felhom.eu/STATUS.md

# STATUS — what works, what's broken, what's next

**Updated 2026-08-02.**

> **A view, not a source.** `documentation/backlog/OPEN-ITEMS.md` is the authority on open work; this
> page restates part of it in plain words, and **nothing may exist only here**. **Not `CONTEXT.md`**,
> which is technical state written for Claude Code — keep the two separate. **Maintenance:** update
> at the end of every session in which something shipped, broke, or was decided. One screen; cut
> items rather than extend it.

## What works right now

A blank machine boots the Felhom disc, installs itself unattended, and is claimed by the customer,
who sets their own password. They install apps from a catalogue of fifty-three, share files over the
home network, and open apps from a launcher or a shared link. Backups run on their own to three
places — the machine's drive, a second drive, and an encrypted off-site copy — and a customer can
restore files and app data from the drive alone. Proven end to end on real hardware.

**Apps come back after a power cut.** The machine tells an app the customer switched off from one
that simply did not come back, and waits for the system to finish starting before deciding instead of
glancing once, five seconds in. Hard-reset the demo box six times in a row: everything came back every
time, and an app switched off deliberately stayed off every time.

## What's broken

**The off-site copy can be erased by the machine that made it** — the credential that writes it can
also delete it. A daily snapshot is armed as a stopgap, and we have never restored from that copy.
*(R-95, R-87)*

**Three apps out of fifty-three kept their data where backups never looked.** They reported healthy;
the data would vanish on the next update. Two are fixed, the third is now clear to fix because it is
installed nowhere. *(R-156)*

**Local backups get 20 GB while apps get 50 GB.** An app that outgrows the smaller space stops being
backed up locally — and the off-site copy is made from the local one, so that stops too. Nothing is
lost: the last good copy is kept intact. *(R-163)*

**When that happens, only one page says so** — no email, no alert. The page that answers "is this app
backed up?" is the one that stays silent. *(R-158)*

**The checks now have two nets, and the second one emails you.** Every repository has one command
that runs all of its checks; it runs by itself before every push and refuses a push that fails. That
one lives on the workstation and can be skipped. So the build server now runs the same checks again,
on a machine that does not care who pushed or what they typed — and **when they fail it sends you an
email**, because a red mark on a page nobody watches is not a warning. Proven with a real broken
change, not assumed. The one thing it still cannot do is *stop* the change: every change here goes
straight to the main copy with no review step, so there is no point in the road for it to stand at.
It notices, quickly, and tells you. *(R-29, R-161, R-168, R-169)*

**A filling disk now warns the customer before anything breaks, and a failed backup now reaches you.**
Until today the first sign that a disk was filling up was a backup that did not happen — nothing said
anything beforehand. Two things changed. The customer is now warned while there is still room to act,
naming the drive and how much space is left, in plain Hungarian that says what to do about it. And
when one app's backup fails for any reason, **you** are told which app and why, with the disk figures
attached — the page that answers "is this app backed up?" was, until now, the one page that never
said. The customer is deliberately *not* told about that second one: they can free up space, but they
can do nothing about a backup that failed, so telling them would only alarm them.

Both were proven on the demo machine by actually filling a disk. One detail is worth knowing because
it is why there are two rules and not one: the serious warning fired when free space dropped below a
fixed amount while the disk was only 91% full — a percentage on its own would have missed it.

**These went in *before* the partition change deliberately.** The partition being removed is also a
barrier against a runaway backup filling the space the machine needs to run; putting the warnings in
first means that when it comes down, the thing watching is already working and already tested.
*(R-167, R-158)*

**The backup partition is gone from the base image.** A machine built from now on has one storage area
instead of two, so a backup can use whatever space the machine actually has free rather than a fixed
slice decided when it was built. The wall does not move; it stops existing.

**What replaced the wall.** It was quietly doing a second job — keeping a runaway backup from eating
the space the machine needs to keep running. That job is now explicit: if a backup would push the disk
below a safe reserve, **that one app's backup is refused, its last good copy is left exactly as it
was, and you are told.** Nothing is ever deleted to make room; every app has only one local copy, so
"delete the oldest" would always mean destroying some other app's only copy.

**How the shape was chosen — worth one line, because it was not the obvious one.** Three ways of doing
it were built and rebooted rather than argued about. All three worked. They differed in what they
quietly broke: one put your backups inside Docker's own storage, where the normal way of fixing a sick
Docker would wipe them; another exposed all of Docker's internals to the part of the system that
manages your drives. The third does neither, and costs one extra line of configuration.

**Nothing has changed on any existing machine.** They keep their current layout and go on working
exactly as before; they get the new shape only when they are reinstalled. The new base image is
deliberately **not switched on yet** — nothing will pick it up until a machine has been rebuilt from
it and checked, which is the next step. *(R-165, R-163)*

## What we're working on

- **Now:** the last app whose data was never saved; today's decisions written down.
- **Next:** finishing the partition merge — **the build is done and the decision is made**; what is
  left is to reinstall the two demo machines from the new base image and check one end to end.
- **After:** rebuilding how the machine records whether an app is meant to be running.

## Waiting on you

- **How a new version reaches a machine.** Pushing the installer publishes it — half a minute later
  every new machine downloads it, with no staging and no way back but another push. And publishing is
  a step we remember rather than one the release performs, forgotten twice: a fix can be live here
  and still not reach a new machine. Nothing is installing today, so this is the cheapest moment to
  settle both. *(R-110, R-115)*
- **A job, not a decision: the hub password needs changing.** A diagnostic command printed it into a
  session log; nothing suggests anyone else saw it. *(R-132)*
- **Nothing — both partition-merge questions are answered.** You chose the storage shape and the hard
  stop; both are built. The tester's box needs no conversion: it will simply be reinstalled. *(R-165)*

## Changed since last update

- **2026-08-02** — The false "host offline" warning is fixed. The hub's database was supposed to be in
  a mode where reading a page cannot block a machine's status update; a one-word difference meant that
  setting had **never taken effect**, for the hub's whole life. Fixed and verified live. **Also found:
  the hub's own database is in no automatic backup** — it holds every machine's emergency password.
  Filed, not yet fixed.

- **2026-08-02** — Boot recovery finished; six hard resets, everything back every time. Two instances
  of the same hole — starting an app whose external drive was missing — were found by reading the code
  and fixed the same day.

- **2026-08-02** — Thirteen mechanical checks had built up and nothing ran most of them; two were
  failing quietly. Fixed, and the arrangement that replaced them is described above.
- **2026-08-02** — Decided: the 20 GB backup partition goes away and shares space with app data. That
  changes the disk layout, so it happens before any machine is installed outside the house. **Measured
  since:** no machine outside the house is registered yet, so this is as cheap now as it will ever be;
  and the two demo machines can simply be reinstalled rather than converted.
- **2026-08-02** — Decided: only this machine and the tester's box are protected; every other box,
  demo boxes included, may be broken or reinstalled freely. Two of the three apps that never saved
  their data are fixed; this page created.