CLAUDE.md

@@ -23,22 +23,23 @@ There is no other path. Specifically:
 > (main is what the cluster follows), not what you are permitted to do. Honour this
 > file, not that line. Fixing those runbooks is tracked work.
 
-## 2. Enforcement is currently WEAKER than this rule. Follow the rule anyway.
+## 2. Enforcement (as of 2026-09-29: the rule is now MACHINE-ENFORCED)
 
 Verified against the live Gitea on 2026-09-29:
 
 | Expected | Actual |
 |---|---|
-| `main` protected, direct push rejected | **No branch protection.** `protected: false`, `user_can_push: true` |
-| PR blocked until the gate passes | **`enable_status_check: false`**, `status_check_contexts: []` |
-| Gate runs on every PR | **Fixed 2026-09-29.** Runner `incluster-dind` is online; `gate / gate (pull_request)` runs and passes in ~1m30s–2m |
-| Approval required before merge | **`required_approvals: 0`** |
+| `main` protected, direct push rejected | ✅ `protected: true`, `user_can_push: false` — **verified by a real rejected push**, not by the API's word |
+| PR blocked until the gate passes | ✅ `enable_status_check: true`, context `gate / gate (pull_request)` |
+| Gate runs on every PR | ✅ runner `incluster-dind` online; ~1m35s |
+| Approval required before merge | ✅ `required_approvals: 1` |
 
-So nothing mechanically stops you from pushing to `main` right now. **That is a gap
-being closed, not permission.** `DECISIONS-LOG.md` (2026-08-31) claimed the gate was a
-"required status check" with a runner online; neither was true, which is how this went
-unnoticed for a month. The runner half is now genuinely fixed and observed green. The
-protection half is not — see `infra/gitea/`.
+All four were FALSE as recently as 2026-09-29, while this repo's own log asserted they were
+true. They are true now because each was measured, and the push rejection was provoked rather
+than assumed. **Re-measure before relying on any of them** — see §2b.
+
+Still not covered: `vars.CLUSTER_AVAILABLE` is unset, so **L2/L3 conformance does not run in
+CI**. A green PR therefore proves the L0/L1 offline subset, not runtime behaviour.
 
 **Consequence for you:** CI now runs, but it does not yet *block* anything. Always run
 the toolbox gate yourself and quote its numbers. Never describe a PR as "green" on the

DECISIONS-LOG.md

@@ -4870,3 +4870,57 @@ That theory was mine and it was wrong: the pipeline was never too slow, it simpl
    FOLLOW-UP note in `apps/wave-1/gitea-actions.yaml`. It deletes both hand-rolled wait loops and
    the envsubst hazard. Land it ALONE — it is the merge gate for the whole repo.
 6. Create the Plex libraries over `/media/movies`, `/media/tv`, `/media/photos`.
+
+## 2026-09-29 (later) — the merge gate is now real, enforced, and proven. **PM HANDOFF.**
+
+Closes the gap opened by the earlier entry today. Eight PRs, all gated; every claim below was
+measured against the live API or cluster, not inferred from this repository.
+
+### Final state
+
+| | Verified |
+|---|---|
+| `main` protected | `protected:true`, `user_can_push:false` — and a direct push as site-admin `gitea-admin` was **provoked and rejected** (`pre-receive hook declined`) |
+| Gate required | `enable_status_check:true`, contexts `["gate / gate (pull_request)"]` |
+| Approvals | `required_approvals:1`; `jakman85` holds `owner` |
+| Runner | `incluster-dind` online, now a **native sidecar** (`initContainers`, `restartPolicy: Always`, TLS-verified `docker info` startupProbe) |
+| Gate time | ~1m35s |
+| Plex | claimed 2026-09-29; `PlexOnlineToken` present on the `plex-config` PVC |
+
+### What was corrected in the documentation
+
+`CLAUDE.md` §2b — *never infer platform state from this repository* — is the durable outcome.
+The 2026-08-31 entry asserting an enforced gate is now annotated **in place**. The "Phase 0 /
+no cluster exists" framing across `ci/`, `clusters/` and `conformance/` READMEs is banner-marked
+as describing a live gap rather than a stage. All 37 runbooks now describe the PR flow. Two
+`.sops.yaml` headers and `catalog/plex.yaml` were corrected (comment edits verified not to break
+the SOPS MAC, and not to move the rendered golden).
+
+### A claim of mine that shipped wrong, and is now corrected in place
+
+PR #7 stated the sidecar conversion would remove the one-per-start dockerd line
+`http: TLS handshake error from 127.0.0.1: EOF`. **It does not.** Exactly one still appears,
+immediately after `API listen on [::]:2376` — it is now the startupProbe's first attempt,
+landing microseconds after dockerd begins listening and cut off by `timeoutSeconds: 1`; the
+next poll succeeds. Cosmetic, and deliberately not chased: raising the timeout to hide one
+benign startup line would slow every subsequent poll. The manifest comment now says so.
+
+### The root cause nobody has fixed yet
+
+Gitea's repo settings live in its own database — invisible to Flux and unreadable by the
+conformance gate. **No check exists that could have caught "protection off, runner gone."**
+`infra/gitea/` declares and can re-assert the desired state, but it is not a detector. A
+conformance check that reads the live Gitea API and fails on divergence is the highest-value
+remaining work in this repo, and it is the difference between this having been fixed and this
+being unable to recur.
+
+### Next steps
+
+1. **Write that Gitea-settings conformance check.** Everything else here is a symptom.
+2. Wire `vars.CLUSTER_AVAILABLE` + `secrets.CONFORMANCE_TRIGGER_KUBECONFIG` so **L2/L3 runs in
+   CI**. A green PR currently proves the L0/L1 offline subset only — runtime behaviour is
+   unverified on every merge.
+3. Re-run `infra/gitea/verify-then-enforce.sh` after any future act-runner change.
+4. `required_approvals: 1` means a PR you open as `jakman85` needs `gitea-admin` to approve.
+   If that friction bites, either open agent work as `gitea-admin` and review as `jakman85`, or
+   drop back to relying on the status check alone.

apps/wave-1/gitea-actions.yaml

@@ -118,8 +118,16 @@ spec:
       # and only THEN begins listening, so the port can accept a connection while the certs
       # are absent or incomplete -- and act_runner hard-exits on a missing
       # /certs/client/ca.pem. A full TLS-verified `docker info` proves BOTH that the certs
-      # are usable and that the daemon answers. It also removes the one-per-start
-      # "TLS handshake error ... EOF" that the old `nc -z` probe logged in dockerd.
+      # are usable and that the daemon answers.
+      #
+      # CORRECTION (measured 2026-09-29, after this conversion shipped): the commit that
+      # introduced this claimed the conversion would REMOVE the one-per-start dockerd line
+      # `http: TLS handshake error from 127.0.0.1: EOF`. IT DOES NOT. Exactly one still
+      # appears, immediately after "API listen on [::]:2376" -- it is now this probe's FIRST
+      # attempt, landing microseconds after dockerd begins listening and cut off by
+      # timeoutSeconds: 1. The next poll succeeds. It is cosmetic, exactly as cosmetic as it
+      # was before, and deliberately NOT chased: raising timeoutSeconds to hide one benign
+      # startup line would slow every subsequent poll. Left documented rather than silenced.
       #
       # periodSeconds 1 x failureThreshold 60 preserves the previous 60s cap.
       initContainers:

infra/gitea/README.md

@@ -43,7 +43,46 @@ list. That is precisely the observed symptom: zero runners, pod running, no erro
 looks at. Clearing the PVC is what forces a real re-registration; the script prints the
 commands.
 
-## Sequence — order matters
+## Sequence — DONE 2026-09-29
+
+All four steps are complete and each was verified, not assumed:
+
+| Step | State |
+|---|---|
+| 1. Runner registered | ✅ `incluster-dind` online. Root cause of its absence was a stale `/data/.runner` identity; clearing the PVC forced re-registration |
+| 2. Gate observed green on a real PR | ✅ `gate / gate (pull_request)` ~1m35s |
+| 3. `enable_status_check: true` | ✅ context `gate / gate (pull_request)` — that one ONLY |
+| 4. Collaborator + approvals | ✅ `jakman85` is owner; `required_approvals: 1` |
+
+Direct push to `main` was **provoked and rejected** (`pre-receive hook declined`) as
+`gitea-admin`, a site admin — so protection is not merely declared, it holds for the account
+agents authenticate as.
+
+### `require-gate.sh` / `verify-then-enforce.sh`
+
+`verify-then-enforce.sh` is the re-runnable form of the whole safe order. It merges nothing —
+merging is a human's reviewed act — but it forces the Flux reconcile and then **aborts** unless
+the runner pod is healthy, a runner is online, and a real workflow goes green on it, before
+enabling enforcement and probing the push. `require-gate.sh` is the enforcement step alone.
+
+Re-run `verify-then-enforce.sh` after any future change to the act-runner Deployment.
+
+### Why these scripts exist at all, and what is still missing
+
+Gitea's repo settings live in **its own database**, not in anything Flux reconciles or the
+conformance gate can read. Nothing detects drift from what this directory declares. That is
+the root cause of the entire 2026-09-29 session: branch protection was off and the runner was
+gone for a month while the log recorded both as working, and **no check existed that could
+have caught it.**
+
+These scripts encode the desired state and can re-assert it, but they are not a detector. The
+durable fix is a conformance check that reads the live Gitea API and fails when it diverges
+from what is declared here — turning a class of silent, invisible failure into a loud one.
+**That check does not exist yet and is the highest-value remaining work in this directory.**
+
+## Historical sequence (kept for context)
+
+### Original ordering notes
 
 1. **Get an Actions runner registered** — `runner-token-rotate.sh`, then clear the PVC so
    the runner actually re-registers, then confirm it shows `online` in the API. Do not

infra/gitea/require-gate.sh

@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+# Items 1 + 2: make the gate a REQUIRED status check and require one approval.
+#
+# RUN THIS LAST. Prerequisites, in order:
+#   a) PR #7 (dind native sidecar) is MERGED, and
+#   b) you have SEEN a real workflow run go green on the converted pod.
+# The runner Deployment is the merge gate for the whole repo. Turning on a required check
+# while the runner is broken means no PR can merge -- including the revert. (Recoverable:
+# an owner can set enable_status_check back to false. But do not rely on that.)
+#
+# Requires exactly ONE context: `gate / gate (pull_request)`.
+#   * NOT `gate / conformance (*)` -- that job is `if: false`, and a skipped Gitea job reports
+#     SUCCESS ("Has been skipped"). Requiring it would pass VACUOUSLY forever while nothing
+#     ran, which under HARD RULE 4 is worse than a deadlock: a deadlock is loud.
+#   * NOT the `(push)` variant -- after PR #6 there are no per-branch push runs at all, so a
+#     PR would never produce that context.
+set -euo pipefail
+HOST=gitea.home.keithjackson.dev; OWNER=Home-Network; REPO=home-network-k3s-impl
+creds="$(printf 'protocol=https\nhost=%s\n\n' "$HOST" | git credential fill)"
+U="$(sed -n 's/^username=//p' <<<"$creds")"; P="$(sed -n 's/^password=//p' <<<"$creds")"
+api() { curl -sS --config <(printf 'user = "%s:%s"\n' "$U" "$P") "$@"; }
+
+echo "==> updating branch protection on main"
+jq -n '{
+  enable_push: false,
+  enable_status_check: true,
+  status_check_contexts: ["gate / gate (pull_request)"],
+  required_approvals: 1,
+  block_on_rejected_reviews: true,
+  dismiss_stale_approvals: true,
+  block_on_outdated_branch: false
+}' | api -X PATCH -H 'Content-Type: application/json' --data @- \
+  "https://${HOST}/api/v1/repos/${OWNER}/${REPO}/branch_protections/main" >/dev/null
+
+echo "==> verifying"
+api "https://${HOST}/api/v1/repos/${OWNER}/${REPO}/branches/main" \
+ | jq -r '{protected,user_can_push,enable_status_check,status_check_contexts,required_approvals}'
+
+cat <<'NOTE'
+
+NOTE ON required_approvals: 1 -- Gitea will not let an author approve their own PR.
+  * Agent-opened PRs (author gitea-admin) are approved by jakman85. Fine.
+  * PRs YOU open as jakman85 need gitea-admin to approve. If that is awkward, either open
+    agent work as gitea-admin and review as jakman85, or set required_approvals back to 0
+    and rely on the status check alone.
+
+Then prove it, rather than trusting the API:
+  git commit --allow-empty -m probe && git push origin main   # EXPECT: rejected
+  git reset --hard HEAD~1
+NOTE

infra/gitea/verify-then-enforce.sh

@@ -0,0 +1,83 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+# verify-then-enforce.sh — run this AFTER you have merged PRs 8, 5, 6, 7 in that order.
+#
+# It does NOT merge anything. Merging is your reviewed act (CLAUDE.md: a human approves and
+# merges). This script does the mechanical half: prove the converted runner actually works,
+# and only then turn on enforcement.
+#
+# WHY THIS ORDER. The act-runner Deployment IS the merge gate for this repository. Enabling a
+# required status check while the runner is broken means NO PR can merge -- including the
+# revert. So PR #7 lands while the gate is still advisory, is PROVEN green on a real run, and
+# only then does enforcement go on.
+#
+# Aborts at the first checkpoint that does not pass. Safe to re-run.
+set -euo pipefail
+HOST=gitea.home.keithjackson.dev; OWNER=Home-Network; REPO=home-network-k3s-impl
+REPO_ROOT=/var/home/keith/source/home-network-k3s-impl
+D="$(cd "$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")" && pwd)"
+cd "$REPO_ROOT"
+creds="$(printf 'protocol=https\nhost=%s\n\n' "$HOST" | git credential fill)"
+U="$(sed -n 's/^username=//p' <<<"$creds")"; P="$(sed -n 's/^password=//p' <<<"$creds")"
+api() { curl -sS --config <(printf 'user = "%s:%s"\n' "$U" "$P") "$@"; }
+A="https://${HOST}/api/v1/repos/${OWNER}/${REPO}"
+say() { printf '\n\033[1m==> %s\033[0m\n' "$1"; }
+die() { printf '\n\033[31mABORT: %s\033[0m\n' "$1" >&2; exit 1; }
+
+say "PRECHECK — all four PRs must be merged first"
+for n in 8 5 6 7; do
+  m=$(api "$A/pulls/$n" | jq -r .merged)
+  printf '  PR #%s merged=%s\n' "$n" "$m"
+  [ "$m" = true ] || die "PR #$n is not merged yet. Merge 8, 5, 6, 7 in that order, then re-run."
+done
+
+say "STEP 1 — force Flux to apply the sidecar now, not on the 10m interval"
+./infra/devcontainer/dev.sh run bash -c \
+  'flux --context k3s-prod -n flux-system reconcile kustomization apps-wave-1 --with-source'
+
+say "STEP 2 — CHECKPOINT: the converted pod must come up healthy"
+./infra/devcontainer/dev.sh run bash -c '
+  kubectl --context k3s-prod -n gitea-actions rollout status deploy/act-runner --timeout=180s
+  echo "--- sidecar (initContainers) ---"
+  kubectl --context k3s-prod -n gitea-actions get deploy act-runner \
+    -o jsonpath="{range .spec.template.spec.initContainers[*]}{.name} restartPolicy={.restartPolicy}{\"\n\"}{end}"
+  kubectl --context k3s-prod -n gitea-actions get pod -l app.kubernetes.io/name=act-runner' \
+  || die "converted act-runner pod is not healthy -- REVERT PR #7 before anything else"
+
+say "STEP 3 — CHECKPOINT: a runner must be ONLINE again"
+n=0
+for i in $(seq 1 40); do
+  n=$(api "https://${HOST}/api/v1/admin/actions/runners" | jq -r '[(.runners//[])[]|select(.status=="online")]|length')
+  printf '\r  online runners: %s  (%ss)   ' "$n" "$((i*5))"
+  [ "${n:-0}" -ge 1 ] && { echo; break; }
+  sleep 5
+done
+[ "${n:-0}" -ge 1 ] || die "no runner online after the conversion -- REVERT PR #7"
+
+say "STEP 4 — CHECKPOINT: a REAL workflow must go green ON THE CONVERTED POD"
+MAIN_SHA=$(api "$A/branches/main" | jq -r .commit.id)
+echo "  watching the post-merge push run on main (${MAIN_SHA:0:8})..."
+st=""
+for i in $(seq 1 60); do
+  st=$(api "$A/commits/$MAIN_SHA/status" | jq -r .state)
+  printf '\r  main gate: %-8s (%ss)   ' "$st" "$((i*10))"
+  case "$st" in success) echo; break;; failure|error) die "gate FAILED on the converted pod -- REVERT PR #7";; esac
+  sleep 10
+done
+[ "$st" = success ] || die "gate never completed on the converted pod -- REVERT PR #7; do NOT enable enforcement"
+echo "  the converted sidecar ran a real job green. Enforcement is now safe."
+
+say "STEP 5 — require the gate + one approval"
+"$D/require-gate.sh"
+
+say "STEP 6 — prove a direct push is rejected (do not trust the API's word)"
+git fetch -q origin && git checkout -q main && git reset -q --hard origin/main
+git commit -q --allow-empty -m 'protection probe'
+if git push origin main 2>&1 | grep -q 'protected branch'; then
+  echo "  CONFIRMED: push to main rejected by the pre-receive hook."
+else
+  echo "  WARNING: the push was NOT rejected -- protection is not doing what it claims."
+fi
+git reset -q --hard origin/main
+
+say "FINAL STATE"
+api "$A/branches/main" | jq -r '{protected,user_can_push,enable_status_check,status_check_contexts,required_approvals}'

infra/plex/claim-ship.sh

@@ -26,9 +26,10 @@ creds="$(printf 'protocol=https\nhost=%s\n\n' "$HOST" | git credential fill)"
 U="$(sed -n 's/^username=//p' <<<"$creds")"; P="$(sed -n 's/^password=//p' <<<"$creds")"
 api() { curl -sS --config <(printf 'user = "%s:%s"\n' "$U" "$P") "$@"; }
 
-# feat/ prefix ON PURPOSE. act_runner capacity is 1, and gate.yml's PUSH trigger covers
-# feature/** fix/** docs/** chore/** but NOT feat/** — so a chore/ branch would fire a
-# second, redundant run that SERIALISES ahead of the PR run and doubles the wall clock.
+# Branch prefix is now cosmetic. It used to matter: gate.yml's push trigger covered
+# feature/** fix/** docs/** chore/** but not feat/**, and with act_runner at capacity 1 a
+# matching prefix fired a redundant run that serialised ahead of the PR run. Those
+# per-branch push triggers were deleted, so no prefix produces a duplicate run any more.
 BRANCH="feat/plex-claim-token-$(date +%H%M%S)"
 
 el "committing on $BRANCH"