py scripts/gpu-exporter.service; do
+            run python3 "$REPO_ROOT/scripts/deploy-plan.py" --target "$t" --paths "$f"
+            [ "$status" -eq 0 ]
+            [ "$output" = "gpu-exporter" ] || { echo "$t/$f -> '$output'"; return 1; }
+        done
+    done
+}
+
+@test "Prometheus scrapes gpu-exporter where node/cadvisor are reachable on each host" {
+    # Cross-file contract, same posture as node-exporter: the local instance is
+    # reached via the podman gateway (this Prometheus is a bridge container and
+    # a host-process bind is refused at the host LAN IP); the Dankserver
+    # instance is a different machine, so plain LAN routing reaches it. If either
+    # address drifts from the exporter's bind, GPU panels go blank with no error.
+    local cfg="$REPO_ROOT/shared/prometheus/prometheus.yml"
+    grep -q 'job_name: "gpu-dankclaw"' "$cfg" || { echo "no gpu-dankclaw job"; return 1; }
+    grep -q 'job_name: "gpu-dankserver"' "$cfg" || { echo "no gpu-dankserver job"; return 1; }
+    grep -q '"host.containers.internal:9401"' "$cfg" \
+        || { echo "gpu-dankclaw does not scrape the podman gateway"; return 1; }
+    grep -q '"192.168.0.235:9401"' "$cfg" \
+        || { echo "gpu-dankserver does not scrape the LAN address"; return 1; }
+    # A vhost target would be red forever (Prometheus cannot solve Anubis).
+    ! grep -qE '"[^"]*franksdank[^"]*:9401"' "$cfg"
+}
+
+@test "the host-system dashboard graphs the gpu_* families the exporter emits" {
+    local dash="$REPO_ROOT/shared/grafana/provisioning/dashboards/host-system.json"
+    [ -f "$dash" ]
+    python3 -c "
+import json
+d = json.load(open('$dash'))
+exprs = [t['expr'] for p in d['panels'] for t in p.get('targets', [])]
+for want in ('gpu_utilization_percent', 'gpu_memory_used_bytes',
+             'gpu_temperature_celsius', 'gpu_power_watts'):
+    assert any(want in e for e in exprs), ('missing', want, exprs)
+print('gpu dashboard panels ok')
+"
+}
+
+@test "--serve answers on EVERY declared bind, not just the first" {
+    # The deployed unit serves loopback + the host LAN address, and Prometheus
+    # reaches the host through the gateway — which dials the LAN-class bind.
+    # A server that only runs serve_forever() on the first socket leaves the
+    # second one listen()ing-but-never-accepting: the deploy health gate on
+    # loopback passes, every scrape on the other bind dies on the SYN backlog,
+    # and no gate but this one sees it. (This exact bug shipped 2026-10-21 and
+    # left both gpu-* targets down beside a green deploy.)
+    mk_amd 0 42 1073741824 34359738368 "" 71000
+    port=$((19400 + RANDOM % 500))
+    python3 "$EXPORTER" --serve --amdgpu-sysfs "$SYS" --nvidia-cmd false \
+        --bind 127.0.0.1 --bind 127.0.0.2 --port "$port" \
+        > "$BATS_TEST_TMPDIR/serve.log" 2>&1 &
+    local pid=$!
+    trap 'kill "$pid" 2>/dev/null' EXIT
+    local ok=0
+    for _ in $(seq 1 20); do
+        curl -fsS -m2 "http://127.0.0.1:$port/metrics" >/dev/null 2>&1 && { ok=1; break; }
+        sleep 0.25
+    done
+    [ "$ok" -eq 1 ] || { kill "$pid" 2>/dev/null; return 1; }
+    # Both binds must ANSWER within 2 s each — the second one is the bug.
+    for b in 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.2; do
+        curl -fsS -m2 "http://$b:$port/metrics" | grep -q '^gpu_utilization_percent{' \
+            || { echo "bind $b did not answer /metrics"; kill "$pid" 2>/dev/null; return 1; }
+    done
+    kill "$pid" 2>/dev/null
+    trap - EXIT
+}

tests/observability_quadlet.bats

@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ load helpers
 
 UNIT_DIR="$REPO_ROOT/dankclaw/observability/quadlet"
 REMOTE_DEPLOY="$REPO_ROOT/scripts/deploy-remote.sh"
-UNITS=(prometheus grafana loki alloy node-exporter cadvisor alertmanager)
+UNITS=(prometheus grafana loki alloy node-exporter cadvisor alertmanager blackbox-exporter)
 
 # container_section <unit> — the [Container] key/value block only
 container_section() {
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ service_section() {
     awk '/^\[Service\]/{f=1;next} /^\[/{f=0} f' "$1"
 }
 
-@test "all seven observability units exist under dankclaw/observability/quadlet/" {
+@test "all eight observability units exist under dankclaw/observability/quadlet/" {
     local svc
     for svc in "${UNITS[@]}"; do
         [ -f "$UNIT_DIR/$svc.container" ] || { echo "missing $svc.container"; return 1; }
@@ -595,16 +595,22 @@ assert any('ALERTS' in e for e in exprs), exprs
 }
 
 @test "Prometheus scrapes cadvisor where it is published and relabels the cgroup path to a container name" {
-    # Cross-file contract: cadvisor publishes the LAN port; a cadvisor scrape
+    # Cross-file contract, measured 2026-10-21 from inside the Prometheus
-    # job pointing anywhere else reads nothing (unlike node-exporter's host-net
+    # container: a bridge container cannot dial its OWN host's LAN IP — the
-    # bind, a published port IS reachable from this bridge container at the LAN
+    # hairpin refuses published ports exactly like host-net binds, so
-    # address). And the whole dashboard depends on the id -> container relabel:
+    # cadvisor-dankclaw must scrape via the podman gateway (the original pin
-    # cadvisor names nothing itself, the quadlet unit name is only in the cgroup
+    # here demanded the LAN address and shipped a permanently-down target).
-    # path. If either half changes alone, the Containers dashboard is blank.
+    # dankserver is a different machine: plain LAN there. And the whole
+    # dashboard depends on the id -> container relabel: cadvisor names nothing
+    # itself, the quadlet unit name is only in the cgroup path. If either half
+    # changes alone, the Containers dashboard is blank.
     local cfg="$REPO_ROOT/shared/prometheus/prometheus.yml"
     grep -q 'job_name: "cadvisor-dankclaw"' "$cfg" || { echo "no cadvisor-dankclaw job"; return 1; }
     grep -q 'job_name: "cadvisor-dankserver"' "$cfg" || { echo "no cadvisor-dankserver job"; return 1; }
-    grep -q '"192.168.0.143:8080"' "$cfg" || { echo "cadvisor-dankclaw does not scrape the published LAN port"; return 1; }
+    grep -q '"host.containers.internal:8080"' "$cfg" \
+        || { echo "cadvisor-dankclaw does not scrape via the podman gateway"; return 1; }
+    ! grep -q '"192.168.0.143:8080"' "$cfg" \
+        || { echo "cadvisor-dankclaw dials its own host LAN IP — hairpin refuses it"; return 1; }
     grep -q '"192.168.0.235:8080"' "$cfg" || { echo "cadvisor-dankserver does not scrape the published LAN port"; return 1; }
     # The relabel that turns …/app.slice/<name>.service… into a `container`.
     grep -q 'app\\.slice/(\[\^\.\]+)\\.service' "$cfg" || { echo "no cgroup-path -> container relabel"; return 1; }
@@ -638,3 +644,113 @@ assert not any('container_network' in e or 'container_fs_' in e for e in names),
     [ "$status" -eq 0 ]
     [ "$output" = "cadvisor" ]
 }
+
+@test "the grafana copier provisions EVERY dashboard json, not a hand-listed subset" {
+    # Behavioral, not a text grep: the copier is extracted and executed with a
+    # stubbed run_privileged against a sandbox. The fleet provider turns each
+    # file in its directory into a dashboard, so a file the copier skips is a
+    # dashboard that silently never exists (the containers board lived in the
+    # repo, never reached /opt, and its fixes were undeployable).
+    # BATS_TEST_TMPDIR: per-test, removed by bats itself; a mktemp dir with a
+    # RETURN trap races bats' own trap machinery and vanishes mid-function.
+    local sandbox="$BATS_TEST_TMPDIR/sandbox"
+    (
+        cd "$REPO_ROOT"
+        eval "$(sed -n '/^copy_grafana_provisioning()/,/^}/p' scripts/deploy-remote.sh)"
+        run_privileged() { "$@"; }
+        export GRAFANA_PROV_ROOT="$sandbox/opt/grafana"
+        copy_grafana_provisioning
+    )
+    local f
+    for f in "$REPO_ROOT"/shared/grafana/provisioning/dashboards/*.json; do
+        [ -f "$sandbox/opt/grafana/provisioning/dashboards/$(basename "$f")" ]
+    done
+    [ -f "$sandbox/opt/grafana/provisioning/dashboards/provider.yml" ]
+    [ -f "$sandbox/opt/grafana/provisioning/datasources/prometheus.yml" ]
+}
+
+@test "changes under shared/blackbox/ plan the prober" {
+    run python3 "$REPO_ROOT/scripts/deploy-plan.py" --target dankclaw \
+        --paths shared/blackbox/blackbox.yml
+    [ "$status" -eq 0 ]
+    [ "$output" = "blackbox-exporter" ]
+}
+
+@test "the copier runs the same code path the deployer runs" {
+    # Textually pinned so a refactor cannot quietly route the deployer around
+    # the copy_* functions the seams execute.
+    grep -q '        prometheus)' "$REMOTE_DEPLOY"
+    grep -q 'copy_prometheus_config' "$REMOTE_DEPLOY"
+    grep -q 'copy_alertmanager_config' "$REMOTE_DEPLOY"
+    grep -q 'copy_loki_config' "$REMOTE_DEPLOY"
+    grep -q '        blackbox-exporter)' "$REMOTE_DEPLOY"
+    grep -q 'copy_blackbox_config' "$REMOTE_DEPLOY"
+}
+
+@test "the alloy copier installs the host-labeled config, token-free" {
+    # Executes copy_alloy_config for real against a sandbox (stubbed
+    # run_privileged). A surviving GRAFANA_HOST_LABEL token would ship a
+    # config whose host label is a literal placeholder — the exact class of
+    # silent-label defect this tranche retired the board for.
+    local sandbox="$BATS_TEST_TMPDIR/opt"
+    (
+        cd "$REPO_ROOT"
+        eval "$(sed -n '/^copy_alloy_config()/,/^}/p' scripts/deploy-remote.sh)"
+        run_privileged() { "$@"; }
+        # NOTE: VAR=x func does not bind for shell functions — export.
+        export TARGET=dankclaw ALLOY_CONF_ROOT="$sandbox"
+        copy_alloy_config
+    )
+    [ -f "$sandbox/config/config.alloy" ]
+    grep -q 'host = "dankclaw",' "$sandbox/config/config.alloy"
+    ! grep -q "GRAFANA_HOST_LABEL" "$sandbox/config/config.alloy"
+}
+
+@test "the blackbox copier installs the prober config" {
+    local sandbox="$BATS_TEST_TMPDIR/blackbox"
+    (
+        cd "$REPO_ROOT"
+        eval "$(sed -n '/^copy_blackbox_config()/,/^}/p' scripts/deploy-remote.sh)"
+        run_privileged() { "$@"; }
+        export BLACKBOX_CONF_ROOT="$sandbox"
+        copy_blackbox_config
+    )
+    [ -f "$sandbox/blackbox.yml" ]
+    grep -q "listen_address: 127.0.0.1:9115" "$sandbox/blackbox.yml"
+}
+
+@test "the alloy copier refuses to install a config the engine rejects" {
+    # The syntax gate: alloy attributes are position-sensitive and a
+    # misplaced one only explodes at run time (crash-loop behind a green
+    # deploy). Prove the copier refuses a config the pinned image won't
+    # validate, and installs nothing. Needs the alloy image; skipped
+    # where it is absent (the copier's gate is likewise image-gated).
+    if ! podman image exists localhost/franksdank/alloy:latest; then
+        skip "franksdank/alloy image not present on this box"
+    fi
+    local sandbox="$BATS_TEST_TMPDIR/opt" cfg="$BATS_TEST_TMPDIR/broken.alloy"
+    sed 's/GRAFANA_HOST_LABEL/dankclaw/g' shared/alloy/config.alloy > "$cfg"
+    printf 'bogus_attr = "x"\n' >> "$cfg"
+    ! (
+        cd "$REPO_ROOT"
+        eval "$(sed -n '/^copy_alloy_config()/,/^}/p' scripts/deploy-remote.sh)"
+        run_privileged() { "$@"; }
+        cp() { if [ "$1" = "$cfg" ]; then return 1; fi; command cp "$@"; }
+        export TARGET=dankclaw ALLOY_CONF_ROOT="$sandbox"
+        copy_alloy_config
+    )
+    [ ! -f "$sandbox/config/config.alloy" ]
+}
+
+@test "the installed alloy config is engine-valid" {
+    # Runs the pinned image's own validator over the shipped config. The
+    # 2026-10-21 defect (`on_error` on the labels stage, which alloy 1.21
+    # does not define) passed every textual seam and only failed at boot.
+    if ! podman image exists localhost/franksdank/alloy:latest; then
+        skip "franksdank/alloy image not present on this box"
+    fi
+    local cfg="$BATS_TEST_TMPDIR/rendered.alloy"
+    sed 's/GRAFANA_HOST_LABEL/dankclaw/g' shared/alloy/config.alloy > "$cfg"
+    podman run --rm -v "$cfg:/c.alloy:ro" --entrypoint /usr/bin/alloy \
+        localhost/franksdank/alloy:latest validate /c.alloy
+}