The failure branch was a two-way choice — superseded? M4 : M1 — and BOTH are
statements about the customer's code. rerr was never inspected, so a hub that
refused, an agent that was stopped and a genuinely mistyped code all produced
the same accusation. Measured live 2026-08-05 with a CORRECT current code: hub
firewalled off 0.0556s, agent stopped 0.0299s, against ~1.0s for a real unseal.
Five classes, from the VALUE and never the text:
hub-unreachable 502/503 from the agent — the code was NOT used
agent-unreachable no agent verdict at all (transport) — NOT used
no-bundle 404
bundle-too-old 409
asked-and-refused 400 — the ONLY class that may mention typing
unknown everything else -> NEUTRAL, the safe default
agentapi.RecoveryRefusal carries the status as a value (refusalError flattened
it into a sentence, and a sentence is not something a caller can branch on).
THE OLD-AGENT CASE IS WHY THIS NEEDS A COUPLING. Agent < 0.126.0 answers 400
for both a fetch failure and a wrong code, so a 400 from one cannot be read as
a refusal. FeatureRecoveryFailureClass (MinAgent 0.126.0) withholds that
reading and the 400 degrades to neutral. The gate BLOCKS NOTHING — it only
decides whether the customer may be told to check their typing.
R-226: the superseded message now names BOTH possibilities and restores the
ten-words prompt. The two are indistinguishable at the engine; the honest
message says so. It still does not promise the earlier package can be opened.
Elapsed time is logged (it is what diagnosed this) and is NEVER a classifier.
Tests: scenarios A-E at the HANDLER + the classifier table asserting the same
sentence under two statuses classifies two ways. Red-proofs, each demonstrated
failing then restored: delete the 502 case (A), remove the mistype clause (C),
default to the accusation (D), route an instant transport failure to the typing
message (E).
Two existing tests encoded the defect and were corrected, not deleted: the web
fake returned a BARE error for 'wrong code' (which is the shape of a failure we
cannot classify), and R-222's test forbade any mention of typing on a
superseded box — half of which R-226 deliberately reverses.
28 packages ok, vet clean, all controller gates OK.
R-216: the offsite key recovery is a coupled feature and now says so. featureProbes +
featureMinAgent 0.125.0 + a Supports gate at the unlock entry point, FAILING CLOSED — an
agent that cannot answer is named as such instead of the customer's code being blamed.
Measured live: a 404 from agent 0.120.0 came back as "we did not accept your recovery
code, check that all ten words", in 0.134 s, against a perfect code.
R-218: delete the repo-password short-circuit in needsOffsiteCredential. The declaration
stops when the TIER WORKS, not when a key exists — installing a key is the recovery
screen's whole job, so succeeding at recovery was switching off the mechanism that would
have delivered the coordinates to use it.
R-219: the unlock finishes the job — place the key, bring the tier up, then list. Without
it the promised listing could never render on the shape the screen exists for.
R-217: an unreadable store no longer claims to have opened with unattributable content
(the OffsiteInventory{} zero value). Opened / empty / unreadable are three states.
R-222: a code that is right about a RETAINED earlier package is named, not blamed. States
what the hub knows and promises nothing — no read path exists.
R-215: GET /recovery is gated on the same predicate as the interception.
Five red-proofs, each demonstrated failing and restored.
A customer whose machine was rebuilt had everything needed to get their data
back and no way to find out: the only route was a command line. This is the
screen that closes that.
IT UNLOCKS, AND ONLY UNLOCKS (operator ruling). It explains, takes the recovery
code, opens the repository and shows what is in there — apps, dates, sizes. It
restores nothing: restore is already per-app and lives in the backups area, and
a screen that unlocks and then offers to overwrite is two decisions wearing one
button.
ONE CORE, TWO CALLERS. RecoverInstallCore is split out of RecoverAndInstall; the
CLI wrapper keeps its exit codes and printed lines byte-identical, and the
handler drives the same function. Two implementations of the one operation that
can permanently lose a customer's data would drift, and only one would be
tested. Asserted from source on both sides by AST.
THREE WAYS OUT, none a dismiss button: recover; 'most nem' (the full page stops
interrupting, the backups-area entry point stays PERMANENTLY, bound to the offer
and never to the postpone flag); and 'I do not want the old data' — confirmed
TWICE and reaching the SHIPPED move-aside, which sets aside and never deletes.
THE CODE IS HANDLED NO MORE LOOSELY THAN ON THE COMMAND LINE: POST body only,
never logged, never persisted, never echoed, cleared on every path, no-store,
autocomplete off. No lockout — the code is a ten-word phrase, and locking a
customer out of their own data for a typo is worse than anything it prevents.
TWO DEFECTS THE TESTS CAUGHT, both fixed: an UNCLAIMED (legacy-open) box would
have been shown the page, because RequireAuth passes such a box through; and the
inventory nil-dereferenced when no off-site target was configured, which is
exactly the pristine rebuilt shape.
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