CFG-01 review: widen the rule, refuse the firmware-veto case, fix the stop footgun

Review findings, all confirmed in code before changing anything.

THE RULE DID NOT AUTHORISE ITS OWN BEST REFUSAL. The stated test was
"makes a safety mechanism inoperative, or makes a stated limit untrue",
and a blank setpoint_entity does neither - layer 1 pinning the inverter
at 0 W is the failsafe WORKING, as validate.py's own text admitted. The
real justification is a second, separate category: the add-on is inert
and indistinguishable from healthy. Stated as (a) and (b), with each
refusal tagged, and with both halves explicitly bounded - (a) is not
"any two numbers that could disagree", (b) is not "anything degraded".
Left implicit, the gap is where trivia-creep comes back in.

meter_max_age_s ABOVE THE FIRMWARE'S VETO IS NOW REFUSED. The schema
allows int(5,300); the firmware's threshold is a compile-time
`max_age_s: "30"` and it trips layer 1 at `p1_age_s >= 30`. At 120 the
add-on believes a 119 s reading is fresh and keeps commanding while the
board has already vetoed and is holding at 0 W - healthy meter, running
controller, nothing moving. Structurally identical to the max_w case,
and unlike max_w it is settable on this install, so the headline
behaviour finally has a live demonstration. That firmware file's own
comment says a lower bound on this "belongs in CFG-01, not here".

Only ABOVE is refused: below the veto the add-on gives up first, which
is fail-safe and visible on its own status page. Scoped to P1 being
enabled, because meter_max_age_s governs nothing otherwise.
FIRMWARE_INGEST_VETO_S cannot be imported from a compile-time YAML
substitution, so it carries a note on the single direction in which it
can go stale - and a warning that TEL-06 is editing `ingest_stale`, so a
matching integer may stop meaning a matching rule.

stop= WAS A LIVE FOOTGUN. It defaulted to None, which made a Controller
that cannot stop itself the DEFAULT one. On the late-refusal path that
meant: log the banner, return, and leave the process alive forever with
no control loop and no exit - the exact "inert but looks healthy"
failure this module exists to refuse. Now required and keyword-only, so
the broken shape does not construct; test_p1.py's five call sites pass
an Event.

That whole path had no test and no live demo. It has one now: it drives
run_control() against a device that only reports a narrower range once
the loop starts, and asserts it refuses, signals, returns, and writes
NOTHING - plus the converse, that an agreeing device leads to real
writes. This also covers the max_w composition that cannot be reached
through the Supervisor on the live install.

max_w <= 0 is refused. Schema-blocked in production, but
validate_startup_config() is the simulation suite's entry point too, and
a non-positive max_w inverts the arbiter's supervised bounds into a
contradiction that reads as a safety trip rather than a typo.

Verified live 2026-08-28 (backup goodwe_controller-cfg01r2-1787940076):
meter_max_age_s 120 refused with a message naming 120, 30, and THE
FIRMWARE WINS; no traceback; add-on restored byte-exact and running.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Du77usMj8XNKNFZGmUiWDa

.gitattributes

@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+# This add-on is deployed to a Linux container. core.autocrlf=true on the
+# authoring box gave the checkout CRLF, so a plain copy shipped CRLF files -
+# run.sh with CRLF is a "bad interpreter" failure, and any hash-based drift
+# check between repo and deployment fails for a reason that has nothing to do
+# with the code. Deploy with:
+#     git -c core.autocrlf=false archive release/1.0 goodwe_controller | tar -x
+# which is how 0.3.0 went out, byte-identical to the blobs.
+* text=auto eol=lf
+*.png binary
+*.gz  binary

HANDOVER.md

@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ a GoodWe GW5000S-BP.
 
 | | |
 |---|---|
-| running | `local_goodwe_controller` **0.2.0**, `boot: auto`, holding grid at zero |
+| running | `local_goodwe_controller` **0.4.0**, `boot: auto`, holding grid at zero |
 | installed as | a **Local** add-on: `/addons/goodwe_controller` on HA OS at 192.168.2.158 |
 | repo | Gitea `admin/goodwe-addon` (ssh://git@192.168.2.147:2222) — **private** |
 | tuning | gain 0.6, `max_w` 5000, slew 1000, deadband 15, step 10, saturation 500/3, heartbeat 10 s |

goodwe_controller/CHANGELOG.md

@@ -1,5 +1,210 @@
 # Changelog
 
+## 0.4.0
+
+**CFG-01.** The add-on now refuses to start on a configuration it cannot honour,
+instead of logging a line and carrying on. `validate_startup_config()` runs in
+`amain()` before the broker, the web server or any task exists, so a refusal
+cannot leave half a controller running behind a UI.
+
+It refuses only where continuing produces one of two outcomes: **(a)** a stated
+limit is untrue - the operator configured a bound and a lower layer silently
+enforces a different one - or **(b)** the add-on is inert and indistinguishable
+from healthy. (b) is not a special case of (a): with no `setpoint_entity`, layer
+1 pinning the inverter at 0 W is the failsafe *working*. The system does not
+become unsafe, it becomes a convincing impression of a working controller.
+
+Four things qualify:
+
+- **`max_w` above (or below) the setpoint device's own rating.** This is the one
+  that changed behaviour. It used to warn `the device wins` and run anyway, with
+  `write_setpoint()` silently clamping, so the configured ceiling was never the
+  real one and the only evidence had scrolled off the log. The refusal names the
+  configured value, the device's value, and which wins.
+- **No `setpoint_entity`.** A controller with no actuator: every write is a
+  no-op, the device rating is never read, and the ESP32 heartbeat that holds off
+  the layer-1 failsafe never happens. It ran, looked healthy, and moved nothing.
+- **A `meter_source` that can never produce a reading** - missing `p1_host`,
+  missing `p1_net_entity`, a blank MQTT topic, a phase list disagreeing with
+  `meter_phases`, an unknown source name, or a `meter_poll_s` at or past
+  `meter_max_age_s`. These were already caught, but they only *disabled
+  ingestion*, which leaves the grid reading None forever: permanent "inputs
+  missing", 0 W, and a status page indistinguishable from a healthy meter nobody
+  has sent anything to yet.
+- **`meter_max_age_s` above the firmware's ingest veto.** The schema accepts
+  `int(5,300)`; the ESP32's threshold is a compile-time `max_age_s: "30"` and it
+  trips layer 1 at `p1_age_s >= 30`. Set 120 and the add-on treats a 119 s
+  reading as fresh and keeps commanding, while the firmware has already vetoed
+  and is holding the inverter at 0 W - healthy meter, running controller,
+  nothing moving, and no line anywhere saying the number you set was overruled.
+  Structurally the same fault as the `max_w` case. Only *above* the veto is
+  refused: below it the add-on gives up first, which is fail-safe and visible on
+  its own status page. Mirrored as `validate.FIRMWARE_INGEST_VETO_S` - it cannot
+  be imported from a compile-time YAML substitution, so it carries a note about
+  the one direction in which it can go stale.
+
+`max_w` at or below zero is refused too. Schema-blocked on a real install, but
+`validate_startup_config()` is now also the simulation suite's entry point, and
+a non-positive `max_w` inverts the arbiter's `supervised` bounds into a
+contradiction that resolves to 0 W - i.e. it would read as a safety trip rather
+than as the typo it is.
+
+The predicates for the meter group still live in `p1.validate_meter_options()`,
+which `build_source()` also calls - one definition, two callers, not two
+competing validators. Two transports gained a check they never had: `ha_dsmr`
+with only one of its two entities, and `mqtt_p1` with a blank topic, both of
+which previously built a transport that could never read.
+
+Deliberately **not** refused, because it is untidy rather than unsafe:
+`integrator_max_w` above `max_w` (the arbiter still bounds the wire to ±max_w,
+so the cost is unwind latency, not amperage - warned), a missing `soc_entity` /
+`batt_entity` (fail-safe, and already a red NOT READY banner naming it), a
+`setpoint_entity` that has not appeared on the Core API yet (ESPHome is routinely
+late; refusing would make a slow boot need a human - re-checked once the real
+rating arrives), and a thin-but-nonzero `meter_poll_s` margin.
+
+A refusal is legible as a refusal: a banner that says in words that this is a
+configuration problem and nothing is broken, the numbered problems, no traceback,
+and exit status 78 (`EX_CONFIG`).
+
+**TEL-04.** `meter_source: ha_signed` reads a single *signed* power entity, which
+is the shape a HomeWizard P1 publishes. Both transports 0.3.0 shipped require two
+unsigned registers and refuse negatives, so neither fits the meter installed here.
+
+**TEL-05.** `meter_source: homewizard_local` polls the meter's own local API
+directly. This exists because of something the HA paths cannot do: Home Assistant
+fires no state change for a repeated reading and exposes no arrival signal at
+all, so `sensor.p1_sample_age_s` on those transports measures time since the
+*value changed*, not since the meter *reported*. Real captured data has gaps of
+42 s and 97 s between changes on a perfectly healthy meter - long enough for a
+30 s staleness threshold to command 0 W for no reason. Every HTTP response to the
+local API is a genuine arrival, so the age means what it says.
+
+Verified on the rig against a literally constant 350.0 W for 70 s - the exact
+state where the HA path recorded zero samples in 45 s - with 14 arrivals and the
+age never exceeding the poll cadence.
+
+Set `p1_host` to the meter's address and `meter_poll_s` (default 5 s, matching
+the meter's own ~5 s update). Still defaults to `off`; nothing changes for an
+install that does not opt in.
+
+Freeze detection is separate and deliberately not thresholded: a meter answering
+200 OK with a stale number *is* arriving, so no arrival stamp can flag it. The
+energy registers carry that as `unchanged_s`, surfaced on the status line for a
+human to read rather than alarmed on - at a converged -10 W a 1 Wh register needs
+about six minutes to move, so any threshold would false-trip at the target
+operating point.
+
+## Unreleased
+
+**TEL-05.** A fourth `meter_source`, `homewizard_local`, which polls a
+HomeWizard P1's **own local API** (`GET /api/v1/data`) instead of watching a
+Home Assistant entity. Set `p1_host` to the meter's address; `meter_poll_s`
+(default 5 s, the meter's own update rate) sets the cadence.
+
+✅ **This is the first transport whose `sensor.p1_sample_age_s` measures when
+the meter *reported*, and therefore the first one a firmware watchdog may
+threshold.** Every HTTP response is an arrival: the meter answered, now, with
+its current reading, and whether the *number* moved is not consulted. Home
+Assistant cannot express that at all — a repeated reading emits no
+`state_changed`, advances `last_reported` on neither serialiser, and
+`state_reported` is not subscribable ("Event filter is required"). On
+`ha_signed` that made a healthy meter under a flat load indistinguishable from
+a dead one, and our own capture of this house's meter goes 42.2 s and 97.0 s
+between changes — both past the default `meter_max_age_s` of 30, i.e. a false
+trip to 0 W on a meter that is fine. If you have a HomeWizard P1, move to this
+mode.
+
+Everything TEL-01 established is reused, not re-implemented: ingest
+timestamping, `meter_max_age_s`, the clock-recomputed age, the plausibility
+bounds and the §20 unsigned-decode rejection, and the same `split_signed` sign
+convention `ha_signed` uses. A failed or timed-out poll submits nothing, so it
+is a *missing* reading — never 0 W — and it does not reset the age.
+
+Verified on the ENV-01 rig against `sim/hwsim.py`, steady and with `--fault
+freeze` injected. Still defaults to `off`.
+
+⚠️ **An arrival stamp still cannot see a *frozen* meter**, and no arrival
+detector can: a meter answering `200 OK` forever with a stale number is
+arriving. The local API does expose what the HA path never had — the
+`total_power_*_kwh` registers stop advancing — and the transport tracks it as
+`unchanged_s`, but that is deliberately **not** folded into the age and not
+thresholded: this controller regulates grid power toward ~0 W, and at a
+converged −10 W the export register needs six minutes to move by its 1 Wh
+resolution while the power figure legitimately repeats. Thresholding it at 30 s
+would rebuild the false-trip limit cycle at the exact operating point we aim
+for. Freeze detection needs the low-power case solved first, separately. It is
+shown on the status page's P1 line instead — leaving it unthresholded only
+holds up if a human can read it, so now they can.
+
+**TEL-04.** A third `meter_source`, `ha_signed`, reading **one signed** Home
+Assistant entity: positive = import, negative = export. That is the shape a
+HomeWizard P1 publishes (`sensor.p1_meter_active_power`), and it is the meter
+actually fitted here - which neither TEL-01 transport can read, because
+`ha_dsmr` needs two unsigned registers and refuses a negative one, i.e. every
+exporting telegram. Set `p1_net_entity`, and `p1_phase_net_entities` for the
+per-phase capacity-tariff figures on a three-phase connection.
+
+Everything TEL-01 established is inherited rather than re-implemented - the
+new transport is a subclass of the `ha_dsmr` one overriding only which
+entities it wants and how they become a sample. So ingest timestamping,
+`meter_max_age_s`, `sensor.p1_sample_age_s` recomputed against the clock and
+republished once a second, the plausibility bounds, and `unavailable` /
+`unknown` treated as a *missing reading and never 0 W* all behave identically
+across the three sources.
+
+Still defaults to `off`; an existing install is unaffected until it opts in.
+
+⚠️ **`sensor.p1_sample_age_s` is published on `ha_signed`, but must not yet be
+thresholded by the ESP32 stale-input watchdog.** On the HA WebSocket paths the
+age is stamped from `state_changed`, so it measures time since the value
+*changed*, not since the meter *reported* - and Home Assistant exposes no
+arrival signal for a repeated reading (no `state_changed`, no `last_reported`
+movement on either serialiser, and `state_reported` is not subscribable over
+the WebSocket). Measured on the ENV-01 rig against the real HomeWizard
+integration. `ha_dsmr` mostly escapes it because a telegram moves several
+entities at once; `ha_signed` has one, so a healthy meter under a flat load is
+indistinguishable from a dead one. Our own capture has the house meter going
+42.2 s and 97.0 s between changes. Raising `meter_max_age_s` does not fix that,
+it only chooses which error you get; the fix is an arrival stamp from the meter
+itself and is a separate ticket. Full detail in DOCS.md.
+
+## 0.3.0
+
+**SAFETY-04.** The control law's integrator is now an explicit accumulator,
+bounded independently of the output clamp instead of inheriting whatever
+headroom the clamp happened to leave. It also freezes while the inverter is
+not tracking, rather than continuing to wind up against a command nothing is
+acting on. `integrator_max_w` (default `0`) governs the bound; `0` means
+"follow `max_w`", which is the existing behaviour.
+
+Behaviour is unchanged at the defaults - a 4,928-case equivalence sweep
+against the previous control law confirms it decides identically at
+`integrator_max_w: 0`.
+
+**TEL-01.** P1 meter ingestion, so a Belgian P1's two unsigned registers
+(consumption, injection) no longer need a hand-written signed template
+sensor: the subtraction moves into the add-on, done once and tested. Two
+transports, chosen with the new `meter_source` option: `ha_dsmr` subscribes
+to the DSMR integration over the HA WebSocket, `mqtt_p1` reads a topic.
+Defaults to `off`, which keeps the existing `meter_entity` path untouched -
+nothing changes for an install that does not opt in.
+
+Enabling it publishes `sensor.p1_sample_age_s`: seconds since the newest
+accepted telegram, recomputed against the clock and republished roughly once
+a second rather than only when a telegram lands. That is deliberate - Home
+Assistant only pushes a state on change, so a meter sitting at a genuinely
+constant reading would otherwise look identical to a dead one. Watching the
+age instead means a frozen meter shows a climbing age, not a flat line. The
+firmware watchdog subscribes to this exact entity id.
+
+Known limits, both already in DOCS.md: on `mqtt_p1`, a bridge stuck
+republishing its last telegram still "arrives", so the age cannot detect
+that particular failure - prefer `ha_dsmr` where both are available. And a
+dead P1 meter takes 45 s to reach 0 W commanded (30 s for `meter_max_age_s`
+to call the reading stale, then 15 s of `stale_input_s` on top), which is
+`meter_max_age_s` and `stale_input_s` stacking, not either one alone.
+
 ## 0.2.1
 
 `target_grid_w` (default -10 W): what the meter should rest at. The deadband

goodwe_controller/DOCS.md

@@ -51,21 +51,84 @@ phase having charged nothing.
 ### P1 meter ingestion
 
 `meter_entity` above expects one signed sensor, which usually means a template
-someone wrote by hand. A Belgian P1 meter does not publish one: it publishes two
-**unsigned** registers, consumption and injection. Setting `meter_source` moves
-that subtraction into the add-on, where it is done once and tested, and replaces
-`meter_entity` entirely.
+someone wrote by hand. Setting `meter_source` moves the whole derivation into
+the add-on, where it is done once and tested, and replaces `meter_entity`
+entirely.
+
+Which mode you want depends on what your P1 reader publishes, and there are two
+shapes in the wild:
+
+- **Two unsigned registers**, consumption and injection, which is what a Belgian
+  P1 read over DSMR gives you → `ha_dsmr`, or `mqtt_p1` for a bridge. The add-on
+  subtracts them.
+- **One signed figure**, positive = import and negative = export, which is what
+  a HomeWizard P1 gives you (`sensor.p1_meter_active_power`) → `ha_signed`. The
+  add-on splits it. `ha_dsmr` **cannot** read this: it wants two registers and
+  rejects a negative one outright, which is every exporting telegram.
+
+Either way, do not build the missing shape out of template sensors. The point of
+`meter_source` is that the sign convention is derived in one tested place rather
+than in YAML nobody reviews underneath a safety input.
+
+> ✅ **If your meter is a HomeWizard P1, use `homewizard_local`, not
+> `ha_signed`.** It reads the same meter and produces the same numbers, but it
+> polls the meter directly instead of watching a Home Assistant entity — and
+> that is the difference between an age sensor a watchdog can threshold and one
+> it cannot. See "`sensor.p1_sample_age_s`" below; `ha_signed` remains for
+> installs where the meter is only reachable through Home Assistant.
+
+> ⚠️ **`ha_dsmr` and `mqtt_p1` have never processed a telegram from real
+> hardware.** No meter in this installation uses either one. Both were written
+> to the assumption in `specs.md` §5.2 that a Belgian P1 exposes two unsigned
+> registers, and the meter actually fitted here does not — it is the HomeWizard
+> P1 that `ha_signed` reads. They are covered by the unit checks in `test_p1.py`
+> and by an end-to-end test against a fake Home Assistant, and nothing more.
+>
+> This is recorded because the realistic way it bites is someone debugging a
+> meter problem months from now treating those two paths as proven and looking
+> for the fault elsewhere. If you are the first person to point one at a real
+> meter, expect to find something, and please update this note when you do.
 
 | option | default | meaning |
 |---|---|---|
-| `meter_source` | `off` | `off` keeps `meter_entity`. `ha_dsmr` subscribes to the DSMR integration over the HA WebSocket; `mqtt_p1` reads a topic |
+| `meter_source` | `off` | `off` keeps `meter_entity`. `ha_dsmr` subscribes to the DSMR integration over the HA WebSocket; `mqtt_p1` reads a topic; `ha_signed` subscribes to one signed entity over the HA WebSocket; `homewizard_local` polls a HomeWizard P1's own local API, bypassing Home Assistant |
 | `meter_phases` | 1 | 1 or 3. Must match the telegram, or every telegram is rejected and logged |
-| `meter_max_age_s` | 30 | Beyond this the reading is stale: grid power reads as *missing*, and the existing failsafe commands 0 W |
+| `meter_max_age_s` | 30 | Beyond this the reading is stale and grid power reads as *missing*. On its own it does **not** command 0 W — see the timing note below. It is also the longest a reading is held forward into the 15-minute average |
+| `meter_poll_s` | 5 | `homewizard_local` only. Seconds between polls. **Must be well under `meter_max_age_s`** — see below |
+| `p1_host` | | `homewizard_local` only. The meter's own address, `host` or `host:port` (e.g. `192.168.2.250`) |
 | `meter_mqtt_topic` | | `mqtt_p1` only |
 | `p1_import_entity` | | The **unsigned** consumption sensor. Do not point this at a signed template |
 | `p1_export_entity` | | The **unsigned** injection sensor |
 | `p1_phase_import_entities` | `[]` | L1..L3, in order. Needed for the capacity-tariff peak on a three-phase connection |
 | `p1_phase_export_entities` | `[]` | L1..L3, in order |
+| `p1_net_entity` | | `ha_signed` only. The **signed** net-power sensor: `+` import, `-` export |
+| `p1_phase_net_entities` | `[]` | `ha_signed` only. L1..L3, in order, each signed the same way. Needed for the capacity-tariff peak on a three-phase connection. **The list length must equal `meter_phases`** |
+
+Both per-phase lists are checked against `meter_phases` **once at startup**: a
+list of the wrong length disables P1 ingestion with an error in the log, rather
+than letting every telegram fail its phase-count check one at a time. Leaving
+the list empty is fine and is not an error — you simply get no per-phase
+figures, and therefore no capacity-tariff peak. On a three-phase connection
+that is a much bigger omission than it looks: on a surveyed reading here the
+phases carried 2769 W of import while the connection netted 187 W, so the
+billed quantity is understated roughly fifteenfold if the phases are missing.
+
+#### How long a dead meter takes to reach 0 W
+
+`meter_max_age_s` and `stale_input_s` **stack**. They are two different clocks
+and neither one is the whole answer:
+
+| step | option | default |
+|---|---|---|
+| telegrams stop, P1 sample goes stale, grid power starts reading *missing* | `meter_max_age_s` | 30 s |
+| inputs have been missing long enough for the loop to command 0 W | `stale_input_s` | 15 s |
+| **total, meter death → 0 W commanded by this add-on** | | **45 s** |
+
+So in P1 mode `stale_input_s` is *not* "how long inputs may be missing before
+commanding 0 W" measured from the meter dying — it is measured from the moment
+the P1 sample already went stale. Size the pair together: the ESP32's own
+watchdog commands 0 W after ~30 s of silence from this add-on regardless, and
+that layer is unaffected by either option.
 
 There is **no fallback to an inverter-side power figure**, deliberately. The
 inverter's own AC power tracks its battery almost perfectly and the real meter
@@ -89,6 +152,55 @@ tested, and guessing a key here means guessing a kilowatt:
 it is present it is used for the age, which is what stops a retained message
 replayed on reconnect from presenting a ten-minute-old reading as current.
 
+#### `homewizard_local` — polling the meter instead of Home Assistant
+
+Set `p1_host` to the meter's address and the add-on does `GET /api/v1/data` on
+it every `meter_poll_s` seconds, reading `active_power_w` (signed, same
+convention as `ha_signed`) and the three `active_power_l{1,2,3}_w` fields. Home
+Assistant is not involved: no entity, no WebSocket, no integration to
+mis-configure. Per-phase figures are used only when the meter serves all
+`meter_phases` of them — a single-phase meter returns `null` for L2/L3, and the
+connection-level reading is still accepted on its own.
+
+**Why this mode exists:** every HTTP response is an *arrival*. The meter
+answered, now, with its current reading — whether or not the number moved. That
+is the signal `sensor.p1_sample_age_s` needs and the one Home Assistant cannot
+give it at all (see the note below). It is also simply fewer moving parts: the
+five-second cadence is the meter's own, rather than an integration's polling of
+it re-published as a state change.
+
+**Cadence.** The age is never fresher than the poll interval, so:
+
+| | |
+|---|---|
+| meter's own update rate | ~5.0 s (measured 4.97 s) |
+| `meter_poll_s` default | 5 s — nothing to gain below the meter's own rate |
+| `meter_max_age_s` default | 30 s, i.e. six polls of headroom |
+| `meter_poll_s >= meter_max_age_s` | **refused at startup** — every reading would be stale before its successor arrived |
+| `meter_poll_s > meter_max_age_s / 2` | warned — one missed poll makes the reading stale |
+
+A failed poll — timeout, connection refused, non-200, unparseable body — is a
+**missing** reading. It submits nothing, so the reading does not become 0 W, the
+last good value and its timestamp are left alone, and the age goes on climbing.
+That is exactly what a dead meter should look like.
+
+**What it still cannot see: a frozen meter.** A meter that answers `200 OK`
+forever with a stale number is arriving, so no arrival detector — this one
+included — can tell it from a healthy one. The local API does expose the raw
+material the HA path never had (the `total_power_*_kwh` registers stop
+advancing), and the transport tracks it as `unchanged_s`, but it is deliberately
+*not* folded into the age and *not* thresholded: this controller regulates grid
+power toward ~0 W, and at a converged −10 W the export register needs six
+minutes to move by its 1 Wh resolution while the power figure legitimately
+repeats. Thresholding that at 30 s would rebuild the false-trip limit cycle at
+the exact operating point the controller aims for. Freeze detection is a
+separate problem and needs the low-power case solved first.
+
+You read it yourself instead: the add-on's status page shows it on the P1 line,
+as `… 4 rejected, measurement unchanged for 312 s`. On a house drawing real
+power that figure stays in the seconds; minutes of it while the load is clearly
+not near zero is the meter to go and look at.
+
 #### `sensor.p1_sample_age_s`
 
 Published over MQTT discovery whenever a broker is available: **seconds since the
@@ -102,6 +214,53 @@ emits nothing, which is indistinguishable — to anything watching the value —
 a meter that has died. Watching the age instead separates the two: it climbs when
 telegrams stop and resets when they arrive, whatever the reading says.
 
+The entity is only created when `meter_source` is not `off`. With P1 ingestion
+disabled there is nothing feeding it, and an age sensor climbing with no ingester
+behind it would trip the firmware watchdog on a system that is working fine.
+
+> **Known limit, `mqtt_p1`.** The age measures *arrival*. On the MQTT path a
+> bridge that is stuck republishing its last telegram keeps arriving, so the age
+> stays near zero and a frozen meter still looks fresh. Detecting *that* needs a
+> change-detector rather than an arrival-detector, and it is not in this version.
+
+> ⚠️ **Known limit, `ha_signed` — do not drive a watchdog off this age yet.**
+> On the HA WebSocket paths the age is stamped when a `state_changed` arrives,
+> which means it measures *time since the value last changed*, not time since
+> the meter last reported. Home Assistant offers nothing better: a repeated
+> reading produces no `state_changed`, does **not** advance `last_reported` on
+> either the REST or the WebSocket serialiser, and `state_reported` cannot be
+> subscribed to over the WebSocket at all (`Event filter is required for event
+> state_reported`). All three measured on the ENV-01 rig against the real
+> HomeWizard integration with the meter frozen: 0 `state_changed` in 70 s and no
+> timestamp movement anywhere.
+>
+> `ha_dsmr` mostly escapes this because a DSMR telegram updates several entities
+> and something in the set almost always moves. **`ha_signed` has exactly one
+> entity, so a healthy meter under a flat load is indistinguishable from a dead
+> one.** This is not hypothetical: in our own captures
+> (`sim/scenarios/ha-p1_meter_active_power-2026-08-20.json`) the real house meter
+> went **42.2 s and 97.0 s** between changes, and 23 Aug peaks at 29.1 s — all
+> past the default `meter_max_age_s` of 30.
+>
+> So `sensor.p1_sample_age_s` on `ha_signed` is safe to *read*, and it is
+> correct whenever the value is moving, but it must not yet be thresholded by
+> the ESP32 stale-input watchdog: a quiet house would trip the battery to 0 W.
+> Raising `meter_max_age_s` is **not** the fix — the two conditions produce an
+> identical signal, so a bigger number only chooses which of the two errors you
+> get. The real fix is an arrival stamp the meter itself provides — and that now
+> exists: **`meter_source: homewizard_local`**. If you have a HomeWizard P1,
+> switch to it. If your meter is only reachable through Home Assistant, this
+> limit still applies to you and the watchdog threshold still must not be armed.
+
+**Where the age is trustworthy:**
+
+| mode | the age measures | safe to threshold from firmware |
+|---|---|---|
+| `homewizard_local` | time since the meter **answered** | **yes** — every HTTP response is an arrival |
+| `ha_dsmr` | time since one of several entities changed | no — statistically usually fine, which is a masked bug, not an absent one |
+| `ha_signed` | time since the one entity changed | **no** — see above |
+| `mqtt_p1` | time since a message arrived | arrivals yes, but a stuck bridge republishing keeps arriving |
+
 ### Control
 
 | option | default | meaning |
@@ -113,12 +272,35 @@ telegrams stop and resets when they arrive, whatever the reading says.
 | `target_grid_w` | -10 | What the meter should rest at. Negative = a slight export |
 | `step_w` | 10 | Quantisation |
 | `saturation_w` | 500 | Divergence that counts as "the inverter is at a limit" |
-| `saturation_cycles` | 3 | How many consecutive cycles before freezing. **Do not set to 1** |
-| `integrator_max_w` | 3000 | Bound on the loop's accumulator, separate from `max_w`. Caps how much stale error can be waiting to unwind when the sign flips. **Keep it above `max_w`, and do not set it equal to `max_w`** |
+| `saturation_cycles` | 3 | How many consecutive cycles before freezing. A cycle is one *changed* meter reading, not a fixed period - see the note below. **Do not set to 1** |
+| `integrator_max_w` | 0 | Bound on the loop's accumulator, and 0 means "same as `max_w`". Caps how much stale error can be waiting to unwind when the sign flips. **Do not raise it above `max_w`** - the output clamp already bounds what is commanded, so the only thing extra headroom buys is more cycles of wrong-direction power after every saturation event. Lowering it below `max_w` is the useful direction |
 | `heartbeat_s` | 10 | Refresh interval; must stay well under the firmware watchdog |
-| `stale_input_s` | 15 | How long inputs may be missing before commanding 0 W |
+| `stale_input_s` | 15 | How long inputs may be missing before commanding 0 W. In P1 mode this clock starts only *after* `meter_max_age_s` has already expired — the two stack, see "How long a dead meter takes to reach 0 W" |
 | `auto_start` | false | Start controlling on boot (only after commissioning) |
 
+#### Saturation is counted in cycles, not seconds
+
+The specification states the saturation window as **"> 10 s"**. This add-on counts
+**cycles** instead, and that is a deliberate, accepted deviation rather than an
+oversight - the acceptance criterion is not met as literally written.
+
+A cycle here is one *changed* meter reading: the controller only runs the loop when the
+meter value differs from the previous poll. At the reference P1's ~5 s update rate the
+default of 3 cycles is usually around 15 s, but there is **no guaranteed wall-clock
+window** - a meter that repeats the same value stalls the counter for as long as it
+repeats.
+
+Two reasons that is acceptable:
+
+- the control law is a pure function with no clock, which is what makes it testable
+  without hardware, and a seconds-based window would have to live in the controller;
+- a stalled counter is a detection-latency limit and not a runaway risk. The condition
+  that stalls it - an unchanging meter - stops the whole loop, so nothing accumulates
+  while it is stalled.
+
+If a guaranteed window matters on your site, raise `saturation_cycles` for a fast meter,
+and treat the figure as "N meter updates" rather than "N seconds".
+
 #### Why `target_grid_w` is not zero
 
 The deadband is a one-way ratchet: any resting point inside it holds until

goodwe_controller/app/control.py

@@ -28,16 +28,22 @@ class Tuning:
     step_w: int = 10
     saturation_w: float = 500.0
     saturation_cycles: int = 3
-    # ⚠️ The integrator's OWN bound, and deliberately not max_w. A commercial
-    # controller on this same site clamped only its output and still reported
-    # 14 768 W: with the inverter switched off its integrator climbed ~130 W
-    # every 4 s past 10 kW while the output sat on the 5 kW rail, so the moment
-    # the error flipped there were minutes of accumulated wind to burn off
-    # before the command moved at all. Bounding the accumulator is what makes
-    # recovery time finite; bounding the output only hides it.
-    # Headroom above max_w is wanted (a legitimate large error must not be
-    # truncated at the rail), headroom without limit is the bug.
-    integrator_max_w: float = 3000.0
+    # The integrator's own bound. None means "follow max_w", which is the
+    # default and the recommended setting.
+    #
+    # ⚠️ DO NOT RAISE THIS ABOVE max_w without a measurement to justify it.
+    # Every watt of integrator above the rail is a watt of wind that has to be
+    # burned off before the command can start moving the other way, i.e. extra
+    # cycles of discharge into an already-exporting meter after every
+    # saturation event. Measured on the closed-loop sim, 4000 W load dropped to
+    # 0: at integrator_max_w == max_w the command is 1000 W two cycles later; at
+    # 1.5x max_w it is 1800 W. The output clamp already bounds what reaches the
+    # wire, so headroom here buys nothing but unwind latency.
+    #
+    # It is a separate key because it has to be able to be SMALLER than max_w,
+    # which is the only direction that buys anything: it caps unwind latency
+    # below what the rail implies. Merging it into max_w would take that away.
+    integrator_max_w: float | None = None
     # What the meter should rest at, in W. Negative = a slight export.
     # ⚠️ The deadband is a one-way ratchet: any resting point inside it holds
     # forever, and the meter's IMPORT register counts every positive one with
@@ -54,9 +60,9 @@ class Decision:
     sat_count: int
     frozen: bool
     reason: str
-    # The integrator AFTER this cycle, pre-clamp-to-max_w. Carry it back in as
-    # `i_w` next cycle; that is what keeps it a separate quantity from the
-    # command, which is the whole point of the bound above.
+    # The integrator AFTER this cycle, before the output clamp, the slew limit
+    # and quantisation. Carry it back in as `i_w` next cycle; that is what keeps
+    # it a separate quantity from the command.
     i_w: float = 0.0
 
 
@@ -89,14 +95,19 @@ def compute(
     # lets slew be larger than saturation_w.
     #
     # The spec states this window twice and differently: "> 10 s" (§11.2) and
-    # "3 samples" (§10.3). Cycles are authoritative here because this function
-    # has no clock - it is driven one cycle per meter update by run_control(),
-    # which only calls cycle() when the meter value changes. At the ~5 s
-    # HomeWizard P1 cadence the default 3 cycles is ~15 s, i.e. the stricter
-    # reading of the two. On a faster meter it is not, so saturation_cycles is
-    # configurable and must be raised to keep the window over 10 s.
-    # ponytail: a seconds-based window would mean plumbing wall-clock or dt
-    # into a pure function whose whole value is that it has neither.
+    # "3 samples" (§10.3). This counts CYCLES, and a cycle is not a unit of
+    # time: run_control() calls cycle() only when the meter value CHANGES
+    # (`if self.grid != last_grid`), so three cycles is three distinct meter
+    # readings and nothing more. At the reference P1's ~5 s update rate that is
+    # usually ~15 s, but there is no upper bound on it - a meter that repeats a
+    # value stalls the counter.
+    #
+    # That is a detection-latency limit, not a windup hazard: the same
+    # condition that stalls the counter stalls the whole loop, so nothing
+    # accumulates in the meantime either. If a wall-clock window is ever
+    # required, it belongs in Controller (which has a clock) and not here.
+    # ponytail: this function is worth keeping clockless; the ceiling is that
+    # saturation_cycles cannot express a guaranteed number of seconds.
     saturated_now = abs(prev_w - actual_w) > tuning.saturation_w
     sat_count = min(sat_count + 1, 10) if saturated_now else 0
     frozen = sat_count >= tuning.saturation_cycles
@@ -112,32 +123,78 @@ def compute(
 
     # --- the integrator ----------------------------------------------------
     # This loop is in velocity form: the accumulator IS the commanded power, so
-    # for years "the integrator" and "the output" were one variable and could
-    # not be bounded apart. `i_w` is that accumulator made explicit. A caller
-    # that passes nothing gets the old behaviour exactly - seeded from the last
-    # command every cycle - and main.py carries it instead, which is what turns
-    # the two clamps below into two independent limits.
+    # "the integrator" and "the output" were one variable and could not be
+    # bounded apart. `i_w` is that accumulator made explicit; main.py carries it
+    # between cycles, which is what turns the two clamps into two limits.
+    #
+    # Passing i_w=None re-seeds it from the last command every cycle. With
+    # integrator_max_w following max_w that reduces this function to the exact
+    # velocity form it replaced, frozen branch included - asserted by an
+    # exhaustive comparison against a transcription of the old law in
+    # test_control.py, not by inspection. Break either the gate or the bound
+    # below and that test is what tells you the equivalence went with it.
     if i_w is None:
         i_w = float(prev_w)
+    limit = tuning.max_w if tuning.integrator_max_w is None else tuning.integrator_max_w
 
     if abs(error) < tuning.deadband_w:
         reason = "deadband"
     else:
-        step_i = tuning.gain * error
-        # ⚠️ Freeze means "may not wind FURTHER", not "may not move". A strict
-        # freeze would strand the command at whatever it had reached until the
-        # inverter started tracking again - and the inverter is not tracking,
-        # that is what saturation means, so nothing would ever release it. The
-        # unwind direction is the escape route and stays open; the same rule is
-        # applied again to the output below.
-        if not frozen or abs(i_w + step_i) < abs(i_w):
-            i_w = i_w + step_i
+        moved = i_w + tuning.gain * error
+        # ⚠️ Freeze means "may not wind FURTHER in the direction it is already
+        # pushing". It may fall, cross zero, or reverse outright.
+        #
+        # It must NOT be encoded as "only corrections that shrink |i_w|": that
+        # is unsatisfiable for BOTH signs of error whenever the correction is
+        # larger than twice the integrator, i.e. every time the integrator is
+        # near zero. The loop then sits at its last value forever, because what
+        # clears the freeze is the inverter tracking again and not-tracking is
+        # the definition of saturation. Measured on that encoding: 0 W held
+        # indefinitely into a 2 kW import, where this form recovers next cycle.
+        #
+        # This is the same asymmetric rule the output freeze uses below, which
+        # has been in service on real hardware. It is applied here as well
+        # because the requirement is that the INTEGRATOR stop accumulating, not
+        # only the command.
+        #
+        # ⚠️ EXACTLY ZERO IS ITS OWN CASE, and it must be handled explicitly
+        # rather than falling into one of the two branches. "May not wind
+        # further in the direction it is already pushing" has no referent at
+        # zero: nothing is wound, and neither direction is "further". Writing
+        # this as `if i_w > 0 ... else ...` silently files zero under
+        # rising-only and permanently blocks the first push toward charging -
+        # the same deadlock as the shrink-only encoding above, mirrored in sign,
+        # and reachable because main.py resets i_w to exactly 0.0 on every stop
+        # and every reseed. Measured before the fix: 12 800 of 25 920 frozen
+        # ticks at i_w == 0.0 held the integrator, 8 304 of them changing the
+        # emitted command, worst case abandoning a 2 kW charge into a 4 kW
+        # export.
+        #
+        # Freezing at zero would also be pointless: the freeze exists to stop
+        # accumulation running away, and a first step from zero is bounded by
+        # the gain, the output clamp and the slew limit like any other.
+        if not frozen or i_w == 0.0:
+            i_w = moved
+        elif i_w > 0:
+            i_w = min(moved, i_w)
+        else:
+            i_w = max(moved, i_w)
 
-    # ⚠️ Applied EVERY cycle, frozen or not, and before the output clamp: the
-    # freeze is conditional, this bound is not. Order matters only in that the
-    # command below is derived from the already-bounded integrator, so no
-    # accumulated value can reach the wire even once.
-    i_w = max(-tuning.integrator_max_w, min(tuning.integrator_max_w, i_w))
+    # ⚠️ Applied EVERY cycle, frozen or not: the freeze is conditional, this
+    # bound is not. It is what makes the worst-case unwind time finite and
+    # knowable instead of a function of how long the error happened to stand.
+    bounded = max(-limit, min(limit, i_w))
+    if bounded != i_w:
+        # ⚠️ SAFETY-03 (alarm whenever the loop winds into a rail) must watch
+        # for THIS, not for "clamped" below. At the default limit == max_w the
+        # integrator bound is reached first and the command derived from it can
+        # then never exceed max_w, so "clamped" is unreachable on a default
+        # install - it survives only for a configuration that deliberately lets
+        # the integrator run above the rail. Two reasons rather than one
+        # because the two events want different alarms: "i-clamped" is the loop
+        # winding, "clamped" is a command that came out over the rating anyway.
+        reason = "i-clamped"
+    i_w = bounded
     want = i_w
 
     # ⚠️ Maintenance shaping (charge-only, cheap-window floor) used to live

goodwe_controller/app/main.py

@@ -39,7 +39,8 @@ from .control import Tuning, compute, maintenance_charge_floor, peak_at_risk
 from .hass import HomeAssistant
 from .maintenance import IDLE, MaintConfig, Maintenance
 from .mqtt import MqttPublisher
-from .p1 import P1Ingest, build_source
+from .p1 import P1Ingest, build_source, is_enabled
+from .validate import ConfigRefused, refuse, validate_startup_config
 from . import web
 
 OPTIONS_PATH = "/data/options.json"
@@ -56,11 +57,22 @@ def load_options() -> dict:
 
 
 class Controller:
-    def __init__(self, opts: dict, hass: HomeAssistant, store, mqtt_pub):
+    def __init__(self, opts: dict, hass: HomeAssistant, store, mqtt_pub, *, stop):
         self.o = opts
         self.hass = hass
         self.store = store
         self.mqtt = mqtt_pub
+        # ⚠️ REQUIRED, AND KEYWORD-ONLY, AFTER A REVIEW CATCH. This started life
+        # as `stop=None`, which made a Controller that CANNOT STOP ITSELF the
+        # default one. On the late-refusal path in run_control() that default
+        # meant: log the banner, return, and leave the process alive forever
+        # with no control loop, no exit and no further output - the exact
+        # "inert but looks healthy" failure this whole module exists to refuse.
+        # amain() always passed a real Event, so it was latent, but test_p1.py
+        # was already constructing Controllers without one. No default now, so
+        # the broken shape does not typecheck.
+        self.stop_event = stop
+        self.refused: list[str] | None = None
 
         self.tuning = Tuning(
             gain=float(opts.get("gain", 0.6)),
@@ -71,7 +83,11 @@ class Controller:
             step_w=int(opts.get("step_w", 10)),
             saturation_w=float(opts.get("saturation_w", 500)),
             saturation_cycles=int(opts.get("saturation_cycles", 3)),
-            integrator_max_w=float(opts.get("integrator_max_w", 3000)),
+            # 0 / unset means "follow max_w", which is the recommended
+            # value. Read the note in control.py before raising it above
+            # max_w: every watt above the rail is unwind latency.
+            integrator_max_w=(float(opts["integrator_max_w"])
+                              if opts.get("integrator_max_w") else None),
         )
         self.maint = Maintenance(
             MaintConfig(
@@ -92,7 +108,11 @@ class Controller:
         # until it opts in.
         self.p1 = P1Ingest(phases=int(opts.get("meter_phases", 1)),
                            max_age_s=float(opts.get("meter_max_age_s", 30)))
-        self.p1_enabled = str(opts.get("meter_source", "off")) not in ("off", "")
+        self.p1_enabled = is_enabled(opts)
+        # Set by amain() once the transport is built, so the status page can show
+        # what only the transport knows (homewizard_local's unchanged_s). Stays
+        # None when P1 is off, or under a transport that has no such counter.
+        self.p1_source = None
 
         # live state
         self.auto = bool(store.data.get("auto", opts.get("auto_start", False)))
@@ -295,10 +315,29 @@ class Controller:
         entity = self.o.get("setpoint_entity", "")
         if entity:
             self.dev_min, self.dev_max, _ = await self.hass.limits(entity)
-            if self.dev_max is not None and self.tuning.max_w > self.dev_max:
-                self.log_event(
-                    f"clamp {self.tuning.max_w:.0f} W exceeds the device maximum "
-                    f"{self.dev_max:.0f} W - the device wins")
+            # ⚠️ THIS USED TO WARN AND CARRY ON, and that was the bug CFG-01
+            # exists to remove: a max_w above the device's rating meant
+            # write_setpoint() silently clamped and the configured ceiling was
+            # never the real one.
+            #
+            # amain() already ran this gate before anything started. It runs
+            # AGAIN here for one case the gate cannot cover: ESPHome is often
+            # not up yet when the add-on boots, so hass.limits() returned
+            # (None, None) and the range checks were skipped rather than
+            # guessed at. This is the first moment the device's real rating is
+            # known. If it conflicts, refuse now - stopping deterministically
+            # through the normal shutdown, which commands 0 W on the way out.
+            problems = validate_startup_config(self.o, self.dev_min, self.dev_max)
+            if problems:
+                refuse(problems)
+                self.refused = problems
+                self.log_event("REFUSED: " + problems[0])
+                # Signal, then return WITHOUT entering the loop. amain() wakes
+                # on this, runs the normal wind-down (which commands 0 W) and
+                # re-raises ConfigRefused afterwards, so the exit code is 78 and
+                # the inverter is left at zero rather than latched.
+                self.stop_event.set()
+                return
 
         last_grid = object()
         heartbeat = float(self.o.get("heartbeat_s", 10))
@@ -320,16 +359,27 @@ class Controller:
             await asyncio.sleep(1)
 
     def publish(self) -> None:
-        self.mqtt.publish({
+        values = {
             "setpoint": self.target,
             "grid": self.grid,
             "battery": self.batt,
             "soc": self.soc,
             "phase": self.maint.phase,
             "status": "running" if self.auto else "stopped",
+        }
+        # ⚠️ ONLY when P1 ingestion is actually running. The ESP32's stale-input
+        # watchdog subscribes to sensor.goodwe_p1_sample_age - see the entity-id
+        # note in mqtt.py; the composed name is not the object_id - and forces layer-1
+        # failsafe once it reaches max_age_s. With meter_source off there is no
+        # ingester feeding it, so published_age_s would be time-since-startup
+        # climbing without bound - i.e. every existing install would cross the
+        # threshold within 30 s and pin its inverter at 0 W forever. Publishing
+        # nothing leaves the entity non-existent, which is the status quo and
+        # what has_state() in the firmware is checking for.
+        if self.p1_enabled:
             # Recomputed here, once a second, on purpose - see P1Ingest.
-            "p1_age": round(self.p1.published_age_s, 1),
-        })
+            values["p1_age"] = round(self.p1.published_age_s, 1)
+        self.mqtt.publish(values)
 
     async def shutdown(self) -> None:
         """Deterministic wind-down. Do not skip this."""
@@ -351,10 +401,22 @@ class Controller:
                                     + (f" - last error: {self.p1.last_error}"
                                        if self.p1.last_error else "")})
             else:
+                # ⚠️ unchanged_s is REPORTED, never thresholded and never folded
+                # into the age - see HomeWizardLocalSource.unchanged_s for why
+                # (at the converged -10 W this controller aims for, a 1 Wh
+                # register needs ~6 minutes to move, so any limit false-trips at
+                # the exact operating point we target). The whole argument for
+                # leaving it unthresholded is that a human interprets it, which
+                # requires a human being able to see it - so here it is. getattr:
+                # only homewizard_local has one, and p1_source is None until
+                # amain() builds the transport.
+                unchanged = getattr(self.p1_source, "unchanged_s", None)
                 out.append({"ok": True, "warn": False,
                             "text": f"P1 meter ({o.get('meter_source')}): {self.p1.net_w:g} W, "
                                     f"{age:.0f} s old, {self.p1.samples} telegrams, "
-                                    f"{self.p1.parse_errors} rejected"})
+                                    f"{self.p1.parse_errors} rejected"
+                                    + (f", measurement unchanged for {unchanged:.0f} s"
+                                       if unchanged is not None else "")})
         rows = [("battery SoC", self.soc, o.get("soc_entity")),
                 ("battery power", self.batt, o.get("batt_entity"))]
         if not self.p1_enabled:
@@ -484,6 +546,26 @@ async def amain() -> None:
         except Exception as _e:  # noqa: BLE001
             _LOG.error("core api probe failed: %s", _e)
 
+        # ⚠️ THE STARTUP GATE (CFG-01). Nothing below this line may run on a
+        # configuration validate.py rejects - specs §1.5: a config the system
+        # cannot honour is refused at startup, not survived at runtime.
+        #
+        # It sits HERE, before the broker, before the web server and before any
+        # task exists, so a refusal cannot leave half a controller running with
+        # a UI in front of it. Reading the device range is the one thing the
+        # validator cannot do for itself; (None, None) when ESPHome has not come
+        # up yet is not a refusal - run_control() re-checks once the real rating
+        # is known. See validate.py for where the line is drawn and why.
+        _sp = str(opts.get("setpoint_entity", "") or "").strip()
+        _dev_min = _dev_max = None
+        if _sp:
+            _dev_min, _dev_max, _ = await hass.limits(_sp)
+            _LOG.info("setpoint device %s reports range %s…%s W", _sp, _dev_min, _dev_max)
+        _problems = validate_startup_config(opts, _dev_min, _dev_max)
+        if _problems:
+            refuse(_problems)
+            raise ConfigRefused(_problems)
+
         # ⚠️ Status publishing must NEVER be able to stop the controller. A
         # broken broker, a missing library, an API change in paho - all of it is
         # observability, and the battery does not care. Caught broadly and on
@@ -497,6 +579,7 @@ async def amain() -> None:
                 broker.get("port", 1883) if broker else 1883,
                 broker.get("username") if broker else None,
                 broker.get("password") if broker else None,
+                omit=() if is_enabled(opts) else ("p1_age",),
             )
         except Exception as err:  # noqa: BLE001
             _LOG.warning("MQTT unavailable (%s) - continuing without status entities", err)
@@ -508,10 +591,10 @@ async def amain() -> None:
 
             pub = _NoMqtt()
 
-        controller = Controller(opts, hass, store, pub)
+        stop = asyncio.Event()
+        controller = Controller(opts, hass, store, pub, stop=stop)
         runner = await web.start(controller, port=8099)
 
-        stop = asyncio.Event()
         loop = asyncio.get_running_loop()
         for sig in (signal.SIGTERM, signal.SIGINT):
             with contextlib.suppress(NotImplementedError):
@@ -525,6 +608,7 @@ async def amain() -> None:
         # unit - would be computed from a fraction of the data.
         p1_source = build_source(opts, controller.p1, session, broker)
         if p1_source is not None:
+            controller.p1_source = p1_source     # so checks() can report on it
             tasks.append(asyncio.create_task(p1_source.run()))
 
         await stop.wait()
@@ -537,6 +621,10 @@ async def amain() -> None:
                 await task
         await runner.cleanup()
         _LOG.info("stopped")
+        # The late-arriving-device refusal from run_control(). Re-raised only
+        # now, so the wind-down above still ran and the inverter is at 0 W.
+        if controller.refused:
+            raise ConfigRefused(controller.refused)
 
 
 def main() -> None:
@@ -544,6 +632,13 @@ def main() -> None:
         asyncio.run(amain())
     except KeyboardInterrupt:
         pass
+    except ConfigRefused:
+        # ⚠️ No traceback, on purpose. The banner refuse() already printed says
+        # everything an operator needs, and a stack trace on top of it would say
+        # "this crashed" - the exact confusion AC3 is about. 78 is sysexits(3)
+        # EX_CONFIG, so even a script reading the exit status can tell a bad
+        # config from a bug.
+        raise SystemExit(78)
 
 
 if __name__ == "__main__":

goodwe_controller/app/mqtt.py

@@ -45,13 +45,32 @@ SENSORS = [
     ("soc", "goodwe_battery_soc", "Battery SoC", "%", "battery", "measurement", None),
     ("phase", "goodwe_maintenance_phase", "Maintenance phase", None, None, None, "mdi:battery-sync"),
     ("status", "goodwe_controller_status", "Controller status", None, None, None, "mdi:heart-pulse"),
-    # ⚠️ This one deliberately breaks the goodwe_ prefix above: the entity id
-    # must be exactly `sensor.p1_sample_age_s`, because SAFETY-01's firmware
-    # watchdog subscribes to that literal id and the ENV-01 simulation rig
-    # asserts on it. Renaming it silently disarms a safety layer. It is seconds
-    # since the newest accepted P1 telegram, republished every second so that a
-    # meter frozen at a constant value still shows a climbing age - which is the
-    # false-trip that this entity exists to remove.
+    # ⚠️ THE LIVE ENTITY IS `sensor.goodwe_p1_sample_age`, NOT what this
+    # object_id spells. An earlier version of this comment said the id "must be
+    # exactly sensor.p1_sample_age_s" - that name has never existed on any HA,
+    # and believing it is how a safety layer gets disarmed by someone tidying up.
+    #
+    # On HA 2026.8 `object_id` in a discovery payload does NOT determine the
+    # entity_id. HA composes it from the device name plus the entity name:
+    # "GoodWe RS485 Controller" + "P1 sample age" -> sensor.goodwe_p1_sample_age.
+    # Verified against the live system 2026-08-26; the firmware subscribes to
+    # that composed name (goodwe-master-stage4-failsafe.yaml, homeassistant
+    # sensor p1_age_s), and its own comment records that sensor.p1_sample_age_s
+    # never existed.
+    #
+    # So: do NOT "fix" the firmware to match the object_id below, and do not
+    # rename the device or this entity's friendly name - either changes the
+    # composed id and silently disarms the ingest guard, because has_state()
+    # simply stays false forever and nothing reports it. The firmware calls this
+    # out as the failure that "FAILS SILENTLY AND LOOKS CORRECT".
+    #
+    # The value: seconds since the newest accepted P1 telegram, republished
+    # every second so a meter frozen at a constant value still shows a climbing
+    # age - the false-trip this entity exists to remove.
+    #
+    # ⚠️ Separately, and not fixed here: the firmware's ingest guard tests this
+    # sensor's VALUE rather than its arrival, so a dead publisher freezes the
+    # number and reads permanently fresh. Filed as TEL-06.
     ("p1_age", "p1_sample_age_s", "P1 sample age", "s", "duration", "measurement", None),
 ]
 
@@ -60,7 +79,12 @@ AVAILABILITY = f"{BASE}/availability"
 
 
 class MqttPublisher:
-    def __init__(self, host, port, username=None, password=None):
+    def __init__(self, host, port, username=None, password=None, omit=()):
+        # `omit` drops sensor keys from discovery entirely. ⚠️ Announcing a
+        # sensor that nothing will ever publish to is not harmless here:
+        # p1_sample_age_s is a watchdog input, and an entity that exists but is
+        # never fed is a worse signal than one that does not exist at all.
+        self.omit = set(omit)
         self.enabled = mqtt is not None and bool(host)
         self.client = None
         if not self.enabled:
@@ -94,6 +118,8 @@ class MqttPublisher:
 
     def _announce(self) -> None:
         for key, object_id, name, unit, dev_class, state_class, icon in SENSORS:
+            if key in self.omit:
+                continue
             cfg = {
                 "name": name,
                 "object_id": object_id,

goodwe_controller/app/p1.py

@@ -4,13 +4,22 @@ Everything downstream trusts this module: the safety checks, the capacity-tariff
 peak, the optimizer, the control loop's sign. So three things happen here and
 nowhere else.
 
-  1. The IMPORT/EXPORT DERIVATION. A Belgian P1 meter exposes two UNSIGNED
-     registers - consumption and injection - never one signed figure. Net power
-     is `import_w - export_w`, positive = import, and that subtraction is done
+  1. The IMPORT/EXPORT DERIVATION. A Belgian P1 read over DSMR exposes two
+     UNSIGNED registers - consumption and injection. Net power is
+     `import_w - export_w`, positive = import, and that subtraction is done
      exactly once, here (spec §5.2: "the derivation is the EMS's job, not a
      template the user has to write"). A second copy of it somewhere else is a
      second chance to invert the control loop.
 
+     Some P1 readers - the HomeWizard P1 among them - publish the OTHER shape:
+     one SIGNED figure, positive = import, and no unsigned registers at all.
+     `split_signed()` fans that back out into the same two magnitudes, so there
+     is still exactly one internal representation and one sign convention. ⚠️ It
+     lives here, next to the subtraction, for the same reason the subtraction
+     does: the moment a user is asked to write two template sensors that split a
+     signed value, the sign convention is back in unreviewed YAML underneath a
+     safety input, which is precisely what §5.2 moved into the EMS.
+
   2. THE INGEST TIMESTAMP. Every accepted sample is stamped on arrival. A value
      with no age is a value that cannot be trusted (§5.2), and staleness is the
      failsafe trigger (§11.2).
@@ -47,6 +56,8 @@ _LOG = logging.getLogger("goodwe.p1")
 
 SOURCE_HA = "ha_dsmr"
 SOURCE_MQTT = "mqtt_p1"
+SOURCE_HA_SIGNED = "ha_signed"
+SOURCE_HOMEWIZARD = "homewizard_local"
 
 QUARTER_S = 900
 
@@ -78,7 +89,7 @@ class P1Sample:
     ingest_ts: datetime            # tz-aware UTC, set at ingest
     ingest_mono: float             # time.monotonic() at ingest - see age_s()
     telegram_ts: datetime | None   # from the telegram, where the source has one
-    source: str                    # SOURCE_HA | SOURCE_MQTT
+    source: str                    # one of the SOURCE_* constants above
     import_w: float                # unsigned magnitude, as the meter reports it
     export_w: float                # unsigned magnitude
     net_w: float                   # import_w - export_w  (+ import, - export)
@@ -129,6 +140,29 @@ def _watts(value, what: str) -> float:
     return out
 
 
+def split_signed(net_w) -> tuple[float, float]:
+    """One signed figure -> the (import, export) magnitudes the module speaks.
+
+    The inverse of make_sample's subtraction, and the easy direction: no second
+    register to disagree with, so there is nothing to mix a fresh reading with a
+    stale one. `+` is import, `-` is export - verified in test_p1.py against real
+    captured readings from this house's own meter, not against a datasheet.
+
+    ⚠️ Exactly one of the two comes out non-zero. Splitting into `(max(v,0),
+    max(-v,0))` rather than clamping keeps `import_w - export_w == v` exactly, so
+    the signed value the meter published survives the round trip bit for bit -
+    a control loop must not be steered by a number that changed on the way in.
+
+    ⚠️ Validation is `_watts`, the same gate the unsigned path uses: NaN,
+    infinity, non-numbers and the §20 open-question-5 unsigned-decode
+    contamination (64954 for -582 W) are all refused here rather than believed.
+    A signed source makes that check MORE important, not less - on this path
+    64954 is not obviously wrong the way a negative "unsigned" register is.
+    """
+    v = _watts(net_w, "net")
+    return (v, 0.0) if v >= 0 else (0.0, -v)
+
+
 def make_sample(source: str, import_w, export_w, *, phases: int,
                 phase_import_w=None, phase_export_w=None,
                 telegram_ts: datetime | None = None,
@@ -213,8 +247,16 @@ class QuarterAverager:
     halves credited to the two blocks, never attributed wholly to either.
     """
 
-    def __init__(self, phases: int = 1):
+    def __init__(self, phases: int = 1, max_hold_s: float = 30.0):
         self.phases = phases
+        # ⚠️ How long one sample may be held forward before the series is
+        # treated as a gap rather than a plateau. Without this the meter can die
+        # while importing 5 kW, come back ten minutes later, and the hold-forward
+        # credits 5 kW x 600 s to the capacity-tariff accumulator - a fabricated
+        # peak, on a permanent record, from data that was never measured. Set
+        # from meter_max_age_s: the point past which the reading is not trusted
+        # for control is the point past which it must not be billed either.
+        self.max_hold_s = float(max_hold_s)
         self._block: int | None = None       # epoch seconds of the block start
         self._acc = 0.0                      # W*s of offtake in the open block
         self._pp_acc = [0.0] * phases
@@ -273,16 +315,22 @@ class QuarterAverager:
             return closed
 
         cursor = self._last_t
+        # Beyond this instant the held value stops being evidence of anything.
+        # The stretch from here to `t` is walked so the block boundaries are
+        # still crossed correctly, but nothing is accumulated and `_elapsed`
+        # does not grow - which is what makes a closed block, always divided by
+        # the full 900 s, actually get dragged down by the missing coverage.
+        hold_end = self._last_t + self.max_hold_s
         while True:
             end = self._block + QUARTER_S
             stop = min(t, end)
-            dt = stop - cursor
-            if dt > 0:
-                self._acc += max(self._last_net, 0.0) * dt
+            covered = max(0.0, min(stop, hold_end) - cursor)
+            if covered > 0:
+                self._acc += max(self._last_net, 0.0) * covered
                 if self._last_pp is not None:
                     for i, v in enumerate(self._last_pp[: self.phases]):
-                        self._pp_acc[i] += max(v, 0.0) * dt
-                self._elapsed += dt
+                        self._pp_acc[i] += max(v, 0.0) * covered
+                self._elapsed += covered
             cursor = stop
             if stop < end:
                 break
@@ -321,7 +369,9 @@ class P1Ingest:
     def __init__(self, phases: int = 1, max_age_s: float = 30.0):
         self.phases = phases
         self.max_age_s = float(max_age_s)
-        self.averager = QuarterAverager(phases)
+        # The same threshold governs control and billing: a reading too old to
+        # steer by is too old to bill by. See QuarterAverager.max_hold_s.
+        self.averager = QuarterAverager(phases, max_hold_s=self.max_age_s)
         self.blocks: list[QuarterBlock] = []
         self.samples = 0
         self.parse_errors = 0
@@ -477,9 +527,17 @@ class HaDsmrSource:
                     continue
                 payload = json.loads(msg.data)
                 if payload.get("id") == 2 and payload.get("type") == "result":
+                    # ⚠️ Prime the cache, but do NOT build a sample from it.
+                    # get_states returns whatever HA currently holds, which
+                    # after a Core restart is a RestoreEntity value of unknown
+                    # age. Stamping that with ingest_ts=now resets the age to
+                    # zero and reports a fresh meter that may have been dead for
+                    # an hour - a synthetic sample hiding the outage from the
+                    # watchdog that exists to catch it. The cache is what lets
+                    # the FIRST real state_changed build a complete sample; the
+                    # age stays honest until one arrives.
                     for obj in payload.get("result") or []:
                         self._absorb(obj.get("entity_id"), obj.get("state"))
-                    self._schedule()
                 elif payload.get("type") == "event":
                     data = (payload.get("event") or {}).get("data") or {}
                     if data.get("entity_id") not in self.ids:
@@ -644,17 +702,474 @@ class MqttP1Source:
             self.ingest.reject(err)
 
 
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+# transport 3: Home Assistant WebSocket, one signed entity
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+class HaSignedSource(HaDsmrSource):
+    """The same websocket, subscribed to ONE signed power entity.
+
+    For readers that publish net power as a single signed figure - a HomeWizard
+    P1's `sensor.p1_meter_active_power`, positive = import - rather than the two
+    unsigned DSMR registers. This is the meter actually installed at the house,
+    and `ha_dsmr` cannot read it: it needs two registers and refuses a negative
+    one outright, which is every exporting telegram.
+
+    ⚠️ A subclass, not a copy. The connect / auth / subscribe / reconnect /
+    `_absorb` machinery above is transport, not shape, and it has already been
+    debugged once - notably "prime the cache from get_states but never build a
+    sample out of it" and "a reconnect emits nothing". Only `_wanted` (which
+    entity ids) and `build` (how they become a sample) differ, so only those two
+    are overridden. Everything TEL-01 established therefore applies unchanged:
+    ingest timestamping, meter_max_age_s, the clock-recomputed age sensor, and
+    `unavailable` treated as a missing reading rather than 0 W.
+
+    ⚠️ THE AGE ON THIS TRANSPORT MEASURES TIME SINCE THE VALUE CHANGED, not time
+    since the meter reported, and on one entity those are very different things.
+    Home Assistant offers no arrival signal for a repeated reading: it emits no
+    `state_changed`, it does not advance `last_reported` on either serialiser,
+    and `state_reported` cannot be subscribed to over the websocket at all
+    ("Event filter is required for event state_reported"). All three measured on
+    the ENV-01 rig against the real HomeWizard integration with the meter frozen
+    - 0 state_changed in 70 s, no timestamp movement anywhere.
+
+    `ha_dsmr` mostly escapes it because a DSMR telegram moves several entities at
+    once. This transport has ONE, so a healthy meter under a flat load looks
+    exactly like a dead one - and our own capture has the real meter going 42.2 s
+    and 97.0 s between changes, both past the default max_age_s of 30. Hence
+    DOCS.md: sensor.p1_sample_age_s is correct while the value moves and must not
+    yet be thresholded by the firmware watchdog on this transport. Raising
+    meter_max_age_s does not fix it, it only chooses which of the two errors you
+    get. The fix is an arrival stamp from the meter itself - reading the
+    HomeWizard local API rather than an HA entity - which is a separate ticket.
+
+    ⚠️ The debounce is inherited but does nothing useful here, and that is fine:
+    one telegram is one entity, so there is no burst of per-entity events to
+    coalesce and no window in which a new reading sits beside a stale one. It
+    costs one scheduled sleep per telegram at ~0.2 Hz. Left in place rather than
+    special-cased, because a second code path through build() is a second place
+    for the sign to go wrong.
+    """
+
+    def _wanted(self) -> set[str]:
+        out = set()
+        if self.entities.get("net"):
+            out.add(self.entities["net"])
+        out.update(e for e in self.entities.get("phase_net") or [] if e)
+        return out
+
+    def build(self) -> bool:
+        """Assemble one sample from the cache. Returns True if one was accepted."""
+        net_id = self.entities.get("net")
+        if net_id not in self.cache:
+            return False
+        pn = [self.cache.get(e) for e in self.entities.get("phase_net") or []]
+        if pn and None in pn:
+            return False           # incomplete phase set: wait, do not guess
+        try:
+            imp, exp = split_signed(self.cache[net_id])
+            pi = pe = None
+            if pn:
+                # ponytail: this split is arithmetically redundant today -
+                # make_sample subtracts the two lists again and does not
+                # sign-check per-phase figures, so handing it the signed values
+                # with a zero export list produces the identical tuple. Verified:
+                # mutating it that way leaves all 174 checks green, i.e. no test
+                # can tell the difference, and it is recorded here rather than
+                # left as a silent equivalent mutant for the next reviewer to
+                # rediscover. Kept because `phase_import_w` means a MAGNITUDE:
+                # a negative in it is the double-signing that make_sample refuses
+                # outright for the connection-level registers, and the day that
+                # check is extended per-phase the shortcut breaks the meter, not
+                # the test.
+                pairs = [split_signed(v) for v in pn]
+                pi = [a for a, _ in pairs]
+                pe = [b for _, b in pairs]
+            self.ingest.submit(make_sample(
+                SOURCE_HA_SIGNED, imp, exp,
+                phases=self.ingest.phases,
+                phase_import_w=pi, phase_export_w=pe,
+                # ⚠️ No telegram_ts, for the same reason as ha_dsmr: HA's
+                # last_changed is when the VALUE changed, which on a steady meter
+                # is minutes ago while the telegram is current. sensor.
+                # p1_sample_age_s is what covers a genuinely frozen meter.
+            ))
+            return True
+        except P1Error as err:
+            self.ingest.reject(err)
+            return False
+
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+# transport 4: the HomeWizard P1's own local API
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+HOMEWIZARD_PATH = "/api/v1/data"
+HOMEWIZARD_PORT = 80
+
+
+def parse_homewizard(doc, phases: int, *, now: datetime | None = None,
+                     ingest_mono: float | None = None) -> P1Sample:
+    """One `GET /api/v1/data` document -> a sample. Raises P1Error.
+
+    The meter's own JSON, of which we read four keys:
+
+        {"active_power_w": -5710.0,          # SIGNED, + import  - export
+         "active_power_l1_w": ..., "active_power_l2_w": ..., "..._l3_w": ...,
+         "total_power_import_kwh": 1234.567, "total_power_export_kwh": 890.123}
+
+    Same shape as `ha_signed` - one signed connection figure plus signed
+    per-phase figures - so it goes through the same `split_signed` and the same
+    `make_sample`. Nothing about the sign convention is re-derived here.
+
+    ⚠️ No telegram timestamp, because the API carries none, and that is correct
+    rather than a gap: the document was produced by the meter in the moment it
+    answered, so the ingest stamp IS the measurement time. This is the whole
+    reason the transport exists - see HomeWizardLocalSource.
+
+    ⚠️ Per-phase figures are taken only when the meter serves ALL `phases` of
+    them. A single-phase HomeWizard returns `active_power_l2_w: null`, and a
+    partial set must not become a fabricated tuple. Unlike the HA transports
+    there is no "wait for the rest" case to worry about: every field here came
+    out of ONE response, so a missing phase cannot be a stale phase, and the
+    connection-level reading is still a genuine, complete measurement. Dropping
+    the whole sample over an absent per-phase field would turn a healthy meter
+    into a climbing age, which is the exact false-trip this ticket removes.
+    """
+    if not isinstance(doc, dict):
+        raise P1Error(f"meter response is not a JSON object ({type(doc).__name__})")
+
+    imp, exp = split_signed(doc.get("active_power_w"))
+
+    pi = pe = None
+    # ⚠️ range(phases), not the legs the meter served: a 3-phase meter configured
+    # as meter_phases: 1 yields a per-phase tuple covering ONE leg of three.
+    # Control is unaffected (it uses the connection figure), but the
+    # capacity-tariff peak is understated. Filed separately - not fixed here.
+    legs = [doc.get(f"active_power_l{i + 1}_w") for i in range(phases)]
+    if all(v is not None for v in legs):
+        pairs = [split_signed(v) for v in legs]
+        pi = [a for a, _ in pairs]
+        pe = [b for _, b in pairs]
+
+    return make_sample(SOURCE_HOMEWIZARD, imp, exp, phases=phases,
+                       phase_import_w=pi, phase_export_w=pe,
+                       ingest_ts=now, ingest_mono=ingest_mono)
+
+
+def measurement_fingerprint(doc) -> tuple:
+    """The part of a response that a genuinely new measurement has to move.
+
+    Power plus both energy registers. A meter under any real load advances a
+    kWh counter (1 Wh resolution: ~10 s at 350 W), so this changes even when the
+    power figure happens to repeat. Used ONLY for `unchanged_s` - see there for
+    why it must not be allowed anywhere near the age.
+    """
+    if not isinstance(doc, dict):
+        return ()
+    return (doc.get("active_power_w"),
+            doc.get("total_power_import_kwh"),
+            doc.get("total_power_export_kwh"))
+
+
+class HomeWizardLocalSource:
+    """Polls the meter's own local HTTP API instead of a Home Assistant entity.
+
+    ⚠️ THIS IS THE ONLY TRANSPORT WHOSE AGE MEASURES ARRIVAL. That is the entire
+    reason it exists, and it is not an optimisation - it is the difference
+    between an age sensor a firmware watchdog may threshold and one it may not.
+
+    Every HTTP response is a genuine arrival: the meter answered, now, with its
+    current reading. Whether the NUMBER moved is irrelevant, so a healthy meter
+    under a flat load resets the age exactly like a busy one. Home Assistant
+    cannot provide this at all - it emits `state_changed` only on a change, does
+    not advance `last_reported` on either serialiser for a repeat, and refuses a
+    `state_reported` subscription outright ("Event filter is required"). Measured
+    on the ENV-01 rig over 70 s of a frozen meter, and independently against the
+    live house over ten repeated readings. So on `ha_signed` the age means "time
+    since the value changed", and our own capture of this house's meter has
+    42.2 s and 97.0 s between changes - both past the default `meter_max_age_s`
+    of 30, i.e. a false trip to 0 W on a perfectly healthy meter.
+
+    Everything else is TEL-01's pipeline unchanged: ingest timestamping,
+    `meter_max_age_s`, the clock-recomputed age, the plausibility bounds, and a
+    failed read treated as a MISSING reading rather than 0 W.
+
+    ⚠️ A failed or timed-out poll submits nothing. It is a rejection, so the
+    last good sample and its stamp stay exactly where they were and the age goes
+    on climbing - which is precisely the signal a dead meter should produce.
+
+    ⚠️ POLL CADENCE vs `meter_max_age_s`. The age can only be as fresh as the
+    poll interval, so `meter_poll_s` must sit well under `meter_max_age_s` or the
+    reading flaps in and out of staleness on a healthy meter. The real meter
+    updates every ~5.0 s (NOTES.md:640 measures 4.97 s), so polling faster than
+    that buys nothing but re-reads. Default 5 s against a 30 s max age; the
+    startup check in build_source refuses `meter_poll_s >= meter_max_age_s` and
+    warns past half of it.
+
+    ponytail: a plain `asyncio.sleep` loop rather than a scheduler, and no
+    backoff. A poll that fails costs one rejection and is retried on the next
+    tick; a meter that is down stays down and the age reports it. The ceiling is
+    a meter so slow that polls overlap - the request timeout is held under the
+    poll interval so they cannot.
+    """
+
+    def __init__(self, session, ingest: P1Ingest, host: str, *,
+                 port: int = HOMEWIZARD_PORT, poll_s: float = 5.0,
+                 timeout_s: float | None = None):
+        self.session = session
+        self.ingest = ingest
+        self.host, self.port = host, int(port)
+        self.poll_s = float(poll_s)
+        # ⚠️ Held under the poll interval on purpose: a timeout longer than the
+        # cadence queues polls behind a hung meter, and a backlog of requests
+        # all landing at once would stamp several arrivals for one measurement.
+        self.timeout_s = float(timeout_s) if timeout_s else max(1.0, self.poll_s * 0.8)
+        self.url = f"http://{self.host}:{self.port}{HOMEWIZARD_PATH}"
+        self.connected = False
+        self.polls = 0
+        self.poll_errors = 0
+        self._fingerprint: tuple | None = None
+        self._changed_mono: float | None = None
+
+    @property
+    def unchanged_s(self) -> float | None:
+        """Seconds since the meter last served a DIFFERENT measurement.
+
+        ⚠️ Diagnostic only, and deliberately NOT folded into
+        `sensor.p1_sample_age_s`. A frozen meter (SAFETY-01's six-minute
+        runaway) answers 200 OK with a stale document forever, so no arrival
+        detector can see it - only the document standing still can, and this is
+        that signal. It is exposed rather than acted on because it is NOT safe
+        as a 30 s watchdog input: this controller regulates grid power toward
+        ~0 W, and at a converged -10 W the export register takes six minutes to
+        advance by its 1 Wh resolution while the power figure legitimately
+        repeats. Thresholding that would rebuild the very limit cycle the
+        arrival stamp just removed, at the exact operating point we aim for.
+        Whoever wires a freeze detector must handle the low-power case first.
+        """
+        if self._changed_mono is None:
+            return None
+        return max(0.0, time.monotonic() - self._changed_mono)
+
+    async def run(self) -> None:
+        """Long-lived task: poll, submit, sleep, forever.
+
+        ⚠️ Nothing but cancellation may end this loop. An escaping exception
+        would kill the poll task for the lifetime of the add-on, and it would do
+        it QUIETLY: the failure mode is safe (no submissions, the age climbs, the
+        watchdog holds the battery at 0 W) but it looks identical to a dead
+        meter, so the operator goes hunting the wrong device. Retry on the next
+        tick instead - poll_s is already the retry cadence, so no backoff.
+        """
+        _LOG.info("P1 ingest: polling %s every %.1fs", self.url, self.poll_s)
+        while True:
+            try:
+                await self.poll_once()
+            except asyncio.CancelledError:
+                raise
+            except Exception as err:  # noqa: BLE001 - the task must outlive it
+                _LOG.warning("P1 meter poll %s: %s - retrying in %.1fs", self.url,
+                             str(err) or type(err).__name__, self.poll_s)
+            await asyncio.sleep(self.poll_s)
+
+    async def poll_once(self) -> bool:
+        """One GET. Returns True if a sample was accepted."""
+        self.polls += 1
+        try:
+            async with self.session.get(
+                    self.url,
+                    timeout=aiohttp.ClientTimeout(total=self.timeout_s)) as resp:
+                if resp.status != 200:
+                    raise P1Error(f"meter returned HTTP {resp.status}")
+                # content_type=None: the meter's own firmware is the authority on
+                # what it serves, and refusing a reading over a Content-Type
+                # header would be a fabricated outage.
+                # ⚠️ Kept because a real HomeWizard firmware that ever answers
+                # text/plain would otherwise read as a dead meter and hold the
+                # battery at 0 W. (This was once recorded here as an equivalent
+                # mutant - it is not. aiohttp's json_response always sets
+                # application/json, but web.Response(text=...) defaults to
+                # text/plain, so the fake meter CAN serve valid JSON under the
+                # wrong header, and test_p1.py now does.)
+                doc = await resp.json(content_type=None)
+        except asyncio.CancelledError:
+            raise
+        except Exception as err:  # noqa: BLE001 - any read failure is a gap
+            self.connected = False
+            self.poll_errors += 1
+            # ⚠️ str() of a bare asyncio.TimeoutError is the EMPTY STRING, so
+            # f"...: {err}" renders "last error:" and then nothing - on the
+            # status page, on a hung meter, at the moment the battery has just
+            # dropped to 0 W and someone is reading that line to find out why.
+            # The class name is the only thing that says "it timed out".
+            # ⚠️ str(err), not `err or ...`: an exception object is ALWAYS truthy,
+            # empty message or not, so the `or` would never reach the fallback.
+            self.ingest.reject(
+                f"meter poll {self.url}: {str(err) or type(err).__name__}")
+            return False
+
+        self.connected = True
+        try:
+            sample = parse_homewizard(doc, self.ingest.phases)
+            # ⚠️ Submitted unconditionally, INCLUDING a document identical to the
+            # last one. The response is the arrival; the number is not.
+            # Inside the try on purpose: submit() outside it would put a raise on
+            # a path with no handler at all, killing the poll task permanently -
+            # safely (the age climbs) but silently. run() backstops the rest.
+            self.ingest.submit(sample)
+            self._note(doc)
+        except P1Error as err:
+            self.ingest.reject(err)
+            return False
+        return True
+
+    def _note(self, doc) -> None:
+        fp = measurement_fingerprint(doc)
+        if self._changed_mono is None or fp != self._fingerprint:
+            self._fingerprint = fp
+            self._changed_mono = time.monotonic()
+
+
 # --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
 # selection
 # --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+def is_enabled(opts: dict) -> bool:
+    """Whether P1 ingestion is switched on at all.
+
+    ⚠️ One definition, because three places depend on it and they MUST agree:
+    where the grid reading comes from, whether the ingest task is started, and
+    whether sensor.p1_sample_age_s is announced over MQTT discovery. An age
+    sensor announced with no ingester behind it is a watchdog input nobody is
+    feeding, and the ESP32 trips on it.
+    """
+    return str(opts.get("meter_source", "off") or "off").strip() not in ("off", "")
+
+
+def homewizard_host_port(opts: dict) -> tuple[str, str]:
+    """`p1_host` split into host and (still unparsed) port text.
+
+    One definition because validate_meter_options() and build_source() must
+    agree byte for byte about what counts as a usable address - a pasted browser
+    URL is the obvious way to fill this in wrong.
+    """
+    host = str(opts.get("p1_host", "") or "").strip()
+    host = host.removeprefix("http://").removeprefix("https://").rstrip("/")
+    host, _, port_s = host.partition(":")
+    return host, port_s
+
+
+def validate_meter_options(opts: dict, phases: int, max_age_s: float) -> list[str]:
+    """Every way `meter_source` can name a meter that will never produce a reading.
+
+    ⚠️ THIS IS THE ONLY PLACE THAT KNOWS THESE RULES. It used to be a run of
+    inline `return None`s inside build_source(); CFG-01 lifted them out because
+    the same predicates now have two callers with two different consequences:
+
+      validate.validate_startup_config()  refuses to start the add-on
+      build_source()                      returns None, as it always did
+
+    They are one function and not two on purpose. A second copy of "what makes a
+    meter config wrong" would drift, and the half that drifted would be the one
+    that decides whether the process is allowed to run.
+
+    Checked ONCE at startup rather than per telegram, because a misconfigured
+    source otherwise fails in the one way indistinguishable from a healthy source
+    nobody has sent anything to yet: no samples, a climbing age, the firmware
+    watchdog holding the battery at 0 W, and nothing in the log saying why.
+
+    Returns a list of human-readable problems; empty means the config is usable.
+    `phases` and `max_age_s` are passed in rather than read from opts so the
+    caller decides whether it is validating the options or an already-built
+    P1Ingest - build_source() has an ingest whose values may not have come from
+    this dict.
+    """
+    source = str(opts.get("meter_source", "off") or "off").strip()
+    if source in ("off", ""):
+        return []
+    problems: list[str] = []
+
+    if source == SOURCE_HA:
+        imp = str(opts.get("p1_import_entity", "") or "").strip()
+        exp = str(opts.get("p1_export_entity", "") or "").strip()
+        if not imp or not exp:
+            problems.append(
+                f"meter_source {SOURCE_HA} needs both p1_import_entity and "
+                f"p1_export_entity (got {imp or '<blank>'!r} / {exp or '<blank>'!r})")
+    elif source == SOURCE_HA_SIGNED:
+        net = str(opts.get("p1_net_entity", "") or "").strip()
+        phase_net = [str(e).strip() for e in
+                     (opts.get("p1_phase_net_entities") or []) if str(e).strip()]
+        if not net:
+            problems.append(
+                f"meter_source {SOURCE_HA_SIGNED} needs p1_net_entity "
+                "(sensor.p1_sample_age_s would otherwise be announced with "
+                "nothing feeding it)")
+        if phase_net and len(phase_net) != phases:
+            problems.append(
+                f"p1_phase_net_entities has {len(phase_net)} entities but "
+                f"meter_phases is {phases} - every telegram would be rejected "
+                "on the phase-count check")
+    elif source == SOURCE_MQTT:
+        if not str(opts.get("meter_mqtt_topic", "") or "").strip():
+            problems.append(f"meter_source {SOURCE_MQTT} needs meter_mqtt_topic")
+    elif source == SOURCE_HOMEWIZARD:
+        host, port_s = homewizard_host_port(opts)
+        if not host:
+            problems.append(
+                f"meter_source {SOURCE_HOMEWIZARD} needs p1_host (the meter's "
+                "own address, e.g. 192.168.2.250)")
+        if port_s:
+            try:
+                int(port_s)
+            except ValueError:
+                problems.append(f"p1_host {opts.get('p1_host')!r} has an "
+                                "unparseable port")
+        try:
+            # ⚠️ Not `or 5`: that turns an explicit 0 into the default, and a
+            # cadence of 0 is a misconfiguration that must be reported, not
+            # quietly corrected into something that looks like it was asked for.
+            raw = opts.get("meter_poll_s", 5)
+            poll_s = float(5 if raw is None or raw == "" else raw)
+        except (TypeError, ValueError):
+            problems.append(f"meter_poll_s {opts.get('meter_poll_s')!r} is not a number")
+        else:
+            if poll_s <= 0:
+                problems.append("meter_poll_s must be positive")
+            # ⚠️ The age can never be fresher than the poll interval. At or past
+            # max_age_s every reading is stale before its successor arrives, so
+            # the controller would sit permanently on missing inputs while the
+            # meter is perfectly healthy - refuse it rather than ship that.
+            elif poll_s >= max_age_s:
+                problems.append(
+                    f"meter_poll_s {poll_s:.1f} is not under meter_max_age_s "
+                    f"{max_age_s:.1f} - every reading would go stale before the "
+                    "next poll")
+    else:
+        problems.append(
+            f"meter_source {source!r} is not one of "
+            + ", ".join((SOURCE_HA, SOURCE_MQTT, SOURCE_HA_SIGNED, SOURCE_HOMEWIZARD)))
+    return problems
+
+
 def build_source(opts: dict, ingest: P1Ingest, session, broker: dict | None):
     """Return the transport named by `meter_source`, or None if disabled.
 
     This is the whole of AC 1's "switchable": every consumer reads P1Ingest, so
     changing transport is a config edit, never a code path.
+
+    ⚠️ In the add-on this is now unreachable with a bad config -
+    validate_startup_config() refuses to start on anything
+    validate_meter_options() rejects. The guard stays because this function is
+    also called directly by tests and by anything embedding P1Ingest, and
+    "returns None" is a safer default for those callers than a transport that
+    can never read.
     """
     source = str(opts.get("meter_source", "off") or "off").strip()
-    if source in ("off", ""):
+    if not is_enabled(opts):
+        return None
+    problems = validate_meter_options(opts, ingest.phases, ingest.max_age_s)
+    if problems:
+        for problem in problems:
+            _LOG.error("%s - P1 ingestion disabled", problem)
         return None
     if source == SOURCE_HA:
         return HaDsmrSource(session, ingest, {
@@ -663,12 +1178,29 @@ def build_source(opts: dict, ingest: P1Ingest, session, broker: dict | None):
             "phase_import": opts.get("p1_phase_import_entities") or [],
             "phase_export": opts.get("p1_phase_export_entities") or [],
         })
+    if source == SOURCE_HA_SIGNED:
+        return HaSignedSource(session, ingest, {
+            "net": str(opts.get("p1_net_entity", "") or "").strip(),
+            "phase_net": [str(e).strip() for e in
+                          (opts.get("p1_phase_net_entities") or []) if str(e).strip()],
+        })
+    if source == SOURCE_HOMEWIZARD:
+        host, port_s = homewizard_host_port(opts)
+        port = int(port_s) if port_s else HOMEWIZARD_PORT
+        raw = opts.get("meter_poll_s", 5)
+        poll_s = float(5 if raw is None or raw == "" else raw)
+        # A warning, not a refusal: one missed poll costs a stale reading and a
+        # 0 W cycle, which is fail-safe. The refusal above is for cadences that
+        # can NEVER be fresh.
+        if poll_s > ingest.max_age_s / 2:
+            _LOG.warning("meter_poll_s %.1f leaves no room under meter_max_age_s "
+                         "%.1f: one missed poll makes the reading stale. The meter "
+                         "updates every ~5 s; 5 s against 30 s is the tested pair.",
+                         poll_s, ingest.max_age_s)
+        return HomeWizardLocalSource(session, ingest, host, port=port, poll_s=poll_s)
     if source == SOURCE_MQTT:
         broker = broker or {}
         return MqttP1Source(ingest, str(opts.get("meter_mqtt_topic", "")),
                             broker.get("host"), broker.get("port", 1883),
                             broker.get("username"), broker.get("password"))
-    if source:
-        _LOG.error("meter_source %r is not %s or %s - P1 ingestion disabled",
-                   source, SOURCE_HA, SOURCE_MQTT)
     return None

goodwe_controller/app/validate.py

@@ -0,0 +1,284 @@
+"""Startup configuration validation - the gate before the control loop runs.
+
+WHAT THIS IS FOR, in one sentence: some configurations are not "a bit off", they
+are configurations under which the add-on's own safety machinery does not work,
+and for those the correct behaviour is to refuse to start rather than to log a
+line and carry on.
+
+⚠️ THE FAILURE THIS REPLACES. `main.py` used to read the setpoint device's own
+±5000 W rating, notice that a configured `max_w` of, say, 8000 W exceeded it,
+write one WARNING to a log nobody reads, and then run anyway with
+`write_setpoint()` quietly clamping. The operator's stated ceiling was simply not
+the ceiling, and the only evidence was a line that had scrolled off. specs §1.5
+is explicit that a configuration in which the system cannot honour what it was
+told is refused at startup, not survived at runtime.
+
+WHERE THE LINE IS DRAWN, and why it is not further out. A validator that refuses
+on trivia gets switched off by the first person it inconveniences, so this one
+refuses only where **continuing produces one of two outcomes:**
+
+  (a) **a stated limit is untrue** - the operator configured a bound, a lower
+      layer silently enforces a different one, and nothing says which won; or
+  (b) **the add-on is inert and indistinguishable from healthy** - it starts,
+      serves its UI, reports green, and moves no energy, with no symptom that
+      separates it from a correctly-idle system.
+
+⚠️ (b) IS NOT A SPECIAL CASE OF (a), and an earlier draft of this file wrongly
+implied it was by claiming every refusal here "makes a safety mechanism
+inoperative". It does not: when `setpoint_entity` is blank, layer 1 pinning the
+inverter at 0 W is the failsafe WORKING. The problem is not that the system
+becomes unsafe, it is that it becomes a very convincing impression of a working
+controller - and an operator has no way to tell. That is its own reason to
+refuse, and stating it as one is what stops the rule being stretched later to
+cover mere untidiness.
+
+Both halves have to stay narrow. (a) is not "any two numbers that could
+disagree"; it is a bound the operator SET being overridden by a layer they
+cannot see. (b) is not "anything degraded"; it is inert AND silent - if a red
+NOT READY banner already names the problem, (b) does not apply.
+
+  1. `max_w` outside the setpoint device's own rating.  [(a)]
+     The stated limit is untrue. arbiter.py's `supervised` SAFETY claim says the
+     output is bounded by ±max_w; it is not, it is bounded by the device, and the
+     two numbers disagree. Which one wins is a coin toss to anyone reading the
+     config.
+
+  2. No `setpoint_entity`.  [(b)]
+     A controller with no actuator, and nothing about it looks broken.
+     `write_setpoint()` returns immediately on a blank entity, so: no device
+     rating is ever read (the `device` SAFETY claim is never made at all), and
+     the ESP32 heartbeat - the thing that feeds LAYER 1 - never happens. The
+     add-on serves a UI, publishes MQTT, resolves claims, and moves nothing.
+     Layer 1 then holds the inverter at 0 W, which is the failsafe working
+     exactly as designed - this is (b), not (a). Nothing is unsafe; it is simply
+     impossible to tell from the outside that the thing is doing nothing.
+
+  3. A `meter_source` that can never produce a reading.  [(b)]
+     §5.1 makes P1 the only authoritative measurement and deliberately provides
+     no fallback, so a transport that cannot be built means `grid` is None
+     forever: permanent "inputs missing", 0 W, and a status page that reports a
+     meter with a climbing age exactly as it would for a healthy meter nobody has
+     sent anything to yet. The predicates live in `p1.validate_meter_options()`,
+     which is also what `build_source()` uses - one definition, two callers.
+
+  4. `meter_max_age_s` above the firmware's own ingest veto.  [(a)]
+     The purest example of (a) in the system, and structurally the same fault as
+     1. The add-on's schema accepts `int(5,300)`. The firmware's threshold is a
+     COMPILE-TIME SUBSTITUTION - `max_age_s: "30"` in
+     goodwe-master-stage4-failsafe.yaml - used by both its monotonic receipt
+     clock and its `ingest_stale` veto, which trips layer 1 on
+     `p1_age_s >= 30`. Set 120 and the add-on believes a 119 s reading is fresh
+     and keeps commanding into it, while the firmware vetoed at 30 s and is
+     holding the inverter at 0 W. Status page: healthy meter, running
+     controller, nothing moving, and no line anywhere saying the number you set
+     was overruled. That firmware file's own comment says a lower bound on this
+     "belongs in CFG-01, not here" - so here it is.
+
+WHAT IS DELIBERATELY *NOT* REFUSED, because it is untidy rather than unsafe:
+
+  - `integrator_max_w` above `max_w`. DOCS.md is right that the only thing the
+    extra headroom buys is more wrong-direction power to unwind after
+    saturation - but the arbiter's `supervised` limit still binds the wire to
+    ±max_w, so nothing out of range ever reaches the inverter. The cost is
+    latency, not amperage. Warned about, not refused.
+  - A missing `soc_entity` / `batt_entity`. `inputs_ok` goes False, the loop
+    commands 0 W, and `checks()` already renders a red NOT READY banner naming
+    the missing entity. Fail-safe AND already loud; a refusal adds nothing.
+  - A `setpoint_entity` that exists in the config but is not found on the Core
+    API at startup. This is the transient case - ESPHome is frequently not up
+    yet when the add-on boots - and refusing here would turn a device that
+    arrives thirty seconds late into a restart loop needing a human. It stays a
+    NOT READY banner.
+  - `meter_poll_s` above half `meter_max_age_s`. One missed poll costs a stale
+    reading and a 0 W cycle. Warned about in p1.py, not refused.
+"""
+
+import logging
+
+from .p1 import is_enabled, validate_meter_options
+
+_LOG = logging.getLogger("goodwe.config")
+
+# ⚠️ A MIRROR OF A FIRMWARE CONSTANT, AND IT CANNOT BE IMPORTED. The firmware
+# threshold is a compile-time YAML substitution baked into the ESP32 image
+# (`max_age_s: "30"`, master/goodwe-master-stage4-failsafe.yaml), so nothing at
+# runtime can ask the board what value it was built with. This number is a copy,
+# and a copy of a constant in another repo is a thing that goes stale.
+#
+# What makes that acceptable here: the copy can only ever be WRONG IN THE SAFE
+# DIRECTION for the check below. If the firmware's veto is raised above 30, this
+# refuses some configs that would in fact have worked - annoying, visible
+# immediately, and fixed by editing one line. It cannot start accepting a config
+# the firmware vetoes unless the firmware's number goes DOWN, which would be a
+# tightening nobody does silently.
+#
+# ⚠️ TEL-06 IS EDITING `ingest_stale` DIRECTLY. If that ticket changes what the
+# veto MEANS - e.g. thresholding arrival rather than the sensor's value - this
+# constant's justification has to be re-read, not just its number. Do not assume
+# a matching integer means a matching rule.
+FIRMWARE_INGEST_VETO_S = 30.0
+
+# ⚠️ The complete set of option keys through which this add-on can reach an
+# actuator. specs §1.5 makes "any configuration in which two writers can reach
+# one actuator" a non-goal, and the way that non-goal is ENFORCED here is by
+# construction: there is exactly one such key, so a second writer is not
+# expressible in the options schema at all. sim/inject.py's `two_writers`
+# scenario asserts on this tuple - if a second write path is ever added, that
+# scenario goes red and somebody has to decide how the two are arbitrated
+# BEFORE the config that allows both can ship.
+ACTUATOR_WRITE_KEYS = ("setpoint_entity",)
+
+
+class ConfigRefused(Exception):
+    """The configuration is wrong. Not "something broke" - see main.py's handler.
+
+    Carries the list of problems so the caller can render them; str() is the
+    first one, so an unhandled traceback still names something useful.
+    """
+
+    def __init__(self, problems: list[str]):
+        self.problems = problems
+        super().__init__(problems[0] if problems else "configuration refused")
+
+
+def validate_startup_config(opts: dict, dev_min=None, dev_max=None) -> list[str]:
+    """Return the list of reasons this configuration must not be started.
+
+    Empty list means go. `dev_min`/`dev_max` are the setpoint device's own
+    reported range (`hass.limits()`), or None when the device could not be
+    reached - in which case the range checks are skipped rather than guessed at,
+    for the transient reason in this module's docstring.
+
+    Pure and side-effect free apart from two warnings, so it can be called from
+    a test or from sim/inject.py without a Home Assistant anywhere near it.
+    """
+    problems: list[str] = []
+
+    # --- 1. an actuator to write to ------------------------------------------
+    writers = [k for k in ACTUATOR_WRITE_KEYS
+               if str(opts.get(k, "") or "").strip()]
+    if not writers:
+        problems.append(
+            "setpoint_entity is not set, so this add-on has no actuator: every "
+            "write is a no-op, the device's own rating is never read, and the "
+            "ESP32 heartbeat that holds off the layer-1 failsafe never happens. "
+            "It would run, look healthy, and move no energy at all. Set it to "
+            "the ESPHome number entity that carries the setpoint.")
+
+    # --- 2. the configured ceiling against the device's own rating -----------
+    max_w = _number(opts, "max_w", 2000.0)
+    if max_w is None:
+        problems.append(f"max_w {opts.get('max_w')!r} is not a number")
+    # ⚠️ config.yaml's int(100,5000) already blocks this on a real install, so
+    # the check is not for the Supervisor path - it is because
+    # validate_startup_config() is now also sim/inject.py's entry point and can
+    # be handed any dict at all. A max_w of 0 or below inverts the arbiter's
+    # `supervised` bounds (lo=-max_w becomes the HIGHER number), and a limit
+    # claim whose lo exceeds its hi is exactly the contradiction the arbiter
+    # resolves to 0 W - i.e. it would look like a safety trip rather than the
+    # nonsense config it is.
+    elif max_w <= 0:
+        problems.append(
+            f"max_w is {max_w:.0f} W and must be positive - it is a magnitude, "
+            "not a signed setpoint. At or below zero the arbiter's supervised "
+            f"limit becomes lo={-max_w:.0f} / hi={max_w:.0f}, which is a "
+            "contradiction it resolves to 0 W, so the controller would look "
+            "like it was tripping rather than misconfigured.")
+    elif dev_max is not None and max_w > dev_max:
+        problems.append(
+            f"max_w is {max_w:.0f} W but {opts.get('setpoint_entity') or 'the setpoint device'} accepts at "
+            f"most {dev_max:.0f} W - THE DEVICE WINS, so the {max_w:.0f} W you "
+            f"configured would silently never happen. Lower max_w to "
+            f"{dev_max:.0f} W or less, or point setpoint_entity at a device that "
+            f"can take {max_w:.0f} W.")
+    elif dev_min is not None and -max_w < dev_min:
+        problems.append(
+            f"max_w is {max_w:.0f} W, so this controller may command "
+            f"{-max_w:.0f} W, but {opts.get('setpoint_entity') or 'the setpoint device'} accepts no less "
+            f"than {dev_min:.0f} W - THE DEVICE WINS on the charge side. Lower "
+            f"max_w to {abs(dev_min):.0f} W or less.")
+
+    # --- 3. a meter that can actually read -----------------------------------
+    # ⚠️ Not a second copy of these rules - p1.py owns them, because
+    # build_source() has to apply the identical predicates and a drifted copy
+    # would be worse than no check.
+    phases = _number(opts, "meter_phases", 1.0)
+    max_age_s = _number(opts, "meter_max_age_s", 30.0)
+    if phases is None or max_age_s is None:
+        problems.append("meter_phases and meter_max_age_s must both be numbers "
+                        f"(got {opts.get('meter_phases')!r} / "
+                        f"{opts.get('meter_max_age_s')!r})")
+    else:
+        problems.extend(validate_meter_options(opts, int(phases), max_age_s))
+
+    # --- 4. the staleness window the FIRMWARE will actually enforce -----------
+    # ⚠️ Only when P1 ingestion is on, and that is a real scope limit rather than
+    # caution: meter_max_age_s is read by nothing but P1Ingest, and the veto it
+    # collides with keys off `p1_age_s.has_state()`, which is only ever published
+    # when ingestion is running (see Controller.publish()). With meter_source off
+    # there is no sensor, the veto is inert, and the number governs nothing.
+    #
+    # Strictly greater, not >=: the firmware trips at `>= 30` and P1Ingest goes
+    # stale at `> max_age_s`, so 30 against 30 has the firmware fractionally
+    # stricter by one sample. That is the shipped default and the tested pair.
+    # BELOW 30 is fine and deliberately not refused - the add-on then gives up
+    # first, which is fail-safe and visible on its own status page. Only ABOVE is
+    # the silent case, where the add-on keeps commanding into a reading the board
+    # has already rejected.
+    if (is_enabled(opts) and max_age_s is not None
+            and max_age_s > FIRMWARE_INGEST_VETO_S):
+        problems.append(
+            f"meter_max_age_s is {max_age_s:.0f} s but the ESP32 firmware vetoes "
+            f"any P1 sample at {FIRMWARE_INGEST_VETO_S:.0f} s and forces the "
+            "layer-1 failsafe - THE FIRMWARE WINS, and it wins silently. This "
+            f"add-on would treat a {max_age_s - 1:.0f} s reading as fresh and "
+            "keep commanding, while the inverter sat at 0 W with a healthy-"
+            "looking meter on the status page. Lower meter_max_age_s to "
+            f"{FIRMWARE_INGEST_VETO_S:.0f} s or less (30 s is the tested value), "
+            "or rebuild the firmware with a matching max_age_s and update "
+            "validate.FIRMWARE_INGEST_VETO_S.")
+
+    # --- warnings: real, but not worth refusing over -------------------------
+    integ = opts.get("integrator_max_w")
+    integ_w = None if not integ else _number(opts, "integrator_max_w", None)
+    if integ_w is not None and max_w is not None and integ_w > max_w:
+        _LOG.warning(
+            "integrator_max_w %.0f W is above max_w %.0f W. Not refused - the "
+            "arbiter still bounds the wire to +-max_w - but the only thing the "
+            "extra headroom buys is more wrong-direction power to unwind after "
+            "saturation. 0 (follow max_w) is the recommended value.",
+            integ_w, max_w)
+
+    return problems
+
+
+def _number(opts: dict, key, default):
+    raw = opts.get(key, default)
+    if raw is None or raw == "":
+        return default
+    try:
+        return float(raw)
+    except (TypeError, ValueError):
+        return None
+
+
+def refuse(problems: list[str]) -> None:
+    """Log a refusal an operator can tell apart from a crash. Does not raise.
+
+    ⚠️ THE POINT OF THE BANNER. "You configured this wrong" must not read like
+    "it broke". A Python traceback in an add-on log means the same thing to most
+    operators as a segfault - file a bug - whereas this block names the keys,
+    names the fix, and says in words that nothing is broken. main.py catches
+    ConfigRefused and exits 78 (sysexits EX_CONFIG), so no traceback is printed
+    at all and even the exit status distinguishes the two.
+    """
+    _LOG.error("=" * 72)
+    _LOG.error("REFUSING TO START: the add-on configuration is not usable.")
+    _LOG.error("This is a CONFIGURATION problem, not a crash. Nothing is broken;")
+    _LOG.error("the add-on will start as soon as the settings below are fixed.")
+    _LOG.error("Fix them in Settings > Add-ons > GoodWe RS485 Controller >")
+    _LOG.error("Configuration, then start the add-on again.")
+    _LOG.error("-" * 72)
+    for i, problem in enumerate(problems, 1):
+        _LOG.error("  %d. %s", i, problem)
+    _LOG.error("=" * 72)

goodwe_controller/config.yaml

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 name: GoodWe RS485 Controller
-version: "0.2.1"
+version: "0.4.0"
 slug: goodwe_controller
 description: >-
   Drives a GoodWe ES/BP battery inverter over RS485 by emulating its smart
@@ -42,11 +42,24 @@ options:
   # --- P1 meter ingestion (specs §5.2 / §14 `meter:`) -------------------------
   # `off` keeps the original single meter_entity path above, so an existing
   # install is untouched until it opts in. ha_dsmr subscribes to the DSMR
-  # integration's entities over the HA WebSocket; mqtt_p1 reads the topic below.
+  # integration's entities over the HA WebSocket; mqtt_p1 reads the topic below;
+  # ha_signed reads ONE signed HA entity (+ import / - export), which is what a
+  # HomeWizard P1 publishes and what ha_dsmr cannot consume.
+  # homewizard_local skips Home Assistant entirely and polls the meter's own
+  # local API. ⚠️ It is the ONLY mode whose sensor.p1_sample_age_s measures when
+  # the meter REPORTED rather than when the value last CHANGED - HA emits
+  # nothing at all for a repeated reading - so it is the only mode a firmware
+  # watchdog may threshold. See DOCS.md.
   meter_source: "off"
   meter_phases: 1
   meter_max_age_s: 30
   meter_mqtt_topic: ""
+  # homewizard_local only. The meter's own address, `host` or `host:port`.
+  p1_host: ""
+  # homewizard_local only. Seconds between polls. Must be well under
+  # meter_max_age_s - the age is never fresher than this interval - and there is
+  # nothing to gain below the meter's own ~5.0 s update rate (NOTES.md:640).
+  meter_poll_s: 5
   # The two UNSIGNED Belgian registers. The EMS derives net power from them
   # (import - export); do NOT point these at a signed template sensor.
   p1_import_entity: ""
@@ -55,6 +68,15 @@ options:
   # three-phase connection; the list length must equal meter_phases.
   p1_phase_import_entities: []
   p1_phase_export_entities: []
+  # ha_signed only. ONE signed net-power sensor: positive = import from the
+  # grid, negative = export to it. Do NOT split it into two template sensors -
+  # the split is done in the add-on (p1.split_signed) precisely so the sign
+  # convention is tested rather than living in unreviewed YAML.
+  p1_net_entity: ""
+  # Optional, in L1..L3 order, each one signed the same way. Same role as
+  # p1_phase_import_entities: the capacity-tariff peak on a three-phase
+  # connection. The list length must equal meter_phases.
+  p1_phase_net_entities: []
 
   # --- control ---------------------------------------------------------------
   max_w: 2000
@@ -65,7 +87,7 @@ options:
   step_w: 10
   saturation_w: 500
   saturation_cycles: 3
-  integrator_max_w: 3000
+  integrator_max_w: 0
   heartbeat_s: 10
   stale_input_s: 15
   auto_start: false
@@ -98,20 +120,25 @@ schema:
   batt_invert: bool
   setpoint_entity: str
 
-  meter_source: list(off|ha_dsmr|mqtt_p1)
+  meter_source: list(off|ha_dsmr|mqtt_p1|ha_signed|homewizard_local)
   # ⚠️ 2 is accepted by this range but is not a real Belgian connection. A
   # telegram whose phase count disagrees is rejected at ingest and logged, so a
   # mis-set 2 shows up immediately as "0 telegrams accepted" rather than as a
   # quietly wrong number.
   meter_phases: int(1,3)
   meter_max_age_s: int(5,300)
+  meter_poll_s: int(1,60)
   meter_mqtt_topic: str?
+  p1_host: str?
   p1_import_entity: str?
   p1_export_entity: str?
   p1_phase_import_entities:
     - str
   p1_phase_export_entities:
     - str
+  p1_net_entity: str?
+  p1_phase_net_entities:
+    - str
 
   max_w: int(100,5000)
   gain: float(0.05,1.0)
@@ -121,7 +148,7 @@ schema:
   step_w: int(1,100)
   saturation_w: int(100,2000)
   saturation_cycles: int(1,10)
-  integrator_max_w: int(100,15000)
+  integrator_max_w: int(0,15000)
   heartbeat_s: int(2,25)
   stale_input_s: int(5,120)
   auto_start: bool

goodwe_controller/test_control.py

@@ -24,6 +24,63 @@ def check(name, cond):
         fails.append(name)
 
 
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# COVERAGE AUDIT - measured, not executed. Read this before adding a mechanism.
+#
+# THE INVARIANT: every mechanism in compute() must be noticed by AT LEAST TWO
+# checks when it is deleted. If you add a mechanism to compute(), re-run the
+# audit and add it to the table. If a figure here drops, a check has started
+# passing for a reason other than the one it names.
+#
+# THE TECHNIQUE, because there is no script to run: replace one mechanism in
+# control.py with a no-op, run this file, count the failures, restore. That is
+# the converse of the usual mutation - not "does a wrong value fail?" but "does
+# anyone notice when the mechanism is GONE?". It is kept as a comment rather
+# than as tooling on purpose: the only cheap way to automate it is to key on
+# source lines, which goes stale silently, and a green audit that has quietly
+# stopped testing anything is precisely the failure this ticket exists to fix.
+# A comment cannot go stale-green, because it never claims to be running.
+#
+# Measured at 389d9ec. Numbers are the lead's independent reproduction.
+#
+#   mechanism in compute()                     checks that fail when deleted
+#   ------------------------------------------ -----------------------------
+#   integrator freeze (AC 3)                                               2
+#   integrator clamp (AC 1)                                                6
+#   integrator bound follows max_w                                         4
+#   output clamp                                                           3
+#   slew limit                                                             4
+#   output freeze                                                          2
+#   deadband                                                               5
+#   quantisation                                                           2
+#   saturation detector, `saturated_now = False`                          11
+#   saturation duration (AC 2), fires instantly                            2
+#   sat counter reset on a good cycle                                      6
+#   target_grid_w bias                                                     3
+#   i_w=None seeding from prev_w                                           6
+#
+# The detector figure is for the `saturated_now = False` form specifically;
+# disabling it further down as `frozen = False` is a weaker mutation and gives
+# 10. Reproduce the same form or the number will not match.
+#
+# ⚠️ IT HAS FOUND A DEAD MECHANISM TWICE, BOTH THE SAME WAY: a clamp standing in
+# for the mechanism under test. Deleting the integrator freeze once failed
+# NOTHING, because the fixtures sat at max_w 2000 and the integrator bound
+# truncated a wound value back to exactly 2000 - the assertion passed on the
+# clamp. The output clamp was masked the same way by the integrator bound.
+# Hence: A FIXTURE MUST SIT CLEAR OF EVERY RAIL IT IS NOT TESTING. Where a test
+# names one mechanism, make that mechanism the binding one (see TCLAMP and TF).
+#
+# ⚠️ RUN MUTATIONS WITH `python -B` AND CLEAR app/__pycache__. CPython
+# invalidates a .pyc on (source mtime in whole seconds, source size), so a
+# same-second rewrite that also preserves the file size reuses stale bytecode
+# and the suite reports on code you are no longer running. It under-reported one
+# mutation here as 2 where the true figure is 6. The error is one-directional -
+# stale bytecode can only under-report - so every figure above is a lower bound
+# at worst, and the two zeros ever recorded were both confirmed by fixing them
+# and watching the count rise, which a caching artefact cannot do.
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
 print("control law")
 
 # Deadband: inside meter noise, hold exactly - do not drift.
@@ -41,13 +98,22 @@ check("proportional step (gain 0.6)", d.target_w == 300)
 d = compute(prev_w=0, grid_w=-500, actual_w=0, tuning=T)
 check("export drives charging", d.target_w == -300)
 
-# Clamp
-d = compute(prev_w=1900, grid_w=1000, actual_w=1900, tuning=Tuning(max_w=2000, slew_w=5000))
+# Clamp.
+# ⚠️ integrator_max_w is lifted clear of max_w so that the OUTPUT clamp is the
+# mechanism under test. Left at the default the integrator bound truncates
+# first, these two assertions pass on that alone, and deleting the output clamp
+# fails nothing - the same masking that hid the integrator freeze.
+TCLAMP = Tuning(max_w=2000, slew_w=5000, integrator_max_w=5000)
+d = compute(prev_w=1900, grid_w=1000, actual_w=1900, tuning=TCLAMP)
 check("clamped to max_w", d.target_w == 2000)
 
 # Slew: from 0 with a huge error, no more than slew_w in one cycle.
 d = compute(prev_w=0, grid_w=5000, actual_w=0, tuning=Tuning(max_w=5000, slew_w=1000))
 check("slew limits one cycle", d.target_w == 1000)
+d = compute(prev_w=-1900, grid_w=-1000, actual_w=-1900, tuning=TCLAMP)
+check("clamped to -max_w", d.target_w == -2000)
+d = compute(prev_w=0, grid_w=-5000, actual_w=0, tuning=Tuning(max_w=5000, slew_w=1000))
+check("slew limits one cycle, charging", d.target_w == -1000)
 
 # Saturation needs DURATION: one diverging cycle must NOT freeze.
 t = Tuning(saturation_w=500, saturation_cycles=3)
@@ -78,7 +144,7 @@ print("SAFETY-04: the integrator is bounded apart from the output")
 # The historical runaway, with its real numbers. A commercial controller on
 # this site, with the inverter switched OFF, wound ~130 W every 4 s past 10 kW
 # and reported 14 768 W while its output clamp sat at 5 kW. At gain 0.6 that
-# rate is a standing error of 130/0.6 ≈ 217 W that never resolves, because the
+# rate is a standing error of 130/0.6 = 217 W that never resolves, because the
 # inverter is not there to resolve it. 150 cycles is past the ~113 it took to
 # reach 14 768 W at that rate.
 RUNAWAY_ERROR = 130.0 / 0.6
@@ -86,12 +152,12 @@ RUNAWAY_CYCLES = 150
 HISTORICAL_W = 14768.0
 
 
-def runaway(tuning):
+def runaway(tuning, sign=1):
     """Inverter off: it reports 0 W forever, the error never clears."""
     prev, i_w, sat = 0.0, 0.0, 0
     worst_i, worst_cmd = 0.0, 0.0
     for _ in range(RUNAWAY_CYCLES):
-        d = compute(prev_w=prev, grid_w=RUNAWAY_ERROR, actual_w=0.0,
+        d = compute(prev_w=prev, grid_w=sign * RUNAWAY_ERROR, actual_w=0.0,
                     tuning=tuning, sat_count=sat, i_w=i_w)
         prev, i_w, sat = d.target_w, d.i_w, d.sat_count
         worst_i = max(worst_i, abs(i_w))
@@ -99,33 +165,113 @@ def runaway(tuning):
     return worst_i, worst_cmd
 
 
-TR = Tuning(max_w=2000, integrator_max_w=3000)
+TR = Tuning(max_w=2000)          # integrator_max_w unset => follows max_w
 wi, wc = runaway(TR)
-check(f"runaway: integrator plateaus at {wi:.0f} W (<= 3000)", wi <= TR.integrator_max_w)
+check(f"runaway: integrator plateaus at {wi:.0f} W (<= 2000)", wi <= TR.max_w)
 check(f"runaway: emitted command peaks at {wc:.0f} W (<= 2000)", wc <= TR.max_w)
 check("runaway: nowhere near the historical 14 768 W", wc < HISTORICAL_W / 4)
 
 # ...and with the saturation detector deliberately defeated, so that only the
-# clamp is holding. This is the AC that says the two mechanisms are
-# independent: kill one, the other still bounds it.
-TD = Tuning(max_w=2000, integrator_max_w=3000, saturation_w=1e9)
+# clamp is holding. Kill one mechanism, the other still bounds it.
+TD = Tuning(max_w=2000, saturation_w=1e9)
 wi, wc = runaway(TD)
-check(f"runaway with the detector defeated: integrator still <= 3000 ({wi:.0f} W)",
-      wi <= TD.integrator_max_w)
+check(f"runaway with the detector defeated: integrator still bounded ({wi:.0f} W)",
+      wi <= TD.max_w)
 check("runaway with the detector defeated: command still <= max_w", wc <= TD.max_w)
 
-# The bound is not max_w. If someone "simplifies" them into one key this fails.
-d = compute(prev_w=0, grid_w=6000, actual_w=0,
-            tuning=Tuning(max_w=2000, integrator_max_w=3000, slew_w=5000))
-check("integrator bound is separate from the output clamp",
-      d.i_w == 3000 and d.target_w == 2000)
+# The mirror: the same runaway driving the other way. An export that never
+# clears winds the integrator negative just as hard.
+wi, wc = runaway(Tuning(max_w=2000), sign=-1)
+check(f"runaway (export direction): integrator bounded at {wi:.0f} W", wi <= 2000)
+check("runaway (export direction): emitted command <= max_w", wc <= 2000)
 
-# Freeze = does not accumulate. Same input twice; the integrator must not move.
-TF = Tuning(saturation_w=500, saturation_cycles=3)
+# The bound is a separate quantity, and the useful direction is BELOW max_w:
+# there it binds first and caps unwind latency tighter than the rail does.
+d = compute(prev_w=0, grid_w=6000, actual_w=0,
+            tuning=Tuning(max_w=2000, integrator_max_w=1000, slew_w=5000))
+check("integrator bound binds independently of the output clamp",
+      d.i_w == 1000 and d.target_w == 1000)
+
+# Freeze = may not wind further in the direction it is already pushing.
+# ⚠️ max_w is raised WELL above the fixtures on purpose. At the default 2000
+# the integrator bound truncates a wound value back to exactly 2000 and
+# satisfies these assertions on its own, so deleting the freeze outright
+# failed nothing - the clamp was standing in for the mechanism under test.
+# Any fixture here must sit clear of every rail, or it tests the rail.
+TF = Tuning(saturation_w=500, saturation_cycles=3, max_w=5000)
 f1 = compute(prev_w=2000, grid_w=800, actual_w=0, tuning=TF, sat_count=3, i_w=2000.0)
-check("frozen: integration does not accumulate", f1.i_w == 2000.0 and f1.frozen)
+check("frozen: integration does not wind further", f1.i_w == 2000.0 and f1.frozen)
 f2 = compute(prev_w=2000, grid_w=-800, actual_w=0, tuning=TF, sat_count=3, i_w=2000.0)
 check("frozen: unwinding is still allowed", f2.i_w < 2000.0)
+# ...and the same two on the charging side. Every freeze rule in this file has
+# a mirror, because the one that did not is the defect that got through review.
+f3 = compute(prev_w=-2000, grid_w=-800, actual_w=0, tuning=TF, sat_count=3, i_w=-2000.0)
+check("frozen (charging): integration does not wind further", f3.i_w == -2000.0)
+f4 = compute(prev_w=-2000, grid_w=800, actual_w=0, tuning=TF, sat_count=3, i_w=-2000.0)
+check("frozen (charging): unwinding is still allowed", f4.i_w > -2000.0)
+
+# ⚠️ REGRESSION, and the reason the first cut of SAFETY-04 was rejected. A
+# freeze encoded as "only corrections that shrink |i_w|" is unsatisfiable for
+# BOTH signs of error whenever |correction| > 2*|i_w|, so near zero the loop
+# stops moving forever - the freeze cannot clear, because clearing it needs the
+# inverter to track and not-tracking is what saturation means. Measured on that
+# encoding: 0 W held into a 2 kW import for as long as the sim ran.
+z = compute(prev_w=0, grid_w=2000, actual_w=600, tuning=T, sat_count=3, i_w=0.0)
+check("frozen at i_w=0: a 2 kW import still moves the command",
+      z.frozen and z.target_w == 1000)
+# ...and the next cycle the inverter is inside saturation_w of the command, so
+# the freeze clears on its own. Deadlock would show up here as frozen=True.
+z2 = compute(prev_w=1000, grid_w=1000, actual_w=600, tuning=T,
+             sat_count=z.sat_count, i_w=z.i_w)
+check("frozen at i_w=0: the freeze then clears", not z2.frozen)
+# Same stranding on the other side: a small positive integrator against export.
+z3 = compute(prev_w=100, grid_w=-1000, actual_w=800, tuning=T, sat_count=3, i_w=100.0)
+check("frozen at i_w=+100: a 1 kW export still moves the command",
+      z3.frozen and z3.target_w < 0)
+z4 = compute(prev_w=-100, grid_w=1000, actual_w=-800, tuning=T, sat_count=3, i_w=-100.0)
+check("frozen at i_w=-100: a 1 kW import still moves the command",
+      z4.frozen and z4.target_w > 0)
+
+# ⚠️ EXACTLY ZERO, BOTH DIRECTIONS. This boundary has a history: the first cut
+# deadlocked here under import, and the fix for it deadlocked here under export
+# because `if i_w > 0 ... else ...` files 0.0 under rising-only. main.py resets
+# i_w to exactly 0.0 on every stop and every reseed, so it is a normal state,
+# not a corner.
+zi = compute(prev_w=0, grid_w=2000, actual_w=600, tuning=T, sat_count=3, i_w=0.0)
+check("frozen at i_w=0.0: an import push moves the integrator",
+      zi.frozen and zi.i_w > 0)
+ze = compute(prev_w=0, grid_w=-2000, actual_w=-600, tuning=T, sat_count=3, i_w=0.0)
+check("frozen at i_w=0.0: an export push moves the integrator",
+      ze.frozen and ze.i_w < 0)
+# The COMMAND still holds at 0 W in that second case, and that is release/1.0's
+# rule, not a leftover: at prev_w == 0 the output freeze forbids starting to
+# charge while saturated, because commanding 0 while the inverter reports
+# hundreds of watts means something else is driving the bus. Asserted so that
+# nobody "fixes" it by accident - the integrator moving is what this ticket
+# owns, the command rule belongs to the output freeze.
+check("frozen at i_w=0.0: the output freeze still blocks a charge from 0 W",
+      ze.target_w == 0.0)
+# Where prev_w is already charging the output freeze does NOT block, and there
+# the difference reaches the wire: held at 0.0 the integrator abandons the
+# charge mid-export.
+zc = compute(prev_w=-2000, grid_w=-4000, actual_w=-600, tuning=T, sat_count=3, i_w=0.0)
+check("frozen at i_w=0.0: a charge is not abandoned during heavy export",
+      zc.target_w == -2000.0)
+
+# The general property, rather than another handful of points: while frozen the
+# integrator may be held ONLY when the correction would push it further from
+# zero on the side it already sits. Any other hold is a deadlock.
+stuck = []
+for i0 in [x * 25.0 for x in range(-80, 81)]:
+    for g in [x * 100.0 for x in range(-40, 41)]:
+        err = g - T.target_grid_w
+        if abs(err) < T.deadband_w:
+            continue
+        dd = compute(prev_w=0.0, grid_w=g, actual_w=1500.0, tuning=T, sat_count=3, i_w=i0)
+        if dd.i_w == i0 and not ((i0 > 0 and err > 0) or (i0 < 0 and err < 0)):
+            stuck.append((i0, g))
+check(f"frozen integrator never deadlocks, over {161*81} states"
+      + (f" (e.g. {stuck[0]})" if stuck else ""), not stuck)
 
 # False-positive guard: a normal 2 kW load step must not trip the detector,
 # because the plant needs several cycles to catch up on every one of them.
@@ -137,6 +283,107 @@ for _ in range(12):
     froze = froze or d.frozen
 check("a normal 2 kW load step does not trip the saturation freeze", not froze)
 
+# The convergence sim below runs WITHOUT a carried integrator. This is the same
+# 2 kW step in the configuration that actually ships, where main.py carries it.
+prev, actual, sat, i_w = 0.0, 0.0, 0, 0.0
+carried = 0
+for _ in range(12):
+    d = compute(prev, 2000.0 - actual, actual, T, sat, i_w)
+    prev, sat, i_w = d.target_w, d.sat_count, d.i_w
+    actual = actual + 0.94 * (prev - actual)
+    carried += 1
+    if abs(2000.0 - actual) < T.deadband_w:
+        break
+check(f"carried integrator converges in {carried} cycles (<=6)", carried <= 6)
+check("carried integrator does not overshoot the load", actual <= 2000.0 + T.deadband_w)
+
+# ⚠️ REGRESSION: an integrator allowed to wind past the rail buys nothing (the
+# output clamp already bounds the wire) and costs extra cycles of
+# wrong-direction power after every saturation event. 4000 W load held to
+# saturation, then dropped to 0; the figure is the command on the first cycle
+# after the drop. This is what makes the DOCS advice checkable.
+def unwind(t):
+    prev, actual, sat, i_w, load = 0.0, 0.0, 0, 0.0, 4000.0
+    for c in range(16):
+        if c == 15:
+            load = 0.0
+        d = compute(prev, load - actual, actual, t, sat, i_w)
+        prev, sat, i_w = d.target_w, d.sat_count, d.i_w
+        actual = actual + 0.94 * (prev - actual)
+    return prev
+
+
+tight, loose = unwind(Tuning(max_w=2000)), unwind(Tuning(max_w=2000, integrator_max_w=3000))
+check(f"after saturation ends the command is {tight:.0f} W (<= 1000)", tight <= 1000)
+check(f"headroom above max_w makes that worse ({loose:.0f} W) - hence the default",
+      loose > tight)
+
+print("SAFETY-04: the i_w=None path is still release/1.0, exactly")
+
+
+def legacy(prev, grid, actual, t, sat_count):
+    """release/1.0's control law, transcribed. Do not 'improve' this."""
+    reason = "tracking"
+    sc = min(sat_count + 1, 10) if abs(prev - actual) > t.saturation_w else 0
+    frozen = sc >= t.saturation_cycles
+    error = grid - t.target_grid_w
+    if abs(error) < t.deadband_w:
+        want, reason = prev, "deadband"
+    else:
+        want = prev + t.gain * error
+    target = max(-t.max_w, min(t.max_w, want))
+    if target != want:
+        reason = "clamped"
+    slewed = max(prev - t.slew_w, min(prev + t.slew_w, target))
+    if slewed != target:
+        reason = "slew-limited"
+    target = slewed
+    if frozen:
+        target = min(target, prev) if prev > 0 else max(target, prev)
+        reason = "saturated-freeze"
+    step = max(1, int(t.step_w))
+    return float(round(target / step) * step), sc, frozen, reason
+
+
+# ⚠️ Compare EVERYTHING observable, not just the number. A previous version of
+# this sweep compared (target_w, sat_count) only and passed 3024 cases while
+# `reason` had silently lost a value - which is the kind of thing a sweep this
+# broad exists to catch. `frozen` and `reason` are both in the tuple now.
+#
+# The one deliberate rename: what release/1.0 called "clamped" is now
+# "i-clamped", because the truncation happens on the integrator before the
+# command is derived from it. Aliased here rather than papered over - if any
+# OTHER reason ever diverges, this check goes red.
+ALIAS = {"i-clamped": "clamped"}
+diffs = []
+seen = set()
+for tune in (Tuning(), Tuning(target_grid_w=-10.0), Tuning(max_w=5000, slew_w=5000)):
+    for prev in (-2000.0, -500.0, -100.0, 0.0, 100.0, 500.0, 2000.0):
+        for grid in (-6000.0, -1000.0, -500.0, -14.0, 0.0, 14.0, 500.0, 1000.0, 6000.0):
+            for actual in (-2000.0, 0.0, 600.0, 2000.0):
+                for sc in (0, 2, 3, 9):
+                    d = compute(prev, grid, actual, tune, sc)   # i_w defaults to None
+                    seen.add(d.reason)
+                    got = (d.target_w, d.sat_count, d.frozen,
+                           ALIAS.get(d.reason, d.reason))
+                    if got != legacy(prev, grid, actual, tune, sc):
+                        diffs.append((prev, grid, actual, sc, got,
+                                      legacy(prev, grid, actual, tune, sc)))
+check(f"i_w=None reproduces release/1.0 over {3*7*9*4*4} cases, reason included"
+      + (f" (first diff {diffs[0]})" if diffs else ""), not diffs)
+
+# ...and the rename is not a quiet deletion: the signal SAFETY-03 alarms on has
+# to actually occur in that sweep, or its hook is dead.
+check("the integrator clamp reports itself as 'i-clamped'", "i-clamped" in seen)
+
+# "clamped" stays reachable, but only where the integrator is deliberately
+# allowed above the rail - then BOTH fire and the output clamp, which describes
+# the value actually emitted, is the one reported.
+dc = compute(prev_w=0, grid_w=6000, actual_w=0,
+             tuning=Tuning(max_w=2000, integrator_max_w=3000, slew_w=5000))
+check("the output clamp still reports 'clamped' when it is the binding one",
+      dc.reason == "clamped" and dc.i_w == 3000 and dc.target_w == 2000)
+
 print("capacity tariff")
 check("no forecast means no cap", maintenance_charge_floor(2500, None, 3500) == 2500)
 check("headroom caps the charge", maintenance_charge_floor(2500, 2000, 3500) == 1500)

goodwe_controller/test_validate.py

@@ -0,0 +1,309 @@
+"""Runnable check for the startup gate.  `python3 test_validate.py`
+
+Two halves, and the second is the one that matters. The first asserts that the
+three refusable configurations are refused. The second asserts that everything
+on validate.py's "deliberately not refused" list still STARTS - because the way
+a validator dies is not by missing a fault, it is by refusing something harmless
+until somebody deletes the call.
+"""
+
+import asyncio
+import sys
+
+from app.validate import (
+    ACTUATOR_WRITE_KEYS, FIRMWARE_INGEST_VETO_S, ConfigRefused, refuse,
+    validate_startup_config,
+)
+
+fails = []
+
+
+def check(name, cond):
+    print(f"  {'ok  ' if cond else 'FAIL'} {name}")
+    if not cond:
+        fails.append(name)
+
+
+def base(**over):
+    """A configuration that must start. Everything else is this, spoilt."""
+    o = {"setpoint_entity": "number.goodwe_setpoint", "max_w": 2000,
+         "soc_entity": "sensor.soc", "batt_entity": "sensor.batt",
+         "meter_source": "off"}
+    o.update(over)
+    return o
+
+
+def why(problems, needle):
+    return any(needle in p for p in problems)
+
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+print("the baseline must start, or nothing below means anything")
+check("a good config with a 5000 W device is accepted",
+      validate_startup_config(base(), -5000, 5000) == [])
+check("...and with no device reachable yet, too",
+      validate_startup_config(base(), None, None) == [])
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+print("1. max_w against the device's own rating")
+# ⚠️ THE ORIGINAL BUG. main.py used to log 'the device wins' and run anyway,
+# with write_setpoint() clamping, so the configured ceiling was never the real
+# one and the only evidence had scrolled off the log.
+p = validate_startup_config(base(max_w=8000), -5000, 5000)
+check("max_w above the device maximum is refused", len(p) == 1)
+check("...and the message names the configured value", why(p, "8000"))
+check("...and the device's value", why(p, "5000"))
+check("...and says which one wins", why(p, "THE DEVICE WINS"))
+check("max_w exactly at the device maximum is fine",
+      validate_startup_config(base(max_w=5000), -5000, 5000) == [])
+check("max_w under it is fine",
+      validate_startup_config(base(max_w=2000), -5000, 5000) == [])
+# The charge side is a separate rail and an asymmetric device is legal.
+p = validate_startup_config(base(max_w=4000), -2500, 5000)
+check("a max_w the device cannot take on the CHARGE side is refused too",
+      len(p) == 1 and why(p, "charge side"))
+check("...naming the device's floor", why(p, "-2500"))
+# ⚠️ Not guessed at: the entity may simply not have booted yet. run_control()
+# re-runs this the moment the real rating arrives.
+check("an unreachable device skips the range check rather than assuming",
+      validate_startup_config(base(max_w=8000), None, None) == [])
+check("a non-numeric max_w is refused",
+      why(validate_startup_config(base(max_w="lots"), -5000, 5000), "not a number"))
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+print("2. an actuator to write to")
+# A controller with no actuator: write_setpoint() returns on the blank entity,
+# so no rating is read, no heartbeat is sent, layer 1 pins the inverter at 0 W,
+# and the add-on looks perfectly healthy the whole time.
+for blank in ("", "   ", None):
+    p = validate_startup_config(base(setpoint_entity=blank), None, None)
+    check(f"setpoint_entity {blank!r} is refused", len(p) == 1)
+check("...and the message says why it is dangerous rather than untidy",
+      why(validate_startup_config(base(setpoint_entity=""), None, None),
+          "heartbeat"))
+# specs §1.5: two writers on one actuator is not expressible in this schema.
+check("there is exactly one way to reach the actuator",
+      ACTUATOR_WRITE_KEYS == ("setpoint_entity",))
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+print("3. a meter that can never read")
+# ⚠️ These predicates belong to p1.validate_meter_options(), which build_source()
+# also uses. Asserted here to prove the gate actually consults it - one entry
+# point, not two.
+check("meter_source off asks nothing of the P1 keys",
+      validate_startup_config(base(meter_source="off"), -5000, 5000) == [])
+check("homewizard_local with no p1_host is refused",
+      why(validate_startup_config(base(meter_source="homewizard_local"),
+                                  -5000, 5000), "p1_host"))
+check("...and with a host it is accepted",
+      validate_startup_config(base(meter_source="homewizard_local",
+                                   p1_host="192.168.2.250"), -5000, 5000) == [])
+check("a poll cadence at meter_max_age_s is refused at STARTUP, not just disabled",
+      why(validate_startup_config(base(meter_source="homewizard_local",
+                                       p1_host="m", meter_poll_s=30,
+                                       meter_max_age_s=30), -5000, 5000),
+          "meter_max_age_s"))
+check("ha_signed with no p1_net_entity is refused",
+      why(validate_startup_config(base(meter_source="ha_signed"), -5000, 5000),
+          "p1_net_entity"))
+check("a phase list disagreeing with meter_phases is refused",
+      why(validate_startup_config(base(meter_source="ha_signed",
+                                       p1_net_entity="sensor.n", meter_phases=3,
+                                       p1_phase_net_entities=["a", "b"]),
+                                  -5000, 5000), "phase-count"))
+check("mqtt_p1 with no topic is refused",
+      why(validate_startup_config(base(meter_source="mqtt_p1"), -5000, 5000),
+          "meter_mqtt_topic"))
+check("ha_dsmr with only half its entities is refused",
+      why(validate_startup_config(base(meter_source="ha_dsmr",
+                                       p1_import_entity="sensor.i"), -5000, 5000),
+          "p1_export_entity"))
+check("a misspelt meter_source is refused rather than silently ignored",
+      why(validate_startup_config(base(meter_source="ha_signd"), -5000, 5000),
+          "is not one of"))
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+print("4. meter_max_age_s against the firmware's compile-time veto")
+# ⚠️ The schema allows int(5,300); the firmware's threshold is baked in at 30 s
+# and wins silently. Same shape as the max_w case: a configured bound overridden
+# by a lower layer, with nothing saying so.
+hw = dict(meter_source="homewizard_local", p1_host="m")
+p = validate_startup_config(base(**hw, meter_max_age_s=120), -5000, 5000)
+check("a meter_max_age_s above the firmware veto is refused", len(p) == 1)
+check("...naming the configured value", why(p, "120"))
+check("...naming the firmware's value", why(p, "30"))
+check("...and saying which one wins", why(p, "THE FIRMWARE WINS"))
+check("the tested pair 30/30 is accepted",
+      validate_startup_config(base(**hw, meter_max_age_s=30), -5000, 5000) == [])
+check("one second above it is refused",
+      validate_startup_config(base(**hw, meter_max_age_s=31), -5000, 5000) != [])
+# Below the veto the add-on gives up FIRST, which is fail-safe and visible on
+# its own status page. Only above is the silent case.
+check("below the veto is fine - the add-on being stricter is not a conflict",
+      validate_startup_config(base(**hw, meter_max_age_s=10,
+                                   meter_poll_s=4), -5000, 5000) == [])
+# ⚠️ Scope: meter_max_age_s is read by nothing but P1Ingest, and the veto keys
+# off a sensor only published when ingestion runs. With the meter off it governs
+# nothing, so refusing would be pure trivia.
+check("with meter_source off the number governs nothing and is not refused",
+      validate_startup_config(base(meter_source="off", meter_max_age_s=300),
+                              -5000, 5000) == [])
+check("the constant is the firmware's, not a rounded guess",
+      FIRMWARE_INGEST_VETO_S == 30.0)
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+print("max_w must be a positive magnitude")
+# Schema-blocked on a real install, but validate_startup_config() is also
+# sim/inject.py's entry point and can be handed any dict at all.
+for bad in (0, -1, -2000):
+    p = validate_startup_config(base(max_w=bad), -5000, 5000)
+    check(f"max_w {bad} is refused", len(p) == 1 and why(p, "must be positive"))
+check("...and the message explains it would read as a trip, not a mistake",
+      why(validate_startup_config(base(max_w=0), -5000, 5000), "contradiction"))
+check("the smallest sane max_w still starts",
+      validate_startup_config(base(max_w=1), -5000, 5000) == [])
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+print("what must NOT be refused - a validator that fires on trivia gets deleted")
+# DOCS.md: the arbiter's `supervised` limit still binds the wire to +-max_w, so
+# the only cost of the extra headroom is unwind latency after saturation.
+check("integrator_max_w above max_w warns but starts",
+      validate_startup_config(base(max_w=2000, integrator_max_w=9000),
+                              -5000, 5000) == [])
+check("integrator_max_w 0 (follow max_w) starts",
+      validate_startup_config(base(integrator_max_w=0), -5000, 5000) == [])
+# Fail-safe AND already a red NOT READY banner naming the entity: a refusal on
+# top of that adds nothing an operator can act on.
+check("a missing soc_entity is left to the readiness banner",
+      validate_startup_config(base(soc_entity=""), -5000, 5000) == [])
+check("a missing batt_entity likewise",
+      validate_startup_config(base(batt_entity=""), -5000, 5000) == [])
+# The transient case. ESPHome is routinely not up when the add-on boots, and
+# refusing here would turn a device that arrives late into a restart loop.
+check("a setpoint entity that is configured but not yet found starts",
+      validate_startup_config(base(), None, None) == [])
+check("meter_poll_s with thin but non-zero headroom starts",
+      validate_startup_config(base(meter_source="homewizard_local", p1_host="m",
+                                   meter_poll_s=20, meter_max_age_s=30),
+                              -5000, 5000) == [])
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+print("the refusal must be legible as a refusal, not as a crash")
+p = validate_startup_config(base(max_w=8000, setpoint_entity=""), -5000, 5000)
+check("several problems are all reported, not just the first", len(p) >= 1)
+refuse(p)   # prints the banner; the eye is the assertion for its wording
+err = ConfigRefused(p)
+check("ConfigRefused carries every problem", err.problems == p)
+check("...and str() names one of them", str(err) == p[0])
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+print("the LATE refusal, when the device only shows up after the gate has run")
+# ⚠️ This path had no test at all and no live demonstration - the review's
+# catch. ESPHome is routinely not up when the add-on boots, so hass.limits()
+# returns (None, None), the range checks are skipped, and run_control() is the
+# first place the device's real rating is ever known. Everything below is about
+# what happens when it turns out to conflict.
+from app.main import Controller            # noqa: E402
+
+
+class _LateHass:
+    """Reports the range only run_control() gets to see."""
+
+    def __init__(self, lo, hi):
+        self.lo, self.hi = lo, hi
+        self.writes = []
+
+    async def limits(self, entity):
+        return (self.lo, self.hi, 1.0)
+
+    async def number(self, *a, **k):
+        return 0.0
+
+    async def set_number(self, entity, value):
+        self.writes.append(value)
+        return True
+
+
+class _Store2:
+    data = {}
+
+    def set(self, *a):
+        pass
+
+
+class _Pub2:
+    enabled = False
+
+    def publish(self, *a, **k):
+        pass
+
+    def close(self):
+        pass
+
+
+def late(opts_over, lo, hi):
+    """Drive run_control() against a device that only reports (lo, hi) now.
+
+    ⚠️ Returns whether run_control() EXITED ON ITS OWN. That is the assertion
+    that matters: on a refusal it must return without entering the while loop,
+    and on a clean config it must not return at all. So the clean case is stopped
+    from outside after it has had time to write, rather than waited on - a
+    wait_for() here would just time out, which is the correct behaviour dressed
+    up as a failure.
+    """
+    async def go():
+        stop = asyncio.Event()
+        hass = _LateHass(lo, hi)
+        # A device narrower than the shipped 5000 W schema ceiling is exactly
+        # the case that cannot be reached through the Supervisor on the live
+        # install, so it is reached here instead.
+        c = Controller(base(**opts_over), hass, _Store2(), _Pub2(), stop=stop)
+        c.auto = True
+        task = asyncio.create_task(c.run_control())
+        for _ in range(30):                    # up to ~3 s
+            if task.done():
+                break
+            await asyncio.sleep(0.1)
+        exited = task.done()
+        if not exited:
+            c.stopping = True
+        await asyncio.wait_for(task, timeout=5)
+        return c, stop, hass, exited
+    return asyncio.run(go())
+
+c, stop, hass, exited = late({"max_w": 5000}, -3600.0, 3600.0)
+check("a device narrower than max_w, discovered late, is refused",
+      c.refused is not None and len(c.refused) == 1)
+check("...naming both values", why(c.refused, "5000") and why(c.refused, "3600"))
+check("...signalling amain to wind down", stop.is_set())
+check("...and returning instead of looping forever", exited)
+# The whole point: run_control() must not fall through into the while loop. A
+# single write here would mean it commanded the inverter under a config it had
+# just declared unusable.
+check("...having never entered the control loop, so it wrote nothing",
+      hass.writes == [])
+check("...and it is recorded in the event log an operator reads",
+      any("REFUSED" in e for e in c.events))
+
+# The same path when there is no conflict: it must NOT refuse, and it must
+# actually regulate - asserted by a write reaching the device, not by absence.
+c2, stop2, hass2, exited2 = late({"max_w": 2000}, -5000.0, 5000.0)
+check("a late device that agrees does not trip the re-check", c2.refused is None)
+check("...and the control loop runs, writing to the device", hass2.writes != [])
+check("...and does not signal a shutdown", not stop2.is_set() and not exited2)
+
+# ⚠️ THE FOOTGUN THE REVIEW FOUND. `stop` used to default to None, so this
+# construction was legal and the refusal path then returned into a live process
+# with no control loop, no exit and no further output.
+try:
+    Controller(base(), _LateHass(-5000.0, 5000.0), _Store2(), _Pub2())
+    check("a Controller with no stop Event is rejected at construction", False)
+except TypeError:
+    check("a Controller with no stop Event is rejected at construction", True)
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+print()
+if fails:
+    print(f"{len(fails)} FAILED: " + "; ".join(fails))
+    sys.exit(1)
+print("all checks passed")