# Publish-train rules — coupled controller/agent releases

Standing gates for every artifact publish train (agent binary + controller golden + Day-0 manifest +
floor). Each rule cites the incident that created it. The box-level backstop (rule 4) exists because
rules 1–3 are operator discipline and discipline fails; the rules stay the primary control.

## 1. Manifest before floor (the GL-1 rule, restated)

Publish and vouch the artifacts in the Day-0 manifest **before** any floor movement. A floor that
points at an unvouched (or unpublished) version bricks self-updates: boxes are told to move to a
version they cannot verify. (GL-1 supply-chain arc; see the go-live package records.)

**Since hub v0.112.0 (operator ruling 2026-09-13, R-472): the manifest leads the floor inside the
golden; above it, the release's own declared MinAgent does.** A controller image is pulled by tag from
the registry, so a floor above the golden does not need a golden to be delivered — it needs to know
which agent the release requires. The operator declares that with the floor, in the `min_agent` field
next to it, read from the release's controller `CHANGELOG.md` header (`**MinAgent: X.Y.Z**`, pinned by
`controller/scripts/minagent_header_gate.py`).

- **At or below the vouched golden:** the manifest's MinAgent governs, exactly as before. A declared
  value is recorded and not used.
- **Above the golden, declared:** the hub compares each box's agent against the declared MinAgent
  (rule 3's comparison, same hold text). Hub log: `managed floor SERVED … from declared`. The Hosts
  page marks the box `floor: declared MinAgent`.
- **Above the golden, undeclared:** still **HELD beyond the golden**, unchanged (R-216). Both floor
  forms refuse to save such a floor (`floor_needs_min_agent`), so the hold is now a sentence at save
  time instead of a silent fleet-wide stop.
- A declaration belongs to the exact floor it was saved with (`FLOOR=MINAGENT`). Moving the floor
  without a new declaration never carries the old one forward.

## 2. The manifest screen carries the LIVE DB floor — save the floor field LAST

The hub's Day-0 manifest UI also persists the global floor as a DB row
(`hub_settings.min_controller_version` — `hub/internal/store/store.go`,
`GetGlobalMinControllerVersion`). **The DB row overrides the env floor and acts immediately on the
next report cycle** — it is not staged by the manifest vouch.

**Incident:** publish train 0.81/0.113 (2026-07-11,
`documentation/pilot/RUNBOOK-publish-0.81-0.113-2026-07-11.md`): the operator saved the manifest
screen with the floor field filled; the floor acted at once and controller 0.113.0 reached Peti's
box ~9 minutes **before** agent 0.81.0 — the exact forbidden skew, benign only because the box had
zero NAS shares.

**Rule:** fill the floor field **last**, in a separate save, only after rule 3's fleet check passes.

## 3. MinAgent fleet gate — HUB-ENFORCED PER-BOX since hub v0.45.0

A controller release that depends on coupled agent behavior declares `MinAgent: X.Y.Z` in its
CHANGELOG entry header line (felhom-controller convention, since v0.114.0; retroactively, 0.113.0's
effective MinAgent was 0.81.0 for the NAS add). The floor may not effectively push a box past a
controller whose MinAgent that box's agent does not yet meet.

**Hub-enforced per-box since hub v0.45.0 (the manual fleet check is retired):** the operator sets
the golden's **`MinAgent`** in the Day-0 artifact manifest (Configuration → Day-0 artifacts →
"Min agent"; blank = uncoupled release, no gating). At report-ACK time the hub compares each box's
reported `hosts.agent_version` against that MinAgent
(`store.ResolveManagedFloor`, `hub/internal/store/store.go`): agent ≥ MinAgent → the controller
floor is served; agent below MinAgent **or unknown** → the floor is **HELD** (the ACK omits the
directive) and the box is flagged on the Hosts dashboard (`floor held: agent <v> < MinAgent <w>`) —
a held box is visible, never silently stale. The operator still SETS MinAgent at manifest time; the
hub does the per-box gating. This mechanises the "agent BEFORE controller floor" ordering that rule
2's incident violated by hand.

Effective-floor visibility (same v0.45.0): the floor card shows the resolved value + its source
(DB `hub_settings` vs env `DEFAULT_MIN_CONTROLLER_VERSION`, both raw values when they differ), and
the floor save is behind a type-to-confirm dialog stating the live below-floor blast radius — so
rule 2's "the floor acts immediately" is impossible to miss.

## 4. Box-level backstop: the controller's capability gate

Since controller v0.114.0, a coupled feature entry point probes the agent's capability
(`controller/internal/agentapi/features.go` — route probe: 2xx ⇒ supported, 404 ⇒ older agent,
transport/5xx ⇒ indeterminate, never "too old") and refuses up front with an honest Hungarian
message instead of failing mid-pipeline. This turns a violated ordering into a graceful refusal —
it does **not** license sloppy trains: rules 1–3 remain the primary control.

Convention for new coupled features: add a row to the `featureProbes` table AND the `featureMinAgent`
table + a `Supports` gate call at the feature's entry point, and declare MinAgent per rule 3. Since
controller v0.115.0 + agent v0.82.0 the agent reports its version in the `X-Felhom-Agent-Version`
response header, so `Supports` decides by version comparison when the version is known and only
falls back to the route probe for header-less (≤0.81) agents — capability detection is now explicit,
not probe-inferred.

## 5. Every ISO build asserts golden ≥ the managed floor (the R-71 gate)

**Incident:** `DIAG-f10-demo-hp-offsite-2026-07-23.md` / R-71. A box installed from an ISO whose
golden controller is BELOW the hub's managed floor boots below the floor, so the day-0 managed
update fires within minutes of first boot — racing the offsite apply-bridge in exactly the window
that burned demo-hp's one-time offsite credential (2 days unprotected). The gap is invisible at
build time unless something checks it.

**Rule:** a build where the managed floor exceeds golden must **fail loudly, at build time**, not
ship. `build-felhom-iso.sh` carries the assertion itself (`assert_golden_ge_floor`, gated on
`FELHOM_ASSERT_GOLDEN` = the hub's `artifact_golden_version` and `FELHOM_ASSERT_FLOOR` = its
`min_controller_version`); it prints both versions and `die`s on `golden < floor`. Resolve the two
values operator-side before the build and pass them in — e.g. from the hub DB
(`hub_settings.artifact_golden_version` / `min_controller_version`) or the operator artifacts UI —
so the gate is enforced, not skipped (an unset input warns LOUDLY and does not silently pass). The
fix for a tripped gate is never to lower the floor: **republish golden ≥ floor and vouch it**
(rule 1), then rebuild. This gate composes with rule 1 — the manifest still leads the floor; this
one stops an ISO from carrying a golden the floor has already outrun.

> **Dated note, 2026-08-18 — the current pair is golden `0.216.0` / floor `0.216.0`.** Equal, so the
> R-71 gate passes. Recorded so the next build has numbers to hand, and deliberately **not** as a
> replacement for the instruction above: **resolve both LIVE from the hub before a build.** A
> snapshot that looks authoritative is exactly how `build-golden.sh`'s hand-bumped `CONTROLLER_IMAGE`
> default rotted twice. Treat these as a sanity check on what you read, never as a substitute for
> reading it. (Floor raised to 0.216.0 by the operator on 2026-08-18 in a separate save after the
> vouch, per rule 2 — see R-343, which records that the raise moved `demo-felhom` nine seconds later.)