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PotatoMesh — Product & Engineering Charter (SPEC)

Status: Draft for confirmation (Phase 0 of the kickoff protocol). Nature: This is a retrofit guardrail charter for a mature, shipping project (v0.7). It does not design new behavior — it codifies the intent and non-negotiable invariants that already hold, judged against current shipping behavior, so future work by Claude or contributors cannot drift from them. The numbered decisions in §6 must be re-verified at every later checkpoint (each build bucket, the independent review) to prevent drift.

Companion document: ACCEPTANCE.md turns every invariant and decision below into a command-backed, zero-context pass/fail check.


1. Vision & Apex

PotatoMesh is a federated Meshtastic & MeshCore node dashboard for a local community. No MQTT clutter — just local LoRa aether.

It lets a community stand up its own dashboard fed only by radios its members actually operate, optionally federate as equals with other communities, and do so while respecting the privacy of operators and node owners.

Apex invariant — the line in the sand

Local LoRa only. PotatoMesh must never connect to, depend on, or ingest from an MQTT broker or any cloud message bus.

This is the project's identity and its differentiator: every other Meshtastic dashboard leans on MQTT/cloud. "Local aether only" is what makes PotatoMesh PotatoMesh. When any other invariant, feature, or convenience collides with this rule, this rule wins. Its loss would mean the project is no longer PotatoMesh.

Precision (so the rule is enforceable, not superstitious): the apex bans PotatoMesh acting as an MQTT/cloud client or carrying such a dependency. It does not ban recording Meshtastic's own via_mqtt / viaMqtt provenance flag (data/mesh_ingestor/handlers/nodeinfo.py). That field is metadata about how a foreign node was heard; surfacing it actually serves the invariant by letting operators identify and reason about MQTT-bridged nodes. The acceptance check targets dependencies and broker connections, not the substring mqtt.


2. The Four Hard Invariants (ranked)

All four are non-negotiable. They are listed in priority order: when two collide, the higher-ranked one wins. In practice they rarely conflict; the only conflict that occurs in the running system today (privacy vs. federation) is already resolved below and in code.

I. Local LoRa only — never MQTT/cloud (apex)

The dashboard is fed exclusively by ingestors attached to physical radios (serial / TCP / BLE) that push data through the authenticated POST /api/* routes. No component pulls from MQTT or a cloud broker, and no manifest carries a broker client. See Apex.

PRIVATE=1 hides the chat UI, disables the message APIs, and excludes hidden clients from public listings. Node opt-out markers (PotatoMesh::Config::NODE_OPT_OUT_MARKER) and data-retention policies (web/lib/potato_mesh/application/retention.rb) are honored everywhere data is read or exported. When privacy collides with federation, privacy winsPRIVATE=1 always disables federation regardless of FEDERATION. Any change that increases exposure of operators or node owners loses to consent, retention, and opt-out.

III. Decentralized, opt-in federation

Instances discover and crawl one another as peers (FEDERATION toggle, periodic well-known refresh, staleness eviction). There is no central authority, registry, or gatekeeper; any instance can run fully isolated (FEDERATION=0) and remain fully functional. Federation publishes only signed, public metadata and respects remote isPrivate peers (application/federation/crawl.rb).

IV. Protocol parity & pluggability

Meshtastic and MeshCore are both first-class; neither is privileged in the data model or UI. New protocols (e.g. Reticulum) plug in behind the MeshProtocol abstraction (data/mesh_ingestor/mesh_protocol.py) and the canonical wire contract (data/mesh_ingestor/CONTRACTS.md) without changing the Ruby / DB / UI read-side.


3. Cross-cutting decisions

3.1 Invariant priority / tie-break order

Local-LoRa (apex) → Privacy & consent → Federation → Parity. Higher wins on collision. The documented PRIVATE > FEDERATION rule is the concrete instance of Privacy > Federation and must remain true in code.

3.2 Fixed technology stack (per component)

The stack is a guardrail, not an implementation detail. It is fixed per component; a rewrite into another language/framework requires a fresh kickoff, not an incremental PR.

Component Stack (locked)
web/ Ruby + Sinatra ~> 4, SQLite (sqlite3), Puma, Rackup, kramdown, sanitize, ferrum (headless Chromium for OG image), prometheus-client
data/ Python ingestor — meshtastic, meshcore, bleak (BLE), protobuf; black + pytest
matrix/ Rust — tokio, reqwest (rustls-tls), axum, serde, clap, tracing
app/ Flutter / Dart — http, shared_preferences, flutter_local_notifications, workmanager

3.3 The web app is data-in-by-POST only

The Sinatra app is never run attached to a radio. Its only data intake is the authenticated POST /api/* surface; this is what allows many community ingestors to feed one dashboard with no duplication (dedup by id). SQLite is the system of record.

3.4 Stable data & API contract

  • Canonical node id is !%08x (lowercase 8-hex), treated as canonical system-wide; new protocols must map their native ids into this space.
  • The POST/GET route shapes and event schemas in data/mesh_ingestor/CONTRACTS.md are the contract. They evolve backward-compatibly; a breaking change must be versioned (as the MeshCore dedup fingerprint already is: v1: prefix).
  • POST routes require Authorization: Bearer <API_TOKEN>; GET collection routes enforce server-side rolling-window floors that callers cannot widen.

3.5 Engineering quality bar (from CLAUDE.md, non-negotiable for new code)

  • 100% unit test coverage — every line, branch, and path. Codecov target 100%, threshold 10%, enforced on both project and patch.
  • 100% API documentation to the language standard (PDoc / RDoc / JSDoc / rustdoc / dartdoc), plus inline comments where logic is not self-evident.
  • Apache v2 notice on every file, exact string Copyright © 2025-26 l5yth & contributors — full header block for source files, 2-line notice for non-source files.
  • Formatters clean: black (Python), rufo (Ruby).
  • All suites green: pytest (data), rspec + npm test (web), cargo test (matrix), flutter test (app).
  • CI on every PR to main and every push to main, covering each touched language; weekly Dependabot for every ecosystem.
  • Modularity: prefer small, single-purpose units; split modules that grow large.

4. Per-component scope

4.1 web/ — Sinatra dashboard (mature)

The only public surface and the system of record. Serves the map + chat UI and the read APIs; accepts ingest via authenticated POST; performs federation (well-known doc, peer crawl, staleness eviction), Prometheus /metrics, OG-image generation, and custom Markdown pages. Enforces invariants II & III.

4.2 data/mesh_ingestor — Python ingestor (mature)

The only component that touches radios and the only data source. Connects over serial / TCP / BLE, normalizes Meshtastic and MeshCore packets to the canonical contract, and POSTs them. Multiple ingestors per instance are supported. Embodies invariants I & IV; honors ALLOWED_CHANNELS / HIDDEN_CHANNELS and sentinel-position normalization.

4.3 matrix/ — Matrix bridge (WIP, read-only)

A one-way reader bridge: it reads messages from a PotatoMesh instance's public API and forwards them to a configured Matrix channel. No radio. It is a consumer of the public API and must not introduce any new ingest path; it respects PRIVATE (no messages to forward when message APIs are disabled).

4.4 app/ — Flutter mobile app (WIP, read-only)

A read-only mobile reader of messages on the local aether. GET-only client; no posting, no radio. Respects PRIVATE.

WIP boundary: the Matrix bridge and mobile app are feature-bounded as readers above, but are held to the same engineering bar (§3.5) as the mature components — 100% test/doc/license/CI applies to all code regardless of maturity.


5. Non-goals (explicit)

  • No MQTT/cloud ingest path — ever. (Apex.)
  • No central federation authority, registry, or gatekeeper. Federation is peer-to-peer and opt-in.
  • No analytics, tracking, or phone-home. The only outbound traffic is opt-in federation of signed public metadata.
  • The web app is never radio-attached — data arrives only via authenticated POST.
  • No privileging of one mesh protocol over another in the data model or UI.

6. Key decisions (confirmation checklist)

Per the kickoff protocol, every item below must be confirmed explicitly before I proceed to ACCEPTANCE.md. Confirm all, or call out any D# to change.

# Decision Source
D1 This SPEC is a retrofit guardrail charter, judged against current shipping behavior — not a design for new features. interview
D2 Apex invariant = Local-LoRa-only / never MQTT or cloud, and it wins every collision. The ban targets broker dependencies & connections, not recording Meshtastic's via_mqtt provenance flag. interview + code
D3 The four hard invariants (all non-negotiable): I Local-LoRa-only, II Privacy & consent, III Decentralized opt-in federation, IV Protocol parity & pluggability. interview
D4 Priority / tie-break order: Local-LoRa → Privacy → Federation → Parity. PRIVATE > FEDERATION is preserved as the concrete Privacy > Federation rule. proposed
D5 Doc layout: two root files — SPEC.md + ACCEPTANCE.md — each opening with vision + ranked invariants, then per-component sections. interview
D6 ACCEPTANCE.md enforces four layers, each as a command-backed, zero-context check: (a) invariant conformance, (b) the restated engineering bar, (c) API & event contracts, (d) operator-facing behavior. interview
D7 Stack is fixed per component (web=Ruby/Sinatra 4+SQLite, data=Python, matrix=Rust, app=Flutter); a language/framework rewrite needs a new kickoff. proposed
D8 Data/API contract is stable & backward-compatible: canonical !%08x ids, the CONTRACTS.md shapes, POST auth, GET window floors; breaking changes must be versioned. proposed + code
D9 Engineering quality bar (§3.5) is part of acceptance and applies to all new code: 100% tests, 100% docs, Apache headers, linters, CI on PR+push, weekly Dependabot, Codecov 100%/10% on project and patch. CLAUDE.md
D10 Component scope/status: web + ingestor are mature (full feature acceptance); matrix bridge = one-way reader, mobile app = read-only reader (both WIP, no radio, no new ingest path) — all held to the same engineering bar. README + interview
D11 Non-goals (§5) are in force: no MQTT ingest, no central federation authority, no analytics/phone-home, web never radio-attached, no protocol privileging. proposed

Feature: Chat channel test-deprioritization

Pushes throwaway "test"/"ping"/"bot" channels to the end of the chat channel tabs so a community's real channels lead. Presentation-only; integrates solely with the channel-ordering sort in web/public/assets/js/app/chat-log-tabs.js (buildChatTabModel).

# Decision Source
F1 Three-tier channel-tab ordering in the dashboard and /chat: (1) default/primary channels (channel index 0 — e.g. Public, MediumFast, "0"); (2) custom channels (index > 0, e.g. hashtag channels); (3) test channels last. Within each tier the existing ordering is preserved unchanged: 7-day message-count descending, then label alphabetical. interview
F2 Test-channel detection is by the channel's resolved display label: the label contains the standalone word ping, test, or bot, case-insensitive, matched at word boundaries. So "Camping", "Robotics", "Contest", "Botswana" are not test channels; concatenated forms ("MyBot", "test2") are intentionally not matched either — the rule favors zero false positives over catching every variant. interview
F3 Default/primary channels are never demoted. Test classification only reorders custom (index > 0) channels; an index-0 channel always leads even if its name matches a keyword, so the primary community feed is never hidden. interview
F4 Presentation-only & protocol-neutral. Reorders tabs only — no change to channel membership, message contents/counts, the default-active tab (still the primary), or any data/API surface. Detection is by channel name and identical for MeshCore and Meshtastic, so the change extends Invariant IV (protocol parity) without privileging either protocol. interview

Feature: /api/stats activity counts (messages & telemetry)

Extends GET /api/stats from active-node counts only to a uniform { scope: { metric: { hour, day, week, month } } } tree covering nodes, messages, and telemetry, each as a grand total and a per-protocol breakdown. The response shape changes incompatibly, so the change is a versioned breaking change released as 0.7.0 with one-way federation compatibility (new instances read old peers; old instances reading a new peer degrade gracefully to their existing node-list fallback). Integrates with web/lib/potato_mesh/application/queries/node_queries.rb (query_active_node_stats), the GET /api/stats route in application/routes/api.rb, the federation consumer in application/federation/crawl.rb, PotatoMesh::Config.version_fallback, and data/mesh_ingestor/CONTRACTS.md.

# Decision Source
S1 Breaking, versioned response shape. /api/stats returns { <scope>: { <metric>: { hour, day, week, month } }, sampled } where <scope> ∈ {total, meshcore, meshtastic, reticulum} and <metric> ∈ {nodes, messages, telemetry}. This breaks the prior flat shape (active_nodes / flat meshcore / flat meshtastic) and is therefore a versioned break per D8: it ships under a minor bump to 0.7.0, applied in lockstep across the five language manifests that tests/test_version_sync.py keeps in sync (data.VERSION, Config.version_fallback, web/package.json, app/pubspec.yaml, matrix/Cargo.toml + Cargo.lock), plus the maintainer's git tag v0.7.0 release. Explicitly amends D8's "evolve backward-compatibly" expectation for this route; the apex (I) and privacy (II) invariants are untouched. interview (D8 amendment)
S2 total is unfiltered; protocol scopes are subsets. total.<metric> counts all rows regardless of protocol; meshcore / meshtastic / reticulum are WHERE protocol = ? subsets (so total ≥ Σ named protocols). total.nodes reproduces the prior active_nodes, and meshcore.nodes / meshtastic.nodes reproduce the prior flat per-protocol node counts — identical values, relocated. interview
S3 telemetry is an umbrella metric. The telemetry count aggregates positions + telemetry + neighbors + traces (every non-message, non-nodeinfo packet record), counted by each table's rx_time. messages counts the messages table by rx_time; nodes counts nodes by last_heard (unchanged from today). interview
S4 Activity windows unchanged. Every count uses the existing cutoffs — hour (3600s), day (86 400s), week (week_seconds), month (four_weeks_seconds) — so no count can surface activity beyond the 28-day API visibility floor (preserves C4 / MAX_QUERY_LIMIT reasoning). interview + code
S5 Privacy: messages zeroed in private mode (Invariant II). When private_mode?, every messages count (in total and all protocol scopes) is 0, mirroring the PRIVATE=1 message-API 404 (A2a) so stats never leak message volume that privacy hides. Node counts keep the CLIENT_HIDDEN exclusion; all metrics honor the node opt-out marker via the per-table opt-out filter (opt_out_self_filter for nodes; opt_out_node_id_filter / opt_out_node_num_filter for the message and telemetry-umbrella tables, matching the existing list endpoints). Telemetry/positions/neighbors/traces are not gated by PRIVATE, so those counts remain reported. interview
S6 reticulum is a forward-looking zero stub. A reticulum scope is always emitted with all-zero counts and an in-code # stub comment, so the shape extends to future protocols without another break. It adds no ingest path (Invariant I), privileges no protocol (Invariant IV), and does not enter KNOWN_PROTOCOLS (which still gates the ?protocol= query param at meshcore + meshtastic). interview
S7 One-way federation compatibility (new reads old). Federation consumers (crawl.rb) try the new shape first (total.nodes[window], meshcore.nodes.day, meshtastic.nodes.day) then fall back to the old shape (active_nodes[window], meshcore.day, meshtastic.day), then to the existing node-list fallback. Detection is structural (key presence/shape) — no in-band version field. New instances read both old and new peers; old instances reading a new peer degrade gracefully (the accepted one-way limit). interview

Bugfix: API casing consistency

Removes two casing inconsistencies on the HTTP API, shipped within the same versioned 0.7.0 break. Background: every read collection (/api/nodes, /api/messages, /api/positions, …) and /api/stats already emit snake_case; the lone camelCase read response was /version, and POST /api/nodes was the lone camelCase ingest input (Meshtastic-shaped). PotatoMesh is multi-protocol and no longer bound to the Meshtastic JSON convention, so the contract is amended to standardise on snake_case while preserving compatibility where it is load-bearing.

# Decision Source
BF1 /version response is snake_case. Top-level last_node_update and the config block (site_name, map_center {lat,lon}, private_mode, instance_domain, contact_link, contact_link_url, max_distance_km, refresh_interval_seconds) replace the prior camelCase keys. A versioned breaking change (0.7.0); consumers are the Flutter app and external clients. interview
BF2 POST /api/nodes additionally accepts snake_case node fields (last_heard, user.short_name/long_name/hw_model, device_metrics.battery_level, position.location_source, …) via a nil-aware pick_alias (a false camelCase value is never overridden by a snake_case alias). Additive — the Python ingestor's camelCase output keeps working, so no ingestor change is required. interview
BF3 The signed federation wire is unchanged (Invariant III). /.well-known/potato-mesh and /api/instances keep their camelCase keys (isPrivate, lastUpdateTime, nodesCount, …) because those keys are inside the instance signature (federation/signature.rb); renaming them would break cross-version signature verification bilaterally. Superseded by FS1FS6 (next release): the wire is deliberately migrated to snake_case v2 with a signature_version marker and v1-backward-accept, so the break is one-way and versioned rather than silent. code
BF4 Out of scope (deferred). The Flutter app's /version reader (app/lib/main.dart) and the server→frontend data-app-config DOM channel (frontend_app_config) keep camelCase for now and are tracked as separate follow-ups; the frontend dashboard is unaffected (it reads data-app-config, not /version). interview
BF5 POST /api/instances accepts snake_case aliases for its optional fields (contact_link, nodes_count, meshcore_nodes_count, meshtastic_nodes_count) in addition to camelCase (third-party / cross-version compat); id/lastUpdateTime/isPrivate were already dual-keyed. The signed canonical payload (camelCase) is unchanged. (I6) Superseded by FS1 (the signed canonical and announced payload are now snake_case v2; the dual-key acceptance remains as the v1-backward path). interview
BF6 Position time is exposed only as position_time (unix int) on GET responses; the redundant ISO twin (pos_time_iso on /api/nodes, position_time_iso on /api/positions) is removed — clients format it themselves. (I2) interview
BF7 All POST /api/* ingest routes return 201 Created (was 200), matching /api/instances. The Python ingestor accepts any 2xx (queue.py urlopen); the matrix bridge is GET-only. (I3) interview
BF8 List POST routes validate the top-level payload. /api/messages, /positions, /telemetry, /neighbors, /traces reject a non-Array/non-Hash body with 400 {"error":"invalid payload"}, matching /api/nodes strictness. (I5) interview

Bugfix/Migration: Federation signature v2 (snake_case wire, signed counts)

Migrates the federation wire (instance announcement, GET /api/instances, /.well-known/potato-mesh) from camelCase to snake_case and closes the unsigned-field gap, as a deliberate, versioned break to Invariant III with receiver-side backward compatibility. The two signed surfaces keep distinct roles (well-known = fetched-from-origin identity anchor; announcement = relayable attribute bundle) but share one snake_case canonicalizer, one signature_version marker, and one fallback chain (option U0).

# Decision Source
FS1 Snake_case federation wire via one shared canonicalizer: public_key (was publicKey/pubkey), last_update (was lastUpdate/lastUpdateTime), is_private, contact_link, nodes_count, meshcore_nodes_count, meshtastic_nodes_count, reticulum_nodes_count, signature_algorithm, signed_payload, signature_version. Single-token keys (id, domain, name, version, channel, frequency, latitude, longitude, signature) unchanged. DB columns (pubkey, last_update_time) stay internal, mapped at the wire boundary. interview
FS2 Every announced count is signed — the announcement canonical includes nodes_count, meshcore_nodes_count, meshtastic_nodes_count, and a forward-compat reticulum_nodes_count (0 until a Reticulum ingestor exists); no unsigned attribute remains in the announcement. Counts are still recomputed from the peer's live /api/nodes on receipt — the signature authenticates the sender's snapshot (integrity), the recompute keeps the displayed figure fresh. interview
FS3 signature_version is stamped inside the signed canonical (not only the envelope), so the format cannot be silently downgraded. Current version = 2; legacy payloads without it are treated as v1. interview
FS4 Send-snake, accept-both (U0). Instances sign and send v2 (snake). verify_instance_signature and the well-known validator try the v2 snake canonical, then fall back to the v1 camel canonical, each composed with the existing contact_link-strip and domain-casing fallbacks. One canonicalizer + fallback chain is shared by both signers (their field sets differ; the mechanism/casing/marker/fallback are shared). interview
FS5 Versioned one-way break (amends Invariant III, mirrors S7): old peers cannot verify a v2 signature and stop accepting this instance until upgraded (accepted cost); new instances accept old peers' v1 signatures, so a mixed fleet converges. interview
FS6 last_update is the sole wire name for the instance update time across both signed surfaces. interview
FS7 Flutter /api/instances reader deferred (extends BF4). app/lib/main.dart MeshInstance.fromJson still reads isPrivate/lastUpdateTime (camelCase) and is intentionally not migrated, consistent with the standing decision to defer all Flutter work. Low impact: GET /api/instances never serves an is_private: true entry (private instances 404 the endpoint via federation_enabled?; remote private peers are rejected at registration/crawl), so privacy stays enforced server-side — the stale reads only blank the app's last_update/is_private display until the client is updated. review

Feature: Frontend persistent data cache

Persists the dashboard's read-side data in the browser so a reload or revisit paints instantly from cache and only cache misses (absent or stale rows) hit the API. Frontend-only (vanilla JS, existing stack); no API/DB/ingestor change.

Conflict check against existing decisions. Apex I (local LoRa)consistent: storage is the local browser only, no broker/cloud, no new dependency. Invariant IV (parity)extends: the cache is keyed by the canonical !%08x id uniformly across protocols, privileging neither. D8 (contract + GET window floors)consistent/extends: no API change, the client TTL is bounded by the server's visibility window, and the cache schema is versioned in D8's spirit. §3.3 (SQLite is the system of record)consistent: the cache is a read-side performance layer that defers to the server for freshness (hence the 24 h node TTL). Invariant II (privacy & consent)contradicts as-is (persisting messages and node positions to disk is new on-disk retention) and is therefore explicitly amended for this read-side cache by FC4; the apex is untouched.

# Decision Source
FC1 Persistent, id-keyed client cache. Every dashboard GET collection — nodes, messages (incl. encrypted), positions, telemetry, neighbors, traces — is cached in the browser via IndexedDB (chosen over localStorage because a busy instance's rows exceed the ~5 MB synchronous-string budget), keyed by the canonical record id; neighbors use their existing composite (node_id, neighbor_id) key. The cache survives reload and revisit. interview
FC2 Seed-then-delta refresh (reconciles "only misses fetch" with a live view). On load the UI paints from cache and each collection's since high-water mark is seeded from the newest cached row; the existing auto-refresh then fetches only rows newer than the cache and merges by id (the established since/mergeById model). A cache miss = a row/collection absent or past its TTL → fetched. The auto-refresh cadence is unchanged. interview
FC3 Two-tier lifetime — staleness (refetch) ≠ eviction (delete), per collection. A cached entry becomes stale (a fresh fetch is preferred over the cached copy) after its staleness TTL; it is evicted (deleted) only after its longer retention window, and nothing younger than 7 days is ever evicted — so an inactive node stays cached and displayed up to 7 days instead of vanishing at its 24 h staleness (we must not lose inactive nodes). Per collection: nodes → stale 24 h (metadata mutates), evict 7 d; traces & neighbors → stale + evict 28 d; messages, positions, telemetry → stale + evict 7 d. No window exceeds the server's own visibility floor (7-day bulk list; 28-day per-id node & trace windows = four_weeks_seconds / TRACE_MAX_AGE_SECONDS), so the cache never surfaces rows the API would no longer return (C4). interview
FC4 Privacy safeguards — amends Invariant II. New client-side persistence is permitted only bounded: (i) when the instance reports PRIVATE mode the cache is disabled and any existing cache is wiped; (ii) only data the API already returns is stored (opt-out / CLIENT_HIDDEN rows are server-excluded; a node opt-out propagates to clients within the 24 h node TTL); (iii) TTL caps per FC3; (iv) a clear-cache operation (clearDataCache) that empties the store on demand — the action behind a "clear cached data" control; the visible UI control is a tracked follow-up (deferred), the capability ships and is tested now. This explicitly amends Invariant II for the dashboard read-side cache; consent/retention/opt-out remain authoritative and the apex (I) is untouched. interview (II amendment)
FC5 Bounded size. The FC3 retention windows (evict oldest-first beyond each collection's window) together with the API's own row caps (NODE_LIMIT, snapshot limits) bound the store, so it cannot grow without bound. interview
FC6 Versioned cache schema. The cache carries a schema-version tag; a version bump — or a change of instance identity (e.g. instance_domain) — discards the cache, so a data-shape change can never serve mis-shaped entries. Mirrors D8 ("breaking changes are versioned"). proposed
FC7 Read-side only, graceful degradation. The cache never feeds any POST/ingest path and never alters API responses (§3.3, Apex I). If browser storage is unavailable, quota-exceeded, or throws, the app silently falls back to today's network-only behavior. proposed

Feature: Asset cache-busting (versioned static assets)

After a deploy, browsers must run fresh JS/CSS without a manual hard-refresh. Achieved by stamping ?v=<APP_VERSION> on every template-written asset URL and injecting one <script type="importmap"> that remaps every served /assets/js/**/*.js module to its versioned URL — so the entire ES-module graph is invalidated each release, not just the entry points. Presentation/delivery-layer only; integrates with web/lib/potato_mesh/application/helpers/ (new asset_url helper + import-map builder) and the asset references in views/layouts/app.erb, views/charts.erb, views/federation.erb, views/node_detail.erb.

# Decision Source
AV1 Version is the cache key. Busting is keyed to PotatoMesh::Application::APP_VERSION (the existing git describe --tags --long --abbrev=7 value, or Config.version_fallback when git metadata is absent). When the version changes, every asset URL changes and browsers refetch. Documented limitation: a build with no git metadata yields a constant fallback version, so an untagged redeploy won't change the buster — the limitation inherent in reusing APP_VERSION, accepted here. interview
AV2 asset_url(path) helper. A helper under web/lib/potato_mesh/application/helpers/ appends ?v=<APP_VERSION> to an absolute asset path. It is applied to every template-written JS <script src>, CSS <link href>, and the inline ES-module import … from '…' specifiers in charts.erb, federation.erb, node_detail.erb. interview
AV3 Full module-graph busting via import map. Because ?v= on an entry-point URL does not propagate to that module's relative import './x.js', the layout <head> emits exactly one <script type="importmap"> (before any module loads) mapping every served production /assets/js/**/*.js module (excluding __tests__) to its ?v=<APP_VERSION> URL. This invalidates the whole transitive graph (e.g. main.js + its 33 imports), not just the entry points. Safety property: a module absent from the map degrades to today's unversioned-but-working load — a missing entry can never break a working import. Browsers without import-map support degrade to today's behavior (entry points still busted via AV2). interview
AV4 Scope = JS + CSS only; native, no new egress. Only executable/style assets are versioned (all JS + base.css). Images, favicons, and SVG icons keep today's Last-Modified/ETag revalidation (a stale logo is cosmetic, not behavioral). The mechanism uses the native browser import-map feature — no new dependency, build step, external host, or analytics param — so apex (I), privacy (II), federation (III), parity (IV), fixed-stack (D7), contract (D8), and no-phone-home (D11) all hold unchanged. The version query is not part of any /api/* contract (D8): Sinatra serves the same static file regardless of query string. interview
AV5 Engineering bar (D9). The helper and import-map builder ship with 100% unit tests + RDoc, Apache headers, rufo-clean; all existing suites stay green. View/app specs that assert exact asset markup are updated to the versioned form, not removed. CLAUDE.md

Feature: Uniform backward pagination (?before=) for bulk collection APIs

Generalizes the /api/messages backward-pagination cursor (issue #796, C7) to the other five bulk collection GETs so a client can page backward through the visibility window instead of stalling at the newest MAX_QUERY_LIMIT (1000) rows. Motivated by an external consumer (l5yth/meshint) that could not retrieve more than 1000 nodes from GET /api/nodes. Read-side only; integrates with the GET routes in web/lib/potato_mesh/application/routes/api.rb, the query helpers in web/lib/potato_mesh/application/queries/ (node_queries.rb, telemetry_queries.rb, federation_queries.rb; common.rb already provides the coerce_positive_or_nil cursor coercion), and the GET-window documentation in data/mesh_ingestor/CONTRACTS.md.

Conflict check against existing decisions. D8 (stable contract + GET window floors)extends: before is a new optional, additive parameter (absent ⇒ today's behavior) and only ever narrows, so it needs no version bump and no federation-compat fallback (unlike the 0.7.0 /api/stats break, S1). C4 (floors cannot be widened) / C7 (messages before)extends: the proven #796 keyset cursor is applied uniformly; the MAX(since, floor) clamp and MAX_QUERY_LIMIT cap are untouched. Invariant I (apex)consistent: read-side query param, no broker/dependency/egress. Invariant II (privacy)consistent: opt-out / CLIENT_HIDDEN / private-mode gates are unchanged and a narrowing upper bound can never surface a hidden row; no new on-disk retention. Invariant IV (parity)extends: the cursor is protocol-neutral and composes with the existing ?protocol= filter. No invariant is contradicted, so this feature adds new decisions without amending any prior one.

# Decision Source
BP1 Uniform ?before= on the six bulk collections. GET /api/{nodes, positions, telemetry, neighbors, traces, ingestors} accept an optional ?before=<unix_seconds> upper-bound cursor, mirroring the existing GET /api/messages behavior (C7). before is an inclusive (<=) ceiling on each route's primary sort column — the column it already ORDER BY … DESC: rx_time for positions/telemetry/neighbors/traces, last_heard for nodes, last_seen_time for ingestors. The per-id routes (/api/.../:id) and /api/instances are out of scope. interview
BP2 Narrows only — never widens (preserves C4/D8). before composes with the existing server-side window floor as an additional upper bound: the effective window is MAX(since, floor) ≤ t ≤ before. Because before only removes newer rows, no value can reach past the 7-day / 28-day floor (a before older than the floor simply yields fewer/zero rows; a before in the future is a no-op). It therefore needs no clamp of its own (unlike since, which is clamped up to the floor). A non-positive or non-integer before is ignored as absent via the existing coerce_positive_or_nil, identical to messages. MAX_QUERY_LIMIT per request is unchanged — before pages through the window, not beyond it. interview + code
BP3 Keyset mechanics identical to messages (#796). The caller walks newest → oldest: each page is ORDER BY <sort_col> DESC LIMIT n, then the oldest <sort_col> value of the page becomes the next before, de-duplicating by the collection's id client-side. The inclusive boundary deliberately overlaps consecutive pages by any rows sharing the boundary second so none is skipped; client dedup collapses the overlap. This is the established C7 / PL-A2 walk applied uniformly. interview + code
BP4 Additive & backward-compatible — no version bump. before is a new optional query parameter; when absent every route behaves exactly as today, and existing consumers (including the federation crawl) are unaffected. Unlike S1, this is not a breaking change: no manifest version bump and no old/new shape fallback are required. Extends D8's backward-compatibility rule rather than amending it. interview
BP5 Protocol-neutral (Invariant IV). The cursor is identical for all rows regardless of protocol and composes with the existing ?protocol= filter; neither Meshtastic nor MeshCore is privileged. interview
BP6 Apex & privacy untouched (Invariants I/II). Read-side only — no broker, dependency, or egress (I). The existing opt-out, CLIENT_HIDDEN, and private-mode behaviors are unchanged, and because before only narrows it can never expose a row a route would otherwise hide (II). No new on-disk retention is introduced. interview + code
BP7 Cache-bypass parity with messages. A request carrying before (like one carrying since > 0) bypasses the shared ApiCache response cache, which only memoises the default newest-page feed; the cache key for the cached (no-before, no-since) path is unchanged, so history pages never pollute or evict the hot newest-page entry. code
BP8 Engineering bar (D9). Ships with 100% unit tests across the route and query layers (mirroring the existing messages-before specs), RDoc on every edited method, Apache headers intact, rufo-clean; all existing Ruby/JS/Python suites stay green. CLAUDE.md
BP9 Out of scope (deferred, tracked). This feature ships the server capability only. (a) Wiring the browser data cache / JS data-fetchers to backfill collections via before (beyond the existing messages pager) is a tracked follow-up — the capability is unblocked, not wired. (b) The lone camelCase query params windowSeconds / bucketSeconds on GET /api/telemetry/aggregated and (c) the missing limit / since / protocol params on GET /api/instances are recorded here as known API-handling inconsistencies and tracked as separate follow-ups, deliberately excluded to keep this feature compartmentalized. interview

Feature: Live updates (SSE change pub/sub)

Replaces the dashboard's fixed 60-second refresh poll with immediate, change-driven updates. An in-process, in-memory publish/subscribe registry inside the Sinatra app emits a thin "this collection changed" event whenever an ingest POST writes; browsers subscribe over Server-Sent Events (GET /api/events, native EventSource) and react by running their existing delta-fetch against the legacy /api endpoints. No row data crosses the push, no new dependency, and no broker or cloud bus — the pub/sub is a local, single-process fan-out. Integrates with the six POST /api/* ingest routes and their existing ApiCache.invalidate_prefix calls (web/lib/potato_mesh/application/routes/ingest.rb), a new application/pubsub.rb registry + GET /api/events route, application.rb (lifecycle wiring), config.rb / helpers/config_helpers.rb (private_mode?, toggle, intervals, data-app-config), and on the frontend main.js (the setInterval(refresh, REFRESH_MS) loop), main/data-fetchers.js, settings.js, a new main/ SSE-client module, main/data-cache.js (seed-then-delta), and main/data-merge.js (merge-by-id). The event shape is documented in data/mesh_ingestor/CONTRACTS.md.

Conflict check against existing decisions. Apex I (local LoRa / no MQTT/broker)consistent: the pub/sub is in-memory and in-process, carries no broker dependency, and SSE is plain HTTP on the existing app (guard-edits.py would block a broker manifest entry regardless). Invariant II (privacy)consistent (+ safeguard): events are thin (no rows) and the client re-fetches through the already-filtered /api, so opt-out / CLIENT_HIDDEN never traverse the push; messages events are additionally suppressed under PRIVATE, mirroring A2a. Invariant III (federation)consistent: local browser↔server only, no peer push. Invariant IV (parity)consistent/extends: events name the collection, never the protocol; both protocols fetch identically. §3.3 (POST-only intake)extends: GET /api/events is outbound, read-only, never an ingest path; SQLite stays the system of record. D7 (fixed stack)consistent: SSE needs no gem (Sinatra streaming + native EventSource); the in-memory fan-out is per-process (current single-process ruby app.rb deploy), a documented limitation covered by the PS5 safety poll. D8 (stable contract)extends: additive endpoint, no existing /api/* shape change. FC2 / FC-A2 / FC-R1 (cache "auto-refresh cadence unchanged")amended, not silently overridden by PS7: the seed-then-delta mechanism is untouched; only the trigger changes from a 60 s timer to event-driven + safety poll. The apex (I) is untouched.

# Decision Source
PS1 In-process, broker-free pub/sub (apex-safe). Change notifications are delivered by an in-memory, in-process publish/subscribe registry inside the Sinatra app — no MQTT, no external broker, no new dependency or cloud bus (Invariant I). Delivered to browsers over SSE (text/event-stream) via the browser-native EventSource, served by Sinatra streaming under the existing single-process Puma. Documented limitation: in-memory fan-out is per-process; a clustered multi-worker deployment would not fan out across workers — out of scope, covered by the PS5 safety poll. interview + apex
PS2 New read-side GET stream; never an ingest path. A single new endpoint GET /api/events (SSE) is the subscribe surface. It is outbound/read-only: it accepts no body, writes nothing, and is not an ingest route; SQLite remains the system of record (§3.3). Additive to the API contract (D8): no existing /api/* shape changes. interview + §3.3/D8
PS3 Thin per-collection 'go-fetch' events. Each event names only the collection that changed — one of nodes, messages, positions, telemetry, neighbors, traces — optionally with the newest rx_time/last_heard as a skip-hint. No row data is carried. The client reacts by running its existing delta fetch (since=<cached high-water>) against the legacy /api endpoints and merging by id through the FC2 cache — reusing every current privacy gate, window floor (C4), and merge path; privileges no protocol (Invariant IV). interview
PS4 Publish-on-change at the existing write points, coalesced. The six POST /api/* ingest routes publish their collection's change event after a successful write, co-located with the existing ApiCache.invalidate_prefix calls in routes/ingest.rb. Rapid bursts are coalesced/throttled per collection (a short debounce window) so a flood of message POSTs yields a bounded ping rate, not one event per row. interview + code
PS5 Push replaces the 60 s poll; reconnect-resync + slow safety poll. The frontend's fixed 60 s refresh timer is removed as the primary driver. SSE pings trigger the matching delta fetch immediately. On every SSE (re)connect the client runs a full delta resync to recover anything missed during a gap. A slow background safety poll (default 5 min, configurable) remains as a fallback for environments where SSE is blocked, buffered, or silently dead, and for any non-fan-out deployment (PS1). interview
PS6 Privacy: no messages events when PRIVATE (Invariant II). Under PRIVATE=1 the server emits no messages change events and the GET /api/events stream carries none, mirroring the /api/messages 404 (A2a). Because events are thin (no row data) and the client re-fetches through the already-filtered /api endpoints, opt-out / CLIENT_HIDDEN rows never traverse the push. Defense-in-depth; Invariant II is preserved. interview + Invariant II
PS7 Amends FC2/FC-A2/FC-R1 cadence wording (named, not silent). The seed-then-delta cache mechanism is unchanged (still since=<high-water>, only-misses-fetch, merge-by-id). Only the trigger changes: from a fixed 60 s cadence to event-driven (SSE ping / reconnect resync / slow safety poll). FC-A2 and FC-R1's "auto-refresh cadence is unchanged" clause is explicitly amended to "the fetch trigger is event-driven with a slow safety-poll fallback; the delta/merge/cache contract is unchanged." interview (FC2 amendment)
PS8 Graceful degradation & engineering bar (D9). If EventSource is unavailable, the stream errors, or a config flag disables it, the client silently falls back to the safety poll (today's network-only behavior) — the push is never load-bearing. All new code (the pub/sub registry, the GET /api/events route, the frontend SSE client) ships with 100% unit tests, full API docs (RDoc/JSDoc), the exact Apache header, and rufo-clean formatting; all existing suites stay green. D9 + proposed
PS9 Request-thread budget reserves capacity for non-SSE traffic (realizes PS8 server-side). Each open GET /api/events stream pins one Puma request thread for its lifetime (the pump runs synchronously on it). So the Puma pool must stay larger than the SSE subscriber cap by a reserve: puma_max_threads ≥ MAX_SUBSCRIBERS + sse_thread_reserve, so that at least sse_thread_reserve threads (32 by default) always remain for API reads, ingest POSTs, and the federation self-fetch even when every SSE slot is occupied. Enforced two ways: (a) the pool is sized in code via server_settings[:Threads] (default 16:96, env MIN_THREADS/MAX_THREADS) — never left to Puma's MRI default of 5; and (b) PubSub.subscribe's effective cap is clamped to min(MAX_SUBSCRIBERS, puma_max_threads sse_thread_reserve) (env SSE_THREAD_RESERVE, default 32; defaults reconcile to the original 64), so a subscription flood gets 503 → safety poll (PS8) instead of starving the server. Without this a handful of dashboard clients took the whole instance down (502 everywhere). bugfix (production incident)

Feature: Live-update visual feedback (flash + control cleanup)

Builds on the SSE pub/sub feature (PS1PS8) to make live updates visible: when a change arrives over SSE the affected element briefly flashes white, so a watching operator sees where an update landed without scanning. The poll-era controls (the "Refresh" button and the "last updated" timestamp) are removed, since push makes them redundant; the play/pause toggle stays. Frontend-only (vanilla JS + base.css) except one additive server change: POST /api/messages also publishes a nodes change event (because a message ingest already touches the author node's last_heard, #822). Integrates with views/layouts/app.erb (control removal), web/public/assets/js/app/main.js (refresh/runLiveRefresh wiring, node-table + map-marker + chat render paths), chat-tabs.js (tab header), node-rendering.js (data-node-id rows), a new flash helper under web/public/assets/js/app/main/ (+ __tests__), web/public/assets/styles/base.css (the highlight keyframe), and web/lib/potato_mesh/application/routes/ingest.rb (the nodes-on-message publish).

Conflict check against existing decisions. PS5 (push replaced poll)realizes: removing the Refresh button + "last updated" field is PS5's UI consequence. PS4 (publish-on-change)extends: the messages route now also publishes nodes (the table it already writes via #822). PS6 / Invariant II (privacy)consistent: in PRIVATE the message route 404s before publish, so no messages/nodes event fires from a message; node events are not privacy-gated. CR-A1/CR-A2/CR-A3 (incremental render)consistent (guarded): the flash touches only already-rendered/cached DOM after render, never re-materializing, so an idle tick still materializes 0 entries. FC-A2 / PS-A7 (seed-then-delta)consistent: flashing is gated to SSE-ping deltas, so cold/warm seed, resync, and the safety poll never flash (no strobe). Apex I / §3.3 / Invariant IV / A4c / D1consistent: read-side visual + one in-process publish call; protocol-neutral; no ingest path, no /version change. No invariant is contradicted.

# Decision Source
VF1 Remove poll-era controls. The #refreshBtn button and the #status "last updated" field are removed from the dashboard (along with their main.js handlers, the refreshing…/updated <time> status writes, and the .refresh-timestamp style). The #autorefreshToggle play/pause control is kept — it still pauses both the live stream and the safety poll (PS5). Manual refresh and a timestamp are redundant once push delivers updates. interview
VF2 Flash only on SSE-ping deltas. The white highlight fires only for rows delivered by an SSE-ping-driven targeted refresh (runLiveRefresh). The initial load (cold or warm-cache catch-up), the reconnect resync, and the slow safety poll do not flash — so the screen never strobes on load and a flash unambiguously means "this changed live while you were watching." Accepted limit: a change recovered only by resync or the safety poll updates without a flash. interview
VF3 What flashes, per collection. A nodes / positions / telemetry ping flashes the affected node's map marker and node-table row (the changed node ids are read from the ping's delta rows by node_id). A messages ping flashes the message row (the whole row) and the channel tab header; because the message ingest also touches the author node (#822), POST /api/messages additionally publishes nodes (extends PS4), so the author node's marker + table row flash too, with a freshly-updated "last seen". Detection is by id/collection, identical for both protocols (Invariant IV). Scope: neighbors / traces updates do not flash (they update silently) — a deliberate, documented boundary, deferrable to a follow-up. interview
VF4 Render before flash. The highlight is applied after the affected DOM is rendered and positioned in the same update tick — the node-table row + map marker, and the chat message row + channel tab, are materialized/placed first, then flashed (a post-render requestAnimationFrame/microtask step). This guarantees the flash lands on the final, placed element and is never applied to a not-yet-rendered element or an element still at its old position/offscreen. interview
VF5 Brief, accessible highlight. The flash is white, lasts <100 ms, and is a one-shot CSS highlight with no layout shift (e.g. background/overlay only). It respects prefers-reduced-motion: when the user has reduce-motion enabled the highlight is suppressed via an @media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) guard — the data still updates live, only the animation is withheld. Amended by LV1/LV2/LV5 (Feature: Live-update feedback v2): the <100 ms one-shot white flash is replaced by a ~1.2 s role-colour fade with per-element stacked timers, plus a map-marker wave; the white onset and reduced-motion suppression are retained. interview
VF6 Preserve render & cache invariants (read-side only). The flash is applied to already-rendered/cached DOM nodes (the chat entry cache, existing table rows, existing markers); it never re-materializes chat entries or issues per-node fetches, so an idle tick still materializes 0 entries (CR-A1) and the seed-then-delta cache (FC-A2) is untouched. The only non-frontend change is the additive nodes publish on message ingest, which is moot under PRIVATE (the message route 404s first), preserving Invariant II / PS6. proposed
VF7 Engineering bar (D9). The flash-trigger logic (changed-id selection, after-render ordering, SSE-ping-only gating, message⇒node fan-out) ships with 100% unit tests, JSDoc, and the exact Apache header; the ingest.rb nodes-on-message publish is covered by a Ruby spec; existing view/app specs that assert the removed controls are updated to assert their absence (not deleted). CSS keyframes have no gating command, so the criterion is the trigger logic + a view assertion; all existing suites stay green. D9 + proposed

Feature: Live-update feedback v2 (fade, stacking, map wave, dedup, full log)

Reworks the live-update visual feedback shipped as VF1-VF7. The <100 ms white strobe read as a glitch; this replaces it with a slower, legible fade and closes the remaining live-update UX gaps. Deliberately amends VF2/VF3/VF5 (the flash's duration/colour/scope) while keeping their invariants (SSE-ping gating, render-before-flash, reduced-motion). Frontend-only except one server change: a per-collection publish cooldown in application/pubsub.rb.

Conflict check. Apex I / privacy II / parity IV - consistent: read-side visuals + one in-process cooldown (no broker, no row data on the push); messages still 404 under PRIVATE so message fades/log are moot there; role colours come from getRoleColor for both protocols. VF2 (SSE-ping gating) / VF4 (render-before-flash) / CR-A1 (idle materialises 0) - retained. PS4 (coalesced/throttled) - realised: LV6 adds the actual time-window the structural coalescing lacked.

# Decision Source
LV1 Fade replaces strobe (amends VF5). The highlight is a ~1.2 s animation: the element flashes white, then fades through its role colour with increasing transparency back to its normal appearance. Applies to node-table rows and chat message rows. The white onset, no-layout-shift, and prefers-reduced-motion suppression of VF5 are retained; only the duration (<100 ms -> ~1.2 s) and the white->role-colour fade are new. interview
LV2 Per-element stacked timers. Each highlighted element runs its own ~1.2 s clock; many elements updating within the window each fade independently, and re-updating the same element restarts its clock cleanly (the prior removal timer is cancelled, so a re-flash never truncates early). No shared/global flash clock. interview
LV3 Role-colour stamped at render. The fade's role colour is getRoleColor(role, protocol), written as a CSS custom property (--flash-role-color) onto the element at render time, so the keyframe needs no per-element JS and the flash helper only toggles a class. Protocol-neutral (Meshtastic + MeshCore palettes via getRoleColor), preserving Invariant IV. interview + code
LV4 Message fades its row + only its own channel tab (fixes VF3 in practice). A messages ping fades the message row wherever rendered and highlights only the message's own channel-tab header, never merely the active tab; the message->tab map drives it. The author-node row + marker also fade via the existing message->nodes publish (#822). interview
LV5 Map-marker wave. On a node highlight the marker emits an expanding wave ring (start ~12 px radius, grow to a bounded radius, fade transparency toward the role colour over ~1.2 s) in addition to the marker's own white->role fade. The wave is a transient, non-interactive overlay removed after the animation (no layout shift). neighbors/traces still emit nothing (VF3 boundary kept). interview
LV6 Publish settle window (server-side dedup). The in-process pub/sub holds a brief settle window (default 1 s, env-tunable) when a change lands, coalescing a burst so N ingestors relaying one packet yield one client refresh/flash, not N; each changed collection still emits at most once per window (structural pending-map coalescing). Server-side, in-process (apex-safe, no broker); realises PS4's "short debounce" with an actual time window. interview
LV7 Log tab logs every live-event class — node-centrically, never message bodies. The chat Log tab carries one entry per live event across all collections (nodes/messages/positions/telemetry/neighbors/traces), but a message body never appears in the Log — bodies live only in their channel tab. Amends the earlier LV7 ("plaintext chat messages now appear in the Log"), which was an oversight. Each event maps to: a new node → "☀️ New node: "; an advert / node-info update → "💾 Updated node info (advert)"; a decrypted message → "💾 Updated node info (message)" for its sender (no text); a position → "📍 Broadcasted position info: " (colon, matching the neighbour entry); a neighbour → "🏘️ Broadcasted neighbor info: "; telemetry → "🔋 Broadcasted telemetry — "; a trace → "👣 Caught trace: "; an encrypted message → "🔒 encrypted message on channel ". The generic "Updated node info ()" fires only when no more-specific entry already represents that heard (a position/telemetry/neighbour/trace/message claims the node's last_heard, suppressing a redundant advert line). Presentation-only, protocol-neutral; honours the hidden-protocol and PRIVATE gates already applied to the chat. interview (LV7 amendment)
LV8 Channel-tab dropdown selector. A compact selector control (a downward triangle) lists all channel tabs and jumps to a chosen one, independent of the (now-preserved, LD-A2) horizontal scroll. Presentation-only; does not change tab order, the default-active tab, or any data surface. interview
LV9 Engineering bar / invariants (D9). All new code ships with 100% unit tests, JSDoc/RDoc, the exact Apache header, and clean linters; existing suites stay green. Apex (I), privacy (II - messages still 404 under PRIVATE; the LV6 cooldown is in-process), and parity (IV) are untouched. prefers-reduced-motion suppresses all new motion (fade + wave). D9 + proposed

Feature: Reliable dark basemap (CARTO Dark Matter) + tolerant tile loading

Swaps the map basemap from the openstreetmap.fr/hot community tile server to CARTO Dark Matter. The HOT server was found unreliable: its origin/render backend times out on any cache-miss tile (deep-zoom / less-popular) while only low-zoom cached tiles still serve, and the dashboard's first tileerror then escalated that into a full-map offline placeholder. CARTO Dark Matter is a keyless, CORS-enabled (access-control-allow-origin: *), natively dark-grey basemap CDN. Because Dark Matter is already dark-grey, the per-theme CSS grayscale/invert tile-filter pipeline — the last remnant of the removed light theme — is deleted end-to-end, and the dashboard stops killing the basemap on isolated tile errors. Frontend + view/config only (vanilla JS, base.css, Ruby config); no new dependency, no API/DB/ingestor change, and tiles are fetched browser→CDN exactly as today (no server proxy).

Conflict check. Apex I (local LoRa / no broker)consistent: a raster CDN is not an MQTT/cloud message bus; no manifest/dependency change (guard-edits.py untriggered); tiles are browser→CDN as before. Invariant II (privacy) / D11 (no phone-home)consistent: CARTO's public CDN is keyless and cookieless, so it does not worsen the third-party tile egress openstreetmap.fr already carried, and adds no per-operator credential. Invariant IV (parity)consistent: the basemap is protocol-neutral. D7 (fixed stack)consistent: native Leaflet URL + config/CSS deletions, no new package or build step. D8 (stable contract)consistent: tileFilters lives only in the data-app-config DOM channel (frontend_app_config), never in /version or any /api/* shape, so its removal is frontend-internal — no contract change, no version bump. No invariant is contradicted; the change is a net simplification.

# Decision Source
DM1 Provider swap to CARTO Dark Matter. The single, de-duplicated tile-URL constant becomes https://{s}.basemaps.cartocdn.com/dark_all/{z}/{x}/{y}{r}.png (subdomains abcd, detectRetina for the {r} HiDPI suffix), replacing https://{s}.tile.openstreetmap.fr/hot/… on both the dashboard map (main.js) and the federation map (federation-page.js). Keyless public CDN; returns access-control-allow-origin: * so the existing crossOrigin:'anonymous' is satisfied; natively dark-grey, so "keep the dark/grey style" holds with no filter. Superseded by HT1 — HOT is restored as the primary basemap (dark-filtered) and CARTO Dark Matter is retained only as a per-tile fallback, not the sole provider. interview + probe
DM2 Native dark style; the CSS tile-filter pipeline is removed. Dark Matter is already styled, so the per-theme grayscale/invert filter (which existed only to grey out the colourful HOT tiles and is the last light-theme remnant) is deleted end-to-end: Ruby DEFAULT_TILE_FILTER_LIGHT/DEFAULT_TILE_FILTER_DARK, map_tile_filter_light/map_tile_filter_dark, tile_filters, and the tileFilters key in frontend_app_config (config_helpers.rb); JS TILE_FILTER_LIGHT/TILE_FILTER_DARK, resolveTileFilter + the tile filter-application/MutationObserver machinery in main.js, applyTileFilter/resolveTheme/themechange in federation-page.js, tileFilters in settings.js, and the window.applyFiltersToAllTiles hook in theme.js; CSS --map-tile-filter-light, --map-tiles-filter, and the .map-tiles { filter: … } rules in base.css. The broader theme system is already dark-only (resolve_initial_theme returns "dark"). Partially superseded by HT2 — a dark tile filter is reintroduced as a frontend-only static CSS constant applied to HOT tiles (CARTO fallback tiles stay unfiltered); the Ruby tile_filters / data-app-config tileFilters plumbing removed here stays removed. interview
DM3 Tolerate isolated tile errors (dashboard). The first tileerror no longer flips the whole map to the offline placeholder. Isolated tile failures remain individual blank tiles (Leaflet default); activateOfflineTiles fires only when the basemap is comprehensively unavailable — zero successful tile loads across the initial viewport (provider unreachable/blocked). After any successful tileload the basemap is latched "alive" and subsequent isolated tileerrors never trigger the offline switch; recovery is automatic on later loads. The offline GridLayer (main/offline-tile-layer.js) is retained as the last-resort fallback. The federation map has no kill-basemap logic today, so it receives only DM1+DM2. interview
DM4 Adjacent light remnants removed. <meta name="color-scheme" content="dark light">content="dark" (views/layouts/app.erb); background.js's body.classList.contains('dark') ? '#0e1418' : '#f6f3ee' ternary collapses to the dark colour '#0e1418'. (The broader dead light CSS palette is handled separately by DM7.) interview
DM5 No attribution overlay (keep the clean look). The map keeps attributionControl:false as today; no © OpenStreetMap / © CARTO credit is rendered. Accepted trade-off: this under-attributes CARTO/OSM — the same posture already taken with the HOT tiles — and is chosen to preserve the existing clean map style. interview
DM6 Engineering bar & invariants (D9). No server-side broker/dependency/egress; no /api/* or /version contract change; protocol-neutral. Every changed JS/Ruby unit ships with 100% unit tests (existing tile-filter specs are updated or removed-as-dead, never left dangling), JSDoc/RDoc, the exact Apache header, and rufo/black-clean formatting; all existing suites stay green. D9 + proposed
DM7 Dead light CSS palette collapsed (dark-only). base.css carried a full light token palette in :root, always overridden by an always-applied body.dark { … } token block, plus html { color-scheme: light }. Since body is always dark (resolve_initial_theme is fixed "dark"), the light half never rendered. The dual palette is collapsed to a single dark :root (the former body.dark token values promoted up, so html itself resolves dark tokens too), the body.dark token block and the light/data-theme color-scheme rules are removed, and html { color-scheme: dark }. body.dark component rules are untouched (still apply, body always has the class), so the rendered dark appearance is unchanged — verified by screenshot. interview (scope expansion, approved)

Feature: HOT primary basemap (dark-filtered) with per-tile CARTO fallback

Reinstates the OpenStreetMap France HOT (Humanitarian OSM Team) tile server as the primary basemap on both maps, dark-styled by the reintroduced grayscale/invert CSS filter, and demotes CARTO Dark Matter (the DM1 provider) to a per-tile fallback: any HOT tile that errors or fails to load within 1000 ms is individually replaced by the CARTO tile at the same coordinate. CARTO Dark Matter proved reliable but too dark for the default look; HOT (dark-filtered) is the desired style, with CARTO as the dependable safety net and the offline placeholder (DM3) behind both. Deliberately amends DM1 and DM2 (the sole-provider swap and the end-to-end filter deletion) while keeping their invariant posture (no attribution, dark-only theme, no broker, no contract change). Frontend-only (vanilla JS, base.css); no API/DB/ingestor change and no Ruby tile_filters / data-app-config return.

Conflict check. DM1 (CARTO sole basemap)contradicts → amended (HT1: HOT primary, CARTO fallback). DM2 (filter pipeline deleted)contradicts → amended (HT2: dark filter reintroduced as a frontend-only static constant, HOT-only). DM3 (offline placeholder)extends (offline is now the last tier, reached only when both HOT and CARTO fail). DM4 / DM7 (dark-only)consistent (stays dark-only; the light filter is dropped as dead code). DM5 (no attribution)reaffirmed. Apex Iconsistent: HOT and CARTO are raster tile CDNs, not MQTT/cloud brokers; no manifest/dependency change (guard-edits.py untriggered); tiles are browser→CDN as before. Invariant II / D11 (no phone-home)consistent: both providers are keyless and cookieless, and CARTO is fetched only for a HOT tile that failed, so common-case egress is HOT-only — no new per-operator credential and no telemetry. Invariant IV (parity)consistent: the basemap is protocol-neutral, identical for Meshtastic and MeshCore. D7 (fixed stack)consistent: native Leaflet URL/layer config, no new package or build step. D8 (stable contract)consistent: the filter is a frontend constant; nothing enters /version or any /api/* shape, so no version bump. No invariant is contradicted.

# Decision Source
HT1 HOT primary; CARTO retained as fallback (amends DM1). The shared basemap's primary layer is OpenStreetMap France HOT — https://{s}.tile.openstreetmap.fr/hot/{z}/{x}/{y}.png (subdomains:'abc', maxZoom:19, crossOrigin:'anonymous', className:'map-tiles') — restored on both the dashboard (main.js) and federation (federation-page.js) maps. CARTO Dark Matter (https://{s}.basemaps.cartocdn.com/dark_all/{z}/{x}/{y}{r}.png, subdomains:'abcd', detectRetina:true, crossOrigin:'anonymous') is kept but only as the per-tile fallback source (HT3), never the primary. HOT already ran with crossOrigin:'anonymous' before #831 (it serves permissive CORS), so the headless OG-image capture stays untainted. Amends DM1 (CARTO-as-sole-provider). interview
HT2 Dark filter for HOT only; frontend constant, dark-only (amends DM2). The grayscale(1) invert(1) brightness(0.9) contrast(1.08) filter is reintroduced only as a static CSS rule on the per-tile class .map-tiles-hot, styling the natively-colourful HOT tiles dark. (Leaflet stamps a layer's className on the tile container, not each <img>, so per-tile HOT/CARTO filtering needs a per-tile class; the container keeps its unchanged map-tiles tag for the tile-pane opacity.) CARTO fallback tiles are exempt — a swapped tile drops .map-tiles-hot for .map-tiles-fallback (filter:none), because CARTO is already dark and invert(1) would render it light; offline placeholder tiles carry neither class and stay unfiltered too. No light-theme filter is added (the app is dark-only per DM7 — a light variant would be dead code). The removed per-theme machinery is not restored: no Ruby tile_filters/DEFAULT_TILE_FILTER_*, no frontend_app_config/data-app-config tileFilters, no JS resolveTileFilter/applyFiltersToAllTiles/MutationObserver, no --map-tile*-filter custom property. The filter lives entirely in one static base.css rule (D8 contract untouched). Amends DM2 (which deleted the filter end-to-end). interview
HT3 Per-tile 1000 ms timeout → CARTO (the core mechanism). A custom Leaflet TileLayer (built by the shared factory) overrides tile creation: for each tile it sets the HOT src and starts a 1000 ms timer (a single named constant, the source of truth). If the HOT image fires error or the timer elapses before load, the tile's src is swapped to the CARTO URL for the same {z}/{x}/{y} and the map-tiles-fallback marker is applied (HT2). A successful HOT load clears the timer and keeps the filtered HOT tile. The timeout value and the swap-decision/URL logic are pure and Leaflet-free for standalone unit testing (mirroring main/tile-failure-policy.js); the thin createTile wiring is covered via the leaflet-stub harness. interview
HT4 Fallback ladder; offline placeholder is the last tier (extends DM3). Leaflet's tileload reaches the DM3 tile-failure-policy when either HOT or the CARTO fallback serves a tile (the basemap is "alive" if either provider works); tileerror is signalled only when the CARTO fallback tile also fails. Thus an isolated HOT failure that CARTO covers never trips the offline switch, and activateOfflineTiles (main/offline-tile-layer.js) fires only when tiles fail comprehensively on both providers — preserving DM3/DM-A3 tolerance one tier lower. The offline GridLayer tier stays dashboard-only, exactly as DM3 scoped it. interview
HT5 Both maps share one basemap factory (parity, no duplication). A single createBasemapLayer(L) in the shared basemap module (basemap-config.js) builds the HOT-primary / per-tile-CARTO-fallback layer and is called by both main.js and federation-page.js — preserving DM-A1's "one shared basemap definition referenced by both maps." Both maps render HOT (dark-filtered) with the identical CARTO fallback. The federation map keeps no kill-basemap/offline logic (unchanged from DM3): a tile that fails on both providers simply stays blank there. Protocol-neutral (Invariant IV). interview
HT6 No attribution (reaffirms DM5). Both maps keep attributionControl:false; no © OpenStreetMap / © CARTO credit is rendered. Accepted under-attribution trade-off — now spanning both providers — chosen to preserve the clean map style, unchanged from DM5. interview
HT7 Apex / privacy / stack / contract all untouched. HOT and CARTO are raster tile CDNs, not MQTT/cloud brokers — the apex (I) holds and guard-edits.py is untriggered (no manifest/dependency change). Both are keyless and cookieless, and CARTO is requested only for a HOT tile that failed, so the common case egresses to HOT alone — no new phone-home or per-operator credential (II / D11). Native Leaflet only, no new package or build step (D7). The dark filter is a frontend CSS constant and never enters /version, data-app-config, or any /api/* shape, so there is no contract change or version bump (D8). proposed
HT8 Engineering bar (D9). The new/changed frontend units — the shared createBasemapLayer factory, the per-tile timeout/fallback tile layer, and its pure timeout/URL helpers — ship with 100% unit tests, full JSDoc, the exact Apache header, and clean linters; all existing suites stay green. The DM-era tile tests are updated, not left dangling: __tests__/config.test.js, __tests__/federation-page.test.js, the leaflet-stub map-init harness, and main/__tests__/tile-failure-policy.test.js are retargeted to the HOT-primary + CARTO-fallback wiring. D9 + proposed

Bugfix: Basemap provider blend (chess-pattern fix)

The HOT-primary / per-tile-CARTO-fallback basemap (HT1HT3) rendered a light/dark checkerboard in normal use: HOT tiles that beat the per-tile deadline showed dark-filtered, while tiles that missed it fell back to the unfiltered, natively-dark CARTO Dark Matter (HT2's deliberate filter:none exemption) — two visibly different looks tiling the same viewport. The mix was routine, not rare, because HOT (openstreetmap.fr) is slow and HT3's 1000 ms deadline was aggressive, so a healthy fraction of tiles fell back on every load (and re-raced, so the pattern shifted on each pan/zoom). This is a spec-silent consequence of HT2 (filtered-HOT vs unfiltered-CARTO look different by construction) meeting HT3 (frequent per-tile fallback) — no acceptance criterion was violated; the contract was silent on the visual seam. The fix attacks both halves: make fallback rare (graceful timeout) and make the two providers look alike (colored CARTO source + shared dark filter). Frontend-only (basemap-config.js, base.css); no API/DB/ingestor change and no contract move (HT7 posture preserved: still frontend constants, off /version and data-app-config).

Conflict check. HT1 (CARTO source = Dark Matter)amended (BL2: CARTO Voyager). HT2 (CARTO fallback exempt from the filter)amended (BL3: the fallback shares HOT's filter; HT2's "already dark → don't invert" rationale is void because the source is now light/colored). HT3 (1000 ms)amended (BL1: 2500 ms). HT4 / HT5 (fallback ladder, shared factory, both maps)consistent: the per-tile swap mechanism, the offline last tier, and the single createBasemapLayer factory are unchanged; the federation map shares the #map filter selector, so the blend lands on both maps (parity, Invariant IV). HT6 (no attribution)reaffirmed: Voyager is OSM+CARTO like Dark Matter and attributionControl:false is unchanged. Apex I / privacy II / D7 / D8 / D11untouched: Voyager is a keyless, cookieless, CORS-enabled raster CDN like Dark Matter; no manifest/dependency/contract change, no version bump. The pattern may still not be eliminated 100% (a genuinely-failing HOT tile whose CARTO cover is also slow can briefly flash), but under normal latency both levers together make it rare and, when it occurs, near-invisible.

# Decision Source
BL1 Graceful per-tile timeout: 1000 ms → 2500 ms (amends HT3). FALLBACK_TIMEOUT_MS (the single source of truth in basemap-config.js) is raised to 2500 ms, so a slow-but-arriving HOT tile beats the deadline instead of falling back — restoring CARTO to the rare safety net HT3 intended, given HOT's real-world latency. Fewer routine fallbacks is the first half of removing the checkerboard. Accepted cost: when HOT is genuinely dead, the blank→CARTO recovery for that tile is up to 2.5 s (was 1 s); the offline tier (HT4) is unaffected. interview
BL2 Colored CARTO source: Dark Matter → Voyager (amends HT1). The fallback URL becomes https://{s}.basemaps.cartocdn.com/rastertiles/voyager/{z}/{x}/{y}{r}.png (same subdomains:'abcd', detectRetina, crossOrigin:'anonymous'; keyless CORS CDN). Voyager is CARTO's natively-colourful, light-background raster style — chosen precisely so the same dark filter that greys HOT greys it too. (A natively-dark source could not be filtered to match — HT2's original constraint — which is why HT2 exempted it; BL3 removes that exemption because BL2 removes its cause.) interview
BL3 Shared dark filter on the fallback tile (amends HT2). .map-tiles-fallback no longer renders filter:none; it carries the same grayscale(1) invert(1) brightness(0.9) contrast(1.08) filter as .map-tiles-hot, expressed as one comma-grouped base.css rule (the single source of truth for the value). Both providers therefore converge to one coherent dark look, so a viewport mixing HOT and CARTO tiles is no longer a checkerboard — the second half of the fix. The per-tile class swap in fallback-tile-layer.js is unchanged; only what .map-tiles-fallback does in CSS changes. Offline placeholder tiles still carry neither class and stay unfiltered. interview
BL4 Both maps, one rule; posture preserved (reaffirms HT5 / HT7). The federation map shares the dashboard's #map container, so the single base.css filter rule and the shared createBasemapLayer factory land the blend on both maps identically (parity, Invariant IV). The filter value and the timeout stay frontend constants — no Ruby tile_filters, no /version / data-app-config key, no /api/* change, no version bump (HT7 / D8 unchanged). proposed

Feature: MeshCore RF metrics (RSSI/SNR/hops/path) & roster-eviction assertion

Closes the MeshCore↔Meshtastic RF-metrics parity gap (issue #762 for MeshCore): messages gain RSSI/SNR/hops-travelled/path, and node records gain per-advert signal metrics, all sourced from data the meshcore library already delivers but the ingestor currently drops. Three mechanisms: (1) native path_len/SNR fields on the message sync events; (2) the library's built-in RX-log⇆message join enabled via decrypt_channels; (3) a new RX_LOG_DATA subscription handling on-air ADVERT frames (full node identity + signal metrics, roster-independent). Additionally the ingestor asserts the firmware's AUTO_ADD_OVERWRITE_OLDEST roster-eviction bit at startup so a full contact roster keeps rotating instead of rejecting new contacts. Integrates with data/mesh_ingestor/protocols/meshcore/{handlers,runner,decode,interface,_constants}.py, the packet store path in data/mesh_ingestor/handlers/, CONTRACTS.md, one additive SQLite migration (messages.hops, messages.path, nodes.rssi), the message/node mappings in web/lib/potato_mesh/application/data_processing/, and the serializers in queries/.

Conflict check against existing decisions. Apex I (local LoRa)consistent: every new datum arrives over the existing local serial/BLE/TCP radio link; decrypt_channels is local crypto using channel keys the radio already holds; no broker, dependency, or egress (guard-edits.py untriggered). Invariant II (privacy & consent)consistent: no new data class (channel messages already arrive decrypted via companion sync; adverts are public broadcasts already stored via the contact path); server-side opt-out, PRIVATE, and retention gates are untouched. The startup config write (RF4) is a device mutation, not a data exposure — treated as a §4.2 scope extension, documented operator-visibly in the README rather than silent. Invariant IV (parity)extends: fills MeshCore's missing rxSnr/rxRssi/hops equivalents using the columns Meshtastic already populates; the new hops column is computed for both protocols. D8/§3.4 (stable contract)extends: strictly additive fields (hops/path on messages, rssi on nodes; adverts otherwise reuse the already-accepted snr/hops_away node fields), no version bump. A4e (MeshCore adverts gap)extends: RX-log adverts enrich non-roster nodes with full identity; the bare-ADVERTISEMENT minimal upsert stays as the fallback for builds without RX-log frames (A4e criteria updated, not removed). MD-A1/MW-A1 (MeshCore dedup)consistent: _derive_message_id inputs stay byte-identical (RF6). No decision is contradicted.

# Decision Source
RF1 Hops-travelled on messages, both protocols. Message packets gain a hops field = repeater relays actually travelled: MeshCore reads the native path_len on CONTACT_MSG_RECV/CHANNEL_MSG_RECV (the 255 "direct" sentinel normalizes to 0; the 2-bit path_hash_mode prefix is masked off); Meshtastic computes hopStart hopLimit when both are present (else omits). Stored in a new additive messages.hops INTEGER column — deliberately distinct from hop_limit (remaining budget, a different semantic, left untouched). MeshCore V3 sync frames' native SNR continues to flow into the existing messages.snr column. interview + code
RF2 Channel-message RSSI/path via the library's RX-log join. The runner sets mc.decrypt_channels = True; the meshcore lib then matches each CHANNEL_MSG_RECV to its on-air frame by SHA256(sender_timestamp + text) and injects RSSI, path, recv_time (channel secrets are already registered by _ensure_channel_names, so no new key handling). The handler forwards RSSI → the existing messages.rssi column and the hop-hash route → a new additive messages.path TEXT column (lowercase hex, path_hash_size-byte hashes concatenated in travel order, last = the repeater heard directly; raw material for a future topology view, no hash→node resolution attempted now). DM RSSI is explicitly out of scope — direct messages are E2E-encrypted so no RX-log join exists; DMs still get native SNR + hops via RF1. interview + code
RF3 RX-log ADVERT frames become full node upserts (roster-independent). A new RX_LOG_DATA subscription handles frames with payload_typename == "ADVERT": adv_key (full 32-byte pubkey) → canonical !%08x id, adv_name → long name, adv_type → role via _MESHCORE_ADV_TYPE_ROLE, adv_lat/adv_lon → position store, and per-reception snrnodes.snr, path_lennodes.hops_away (existing, already-accepted node fields), rssi → a new additive nodes.rssi INTEGER column (Meshtastic has no per-node RSSI source — NodeInfo carries only SNR — so it stays NULL there; the column itself is protocol-neutral). This restores full node identity even when the radio's roster is full, closing the anonymous-placeholder gap. Only ADVERT frames are handled; other RX-log payload types stay in the DEBUG-only catch-all, and RX_LOG_DATA no longer falls through to ignored-meshcore.txt. Degrades gracefully: companion firmware ≥ 1.16 pushes RX-log frames unconditionally while a client is connected, but if none arrive (other builds), RF1 metrics and the existing bare-ADVERTISEMENT fallback (A4e) still function — absent frames are never an error. interview + code
RF4 Always-on roster-eviction assertion (extends §4.2 ingestor scope). At startup (after connect, _ensure_channel_names-style error tolerance) the ingestor reads get_autoadd_config and, only if bit 0x01 (AUTO_ADD_OVERWRITE_OLDEST) is unset, writes config | 0x01 back — a read-modify-write that preserves the type-filter bits 14 and never touches autoadd_max_hops; when the bit is already set no write occurs (the firmware savePrefs()es every set — skipping avoids flash wear). Unconditional by deliberate choice — no env/config knob; the behavior is documented in the README (deliberate and operator-visible, not silent), favourites are never evicted (firmware guarantee), and the write persists in device flash. ERROR/timeout from pre-1.16 firmware logs a warning and continues. This is the ingestor's first and only radio-config write, bounded to this single bit. interview
RF5 CONTACT_DELETED becomes an explicit no-op handler. Roster eviction (RF4) makes the firmware emit PUSH_CODE_CONTACT_DELETED per evicted contact; the event moves from the DEBUG catch-all to an explicit debug-logged no-op in the handler map — the web DB intentionally retains evicted nodes (dashboard history is independent of roster capacity; retention.rb remains the only data-expiry authority). interview
RF6 Additive contract; dedup fingerprint frozen. CONTRACTS.md documents the new fields (messages.hops/messages.path, nodes.rssi), the 255→direct rule, the path hex format, and the advert→node field mapping. All changes are additive (D8: no version bump): the POST routes accept and the GET routes serialize the new fields; absent fields stay NULL. The MeshCore dedup fingerprint (_derive_message_id inputs) and the v1: content-dedup scheme are byte-identical — new fields ride alongside, never inside, the id derivation (MD-A1/MW-A1 preserved). interview + code
RF7 Store + API only; UI display deferred. v1 ends at the JSON API — no dashboard rendering of the new metrics (chat hover, node popup, topology view from path are tracked follow-ups). Closes #762 for MeshCore at the data layer. interview
RF8 Engineering bar (D9). All new/changed units ship with 100% unit tests (including: RF1 hops normalization edge cases, RF2 join-absent fallback, RF3 malformed-advert tolerance, RF4 read-modify-write/skip/error paths, RF5 no-op), full PDoc/RDoc, the exact Apache header, black/rufo clean; every existing suite stays green. CLAUDE.md

Feature: Live relative-time tick (dynamic timers)

Makes every rendered relative-time field count up in real time between data refreshes — "last seen 4s" becomes 5s, 6s, … without waiting for the next fetch — so a displayed age is never stale. Pure display-side ticking of the strings the existing formatters already produce; frontend-only (vanilla JS), no API/DB/ingestor change. Integrates with web/public/assets/js/app/main/format-utils.js (timeAgo), the node-table and map-overlay render paths in main.js, the node-detail table (node-page/single-node-table.js via node-page-charts/display-formatters.js#formatRelativeSeconds), the federation instances table (federation-page.js), and a new shared ticker module under web/public/assets/js/app/main/.

Conflict check. PS5/PS7 (poll removed; fetch is event-driven)consistent: the ticker is a pure presentation clock — no fetch, no cadence change, no cache write (FC2 untouched). VF1 (poll-era "last updated" control removed)consistent: no global timestamp control returns; ticking is per-field on data ages. VF4/VF6, LV1/LV2, CR-A1 (fades on already-rendered DOM; idle tick materializes 0)extends (guarded): the tick mutates age text in place only and never re-renders rows/markers/chat entries, so fades are never restarted or truncated. LD-A2/LD-A3/CL-A3 (scroll + open-overlay survival)consistent: in-place text writes cannot reset scroll or close overlays; an open popup's age ticking extends LD-A3's spirit. D7 (fixed stack) / D8 (stable contract)consistent: vanilla JS, no new dependency, nothing enters /version, data-app-config, or any /api/* shape. Invariants I/II/IVconsistent: no network egress at all, displays only already-fetched data, ages tick identically for every protocol. No existing decision is contradicted or amended.

# Decision Source
RT1 Live-ticking ages, display-only. Every rendered relative-time field — the node-table "last seen" / "last position" cells, the marker short-info overlay's "Last seen" line, the node-detail (/n/:id) last-seen / last-position rows, and the federation instances "last update" column — counts up in real time between data refreshes. Amended in-interview: the marker overlay (openShortInfoOverlay) previously displayed no time field (the "Last seen" popup builder buildMapPopupHtml is runtime-dead, reachable only from tests), so the overlay gains a "Last seen" line — new visible content, sourced from the lastHeard already in its payload, ticking while the overlay is open; the legacy popup builder is wired with tick markup for completeness. The tick is a presentation clock only: it triggers no fetch, alters no refresh cadence (PS5/PS7), and never touches the data cache (FC2). interview (amended)
RT2 One shared ~1 s ticker; in-place text mutation only. A single shared interval drives all registered fields: each tick re-evaluates the age string with the unchanged existing formatters (timeAgo / formatRelativeSeconds) and writes the DOM only when the string changed (so "3d 4h" fields update rarely, "4s" fields every second). The ticker mutates existing text in place and never re-renders rows, markers, or chat entries — preserving CR-A1 (idle materializes 0), LD-A2/CL-A3 (scroll), LD-A3 (open overlays), and the LV1/LV2 fade timers. Amended in-build: the federation page's local formatter turned out to be a distinct format (5m ago — coarse, suffixed), not a duplicate of timeAgo; it is hoisted verbatim into shared format-utils.js as timeAgoSuffixed (one definition repo-wide) and registered as the ticker's ago-suffixed variant — RT4's format preservation wins over literal consolidation. interview (amended)
RT3 Wall-clock truth: independent of pause; idle when hidden. Ages keep ticking regardless of the #autorefreshToggle play/pause state — the toggle pauses data updates (PS5), not the clock. When the tab is hidden the ticker idles (no background work) and snaps every field to its correct value the moment the tab becomes visible again. interview
RT4 Format & contract unchanged. The output format stays exactly today's (4s, 3m 12s, 5h 2m, 3d 4h; empty/invalid timestamps keep rendering exactly as today). Frontend-only: no API, /version, or data-app-config change (D8), vanilla JS with no new dependency (D7), protocol-neutral (Invariant IV), no network egress and no new data exposure (Invariants I/II). interview
RT5 Engineering bar (D9). The ticker module and every touched render path ship with 100% unit tests, full JSDoc, the exact Apache header, and clean linters; all existing suites stay green. Existing formatter specs (format-utils.test.js, display-formatter tests) remain valid unchanged — the format is untouched; render-path specs are updated only where fields gain tick registration. CLAUDE.md

Feature: Dual stacked basemap layers (HOT over CARTO, no timeout)

Replaces the per-tile HOT→CARTO timeout-and-swap basemap (HT1HT3, BL1BL3) with two always-on, simultaneously-loaded tile layers: CARTO Voyager as the bottom base layer and OpenStreetMap France HOT as the opaque overlay on top. Both are requested at once on every viewport; a HOT tile paints over the CARTO cell beneath it as it arrives (a per-tile fade), so a slow HOT tile shows the already-present CARTO tile in the meantime rather than a blank cell or a deadline-driven fallback. This structurally eliminates the light/dark checkerboard the timeout mechanism produced: there is no per-tile deadline to miss, both providers wear the same dark filter, and the two layers composite to one coherent dark basemap. HOT was observed to time out so often that the 2500 ms per-tile deadline (BL1) was still insufficient and the map routinely checkerboarded; stacking the layers removes the deadline entirely. The custom per-tile fallback tile layer (main/fallback-tile-layer.js) and its timeout constant are retired. Frontend-only (vanilla JS basemap-config.js, base.css, README doc line); no API/DB/ingestor change and no Ruby tile_filters / data-app-config return.

Conflict check. HT1 (CARTO "never the primary", only a per-tile fallback source)contradicts → amended (SB1: CARTO is a permanent base layer under HOT). HT3 (per-tile 1000 ms→CARTO swap) / BL1 (raised to 2500 ms)contradicts → amended (SB1: the per-tile deadline and swap mechanism are deleted, not re-tuned). HT2 (dark filter on the per-tile class .map-tiles-hot, CARTO exempt) / BL3 (fallback shares HOT's filter, per-tile)amended (SB3: the identical filter value now sits on the per-layer containers .map-tiles-hot / .map-tiles-fallback, because with no per-tile swap Leaflet stamps the class on the layer container, not each <img>; both providers stay filtered, as BL3 already established). HT4 / DM3 (offline placeholder is the last tier)extends (SB5: the single liveness policy is now fed by both layers; the placeholder fires only when the whole viewport fails on both providers). HT5 / BL4 (one shared createBasemapLayer factory on both maps)consistent (SB1: the factory still owns the whole basemap and both maps call it; it now returns two layers instead of one). HT6 / DM5 (no attribution)reaffirmed (SB7). BL2 (colored Voyager fallback source)reaffirmed (SB1 keeps the Voyager URL). HT7 (common-case egress is HOT-only; CARTO fetched only on a HOT-tile failure)contradicts → amended (SB6: both CDNs are requested on every viewport, so third-party tile egress is now two CDNs, not one; still keyless, cookieless, no credential/analytics/identifier — D11 holds). Apex Iconsistent: HOT and CARTO are raster tile CDNs, not MQTT/cloud brokers; no manifest/dependency change (guard-edits.py untriggered); tiles are browser→CDN as before. Invariant II / D11 (no phone-home)consistent under the SB6 amendment: egress doubles to a second keyless CDN but carries no per-operator credential, cookie, analytics beacon, or user/mesh identifier — only tile coordinates. Invariant IV (parity)consistent: the basemap is protocol-neutral, identical for Meshtastic and MeshCore and on both maps. D7 (fixed stack)consistent: native Leaflet L.tileLayer × 2, no new package or build step (the custom subclass is removed). D8 (stable contract)consistent: filter, opacity, and z-index are frontend constants; nothing enters /version, data-app-config, or any /api/* shape, so no version bump. No invariant is contradicted.

# Decision Source
SB1 Two always-on stacked layers from one factory (amends HT1, HT3, BL1). The shared createBasemapLayer(L) (in basemap-config.js) returns two native L.tileLayer instances — a CARTO Voyager base (https://{s}.basemaps.cartocdn.com/rastertiles/voyager/{z}/{x}/{y}{r}.png, subdomains:'abcd', detectRetina:true, crossOrigin:'anonymous', className:'map-tiles-fallback', zIndex:1) and a HOT overlay (https://{s}.tile.openstreetmap.fr/hot/{z}/{x}/{y}.png, subdomains:'abc', maxZoom:19, crossOrigin:'anonymous', className:'map-tiles-hot', zIndex:2) — both added to both the dashboard (main.js) and federation (federation-page.js) maps. Both are fetched simultaneously on every viewport; there is no per-tile deadline or swap. The custom main/fallback-tile-layer.js (its FALLBACK_TIMEOUT_MS, wireTileFallback, buildFallbackTileUrl, HOT_TILE_CLASS/FALLBACK_TILE_CLASS) and basemap-config.js's prefersRetinaTiles are retired — CARTO retina is handled by Leaflet's native detectRetina. The tile URLs are unchanged from BL2. Amends HT1 (CARTO becomes a permanent base layer, not merely a per-tile fallback source) and HT3/BL1 (the timeout mechanism is deleted, not re-tuned). interview
SB2 HOT opaque on top; per-tile dissolve via Leaflet-native fade. The HOT overlay renders at full layer opacity (1) so a loaded HOT tile completely covers the CARTO cell beneath it. Each HOT tile fades in 0→1 over Leaflet's built-in tile-fade (~200 ms, fadeAnimation left enabled — the app does not disable it and adds no competing custom opacity transition that would fight Leaflet's inline tile-opacity management), so the CARTO→HOT handover reads as a dissolve rather than a pop, and a slow HOT tile shows the already-present CARTO tile underneath meanwhile. Because HOT always paints over CARTO where it arrives, and both wear the same dark filter (SB3), a viewport mixing arrived-HOT and not-yet-arrived (CARTO-showing) cells never reads as a checkerboard. interview
SB3 Shared dark filter on the per-layer containers (amends HT2/BL3 selector; value unchanged). The single-source-of-truth filter grayscale(1) invert(1) brightness(0.9) contrast(1.08) (identical value to BL3, with its -webkit- twin) is applied in one base.css rule to the two layer containers #map .leaflet-layer.map-tiles-hot, #map .leaflet-layer.map-tiles-fallback. With no per-tile swap, Leaflet stamps each layer's className on its container (.leaflet-layer), and filter on a container greys that provider's whole tile set as one group; both providers therefore converge to the same dark look. The removed per-theme machinery is not restored: no Ruby tile_filters/DEFAULT_TILE_FILTER_*, no frontend_app_config/data-app-config tileFilters, no JS resolveTileFilter/applyFiltersToAllTiles/MutationObserver, no --map-tile*-filter custom property. Offline placeholder tiles carry neither class and stay unfiltered. Amends HT2/BL3 (per-tile → per-layer selector; the filter value and its single-rule home are unchanged). interview
SB4 Single pane dimming veil (brightness parity). Tile dimming collapses to one rule #map .leaflet-tile-pane { opacity: 0.5625 }; .leaflet-layer returns to opacity 1 and the former #map .leaflet-tile.map-tiles { opacity: 0.75 } selector is removed (the map-tiles container class is gone). 0.5625 = 0.75 × 0.75 is the effective brightness the single pre-SB layer rendered at (pane 0.75 × layer 0.75), so the two stacked layers composite to exactly today's brightness. Dimming once at the pane makes the result independent of how many layers are in the tile pane — including when the offline placeholder (SB5) is added as a third. interview
SB5 One liveness policy fed by both layers (extends HT4/DM3). A single createTileFailurePolicy instance (main/tile-failure-policy.js, unchanged) receives tileload / tileerror / load from both layers on the dashboard: a tileload from either provider latches the basemap "alive", and activateOfflineTiles fires only when the whole initial viewport produced zero successful tiles across both layers (comprehensive dual outage). Thus HOT-down/CARTO-up and CARTO-down/HOT-up each keep a working map; only a both-providers outage reaches the offline placeholder. The offline switch removes both online layers. The offline GridLayer tier stays dashboard-only (the federation map keeps no kill-basemap logic, unchanged from DM3/HT5). Extends HT4/DM3 (the ladder's top rung is now two parallel providers instead of one primary-with-fallback). interview
SB6 Always-on dual egress; privacy posture (amends HT7). Both keyless, cookieless raster-tile CDNs (HOT openstreetmap.fr, CARTO cartocdn.com) are now requested on every viewport — HT3's "CARTO only on a HOT-tile failure" conditionality is gone — so third-party tile egress is two CDNs rather than one, and CARTO now sees each viewer's IP/Referer on every pan/zoom rather than only on a HOT failure. Neither CDN receives a credential, cookie, analytics beacon, API key, or any user/mesh/operator identifier — only standard {z}/{x}/{y} tile coordinates — so D11 (no phone-home) holds: the bar is telemetry, which neither provider is sent. The doubled egress is documented operator-visibly in the README (a deliberate, disclosed trade-off, not silent). Reaffirms HT6/DM5 (no attribution) and Apex I (raster CDNs, not brokers; guard-edits.py untriggered). Amends HT7 (which banked on common-case HOT-only egress). interview
SB7 Stack & contract untouched (reaffirms D7/D8, HT5/BL4). Native Leaflet only — two L.tileLayers, no custom subclass, no new package or build step (D7). The dark filter, the pane opacity, and the layer z-indices are frontend constants; none enters /version, data-app-config, or any /api/* shape, so there is no contract change and no version bump (D8). The whole basemap still lives behind the one shared createBasemapLayer factory called by both maps (HT5/BL4), and it is protocol-neutral (Invariant IV). proposed
SB8 Engineering bar (D9). The new/changed frontend units — the createBasemapLayer factory (now returning the base+overlay pair) and the layer-option constants — ship with 100% unit tests, full JSDoc, the exact Apache header, and clean linters; all existing suites stay green. Retired-module tests are deleted, not left dangling: main/__tests__/fallback-tile-layer.test.js is removed with its module. __tests__/basemap-blend.test.js, __tests__/basemap-config.test.js, __tests__/federation-page.test.js, __tests__/config.test.js, and the leaflet-stub map-init harness are retargeted to the two-layer wiring. BL-A1 (which asserted FALLBACK_TIMEOUT_MS === 2500) and HT-A3 (the per-tile swap mechanism) are amended, not silently broken. D9 + proposed

Bugfix: MeshCore duplicate-node reconciliation (stale same-name identities)

One physical MeshCore node surfaced as three dashboard rows: its live pubkey-derived row, a retired pubkey-derived row (an old keypair still present in ≥1 community roster), and the name-derived synthetic placeholder. Root causes, confirmed by deterministic reproduction: (a) the #755/#803 synthetic merge deadlocks as soon as a second same-name real row exists, because its ambiguity guard is absolute and unbounded in time; (b) duplicate message copies from co-operating ingestors overwrite messages.from_id last-writer-wins and bump their own from_id node's last_heard, so a retired identity that any stale roster still name-resolves receives eternal liveness and never ages out; (c) RX-log advert positions are keyed on receiver-side recv_time, so one advert flood mints one position row per copy and per ingestor. Integrates with web/lib/potato_mesh/application/data_processing/{node_writes,messages}.rb, application/database.rb (migration + #755 startup backfill), application/queries/node_queries.rb, data/mesh_ingestor/protocols/meshcore/{handlers,decode}.py, and data/mesh_ingestor/CONTRACTS.md.

Conflict check against existing decisions. MC-A1 / #755 machineryamended, not silently overridden (MR2): the documented "never merge when two same-name reals exist" rule gains a keyed-evidence freshness bound; the single-candidate base semantics are untouched. RF3 (RX-log adverts)extends (MR5): only the position-time anchor moves from receiver-side to sender-side; the node mapping, lastHeard, and signal metrics are unchanged. RF5 / retentionconsistent: no new deletion path; a retired identity simply stops receiving phantom liveness and ages out of the 7-day views while retention.rb remains the only data-expiry authority. D8 (stable contract)extends: nodes.last_advert_heard (internal), the synthetic response field (MR4), and the sender-side position anchor are all additive; no version bump. Invariant II (privacy)consistent: synthetic: true reveals only that a row is a name-derived placeholder (derived from public chat text); no new data class is exposed and opt-out/PRIVATE gates are untouched. Invariant IV (parity)consistent: the evidence column is written by one protocol-neutral rule (any keyed, non-synthetic record); the resolution rules are scoped to MeshCore only because the synthetic-placeholder mechanism is MeshCore's own; Meshtastic behavior is byte-identical. Apex I — untouched.

# Decision Source
MR1 Keyed-evidence column. Additive nodes.last_advert_heard INTEGER records the newest time a node was heard via a key-authenticated record — any non-synthetic upsert carrying user.publicKey (MeshCore contact/advert/self-info; Meshtastic NodeInfo with a key) — using the record's own heard time (sender-side last_advert for roster contacts, reception time for RX-log adverts), advancing forward-only. Name-inferred paths (message touches, chat placeholders) never write it. Written by a separate, unguarded statement, not a column in the main upsert: that upsert skips any record older than the stored last_heard, so a node whose last_heard was pushed to "now" by message touches would otherwise never record evidence from its own (sender-side-stamped, hence older) adverts — the exact situation the column exists to resolve. The migration seeds no backfill; every live device re-arms on its next advert/roster snapshot. interview
MR2 Positive-staleness merge ambiguity (amends #755/#803 guard). A same-name real row stops creating merge ambiguity only once it is positively known to be retired: COALESCE(last_advert_heard, position_time) exists and is older than now four_weeks_seconds. Absence of evidence is never staleness — a NULL (a row predating the column; a node that has not re-advertised) keeps blocking exactly as today, so the post-migration window, and any quiet node, cannot be mis-merged. position_time is the legacy fallback signal because a MeshCore position is only ever written from a key-authenticated record (roster contact, advert, self-info) and never from chat text, making it valid historical keyed evidence. merge_synthetic_nodes bails when a not-positively-stale other real exists; merge_into_real_node folds into the survivor when all rivals but one are positively stale (≥2 live, or unknown rivals, keep refusing); the #755 startup backfill applies the same predicate. Single-candidate semantics are unchanged. The retired row itself is never deleted by the merge. Accepted limitation: a live node with a stale GPS fix and no evidence yet looks retired until its next advert (one advert cycle, self-healing); a retired identity that never stored a position stays "unknown" and keeps blocking, awaiting manual resolution. interview
MR3 Duplicate-copy sender resolution (MeshCore). When a MeshCore message copy arrives for an existing row with a different from_id, the ids are ranked — live-or-unproven real (2) > positively-stale real (1) > synthetic/unknown (0), using the same predicate as MR2 — and the incoming id replaces the stored one only on a strictly higher rank (ties keep the existing id; the empty/missing-from_id fill is unchanged). Applied on both collapse paths: the primary id-PK update and the ConstraintException insert-race fallback, which is precisely where two ingestors' copies meet. The sender-side ensure/touch block targets the resolved winner, so a losing copy grants no liveness to its own node — a retired identity's last_heard freezes and it ages out of the 7-day views naturally. Meshtastic message handling is byte-identical. interview
MR4 synthetic exposed on the node API. GET /api/nodes and GET /api/nodes/:id emit synthetic: true on name-derived placeholder rows and omit the key on real rows (matching the API's compact nil/blank convention — no synthetic: false noise). Additive per D8; documented in CONTRACTS.md. interview
MR5 Sender-side position anchor for RX-log adverts (extends RF3). The RX-advert path keys positions on the advert's own adv_timestamp (exposed by the meshcore library parser), falling back to recv_time when absent/zero, for both the POST /api/positions record and the node-row position.time anchor; lastHeard stays receiver-side. All flood copies of one advert — across paths and across ingestors — collapse to a single position identity, restoring the documented dedup intent; no grace window is needed. interview + code
MR6 Engineering bar (D9). Every touched unit ships with unit tests (evidence tracking, both merge directions incl. retained refusals, rank-resolution cases, adv-timestamp keying + fallback, API flag), full RDoc/PDoc, Apache headers, black/rufo clean; all suites stay green. CLAUDE.md

Bugfix: MeshCore roster sync must not warm last_heard (issue #853)

Loading the MeshCore contact roster re-stamped every positioned contact's last_heard to the sync wall-clock, so a node last actually heard months ago reappeared as active. ensure_contacts() runs at launch and on every reconnect (and auto_update_contacts re-fetches on adverts); each positioned contact then POSTed /api/positions with rx_time = now, and the web folds rx_time into last_heard via MAX (update_node_from_position). The node-upsert path already used the contact's real last_advert (MR1's stated intent); only the position path violated it. Integrates with data/mesh_ingestor/protocols/meshcore/{position,handlers}.py.

Conflict check. MR1 (roster contacts anchor on last_advert)extends: this brings the position path into line with the principle MR1 already stated for the node-upsert path; nothing in MR1 changes. MR5 (RX-log advert position anchor)consistent: the RX-advert path is a genuinely-live reception and keeps rx_time = now; only its position_time uses adv_timestamp, unchanged. RF5 / retentionconsistent: no new deletion; a dead contact simply stops being warmed and ages out of the 7-day window. D8 (stable contract)consistent: no /api/* shape change (the rx_time field already exists); the web side is untouched. Apex I / Invariant IV — untouched (local RX only, protocol-neutral position handling).

# Decision Source
RS1 Roster-sync positions carry the contact's real reception time. _store_meshcore_position gains an explicit rx_time override (default = wall clock). The two roster-sync callers — _process_contacts (bulk CONTACTS) and _process_contact_update (NEW_CONTACT/NEXT_CONTACT) — pass the contact's last_advert as that rx_time, so the web-side last_heard = MAX(rx_time, position_time) resolves to last_advert rather than now. A live NEW_CONTACT has last_advert ≈ now, so it is unaffected; only genuinely-old roster contacts get a truthful old last_heard. The genuinely-live position paths — host SELF_INFO and on-air RX-log ADVERT (on_rx_log_data) — keep rx_time = now (their last_heard must advance). Ingestor-side only; the web update_node_from_position MAX logic is correct for real packets and is left unchanged. interview + code
RS2 Engineering bar (D9). The changed position helper and roster handlers ship with unit tests (roster rx_time = last_advert; rx_time override; live self-info / RX-advert still now), full PDoc, Apache headers, black-clean; all suites stay green. CLAUDE.md

Bugfix: Frontend design & UX audit remediation (D-001…D-040)

Remediates the 2026-07-22 design/UX audit of the dashboard frontend: 39 of its 40 findings reproduced deterministically against source, live server HTML, and computed WCAG contrast (D-039 — "sort indicators invisible until first click" — did not reproduce: sortState initialises to last_heard/desc and updateSortIndicators() runs at init, so it is rejected). No finding violated an existing SPEC decision or acceptance criterion — the contract was silent on empty states, accessibility, contrast, information architecture, and visual encoding; this section closes that gap. The maintainer gates from the audit are ratified as contract: the map is the landing thesis, static pages belong to a secondary tier, dark-only is identity, operator-facing theme tokens are in scope, and the reduced mobile table is legitimate but must be curated.

Conflict check against existing decisions. DM7 (dead light palette collapsed)extends: the remaining light component literals + their body.dark overrides (explicitly left by DM7) are now folded to single dark rules; rendered appearance unchanged. VF5/LV1LV9 (flash/fade/wave, reduced-motion)consistent/extends: prefers-reduced-motion additionally gates Leaflet zoom easing and the chat-tablist smooth scroll (motion LV9 never covered). RT1RT4 (relative-time tick)extends RT2: the shared ~1 s tick additionally refreshes row age-bucket attributes (write-on-change, no re-render; markers stamp their bucket at render only — a deliberate VF3-style boundary). LD-A2 (horizontal tab scroll preserved) / LV8 (tab dropdown)consistent: the strip keeps its scroll behaviour on desktop; ≤900 px the strip is hidden and LV8's dropdown is the sole channel navigation. Invariant IV (parity)extends: MeshCore/Meshtastic gain a shape channel (square vs circle markers) — differentiation, not privilege; both remain equally legible and equally featured. FS1FS6 (signed federation wire)consistent: the CHANNEL→preset migration (UX12) keeps every wire/JSON key unchanged (channel now carries the resolved preset string), so no third signature break. D8 (stable contract)consistent: no /api/* shape change; /version keys unchanged (values follow UX12 resolution). Apex I / privacy II — untouched: presentation-layer only, no dependency, no egress.

# Decision Source
UX1 Audit ratified; D-039 rejected. The 39 reproduced findings are defects to fix; D-039 is dropped as not-reproduced (init stamps the default ▼). Line-number evidence re-based after #851. audit + review
UX2 Accessibility floor: WCAG 2.1 AA contrast (1.4.3) for UI text. Role-badge text colour is computed from the badge background's luminance (both palettes, all roles ≥ 4.5:1; kills the one-off meshcoreRoleTextColors map); chat log entries render --muted; errors render a new --danger: #ff6b6b token (≥ 4.5:1 on --bg); links use the single --accent (the body.dark a { color:#9bd } override is deleted); the four #4a90e2 focus-ring literals become var(--accent). interview
UX3 Token aliases, not a rename. :root gains --border: var(--line), --surface: var(--bg2), --table-header-bg: var(--table-head-bg), --hover-bg: var(--row-alt) (fixing the federation table's undefined-token borders/sticky header) plus --danger. The audit's full --pm-* operator-theming rename is deferred to a follow-up feature. interview
UX4 Degenerate states speak. The layout ships a <noscript> notice; the nodes table ships a server-rendered nodes-empty-row ("No nodes heard yet — waiting for the first ingestor report.") that JS removes once nodes render and restores when the set is empty; empty table cells render a muted dash (overlay parity); the empty-map placeholder stripes rise to 812 % white and always show the placeholder message when no positions exist. interview
UX5 Freshness is visible state. Rows and markers carry an age bucket — live (< 3 h), today (< 24 h), stale — stamped at render; CSS dims stale rows and accent-rules live rows; markers scale fillOpacity .85/.55/.30 by bucket. Buckets on rows refresh via the shared RT2 tick (attribute write-on-change; extends RT2). Markers restamp on data refresh only. interview
UX6 Live/paused is legible. The #autorefreshToggle becomes a text-bearing control: ● live while streaming, ❚❚ paused HH:MM when paused (timestamp = pause moment). Same element/id, aria semantics kept. interview
UX7 Protocol shape channel + line key. MeshCore markers render as square chips (L.divIcon), Meshtastic stays circular — colour keeps encoding role, shape encodes protocol (colourblind-safe). The legend's existing neighbor/trace toggle buttons gain 24 px line samples (solid = neighbor, dashed = traceroute), closing the missing-key gap without new controls. interview
UX8 Legend defaults honest. /map renders the legend expanded on desktop (collapsed ≤ 659 px and on the dashboard); the toggle label reads Hide legend / Show legend with a suffix only when role filters are active (mirrors the aria gating). interview
UX9 Table IA curated. Nodes table: a grouped second header row (Identity · Radio · Activity · Health · Utilization · Environment · Position) whose colspans are JS-maintained across the responsive tiers; ≤ 659 px survivors become Protocol/Short/Long/Last Seen/Battery (Role hides); a per-row + disclosure reveals the hidden fields as a definition list; rows get a hover state and a whole-row click that follows the long-name link; numeric columns right-align in the mono face with tabular-nums and the unit-bearing headers name their units (Battery %, Voltage V); thead was already sticky (the pre-existing bare th rule) and the fold gives it a solid background; both tables gain visually-hidden <caption>s and scope="col"; the dashboard gains visually-hidden section h2s. Federation table: Preset terminology (UX12), priority column order (Name · Domain · Preset · Frequency · Active …), lat/lon behind responsive tiers. interview
UX10 Number honesty. Utilisation renders 1 decimal; battery > 100 renders 100% ⚡ (powered sentinel); voltage with |V| < 0.01 renders the dash. interview
UX11 Shell economics. Site title clamps (clamp(18px, 2.2vw, 28px), 40 vw ellipsis); the hamburger breakpoint rises to 1100 px; static pages move from both navs to the footer links row; the (week) count leaves the h1/tab title — the meta line becomes N nodes today · M this week with the day figure in --fg; the federation nav count gains a title tooltip; the Charts nav drops its protocol icon; the region selector collapses behind a compact 🌐 toggle; the announcement banner wraps to ≤ 3 lines under 600 px; the colocated-hub hit area grows to 32 px (16 px visual); chat ≤ 900 px shows the LV8 dropdown only (28 px arrows on desktop); chat entries get an 8ch hanging indent; Select region ... becomes Other regions…. interview
UX12 Join surface + preset config migration (deprecating, fallback-compatible). New env vars MESHTASTIC_PRESET (default #LongFast — the pre-existing DEFAULT_CHANNEL constant, so stock instances keep today's advertised strings) + MESHTASTIC_FREQ (default 915MHz) and MESHCORE_PRESET + MESHCORE_FREQ (both empty ⇒ MeshCore line hidden). CHANNEL/FREQUENCY are deprecated but honoured as fallbacks for the Meshtastic pair. A join-line strip in the meta row renders Meshtastic · <preset> · <freq> (+ MeshCore · <preset> · <freq> when configured), linking to the About page when one exists. Terminology moves channel→preset everywhere operator-facing (federation table header Preset); every wire/JSON key (channel in /version, data-app-config, the signed federation payload) is unchanged and now carries the resolved Meshtastic preset string — no signature or contract break (FS1/BF3/D8 hold). README documents the migration. interview
UX13 Map-first mobile landing, CSS only — found already implemented. The audited route-swap was rejected (impossible viewport-conditionally server-side); the agreed CSS mechanism turned out to already ship: the ≤ 1024 px media block orders the chat panel after the map (.chat-panel { order: 2 }), so the mobile dashboard paints map-first today. Verified against source during the fix; no change was needed and the audit's D-004 evidence is corrected accordingly. Desktop order, routes, and bookmarks unchanged. interview + review
UX14 Keyboard/AT equivalence declared. #map gains aria-describedby pointing to a visually-hidden note naming the nodes table as the keyboard-accessible equivalent (markers stay pointer-driven — Leaflet focus retrofit rejected); tables/captions/scope per UX9. interview
UX15 Engineering bar (D9). Every change ships with 100 % unit tests (JS node:test, RSpec), full JSDoc/RDoc, the exact Apache header, rufo-clean formatting; all existing suites stay green; view specs asserting moved markup are updated, not deleted. CLAUDE.md

Bugfix: UX audit follow-up (design review remediation)

Remediates a Claude-Design review of the shipped UX-audit dashboard (8 numbered fixes plus 4 smaller "also spotted" items), each traced to a concrete base.css / web/views/ / assets/js/app/ cause. It is presentation-layer only: no dependency, no egress, no /api/*, /version, or data-app-config change, so all four apex invariants and D7/D8 hold by construction. Protocol parity (Invariant IV) is preserved — FU3 keeps the MeshCore-diamond / Meshtastic-circle distinction as differentiation, not privilege.

Conflict check against existing decisions. UX7/D-013 (MeshCore square chip, 2 × radius)amended (FU3: equal-area rotated diamond at round(radius × 1.78); a raw 2r square out-weighed the circle ~27 %). UX7/ D-014 (legend dash sample 6 6)amended (FU5: the 24 px sample uses 6 2 so it inks both ends; the on-map traces stay 6 6). UX11/D-033 (chat hang 8ch)amended (FU1/FU9: hang is 19ch — the real prefix width — and inline badge/icon/reply descendants zero the inherited text-indent). UX11/ D-029 (region toggle 🌐)amended (FU2: 🌍, greyscale-until-open). UX12/ D-002 (join strip in the meta row with a details link)amended (FU4: the strip moves to the footer beside the About link and the redundant details link is dropped). UX11/D-026 (meta day/week line)extends (FU4: the line is unchanged; per-protocol counts are added to the two toggle buttons). UX9/ D-006/D-007/D-017 (nodes table)extends (FU6 condenses row density, FU7 lists only reported fields in the disclosure row, FU10 pins both header rows). UX8 (legend defaults)extends (FU12: columns top-align; no default change). Footer slim variantretired (FU8). No invariant is contradicted.

# Decision Source
FU1 Chat badge sits in its colour box. text-indent is inherited, so the D-033 hang re-applied to the inline-block .short-name / .protocol-icon / .chat-entry-reply inside .chat-entry-msg/-node. A :where(...) :where(...) reset zeros it on those descendants at specificity 0. review
FU2 Region toggle reads as a place. The glyph is 🌍 (was 🌐, a generic "web" mark); the button is greyscale/dimmed by default and returns to full colour + an accent frame on hover and [aria-expanded="true"] — the colour is the open-state feedback the toggle lacked. No JS change (aria-expanded already flips). review
FU3 MeshCore marker is an equal-area diamond (amends UX7/D-013). The chip is sized round(radius × 1.78) (16 px at radius 9 ≈ the circle's πr²), rotated 45° and corner-rounded in base.css; the rotation is CSS-only so the divIcon box and anchor are unchanged and the container keeps overflow: visible. review
FU4 Join strip → footer; counts → toggles; details dropped (amends UX12/D-002, extends UX11/D-026). The .join-line moves from the meta row to _footer.erb (rendered from the Sanitizer preset helpers, MeshCore entry only when both values are set). The two otherwise-unlabelled protocol toggles gain a per-protocol count span filled from the same 7-day figure as the legend column counts. The details link is removed — the footer's About link is beside the strip now. Every wire/JSON key is untouched (FS1/D8 hold). review
FU5 Legend dash sample inks both ends (amends UX7/D-014). legendLineSampleSvg('trace') uses stroke-dasharray="6 2", which tiles the 22 px sample exactly (6+2+6+2+6); the map traceroutes keep 6 6. review
FU6 Condensed nodes table. Row density is scoped to #nodes (thead th 5/8, tbody td 3/8 + line-height 1.35, group row 3/8), taking rows from ~30 px to ~20 px without shrinking the 12 px type; the waiting row keeps a roomy 12/8 via an id-scoped selector that outranks the tight rule. review
FU7 Disclosure row lists only reported fields (extends UX9). filterReportedFields drops null/empty/em-dash fields but keeps honest zeros (a 0 % util or 0 V is a real reading — UX10 number-honesty); an all-absent set falls back to one muted "No additional fields reported." line. review + interview
FU8 Footer chrome on every route. The transparent .app-footer--slim variant (and its full-screen padding reset) is deleted and the slim local dropped; the still-position: fixed footer now paints opaque with a lift shadow on Charts / Federation / /pages/* instead of floating over body copy. Geometry is unchanged (it was already fixed), so no content is newly occluded. review
FU9 Chat hang is the real prefix width (amends UX11/D-033). The [HH:MM:SS][freq][MF] prefix is 19 characters, so the hanging indent is 19ch — wrapped lines land under the message column instead of mid-timestamp. review
FU10 Both nodes-table header rows pin (extends UX9). The group row becomes position: sticky; top: 0 (was static) with a fixed 24 px border-box height; the column row pins at top: 24px, so the grouped header no longer scrolls away leaving the column row unbacked. review
FU11 Badge meets the 44 px touch floor. On pointer: coarse, a transparent centred ::after lifts the .short-name[data-node-info] hit box to 44 px without changing its look; fine pointers keep the tight target so dense chat lines do not cross-capture clicks. review
FU12 Legend columns share a top baseline (extends UX8). legend-column--bottom is removed so the shorter MeshCore column top-aligns with Meshtastic; the two protocol titles sit on one line. review
FU13 Engineering bar (D9). Every change ships with 100 % unit coverage on new/changed lines (JS node:test, RSpec), full JSDoc/RDoc, the exact Apache header, rufo-clean specs; all existing suites stay green; view/JS specs asserting moved markup are updated, not deleted. CLAUDE.md

Bugfix: Post-deploy design review (detail view, footer, marker recency)

Answers four post-deploy asks against 992d6bb (the deployed audit tree): three real gaps the audit left behind and one feature with a trade-off. Presentation layer only — no dependency, no egress, no /api/*, /version, or data-app-config change, so all four apex invariants and D7/D8 hold. Protocol parity (Invariant IV) is preserved: PD3 gives both protocols the same freshness-pane treatment.

Conflict check against existing decisions. UX9/D-007 (disclosure — mobile loses nothing) and UX4/D-020 (muted dash)extended to /nodes/:id (PD1): those were #nodes-scoped and never reached the detail table, which reused the global .nodes-col--* hide rules and lost columns with no disclosure. FU4/FU8 (static pages → footer)regression fixed (PD2): the enlarged single-inline-flex links row wrapped and stranded a separator; the links become their own tier and separators become dots. getRoleRenderPriority render order (role-major z-order; MeshCore "companion above infrastructure")amended (PD3): recency becomes the coarse stacking channel and role the fine one, so a live low-priority node now paints over a stale high-priority one — the map answers "what is alive now", not "where is the infrastructure". The ladder is preserved but subordinated to freshness (it still orders within a pane), and the pre-existing protocol pane-split (every MeshCore chip painting over every Meshtastic circle, because divIconmarkerPane sits above circleMarkeroverlayPane) narrows to within-a-bucket, since both marker types now share the three freshness panes. FU10 (sticky group-header 24px offset)hardened (PD4). No invariant is contradicted.

# Decision Source
PD1 The /nodes/:id detail view is a spec sheet, not a table (extends UX9/UX4). single-node-table.js renders a grouped <dt>/<dd> spec sheet (Activity · Health · Utilization · Environment · Position) reusing .node-detail__row; it carries no .nodes-col--* classes, so nothing is display:none'd on a single-record page and no disclosure column is needed; absent telemetry renders the muted .cell-empty dash (fixing the blank-cell half). It reflows to one column ≤ 659 px with no horizontal scroll. Identity and the long name live in the page header (detail-html.js) and are not repeated; the pointless self-link to the current page is dropped. The one-record table's whole cost (18 columns of horizontal scroll) bought nothing — a table compares rows, and there is one row. review
PD2 Footer is two intentional tiers with dot separators (fixes an FU4/FU8 regression). .footer-links becomes its own tier (flex-basis: 100%) so the row can no longer strand the version→links separator on line one; every .footer-separator is · at margin: 0 5px; color: var(--muted) (a dot wants more air, less weight than an em dash); the chat label shortens to chat: (the instance name is already the title and logo). The ≤ 600px stack rule is unchanged. review
PD3 Marker stacking: recency-major via three freshness panes (amends the role-priority z-order). The map creates three Leaflet panes — markers-stale < markers-today < markers-live (ascending z-index) — and every marker, circle and chip, is assigned its nodeAgeBucket pane (freshnessPaneForBucket). Freshness is the coarse channel; the existing getRoleRenderPriority ladder still orders within a pane. A live Meshtastic circle now paints over a stale MeshCore chip. This inverts the old guarantee (a stale ROUTER drops below a live CLIENT, and MeshCore's "companion above infrastructure" holds only within a bucket) — the deliberate trade for a liveness dashboard; role keeps its own untouched colour/shape channel. It also narrows the pre-existing protocol pane-split (chips no longer unconditionally top circles — only within one bucket). No representation change, so circleMarker performance is kept. interview + review
PD4 Sticky group-header offset hardened (FU10). The group row's height: 24px and the column row's top: 24px are a coupled pair; white-space: nowrap on .nodes-group-header th stops a longer label / translation / narrow tier from wrapping the group row and overlapping the two sticky rows. A comment names the coupling. review
PD5 Engineering bar (D9). Each fix shipped with a fail-first check (Phase 2), 100 % coverage on new/changed lines, full JSDoc, the exact Apache header, rufo/black-clean; all prior suites stay green; specs asserting the old detail table / footer markup are updated, not deleted. CLAUDE.md

Bugfix: Legend shape key & chat log overflow

Two deployed-CSS defects and one legend-key gap from a final frontend review. Presentation layer only — no dependency, no egress, no /api/*, /version, or data-app-config change; all four apex invariants and D7/D8 hold. Protocol parity (Invariant IV) is preserved: the legend keys both protocols' shapes equally.

Conflict check. UX7 (marker shape channel; the neighbor/trace line key)extended (LC1): the legend now also keys the role-swatch shape (circle vs diamond), the channel the map used but the panel never keyed; the swatch is the marker at legend size (same nodeMarkerShapeForProtocol mapping, same side = radius × 1.78 area rule, same ring + 3px corner). Legend filter visual feedbackfixed (LC2): the pressed-state rule existed but a lower specificity than the global button reset meant it never painted. UX11/D-033 (chat hanging indent)extended (LC3): wrapped lines already hung at 19ch, but unbreakable tokens were never broken, so the panel scrolled sideways; overflow-wrap: anywhere on the same rule closes it. No invariant is contradicted.

# Decision Source
LC1 Legend swatches key the marker shape (extends UX7). buildRoleButtons stamps each swatch legend-swatch--diamond (MeshCore) or legend-swatch--circle (Meshtastic) from nodeMarkerShapeForProtocol — one source of truth with the map. base.css renders the circle at 12px and the diamond as an equal-area 11px square rotated 45° (the map's side = radius × 1.78) with the chip's 3px corners, both carrying the marker's 1px rgba(0,0,0,.7) ring, in a 16px slot so the diagonal never clips the label. The swatch is the marker at legend size, not a second drawing of it. Freshness (opacity) is deliberately not keyed (the recommended shapes-only option). review
LC2 Legend pressed state paints (specificity fix). A role chip is a <button>; the reset button:not(.chat-tab):not(.sort-button) (0,2,1) outranked the bare .legend-item[aria-pressed="true"] (0,2,0), so every chip computed to #333 and only font-weight distinguished selected from filtered. The selector is now button.legend-item[aria-pressed="true"] (0,2,1), which wins on source order — the selected blue paints. review
LC3 Chat log never scrolls horizontally (extends UX11/D-033). .chat-tabpanel is overflow-y: auto, so its x-axis is a scroll container; nothing broke long tokens. overflow-wrap: anywhere on .chat-entry-msg, .chat-entry-node wraps unbreakable tokens under the 19ch hang and lowers the entry's min-content width so it can never exceed the panel. anywhere, not break-word; no overflow-x: hidden (which would only mask the next regression). review
LC4 Engineering bar (D9). Each fix shipped with a fail-first check (Phase 2), full JSDoc/comments, the exact Apache header, clean linters; all prior suites stay green; the buildRoleButtons filter specs gain the swatch-shape assertion, none removed. CLAUDE.md

Feature: Mesh activity reporting & announcements

Turns each ingestor from a pure listener into a reporter and an announcer. (1) Reporting: every ingestor counts every frame it handles — all received frames (including ignored / errored / unimplemented) plus its own transmissions — as one merged packets figure and appends the per-interval delta to its hourly POST /api/ingestors heartbeat; the web app persists a per-ingestor activity time-series so a packets/hour moving average is computable across time × protocol × multiple ingestors. (2) Announcing ("we stop listening and start talking"): each ingestor periodically broadcasts a one-line activity summary on its protocol's default channel, drawing the numbers back from the target instance's own API (dogfeeding, so one radio's partial view never under-represents the mesh). Integrates with data/mesh_ingestor/handlers/_state.py (RX/TX counting seam), ingestors.py (heartbeat payload), config.py (reuse RX_ONLY), daemon.py (announce schedule), mesh_protocol.py + protocols/{meshtastic,meshcore,meshtastic_udp} (optional send), a new announce + instance-stats-GET module, data/ingestors.sql plus a new data/ingestor_activity.sql table, web/lib/potato_mesh/application/routes/{ingest,api}.rb, the query + retention layers, and data/mesh_ingestor/CONTRACTS.md.

Conflict check against existing decisions. Invariant I (apex / local-LoRa)consistent, extends §4.2: the announcement is a LoRa transmission on the local aether and the dogfeed is an HTTP GET to the ingestor's own instance; no MQTT/broker/cloud dependency or connection is added (A1 stays clean), and ingestor TX already exists (RX_ONLY, MeshCore telemetry polls), so this widens an existing capability rather than crossing the apex line. Invariant II (privacy)extends: a new gate suppresses the announcement unless the target instance reports non-private, read authoritatively from its /version and fail-closed on any fetch error; only public aggregates (active nodes, packet rate) are ever announced. Invariant III (federation) & §5 (no analytics / phone-home)consistent, new authorized behavior: the announcement publishes an unsigned public activity line on the community's local mesh — not the signed federation wire, not cloud egress, not third-party analytics — and is opt-out via RX_ONLY=1. Invariant IV (parity & pluggability)extends: sending is an optional, duck-typed provider capability, not a new formal MeshProtocol member, so the A4b conformance contract and every existing provider are untouched; both protocols announce identically. D8 (stable contract)extends: the heartbeat packets field, the /api/stats <scope>.packets.hour metric, and the activity table are all additive; no version bump. §3.3 (web is POST-only intake)consistent: the dogfeed is a read; no new ingest path. No invariant is contradicted.

# Decision Source
MA1 Merged packet counter — count everything, at the earliest seam. Each ingestor maintains one merged packets counter incremented on every received frameall of them, including ignored / errored / unimplemented / unsupported-port packets — counted at the earliest common receive seam (handlers/_state._mark_packet_seen, already invoked by both the Meshtastic on_receive path and every MeshCore handler/telemetry path before any dispatch or filtering), plus every ingestor-initiated transmission (the announcement itself and the existing MeshCore telemetry/status polls). RX and TX are deliberately merged into a single figure (no separate breakdown). "We don't want to under-report" is satisfied at source: counting precedes every drop/ignore decision. A build-phase check confirms each protocol's RX entry funnels through the seam so no family is missed. interview
MA2 Heartbeat carries the per-interval delta. POST /api/ingestors gains an additive optional packets field = frames counted since the previous heartbeat (a per-interval delta, not a since-boot cumulative), reset to zero each time a heartbeat is queued. Per-interval deltas map one-to-one onto time-series rows and are restart-safe (a reboot simply starts a fresh interval). Absent ⇒ treated as 0, so pre-feature ingestors and the existing tests/test_mesh.py fixtures are unaffected (D8). interview
MA3 Per-ingestor activity time-series (the moving-average schema). A new append-only table ingestor_activity (ingestor_id TEXT, at INTEGER, packets INTEGER, protocol TEXT, indexed on at) records one row per heartbeat delta. This is the schema that makes a packets/hour moving average computable while distinguishing multiple protocols and multiple ingestors per protocol (each ingestor's contribution is kept separate rather than pre-summed). The ingestors snapshot table (one row per node) is unchanged. Rows are pruned by the existing retention worker (window ≥ the 24 h the announcement needs; sized with the other activity floors). proposed
MA4 Aggregation = MAX per protocol; total = SUM across protocols (dedup-free "in the air"). The mesh-wide packets/hour for a protocol is MAX over that protocol's ingestors of (that ingestor's total packets reported in the last 24 h ÷ 24). A single radio can only hear ≤ what is actually transmitted, so the busiest single vantage is the best dedup-free estimate of unique air traffic and can never double-count a frame heard by two radios (true per-frame dedup is impossible anyway — ignored/errored frames carry no id). The total rate is the SUM of the per-protocol rates — different protocols ride different frequencies/channels, so their frames never overlap in the air and add rather than dedup. Amended pre-release: total first shipped as a MAX over every ingestor regardless of protocol, which under-counted it to the single busiest protocol (e.g. meshcore 44 + meshtastic 76 rendered as 76, not 120); corrected to the cross-protocol SUM. The fixed ÷ 24 denominator (not ÷ elapsed) keeps the rate stable and avoids divide-by-small spikes; an ingestor with < 24 h of data simply reads lower and ramps up (moot in practice — the announcement fires only ≥ 24 h after start, MA7). Accepted limitation: the per-protocol MAX under-estimates the true union when different radios are busiest in different hours. interview
MA5 Exposure as an additive per-scope packets metric. GET /api/stats exposes the MA4 24 h MAX-aggregated moving average under each scope as <scope>.packets.hour — a packets metric carrying a single hour window (it is a rate, not a windowed count, so no day/week/month keys), consistent with the S1 scope → metric → window layout. reticulum.packets.hour is a forward-looking 0 stub (S6); total.packets.hour is the MAX across all ingestors regardless of protocol. The rest of the S1 tree is untouched, so this needs no version bump. The announcement's active-node figure reuses the existing <protocol>.nodes.day count (already deduped by node_id); only packets/hour is new. Amended pre-release: the field originally shipped (unreleased, on main) as a top-level packets_per_hour: { total, meshcore, meshtastic, reticulum } map; it is superseded here by the per-scope packets.hour form for consistency with the S1 tree. Because it was merged but not yet in any tagged release and is not on the signed federation wire, the reshape carries no version bump, federation-compat fallback, or signature break — only the in-repo announce.py dogfeed reader (MA6) and the specs/docs move with it. proposed (amended)
MA6 Announcement content, drawn from the instance's own API (dogfeeding). Each ingestor broadcasts, for its own configured protocol, a single line formatted to that protocol's character limit: "<Protocol> activity in the last 24h: <N> active nodes, <M> packets/hour. https://<domain>". <N> and <M> are fetched from the target instance (GET /api/stats<protocol>.nodes.day and <protocol>.packets.hour), never computed from the ingestor's local view — because one ingestor may not see the whole mesh. <domain> is the configured INSTANCE_DOMAIN. Reporting (MA1MA4) is independent and continues regardless of announcement state. interview
MA7 Announcement is triple-gated. An announcement is transmitted only when all hold: (a) RX_ONLY is unset — the reused receive-only flag (default 0) is the single transmit gate; RX_ONLY=1 forbids every ingestor TX (the MeshCore polls and the announcement alike), so it is the sole opt-out and no separate ENABLE_TX env is added; (b) the target instance reports non-private — the ingestor GETs <domain>/version and honors config.private_mode, re-checked every cycle, and fails closed (skips) on any fetch/parse error, so a privacy signal is never missed (Invariant II); (c) ≥ 24 h have elapsed since ingestor start — so the first numbers are accurate over a full window and restarts cannot spam the channel. interview
MA8 Default channel/scope + 24 h cadence. The announcement is broadcast on the protocol's default channel and scope — Meshtastic channel CHANNEL_INDEX (default 0) via the interface text-send; MeshCore its public/default channel — honoring existing ALLOWED_CHANNELS/HIDDEN_CHANNELS intent. After the initial ≥ 24 h wait it repeats every 24 h, per configured instance domain (an ingestor with several INSTANCE_DOMAIN targets announces each with its own numbers and link). TX volume is negligible (~1 frame/day/domain). proposed
MA9 Optional duck-typed provider send. Transmission is exposed as a new optional provider method (e.g. send_channel_announcement(iface, text)) accessed via getattr(provider, …, None) — mirroring the existing optional self_node_item extension — so the @runtime_checkable MeshProtocol interface and its A4b isinstance conformance are unchanged, and a provider that cannot transmit (or a receive-only transport) simply omits it. Both meshtastic and meshcore providers implement it; neither protocol is privileged. interview
MA10 Engineering bar (D9). Every new/changed unit ships with 100 % unit tests (counter increment across RX families + TX; heartbeat delta + reset; activity-table write + retention; MAX-aggregation math incl. multi-ingestor; the /api/stats field; the four announcement gates incl. fail-closed privacy and the 24 h wait; per-protocol send), full PDoc/RDoc, Apache headers, black/rufo clean; pytest/rspec/npm test stay green; CONTRACTS.md documents the additive heartbeat field, the activity schema, and the /api/stats addition. CLAUDE.md

Feature: Mesh activity map card (frontend)

Surfaces the MA5 <scope>.packets.hour rate on the dashboard as a "Mesh activity" card in the map's bottom-left corner (the recommended treatment from the imported Claude-Design review, option 1a). Frontend/read-side only: integrates with web/public/assets/js/app/stats.js (parses the new packets rates), a new web/public/assets/js/app/map-activity-card.js module, the map setup + stats callback in web/public/assets/js/app/main.js, and web/public/assets/styles/base.css. Consumes the existing GET /api/stats with no API/DB/ingestor change.

Conflict check against existing decisions. Invariant I (apex)consistent: a read-side consumer of the existing local API; no broker, dependency, or egress. Invariant II (privacy)consistent: packets are a public aggregate (no message content), already un-gated by PRIVATE (MA5); the card shows only rates the API already returns. Invariant IV (parity)extends: both protocols render identically and either can be toggled; neither is privileged. D8 (contract) / §3.3 (POST-only intake)consistent: no new endpoint or shape; the card reads <scope>.packets.hour as it ships. AV3 (cache-busting)consistent: the new module self-registers in the automatic import map. No invariant is contradicted.

# Decision Source
MA-F1 Placement & source. A "Mesh activity" card renders as a Leaflet control at the map's bottom-left (mirroring the roles legend bottom-right) on the dashboard and /map. Its figures come from GET /api/stats <scope>.packets.hour (parsed by stats.js into stats.packets = { total, meshcore, meshtastic }); on a stats-fetch failure the local-count fallback carries no packets, so the card simply hides. Recommended design option 1a / treatment A ("Signal card"). interview + design
MA-F2 Content. A pulsing live-dot + "Mesh activity" label; the big tabular total packets/h; the placeholder sparkline (MA-F5); and one row per protocol (Meshtastic, then MeshCore) carrying the protocol icon, label, a share-bar sized to the busiest visible protocol, and the tabular rate. reticulum is never rendered (forward-looking zero stub, S6). design
MA-F3 Zero-state unmount. The card is hidden entirely (.map-activity-card--hidden, hidden, emptied) whenever the visible total is 0 or the payload carries no packet rates — the map's one free corner is never occupied by an empty card. interview + design
MA-F4 Toggle-reactive rebasing (Invariant IV parity). A protocol hidden via the meta-row protocol toggle (the existing hiddenProtocols set) drops its row and rebases the displayed total to the sum of the visible protocol rates — the same treatment for both protocols, identical to how the node counts already rebase. Toggling re-runs applyFilter, which re-renders the card; hiding all protocols unmounts it. interview + code
MA-F5 Sparkline (superseded by F2-4). As first shipped in F1 the 24-hour sparkline was a deterministic placeholder (data-placeholder="true"), never claiming to be live. Superseded by F2-4: it now renders the real 24 h total series from GET /api/stats/activity, and is simply omitted when that series is unavailable — the card never shows a fake curve. interview
MA-F6 Engineering bar (D9) & scope. Frontend/read-side only — no API/DB/ingestor change (D8, §3.3), apex (I) untouched. The DOM-building logic lives in map-activity-card.js at 100 % unit coverage (JSDoc, Apache header); main.js holds only the Leaflet-control wiring + the one render call in the stats callback (integration-only, matching the sibling legend control). The module self-registers in the cache-busting import map (AV3). npm test stays green; no Ruby/Python change. CLAUDE.md

Feature: Mesh activity time-series (F2)

Adds a bucketed packets/hour time-series over ingestor_activity so the map card's 24 h sparkline (MA-F5) and a protocol-aware /charts figure render on real history instead of a placeholder. Backend: GET /api/stats/activity + query_activity_buckets (web/lib/potato_mesh/application/queries/ingestor_queries.rb)

  • the route in application/routes/api.rb. Frontend: map-activity-card.js (real sparkline) and charts-page.js + views/charts.erb (the new figure). Read-side, additive; no ingest or DB-schema change.

Conflict check. Apex I / §3.3consistent: a read of the existing local DB; no broker, egress, or ingest path. Privacy IIconsistent: packets are a public aggregate (no message content), un-gated like MA5. Parity IVextends: the series and the chart are per-protocol and equal, and the /charts intro stops naming a single protocol. D8extends: a new additive endpoint (snake_case params, no version bump); the camelCase /aggregated params remain BP9's separate migration. No invariant is contradicted.

# Decision Source
F2-1 New GET /api/stats/activity. Bucketed packets/hour series over ingestor_activity, mirroring /api/telemetry/aggregated (window clamped to the 28-day floor, bucket count capped at MAX_QUERY_LIMIT, ApiCache), but with snake_case window_seconds/bucket_seconds params — the API norm. Returns [{ bucket_start, bucket_end, total, meshcore, meshtastic }, …] ascending. The lone camelCase params on /aggregated stay the tracked BP9 migration, not folded in here. interview
F2-2 Per-bucket aggregation mirrors MA4. Within each bucket, per protocol = MAX over that protocol's ingestors of their summed packets; total = SUM across protocols; each ÷ (bucket_seconds/3600) to a packets/hour rate. reticulum folds into total but emits no series (consistent with query_packets_per_hour). interview + code
F2-3 No new retention. ingestor_activity is already retained a year; the 28-day API clamp is the only ceiling. The card requests 24 h / 1 h buckets, the /charts figure 7 d / 2 h. code
F2-4 Card real sparkline. The MA-F5 placeholder is replaced by the real 24 h series from /api/stats/activity, fetched on a slower cadence with its own short cache (the trend moves slowly — not every refresh). On fetch failure the sparkline is omitted but the live total/rows (from /api/stats) still render — the card never regresses to a fake curve. interview
F2-5 Charts page — protocol-aware, all-protocol. A "Mesh activity" figure (packets/h per protocol, 7 d) is added to /charts between the channel-utilization and environmental figures. The intro no longer names "Meshtastic": the aggregated telemetry (query_telemetry_buckets) already carries all protocols (MeshCore telemetry included since the telemetry pull shipped) — the prior wording mislabelled all-protocol data. Invariant IV. interview
F2-6 Engineering bar (D9). 100 % unit tests (rspec for query_activity_buckets + the route; node --test for the card sparkline + charts figure), full RDoc/JSDoc, Apache headers, rufo/black clean; CONTRACTS.md documents the new endpoint; all suites stay green. CLAUDE.md

Bugfix: Neighbor/trace legend toggles highlight when visible

The neighbor-line and trace-line legend toggles set aria-pressed="true" when their lines were hidden, so button.legend-item[aria-pressed="true"] (the selected/ highlighted style, LC2) painted them highlighted while the lines were off — reversed relative to the role chips, which highlight when a role is visible. Fixed in web/public/assets/js/app/main.js (updateNeighborLinesToggleState / updateTraceLinesToggleState). Presentation-only; no data/API change.

# Decision Source
NT1 The neighbor/trace line toggles set aria-pressed="true" when their lines are visible (highlighted = shown), consistent with the role chips (LC2) and the meta-row protocol toggles; previously reversed (pressed when hidden). Presentation-only, no data/API change. review

Bugfix: Mesh activity design-review remediation

A Claude-Design review of the shipped F1/F2 work against the 1a/1c/1d design. The card, the real-data sparkline, and the toggle rebasing all matched or bettered the design; this section remediates the one regression and the mobile/charts divergences it found. Presentation + read-side only; no API/DB change. Conflict check: fixes an MA-F3 regression and extends MA-F4/MA-F5/F2-4 (the sparkline now rebases with the toggles); consistent with all invariants.

# Decision Source
MR1 Idle card stays hidden on mobile (MA-F3 regression fix). The mobile media query set .map-activity-card { display: flex }, which outranked .map-activity-card--hidden { display: none } (equal specificity, later rule) and the [hidden] attribute, so an idle card painted an empty pill over the map. .map-activity-card--hidden { display: none } is re-declared inside the media query. review
MR2 Mobile strip is a full-width caption (design 1d). Below the mobile breakpoint the bottom-left Leaflet control spans the map (left: 0; right: 0, 8px inset) at ≥ 32px tall with the protocol split pushed to the far edge (margin-left: auto), so it reads as a map caption rather than a content-width corner pill. review
MR3 Mobile breakpoint aligned to the app band. The strip triggers at ≤ 659px (the app's mobile band, UX9), not a one-off 640px. review
MR4 Sparkline headroom. sparklinePathsFromSeries scales to max × 1.15, so the busiest hour's vertex sits below the box edge and the 1.5px stroke is never clipped. review
MR5 Sparkline rebases with the toggles. The curve is the sum of the visible protocols per bucket (from /api/stats/activity's per-protocol fields), so it agrees with the headline total once a protocol is toggled off — previously the number rebased but the curve stayed all-protocol. Extends MA-F4 / F2-4. review
MR6 Card is a labelled group. The card root carries role="group" so its aria-label is announced (a bare div's is not); children stay readable, unlike role="img". review
MR7 /charts intro is protocol-neutral. The all-protocol "Network telemetry trends" heading no longer carries the single Meshtastic badge (charts.erb), matching the de-scoped copy (F2-5). review
MR8 Utilization second-axis (design 1c) explicitly out of scope. The packets/h right-hand axis overlay on the channel-utilization chart was not built — the standalone "Mesh activity" figure (F2-5) is the shipped scope; recorded so the design is not re-litigated. review