The golden's version IS the controller it bakes (build-golden.sh:345 defaults
GOLDEN_VERSION to the controller tag), so a golden behind the newest deployed
controller means every FRESH install lands on stale application code. On the R-120
occurrence that stale code shipped a customer-facing falsehood: a box from the
0.185.1 golden told a customer whose backup drive had fallen out that the backup was
on the same disk as the system -- false, the drive was gone -- and offered a
different drive as the remedy.
WHY A GATE, NOT A REMINDER. The gap has opened three times: R-111 (golden's agent 17
releases behind), R-115 (agent built and deployed, never published), R-120 (this).
The first two were closed by re-baking and remembering; remembering then failed
again. R-29 is the standing proof that a check nobody runs is worse than none because
it reads as coverage -- hostinstall_gates.py sat RED and uninvoked across three
version bumps and hub_confirm_gate.py has never run at all. So the property that
matters is not whether a check exists but whether it BLOCKS.
- Wired into handleSetArtifacts (internal/web/configs.go), immediately before the
only write, on the sole UI path to SetArtifactManifest -- it runs on every vouch
without anyone choosing to. A script in scripts/ would have been a fourth orphan.
- It REFUSES (operator ruling, 2026-07-30), with a flash naming the remedy.
- Signal: store.NewestReportedControllerVersion() over reports.controller_version,
SEMVER-compared in Go -- MAX() in SQL ranks 0.99.0 above 0.186.0, a pair this
fleet has shipped. No outbound call, no new credential.
- Fail-open in exactly two deliberate cases: an empty golden field (clearing the
manifest is legitimate) and an unknown fleet version (a new hub must vouch its
first golden).
NEAR-MISS RECORDED: the first draft read guests.controller_version, a column that
exists in the schema and that NOTHING writes -- it would always have seen "" and
failed open, i.e. inert, this gate's own failure shape. Caught by grepping for a
writer before trusting the column.
Blind spot stated rather than papered over: a controller no box has ever run is
invisible to this signal. Not the failure that has bitten -- all three instances were
deployed-newer-than-baked.
4 tests through the PRODUCTION handler over httptest, never an injected seam. The
refusal asserts both the flash and that the manifest was NOT written, because a gate
that redirects and saves anyway reads as enforcement while providing none. Red-proof:
deleting the block makes the stale golden vouchable and both assertions fail.
ROADMAP R-29's audit list now records this as the FIRST enforced gate, so the
contrast with its three orphans is kept rather than lost. The orphans are unchanged.
Suite rc=0 read separately from this commit.
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