# REPORT — The door, part one: a correct code stops being called wrong (2026-08-12 night)

**Three repos.** hub **v0.103.0** · agent **v0.129.0** · controller **v0.214.0** · golden **0.214.0**.
Register: **R-311 CLOSED**, R-307 CLOSED, **R-312 / R-313 / R-314 / R-315 opened**. Ceiling
R-310 → **R-315**.

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## 1. The spike's answer, first and in plain language

**Can a customer restore from a set-aside store with the machinery that already exists? NO — and
building it is new surface, not wiring.** Established read-only, at `file:line`, before a line was
written.

Every restore entry point resolves the repository from `settings.GetOffboxTarget()` and the password
from the single `offboxPwPath()` file: `offboxLatestSnapshot` (`offbox_restore.go:85-86`),
`offboxSnapshotSize` (`:139-140`), `RestoreOffboxScratch` (`:206+`). **A grep for a repo-path
parameter anywhere in the restore chain returns nothing.** The only seam that installs a recovered
password, `InjectOffboxPassword` (`offbox.go:667`), writes that same one file — i.e. **adoption**.

What the drill did to read the set-aside store was `restic` **by hand**, with `-r <alt repo>` and an
overridden `RESTIC_PASSWORD_FILE`. **That distance is exactly what (b)-to-(c) costs.**

**So the session halted at Part 3 by its own rule, shipped Part 2, and hands back options → R-312.**
Cost to find out: ~35 minutes, read-only.

## 2. Part 0 — the countdown, cancelled on your ruling

Through the product's own operator path (`--abandon-stop`, which refuses rather than silently
no-opping), with the container **stopped first** so the running controller could not overwrite
`settings.json` from memory. **Proved, not trusted to the exit code:**

- `abandon_started_at` and `abandon_at` — **gone**. `AbandonStatus` returns `Active=false` when
  `AbandonAt` is empty (`offbox_abandon.go:111-113`), so no countdown renders.
- `abandon_repo_path` — **deliberately kept**, as the pointer to the preserved store.
- The set-aside store — **still there**: 36 snapshot objects, full `config/data/index/keys/locks/
  snapshots` structure. Both repositories still on the endpoint. **Nothing deleted anywhere.**

**And the thing you should know about what was preserved (R-313):** it holds **36 snapshots and one
key slot**, and it does **not** open with the box's current password (`Fatal: wrong password or no key
found`, exit 1 — measured). Its key is the one hashed `48741892f0ef…` — retained row id 4,
`identity_blob` **NULL**, a pre-v0.93.0 row. **The material was dropped by the R-198 defect during its
two-month window, so no recovery code in existence opens that store.** Keeping it is still the right
call — deleting is irreversible and a decision, not an accumulation — but it is 36 unreadable
snapshots, and that is the concrete, still-present cost of R-198 sitting on the endpoint.

## 3. Part 2 — what shipped, and a correction to the premise

**The premise needed correcting first.** The task described the customer being told *"the recovery code
did not open the sealed bundle"*. That is the **agent's local-API** reply. The **customer-facing
screen already hedged** (R-222/R-226) — it named both causes, named the kept package and its date, and
said it could not tell them apart. That was **honest**; it could not tell them apart **because nothing
ever looked**. So what shipped is smaller and more precise than "stop the lie": **the hedge becomes an
answer.**

- **hub v0.103.0** — `GET /hosts/<id>/escrow/retained`, the **first production caller
  `ListSupersededEscrow` has ever had**. Self-scoped identically, same recovery-mode gate, same audit
  event written before the bytes leave, capped at 16. Rows with a NULL `identity_blob` are **withheld
  and counted** (`unopenable_count`): they can never open what the caller is asking about, and serving
  them would let the screen promise recovery on exactly the boxes the original defect hurt.
- **agent v0.129.0** — retained packages tried **only after** the current one refuses; `422` with
  `superseded_at`; bounded at 6 attempts (~1 s of scrypt each); fail-safe in every direction.
- **controller v0.214.0** — class `RecoveryCodeOpensRetained`, gated on MinAgent **0.129.0** via a
  **second, separate** trust flag (a box can sit between 0.126.0 and 0.129.0). The message says the
  code is correct, names the date, says the package is kept, says the **current** backups are
  unaffected, and **promises no restore** — it routes to support, which can do it.

**The trade you should see stated:** the hub still cannot read any of it — sealed bytes in, sealed
bytes out, no decrypt path, no recovery code ever held. What widens is **volume**: a host key that
could fetch one opaque package can now fetch N, bounded by self-scope, the recovery-mode gate and the
cap.

## 4. Red-proofs — and where the lie actually lives

Every mutation asserted to have applied before its run.

| Repo | Mutation | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| hub | serve the CURRENT row instead of retained | FAILS (count 2→1) |
| hub | drop the unopenable guard | FAILS (count 1→2, unopenable 1→0) |
| hub | drop self-scope | FAILS (403→200) |
| hub | collapse the route suffix | FAILS (count 1→0) |
| **agent** | **remove the retained lookup** | **FAILS — the fail-closed wrong-code error returns. THE LIE COMES BACK.** |
| agent | + 6 more (nil fetcher, wrong code, fetch failure, bounded attempts, predates-field, success path) | all pinned |
| controller | delete the new case | FAILS — but the customer gets the **neutral** message, because R-224's safe default catches it |
| controller | make 422 unconditional | FAILS — an agent that never looked is read as having looked |
| controller | route 400 to the new class | FAILS — a mistype is congratulated |

**Answering the question directly:** the lie returns when the **agent's** retained lookup is removed,
not when the controller's case is. R-224's safe default is doing its job one layer up.

## 5. The claim guard, and a gate whose positive control failed

**The claim guard had a blind spot the size of the recovery screen** — it scanned templates only,
while every recovery message is a Go string in a handler. It now scans `recovery_handlers.go` too, and
**on its first run convicted a pre-existing unregistered claim**. 8 → 10 registered claims.

**The wire-contract gate: declared, and honestly weaker than it looks (R-315).** The hub response was
made a **named type** so the gate could resolve it; the wire is declared as a fourth ROOT and the tag
count rose **174 → 182**, so the fields are inspected. But a positive control — renaming the
agent-side `superseded_at` tag — **still passed**, because the check is repo-wide name-presence and
the string also occurs as a map key elsewhere. The gate documents this ("name-reachability is not
use"), so it is a known limit, not a regression — **but declaring this wire bought documentation, not
enforcement**, and saying otherwise would have been false.

## 6. Live state

| | |
|---|---|
| controller | **0.214.0** on guest 9201, `Up … (healthy)` |
| agent | **0.129.0** on `felhom-pve`, unit active, journal clean |
| hub | **0.103.0** — see §7 |
| golden | **0.214.0** baked + published |

**Live validation was endpoint/handler-level, not a click-through**, and the reason is a finding:
**the dashboard password of record no longer opens `demo-felhom` (R-308)**.

## 7. What was dropped, named plainly

- **Part 3 (the route) — HALTED at the spike, by the task's own rule.** → R-312.
- **§7's fixture walk was not re-run end-to-end.** Yesterday's drill already proved the byte-identical
  restore from a set-aside store; today's change is upstream of it (which sentence is shown), the
  dashboard is unreachable headlessly (R-308), and the restore route does not exist (R-312). What was
  proved live is the 422 itself.
- Explicitly out of scope and still open, so it does not read as forgotten: **R-305** (the removal fix
  helps a machine once — the tester's second reinstall still hits it), the hub emails naming the
  retired secret, **R-309** (the runbook's publication claim), the CI runs that fail with no log, the
  twenty unread facts, the nine grey claims, **R-303**.

## 8. Bypass, stated as required

`git push --no-verify` was used **once**, on `felhom-agent`. The `release-complete` gate refuses a
CHANGELOG entry whose tag and package do not exist; `release-agent.sh` refuses a tree that is not
pushed. Circular by construction. The bypass was immediately followed by the real release
(`release-agent.sh 0.129.0`), and the gates were re-run afterwards: **green**.