docs(probe): price the corpus chars/token ratio at run time

The stored 3.28 chars/token (measured 2026-10-11) had drifted to 3.20 as the repo's docs grew, so leg B sent ~201,900-token prompts and took a legitimate 400 from the engine's own window check — which reads as a capacity-contract failure on a healthy endpoint. One ~4k-token request now prices the ratio, and the leg sizes to 97 % of the deployed window.
docs(vault): the four-slot ledger, and the resolver's funding law from the source
2026-10-20 23:26:53 -07:00 · 2026-10-20 23:26:53 -07:00 · 2026-10-20 23:10:05 -07:00 · 2026-10-20 22:52:31 -07:00 · 2026-10-20 22:34:13 -07:00 · 2026-10-20 22:08:00 -07:00
25 changed files with 1248 additions and 355 deletions
@@ -1,55 +1,51 @@
-# Quadlet unit: alloy (rootless, boot-persistent).
+# Quadlet unit: alloy (ROOT system service, boot-persistent).
 #
-# Install path on dankclaw: ~/.config/containers/systemd/alloy.container
-# Unit name: alloy.service (container name: alloy)
+# Install path on dankclaw: /etc/containers/systemd/alloy.container
+# Unit name: alloy.service (container name: alloy) — SYSTEM manager, root.
 #
-# Log shipper. This replaces the compose service of the same name in
-# dankclaw/compose.yaml ("Observability" block).
+# WHY ROOT (not rootless, unlike its observability siblings). Alloy reads the
+# host journal. The journal files are root:systemd-journal 0640 (other::---);
+# a rootless container carries no supplementary groups and cannot open them —
+# a rootless read of system.journal returns DENIED (see the Alloy page in the
+# vault). Running as root, one loki.source.journal reads system.journal AND
+# user-1000.journal, so it carries both host logs and the rootless Quadlet
+# containers' logs. Validated 2026-10-20: a root probe read 31,825 journal
+# lines and pushed 26,966 into Loki in 20 s, zero drops.
 #
-# IMAGE. franksdank/alloy is built locally by deploy-remote.sh
-# (build_compose_image) from dankclaw/alloy/Containerfile: upstream
-# grafana/alloy plus a static busybox for the healthcheck. Pull=never keeps a
-# boot from reaching for that local tag at a registry.
+# NETWORK=host. Loki publishes 127.0.0.1:3100 (loopback only) on the host, and
+# no bridge container — rootless or root — can reach the host's loopback, so
+# this unit runs on the host network and pushes to 127.0.0.1:3100. The side
+# effect: the UI must bind loopback too, so Exec sets the listen-addr to
+# 127.0.0.1 (the old rootless unit used 0.0.0.0 only because container loopback
+# was not host loopback; under Network=host they are the same address, so the
+# unauthenticated UI stays loopback-only — nothing off-host reaches it).
 #
-# NETWORK. It joins dankclaw_default so its config's loki.write endpoint
-# resolves the container name loki:3100.
+# THE /etc/machine-id MOUNT IS LOAD-BEARING. sd_journal locates the journal
+# directory by the local machine id; without it the container opens nothing and
+# the journal source reads exactly 0 lines — silently, no error, health green.
+# This mount is the entire reason the pipeline carries data. Never remove it.
 #
-# THE UI PORT EXISTS ON PURPOSE. Alloy's UI listens on the container's own
-# 127.0.0.1 by default and cannot be moved from the config file (alloy 1.x
-# refuses the ui block), so the compose service had no reachable health
-# endpoint at all: the homepage status card for alloy reported "down"
-# continuously and there was nothing for a deploy to wait on. The command
-# below therefore moves the UI to the container's wildcard address and the
-# port is published on host loopback only, which puts alloy in the same class
-# as the other three: reachable from the host, by Caddy over the private
-# network, and by nothing off-host. Alloy has no authentication, which is
-# exactly why it is not published wider.
-#
-# SOURCES. The host journald socket and the host log/container-storage trees
-# are bind-mounted read-only; Alloy tails them and pushes to Loki. The config
-# lives at /opt/alloy/config/config.alloy, installed from
-# shared/alloy/config.alloy on every deploy.
-#
-# ORDERING. Wants/After loki.service: without a reachable Loki, Alloy's write
-# client fails and its log pipeline backs up.
+# IMAGE. Built rootless by build_compose_image alloy, then mirrored into the
+# root image store by the deployer (a root build runs in the build container's
+# own resolver and fails on DNS here). Pull=never: boot must not reach for the
+# local tag at a registry.

 [Unit]
 Description=Alloy log shipper (Dankclaw)
-After=network-online.target loki.service
-Wants=network-online.target loki.service
+After=network-online.target

 [Container]
 ContainerName=alloy
 Image=localhost/franksdank/alloy:latest
 Pull=never
-Network=dankclaw_default
-Exec=run --server.http.listen-addr=0.0.0.0:12345 /etc/alloy/config.alloy
-PublishPort=127.0.0.1:12345:12345
-Volume=/opt/alloy/config:/etc/alloy
+Network=host
+Exec=run --server.http.listen-addr=127.0.0.1:12345 /etc/alloy/config.alloy
+Volume=/opt/alloy/config:/etc/alloy:ro
+Volume=/etc/machine-id:/etc/machine-id:ro
 Volume=/run/systemd/journal/socket:/run/systemd/journal/socket:ro
-Volume=/var/log:/var/log:ro
-Volume=/var/lib/containers:/var/lib/containers:ro
-HealthCmd=/usr/local/bin/busybox wget --spider -q http://localhost:12345/-/healthy
+Volume=/var/log/journal:/var/log/journal:ro
+Volume=/run/log/journal:/run/log/journal:ro
+HealthCmd=/usr/local/bin/busybox wget --spider -q http://127.0.0.1:12345/-/healthy
 HealthInterval=30s
 HealthTimeout=10s
 HealthRetries=3
@@ -60,4 +56,4 @@ Restart=always
 RestartSec=10

 [Install]
-WantedBy=default.target
+WantedBy=multi-user.target
@@ -47,9 +47,24 @@ Environment=GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET=${GRAFANA_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET}
 # client_id query parameter — /application/o/<slug>/authorize/ does not exist.
 Environment=GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_AUTH_URL=https://auth.franksdank.cloud/application/o/authorize/
 Environment=GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_TOKEN_URL=https://auth.franksdank.cloud/application/o/token/
-# ?api=1 = introspection-style userinfo: returns custom claims (groups) too.
-Environment=GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_API_URL=https://auth.franksdank.cloud/application/o/userinfo/?api=1
-Environment=GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_ALLOW_SIGN_UP=false
+# Standard OIDC userinfo. Grafana v13 fetches <api_url>/emails for the address
+# ONLY when the token carries no `email` claim (authentik has no /emails path and
+# 404s it, failing the login) — so the claim must actually be there: the fix is
+# the grafana-email-scope mapping (see scripts/authentik-grafana-sso-fix.sh),
+# not a Grafana flag. Do NOT append ?api=1 to this URL: Grafana then GETs
+# <...>/userinfo/?api=1/emails, a 403.
+Environment=GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_API_URL=https://auth.franksdank.cloud/application/o/userinfo/
+# authentik's scopes are openid/email/profile. `user:email` (a GitLab-ism) is
+# not a known scope here; requesting it makes the authorize view crash.
+# Quoted: quadlet word-splits Environment=, so an unquoted spaced list
+# truncates SCOPES to its first token.
+Environment="GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_SCOPES=openid email profile"
+Environment=GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_EMAIL_ATTRIBUTE_PATH=email
+Environment=GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_LOGIN_ATTRIBUTE_PATH=sub
+Environment=GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_NAME_ATTRIBUTE_PATH=preferred_username
+# First SSO login auto-provisions the user. Safe: unauthenticated traffic never
+# reaches this callback — the Anubis -> Authentik guard fronts every request.
+Environment=GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_ALLOW_SIGN_UP=true
 Environment=GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_AUTO_UPSERT=true
 Environment=GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_ALLOW_ASSIGN_ORG=true
 Environment=GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_ORG_ID=1
@@ -0,0 +1,81 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+# Repair the Grafana OAuth2 relying-party SSO on Dankclaw's authentik.
+#
+# grafana.franksdank.cloud logs in through authentik as an OAuth2 relying party.
+# Two DB-side facts (the provider was created by hand via `ak shell`, never
+# repo-managed) silently broke that login, and BOTH had previously been
+# mis-recorded here as a single "the property-mapping evaluator is broken, so
+# userinfo returns only `sub`" myth. They are neither, and the evaluator is fine:
+#
+#   1. provider.authorization_flow was NULL. The authorize view builds a flow
+#      planner from it and crashes with
+#      `AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'slug'` — an HTTP 500
+#      "Server Error — Powered by authentik", before any claim is touched.
+#      Fix: point it at default-provider-authorization-implicit-consent, the
+#      flow every other provider in this instance already uses.
+#   2. The `grafana-email-scope` ScopeMapping's expression was the bare string
+#      `user.email`. authentik merges a scope mapping's result into the token as
+#      a MAPPING: a returned dict adds its keys as claims; a returned string is
+#      keyed under the mapping's NAME ("grafana-email-scope"), so no `email`
+#      claim is ever emitted. Grafana, finding no email, falls back to
+#      GET <api_url>/emails, authentik 404s that path, and the login dies with
+#      "Login failed: InternalError". Fix: return
+#      {"email": user.email, "email_verified": True} — the shape the stock
+#      OpenID 'email' mapping uses. The dict-valued `grafana-profile-scope`
+#      mapping has always worked, which is the proof the evaluator is fine.
+#
+# This is authentik DB state. It is NOT in any deployable file: a blueprint
+# re-import, or an ak-shell re-creation of the grafana provider, reverts BOTH
+# facts and the symptom returns verbatim. Re-run this after any such rebuild.
+# Every step is idempotent.
+#
+# Grafana's own half — SCOPES="openid email profile", a standard userinfo API_URL
+# with no `?api=1`, and ALLOW_SIGN_UP=true — lives in
+# dankclaw/observability/quadlet/grafana.container and deploys normally.
+#
+# Usage: authentik-grafana-sso-fix.sh          (override host: AUTHENTIK_HOST=…)
+set -euo pipefail
+HOST="${AUTHENTIK_HOST:-dankclaw}"
+
+ssh "$HOST" 'podman exec -i authentik-server ak shell' <<'PYEOF'
+from authentik.flows.models import Flow
+from authentik.providers.oauth2.models import OAuth2Provider
+
+p = OAuth2Provider.objects.filter(name="grafana").first()
+if not p:
+    raise SystemExit("no OAuth2Provider named 'grafana'")
+
+# 1. The authorization flow every other provider uses.
+want = Flow.objects.filter(slug="default-provider-authorization-implicit-consent").first()
+if not want:
+    raise SystemExit("default-provider-authorization-implicit-consent flow is missing")
+if p.authorization_flow_id != want.pk:
+    p.authorization_flow = want
+    p.save()
+    print(f"set grafana.authorization_flow -> {want.slug}")
+else:
+    print(f"grafana.authorization_flow already {want.slug}")
+
+# 2. The email scope mapping must RETURN A DICT, not a bare string.
+m = p.property_mappings.filter(name="grafana-email-scope").first()
+if not m:
+    raise SystemExit("grafana-email-scope mapping is missing")
+fixed = 'return {"email": user.email, "email_verified": True}'
+if m.expression.strip() != fixed:
+    m.expression = fixed
+    m.save()
+    print("repaired grafana-email-scope -> returns {email, email_verified}")
+else:
+    print("grafana-email-scope expression already correct")
+
+# 3. The id_token must carry the scope claims; Grafana reads identity from it.
+if not p.include_claims_in_id_token:
+    p.include_claims_in_id_token = True
+    p.save()
+    print("enabled include_claims_in_id_token")
+else:
+    print("include_claims_in_id_token already on")
+PYEOF
+
+echo "Done. Verify: sign in at https://grafana.franksdank.cloud via Authentik;"
+echo "the round trip must land on / and /api/user must answer 200 with an email."
@@ -487,13 +487,15 @@ seed_grafana_env() {
        || { echo "grafana env missing GRAFANA_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET; set it in dankclaw/.env" >&2; return 1; }
 }

-# The five observability containers left compose on 2026-09-11 (they were
-# started by hand with podman-compose and never came back after a reboot).
-# They are ordinary rootless Quadlet units now: same images, same mounts, same
-# arguments, same container names, so nothing that addresses them by name —
-# Caddy, Prometheus' own scrape config, Alloy's loki.write endpoint — changed.
-# Only the published ports did: the three HTTP UIs bind 127.0.0.1, because the
-# compose services published on 0.0.0.0 and none of them authenticates.
+# The observability containers left compose on 2026-09-11 (they were started by
+# hand with podman-compose and never came back after a reboot). Five are ordinary
+# rootless Quadlet units: same images, same mounts, same arguments, same
+# container names, so nothing that addresses them by name — Caddy, Prometheus'
+# own scrape config — changed. Only the published ports did: the three HTTP UIs
+# bind 127.0.0.1, because the compose services published on 0.0.0.0 and none of
+# them authenticates. Alloy is the exception: a ROOT system service on
+# Network=host, because reading the host journal needs privileges a rootless
+# container cannot get. It is handled by deploy_alloy, not the loop below.
 deploy_observability() {
    local service="$1"
    # Observability units live under <target>/observability/quadlet: Dankclaw
@@ -512,10 +514,6 @@ deploy_observability() {
            copy_loki_config
            build_compose_image loki
            ;;
-        alloy)
-            copy_alloy_config
-            build_compose_image alloy
-            ;;
        grafana)
            copy_grafana_provisioning
            seed_grafana_env || return 1
@@ -534,11 +532,71 @@ deploy_observability() {
        alertmanager) wait_for_health alertmanager http://127.0.0.1:9093/-/healthy 60 ;;
        grafana) wait_for_health grafana http://127.0.0.1:3002/api/health 90 ;;
        loki) wait_for_health loki http://127.0.0.1:3100/ready 60 ;;
-        alloy) wait_for_health alloy http://127.0.0.1:12345/-/healthy 60 ;;
        node-exporter) wait_for_health node-exporter http://127.0.0.1:9100/metrics 60 ;;
    esac
 }

+# Mirror an image the deployer built rootless into the ROOT image store. A root
+# quadlet reads root storage; a root build (build_compose_image is rootless) is
+# not possible on this host — the build container's resolver fails DNS — so the
+# only way to get a root-readable copy is save-and-load. Compares image ids so a
+# rebuilt alloy actually re-lands in root storage instead of leaving a stale tag.
+mirror_image_to_root() {
+    local ref="$1" rid
+    rid="$(podman image inspect "$ref" --format '{{.Id}}' 2>/dev/null)" || {
+        echo "ERROR: rootless image $ref is not built; cannot mirror to root" >&2
+        return 1
+    }
+    if [[ "$(run_privileged podman image inspect "$ref" --format '{{.Id}}' 2>/dev/null)" == "$rid" ]]; then
+        return 0
+    fi
+    local tar; tar="$(mktemp /var/tmp/alloy-mirror.XXXXXX.tar)"
+    podman save -o "$tar" "$ref"
+    run_privileged podman load -i "$tar"
+    rm -f "$tar"
+}
+
+# Install a quadlet into the SYSTEM generator dir (root manager) instead of the
+# user dir. Boot persistence is the unit's own [Install] section (multi-user
+# target); the v1 system generator creates the .wants on daemon-reload, so —
+# like the user units — no `systemctl enable` (generated units cannot be enabled
+# here).
+install_system_quadlet() {
+    local source_dir="$1" unit="$2"
+    run_privileged mkdir -p /etc/containers/systemd
+    run_privileged cp "$source_dir/$unit.container" /etc/containers/systemd/
+    run_privileged systemctl daemon-reload
+}
+
+# Alloy as a ROOT system service on Network=host. See the unit file: a rootless
+# container cannot read the 0640 journal files, and it cannot reach Loki's
+# 127.0.0.1:3100 publish from a bridge netns. Root + host network fixes both;
+# the price is that this one container runs as root and on the host network.
+deploy_alloy() {
+    copy_alloy_config
+    build_compose_image alloy                      # rootless build (resolver works)
+    mirror_image_to_root localhost/franksdank/alloy:latest
+
+    # Retire the rootless unit BEFORE the system one starts: both managers
+    # generate alloy.service, and two containers named "alloy" both binding
+    # 127.0.0.1:12345 cannot coexist. Move the user quadlet out of the generator
+    # dir (it regenerates from there) and stop the user unit.
+    if [[ -f "$quadlet_unit_dir/alloy.container" ]] ||
+       systemctl --user is-active --quiet alloy.service 2>/dev/null; then
+        systemctl --user stop alloy.service 2>/dev/null || true
+        if [[ -f "$quadlet_unit_dir/alloy.container" ]]; then
+            local trash="$HOME/.AGENTTRASH/$(date +%Y%m%d)-alloy-root-cutover"
+            mkdir -p "$trash"
+            mv -- "$quadlet_unit_dir/alloy.container" "$trash/alloy.container"
+            echo "retired rootless alloy.container -> $trash"
+        fi
+        systemctl --user daemon-reload
+    fi
+
+    install_system_quadlet dankclaw/observability/quadlet alloy
+    run_privileged systemctl restart alloy.service
+    wait_for_health alloy http://127.0.0.1:12345/-/healthy 60
+}
 build_compose_image() {
    local service="$1" image cfhash oldhash containerfile
    # Every file the image COPIES IN, beside the Containerfile. The skip below
@@ -1941,7 +1999,8 @@ deploy_service() {
        copyparty) deploy_copyparty ;;
        plex) deploy_plex ;;
        tautulli) deploy_tautulli ;;
-        prometheus|grafana|loki|alloy|node-exporter|alertmanager) deploy_observability "$service" ;;
+        alloy) deploy_alloy ;;
+        prometheus|grafana|loki|node-exporter|alertmanager) deploy_observability "$service" ;;
        comfyui) deploy_comfyui ;;
        *) deploy_compose_service "$service" ;;
    esac
@@ -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
-# contract and nothing more. At 1.8.1 the budget resolver caps the cache at
-# 556,348 fp8 tokens — 2.8 sessions at 200,000 — so a THIRD full-height
-# conversation answers 400 while /health and every shorter chat work fine
-# (3 x 50k streams run at 77.6 t/s aggregate). Frank's trade: declare the two
-# slots the engine can hold and let the freed ~1.1 GiB go to the expert plane,
-# instead of advertising a third slot that only exists at shorter prompts.
-FRANK_ARCHON_MAX_SEQS=2
+# Decode slots. A slot costs KV and pinned RAM, never decode: the cache target is
+# exactly MAX_SEQS x MAX_MODEL_LEN and the checkpoint store asks (1 + what the
+# retention policy keeps) per slot. Ordered 2026-10-20: FOUR slots over a pool of at
+# least 700,000 fp8 tokens, rounding UP if the resolver cannot land it exactly. The
+# target is therefore 4 x 200,000 = 800,000 tokens and HOST_POOL_MIB decides whether
+# the cache gets it (expert_vram_floor, core/place/planner.cpp:100-104: the card must
+# keep expert-plane-minus-host-room). The 2-slot shape was the answer to a
+# 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
-# resolver this is ALSO the lever that decides which experts stay on the card:
-# the card's leftover goes to the expert plane first and the KV cache takes the
-# rest, so growing the pool moves experts off the card and shrinking it spills
-# them onto VRAM the cache wanted. Under-sizing it is a boot failure (36,864
-# refused a boot). The ledger's coverage line is the referee, not this file.
-# Measured, not guessed: 45,568 (PR #30) moved host_pool to 45.09 GiB and left
-# vram_kv byte-identical at 4.20 GiB / 556,348 tokens on both ranks — extra
-# host RAM above what the expert plane's footprint needs buys no cache. Back at
-# 44,928, the size that boots clean.
-FRANK_ARCHON_HOST_POOL_MIB=44928
+# Pinned host pool for expert rows that do not fit VRAM, PINNED ONCE PER RANK: the
+# host must pin tp x this number, and the refusal that names it is
+# core/engine_bringup.cpp:250-265. Under the budget resolver this is ALSO the KV
+# lever -- the card keeps expert-plane-minus-this-room, so every MiB added moves one
+# MiB of experts off the card and into the cache. Derived from the boot ledger (a
+# 23.73 GiB floor at 44,928 room puts plane + 2 units at 67.60 GiB a rank), 49,152
+# drops the floor to 19.6 GiB and leaves the cache ~6.9 GiB, which is enough to back
+# the whole 4 x 200,000 target; the leftover returns to the experts. Cost is paid
+# twice over: pinned RAM (tp x 48 GiB, against the TTM target below) and expert
+# residency -- ~3.2 GiB a card of experts now lives in host RAM and is read over the
+# 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).
-# `auto` leaves each decode row behind the chunk a row plus its draft window and
-# keeps a share for whatever is waiting to be admitted; a number pins the chunk's
-# cap; `off` is the pre-1.4 behaviour this endpoint ran for two eras, where the
-# chunk took the step and admission never ran. 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, so it stays 0 until the post-migration
-# decode-vs-prefill buckets say it is wanted.
+# that long for its next token: measured at this shape, decode-only steps 15.5 ms
+# against chunk steps 166 ms, which is the harness's ~146 t/s falling to ~11 t/s
+# while another session prefills (law and census: [[frank-archon]]).
+# `auto` is a PREFILL-SPEED dial, not a decoder dial: it reserves one row plus the
+# draft window per decoding sequence (3 tokens) and an eighth of the budget per
+# waiting request or waiting prefill, and the source states it will not halve for
+# decode rows alone. Live proof: prefill_chunks_capped 5,018 across 62,386 chunk
+# 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
-# per the bats ledger test; at the 44,928 pool that computes to 148,920 MiB.
-FRANK_ARCHON_TTM_MIN_MIB=150000
+# Floor = 2 x HOST_POOL + 48,824 (static weights + arena) + PREFIX_CACHE + MNBT + the
+# auto checkpoint store (MAX_SEQS x 10 slots of 111.98 MiB), per the bats ledger test;
+# 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.
@@ -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
-    # froggeric template (646,000 chars -> 196,919 tokens at the 2026-10-11
-    # deploy); 98.5 % of the window leaves the response room under the ceiling.
-    chars = int(0.985 * maxlen * 3.28)
+    # The corpus's chars/token ratio is MEASURED here, not stored. A stored 3.28
+    # (646,000 chars -> 196,919 tokens, 2026-10-11) had drifted to 3.20 by
+    # 2026-10-20 (646,299 chars -> 201,876 tokens) as the repo's docs grew, and a
+    # 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, "
@@ -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
-# tokens, fp8 KV, 44 GiB/rank pinned expert pool, MTP depth 2, prefix cache in
-# pinned host RAM, PLE pinned in RAM. The per-card split between the expert slab
-# and the KV pool is NO LONGER an operator number — 1.3.0 removed the VRAM pair
-# and the budget resolver derives it from headroom, the cache bound and the host
-# pool, so the slab size and the pool's token count are LEDGER lines: after every
-# boot read them out of the log and check the pool still backs 3 x 200,000.
+# Deployed shape (2026-10-20, radiance 1.8.1): FOUR decode slots x 200,000 tokens over a
+# >= 700,000-token fp8 KV pool, 48 GiB/rank pinned expert pool, MTP depth 2, prefix cache
+# in pinned host RAM, PLE pinned in RAM. The per-card split between the expert slab and the KV
+# pool is NO LONGER an operator number — 1.3.0 removed the VRAM pair and the budget
+# resolver derives it from headroom, the cache bound and the host pool, so the slab
+# size and the pool's token count are LEDGER lines. After every boot read them, plus
+# 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 +
-# the 47.7 GiB PLE table + 8 GiB prefix host tier — ~147 GiB of pinned
-# pages, which is ALSO why this script refuses to start when ttm's
+# LimitMEMLOCK=infinity) grants the pin budget: 2 x 48 GiB expert pools + the 47.7 GiB PLE
+# table + 8 GiB prefix host tier + the checkpoint store (slots x 112 MiB) — ~159 GiB of
+# 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

@@ -3,96 +3,111 @@ type: reference
 description: "Alloy is Grafana's log and telemetry shipper."
 tags:
  - infrastructure
-timestamp: 2026-09-11
+timestamp: 2026-10-20
 ---

 # Alloy

-Alloy is Grafana's log and telemetry shipper. It replaces Promtail (end of life as of 2026-03-02, https://grafana.com/docs/loki/latest/send-data/promtail/). It is wired to forward container and journal logs to Loki, and every unit in the path is healthy — but as of 2026-10-18 it is delivering **zero** log lines. See "Delivery state" below.
+Alloy is Grafana's log and telemetry shipper. It replaces Promtail (end of life
+as of 2026-03-02, https://grafana.com/docs/loki/latest/send-data/promtail/). It
+forwards the host journal — including the rootless Quadlet containers' logs —
+to Loki. Unlike its observability siblings it runs as a **root system service on
+the host network**, because a rootless container cannot read the journal (see
+*Why root* below).

-**Host:** Dankclaw (one instance per host) — **Port:** 12345 (loopback) — **Docs:** https://grafana.com/docs/alloy/latest
+**Host:** Dankclaw (one instance per host) — **UI/health:** 127.0.0.1:12345
+(loopback) — **Docs:** https://grafana.com/docs/alloy/latest

 ## Facts

 | Item | Value |
 |------|-------|
-| Image | `franksdank/alloy:latest` (local build: upstream + a static busybox for the healthcheck) |
-| Published | `127.0.0.1:12345` → 12345 (its own UI/health port) |
-| Unit | `dankclaw/observability/quadlet/alloy.container` → `alloy.service` |
-| Config | `shared/alloy/config.alloy`, installed to `/opt/alloy/config/config.alloy` on every deploy (`scripts/deploy-remote.sh:281-284`) |
-| Inputs | host journald socket, podman container logs, `/var/log` |
-| Output | `http://loki:3100/loki/api/v1/push` (`shared/alloy/config.alloy:13-17`) |
-| Successor to | Promtail (EOL 2026-03-02, https://grafana.com/docs/loki/latest/send-data/promtail/) |
-| Boot persistence | `Restart=always`/`RestartSec=10` + `WantedBy=default.target` (`dankclaw/observability/quadlet/alloy.container:58-63`); installed at `~/.config/containers/systemd/alloy.container`, reporting `generated` + `active` (`systemctl --user is-enabled|is-active alloy` 2026-10-18) |
-| Delivery | **Configured and healthy, currently delivering zero data** — see "Delivery state" |
+| Image | `localhost/franksdank/alloy:latest` — built rootless, then mirrored into the root image store by the deployer (a root build fails on DNS in this host's build container) |
+| Unit | `dankclaw/observability/quadlet/alloy.container` → system `alloy.service`, installed at `/etc/containers/systemd/` (root manager) |
+| Config | `shared/alloy/config.alloy` → `/opt/alloy/config/config.alloy` on every deploy |
+| Network | `host` — required so it can reach Loki's `127.0.0.1:3100` publish |
+| UI | `--server.http.listen-addr=127.0.0.1:12345` (loopback; nothing off-host reaches it) |
+| Inputs | host journal: `system.journal` + `user-*.journal` (root reads both) |
+| Output | `http://127.0.0.1:3100/loki/api/v1/push` |
+| Boot persistence | `Restart=always`/`RestartSec=10` + `WantedBy=multi-user.target`; boot persistence is the `[Install]` section (generated system units cannot be `enable`d here) |
+| Successor to | Promtail (EOL 2026-03-02) |
+| Deploy status | root cutover built and tested in-repo (2026-10-20); the **live** instance is still the old rootless unit until `./scripts/deploy.sh dankclaw --service alloy` runs |

-## Why Alloy and not Promtail
+## Why root (the load-bearing decision)

-Promtail reached end-of-life on 2026-03-02 and Grafana Labs directs new installs to Alloy. This stack uses Alloy from day one: no Promtail config or unit has ever existed in this repository (`git log -S promtail` over the whole history returns no commit that added one; the compose-era service of the same name was already Alloy — `dankclaw/observability/quadlet/alloy.container:6-7`).
+A rootless Alloy delivered **zero** lines, silently and with a green health
+check. Two independent causes, both proven on the host 2026-10-20:
+
+1. **The journal is not readable by a rootless container.** The files are
+   `root:systemd-journal 0640` (`group:adm`, `other::---`). Even bind-mounted, a
+   rootless container has no supplementary groups, so opening them returns
+   `DENIED`. `loki.source.journal` then sees an empty view and the counter just
+   sits at 0 — no error logged.
+2. **Container logs live in the *user* journal, not `ctr.log`.** The rootless
+   Quadlet containers log via the journald driver into `user-1000.journal`; the
+   old file globs (`/var/lib/containers/.../ctr.log`, `/var/log/containers/*.log`)
+   point at a root-storage layout that does not exist here.
+
+**Root fixes both at once.** As root the container opens every journal file
+under the machine-id directory — `system.journal` *and* `user-1000.journal` —
+so a single `loki.source.journal` carries host services and the rootless
+containers' logs together. Validated with a throwaway root probe before writing
+the unit: **31,825 journal lines read, 26,966 pushed to Loki in 20 s, zero
+drops**, and Loki's label set went from empty to populated.
+
+### The two mounts that make it work
+
+- **`/etc/machine-id` (ro) — load-bearing.** `sd_journal` locates the journal
+  directory by the *local* machine id. Without it the container opens nothing and
+  the journal source reads exactly 0 lines — silently, health green. This single
+  mount is the whole difference between a working and an empty pipeline; do not
+  remove it. (A root probe without it reads 0; with it, 31,825.)
+- **`Network=host`.** Loki publishes `127.0.0.1:3100` (loopback only). No bridge
+  container — rootless or root — can reach the host's loopback, so Alloy must
+  share the host network to push to `127.0.0.1:3100`. Consequence: the UI binds
+  `127.0.0.1` directly (no `PublishPort`), so it stays loopback-only as before.

 ## Configuration

-`shared/alloy/config.alloy` is the source of truth:
-
- Reads journald logs from the host's `/run/systemd/journal/socket`, labelled `job="systemd-journal"` (`shared/alloy/config.alloy:20-26`).
- Reads container logs from two globs: `/var/lib/containers/storage/overlay-containers/*/userdata/ctr.log` (`job="podman"`) and `/var/log/containers/*.log` (`job="containers"`) (`config.alloy:29-35`).
- Forwards everything to `http://loki:3100/loki/api/v1/push` by container name on `dankclaw_default` (`config.alloy:13-17`).
+`shared/alloy/config.alloy` is the source of truth — one `loki.source.journal`
+(labelled `job="systemd-journal"`) forwarding to the loopback `loki.write`
+endpoint. There is deliberately **no** container-file source: container stdout is
+in the journal.

 ## Volumes

 | Container path | Host path |
 |----------------|-----------|
-| `/etc/alloy` | `/opt/alloy/config` |
-| `/run/systemd/journal/socket` | host journald socket (read-only) |
-| `/var/log` | host logs (read-only) |
-| `/var/lib/containers` | podman storage (read-only) |
+| `/etc/alloy` | `/opt/alloy/config` (ro) |
+| `/etc/machine-id` | host machine id (ro) — **required** |
+| `/run/systemd/journal/socket` | host journald socket (ro) |
+| `/var/log/journal` | persistent journal files (ro) |
+| `/run/log/journal` | runtime journal files (ro) |

-## The UI port is published on purpose
+## The UI stays on loopback

-Alloy's UI listens on the container's own `127.0.0.1:12345` by default, and Alloy 1.x refuses to configure the `ui` service from a config block ("service ui does not support being configured", `shared/alloy/config.alloy:8-10`). Under compose that meant **no reachable health endpoint at all**: the homepage status card for alloy read `down` continuously and a deploy had nothing to wait on. The unit therefore passes `--server.http.listen-addr=0.0.0.0:12345` (`dankclaw/observability/quadlet/alloy.container:46`) and publishes `127.0.0.1:12345` (`alloy.container:47`, confirmed by `ss -ltnp` 2026-10-18) — same posture as the other three: reachable from the host and from Caddy's network, and from nothing off-host. Alloy has no authentication, which is exactly why it is not published wider. The homepage card probes that same loopback port (`shared/homepage/services.json:233`).
-
-## Delivery state (2026-10-20): healthy, shipping nothing
-
-The unit is `active`, the container reports `healthy`, the log says `Alloy is
-ready`, and the pipeline carries no data at all.
-
-**Root cause, proven: a rootless container cannot read the host journal.** The
-journal files are `root:systemd-journal 0640` (with `group:adm`, `other::---`).
-`/var/log` is bind-mounted so the files are *visible*, but a rootless container
-spawns with no supplementary groups, so it is denied. Proven directly:
-`podman run --rm -v /var/log/journal:/var/log/journal:ro busybox cat
-/var/log/journal/*/system.journal` → `DENIED`. `loki.source.journal` opens via
-`sd_journal_open`, so it silently sees an empty view — no error logged, counter
-frozen at `loki_source_journal_target_lines_total 0` (`system.journal` and
-`user-1000.journal` are both present and non-trivial, 2026-10-20).
-
-**Second, independent gap:** the rootless Quadlet containers log to the *user*
-journal (`user-1000.journal`), and `loki.source.journal` reads the *system*
-journal only — a fixed system read would still miss them. Container stdout is
-not in a `ctr.log` here either: the file globs point at root storage
-(`/var/lib/containers/storage/.../ctr.log`, `/var/log/containers/*.log`) that
-rootless does not use, refused at start with `stat …: permission denied` / `no
-such file or directory`, `loki_source_file_files_active_total 0`.
-
-Downstream: Loki holds zero streams (`GET /loki/api/v1/labels` → no `data`) —
-see [[Loki]].
-
-**Closing it is a permission/architecture decision, not a config edit.** The
-unit, config and push endpoint are correct as written; rootless Podman simply
-cannot grant the journal group. The viable shapes: run Alloy as a *system*
-service (root, in `adm`/`systemd-journal`) instead of a rootless Quadlet; grant
-the container's mapped uid journal read via a tmpfiles/ACL rule; or have
-journald forward to a path the container can read. Each trades rootless posture
-for reach — decide deliberately. Re-check `loki_source_journal_target_lines_total`
-and the Loki label query to confirm a fix, never `/healthy`: health is exactly
-what hides this failure.
+Alloy 1.x refuses to configure the `ui` service from a config block, so the UI
+address is set on the command line instead. Under the old rootless unit that
+meant `0.0.0.0` inside the container plus a published `127.0.0.1:12345`; under
+`Network=host` the listen-addr is `127.0.0.1:12345` directly — the host's
+loopback, reachable from the host and from nothing off-host. Alloy has no
+authentication, which is exactly why it is never published wider. The homepage
+card and the deploy health gate both dial `http://127.0.0.1:12345/-/healthy`.

 ## Gotchas

- The journald socket mount is required for journal scraping.
- Container log paths differ between docker (`/var/lib/docker/containers`) and podman (`/var/lib/containers/storage/...`); point the config at the right one per host.
- One Alloy per host; do not run a single instance that tries to reach both hosts' logs.
- The unit `Wants=`/`After=` `loki.service`: without a reachable Loki the write client fails and the pipeline backs up.
+- **No `/etc/machine-id` mount ⇒ silent zero.** The health check still passes.
+  This is the failure mode that hid the broken pipeline; check
+  `loki_source_journal_target_lines_total` and the Loki label query, never
+  `/healthy`.
+- **`After=loki.service` is gone.** Alloy is on the system manager; Loki is a
+  rootless user unit — a system unit cannot order against a user unit. Alloy
+  retries its push until Loki answers, so ordering is unnecessary.
+- **The image must be in the ROOT store.** The deployer builds rootless and
+  mirrors (`mirror_image_to_root`); a `Pull=never` root quadlet with only a
+  rootless tag fails at create.
+- One Alloy per host; do not run a single instance that tries to reach both
+  hosts' logs.

 ## See Also

@@ -81,7 +81,7 @@ Two provisioning rules, each verified live by an outage:
   appears. Create the Application with `provider_id` set (the UI does this
   automatically; raw API/ORM drives must do it explicitly).

-## OAuth2 relying-party quirks (this fork, verified live 2026-08-31)
+## OAuth2 relying-party quirks (this fork; corrected live 2026-10-20)

 The Grafana RP provider (`grafana`, pk 9, confidential client) was created and
 verified end-to-end via `ak shell` ORM drives. This fork's OAuth2 provider
@@ -100,23 +100,32 @@ implementation diverges from upstream in ways that bit us; all verified live:
 - **Provider resolution is by `client_id` query param** on the global
  `/application/o/authorize/` route; per-slug authorize paths do not exist in
  this build. Token/userinfo live at `/application/o/token/` and
-  `/application/o/userinfo/?api=1`.
- **Property-mapping evaluator is broken → userinfo returns `sub` only.**
-  `PropertyMappingEvaluator.evaluate(*args, **kwargs)` forwards kwargs to
-  `BaseEvaluator.evaluate(expression_source)`, so the first context kwarg
-  becomes the *expression source* instead of the context; every call raises a
-  swallowed `PropertyMappingExpressionException` and the claim is skipped.
-  Scope-grant filtering has the same class of bug: `ScopeMapping` has no
-  provider FK (linkage lives in the `ProviderPropertyMapping` through model)
-  so `filter(provider=...)` always yields an empty queryset and tokens asked
-  to carry scopes get zero. Net effect: userinfo/introspection answers with
-  `{sub}` only — email/groups/entitlements claims cannot be delivered by this
-  build until the evaluator is patched or upgraded. Clients consuming this
-  provider must key identity off `sub`.
- Scope mappings for this provider exist — `grafana-email-scope` and
-  `grafana-profile-scope` are both rows in `authentik_core_propertymapping`
-  (read-only `SELECT`, 2026-10-18) — and will start emitting claims the moment
-  the evaluator bug is fixed; no config change is needed then.
+  `/application/o/userinfo/` — do **not** append `?api=1` to a Grafana API URL.
+- **NULL `authorization_flow` → authorize 500, `AttributeError: 'NoneType'
+  object has no attribute 'slug'`.** A provider created via raw `ak shell`
+  `create()` leaves `authorization_flow` unset; the authorize view then crashes
+  building the flow planner (`flows/planner.py`) and returns "Server Error —
+  Powered by authentik" before any claim is built. This was previously
+  mis-attributed to a broken evaluator; the crash is the missing flow. Fix: set
+  `authorization_flow = default-provider-authorization-implicit-consent` (the
+  flow every other provider in this instance already uses).
+- **A scope mapping that returns a non-dict emits no claim.** authentik merges a
+  granted scope mapping's evaluated result into the token **as a mapping**: a
+  dict contributes its keys as claims; a bare string is keyed under the
+  mapping's NAME, so nothing usable appears. `grafana-email-scope` returned the
+  bare string `user.email`, so no `email` claim landed — the evaluator was
+  never broken (the dict-valued `grafana-profile-scope` mapping has always
+  delivered, and the stock OpenID mappings return dicts). Fix:
+  `return {"email": user.email, "email_verified": True}`. With no email, Grafana
+  v13 falls back to GET `<api_url>/emails`; authentik 404s it → "Login failed:
+  InternalError".
+- **Grafana reads identity from the standard userinfo endpoint** (`API_URL` with
+  no `?api=1`); no `USE_ID_TOKEN` is needed once the `email` claim exists.
+- **Net (2026-10-20):** the evaluator is fine; email/profile claims reach RP
+  clients. Both IdP fixes are idempotent in
+  `scripts/authentik-grafana-sso-fix.sh` (re-run after an ak-shell re-creation of
+  the provider or a blueprint import, which revert them). Grafana's half plus the
+  verified outcome (Viewer, `login = <sub hex>`, email present) are in [[Grafana]].

 ## LDAP provider objects (provisioned via `ak shell` ORM)

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ description: "Grafana visualizes the metrics that Prometheus collects from every
 tags:
  - infrastructure
  - grafana
-timestamp: 2026-09-11
+timestamp: 2026-10-20
 ---

 # Grafana
@@ -64,19 +64,28 @@ Grafana responds on `/api/health` with 200 and `"database":"ok"`; measured 2026-
 - Change the default admin credentials at first boot (env or UI).
 - Dashboards provisioned as code (dashboard JSON plus a YAML provider, `shared/grafana/provisioning/dashboards/`) survive container recreation; UI-created ones live in the data volume — back it up.
 - **Auth = OAuth2 relying-party, not auth_proxy.** The embedded outpost carries
-  no provider token (`token=None`), so no identity header ever reaches Grafana;
-  RP mode is topology-independent. The full verified contract (provider pk 9,
-  client_id `grafana-21ca190cde75d60f`, global authorize/token/userinfo paths,
-  Basic client auth, form-encoded token body, and the fork's userinfo-claims
-  bug that leaves identity at the `sub` hash only) is in
-  [[Authentik Outpost Reference]] → "OAuth2 relying-party quirks". Consequences for Grafana:
-  The unit sets `ALLOW_SIGN_UP=false`, `AUTO_UPSERT=true`, `ALLOW_ASSIGN_ORG=true`
-  `ORG_ID=1` and **no** role-attribute mapping (`grafana.container:52-55`), so
-  users land as Viewer with `login = <sub hex>`; no email/groups/role claims
-  reach Grafana until the evaluator bug is fixed — do not write role mappings
-  that depend on those claims. The local admin account stays the only Admin.
-  (The Viewer-default outcome and the `<sub hex>` login are not readable from
-  the host without the database or an admin password. *(unverified 2026-10-18)*)
+  no provider token (`token=None`), so no identity header reaches Grafana; the
+  login is Grafana's own "Sign in with Authentik" button against the `grafana`
+  confidential-client provider. **Verified end-to-end 2026-10-20** after four
+  independent breakages had made it fail. The two Authentik-side causes (a NULL
+  `authorization_flow` → authorize 500; an email scope mapping that returned a
+  bare string so no `email` claim was emitted) and the full wire contract live in
+  [[Authentik Outpost Reference]] → "OAuth2 relying-party quirks"; the IdP half is
+  re-applied by `scripts/authentik-grafana-sso-fix.sh` (idempotent — re-run after
+  an ak-shell re-creation of the provider or a blueprint import, both of which
+  revert it silently). The Grafana half is the unit's own env (`grafana.container`):
+  `SCOPES="openid email profile"` (a GitLab-style `user:email` scope crashes the
+  authorize view), the standard userinfo `API_URL` with **no `?api=1`**, the
+  attribute paths `email`/`sub`/`preferred_username`, and `ALLOW_SIGN_UP=true`
+  (safe: the guard fronts the callback). Grafana v13 only GETs `<api_url>/emails`
+  when the token carries no `email` claim — so it is the email claim itself (an
+  IdP fix, above) that makes the login land, not any Grafana toggle.
+- **What a new login becomes:** a Viewer in org 1 (`ALLOW_ASSIGN_ORG=true`,
+  `ORG_ID=1`, no role-attribute mapping), with `login = <sub hex>` but the real
+  `email`. The local admin account stays the only Admin. The landing that the
+  edge-only 13-sso spec never checked is now asserted by
+  `tests/e2e/specs/20-grafana-sso.spec.ts` (RP round-trip → `/api/user` 200 with
+  an email).
 - **Never point this unit's `EnvironmentFile` at the repo-root `.env`.** That
  file is a gluetun env file and it carries `HOME=/root`; systemd imports it
  for the service, podman then looks for its configuration under `/root`
@@ -102,17 +102,18 @@ verify it through the APIs.
  installed from `shared/grafana/provisioning/`. 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).
-* **Logs: configured, empty.** Alloy ships zero lines and Loki holds zero
-  streams (`GET /loki/api/v1/labels` returns no label names; no chunk files on
-  disk). The cause is source-side access, now proven, not a config bug: a
-  rootless container cannot read the journal files (`system.journal` is
-  `root:systemd-journal 0640`/`adm` and a rootless read of it returns DENIED),
-  and the container-log globs point at a root-storage path that does not exist
-  under rootless. Closing it is a permission/architecture decision, not an
-  edit — see [[Alloy]] → Delivery state and [[Loki]] → Contents.
+* **Logs: fixed in code, awaiting deploy.** The pipeline shipped nothing because
+  a rootless Alloy cannot read the `0640` journal files, and the container-log
+  globs point at a root-storage layout that does not exist here. The fix is built
+  and tested in-repo (2026-10-20): Alloy is now a **root system service on
+  `Network=host`**, reading `system.journal` + `user-*.journal` and pushing to
+  Loki's `127.0.0.1:3100` loopback publish — a throwaway root probe read 31,825
+  lines and pushed 26,966 with zero drops. The **live** instance is still the old
+  rootless unit until `deploy.sh dankclaw --service alloy` runs. Detail in
+  [[Alloy]] → Why root; Loki's store state in [[Loki]] → Contents.
 * **Not configured:** no blackbox exporter (the structural downs have no real
-  uptime signal) and no Alertmanager vhost. The log pipeline is provisioned
-  but carries no data (see *Logs* above).
+  uptime signal) and no Alertmanager vhost. The log pipeline's fix is in code but
+  not yet deployed (see *Logs* above).

 ## Citations

@@ -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
-  steps carry decode rows only and admit nothing. Decoders keep their cadence; the
-  prompt pays that in TTFT. Counts as `engine_steps_held_total`.
- `--busy-prefill-chunk MODE` — the chunk's share of a step that has other work:
-  `auto` (default) reserves a row plus the draft window per decode row behind it and
-  an eighth of the budget per waiting prefill/request, `off` lets the chunk take the
-  whole step (admission never runs while it does), `N` pins the share. Never under
-  the prefill stager's smallest pass — the startup line names it, and below it every
-  routed layer reads its pooled experts synchronously, which costs the prefill far
-  more than sharing saves. Counts as `engine_prefill_chunks_capped_total`.
- `--max-num-batched-tokens` — the blunt rung, and the only one older pins have. The vendor's own
-  curve prices **halving the shared chunk at roughly a fifth of prefill throughput** (a 48-layer MoE
-  at 200k on two cards — knob pricing, not this endpoint's number, so treat it as the order of
-  magnitude a chunk decision costs). Raising it past the checkpoint interval buys nothing and loses
-  expert residency to the arena.
- `--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.
+**Four traps in the PromQL above.** Learn them before trusting a bucket:
+- **Latency is `vllm:`, cadence is `radiance:`.** The TTFT / inter-token / per-output-token / e2e
+  histograms and the running/waiting gauges exist only under the vLLM compatibility prefix; preemption
+  is `vllm:num_preemptions_total` (the counter) while `radiance:num_requests_preempted` is the
+  *instant* depth. A `radiance:`-only query finds no latency and no preemption, and reads as "the
+  endpoint never stalls anyone".
+- **The tps gauges are 1 s decayed windows, batch-pooled.** Per-stream rate is
+  `decode_tokens_per_second / vllm:num_requests_running`. With a 15 s scrape, a 120 s step samples one
+  scrape in eight — use step ≤ 30 s for a bucket table.
+- **Every counter resets at a restart and the metric set changes with the build.** Prove the window is
+  one shape (`up`, or the first sample of a counter that only the current build exports) before
+  ranking buckets; frank-archon's 48 h window straddled two containers, and one bucket's "collapse"
+  turned out to belong entirely to the older one.
+- **A 2-minute mean step time dilutes the chunk.** The sharp variable is the phase ratio in the query
+  above, never `step_seconds/steps` — 4.7 % of steps cannot move a mean that is 95 % decode.

-Two traps. **The arena/slab coupling makes a shared step doubly expensive on an
-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.
+Three instruments the PromQL above cannot reach:

-Availability is a version question, not a config question: `--busy-prefill-chunk` and
-`--prefill-interleave` are absent from older pins — prove it on the running container
-(`podman exec <c> <binary> --help | grep -iE "prefill|chunk"`), never from the vendored
-tree, and check the source clone's depth before dating a flag from `git log -S`
-(a `--depth 1` clone reports its own tip for every search).
+- **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**. Per-request forensics mean `curl localhost:7770/stats` on
+  the endpoint's own host — same phase counters plus `preemptions` (the count), the chunk geometry,
+  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 =
-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.
+Knobs, in the order worth trying them (radiance GUIDE §4.5; the pinned source is the referee):
+
+- `--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

@@ -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 |
-| TTM gate | `TTM_MIN_MIB=150000`, `TTM_TARGET_MIB=204800` |
+| 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=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`):
-the resolver prints `elastic 26.73 GiB` → **experts 23.73 GiB (89 %) / kv cache 2.76 GiB (10 %)**,
-`vram_weights 27.31 GiB`, `host_pool 44.47 GiB`. `kv_attn` (13 layers, 4-token blocks) pages
-**26.00 KiB** → 91,301 blocks = **365,204 tokens = 1.8 full-length sessions = 91 % of the
-2 × 200,000 worst case** (the resolver never funds 100 %, see Laws); `mover` lends 2,146 slots
-(2.54 GiB) out of the cache to the expert slab; sampler **9 rows**, template 28,234 B, vision live
-(≤ 4,194,304 px, 16,384 patches/pass).
+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 20.72 GiB (78 %) / kv cache 5.64 GiB (21 %)**,
+`prefill staging 373.65 MiB` out of the cache, `vram_weights 24.30 GiB`, `host_pool 48.59 GiB`.
+The referee line: `kv: the cache can grow to 5.64 GiB a card — 747,492 tokens of context, 3.7
+sessions at 200,000 — with every block it lends the experts taken back; 440.04 MiB of that is
+per-sequence state, and up to 5.20 GiB is lent to the experts while no request holds it`.
+`--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 %.**
-  The engine takes `--gpu-headroom-mib`, the cache bound (`--max-model-len` × `--max-num-seqs`) and
-  `--host-pool-mib`, prints `claimable → elastic → experts / kv cache` before allocating anything, and
-  sizes the expert plane from the model's own weight footprint plus slack — not from a number typed by
-  hand. Three boots of evidence:
+- **At 1.8.1 the split belongs to the resolver, and the source fixes its order.**
+  `core/mem/vram_budget.cpp` claims the card bottom-up (`capacity → already held → drift → arena →
+  staging → queues → prefetch → headroom = claimable`), takes the **static weights off the top as a
+  floor, not a share**, and divides the `elastic` remainder in three lines (146-156):

-  | 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 —
-  never a KV allocation — and no slot count fully funds the worst case. Growing host RAM by less than a
-  slab step (640 MiB) moved nothing: the expert plane's claim decides what is left for KV, so cache is
-  grown through slots × window or the dtype, and experts are grown by not leaving elastic pool idle.
-  `--host-pool-mib` is still load-bearing the other way — it is where the expert rows the cards cannot
-  hold get pinned, and under-sizing it has always been a boot failure (36,864 refused a boot in the fp8
-  era). The two-slot boot's own behavioural check: three concurrent conversations all answer `200` —
-  the third **queues** (`queue_cap: 16`), it is not refused; the 400 class is a single request over
-  `--max-model-len`, or three concurrent full-height conversations against a 1.8-session cache.
+  The 45,568 row is the ceiling case, not a mystery: at 3 slots the cache already held its whole
+  `ceiling`, so extra host room could not grow it and shows up as `unclaimed`. **The referee is the
+  ledger line `kv: the pool backs N % … the cache can grow to … N tokens`, never arithmetic.** To buy
+  window: raise `--host-pool-mib` (cost: pinned host RAM, and experts evicted to host cross PCIe —
+  `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
+  (`fp8` KV). Raising slots raises demand **and** costs 10 × 111.98 MiB of pinned checkpoint-store RAM
+  per slot. Under-sizing the pool the other way has always been a boot failure (36,864 refused a boot in
+  the fp8 era: the host cannot hold what the cards will not). Behavioural check on the live shape:
+  `/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
-  3-slot shape on 1.0.13 (`/stats` + `/metrics`, cumulative over the 2026-10-15 boot):
-  1,435,585 decode-only steps at **18.7 ms** each against 127,991 prefill+mixed steps
-  at **317 ms** — 60 % of engine wall-clock spent inside 8 % of the steps, because the
-  chunk is `min(remaining, checkpoint interval 2048, MNBT 2048)` = 2048 rows and every
-  decode row in that step waits the whole chunk. Day of Prometheus (120 s step, 721
-  samples): `decode_tokens_per_second` median **13.3 t/s** in the 56 % of samples where
-  `prefill_tokens_per_second` ≥ 1000, against 106-240 t/s in the light-prefill buckets;
-  bucketed by mean step time it is 128.7 t/s at 0.02-0.05 s steps and 12.0 t/s at
-  0.15-0.4 s. The stall is **during**, not after — decode in windows 2-14 min after a
-  busy-prefill window sits at the idle baseline (58-64 vs 77-85 t/s, the residual
-  confounded by co-scheduling), so no lingering expert-residency penalty at 2-minute
-  resolution, and `preemptions: 0` rules out preempt-and-re-prefill. Method:
-  [[LLM Performance Diagnosis]] §9. The law is shape-independent; the fix lives at 1.8.1 (next law),
-  and nobody has re-run the census since the migration — so the fix is ordered, **not verified**.
- **The knobs for it arrived with 1.8.1, and only one of them is on.** `--busy-prefill-chunk` caps the
-  shared chunk so a step with waiting decoders takes a smaller piece (live: `auto`, the engine picks;
-  the explicit value is 512), and `--prefill-interleave N` inserts N decode-only steps after a chunk
-  step taken beside decoders. `interleave` is deliberately **0** — the env comment holds it there until
-  the decode-vs-prefill buckets ask for it, and those buckets have not been read since the migration.
-  The vendor prices a 1024 chunk at about a fifth off prefill throughput to halve the stall; that is a
-  knob for choosing tomorrow's chunk, not a measurement of this shape. MNBT remains an arm and not an
-  edit: 2560 collapses decode through MTP resonance. Any chunk change re-scores draft acceptance before
-  it is trusted.
- **Slots cost KV, rows, and window — never speed.** `--max-num-seqs` carries no radiance constraint: it
-  adds ≈110 MiB of recurrent state per slot (the live `kv_full_backing` arithmetic prices them exactly),
-  declares the fused TP all-reduce over `seqs × (1 + spec)` rows, and `wht6` is bit-exact up to 25 rows
-  (single-sequence decode and any step of ≤ 25 rows is exact; only busier steps are lossy) — 2 × 3 = 6
-  today. Measured 2026-10-06: seqs 2 and seqs 3 are statistically tied (30.9-33.1 t/s, inside the ±3 %
-  floor). Measured 2026-10-19 at 1.8.1: the third slot's real price is **KV, not rows** — dropping it
-  moved the resolver's cache from 4.20 GiB to 2.76 GiB and the backing from 2.8 to 1.8 sessions, while
-  the ≈4 GiB of host RAM it freed came back unbudgeted, landing in elastic pool that turned into a bigger
-  mover lend instead of cache (resolver law above). 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.
+- **Decode pays for the chunk it shares a step with, and `--busy-prefill-chunk auto` does not
+  protect it.** Re-measured on the live 1.8.1 shape (34.8 h boot, Prometheus at 60 s,
+  `engine_step_seconds{,_decode}_total` / `engine_steps{,_decode,_mixed,_prefill}_total` /
+  `prefill_tokens_total`): decode-only steps run at **15.5 ms**, chunk steps (a chunk alone, or a
+  chunk with decode rows beside it) at **166 ms** — 4.7 % of the steps hold **34 % of the engine's
+  step time**, so a session decoding while another prompts advances one token per 166 ms. Bucket the
+  harness's `radiance:decode_tokens_per_second` by `radiance:prefill_tokens_per_second` (15 s
+  scrapes; per-stream rate = the gauge ÷ `vllm:num_requests_running`): median **166 t/s** under light
+  prefill, 81 t/s at 1-5k, **13 t/s above 5k** — a **12.7×** collapse, and at 13 t/s with two
+  sessions running each stream sits at 6.7 t/s = 149 ms a token, one token per shared step. Nothing
+  else moves: decode-*only* steps stay 14-18 ms in every bucket (14.1 ms in a prefill-free 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
+  30 s on, decode back at baseline by 5 min) — residency is not the mechanism either. The second
+  victim is the **arriving** request: through a high-prefill window TTFT p90 goes 2.4 → **18.0 s**
+  and 15.5 % of requests wait over 10 s for their first token, with `http_queue_depth` at 2-3, while
+  median TTFT (~1.9 s) and per-token latency barely move. Preemption is real but burst-shaped: 264
+  `vllm:num_preemptions_total` in the boot, 108 of them inside 105 s of a 6.5k-tok/s prefill. The
+  chunk is `min(remaining, checkpoint interval, MNBT, busy_cap)`; the first three read 2048 here,
+  and `busy_cap` is the fourth law.
+- **`auto` is a prefill-speed dial, not a decoder-protection dial.** `Scheduler::busy_cap` reserves
+  `1 + spec` rows per decoding sequence behind the chunk (3 tokens at MTP 2) plus one eighth of the
+  budget per *waiting request or waiting prefill*, and the code refuses to do more for decoders:
+  "not for decode rows alone: their reserve is a few tokens, so the chunk ends a quantum short and
+  the next step finishes the interval… Halving would hold a long prompt to half-interval chunks while
+  anything decodes behind it, which costs more" (`core/sched/scheduler.cpp:874-878`, 1.8.1). Live
+  proof: `prefill_chunks_capped` 5,018 against 62,386 chunk steps — 8 %, and those are the minutes
+  with a waiter, not the minutes with a decoder. An explicit `N` is the only value that applies
+  "whenever the chunk shares the step".
+- **At MNBT 2048 no chunk value keeps both the arena loan and the staged copies.** The arena is a
+  ladder of levels (256 and 1024 rows here) and a step's rows are its **whole** token count —
+  `max(n_tok, n_seq × (1 + spec))`, `core/engine.cpp:1142` — so a 1024-token chunk with two decode
+  rows is a 1030-row step: it falls back to the full plan, which "lends nothing", and it arms the
+  prefill stager. The stager's floor is the largest lending level plus one, 1025 rows here — named on
+  the boot line `prefill staging: … a step of more than 1024 tokens copies the pooled experts of 48
+  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
-  JSON (model id, `in_flight`, `queue_depth`) while serving and **503 only while stopping**
-  (`core/server/admin.cpp:385`), and the listener binds *after* the full load (`main.cpp`:
-  `engine.start()` then `engine.serve()`) — during the load the port refuses connections, so a
-  bare `curl -fsS …/health` gate is honest and needs no body grep.
+  `/v1/completions`, `/metrics`, `/stats`, `/sessions`, `/dashboard`, **`/diagnostics`**. `/health`
+  answers 200 JSON (model id, `in_flight`, `queue_depth`) while serving and **503 only while
+  stopping** (`core/server/admin.cpp:385`), and the listener binds *after* the full load
+  (`main.cpp`: `engine.start()` then `engine.serve()`) — during the load the port refuses
+  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
-  3-slot contract a **fourth** full-height conversation is refused, not paged or squeezed.
+  longer than the KV pool's token count is accepted then refused as too large to fit; a request
+  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
-  published-port quirk is same-host only). The boot ledger — the referee for every shape number
-  above — is in the container log (`podman logs frank-archon`)
+  Dankclaw Prometheus job at `192.168.0.235:7770` (15 s interval) over plain LAN routing (the
+  netavark published-port quirk is same-host only). **Latency lives under `vllm:`, cadence under
+  `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
@@ -1,22 +1,34 @@
 // Alloy configuration — ships host and container logs to Loki.
 // One instance per host. Deployed to /opt/alloy/config/config.alloy.
+//
+// Runs as a ROOT system service on Network=host (see
+// dankclaw/observability/quadlet/alloy.container), so it reaches Loki on the
+// host's loopback and reads every journal — host services and rootless-quadlet
+// containers alike.

 logging {
  level = "info"
 }

-// The alloy UI service listens on 127.0.0.1:12345 by default; the
-// in-container healthcheck probes it there. alloy 1.x refuses to
-// configure the ui service from a config block, so there is no block.
+// The alloy UI listens on 127.0.0.1:12345; the in-container healthcheck probes
+// it there. alloy 1.x refuses to configure the ui service from a config block,
+// so there is no ui block.

-// Ship logs to Loki (container name on the podman network).
+// 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.
 loki.write "default" {
  endpoint {
-    url = "http://loki:3100/loki/api/v1/push"
+    url = "http://127.0.0.1:3100/loki/api/v1/push"
  }
 }

-// Systemd journal from the host socket.
+// The systemd journal. As root with /etc/machine-id + the journal dirs mounted,
+// this one source reads system.journal AND user-*.journal, so it carries both
+// host services and the rootless Quadlet containers' logs. There is deliberately
+// no container-file source: podman container stdout lands in the journal, and
+// the old /var/lib/containers/.../ctr.log and /var/log/containers globs pointed
+// at a root-storage layout that does not exist on this host.
 loki.source.journal "journal" {
  format_as_json = true
  labels = {
@@ -24,12 +36,3 @@ loki.source.journal "journal" {
  }
  forward_to = [loki.write.default.receiver]
 }
-
-// Container logs (podman storage path; adjust for docker).
-loki.source.file "containers" {
-  targets = [
-    {__path__ = "/var/lib/containers/storage/overlay-containers/*/userdata/ctr.log", job = "podman"},
-    {__path__ = "/var/log/containers/*.log", job = "containers"},
-  ]
-  forward_to = [loki.write.default.receiver]
-}
@@ -0,0 +1,144 @@
+{
+  "uid": "host-system",
+  "title": "Hosts \u2014 Dankclaw & Dankserver",
+  "description": "node_exporter for both servers. Starter set \u2014 throw-at-the-wall breadth; refine the windows and drop the noise. The picker selects the host; CPU/load/memory/filesystem/network are per-node.",
+  "tags": ["host", "system"],
+  "timezone": "browser",
+  "schemaVersion": 39,
+  "refresh": "30s",
+  "time": { "from": "now-6h", "to": "now" },
+  "templating": {
+    "list": [
+      {
+        "name": "node",
+        "label": "host",
+        "type": "query",
+        "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+        "query": { "query": "label_values(up{job=~\"node-.*\"}, job)", "refId": "A" },
+        "includeAll": true,
+        "multi": true,
+        "current": { "text": "All", "value": "$__all" }
+      }
+    ]
+  },
+  "panels": [
+    {
+      "id": 1, "type": "stat", "title": "Uptime",
+      "description": "Time since boot. A drop means a reboot.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 4, "w": 6, "x": 0, "y": 0 },
+      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "s" }, "overrides": [] },
+      "targets": [{ "expr": "time() - node_boot_time_seconds{job=~\"$node\"}", "legendFormat": "{{job}}", "refId": "A" }]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 2, "type": "stat", "title": "Memory used",
+      "description": "1 - MemAvailable/MemTotal. The honest \"in use\" figure (excludes reclaimable cache).",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 4, "w": 6, "x": 6, "y": 0 },
+      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "percentunit", "min": 0, "max": 1, "thresholds": { "mode": "absolute", "steps": [{ "color": "green", "value": null }, { "color": "yellow", "value": 0.8 }, { "color": "red", "value": 0.92 }] } }, "overrides": [] },
+      "targets": [{ "expr": "1 - node_memory_MemAvailable_bytes{job=~\"$node\"} / node_memory_MemTotal_bytes{job=~\"$node\"}", "legendFormat": "{{job}}", "refId": "A" }]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 3, "type": "stat", "title": "Load 5m / core",
+      "description": "Per-core load5. >1 sustained means runnable tasks are queuing behind cores.",
+      "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" }]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 4, "type": "stat", "title": "Open file handles",
+      "description": "FDs allocated vs the kernel maximum. Rising toward the max precedes EMFILE across the host.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 4, "w": 6, "x": 18, "y": 0 },
+      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "percentunit", "max": 1, "thresholds": { "mode": "absolute", "steps": [{ "color": "green", "value": null }, { "color": "yellow", "value": 0.7 }, { "color": "red", "value": 0.9 }] } }, "overrides": [] },
+      "targets": [{ "expr": "node_filefd_allocated{job=~\"$node\"} / node_filefd_maximum{job=~\"$node\"}", "legendFormat": "{{job}}", "refId": "A" }]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 5, "type": "timeseries", "title": "CPU busy %",
+      "description": "CPU seconds/s in each mode = cores busy per mode; the stack sums to total cores in use (16/host here). A user or system spike points at what is loading the box; steal > 0 means the hypervisor is throttling.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 0, "y": 4 },
+      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "short", "min": 0, "custom": { "fillOpacity": 10, "lineWidth": 1, "stacking": { "mode": "normal" } } }, "overrides": [] },
+      "targets": [
+        { "expr": "sum by (job,mode) (rate(node_cpu_seconds_total{job=~\"$node\",mode!=\"idle\",mode!=\"iowait\"}[5m]))", "legendFormat": "{{job}} {{mode}}", "refId": "A" }
+      ]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 6, "type": "timeseries", "title": "Load average",
+      "description": "load1/5/15 per host.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 12, "y": 4 },
+      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "short" }, "overrides": [] },
+      "targets": [
+        { "expr": "node_load1{job=~\"$node\"}", "legendFormat": "{{job}} load1", "refId": "A" },
+        { "expr": "node_load5{job=~\"$node\"}", "legendFormat": "{{job}} load5", "refId": "B" },
+        { "expr": "node_load15{job=~\"$node\"}", "legendFormat": "{{job}} load15", "refId": "C" }
+      ]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 7, "type": "timeseries", "title": "Memory breakdown",
+      "description": "Total, free, buffers+cache. Reclaimable cache is not pressure; MemAvailable is the real headroom.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 0, "y": 12 },
+      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "bytes" }, "overrides": [] },
+      "targets": [
+        { "expr": "node_memory_MemTotal_bytes{job=~\"$node\"} - node_memory_MemAvailable_bytes{job=~\"$node\"}", "legendFormat": "{{job}} used", "refId": "A" },
+        { "expr": "node_memory_MemAvailable_bytes{job=~\"$node\"}", "legendFormat": "{{job}} available", "refId": "B" }
+      ]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 8, "type": "timeseries", "title": "Filesystem free %",
+      "description": "Per mountpoint. The media/library stacks fill disks.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 12, "y": 12 },
+      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "percentunit", "min": 0, "max": 1, "thresholds": { "mode": "absolute", "steps": [{ "color": "red", "value": null }, { "color": "green", "value": 0.15 }] } }, "overrides": [] },
+      "targets": [
+        { "expr": "node_filesystem_avail_bytes{job=~\"$node\",fstype!~\"tmpfs|overlay|squashfs\"} / node_filesystem_size_bytes{job=~\"$node\",fstype!~\"tmpfs|overlay|squashfs\"}", "legendFormat": "{{job}} {{mountpoint}}", "refId": "A" }
+      ]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 9, "type": "timeseries", "title": "Disk throughput",
+      "description": "Read/write bytes/s per device.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 0, "y": 20 },
+      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "Bps" }, "overrides": [] },
+      "targets": [
+        { "expr": "sum by (job,device) (rate(node_disk_read_bytes_total{job=~\"$node\"}[5m]))", "legendFormat": "{{job}} {{device}} R", "refId": "A" },
+        { "expr": "-sum by (job,device) (rate(node_disk_written_bytes_total{job=~\"$node\"}[5m]))", "legendFormat": "{{job}} {{device}} W", "refId": "B" }
+      ]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 10, "type": "timeseries", "title": "Disk busy %",
+      "description": "Fraction of time the device had I/O in flight. Near 1 = the device is the bottleneck.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 12, "y": 20 },
+      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "percentunit", "min": 0, "max": 1 }, "overrides": [] },
+      "targets": [
+        { "expr": "rate(node_disk_io_time_seconds_total{job=~\"$node\"}[5m])", "legendFormat": "{{job}} {{device}}", "refId": "A" }
+      ]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 11, "type": "timeseries", "title": "Network throughput",
+      "description": "Receive (up) / transmit (down) bytes/s per interface.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 0, "y": 28 },
+      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "Bps" }, "overrides": [] },
+      "targets": [
+        { "expr": "sum by (job,device) (rate(node_network_receive_bytes_total{job=~\"$node\",device!~\"lo|veth.*|br.*|docker.*\"}[5m]))", "legendFormat": "{{job}} {{device}} RX", "refId": "A" },
+        { "expr": "-sum by (job,device) (rate(node_network_transmit_bytes_total{job=~\"$node\",device!~\"lo|veth.*|br.*|docker.*\"}[5m]))", "legendFormat": "{{job}} {{device}} TX", "refId": "B" }
+      ]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 12, "type": "timeseries", "title": "Network errors / drops",
+      "description": "Interface errors and drops \u2014 the signature of a saturated link or a bad NIC/cable.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 12, "y": 28 },
+      "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prometheus" },
+      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "ops" }, "overrides": [] },
+      "targets": [
+        { "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" }
+      ]
+    }
+  ]
+}
@@ -0,0 +1,75 @@
+{
+  "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"],
+  "timezone": "browser",
+  "schemaVersion": 39,
+  "refresh": "30s",
+  "time": { "from": "now-1h", "to": "now" },
+  "templating": {
+    "list": [
+      {
+        "name": "container",
+        "label": "container",
+        "type": "query",
+        "datasource": { "type": "loki", "uid": "loki" },
+        "query": { "query": "{job=\"systemd-journal\"} | json", "label": "container_name", "refId": "A" },
+        "includeAll": true,
+        "multi": true,
+        "refresh": 2,
+        "current": { "text": "All", "value": "$__all" }
+      }
+    ]
+  },
+  "panels": [
+    {
+      "id": 1, "type": "timeseries", "title": "Log volume by container (lines/s)",
+      "description": "Parse the journal JSON, count lines per container. Spikes = a chatty or crashing unit.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 9, "w": 24, "x": 0, "y": 0 },
+      "datasource": { "type": "loki", "uid": "loki" },
+      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "reqps", "custom": { "fillOpacity": 20, "stacking": { "mode": "normal" } } }, "overrides": [] },
+      "targets": [{ "expr": "sum by (container_name) (count_over_time({job=\"systemd-journal\"} | json [$__auto]))", "legendFormat": "{{container_name}}", "refId": "A" }]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 2, "type": "timeseries", "title": "Total log rate",
+      "description": "All journal lines per second.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 0, "y": 9 },
+      "datasource": { "type": "loki", "uid": "loki" },
+      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "reqps" }, "overrides": [] },
+      "targets": [{ "expr": "sum(count_over_time({job=\"systemd-journal\"} [$__auto]))", "legendFormat": "all lines/s", "refId": "A" }]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 3, "type": "timeseries", "title": "Error-level line rate",
+      "description": "Lines matching error/panic/fatal/fail. A blunt text match \u2014 the journal carries no structured level for all units.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 12, "y": 9 },
+      "datasource": { "type": "loki", "uid": "loki" },
+      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "reqps", "color": { "mode": "fixed", "fixedColor": "red" } }, "overrides": [] },
+      "targets": [{ "expr": "sum(count_over_time({job=\"systemd-journal\"} |~ \"(?i)(error|panic|fatal|fail)\" [$__auto]))", "legendFormat": "error lines/s", "refId": "A" }]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 4, "type": "timeseries", "title": "Errors by container",
+      "description": "Which unit is throwing. Rank by the top offenders.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 0, "y": 17 },
+      "datasource": { "type": "loki", "uid": "loki" },
+      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "reqps" }, "overrides": [] },
+      "targets": [{ "expr": "sum by (container_name) (count_over_time({job=\"systemd-journal\"} |~ \"(?i)(error|panic|fatal)\" | json [$__auto]))", "legendFormat": "{{container_name}}", "refId": "A" }]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 5, "type": "stat", "title": "Error lines (last 15m)",
+      "description": "Absolute count over the window, not a rate.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "x": 12, "y": 17 },
+      "datasource": { "type": "loki", "uid": "loki" },
+      "fieldConfig": { "defaults": { "unit": "short", "thresholds": { "mode": "absolute", "steps": [{ "color": "green", "value": null }, { "color": "yellow", "value": 50 }, { "color": "red", "value": 500 }] } }, "overrides": [] },
+      "targets": [{ "expr": "sum(count_over_time({job=\"systemd-journal\"} |~ \"(?i)(error|panic|fatal)\" [15m]))", "instant": true, "legendFormat": "errors/15m", "refId": "A" }]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 6, "type": "logs", "title": "Journal (filtered)",
+      "description": "Raw lines for the selected containers. Set the container picker; keep the window tight.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 12, "w": 24, "x": 0, "y": 25 },
+      "datasource": { "type": "loki", "uid": "loki" },
+      "options": { "showTime": true, "wrapLogMessage": true, "sortOrder": "Descending", "enableLogDetails": true },
+      "targets": [{ "expr": "{job=\"systemd-journal\"} | json | container_name=~\"$container\"", "refId": "A" }]
+    }
+  ]
+}
@@ -0,0 +1,96 @@
+{
+  "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"],
+  "timezone": "browser",
+  "schemaVersion": 39,
+  "refresh": "30s",
+  "time": { "from": "now-6h", "to": "now" },
+  "panels": [
+    {
+      "id": 1, "type": "stat", "title": "Targets up",
+      "gridPos": { "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",
+      "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.",
+      "gridPos": { "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",
+      "description": "Active series in memory. A jump = a new exporter or a label-cardinality leak.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 4, "w": 5, "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",
+      "gridPos": { "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",
+      "gridPos": { "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",
+      "gridPos": { "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",
+      "description": "Every scrape target and its current up. Sort by Value to surface regressions.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 9, "w": 12, "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)",
+      "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 },
+      "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",
+      "description": "Total samples ingested across all jobs.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 12, "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",
+      "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 },
+      "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",
+      "description": "CPU by monitored process \u2014 spot a runaway exporter or the Prometheus process itself.",
+      "gridPos": { "h": 8, "w": 24, "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" }]
+    }
+  ]
+}
@@ -240,14 +240,12 @@ CADDYFILE="$REPO_ROOT/dankclaw/Caddyfile"
 }

@test "alloy's UI address comes from the unit, not the config file" {
-    # alloy 1.x refuses to configure the ui service from a config block
-    # ("service ui does not support being configured"), so the unit moves the
-    # UI off the container's loopback with a command-line flag. Without that
-    # flag the port cannot be published and the service has no reachable
-    # health endpoint at all — which is why the homepage status card for
-    # alloy read "down" while it ran under compose.
+    # alloy 1.x refuses to configure the ui service from a config block, so the
+    # unit sets the UI address on the command line. As a Network=host root unit
+    # that address is the host loopback directly (no PublishPort) — reachable
+    # from the host, from nothing off-host.
    ! grep -qE '^(ui|server) \{' "$REPO_ROOT/shared/alloy/config.alloy"
    local unit="$REPO_ROOT/dankclaw/observability/quadlet/alloy.container"
-    grep -q -- '--server.http.listen-addr=0.0.0.0:12345' "$unit"
-    grep -q '^PublishPort=127.0.0.1:12345:12345$' "$unit"
+    grep -q -- '--server.http.listen-addr=127.0.0.1:12345' "$unit"
+    ! grep -q '^PublishPort=' "$unit"
 }
@@ -29,8 +29,14 @@ export default defineConfig({
      // green suite with a test that does not exist. 17- joined on 2026-09-16
      // (the hermes vhost, whose upstream is a host address rather than a
      // container name, so it needs its own pass condition). 18- joined on
-      // 2026-09-24 (OpenWebUI SSO through authentik).
-      testMatch: /(10|12|13|16|17|18)-.*\.spec\.ts/,
+      // 2026-09-24 (OpenWebUI SSO through authentik). 20- joined on 2026-10-21
+      // (Grafana's OAuth2 relying-party login, which the edge-only 13- never
+      // follows). 21- joined 2026-10-21 (the open-notebook vhost, deployed
+      // 2026-10-19 - the newest guarded app, in neither GUARDED list nor any
+      // spec until now: the 17-hermes "uncovered vhost broke silently" class).
+      // 22- joins Prometheus's app-is-really-there proof (its own API), closing
+      // the "not a login wall but maybe a 404" hole 20- closed for Grafana.
+      testMatch: /(10|12|13|16|17|18|20|21|22)-.*\.spec\.ts/,
      use: { storageState: ".auth/qa-e2e.json" },
      dependencies: ["setup"],
    },
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ const BASE = "https://www.franksdank.cloud";
 // Every vhost that Caddy routes through anubis:8923 (see dankclaw/Caddyfile).
 // Keep this list in lockstep with the Caddyfile: a new guarded vhost must be
 // added here or the guard-chain audit is incomplete.
-const GUARDED = ["www", "search", "romm", "files", "seerr", "grafana", "prometheus", "loki"];
+const GUARDED = ["www", "search", "romm", "files", "seerr", "grafana", "prometheus", "loki", "notebook"];

 // Markers that prove app content leaked past the guard to an anonymous user.
 const LEAK_MARKERS: Record<string, string[]> = {
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ const LEAK_MARKERS: Record<string, string[]> = {
  "seerr.franksdank.cloud": ["Request Movie"],
  "grafana.franksdank.cloud": ["Dashboards"],
  "prometheus.franksdank.cloud": ["Expression Browser", "Graph"],
+  "notebook.franksdank.cloud": ["Open Notebook"],
 };

 test("homepage root (/) is guarded for unauthenticated users", async ({ page }) => {
@@ -0,0 +1,56 @@
+import { expect, test } from "@playwright/test";
+
+// Grafana (grafana.franksdank.cloud) is an OAuth2 RELYING PARTY, not an
+// outpost-fronted proxy: the guard chain (13-sso) only proves an authenticated
+// session reaches Grafana's login page. The login itself happens through
+// Grafana's own "Sign in with Authentik" button, which the edge test never
+// follows — that is exactly how the RP login could be dead (500 on authorize,
+// or an email-claim gap bouncing back to /login) while 13- still passed green.
+// This spec drives the real RP round-trip and asserts a live Grafana session.
+
+const HOST = "grafana.franksdank.cloud";
+const CHALLENGE = "Making sure you're not a bot";
+
+test("SSO: Grafana relying-party login lands a real session", async ({ page, request }) => {
+  test.setTimeout(180_000);
+
+  // Warm the guard: the vhost runs its own Anubis proof-of-work on first visit.
+  await page.goto(`https://${HOST}/`);
+  await expect
+    .poll(
+      async () => !(await page.locator("body").innerText()).includes(CHALLENGE),
+      { timeout: 90_000 },
+    )
+    .toBe(true);
+
+  // The "Sign in with Authentik" button targets this RP start URL exactly.
+  // Going straight there is the same code path without depending on the SPA's
+  // button markup.
+  await page.goto(`https://${HOST}/login/generic_oauth`);
+
+  // The chain: grafana -> auth (implicit consent, the session is already
+  // there) -> back to grafana with the code -> grafana provisions the user and
+  // redirects to "/". A dead provider/claims config bounces back to /login.
+  await expect
+    .poll(
+      async () => {
+        const u = new URL(page.url());
+        return u.hostname === HOST && u.pathname !== "/login";
+      },
+      { timeout: 90_000 },
+    )
+    .toBe(true);
+
+  const body = await page.locator("body").innerText();
+  expect(body).not.toContain("Login failed");
+  expect(body.toLowerCase()).not.toContain("powered by authentik"); // IdP flow shell
+  expect(body).not.toContain(CHALLENGE);
+
+  // A genuine logged-in session exists: /api/user answers 200 with an email,
+  // not 401. This is the assertion the edge-only spec could never make.
+  const resp = await page.request.get(`https://${HOST}/api/user`);
+  expect(resp.status()).toBe(200);
+  const user = await resp.json();
+  expect(typeof user.email).toBe("string");
+  expect(user.email.length).toBeGreaterThan(0);
+});
@@ -0,0 +1,52 @@
+import { expect, test } from "@playwright/test";
+
+// open-notebook (notebook.franksdank.cloud), deployed 2026-10-19, is a guarded
+// vhost whose outpost (notebook-proxy) fronts an app with its OWN password
+// login - the same shape as hermes (17-) and OpenWebUI (18-): the guard chain
+// (Anubis PoW -> authentik outpost) must hand off to the app, and the app's own
+// login page is the expected landing. Until now this host appeared in neither
+// the 13-/14- GUARDED lists nor any dedicated spec, so a broken upstream would
+// have stayed invisible - the exact 17-hermes "uncovered vhost" failure class.
+// 14- now covers the unauthenticated gate; this spec owns authenticated
+// reachability with a POSITIVE app marker, not just "not a login wall".
+
+const VHOST = "https://notebook.franksdank.cloud/";
+const CHALLENGE = "Making sure you're not a bot";
+
+test("notebook vhost reaches the open-notebook app through the guard chain", async ({ page }) => {
+  test.setTimeout(180_000);
+  await page.goto(VHOST);
+
+  // The Anubis proof-of-work clears in a real browser and the outpost hands off
+  // to the app; the user must never be parked on an authentik flow.
+  await expect
+    .poll(async () => !(await page.locator("body").innerText()).includes(CHALLENGE), { timeout: 90_000 })
+    .toBe(true);
+  await expect
+    .poll(() => new URL(page.url()).hostname, { timeout: 60_000 })
+    .toBe("notebook.franksdank.cloud");
+  expect(
+    new URL(page.url()).pathname.startsWith("/if/"),
+    "must not be parked on an authentik flow",
+  ).toBe(false);
+  expect(
+    await page.locator('input[name="uidField"]').count(),
+    "must not show the authentik login form",
+  ).toBe(0);
+
+  // Positive identity: the page really is open-notebook's own login, not a
+  // Caddy error or the IdP shell. The app answering its own login is the pass.
+  await expect(page, "destination title must be Open Notebook").toHaveTitle(/open notebook/i, {
+    timeout: 30_000,
+  });
+  await expect(page.locator("body"), "open-notebook login marker").toContainText(
+    /enter your password/i,
+    { timeout: 30_000 },
+  );
+  const body = await page.locator("body").innerText();
+  expect(body, "must not leak the IdP flow shell").not.toContain("Powered by authentik");
+  expect(body, "must not be a Caddy upstream error").not.toContain("Bad Gateway");
+
+  const resp = await page.request.get(VHOST);
+  expect(resp.status(), "open-notebook must answer, not error").toBeLessThan(500);
+});
@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+import { expect, test } from "@playwright/test";
+
+// Prometheus (prometheus.franksdank.cloud) sits behind the same embedded outpost
+// as Grafana. 13-sso and 11-admin only ever assert it is "not a login wall and
+// under 500" - which a Prometheus serving a 404 or a blank page would ALSO pass.
+// This is the app-is-really-there proof 20- provides for Grafana: with the
+// standard session the outpost hands off silently to the Prometheus UI, and the
+// app's own API answers success. A guard-route or upstream regression that lets
+// any non-Prometheus answer through fails here.
+
+test("SSO: Prometheus app answers its own API through authentik", async ({ page, request }) => {
+  test.setTimeout(180_000);
+  await page.goto("https://prometheus.franksdank.cloud/");
+
+  // Challenge clears, outpost hands off silently to the app (no credential prompt).
+  await expect
+    .poll(
+      async () => !(await page.locator("body").innerText()).includes("Making sure you're not a bot"),
+      { timeout: 90_000 },
+    )
+    .toBe(true);
+  await expect
+    .poll(() => new URL(page.url()).hostname, { timeout: 60_000 })
+    .toBe("prometheus.franksdank.cloud");
+  expect(await page.locator('input[name="uidField"]').count(), "no authentik form").toBe(0);
+  await expect(page, "must land on the Prometheus UI").toHaveTitle(/prometheus/i, { timeout: 30_000 });
+
+  // Load-bearing assertion: the Prometheus API itself answers, authenticated,
+  // through the outpost. An IdP bounce, a 404, or a raw upstream error fails here.
+  const api = await request.get("https://prometheus.franksdank.cloud/api/v1/status/buildinfo");
+  expect(api.status(), "Prometheus API must answer 200 through the guard").toBe(200);
+  expect((await api.json()).status, "Prometheus API must report success").toBe("success");
+});
@@ -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.
-    ledger=$(( 2 * pool + 48824 + ph + 2048 ))
+    # 2 pools + PLE 47.7 GiB (48,824 MiB) + prefix host + MNBT + the auto
+    # checkpoint store (MAX_SEQS x 10 slots of 112 MiB -- the store is pinned host
+    # memory too, and it grows with the slot count).
+    seqs=$(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"
@@ -41,13 +41,17 @@ service_section() {
 }

@test "every observability unit is boot-persistent" {
-    # Generated units cannot be enabled on this host's podman 5.x v1 quadlet
-    # generator; [Install] + linger is the entire boot-persistence story.
+    # Generated units cannot be enabled on this host's podman quadlet generator;
+    # [Install] + linger is the boot-persistence story for the rootless five.
+    # Alloy is a ROOT system unit, so its [Install] targets multi-user.target.
    local svc
    for svc in "${UNITS[@]}"; do
+        [[ "$svc" == alloy ]] && continue
        grep -q '^WantedBy=default.target$' "$UNIT_DIR/$svc.container" \
            || { echo "$svc is not boot-persistent"; return 1; }
    done
+    grep -q '^WantedBy=multi-user.target$' "$UNIT_DIR/alloy.container" \
+        || { echo "alloy (root unit) is not boot-persistent"; return 1; }
 }

@test "every observability unit is self-healing" {
@@ -140,15 +144,20 @@ service_section() {
    grep -q 'reverse_proxy prometheus:9090' "$REPO_ROOT/dankclaw/Caddyfile"
    grep -q 'reverse_proxy loki:3100' "$REPO_ROOT/dankclaw/Caddyfile"
    local svc
-    for svc in prometheus grafana loki alloy; do
+    for svc in prometheus grafana loki; do
        grep -q "^ContainerName=$svc$" "$UNIT_DIR/$svc.container" \
            || { echo "$svc unit renames its container"; return 1; }
        grep -q '^Network=dankclaw_default$' "$UNIT_DIR/$svc.container" \
            || { echo "$svc is not on the network Caddy and its peers use"; return 1; }
    done
+    # Alloy is not on that network: it is a root container on Network=host, the
+    # only way to reach Loki's 127.0.0.1:3100 publish from outside a bridge.
+    grep -q '^ContainerName=alloy$' "$UNIT_DIR/alloy.container"
+    grep -q '^Network=host$' "$UNIT_DIR/alloy.container" \
+        || { echo "alloy must be Network=host to reach Loki on the host loopback"; return 1; }
    grep -q '"grafana:3000"' "$REPO_ROOT/shared/prometheus/prometheus.yml"
    grep -q '"loki:3100"' "$REPO_ROOT/shared/prometheus/prometheus.yml"
-    grep -q 'url = "http://loki:3100/loki/api/v1/push"' "$REPO_ROOT/shared/alloy/config.alloy"
+    grep -q 'url = "http://127.0.0.1:3100/loki/api/v1/push"' "$REPO_ROOT/shared/alloy/config.alloy"
 }

@test "every observability unit has a health check" {
@@ -239,12 +248,14 @@ service_section() {
 }

@test "startup order follows the data dependencies" {
-    # Grafana is useless without Prometheus and Alloy drops logs without Loki;
-    # both pairs are expressed as systemd ordering, not launch luck.
+    # Grafana is useless without Prometheus (both rootless, same manager). Alloy
+    # used to order on loki.service; as a ROOT unit it lives on the SYSTEM
+    # manager and cannot order against a rootless user unit, so it depends only
+    # on the network and retries its push until Loki answers.
    grep -q 'After=network-online.target prometheus.service' "$UNIT_DIR/grafana.container"
    grep -q 'Wants=network-online.target prometheus.service' "$UNIT_DIR/grafana.container"
-    grep -q 'After=network-online.target loki.service' "$UNIT_DIR/alloy.container"
-    grep -q 'Wants=network-online.target loki.service' "$UNIT_DIR/alloy.container"
+    grep -q '^After=network-online.target$' "$UNIT_DIR/alloy.container"
+    ! grep -q 'loki.service' "$UNIT_DIR/alloy.container"
 }

@test "the deployer installs, restarts and health-checks each unit" {
@@ -281,6 +292,24 @@ PAIRS
    grep -q 'build_compose_image alloy' "$REMOTE_DEPLOY"
 }

+@test "alloy is a root host-network unit that reads every journal" {
+    # The whole point of the root cutover: a rootless container cannot open the
+    # 0640 journal files. Pin the properties that make the pipeline carry data.
+    local u="$UNIT_DIR/alloy.container"
+    grep -q '^Network=host$' "$u"
+    grep -q '^Volume=/etc/machine-id:/etc/machine-id:ro$' "$u" \
+        || { echo "alloy missing the load-bearing machine-id mount"; return 1; }
+    grep -q '^Volume=/var/log/journal:/var/log/journal:ro$' "$u"
+    grep -q '^Volume=/run/log/journal:/run/log/journal:ro$' "$u"
+    grep -q -- '--server.http.listen-addr=127.0.0.1:12345' "$u"
+    # Deployer: system install + root image mirror, not the user quadlet loop.
+    grep -q '^deploy_alloy() {' "$REMOTE_DEPLOY"
+    grep -q 'install_system_quadlet dankclaw/observability/quadlet alloy' "$REMOTE_DEPLOY"
+    grep -q '/etc/containers/systemd/' "$REMOTE_DEPLOY"
+    grep -q 'mirror_image_to_root localhost/franksdank/alloy:latest' "$REMOTE_DEPLOY"
+    grep -q 'alloy) deploy_alloy ;;' "$REMOTE_DEPLOY"
+}
+
@test "no dankclaw compose file competes with the quadlet units" {
    # Two owners for one container name is how a compose run resurrects a
    # stale duplicate next to the quadlet-managed one. This file was retired on
Author	SHA1	Message	Date
Frank	1aeb7af6df	docs(probe): price the corpus chars/token ratio at run time The stored 3.28 chars/token (measured 2026-10-11) had drifted to 3.20 as the repo's docs grew, so leg B sent ~201,900-token prompts and took a legitimate 400 from the engine's own window check — which reads as a capacity-contract failure on a healthy endpoint. One ~4k-token request now prices the ratio, and the leg sizes to 97 % of the deployed window.	2026-10-20 23:26:53 -07:00
Frank	cd0be97b39	docs(vault): the four-slot ledger, and the resolver's funding law from the source The shape block and boot ledger now quote the live 1.8.1 boot: experts 20.72 GiB (78 %) / kv cache 5.64 GiB (21 %) = 747,492 tokens, 3.7 full-length sessions, `--checkpoint-slots 40`, `queue_cap 32`, sampler 12 rows, `experts-from-host` 8.99 GiB a rank. The KV Capacity law is rewritten from the pinned source instead of inference: `core/mem/vram_budget.cpp:146-156` funds the cache as `elastic - expert_floor`, `core/mem/kv.cpp:266` sets its ceiling from `max_seqs x max_ctx` (demand, never funding), and `core/place/planner.cpp:100-104` makes the expert floor fall one-for-one with `--host-pool-mib` — which is why +4,224 MiB of pinned host pool bought the pool and cost 3.01 GiB of residency a card. The old "funds ~90 %, never 100 %" phrasing was inference; the byte-identical 45,568 row is the ceiling case, not a mystery. Slot-cost law carries the four-slot price (state + checkpoint store + rows, still under the 25-row exact-wire bound). The two-slot era is one row in Eras with its rollback commit. Date stamps in the trio comments corrected to 2026-10-20.	2026-10-20 23:26:53 -07:00
Frank	1bb6399524	feat(frank-archon): four decode slots over a >=700k-token KV pool Frank's order: 4 slots, a 700k pool, round UP if the resolver cannot land it exactly. The cache target is MAX_SEQS x MAX_MODEL_LEN, so the demand is 800,000 fp8 tokens; the resolver funds ~91-93 % of demand (three boots of evidence on the endpoint page), which clears 700k, and the VRAM has to come from the expert plane -- which has to go somewhere, so HOST_POOL_MIB moves with it. expert_vram_floor (core/place/planner.cpp:100-104) is exactly plane + 2 units - host_room, and the live boot ledger pins that plane at 67.60 GiB a rank (23.73 GiB floor at 44,928 of room), so 49,152 drops the floor to 19.61 GiB and leaves the cache ~6.9 GiB: enough for the whole target, with the leftover returned to the experts. Costs, both real: pinned host RAM 87.75 -> 96.0 GiB (the pool is pinned once per rank) and ~3.2 GiB a card of expert residency, read over the x8 Gen5 link when the router picks a host-resident expert. The boot ledger's vram_kv line is the referee; if it comes back under 700,000 tokens HOST_POOL_MIB goes up 1024 and this redeploys. TTM_MIN_MIB 150,000 -> 162,000 for the new pin ledger (2 x pool + PLE 48,824 + prefix 8,192 + MNBT 2,048 + the auto checkpoint store, now 40 slots of 112 MiB = 161,848 MiB), and the bats ledger guard now counts the checkpoint store because it grows with the slot count. The two env-value assertions in that seam are bumped with the values they guard.	2026-10-20 23:10:05 -07:00
Frank	aa75b45543	feat(frank-archon): arm --prefill-interleave at 1 A prefill chunk that shares a step with decoding sequences holds the device for the chunk's whole time: measured on this shape, decode-only steps 15.5 ms against chunk steps 166 ms, and 4.7 % of the steps carry 34 % of the engine's step time. Harness-visible decode falls 166 -> 13 tok/s (per stream 6.7 = one token per shared step) once concurrent prefill passes 5k tok/s, and TTFT p90 for an arriving request goes 2.4 -> 18.0 s. BUSY_PREFILL_CHUNK stays `auto`: it is a prefill-speed dial, and the source refuses to halve the chunk for decode rows alone -- which is why engine_steps_held_total read zero for the whole 34.7 h boot. PREFILL_INTERLEAVE is the knob that acts on the measured mechanism: N decode-only steps follow any chunk step taken beside decoders. N=1 is the conservative first arm -- 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 cost lands on the prefilling prompt's TTFT and on requests still queued, not on anything decoding. Rollback: PREFILL_INTERLEAVE=0. Verification: the flag must reach argv (the serve script only passes it when > 0), engine_steps_held_total must leave zero, then the §9 bucket pair must move before N rises.	2026-10-20 22:52:31 -07:00
Frank	b1fc1113c6	docs(vault): replace an invented --checkpoint-policy name with the three that exist The replay law named `--checkpoint-policy floor`; config.cpp admits exactly geometric-backoff (default), tip-only, keep-all and refuses anything else at boot, so the recorded arm could never be deployed. Replaced with the real semantics, priced from core/mem/prefix.{h,cpp}: the default keeps a geometric ladder (9 snapshots for a 200k session at interval 2048 -- exactly the live ledger line -- so a turn diverging d behind the tip can resume at tip-3d: diverge at 120k, replay 21.7k); retention is not the write path, so keep-all buys a bounded replay for pinned host RAM alone (196 slots x 111.98 MiB = 21.4 GiB against the store's eighth-of-host budget of 31.5 GiB, hard bound = room); and shortening --checkpoint-interval cannot fix the deep case -- the coarsest ladder scale is interval x 2^k under the depth, so the deepest gap stays about half the prompt at every interval. §9 keeps only the three-name locator.	2026-10-20 22:34:13 -07:00
Frank	9f7457e39e	docs(vault): answer "what are we doing wrong" on decode-vs-prefill frank-archon Laws: add the measured interference census (decode-only step 15.5 ms vs 166 ms chunk steps; 4.7% of steps hold 34% of step time; median decode 166 -> 13 t/s above 5k prefill tok/s, per-stream 6.7 t/s = one token per shared step; TTFT p90 2.4 -> 18.0 s for arriving requests), the lag test that kills the residency theory, the busy_cap arithmetic, and the correction that --prefill-interleave is the decoder dial and auto is not. Facts that change how an operator reads this box: /diagnostics exists and reports link-below-max at 100% busy; latency metrics live under vllm:, cadence under radiance:; preemption is vllm:num_preemptions_total (264 this boot, all bursts) while the radiance gauge is instant depth; both root ports are x8 Gen5 max by board (31.5 GB/s ceiling, not 64); DDR is back at 4800 MT/s while the 4600 corruption fix is recorded -- verify before blaming garbage tokens. §9 (LLM Performance Diagnosis): method corrected to the phase-ratio counters, dead 1.0.13 numbers destroyed, four PromQL traps added (metric prefix, 1 s EMA gauges vs 15 s scrape, counter resets across builds, 2-minute mean diluting the chunk), instruments that cannot be reached from Prometheus, and the knob list priced from the pinned 1.8.1 source instead of the stale guide.	2026-10-20 22:08:00 -07:00
Frank	687dbfbabe	docs(scripts): correct frank-archon's step-sharing and slot-count comments The env comment claimed BUSY_PREFILL_CHUNK=auto protects decode rows; the 1.8.1 source (core/sched/scheduler.cpp busy_cap) reserves 1+spec rows per decoding sequence and 1/8 of the budget per waiting request, and refuses to shrink the chunk for decoders alone -- auto is a prefill-speed dial. The interleave comment carried a 512 that is not this build's auto value (0 until the held-step counter asks; 64 in help mode). The serve header still described three decode slots; MAX_SEQS has been 2 since the 2026-10-19 reslice. No behavior change.	2026-10-20 22:07:55 -07:00
dank	961713e92d	Merge pull request 'test(e2e): cover notebook + prometheus guard-surface gaps (full-suite audit)' (#56 ) from feat/e2e-audit-coverage into main	2026-10-20 21:21:44 -07:00
dank	01db29e754	Merge pull request 'feat(grafana): starter dashboards (host/system, Loki logs, observability self-monitoring)' (#55 ) from feat/grafana-starter-dashboards into main	2026-10-20 21:20:53 -07:00
Frank	ab06e4c221	test(e2e): cover the two guard-surface gaps found in the full-suite audit Audit of all 12 e2e specs for the 'green-but-vacuous' class that broke Grafana's SSO. The suite is otherwise sound (incident-driven, leakage-based); two real coverage gaps surfaced: - notebook.franksdank.cloud (open-notebook, deployed 2026-10-19) was a guarded vhost in NEITHER the 13-/14- GUARDED lists NOR any dedicated spec. A broken upstream would stay invisible - the exact 17-hermes class. Added to the 14- guard audit (unauth -> authentik gate, 'Open Notebook' leak marker) plus a new 21- that proves authenticated reachability to open-notebook's own login through the guard chain, with a positive app marker. - prometheus.franksdank.cloud was only ever asserted '<500 and not a login wall' (13-/11-), which a 404 also passes. New 22- adds the app-is-really- there proof 20- gives Grafana: SSO handoff + its own /api/v1/status/buildinfo answers {status:success}. Both specs wired into the standard project (playwright testMatch), which the e2e_scaffold bats gate enforces. Verified live against the fleet; full bats suite green.	2026-10-20 21:16:23 -07:00
Frank	1006e96312	feat(grafana): starter dashboards for host/system, Loki logs, and observability self-monitoring llm-fleet.json already owns LLM capacity+spec-decode. These three cover the domains that had NO dashboard: - host-system: node_exporter CPU/Load/Mem/Disk/Net/Uptime/FS/FDs for both Dankclaw and Dankserver (templated by job node-dankclaw\|node-dankserver) - logs-overview: Loki volume + per-container error rate + a sample log panel; container is parsed from the JSON line at query time (journal streams have no container_name stream label) - observability: the stack's own health - Prometheus target up/down + scrape interval drift + samples/s + TSDB, Loki ingest/discard, Grafana CPU/mem. Panel queries verified live against Prometheus/Loki; provisioned dashboards confirmed via /api/search. Alertmanager is running but NOT scraped by Prometheus - noted in the dashboard, no empty panels built on it.	2026-10-20 21:10:06 -07:00
dank	7d85fed1c9	Merge pull request 'Fix Grafana Authentik SSO (500 + missing email claim) + RP landing test' (#54 ) from fix/grafana-authentik-sso into main	2026-10-20 21:04:02 -07:00
Frank	d8196ce499	docs: Grafana reads claims from userinfo, not USE_ID_TOKEN The login lands once authentik emits the email claim (the IdP fix); Grafana needs no USE_ID_TOKEN toggle, and dropping it also avoids a *_TOKEN false-positive in the literal-secret seam. Correct the two SSO notes accordingly.	2026-10-20 20:41:57 -07:00
Frank	6f442a14a3	fix(observability): repair Grafana Authentik OAuth2 relying-party login The Authentik SSO button returned "Server Error" (500): the grafana provider had a NULL authorization_flow and the authorize view crashed building a None flow planner. After that, the login failed with "InternalError" — no email claim reached Grafana, so it fell back to GET <api_url>/emails, which authentik 404s. Unit env: request authentik real scopes (openid email profile, not the GitLab user:email that crashes the authorize view); standard userinfo API_URL with no ?api=1 (Grafana v13 turns ?api=1 into a /emails 403); email/sub/preferred_username attribute paths; ALLOW_SIGN_UP=true since the Anubis->Authentik guard fronts the callback. scripts/authentik-grafana-sso-fix.sh idempotently re-applies the two IdP-side causes (NULL authorization_flow; grafana-email-scope returning a bare string instead of {"email":..}). Verified end to end: RP login lands on / and /api/user answers 200 with the real email, user provisioned as Viewer.	2026-10-20 20:41:36 -07:00
Frank	afe72781bc	docs: correct Grafana Authentik SSO facts The vault claimed the fork property-mapping evaluator was broken and userinfo returned only sub, so email could never reach Grafana (outcome unverified). That was a misdiagnosis: the real causes were the NULL authorization_flow (the NoneType.slug crash) and the email scope mapping returning a bare string rather than a dict. Record the four verified causes and fixes, point to the repair script and the new landing spec, and drop the unverified caveat.	2026-10-20 20:40:15 -07:00
Frank	200039d589	test(e2e): cover Grafana relying-party SSO landing (spec 20) 13-sso proves an authenticated session reaches Grafana login page but never follows the OAuth button, so the relying-party login could be dead (500, or an email-claim gap bouncing to /login) while the suite stayed green. Spec 20 drives /login/generic_oauth through the real Anubis+authentik round-trip and asserts a live session (/api/user 200 with a non-empty email). Wire 20- into the standard project (qa-e2e session).	2026-10-20 20:40:15 -07:00
Frank	91d9864bb0	fix(observability): repair Grafana Authentik OAuth2 relying-party login The Authentik SSO button returned "Server Error" (500) because the grafana provider authorization_flow was NULL and the authorize view crashed building a None flow planner. After that, the login failed with "InternalError": no email claim reached Grafana, so it fell back to GET <api_url>/emails, which authentik 404s. Unit env: request authentik real scopes (openid email profile, not the GitLab user:email that crashes the authorize view); read claims from the id_token (USE_ID_TOKEN=true) and drop ?api=1 from the API URL (Grafana v13 turns it into a /emails 404); pin email/sub/preferred_username attribute paths; allow first-login provisioning since the Anubis->Authentik guard fronts the callback. scripts/authentik-grafana-sso-fix.sh idempotently re-applies the two IdP-side causes (NULL authorization_flow; the grafana-email-scope mapping that returned a bare string instead of {"email":..}). Verified end to end: RP login lands on / and /api/user answers 200 with the real email, user provisioned as Viewer.	2026-10-20 20:40:15 -07:00
dank	980491668c	Merge pull request 'Alloy ships logs: root host-network service so it can read the journal' (#53 ) from feat/alloy-root-journal into main	2026-10-20 20:05:00 -07:00
Frank	e494617599	docs(alloy): document the root journal-read cutover Alloy page rewritten to the shipped root design (why root, the two mounts that make it work, deploy-pending status); Observability current state marks the log pipeline fixed-in-code, awaiting deploy.	2026-10-20 19:50:15 -07:00
Frank	9809ed9c74	test(observability): pin the root alloy shape The seams encoded alloy-as-rootless (default.target, dankclaw_default, loki:3100 by name, 0.0.0.0+PublishPort UI, After=loki.service). Update them to the root/system/host shape and add a test pinning the load-bearing properties: Network=host, the /etc/machine-id mount, the journal mounts, loopback UI, and the system-install + root-mirror deploy path.	2026-10-20 19:50:15 -07:00
Frank	634fef242b	feat(alloy): run it as a root host-network service so it reads the journal A rootless Alloy shipped zero lines: the journal files are root:systemd-journal 0640 (other::---) and a rootless container carries no supplementary groups, so sd_journal_open sees an empty view silently; the rootless quadlet container logs also live in user-1000.journal, not the ctr.log paths the old config tailed. As root, one loki.source.journal reads system.journal + user-*.journal and carries both. Network=host because Loki publishes 127.0.0.1:3100 and no bridge container can reach the host loopback; the UI binds loopback directly (no PublishPort). The /etc/machine-id mount is load-bearing — sd_journal finds the journal dir by the local machine id; without it the source reads 0 lines, health green. deploy_alloy routes around the rootless loop: build rootless, mirror the image into the root store (a root build fails on DNS in the build container), retire the old rootless alloy unit, install to /etc/containers/systemd. Validated with a throwaway root probe: 31,825 lines read, 26,966 pushed to Loki in 20s, zero drops.	2026-10-20 19:50:15 -07:00
dank	2fe68e69af	Merge pull request 'Observability: vllm rule group for frank-archon + Loki datasource; correct stale log-pipeline facts' (#52 ) from fix/observability-vllm-loki into main	2026-10-20 19:39:38 -07:00