# SPEC — the orphan card must stop promising what it cannot know (2026-08-10)

**Specification only. Nothing here is implemented, deliberately** — see §5.

**Why this exists.** When a machine's off-site history is set aside, the card tells the customer — in
Hungarian, at the moment they have just lost that history — that the old copies *may be restorable
later with their recovery code*. **For anything set aside before 2026-08-04 that is false and
unfixable**, and on 2026-08-10 it was said to a real machine in exactly that state (`demo-felhom`).
Register: **R-202**.

---

## 1. The surfaces, at `file:line`

All in `felhom-controller`:

| # | file:line | what it says today |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | `controller/internal/web/templates/backups_remote.html:98` | *"A távoli tárhelyen lévő mentések egy korábbi, már nem elérhető kulccsal készültek…"* — the orphan explanation. ~~**Accurate; keep.**~~ **WRONG — CORRECTED 2026-08-12 (R-299).** Its first two clauses are accurate and were kept, but it ENDED *"— a hozzájuk tartozó helyreállítási kóddal később **visszaállíthatók lehetnek**"*: the same unevaluable promise as surface 2, in the plural. This spec called it accurate, so it survived the 2026-08-10 fix; and because §5's guard was written against the SINGULAR form it could not catch the plural either. **It is also the ALWAYS-VISIBLE half of the card** — surface 2 only renders after the customer clicks through — so on first view this was the only text they read, and it was the one still promising. |
| 2 | `controller/internal/web/templates/backups_remote.html:101` | *"A régi előzmény **félretéve marad** (nem törlődik), és a hozzá tartozó helyreállítási kóddal később visszaállítható lehet."* — **the false promise.** |
| 3 | `controller/internal/web/templates/layout.html:143` | the 14-day abandon countdown — *"a korábbi távoli mentéseidet {{.RecoveryAbandonDays}} nap múlva véglegesen töröljük"*. **Accurate; keep**, but see §3. |
| 4 | `controller/internal/settings/settings.go:337-338` | schema comment on `OrphanedRenamedTo`: *"so the card/log can name where the old history was set aside."* **Accurate; keep.** |

The `00-capability-map.md` restorability wording was searched for and **not found** — the map does not
make this claim, so there is nothing to correct there. (Stated because the task expected one.)

## 2. What is actually true, in three cases

| case | truth |
|---|---|
| material set aside **before** hub v0.93.0 (in force 2026-08-04 ~11:11Z) | **Not recoverable, by construction.** The restic password lives only in the identity bundle (`escrow/identity.go:39`, read by `escrow/recover.go:91`); for these rows `identity_blob` is NULL. No code and no recovery code can produce it. |
| material set aside **after** the fix | **Recoverable in principle** — the blob is retained and the customer's code unwraps it. Never yet demonstrated end to end on a superseded row. |
| **today's population** | Both cases that exist are the first one. Census 2026-08-10: two hosts hold a supersession, both `identity_blob` ABSENT, both superseded ~4 h before the fix. |

## 3. THE DECIDING FACT: neither the box nor the customer can tell which case they are in

- **The hub can tell** — it holds `host_escrow_superseded.identity_blob` (`store/store.go:393`).
- **The box cannot.** It caches only `HubEscrowIdentityPresent`
  (`controller/internal/settings/settings.go:71`), which is about the **current** escrow, not a
  superseded one. **No field on the report or ACK wire carries superseded-blob retention.**
- **The box is what renders the card.**

**So the card is making a conditional promise its renderer cannot evaluate. That is the same defect
as an unconditional false promise, in a longer sentence.** The wording below therefore stops
promising and starts stating.

## 4. The replacement copy

**Surface 2 — `backups_remote.html:101`. Replace:**

> A régi előzmény **félretéve marad** (nem törlődik), és a hozzá tartozó helyreállítási kóddal később
> visszaállítható lehet.

**with:**

> A régi előzmény **félretéve marad a tárhelyen — nem töröljük**. Új, üres tárolót hozunk létre, és a
> következő mentés oda készül.
>
> **A félretett mentések megnyithatóságát itt nem tudjuk megígérni.** Ez attól függ, megvan-e még a
> hozzájuk tartozó kulcs, és ezt ez a gép nem tudja megállapítani. Ha szeretnéd, hogy utánanézzünk,
> **írj nekünk** — a félretett másolat addig is a helyén marad.

Three properties, each deliberate: it **states** what happens (set aside, not deleted, fresh store);
it **declines** the claim it cannot evaluate, and says *why* rather than going vague; and it **names a
route the customer can take** — writing in — instead of leaving them nowhere.

*(Surface 3's countdown stays, but the two must be read together: the card must not simultaneously say
"we cannot promise these are openable" and "we will delete them in N days" without the second making
clear it is the set-aside copy being deleted. Recommend re-reading the pair once implemented.)*

## 5. The test that should pin it

`controller/internal/web/` render test, one per branch of the orphan card:

1. **Orphan card rendered → the STEM `visszaállíthat` does not appear anywhere in the output.**
   That is the regression guard: it fails if the promise returns in any form.

   **CORRECTED 2026-08-12 (R-299).** This originally said the string `visszaállítható lehet`, and
   that is how surface 1's plural („visszaállíthatók lehetnek") shipped past it. **A guard matching one
   inflection of a Hungarian verb guards one sentence, not the claim** — match the stem. The plain
   forms the rest of the UI uses („visszaállítás", „visszaállítani") do not contain `visszaállíthat`,
   so this does not over-match. Proven by planting the shipped plural: the stem guard convicts, and the
   old singular guard does **not** match that sentence at all.
2. **Orphan card rendered → the "write to us" route is present.** A refusal that names no route is a
   defect in this project; pin the route, not only the absence.
3. A render test **per branch of the gate** that shows the card at all, per the seam-wiring rule —
   a handler test that POSTs proves nothing about reachability.

## 6. Why it is not implemented tonight, and what it should ship with

The change lands in `felhom-controller`, and **a controller release is not delivered until a golden
carries it** — which costs one image bake and one operator approval (R-242 is the row about exactly
that gap). **The next session changes the controller anyway.** One bake and one approval should cover
this copy change together with that work, rather than spending two of each.

**Do not let this decouple:** if the next controller release ships without this, the promise is still
being made to the next customer who loses a history.
