# SPIKE — Controller→agent channel health-check mechanics (failure classification + self-heal)

- **Date:** 2026-06-29
- **Class:** Spike / empirical, mostly read-only. One mutation: a clean `systemctl restart
  felhom-agent` (no backup in flight; same as R1). Throwaway probe (uncommitted `channelspike_test.go`
  in the controller's `agentapi` package on the build server) removed in teardown. No change to
  `controller.yaml`, the agent config, mounts, the leaf, or sudoers.
- **Verdict: GO** — a periodic controller→agent channel check is a straightforward slice. The failure
  surface classifies cleanly (Q1), and the memoized production client **self-heals** after an agent
  restart with no controller restart (Q2) — no latching-client wrinkle to fix first. One nuance: the
  only *latching* failure is a `New()` **construction** error (bad fingerprint), which must be surfaced
  as a distinct, louder alert.

---

## Q1 — failure classification map

Throwaway `agentapi.New(...) + client.Storage(ctx)` against the live agent, one mode each. Exact
errors (verbatim):

| Mode | Exact error | Kind | Match on | Proposed operator alert | Severity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| baseline (real ep/token/fp) | `Storage() OK (channel up)` | — | — | — | — |
| **(a) pin mismatch** (valid-hex wrong fp) | `agentapi: GET /storage: Get "https://192.168.0.162:8443/storage": agentapi: TLS pin mismatch: agent leaf SHA-256 does not match the bootstrap fingerprint` | runtime | `TLS pin mismatch` | Agent leaf cert no longer matches the controller's bootstrap fingerprint — re-pin / re-bootstrap (the R1 incident class) | **critical** |
| **(b) token rejected** (real fp, wrong token) | `agentapi: GET /storage: HTTP 401` | runtime | `HTTP 401` | Agent rejected the controller's bearer token (stale/rotated) — re-bootstrap the guest token | **critical** |
| **(c) agent down / refused** (closed port) | `agentapi: GET /storage: Get "https://…:9/storage": dial tcp …:9: connect: connection refused` | runtime | `connection refused` | felhom-agent down or `:8443` closed | **warning** (transient) → critical if sustained N cycles |
| **(d) timeout** (black-hole `192.0.2.1`) | `agentapi: GET /storage: Get "https://…/storage": context deadline exceeded` | runtime | `context deadline exceeded` / `i/o timeout` | Host unreachable / packets dropped (firewall, host down) | **warning** → critical if sustained |
| **(e) wrong endpoint** (bogus host) | `agentapi: GET /storage: Get "https://nonexistent.invalid:8443/storage": dial tcp: lookup nonexistent.invalid …: no such host` | runtime | `no such host` / `lookup` | `local_api.endpoint` misconfigured / unresolvable | **critical** (config) |
| **(f) malformed fingerprint** (non-hex) | `agentapi: fingerprint must be a SHA-256 (64 hex chars), got 10` (also: `fingerprint is not valid hex`) — **returned by `New()`, not `Storage()`** | **construction (LATCHES)** | error from `agentClient()` itself (before any call) | `local_api.fingerprint` is not a valid SHA-256 — the controller can't build the client at all (needs a config fix + restart) | **critical** (config) |

**Construction vs runtime is the load-bearing distinction.** Only (f) fails at
`agentapi.New(...)` — and `agentClient()` (`agent_disk_handlers.go:51`) memoizes that via `sync.Once`,
so it **latches** until a controller restart. (a)–(e) are all per-call `Storage()` errors that clear
when the underlying condition does. The classifier keys on the substrings above; all six are
distinguishable.

---

## Q2 — self-heal across a clean agent restart (the load-bearing question)

Two probes run concurrently across **one** `systemctl restart felhom-agent` (no controller restart):
- **Memoized production path:** `GET /api/disks` through Traefik in-guest (the exact UI call → the
  `sync.Once` memoized `agentClient()`), once/sec. 200 = up, non-200 = down.
- **Fresh client:** a new `agentapi.New(...)+Storage()` each second (the `probeLocalAPI` shape).

Aligned by the restart event (~t+04):

```
MEMOIZED (/api/disks):   t+00..03 http=200 | t+04 http=502 | t+05..25 http=200   ← 1 failed probe, then up
FRESH client:            t+00..03 UP        | t+04,05 DOWN (connection refused)    | t+06..27 UP
controller container:    Up 7 hours (healthy) — DID NOT restart
controller log:          one "[web] disk list via agent failed: … connect: connection refused" at the
                         restart instant, then silence (recovered on its own)
```

**Verdict:**
- **The memoized production client SELF-HEALS** after a clean agent restart **without a controller
  restart** — one failed call at the restart instant, 200 immediately after. The controller container
  never bounced (Up 7h).
- **The fresh-client probe AGREES with the production path at every phase** (both up before, both down
  during the ~1–2 s socket gap, both up after). A fresh-client probe is therefore a **faithful
  predictor** of the UI's reality — it does **not** report "up" while the UI stays broken.
- **Why it self-heals:** the pin is verified **per TLS handshake** (`client.go:71`), the pooled
  transport simply re-dials after `connection refused`, and a clean restart serves the **same** leaf
  cert (`60b5974d…`) so the pin still matches. The `*agentapi.Client` reuse only caches the transport,
  not a verdict.
- **The R1 incident did NOT contradict this:** there the disk UI stayed broken because the agent served
  a genuinely **different** cert (a regenerated leaf) → a real *persistent* pin mismatch, not memoized
  stickiness. The memoized client correctly reports "down" while that condition holds and "up" once it
  clears — it never lies.

---

## Impl recommendation (for the channel-check slice)

1. **Probe target — reuse `GET /storage`.** It is the existing `probeLocalAPI` probe: cheap,
   read-only, no side-effect (returns this guest's mounts). No new `/healthz` needed. (`/backup/due` is
   an equally cheap alternative.)
2. **Reuse the MEMOIZED production client (`s.agentClient()`), NOT a fresh client per probe.** Q2 shows
   they agree, so reusing the production client makes the health-check reflect *exactly* what the UI
   experiences (zero divergence risk) AND avoids reintroducing the per-call `http.Transport` leak that
   `agentClient()` was made a singleton to fix. Bonus: a construction error (mode f) is already surfaced
   as the memoized `agentClient()` error, so the check distinguishes "can't even build the client
   (latched config error)" from a runtime channel failure for free. **No memoized-client recovery fix
   is required** (it self-heals).
3. **Cadence + transition/cooldown — mirror `HostCapabilityChecker`/`HostStalenessChecker`.** A periodic
   goroutine (~60 s) calls the probe, classifies the error (Q1 substrings) into a state
   `up | down:<reason>`, and on a **transition** (up→down, down→up, or reason-change) emits via the
   existing controller→hub event relay → operator alert (English) with the hub-side 1 h cooldown. To
   avoid alerting on a 1-cycle blip (the ~1 s restart gap above would otherwise page), require **N≥2
   consecutive** down cycles before the `down` transition for the transient reasons (refused/timeout);
   pin-mismatch / 401 / construction-error can alert on the first observation (they don't self-clear).
4. **Failure→alert mapping:** the Q1 table (event type per reason, e.g. `agent_channel_pin_mismatch`,
   `agent_channel_unauthorized`, `agent_channel_unreachable`, `agent_channel_misconfigured`,
   `agent_channel_recovered`).

## Go / No-go — **GO**

No wrinkle blocks a straightforward slice. The single thing to get right: **classify the construction
error (latching, config) distinctly from runtime errors (mostly transient)**, and **probe via the
memoized client** so the check can't lie. Debounce transient reasons (N≥2) to avoid restart-blip noise.

## Teardown — confirmed

Throwaway `channelspike_test.go` removed (build-server working tree clean — `git status` shows it
gone); `/tmp/spike.env` (held the token, 0600) + both Q2 logs removed; agent restarted clean and
`active`. No config/secret/agent/leaf/sudoers changes. The per-guest token was read out-of-band and is
**not** recorded here (the leaf fingerprint is not a secret).
