ci: trigger a run on the rebased head

No content change. The gate never created a run for 0942228d - the newest
run stayed on d31a12b7, the pre-rebase head - so `checks / unit` had
nothing to report and sat pending. Why no run was created is CI-02 and
belongs to CI-01's owner; this commit only asks for one.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_015VXjA3LWccN1rJsk3okyPC

.gitattributes

@@ -8,3 +8,11 @@
 * text=auto eol=lf
 *.png binary
 *.gz  binary
+
+# `.gitea/workflows/*.yml` steps embed shell heredocs; a `\r` on the terminator
+# line means the heredoc never closes and the job fails on a syntax error that is
+# invisible in the diff. A Windows checkout with core.autocrlf=true would
+# reintroduce it on the next edit. CI-01.
+*.yml  text eol=lf
+*.yaml text eol=lf
+Dockerfile text eol=lf

.gitea/ci/Dockerfile

@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+# The image the add-on's tests run in (CI-01). This repo had NO CI at all before
+# that ticket - eight runnable test files, none of them ever run by a machine.
+#
+# ⚠️ THE DEPENDENCIES ARE THE SHIPPED ONES, FROM APK, AND THAT IS THE POINT.
+# goodwe_controller/Dockerfile installs `py3-aiohttp py3-paho-mqtt` from Alpine
+# packages rather than pip, because Alpine ships musl and there are no musl
+# wheels for aiohttp - pip would compile it from source on a client's Raspberry
+# Pi. Testing against pip-installed glibc wheels would be testing a different
+# add-on from the one that ships. Same base, same package manager, same names.
+#
+# ⚠️ NOT `FROM ghcr.io/home-assistant/...-base`. The real Dockerfile takes its
+# base from the Supervisor's `BUILD_FROM` build-arg, which is per-architecture
+# and not resolvable outside a Supervisor build. `alpine:3` is what those images
+# are, minus the s6 supervision the tests do not use - and it is already cached
+# on this runner's host, so the gate does not depend on a registry pull.
+#
+# ⚠️ The runner container itself CANNOT run these tests: it is Alpine with a bare
+# python3, no aiohttp, no pip (`No module named pip`; checked on the box, not
+# assumed). An image is not gold-plating here, it is the only option that does
+# not mutate a shared long-lived runner.
+FROM alpine:3
+RUN apk add --no-cache python3 py3-aiohttp py3-paho-mqtt

.gitea/workflows/checks.yml

@@ -0,0 +1,136 @@
+# CI-01: this repository's FIRST automated check. Before this file, admin/goodwe-addon
+# had no `.gitea/workflows/` directory at all - eight runnable test files, ~100 s
+# of real coverage including a wall-clock cadence test, and not one machine ever
+# ran them. Every merge here was a human reading a diff.
+#
+# ⚠️ NO `paths:` FILTER, AND ITS ABSENCE IS LOAD-BEARING. Branch protection on
+# release/1.0 requires the context `checks / unit (pull_request)`. Gitea leaves a
+# required context it never receives PENDING forever, so the moment this workflow
+# learns to sit a PR out, that PR becomes unmergeable. Condition a STEP if you
+# must; never the workflow.
+#
+# ⚠️ THE RUNNER IS SHARED WITH THE OTHER REPO'S RIG. `goodwe-runner` on
+# 192.168.2.147 carries the labels `self-hosted` and `goodwe-rig` and is
+# registered `:host`, and it is the only runner there is - so this job wears the
+# rig label without wanting a rig. Nothing below starts, stops, or reads the
+# `goodwe-sim` compose project or takes `sim/riglock.py`; it runs one short
+# container and exits. It does occupy the runner's single slot (`capacity: 1`),
+# so it QUEUES behind a rig campaign - a delayed verdict, never a destroyed one.
+#
+# NO JS ACTIONS: the runner image has no node, so `actions/checkout` cannot run.
+# Checkout is seven lines of git below.
+name: checks
+
+on:
+  pull_request:
+    branches: [release/1.0, master]
+  workflow_dispatch:
+
+concurrency:
+  # ⚠️ PER PULL REQUEST, NOT A BARE NAME. A shared group holds one running and
+  # one pending run, so a bare name lets a second PR supersede a first PR's run
+  # before any runner has picked it up - which is exactly what happened to the
+  # other repo's run 521 (four jobs, `started_at` at the Unix epoch,
+  # `runner_id: 0`, concluded `cancelled`, and the PR merged anyway). Do not
+  # replace this with a constant.
+  group: addon-checks-${{ github.event.pull_request.number || github.ref }}
+  cancel-in-progress: true
+
+jobs:
+  unit:
+    runs-on: [self-hosted, goodwe-rig]
+    timeout-minutes: 70   # ~4 to run; the rest is queueing for the single slot
+    env:
+      # ⚠️ UNDER /home/homelab, NOT $GITHUB_WORKSPACE (ENV-01, and re-measured
+      # during CI-01). act's workspace is `/root/.cache/act/<id>/hostexecutor`, a
+      # path that exists only INSIDE the runner container. Hand it to the host's
+      # snap-confined dockerd and the build fails with "failed to read
+      # dockerfile", or - worse, and this is the documented case - a bind mount
+      # resolves to an EMPTY DIRECTORY with no error at all. /home/homelab is
+      # mirrored 1:1 into the runner and is under $HOME, where snap confinement
+      # accepts it. The same probe under /tmp failed and under $HOME succeeded.
+      WS: /home/homelab/ci/addon-checks-${{ github.run_number }}
+    steps:
+      # ⚠️ THE CHECKOUT IS TWO LEVELS BELOW THE MOUNT ROOT, DELIBERATELY.
+      # test_freeze.py's find_hwsim() reads `HERE.parents[1] / "goodwe" / "sim"`,
+      # looking for the infra repo as a SIBLING of this one. Check out flat -
+      # goodwe_controller directly at the mount root - and `parents[1]` does not
+      # exist, so the test dies on `IndexError: 1` before its first assertion.
+      # Measured during CI-01; the flat layout was tried first and did exactly
+      # that. $WS/goodwe-addon/goodwe_controller gives parents[1] == $WS.
+      - name: checkout into a path the host shares (git; no node for actions/checkout)
+        env:
+          URL: ${{ github.server_url }}/${{ github.repository }}.git
+          TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
+        run: |
+          set -eu
+          rm -rf "$WS" && mkdir -p "$WS/goodwe-addon" && cd "$WS/goodwe-addon"
+          git init -q .
+          git remote add origin "$(echo "$URL" | sed "s#://#://x-access-token:${TOKEN}@#")"
+          git fetch -q --depth 1 origin "$GITHUB_REF" || git fetch -q --depth 1 origin "$GITHUB_SHA"
+          git checkout -qf FETCH_HEAD
+          echo "checked out $(git log --oneline -1)"
+
+      - name: build the test image (shipped deps, from apk - see .gitea/ci/Dockerfile)
+        run: |
+          set -eu
+          docker build -q -t goodwe-addon-checks:1 "$WS/goodwe-addon/.gitea/ci" >/dev/null
+          docker run --rm goodwe-addon-checks:1 python3 -c \
+            'import aiohttp, paho.mqtt.client as m, sys; print("python", sys.version.split()[0], "aiohttp", aiohttp.__version__)'
+
+      # ⚠️ THE FILE LIST IS DERIVED FROM THE TREE, NOT TYPED HERE. A hand-written
+      # list is how a new test file joins the repo and is never run - the exact
+      # shape of failure this ticket exists to close. The step globs `test_*.py`,
+      # prints the count, and REFUSES A COUNT OF ZERO: a loop over an empty glob
+      # exits 0 and would report a green gate that examined nothing.
+      #
+      # ⚠️ test_loop.py TAKES ~93 SECONDS OF WALL CLOCK ON PURPOSE (its own
+      # docstring says so, and says why: it drives the real `run_control()`
+      # against a real wall-clock floor, and mocking the clock would leave the
+      # assertion testing the mock). It is not hung. Do not "fix" it with a
+      # shorter timeout - a 60 s limit was tried during CI-01 and reported
+      # exactly the false hang the docstring predicts.
+      #
+      # ⚠️ WHAT THIS RUN DOES NOT COVER, stated because a pass here would
+      # otherwise over-claim. test_freeze.py's third section wants the infra
+      # repo's `sim/hwsim.py` to drive a real HTTP meter through the real
+      # transport. admin/goodwe is PRIVATE (checked via the API) and this
+      # workflow's GITHUB_TOKEN is minted for THIS repository only, so hwsim is
+      # absent here and `find_hwsim()` returns None. The rest of the file runs
+      # and passes. It does so SILENTLY - the file prints nothing to say the
+      # hwsim section was skipped - so "test_freeze.py: PASS" below is a weaker
+      # claim than it looks. That belongs to whoever owns test_freeze.py next;
+      # naming it here is the least this gate can do about it.
+      - name: the add-on's own tests
+        run: |
+          set -eu
+          docker run --rm -v "$WS:/w:ro" goodwe-addon-checks:1 sh -eu -c '
+            cd /w/goodwe-addon/goodwe_controller
+            set -- test_*.py
+            if [ "$1" = "test_*.py" ]; then
+              echo "NO test_*.py FOUND - the mount is empty or the layout moved. NOTHING has been checked."
+              exit 1
+            fi
+            echo "$# test file(s) to run"
+            rc=0
+            for f in "$@"; do
+              start=$(date +%s)
+              if python3 "$f" > /tmp/out 2>&1; then
+                echo "PASS  $f  ($(( $(date +%s) - start ))s)"
+              else
+                echo "FAIL  $f  ($(( $(date +%s) - start ))s)"
+                tail -40 /tmp/out
+                rc=1
+              fi
+            done
+            exit $rc
+          '
+
+      - name: clean up
+        if: always()
+        run: |
+          rm -rf "$WS" || true
+          # Root-owned by this runner inside a directory the `homelab` user owns,
+          # and sudo on that box is interactive-only, so the user cannot clean
+          # this up and the job that made it has to.
+          ls -1dt /home/homelab/ci/addon-checks-*/ 2>/dev/null | tail -n +6 | xargs -r rm -rf || true

HANDOVER.md

@@ -52,9 +52,40 @@ Run the checks before deploying. No framework needed:
 
 ```bash
 cd goodwe_controller
-python3 test_control.py && python3 test_maintenance.py && python3 test_arbiter.py
+python3 test_control.py && python3 test_maintenance.py && python3 test_arbiter.py \
+  && python3 test_validate.py && python3 test_p1.py && python3 test_watchdog.py \
+  && python3 test_loop.py
 ```
 
+`test_watchdog.py` covers SAFETY-02's logic, its arming gate (derived from the
+real arbiter, not passed in), its trip path, and the fact that the latch survives
+an add-on restart. Its headline validation is not here at all: `sim/replay_sign.py`
+in the infra repo drives the same module over the two captured RS485 days and must
+fire on all four of the 2026-08-20 episodes and stay silent on 2026-08-23. That
+needs both checkouts:
+
+```bash
+GOODWE_ADDON_REPO=/path/to/goodwe-addon python3 sim/replay_sign.py
+GOODWE_ADDON_REPO=/path/to/goodwe-addon python3 sim/replay_sign.py --stub
+```
+
+The second run checks the grader still *discriminates* rather than merely still
+passing — a watchdog that never trips and one that always trips must both be
+rejected.
+
+⚠️ **If you are testing the failsafe by hand, note that stopping and starting the
+add-on will not clear a trip.** That is the point of it; use the *Start / stop
+control* button twice, or delete `sign_tripped` from `/data/state.json`.
+
+⚠️ `test_loop.py` takes about **95 seconds** (measured 93 s) and that is not a bug. It
+drives the real control loop, which sleeps 1 s a tick, eight times over, to prove a
+wall-clock property about it (SAFETY-12); mocking the clock there would leave the
+assertion testing the mock. The other six suites together are ~440 checks and finish in
+seconds — `test_watchdog.py` spends ~3 s of that driving a real `Controller` through a
+trip. If you shorten `test_loop.py`'s windows, re-measure and correct this figure —
+an understated runtime is what makes a slow test look like a hung one, and a slow test
+that looks hung gets deleted.
+
 ---
 
 ## 3. Known broken / unfinished

goodwe_controller/CHANGELOG.md

@@ -1,5 +1,351 @@
 # Changelog
 
+## Unreleased
+
+**A computed setpoint over the rating now alarms instead of being clipped in
+silence (SAFETY-03).** The clamp was never the missing half - specs.md 10.3
+records an unclamped integrator climbing ~130 W per 4 s past 10 kW and reporting
+**14 768 W** while pinned at the 5 kW rail, and a silent clamp turns exactly that
+into a flat, legal-looking 5000 W hold. `write_setpoint()` - the one path every
+write takes, cycle, heartbeat, operator button and shutdown alike - now clamps to
+the **validated** `max_w` and reports whether the raw value differed, and
+`Controller.check_output_clamp()` raises `OUTPUT_CLAMP`: a persistent
+notification (`goodwe_output_clamp`), an `ERROR`, an event row and a red status
+banner. **Not a trip**: the clamped value is written and the loop keeps running,
+per 11.2's "clamp *and alarm*".
+
+**The bound is `max_w` and nothing is `min()`ed at runtime.** Section 14 requires
+the loop clamp and the driver's `setpoint_limit_w` to agree, validated at startup
+with a refusal on mismatch - which CFG-01 already ships. The device range is
+still applied second, as defence in depth; after a successful validation it
+cannot engage, so if it ever does, that is louder than the first stage and it
+alarms too, naming the bound. No new config key: the guard's limit is the one
+the operator already set, and its cadence is a module constant.
+
+**`Decision` grew `i_clamped` / `clamped` booleans, and that is the load-bearing
+part.** `reason` is one string that later stages overwrite - a cycle that clamps
+the integrator and is then slew limited reports `slew-limited`, and one that
+clamps while saturated reports `saturated-freeze`. Both *are* the winding case,
+so an alarm keyed on the string is silent on exactly the cycles it exists for:
+mutating main.py back onto `"clamp" in decision.reason` drops the 10.3 replay
+from 2 engagements to **0**. The flags are set where the clamp happens and are
+never overwritten. On a default install (`integrator_max_w` following `max_w`)
+the integrator bound is the one that bites and the output clamp is unreachable,
+so the integrator flag is the whole signal.
+
+**Distinct from the saturation freeze, and checked in the negative.** A clamp is
+a *software* bug signal; saturation is the *hardware* failing to follow a legal
+command, and its action is to freeze the integrator, not to alarm. They share no
+reason code, notification id, status row or counter. `test_clamp.py` drives a
+loop that saturates for 10 consecutive cycles at 1.4 % of the rating and asserts
+zero clamp notifications, zero engagements, no log row and no status row - after
+first asserting that the saturation freeze *really did* engage, so the silence is
+an observation rather than a scenario that did nothing.
+
+**The action log is coalesced per episode, and that was a real bug.**
+`log_event()` keeps 40 rows; one row per engagement flushed the entire ring
+within 40 cycles of a winding loop, and the first thing it evicted was
+SAFETY-18's own `METER FROZEN?` row - this guard silencing another guard's log.
+Caught by `test_freeze.py` going red, not by inspection. One row per episode now,
+carrying the exact engagement count read off the counter.
+
+**A non-finite setpoint is refused, and it was worse than passing one through.**
+`nan` is loss of input (11.1 rule 1: command zero, keep commanding), not an
+out-of-range value. Measured: because every comparison against `nan` is False, a
+naive `max(-limit, min(limit, nan))` keeps its *first* argument and turns a `nan`
+into a command **at the full rating**, then reports it as a clamp engagement.
+
+**Review fixes (PR #12).** Three, and the first was a behavioural regression
+this PR introduced: `clamp_to_rating()` **returned early** from the `max_w`
+stage, so the device bound - the "applied second, defence in depth" half - was
+reached only when the rating bound had NOT fired. The bigger the overshoot, the
+less the guard did. At `max_w` 5000 against a +-4000 device, +9999 emitted
+**+5000 W, outside the device range**, while a mere +4500 was correctly held to
++4000. That undid the pre-PR guarantee "never send a value the device will
+reject outright" and undercut this module's own case for clamping to `max_w`
+rather than a runtime `min()`, which rests entirely on that stage catching a
+validation that did not run. Both stages now always run, the result names both
+bounds when both bite (`max_w+device`), and the property is asserted over a
+492-point sweep rather than on witness values - the defect was invisible to any
+single-value check that happened to sit inside one stage. No reachable
+production path was found for it (two validation gates and the arbiter bound sit
+in front), but latent is not harmless.
+
+Two harness defects, both of the kind where a check cannot fail for the value it
+forbids: the hysteresis check issued `range(CLEAR_CYCLES - 1)` clean cycles,
+which at `CLEAR_CYCLES = 1` issues **zero** and passes while printing
+"0 clean cycles do NOT clear it" - green for the chatter setting the constant
+exists to prevent. And the re-assert check stimulated at `REASSERT_S + 9`, green
+for **any** value including 3600, i.e. the hour of silence the module promises
+not to produce. Both are now written in wall-clock terms that do not move when
+the constant does: **one** clean cycle must not clear the alarm, and a loop
+pinned across the 900 s capacity-tariff quarter must speak at least 5 times and
+on no more than 20 % of cycles. `CLEAR_CYCLES = 1`, `REASSERT_S = 3600` and
+`REASSERT_S = 0` each go red.
+
+**`test_clamp.py`** (new, assert-based, no framework) covers the clamp
+arithmetic and its boundaries - exactly +-`max_w` is *not* an engagement - the
+alarm's edge/re-assert/hysteresis cadence, the 10.3 runaway replayed through the
+real `Controller.cycle()` against an unclamped transcription, the saturation
+negative, and the direct-write path. Six author mutations reproduced red,
+including "clamp kept, alarm deleted" (the historical build) and "alarm keyed on
+`reason`". Two of the check's own hypotheses about how the freeze and the clamp
+interact were **refused by the sweep** and rewritten to what it measured: a
+frozen cycle *can* clamp, and does so exactly when the integrator reverses.
+
+`test_freeze.py`'s notification assertions now filter by `notification_id`
+rather than by service - the add-on raises more than one kind of notification,
+and its railing scenarios legitimately raise this one too.
+
+**Cheap-window maintenance charging was unreachable at the shipped defaults, and
+now the config that makes it unreachable is refused (MAINT-04).** `config.yaml`
+shipped `max_w: 2000` against `maintenance_charge_w: 2500`. The cheap-window
+shaping files `Claim.limit(hi = -maintenance_charge_w)` against the supervised
+SAFETY limit's `lo = -max_w`, so `lo > hi` — the arbiter's clause 3, correctly
+resolved to **0 W** and logged as a CONTRADICTION. **Maintenance silently never
+charged in a cheap window on a default install**, and the only evidence read
+like a bug in the arbiter rather than like the two numbers an operator set.
+Measured against the real arbiter, loop asking +500 W:
+
+```
+max_w=2000  hi=-2500  ->     +0 W  contradiction=True
+max_w=2500  hi=-2500  ->  -2500 W  limited by supervised(max_w)
+max_w=3000  hi=-2500  ->  -2500 W  limited by maintenance(cheap-window charge)
+```
+
+`validate_startup_config()` now refuses `maintenance_charge_w > max_w` (rule 6),
+the same shape as CFG-01's `sign_disagree_w >= max_w`: a number the operator set,
+overridden by a layer they cannot see. Equality is reachable (`-max_w` is a
+single valid point) and deliberately not refused. Verified by starting the
+add-on on the pre-fix pair: exit 78, the refusal banner, no traceback.
+
+**`maintenance_discharge_w` was checked, not assumed, and it is NOT the same
+case.** The shaping is not symmetric. The drain phase does not shape the loop,
+it OWNS the actuator — `Claim.set(P_MAINTENANCE, +discharge_w)` — and a SET is
+*clamped* by the limits above it rather than contradicted by them. 2500 against
+a 2000 W ceiling emits **+2000 W**, and the arbiter's own `explain()` prints
+`maintenance -> 2000 W, limited by supervised(max_w)` every cycle. Nothing is
+silent and energy still moves; the cycle completes slower (13.8 kWh usable at
+2000 W is ~6.9 h against the 720 min drain timeout). **Warned about, not
+refused.**
+
+**The shipped defaults changed so the validator does not reject them.**
+`maintenance_charge_w` and `maintenance_discharge_w` are now **2000**, at the
+shipped `max_w`. `max_w` was deliberately NOT raised instead: it is the
+supervised safety ceiling and raising a default upward ships more power to every
+new install. Raising `max_w` (the reference install runs 5000) is what unlocks a
+faster maintenance cycle — raise it first, then these. `test_validate.py` now
+reads `config.yaml` itself and asserts the shipped numbers pass the rule, so a
+default that the validator refuses cannot ship again.
+
+### ⚠️ Upgrading an existing default install: the add-on may refuse to start
+
+An install still carrying `maintenance_charge_w: 2500` against `max_w: 2000`
+now meets rule 6 and **exits 78 with the refusal banner** instead of starting.
+That is the intended behaviour — the configuration was already broken, it was
+just silent about it — but an add-on that will not come back after an update
+needs the fix stated here rather than only in the log.
+
+**The fix, either way: set `maintenance_charge_w` to `2000` or lower, OR raise
+`max_w` to `2500` or higher** (Settings → Add-ons → GoodWe RS485 Controller →
+Configuration), then start it. The banner in the log says the same thing and
+names both numbers.
+
+Whether you hit this at all depends on whether the Supervisor kept the old
+value, and **both cases are covered above because we did not verify which one
+applies here.** The Supervisor merges an add-on's *stored* options over the
+defaults in `config.yaml`, so:
+
+- **A key the operator never edited** re-derives from the new `config.yaml` and
+  becomes 2000 on upgrade. Non-event, nothing to do.
+- **A key the operator did set** persists at 2500 and the add-on refuses to
+  start until it is changed. Note this includes anyone who used the
+  Configuration page's YAML editor, which writes the whole options block back —
+  so "I never touched that field" is not a guarantee the old value is gone.
+
+⚠️ **This is reasoned from the Supervisor's documented merge behaviour, not
+measured on the live install.** The reference install's stored options could not
+be read (`/api/hassio/` refuses a long-lived token) and probing it was out of
+scope — it regulates a real battery. It runs `max_w: 5000` and is unaffected
+either way.
+
+⚠️ **Known, deliberately left, and worth a follow-up:** `main.py` and
+`maintenance.py` still fall back to **2500** when the key is absent from the
+options dict, while `config.yaml` and `validate.py` now say 2000. Unreachable on
+a Supervisor install (every key is always supplied) and reachable only from
+tests/`sim`. The real fix is one source of truth for option defaults, which is
+bigger than this ticket and touches files another ticket is in.
+
+## 0.5.2
+
+**A meter frozen at a wrong-but-fresh value now raises an alarm. It still is not
+stopped.** (SAFETY-18)
+
+A meter that answers `200 OK` with a stale document forever is *arriving* on
+every poll, so every freshness mechanism in the stack reads it as healthy:
+`meter_max_age_s` is reset by each response, the firmware watchdog is fed by the
+heartbeat and by a sample age that never climbs, and the arbiter contributes only
+±`max_w`. The loop integrates a constant error and rails — replaying the real
+`compute()` at 15 s cycles, in 150/60/30 s at `max_w: 2000` for a meter frozen at
+350/1000/≥3000 W, and 360/135/75 s at `max_w: 5000`. **The live install runs
+`max_w: 5000`**, which is both the schema maximum and the device rating.
+
+The new detector (`app/freeze.py`) is a **conjunction**, not the bare
+`unchanged_s` threshold TEL-05 measured and rejected:
+
+    unchanged_s ≥ meter_freeze_s   AND   |command| within 5 % of max_w
+
+Both terms already existed and were already on the status page. They fail for
+independent reasons: at the converged point the command is nowhere near the rail,
+and at the rail against a real load the kWh registers move within seconds. At the
+shipped 300 s there is also a structural relation, not just a margin — the
+slowest a healthy 1 Wh register can tick and still look unchanged is 12 W, which
+is inside the 15 W deadband, so the command there is parked at 0 W and the two
+halves cannot both be true.
+
+**Notification only, deliberately.** An HA persistent notification (fixed
+`notification_id`, so a repeat replaces rather than stacks), an `ERROR` log line,
+a UI event and a red status banner. No claim, no latch, no 0 W: a false trip
+parks the battery and the operator's next move is to switch the guard off; a
+false notification costs an alert. The trip is a separate decision that needs
+data from a real install.
+
+- New option `meter_freeze_s` (default 300, range 60–3600, no "off").
+- **Only `meter_source: homewizard_local` is covered** — it is the only transport
+  that sees the meter's own document. Everywhere else the status page says
+  **NOT COVERED** rather than "armed".
+- `DOCS.md` now states the **capacity-tariff exposure** this does *not* close:
+  `peak_cap_w` caps maintenance charging and nothing caps the loop, so a lying
+  meter can drive a 5 kW unattended import, and ≥15 minutes of that sets the
+  month's billed peak (measured: one 4998 W quarter moved a monthly peak from
+  4832 → 5013 W). That cap is SAFETY-07.
+- `test_freeze.py` grades it in both directions: silent over 40 minutes of the
+  live house's real converged capture (committed as
+  `scenarios/p1-age-2026-08-26.jsonl.gz`), silent over an hour of TEL-05's
+  low-power case where a bare threshold is shown to fire, and alarming on a
+  genuinely frozen meter driven over real HTTP through the real
+  `HomeWizardLocalSource` — against the rig's own `hwsim` `freeze` fault when the
+  infra repo is reachable, an equivalent stub otherwise. Its negative twin is the
+  load-bearing one: the same railed command against a meter that is still moving
+  must stay silent at the same threshold.
+
+## 0.5.1
+
+**SAFETY-02's latch now survives an add-on restart, which is the difference
+between a latch and a pause.** `auto` was persisted and `sign_wd.tripped` was
+not, so reconstructing the `Controller` against the same store — exactly what a
+container restart does — brought it back **armed, into the same fault, with no
+operator involved**: `tripped=False`, banner back to `NOT READY`, and it resumed
+commanding (measured: −1000 W, −2000 W) before re-tripping 180 s later. Under a
+Supervisor that restarts a crashed add-on that is a loop of three-minute
+wrong-direction bursts — and "restart the add-on" is the first thing an operator
+looking at a `FAILSAFE` banner and a 0 W inverter will try.
+
+`sign_tripped` and `sign_reason` are now `Store` keys beside the maintenance
+state, written the moment the trip happens (reason first, flag second, so a crash
+between the two can never persist a latch with no explanation) and restored in
+`Controller.__init__`. Cleared only by the operator's start. `DOCS.md` said "it
+does not clear itself"; that was false across a restart and now is not.
+
+Also in this release, all of it review follow-up rather than new behaviour:
+
+- **The arming gate is tested against the real arbiter.** It was the decision the
+  whole ticket turns on and it was asserted in three comment blocks and verified
+  by nothing — every case passed `following` in as a literal. `test_watchdog.py`
+  now derives it from `resolve()` across twelve claim configurations, including
+  the redirect case `winner == "loop"` alone would have got wrong and the `lo`
+  limit that raises magnitude without flipping sign.
+- **The MQTT `status: "failsafe"` value is tested.** The check that claimed to
+  cover it restated the assertion three lines above it and never touched the
+  payload.
+- **A forward hazard written down where it will be read, and made to bite.**
+  `winner == "loop"` disarms the watchdog under any higher-priority SET claim.
+  Today only maintenance and the safety stops emit one and neither follows the
+  meter; a peak-shaving strategy at `P_PEAK` **does**, and would blind the
+  watchdog for every peak event.
+
+  The gate is now `watchdog.loop_is_following()`, called by both `main.py` and
+  the test, for the same reason `disagrees()` was extracted: the test held a
+  *transcription* of the shipped expression, so editing the shipped gate alone to
+  `winner in ("loop", "peak")` left every suite green while the watchdog went
+  blind. Two copies, and the one that drifts is the one doing the grading.
+
+  ⚠️ Extracting it was not sufficient on its own. The realistic P_PEAK row —
+  peak shaving asking for *more* than the loop — still could not detect the
+  widened gate, because the magnitude term rejects it regardless and masks the
+  winner term. A second row with peak asking for *less* isolates `winner` as the
+  only deciding term, and that is the one that turns red.
+- **The worked example described a configuration that does not ship.** At the
+  defaults `maintenance_charge_w` (2500) exceeds `max_w` (2000), so that claim is
+  an arbiter *contradiction* resolving to 0 W, not a −2500 W charge. The example
+  is now written at 1500 W. (The contradiction is a real pre-existing bug —
+  a default cheap-window maintenance charge silently never happens — filed
+  separately, deliberately not fixed here.)
+- **`disagrees()` is public**, so `sim/replay_sign.py` stops carrying its own copy
+  of the predicate it grades.
+- `held_s` takes the clock instead of reading one, restoring the pure-function
+  property the module advertises.
+- **The `sign_reason`-before-`sign_tripped` write ordering is enforced, not just
+  documented.** Swapping the two lines used to pass every check. A store that
+  fails the second write now proves the property the ordering exists for: what
+  survives a crash mid-trip is a reason with no latch, never a latch with no
+  explanation.
+- Measured figures corrected throughout: 93.4 % / 4212 of 17280 (was 92.9 % /
+  4127 of 16349), per-cluster 0.3 / 0.9 / 10.5 / 0.0 %.
+
+## 0.5.0
+
+**SAFETY-02 — the sign-disagreement watchdog.** The add-on now watches whether
+the setpoint it is emitting and the grid figure it is regulating on point the
+same way. If they oppose each other, both over `sign_disagree_w` (300 W), for
+`sign_disagree_s` (180 s) **continuously**, it files a failsafe claim at
+`P_SAFETY`, commands **0 W**, and latches there until an operator starts control
+again. New module `app/watchdog.py`; new options `sign_disagree_w` and
+`sign_disagree_s`.
+
+This is the gap the existing failsafes leave open. The stale-input watchdog asks
+whether the meter is still talking, the saturation freeze asks whether the
+inverter can follow, the output clamp asks whether the number is too big — a
+loop can pass all three while charging the battery out of the grid, because the
+only thing wrong is the sign. On 2026-08-20 a commercial controller did exactly
+that four times in one day, for up to 77 minutes at a stretch, and reached a
+commanded −14 768 W against a ±5000 W inverter.
+
+Validated against that day. `sim/replay_sign.py` in the infra repo drives this
+module over the committed RS485 captures of both 2026-08-20 (the four episodes)
+and 2026-08-23 (healthy): **18 trips on the fault day, every one inside a window
+`NOTES.md` §4.7 accounts for, and 0 on the healthy day.** The four episodes do
+share one signature rather than merely resembling each other — sign agreement
+runs 0.3 / 0.9 / 10.5 / 0.0 % inside them against 93.4 % on the healthy day.
+
+Three decisions worth knowing about:
+
+- **It is disarmed whenever the grid-following loop is not what is driving.**
+  Sign agreement is a property of a loop that follows the meter. A maintenance
+  grid charge opposes the meter *by design* — 2500 W of charge into a house
+  drawing 500 W is +3000 W on the meter against a −2500 W command, for hours —
+  and armed unconditionally this would trip on every maintenance cycle. The gate
+  tests the emitted number, not the winning claim's name: a limit claim can let
+  the loop "win" and still replace its value with one pointing the other way.
+- **The trip latches.** Commanding 0 W removes the command side of the
+  comparison, so the disagreement always clears the moment the trip works.
+  Un-latched, this would trip, clear, and hand the actuator back to the loop that
+  was driving the wrong way, every three minutes forever.
+- **`sign_disagree_w` at or above `max_w` is refused at startup** (validator rule
+  5). The arbiter never lets a command exceed `max_w`, so such a threshold makes
+  the watchdog incapable of firing while the status page still reports it armed.
+  A disarmed guard that advertises itself as armed is the failure mode this
+  project keeps refusing to ship.
+
+What it does **not** catch, stated so nobody assumes otherwise: an inverter that
+acts opposite to what it was told moves the meter *further* the same way, so
+command and meter agree while everything runs away. That is the saturation
+freeze's job, which compares the command against the battery's actual power.
+
+`test_validate.py`'s "the smallest sane max_w still starts" case now names a
+reachable sign threshold, because a 1 W ceiling genuinely does disarm the 300 W
+default and is now correctly refused.
+
 ## 0.4.0
 
 **CFG-01.** The add-on now refuses to start on a configuration it cannot honour,
@@ -67,6 +413,121 @@ 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`).
 
+**SAFETY-12.** The control loop now evaluates on a clock as well as on a change.
+`run_control()` ran `cycle()` only when the meter value differed from the
+previous poll, so a meter that repeated a value ran **no control cycles at
+all** - while the heartbeat went on re-emitting the last command and the
+firmware went on putting it on the wire every 2 s. Layer 1 stayed fed, every
+indicator read healthy, and a command computed from an old reading kept being
+executed through whatever the load did next. Measured on the rig during TEL-05:
+70 s at a literally constant 350.0 W with 14 arrivals and zero cycles.
+
+**It was worse than a latency limit: it was a safety claim that could not
+fire.** `stale_input_s` and the `inputs missing -> 0 W` claim both live *inside*
+`cycle()`. Pre-fix, if the meter value happened to be constant, `cycle()` was
+never called again - so that claim had no way to run. Constant meter, SoC entity
+dying at t=4 s, same binary:
+
+```
+pre-fix    writes: [(0.0, 220.0), (0.0, 220.0), (10.1, 220.0)]
+           final target: 220.0 W   reason: 'loop -> 220 W'
+post-fix   writes: [(0.0, 220.0), (0.0, 220.0), (3.0, 430.0), (9.1, 0.0), (10.1, 0.0)]
+           final target: 0.0 W     reason: 'safety -> 0 W'
+```
+
+The pre-fix controller held 220 W through the entire input outage with its
+status line still reading `loop -> 220 W`, and layer 1 does not cover that case
+on a `meter_source: off` install: no P1 age sensor is published, so the firmware
+has nothing to veto on, while the heartbeat keeps its watchdog fed. So the old
+behaviour was not "holds a stale command safely" - it was a failsafe that a
+repeating meter switched off. `test_loop.py` asserts both halves.
+
+`cycle_floor_s` (default **15 s**) is a deadline on the gap between cycles, not
+a second scheduler: every cycle resets it, whichever trigger fired. On a healthy
+meter it never elapses, so the cycle rate, the write sequence and therefore the
+per-cycle gain the tuning was measured against are unchanged - asserted in
+`test_loop.py` by driving the real loop twice on one binary (a huge
+`cycle_floor_s` reproduces the old behaviour exactly) and comparing the
+commanded values.
+
+The reset is not the only thing holding that up, and the other argument is the
+sturdier one: the combined cycle rate is `max(arrival rate, 1/floor)`, never the
+sum. At 1/15 s the floor is strictly slower than the ~1/5 s arrival rate, so
+even a hypothetical floor racing the arrivals could not exceed the nominal
+healthy rate. The re-tune is unreachable by construction. ⚠️ That holds only
+while `cycle_floor_s` stays above the meter's update interval, and the schema
+minimum is 5 s - which is exactly the reference meter's interval. Nothing
+enforces the relationship; `validate.py` is the obvious home for it and does not
+have it yet.
+
+Observed over six real minutes on the same rig, one binary, meter held at a
+literally constant 350.0 W: **before, 1 cycle** (at startup) and then nothing,
+the command stuck at 220 W against a 350 W import for the rest of the window.
+**After, 24 cycles**, worst gap 15.14 s, and the ordinary PI ramp doing its job -
+220, 430, 650, 860, 1080, 1300, 1510, 1730, 1940, 2000 W, one step per cycle,
+rail at t=136 s and flat after. Three minutes with the meter parked at the
+target instead: **1 cycle before, 12 after, and 19 writes either way - the same
+19**. Three minutes on a normally-changing meter: **36 cycles and 49 writes on
+both sides, the same values in the same order.** The heartbeat write count never
+moves; the only writes the fix adds are the ten the loop was supposed to be
+making all along.
+
+15 s is bracketed, not round.
+
+**Below it, ~11 s, and it arises more routinely than a dropped poll.**
+`HomeWizardLocalSource` polls at 5.0 s against a meter that updates every 4.97 s
+(NOTES.md:640). Two near-equal periods beat, so roughly once every ~14 minutes
+the poller steps over an update entirely - a ~10 s gap between changed values on
+a perfectly healthy meter, plus up to 1 s for the 1 s tick to notice. A failed
+HTTP poll (retried on the next tick, no backoff) adds another 5 s. The floor
+sits above the beat-skip so it does not fire on that alone; what it takes to
+reach 15 s is a beat-skip *and* a failed poll coinciding.
+
+**Above it, 30 s.** `meter_max_age_s` is 30 s, past which there is no reading to
+evaluate, and the firmware's ingest veto is also 30 s - so the loop is
+guaranteed to have re-decided at least twice inside any window in which layer 1
+might otherwise be the only thing deciding. ⚠️ The default is therefore not
+independently justified at 15: if the firmware's veto ever moves, this moves
+with it. Noted beside the constant in `main.py`.
+
+It is also exactly `stale_input_s`, this system's existing answer to "how long
+may we hold without re-deciding".
+
+A floor cycle runs the **full** law on the same inputs, integrator included. In
+P1 mode the freshness question is already answered upstream and answered harder
+- past `meter_max_age_s` the reading is None, which is "inputs missing", which
+is a `P_SAFETY` 0 W claim - so a floor cycle there can only ever run on a reading
+this system already calls fresh. ⚠️ That is transport-conditional: with
+`meter_source: off`, `read_inputs()` takes the grid figure straight from
+`hass.number()` with **no age gate at all**, so a Home Assistant entity that has
+gone quiet reads as current on that path, with or without this change. Running
+the full law is still right there - the alternative is a degraded second law
+reasoning about an age nobody measured - but the floor does not make that path
+fresh. The integrator advances per *cycle*, not per second,
+so bounding the gap bounds the accumulation; `integrator_max_w` bounds it after
+that. A gentler second law for floor cycles would be a second set of dynamics
+nobody can test on this hardware.
+
+⚠️ **This is not a freeze detector**, and TEL-05 established one cannot be built
+here: at the converged -10 W target a 1 Wh register needs ~6 minutes to move
+while the power figure legitimately repeats, so any threshold on `unchanged_s`
+false-trips at the exact operating point we run at. Nothing in this change
+decides whether a repeated reading is *true*. It stops "the number is the same"
+from meaning "do not think". The consequence, stated plainly: against a meter
+genuinely frozen at a wrong value the loop will now correct toward that wrong
+value rather than hold a stale command, bounded by `max_w`, the arbiter and the
+device rating. That was already what happened to a lying meter whose value
+merely jittered; bit-exact repetition was never a safety property.
+
+`DOCS.md`'s "Saturation is counted in cycles, not seconds" section documented
+the old behaviour as an accepted deviation. It is **qualified, not deleted**:
+the deviation survives (the window is still counted in cycles, and 3 x 15 s is
+still not the specification's 10 s) but it is now bounded at 45 s instead of
+open-ended, and the passage's second justification - "nothing accumulates while
+it is stalled" - is called out as having covered integrator windup and not
+staleness, which was the actual hazard. The same wrong argument in
+`control.py`'s saturation comment is corrected too.
+
 **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.

goodwe_controller/DOCS.md

@@ -24,9 +24,16 @@ The inverter **holds its last command forever** — it has no meter-timeout. So:
   commanding it.
 - This add-on commands 0 W when its inputs go missing, when you stop control,
   and when it shuts down.
+- This add-on commands 0 W **and latches there** if what it is commanding and
+  what the meter reads point opposite ways for three minutes — see "The
+  sign-disagreement failsafe" below.
 - The **optional RS485 e-stop** is the only thing that covers this machine
   dying. Without it, a failed host leaves the battery latched at its last
   command until someone intervenes.
+- This add-on **raises an alarm — and nothing more —** when the meter keeps
+  answering with a reading that never changes while the command sits at the
+  rail. See "The frozen-meter alarm" and, before you rely on it, "Capacity-tariff
+  exposure of the grid-following loop".
 
 **If anything looks wrong: stop the add-on.** That commands 0 W and the
 hardware holds it there.
@@ -272,11 +279,69 @@ behind it would trip the firmware watchdog on a system that is working fine.
 | `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. A cycle is one *changed* meter reading, not a fixed period - see the note below. **Do not set to 1** |
+| `saturation_cycles` | 3 | How many consecutive cycles before freezing. A cycle is one meter update or `cycle_floor_s`, whichever comes first - 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 |
+| `cycle_floor_s` | 15 | The longest the loop may go without evaluating. A deadline on the gap between cycles, reset by every cycle — on a healthy meter it never elapses and changes nothing. Raise it only if your meter is slower than ~10 s; it must stay under `meter_max_age_s`, past which there is no reading to evaluate anyway |
 | `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) |
+| `sign_disagree_w` | 300 | Both the command and the meter must exceed this before a sign difference counts. Must stay **below `max_w`** or the watchdog can never fire, and the add-on refuses to start |
+| `sign_disagree_s` | 180 | How long they must stay opposed, continuously, before the failsafe trips |
+
+#### The sign-disagreement failsafe
+
+If the setpoint this add-on is emitting and the grid figure it is regulating on
+point **opposite ways** — charging the battery while the house imports, or
+discharging it while the house exports — with both over `sign_disagree_w`, for
+`sign_disagree_s` **continuously**, the add-on commands **0 W** and holds it
+there. The banner reads `FAILSAFE`, the commissioning list says which two
+numbers disagreed and for how long, and the `Controller status` entity reports
+`failsafe`.
+
+**It does not clear itself, and restarting the add-on does not clear it either.**
+Pressing *Start / stop control* twice — stop, then start — is the only thing that
+does. That is deliberate on both counts:
+
+- Commanding 0 W removes the command side of the comparison, so the disagreement
+  always vanishes the instant the trip works. A watchdog that took that as proof
+  the fault was over would hand the inverter straight back to the loop that was
+  driving the wrong way, three minutes later, forever.
+- The trip is written to `/data/state.json` and restored on startup. Restarting
+  the add-on is the first thing most people try when they see a red banner, and
+  a latch that a restart clears would bring the controller back **armed, into the
+  same fault, unattended** — and under a Supervisor that restarts a crashed add-on
+  automatically, would do so in a loop. After a restart the banner, the 0 W and
+  the recorded reason are all still there.
+
+**What it is for.** This is a loop-integrity check: it asks whether the loop's
+output direction still matches the input state it was regulating. It catches a
+polarity error anywhere between the meter and the wire, and an integrator so far
+wound up that unwinding takes minutes. It is the check that would have caught all
+four episodes of 2026-08-20, when a commercial controller charged the battery out
+of the grid, four times, for up to 77 minutes at a time.
+
+**What it is not for.** It does not detect an inverter that acts opposite to what
+it was told — that moves the meter *further* the same way, so command and meter
+agree while everything runs away. That is the saturation freeze's job
+(`saturation_w` / `saturation_cycles`), which compares the command against the
+battery's actual power. The two checks are complementary and neither replaces the
+other.
+
+**Why it will not false-trip on ordinary operation.** A battery that refuses a
+command (empty, full, standby) leaves the meter where it was, so command and
+meter agree. A frozen meter drives the loop into agreeing with it. Around the
+resting point both signals are inside the 300 W gate, so the deadband can never
+produce one. A load step does flip the meter's sign before the loop catches up —
+measured on a full captured day, the longest such crossing is 30 s, against a
+180 s window. And the watchdog is **disarmed whenever the grid-following loop is
+not what is driving**: a maintenance grid charge opposes the meter by design and
+must not be mistaken for a fault.
+
+Both numbers are measured rather than chosen, and are exposed only because the
+ticket requires defaults rather than constants. On the captured healthy day sign
+agreement is 93.4 %; on the four captured fault clusters it is 0.3 %, 0.9 %,
+10.5 % and 0.0 %. There is no reason to move either value without a capture that
+says so.
 
 #### Saturation is counted in cycles, not seconds
 
@@ -284,22 +349,43 @@ The specification states the saturation window as **"> 10 s"**. This add-on coun
 **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.
+A cycle here is one meter update **or `cycle_floor_s` elapsing, whichever comes
+first**. At the reference P1's ~5 s update rate the default of 3 cycles is usually
+around 15 s, and the worst case is bounded at `3 x cycle_floor_s` = 45 s. It is still
+not the 10 s the specification asks for, so the deviation stands - but it is now a
+bounded number rather than an open one.
 
-Two reasons that is acceptable:
+⚠️ **This passage used to say something different, and the second half of it was
+wrong.** Until SAFETY-12 the loop ran only when the meter value *changed*, so a meter
+that repeated a value stalled the counter for as long as it repeated, with no upper
+bound at all. That was defended here on the grounds that "a stalled counter is a
+detection-latency limit and not a runaway risk - the condition that stalls it stops the
+whole loop, so nothing accumulates while it is stalled". That argument covers
+**integrator windup and nothing else**. The hazard it misses is **staleness**: while the
+loop was stopped the heartbeat kept re-emitting the last command and the firmware kept
+putting it on the wire every 2 s, so a command computed from an old reading went on
+being executed through a real load change, with every indicator reading healthy.
+Measured on the rig during TEL-05: 70 s at a literally constant 350.0 W, 14 arrivals,
+zero control cycles.
 
-- 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.
+The half that survives is the first one: the control law is still a pure function with
+no clock, and the wall-clock window still lives in `Controller`, which has one - see
+`run_control()`. What changed is that the controller now enforces a floor on the gap
+between cycles, so `saturation_cycles` finally means a bounded number of seconds.
 
-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".
+If a tighter window matters on your site, lower `cycle_floor_s` (not below your meter's
+update interval, or the floor starts firing on a healthy meter) or raise
+`saturation_cycles` for a fast meter.
+
+**This is not a freeze detector, and it deliberately cannot be one.** Nothing here
+decides whether a repeated reading is true — see `unchanged_s` in the meter section for
+why no threshold on that is safe at the converged operating point. The floor only stops
+"the number is the same" from meaning "do not think". The consequence is worth stating
+plainly: against a meter that is genuinely frozen at a wrong value, the loop will now
+correct toward that wrong value instead of holding a stale command. It is bounded by
+`max_w`, the arbiter and the device rating, and it is the same thing that already
+happened to a lying meter whose value merely jittered — bit-exact repetition was never a
+safety property.
 
 #### Why `target_grid_w` is not zero
 
@@ -332,8 +418,8 @@ help - see "Why the tuning is what it is".
 | `maintenance_enabled` | false | Enable the monthly cycle |
 | `maintenance_interval_days` | 28 | Minimum gap between cycles |
 | `maintenance_start_hour` | 10 | Hour of day a due cycle begins |
-| `maintenance_discharge_w` | 2500 | Drain rate (exports the surplus) |
-| `maintenance_charge_w` | 2500 | Charge ceiling, capped again by peak headroom |
+| `maintenance_discharge_w` | 2000 | Drain rate (exports the surplus). Above `max_w` it is **clamped** to `max_w` — the drain phase SETs the setpoint and the arbiter bounds it, saying so on the status page (`limited by supervised(max_w)`). Warned about, not refused: the cycle still completes, just slower |
+| `maintenance_charge_w` | 2000 | Charge ceiling, capped again by peak headroom. Must stay **at or below `max_w`** or the cheap-window shaping (`hi = -maintenance_charge_w`) contradicts the supervised limit (`lo = -max_w`), the arbiter resolves it to **0 W**, and maintenance silently never charges in a cheap window — **the add-on refuses to start** |
 | `maintenance_soc_floor` | 11 | Drain target — stay just above the inverter's own floor |
 | `maintenance_soc_target` | 99 | Charge target |
 | `maintenance_hold_min` | 120 | Hold at full so the BMS can balance |
@@ -351,6 +437,150 @@ under `peak_cap_w`, and if the forecast goes over the cap the charge-only clamp
 is dropped so the battery can shave the peak instead. Money outranks the
 maintenance schedule.
 
+#### Capacity-tariff exposure of the grid-following loop
+
+⚠️ **`peak_cap_w` caps MAINTENANCE charging. It does not cap the loop.** The
+grid-following loop is bounded by `max_w` and by the device rating, and by
+nothing else. That is deliberate — the loop exists to *reduce* what crosses the
+meter, so under every healthy condition it lowers the peak rather than raising
+it — but it means one thing is true and worth writing down:
+
+**If the meter lies, the loop will happily buy `max_w` from the grid for as long
+as the lie lasts, and no cap in this add-on stops it.** A meter frozen at a large
+export reads as "the house is exporting hard", the loop charges the battery to
+correct it, and the correction is a grid import. At the schema maximum
+`max_w: 5000` — which is what this house runs, and is also the device rating —
+that is a 5 kW unattended import.
+
+The bill is not the energy. In the Belgian capaciteitstarief the month is billed
+on its highest quarter-hour average, so **fifteen minutes of this sets the whole
+month's peak.** A measured case: one 4998 W quarter moved a monthly peak from
+4832 W to 5013 W, and every day of that month was billed at the higher figure.
+
+What exists today, and what does not:
+
+| | |
+|---|---|
+| `max_w` bounds the magnitude | ✅ — but the exposure IS the magnitude |
+| Maintenance charging capped under `peak_cap_w` | ✅ |
+| **Loop capped under `peak_cap_w`** | ❌ — not built. This is SAFETY-07 |
+| Frozen meter detected | ✅ on `homewizard_local` only, **alarm only** |
+| Frozen meter *stopped* | ❌ — the alarm does not command anything |
+| SoC guard on the loop | ❌ — the BMS is the only energy backstop |
+
+So the frozen-meter alarm below **narrows the window; it does not close it.** On
+a capacity-tariff site where an unattended runaway is unacceptable, the mitigation
+today is operational: set `max_w` no higher than the loop actually needs (the
+tuning was measured at 2000 W and a 1.78 kW load step is tracked fine there), fit
+the e-stop, and watch for the alarm.
+
+### The winding-loop alarm (the output clamp)
+
+Every setpoint this add-on writes is clamped to `max_w` before it leaves the
+process, and **when that clamp actually engages, it alarms.** The clamp on its
+own is not the feature - this project already clipped, and the clipping is what
+hid the defect the guard exists for: with the inverter switched off entirely an
+unclamped integrator climbed ~130 W per 4 s past 10 kW and, pinned at the 5 kW
+rail, reported **14 768 W**. Clipped silently, that is a flat, legal-looking
+5000 W hold on every dashboard, and nothing anywhere says the loop asked for
+three times it.
+
+**What "the rating" is.** The bound is `max_w`, and only `max_w`. It is already
+validated against the setpoint device's own range at startup - the add-on
+*refuses to start* if `max_w` exceeds what the device accepts (and again once
+ESPHome is up and the real rating is known), so by the time the loop runs the two
+numbers agree. The device range is applied a second time inside the write as
+defence in depth; after a successful validation it cannot bite, and if it ever
+does, that engagement alarms too and names the bound.
+
+**Clamping is not saturation, and the two never share a channel.**
+
+| | what it means | what happens |
+|---|---|---|
+| **clamp** | the *computed* value exceeded the rating | a software bug signal - something upstream is winding. **Alarm.** |
+| **saturation** | the inverter is not following a perfectly *legal* command | a hardware condition - freeze the integrator. **No alarm.** |
+
+A loop can be legally saturated all day: a cold pack, a curtailed inverter, an
+export limit. Routing the clamp through a saturation-shaped alarm puts the bug
+signal inside the noise, which is the same silence as clipping quietly. They
+share no reason code, no notification id, no status row and no counter.
+
+**It is an alarm, not a trip.** The clamped value is written and the loop keeps
+running - this is not the sign-disagreement failsafe, which commands 0 W. You
+get a persistent notification (`goodwe_output_clamp`, replaced rather than
+stacked), an `ERROR` in the log with the reason code `OUTPUT_CLAMP`, a row in
+the event list, and a red status banner while it is engaged. Once it clears, a
+warning row keeps the engagement count so the evidence does not vanish with the
+condition. Consecutive engagements share one event row carrying the exact count,
+because the event list keeps only 40 rows and a row per cycle would flush every
+other guard's entries out of it.
+
+**There is nothing to configure**, deliberately. The bound is `max_w`, which you
+already set; giving the guard a limit of its own would be a second number that
+can disagree with the first, which is exactly the failure the startup validation
+exists to prevent. The alarm's cadence - first engagement, then re-asserted every
+30 s while it persists, cleared after 3 clean cycles - is fixed for the same
+reason `RAIL_FRAC` is: it describes the notification bus, not the plant.
+
+WARNING: **on a default install the engagement you will see is the integrator's,
+not the output's.** The control law bounds the integrator to `max_w` and *then*
+derives the command from it, so the command itself can never come out over the
+rating unless `integrator_max_w` has been deliberately raised above `max_w`.
+Both are watched. A guard that watched only the emitted value would be silent on
+every standard configuration.
+
+### The frozen-meter alarm
+
+A meter that has died is easy — it stops answering, the sample age climbs past
+`meter_max_age_s`, the reading becomes missing, and the add-on and the ESP32 both
+command 0 W. A meter that keeps answering `200 OK` with a document that never
+changes is the hard one: **every freshness mechanism in the stack reads it as
+healthy**, because it really is arriving on every poll. The loop then integrates
+a constant error and winds to the rail, in 75–360 s at `max_w: 5000`.
+
+The add-on alarms when **both** of these are true at once:
+
+- the meter's own document (power figure *and* both kWh registers) has not
+  changed for `meter_freeze_s` — 300 s by default; **and**
+- the command standing on the wire is at the rail, within 5 % of `max_w`.
+
+Neither half is usable alone. A bare "unchanged for N seconds" rule false-trips
+at the exact operating point this controller aims for — at a converged −10 W a
+1 Wh register legitimately takes about six minutes to move — and a bare "at the
+rail" rule fires on any genuinely large load. Together they are safe in both
+directions, because a real railed condition means kilowatts still crossing the
+meter, and a kilowatt advances a 1 Wh register every 3.6 s.
+
+**It is an alarm and nothing else.** It does not command 0 W, does not latch, and
+does not claim the actuator. A false trip here parks the battery; a false
+notification costs an alert. Turning it into a trip is a separate decision that
+needs data from a real install — and an answer to "what should the loop do
+instead", given that 0 W is itself an import of whatever the house is drawing.
+
+When it fires you get a Home Assistant persistent notification
+(`goodwe_meter_frozen`, replaced rather than stacked on a repeat), an `ERROR` in
+the add-on log, an entry in the UI's event list, and a red banner on the status
+page. **The loop keeps running.** If the meter really is stuck, stop control from
+the add-on UI.
+
+⚠️ **Only `meter_source: homewizard_local` is covered.** It is the only transport
+that reads the meter's own document; on `ha_dsmr`, `mqtt_p1`, `ha_signed` and
+`off` there is no signal to threshold and the status page says **NOT COVERED**
+rather than pretending the guard is armed.
+
+| option | default | meaning |
+|---|---|---|
+| `meter_freeze_s` | 300 | Seconds of an unchanged measurement, *while the command is at the rail*, before the alarm |
+
+Why 300 s: over 2399 s of this house at the converged operating point (mean grid
+−14.2 W, 1194 polls, 735 of them repeating the previous reading) the largest
+`unchanged_s` any sample sees is **8.0 s**, and the longest interval serving no
+distinct reading at all is **15.4 s**. There is also a structural reason not to
+lower it much: at 300 s the slowest a *healthy* register can tick and still look
+unchanged is 12 W, which is inside the 15 W deadband — so the command there is
+parked at 0 W and the two halves of the rule cannot both be true. At the schema
+floor of 60 s that figure is 60 W and only the margin is left.
+
 ### Site
 
 | option | meaning |

goodwe_controller/app/clamp.py

@@ -0,0 +1,284 @@
+"""SAFETY-03 - the output clamp, and the alarm that makes it audible.
+
+WHAT IT CATCHES, in one sentence: a control law that computes a setpoint the
+actuator cannot deliver, which every layer below it will happily clip to
+something legal-looking while the thing that produced it goes on winding.
+
+THE CLAMP IS NOT THE DELIVERABLE. specs.md 10.3 is explicit that this project
+already clipped, and that the clipping is what hid the defect:
+
+    with the inverter switched off entirely, an unclamped integrator climbed
+    ~130 W per 4 s to over 10 kW and, pinned at the 5 kW rail, reported
+    14 768 W
+
+A clamp alone turns that into a silent, perfectly flat 5000 W hold. Every
+dashboard reads "commanded 5000 W", which is a legal number, and nothing
+anywhere says the loop asked for three times it. 11.2's watchdog row says
+"Clamp AND ALARM - the loop is winding"; the second verb is this module.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+WHAT "THE RATING" IS HERE, AND WHY IT IS ONE NUMBER AND NOT A MIN()
+
+The card names two bounds and warns against choosing between them:
+
+  - `DriverCapabilities.setpoint_limit_w` (3.2), the inverter's own magnitude
+    rating. In this add-on that arrives as the setpoint entity's `min`/`max`
+    from `hass.limits()` - `Controller.dev_min` / `dev_max`.
+  - `optimizer.loop.clamp_w` (14), the configured loop clamp. In this add-on
+    that is the `max_w` option, which `Tuning.max_w` and the arbiter's
+    `supervised` limit both already use.
+
+14 says these two must AGREE, validated at startup with a refusal on
+mismatch - and that gate already ships: `validate_startup_config()` refuses
+`max_w > dev_max` and `-max_w < dev_min` (validate.py, problem 1), and
+run_control() re-runs it once ESPHome is up and the real rating is known.
+
+So this guard clamps to `max_w`, THE VALIDATED VALUE, and does not `min()` it
+with the device rating at runtime. That is the card's instruction and it is also
+the only reading that keeps `max_w` meaningful: a silent runtime `min()` is
+precisely the "helper bounded to +-500 W under a loop clamped to 1500 W" failure
+the 14 warning box is about.
+
+WARNING - THE DEVICE BOUND IS STILL APPLIED, SECOND, AND IT IS NOT REDUNDANT.
+After a successful validation `+-max_w` lies inside `[dev_min, dev_max]`, so the
+second stage is arithmetically a no-op and can never engage. If it DOES engage,
+the validation did not run or no longer holds - `hass.limits()` returns
+(None, None) whenever ESPHome is not up yet, and the range checks are skipped
+rather than guessed at - and that is a louder fault than the first stage, not a
+quieter one. It therefore alarms too, through the same channel, with the bound
+named. This is NOT SAFETY-20; nothing here changes what `freeze.py` measures its
+rail against.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+WHERE THE WIND ACTUALLY SHOWS UP - READ THIS BEFORE "SIMPLIFYING" THE CALLER
+
+`control.compute()` bounds the integrator to `integrator_max_w or max_w` and
+THEN derives the command from it, so on a default install (`integrator_max_w`
+unset, i.e. following `max_w`) the command can never exceed `max_w` and the
+actuator-side clamp below IS UNREACHABLE. control.py says so in as many words:
+
+    SAFETY-03 ... must watch for THIS, not for "clamped" below.
+
+An alarm wired only to this module's `ClampResult.engaged` would therefore be
+silent on the exact configuration the whole ticket is about. The winding is
+visible one layer up, at the integrator bound, and that is why `Decision` now
+carries `i_clamped` / `clamped` BOOLEANS and the caller ORs them in here.
+
+AND WHY BOOLEANS RATHER THAN `Decision.reason`. `reason` is a single string that
+later stages overwrite: a cycle that clamps the integrator and is then slew
+limited reports "slew-limited", and one that clamps while saturated reports
+"saturated-freeze". Both are exactly the winding-into-a-rail case, and on the
+string the clamp signal is destroyed before anything can alarm on it. The two
+flags are set where the clamp happens and are never overwritten. A check in
+test_clamp.py drives that precise combination.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+DISTINCT FROM SATURATION - THIS IS ACCEPTANCE CRITERION 2, NOT A NICETY
+
+    clamp      the COMPUTED value exceeded the rating. A software bug signal:
+               something upstream is winding. Alarm, every engagement.
+    saturation |command - inverter AC power| > `saturation_w` for
+               `saturation_cycles`. The HARDWARE cannot follow a perfectly legal
+               command. Action is "freeze the integrator" (11.2), not an alarm.
+
+A loop can be legally saturated all day - a cold pack, a curtailed inverter, an
+export limit - so a saturation-shaped alarm is one an operator learns to ignore.
+Routing the clamp through it puts the bug signal inside the noise, which is the
+same silence 10.3 is complaining about. They share no reason code, no
+notification id, no status row and no counter.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ANTI-FLOOD, WITHOUT GOING SILENT
+
+A genuinely winding loop clamps on EVERY cycle for as long as it winds. One HA
+notification per cycle is how an operator learns to dismiss notifications
+unread, and this add-on already made that argument once (see the fixed
+`notification_id` note in main.check_meter_frozen).
+
+So the two surfaces are split, deliberately:
+
+  - EVERY engagement is recorded, never deduplicated, and that record is what
+    says how hard the loop is pushing. 15's action log is this add-on's
+    `Controller.events`, and it gets a row from `write_setpoint()` on every
+    engaged WRITE; `engagements` here counts every engaged CYCLE. The two layers
+    are counted separately on purpose - the heartbeat re-writes an
+    already-clamped value between cycles, so a per-write count would inflate and
+    a per-cycle log would miss an out-of-cycle write.
+  - THE NOTIFICATION fires on the rising edge and then RE-ASSERTS every
+    `REASSERT_S`, so a loop pinned on the rail for an hour does not go quiet.
+  - It DE-ASSERTS only after `CLEAR_CYCLES` consecutive clean cycles, which is
+    the 10.2 hysteresis: a command sitting exactly on the rail dithers in and
+    out of engagement by one quantisation step, and without this the alarm
+    chatters.
+
+`REASSERT_S` and `CLEAR_CYCLES` are module constants, not options, for the same
+reason `freeze.RAIL_FRAC` is: they describe the event bus, not the plant, and
+every knob 10.3 asked to keep exposed is a LOOP TUNING knob and is untouched by
+this module. No new config key is added anywhere - CFG-03 already has three
+places a default has to be kept in step and this ticket does not earn a fourth.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+NOT A TRIP
+
+Clamping does not stop the loop and does not command 0 W. The clamped value is
+written and control continues, which is what 11.2 asks for ("Clamp and alarm")
+and what distinguishes this from SAFETY-01/02, whose action is 0 W. It follows
+that this must NOT drive the failsafe status - `publish()` keeps reporting
+"running", because the controller is.
+"""
+
+import math
+from dataclasses import dataclass
+from datetime import datetime
+
+# The reason code, distinct from any saturation-freeze code by construction:
+# nothing else in this add-on uses it. See "DISTINCT FROM SATURATION".
+REASON_CODE = "OUTPUT_CLAMP"
+
+# Re-assert the notification this often while the clamp stays engaged. 30 s is
+# the planning cadence (2.3), i.e. slow enough not to flood and fast enough
+# that a pinned loop is never quiet for a whole billing quarter.
+REASSERT_S = 30.0
+
+# Consecutive clean cycles before the alarm de-asserts (10.2 hysteresis).
+CLEAR_CYCLES = 3
+
+
+@dataclass(frozen=True)
+class ClampResult:
+    """What the guard did, with the RAW value preserved.
+
+    AC 2 turns on "the raw computed value differed from the clamped one", so the
+    raw value has to survive the call - a guard that returns only the applied
+    number cannot be asked the question the acceptance criterion asks.
+    """
+
+    requested_w: float
+    applied_w: float
+    limit_w: float
+    engaged: bool
+    bound: str = ""          # "" | "max_w" | "device" - which stage bit
+
+    def describe(self) -> str:
+        return (f"{REASON_CODE}: the computed setpoint {self.requested_w:+.0f} W "
+                f"was clamped to {self.applied_w:+.0f} W by the {self.bound} "
+                f"bound (rating {self.limit_w:.0f} W) - something upstream is "
+                f"winding")
+
+
+def is_commandable(value) -> bool:
+    """False for None, NaN and the infinities.
+
+    A non-finite setpoint is LOSS OF INPUT, not an out-of-range value, and
+    11.1 rule 1 says loss of input means command zero and keep commanding. It
+    must not reach the clamp arithmetic: `min(limit, nan)` returns nan on
+    CPython, so a nan would sail straight through a naive clamp and then report
+    `engaged` True on the `applied != requested` test - because nan != nan - i.e.
+    a transport bug filed in the winding-loop counter, with a nan on the wire.
+    """
+    if value is None:
+        return False
+    try:
+        return math.isfinite(float(value))
+    except (TypeError, ValueError):
+        return False
+
+
+def clamp_to_rating(requested_w, limit_w, dev_min=None, dev_max=None) -> ClampResult:
+    """Bound a computed setpoint to the validated rating. The ONLY clamp.
+
+    `limit_w`  the validated magnitude bound - `max_w`. Symmetric, because
+               3.2 calls `setpoint_limit_w` a MAGNITUDE clamp: it binds import
+               (+) and export (-) identically.
+    `dev_min` / `dev_max`  the device's own asymmetric range, applied second and
+               expected never to bite. See the module note.
+
+    Public, and the predicate lives here rather than in the test, for the reason
+    `freeze.looks_frozen()` gives: a safety expression transcribed into its own
+    check is one copy plus a future disagreement about what the check means.
+
+    EXACTLY +-`limit_w` IS NOT AN ENGAGEMENT. The bound is inclusive; a loop
+    resting on the rail is doing what it was told, and alarming there would fire
+    on every healthy full-power hour.
+    """
+    requested = float(requested_w)
+    limit = abs(float(limit_w))
+
+    # ⚠️ BOTH STAGES ALWAYS RUN. THIS USED TO `return` FROM THE FIRST ONE, AND
+    # THAT WAS A REGRESSION AGAINST THE CODE IT REPLACED. `write_setpoint()`
+    # previously clamped to the device range unconditionally, under the comment
+    # "never send a value the device will reject outright"; short-circuiting here
+    # meant the device bound was applied only when the rating bound had NOT
+    # fired, i.e. THE BIGGER THE OVERSHOOT THE LESS THE GUARD DID. Measured on
+    # the shipped function at max_w 5000 against a device of +-4000:
+    #
+    #     +9999 -> +5000  bound='max_w'   <- outside the device range
+    #     +4500 -> +4000  bound='device'
+    #
+    # It also undercut this module's own argument for clamping to `max_w` rather
+    # than a runtime `min()`, which rests entirely on this stage catching the
+    # case where the startup validation did not run.
+    applied = max(-limit, min(limit, requested))
+    bound = "max_w" if applied != requested else ""
+
+    # Second stage. Arithmetically dead after a successful startup validation -
+    # and therefore worth alarming on precisely BECAUSE it fired.
+    if dev_min is not None and dev_max is not None:
+        bounded = max(float(dev_min), min(float(dev_max), applied))
+        if bounded != applied:
+            bound = "device" if not bound else "max_w+device"
+            applied = bounded
+
+    return ClampResult(requested, applied, limit, applied != requested, bound)
+
+
+class ClampWatchdog:
+    """One instance per controller. Counts every engagement, alarms sparsely.
+
+    `note()` is called once per write with whether the clamp bit; the caller ORs
+    in the loop's own `i_clamped` / `clamped` flags, which is where the winding
+    is actually visible on a default install (see the module note).
+    """
+
+    def __init__(self):
+        self.active = False
+        self.engagements = 0      # every engagement, never deduplicated
+        self.episodes = 0         # rising edges
+        self.since: datetime | None = None
+        self.last_alarm: datetime | None = None
+        self.reason = ""
+        self.clean_cycles = 0
+
+    def note(self, engaged: bool, reason: str, now: datetime) -> bool:
+        """Advance one cycle. True when the caller should raise the alarm.
+
+        `now` is the caller's clock, the same discipline as
+        `SignWatchdog.evaluate()` and `FreezeWatchdog.evaluate()`.
+        """
+        if engaged:
+            self.engagements += 1
+            self.clean_cycles = 0
+            self.reason = reason
+            if not self.active:
+                self.active = True
+                self.since = now
+                self.episodes += 1
+                self.last_alarm = now
+                return True
+            # Still engaged: re-assert on the slow cadence, not every cycle.
+            if (self.last_alarm is None
+                    or (now - self.last_alarm).total_seconds() >= REASSERT_S):
+                self.last_alarm = now
+                return True
+            return False
+
+        if not self.active:
+            return False
+        self.clean_cycles += 1
+        if self.clean_cycles >= CLEAR_CYCLES:
+            self.active = False
+            self.since = None
+            self.last_alarm = None
+            self.reason = ""
+            self.clean_cycles = 0
+        return False

goodwe_controller/app/control.py

@@ -64,6 +64,23 @@ class Decision:
     # 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
+    # SAFETY-03. Did a clamp actually engage this cycle - i.e. did the RAW
+    # computed value differ from the bounded one?
+    #
+    # ⚠️ THESE EXIST BECAUSE `reason` CANNOT ANSWER THAT QUESTION. `reason` is
+    # one string and every later stage overwrites it: a cycle that clamps the
+    # integrator and is then slew limited reports "slew-limited", and one that
+    # clamps while saturated reports "saturated-freeze". Both ARE the winding
+    # case, and on the string the clamp signal is gone before anything can alarm
+    # on it. These two are written where the clamp happens and are never
+    # overwritten, so they mean exactly what they say and nothing else.
+    #
+    # `i_clamped` is the one that fires on a default install: the integrator
+    # bound is reached first, so `clamped` is unreachable unless
+    # `integrator_max_w` is deliberately set above `max_w`. Alarm on BOTH - see
+    # the comment at the bound below, and clamp.py.
+    i_clamped: bool = False
+    clamped: bool = False
 
 
 def compute(
@@ -95,19 +112,23 @@ 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). 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.
+    # "3 samples" (§10.3). This counts CYCLES, and a cycle is still not a unit
+    # of time - but it is now a BOUNDED one. run_control() runs a cycle on a
+    # changed meter value OR on `cycle_floor_s` elapsing, whichever comes first
+    # (SAFETY-12), so three cycles is at most 3 x cycle_floor_s = 45 s at the
+    # defaults, and usually ~15 s at the reference P1's ~5 s update rate.
     #
-    # 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.
+    # ⚠️ THIS COMMENT USED TO CLAIM there was no upper bound and that it did not
+    # matter, "because the same condition that stalls the counter stalls the
+    # whole loop, so nothing accumulates in the meantime". The first clause was
+    # true and the second was the bug: a stalled loop does not stop commanding,
+    # it goes on emitting its last command through the heartbeat. Windup was
+    # never the hazard; staleness was.
+    #
+    # The wall-clock window lives in Controller, which has a clock, exactly as
+    # this comment always said it should. ponytail: this function stays
+    # clockless; the remaining ceiling is that saturation_cycles expresses a
+    # bound in seconds rather than an exact number of them.
     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
@@ -184,7 +205,8 @@ def compute(
     # 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:
+    i_clamped = bounded != i_w
+    if i_clamped:
         # ⚠️ 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
@@ -205,7 +227,8 @@ def compute(
     # --- ORDER MATTERS: clamp -> slew -> freeze ----------------------------
     # An early draft applied a floor after the clamp and let demand escape it.
     target = max(-tuning.max_w, min(tuning.max_w, want))
-    if target != want:
+    clamped = target != want
+    if clamped:
         reason = "clamped"
 
     slewed = max(prev_w - tuning.slew_w, min(prev_w + tuning.slew_w, target))
@@ -231,7 +254,8 @@ def compute(
     step = max(1, int(tuning.step_w))
     target = round(target / step) * step
 
-    return Decision(float(target), sat_count, frozen, reason, float(i_w))
+    return Decision(float(target), sat_count, frozen, reason, float(i_w),
+                    i_clamped, clamped)
 
 
 def maintenance_charge_floor(

goodwe_controller/app/freeze.py

@@ -0,0 +1,275 @@
+"""SAFETY-18 - the frozen-but-fresh meter detector.
+
+WHAT IT CATCHES, in one sentence: a meter that keeps answering 200 OK with a
+document that never changes, which every freshness mechanism in this stack reads
+as perfectly healthy while the loop winds to the rail and stays there.
+
+THE FAILURE NEEDS NO FAULT ANYWHERE ELSE. A frozen-but-talking meter is
+*arriving* on every poll, so:
+
+  - `meter_max_age_s` is structurally blind. Every response resets the arrival
+    stamp (p1.py, `HomeWizardLocalSource`), so the age never climbs. Age catches
+    a meter that stops TALKING; this one stops CHANGING.
+  - firmware layer 1 is fed. Its watchdog keys on setpoint staleness, which the
+    heartbeat satisfies, and on `sensor.goodwe_p1_sample_age`, which a talking
+    meter satisfies.
+  - the arbiter contributes only the device rating and +-`max_w` - it bounds the
+    magnitude, which is the number this fault drives us to, not away from.
+  - there is no SoC guard on the grid-following loop at all. `soc_floor` belongs
+    to the maintenance cycle; the BMS is the sole energy backstop.
+
+The loop reads a constant error and integrates it. Time from freeze to the rail,
+replaying the real `control.compute()` at 15 s cycles:
+
+    meter frozen at   to rail, max_w 2000   to rail, max_w 5000
+    350 W                    150 s                  360 s
+    1000 W                    60 s                  135 s
+    >= 3000 W                 30 s                   75 s
+
+⚠️ THE LIVE INSTALL RUNS `max_w: 5000`, which is both the schema maximum and the
+device rating, so the right-hand column is the one that describes this house.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+THIS HAS A EURO FIGURE, AND IT IS THE REASON THE TICKET IS P1
+
+`maintenance_charge_floor()` caps MAINTENANCE charging against `peak_cap_w`. The
+grid-following loop is not capped by anything but `max_w`. A meter frozen
+reading a large export drives a 5 kW unattended grid IMPORT, and >= 15 minutes
+of that sets the month's billed capaciteitstarief peak: specs.md:583 records a
+measured case where a single 4998 W quarter moved a monthly peak from 4832 W to
+5013 W and billed the whole month at it.
+
+⚠️ THIS CUT DOES NOT CAP THAT. It notifies. See DOCS.md, "Capacity-tariff
+exposure of the grid-following loop", and SAFETY-07.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+WHY IT IS A CONJUNCTION AND NOT AN `unchanged_s` THRESHOLD
+
+`unchanged_s` (p1.py) already measures exactly the right thing: seconds since
+the meter served a DIFFERENT measurement, fingerprinted over the power figure
+and both energy registers. It is computed, it is on the status page, and TEL-05
+deliberately refused to threshold it - correctly:
+
+    this controller regulates grid power toward ~0 W, and at a converged -10 W
+    the export register takes about six minutes to advance by its 1 Wh
+    resolution while the power figure legitimately repeats.
+
+So a bare `unchanged_s > N` false-trips at the exact operating point we aim for,
+and `p1.py` says as much in a note that ends "whoever wires a freeze detector
+must handle the low-power case first". This is that handling, and it is not a
+smaller number:
+
+    unchanged_s >= hold_s   AND   |commanded_w| is at the rail
+
+The second term is what TEL-05's case cannot satisfy. At the converged point the
+command is nowhere near +-`max_w`; on the 40 minutes of live converged behaviour
+in `sim/scenarios/p1-age-2026-08-26.jsonl.gz` the meter never once leaves
++-500 W, so the loop never even approaches a 5000 W rail. And the reverse case -
+a command genuinely pinned at the rail by a real 8 kW load - cannot satisfy the
+FIRST term, because a real railed condition means kilowatts still crossing the
+meter, and a kilowatt advances a 1 Wh register every 3.6 s.
+
+The two terms fail for independent reasons. That is the whole design.
+
+⚠️ AND THE SECOND HALF OF THAT WAS MEASURED ON THE RIG, WITH A RESULT WORTH
+READING CAREFULLY. Driving the real transport against the rig's own hwsim under
++8000 W of house load - a genuinely railed command, meter perfectly healthy - the
+POWER FIGURE DID NOT MOVE AT ALL: `active_power_w` sat at exactly 10130.0 W for
+26 consecutive polls. What kept `unchanged_s` pinned at 0.0 s was the kWh
+registers advancing, and nothing else.
+
+So the register terms in `measurement_fingerprint()` are not belt-and-braces
+here, they are the entire negative case. A freeze detector fingerprinted on the
+power figure alone would have raised a false alarm on that rig run - a healthy
+meter, a real load, a correctly railed command - which is the exact failure mode
+that gets a safety guard switched off. Anyone tempted to simplify the fingerprint
+should read that run first.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+WHERE `hold_s` COMES FROM
+
+Measured on `sim/scenarios/p1-age-2026-08-26.jsonl.gz` - 2399 s (40 min) of the
+live house at the converged operating point, mean grid -14.2 W, 1194 polls:
+
+    polls that repeated the previous reading      735 of 1193  (61.6 %)
+    distinct-reading transitions                  458
+    median gap between distinct readings          6.0 s
+    p95 gap                                       6.0 s
+    LARGEST `unchanged_s` any sample observes     8.0 s
+    longest interval serving no distinct reading 15.4 s
+    samples outside +-500 W                       0
+
+The default 300 s is 37x the largest `unchanged_s` this house has been recorded
+producing while converged, and 19.5x the longest interval in which it served no
+distinct reading at all. The two figures differ because the capture has an 11.4 s
+hole in its OWN polling; the second is quoted because it is the pessimistic one.
+300 s is not fitted to either margin - it is picked as "clearly past any
+plausible register-tick interval, and clearly inside the 900 s quarter that bills
+the capacity tariff". test_freeze.py re-measures both every run, so this
+paragraph cannot quietly stop being true.
+
+⚠️ BE PRECISE ABOUT WHAT THAT CAPTURE PROVES. It is POWER-ONLY - the shipped
+fingerprint also covers both kWh registers, so a real `unchanged_s` on that data
+can only be shorter, never longer, which makes it a conservative measurement of
+the converged case. But it does NOT on its own refute a bare `unchanged_s`
+threshold, and saying it did would be exactly the overstatement this project
+keeps having to walk back: at 8 s worst, a bare 300 s threshold is silent on it
+too. The case that refutes the bare threshold is the one below, which no capture
+of THIS meter contains because this meter's power figure jitters.
+
+The floor on the other side: at the rail, the smallest residual grid flow that
+still ticks a 1 Wh register inside 300 s is 12 W. Any condition that genuinely
+pins this loop at +-5000 W has three orders of magnitude more than that crossing
+the meter.
+
+⚠️ AND THOSE TWO NUMBERS DO NOT MERELY HAVE MARGIN - THEY CANNOT BOTH BE TRUE.
+The worry the conjunction has to answer is "a HEALTHY meter whose register is
+slower than `hold_s`". At 300 s that is |grid| < 12 W. The shipped `deadband_w`
+is 15 W, so anywhere the register is that slow the control law is already inside
+its deadband and the command is parked - the rail term is not merely unlikely to
+be true there, it is 0 W. The two terms are mutually exclusive by construction
+at the defaults, not just far apart, and the check re-derives that every run.
+
+That relationship is the one to protect. `hold_s` may be lowered only while
+3600/hold_s stays under `deadband_w`; at the schema floor of 60 s that is 60 W
+against a 15 W deadband, and the mutual exclusion is gone. A 60 s `meter_freeze_s`
+is a supported configuration that gives up this argument and keeps only the
+margin - do not set one without a capture that says the margin is enough.
+
+⚠️ WHAT `hold_s` DOES NOT BUY IS DETECTION SPEED. The alert lands at
+max(hold_s, time-to-rail) after the freeze, so at the shipped default and
+`max_w: 5000` that is 300-360 s. The rail is REACHED first, from 75 s. A
+notification is not a brake; see the DOCS.md note.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+THE RAIL TERM, PRECISELY
+
+    abs(commanded_w) >= RAIL_FRAC * max_w
+
+`commanded_w` is the EMITTED setpoint - what the arbiter resolved and
+`write_setpoint()` put on the wire - not the loop's raw wish, for the same
+reason SAFETY-02 uses the emitted value: the wire carries the emitted number.
+
+RAIL_FRAC is 0.95 and is a constant rather than an option. The command is
+quantised to `step_w` (max 100) and clamped to `max_w` (min 100), so at the rail
+the emitted value IS `max_w` on every schema-legal combination; the 5 % is slack
+for a device rating that clips `max_w` slightly in `write_setpoint()`, not a
+tuning knob. Making it configurable would offer a way to widen the one term that
+carries the whole no-false-positive argument.
+
+⚠️ NOT GATED ON `following`, and that is deliberate. A maintenance charge
+commands against the meter on purpose and can sit at the rail for hours - but it
+does so while pushing kilowatts through the meter, so the FIRST term is what
+excludes it, and it excludes it on physics rather than on bookkeeping. Gating on
+`following` as well would additionally blind the detector to a maintenance phase
+running against a meter that really has frozen, which is the same fault with a
+worse actuator behind it.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+NOTIFY, DO NOT TRIP
+
+First cut is an alarm and nothing else: an HA persistent notification, an ERROR
+in the log, an event on the status page, and a failed check row. It does NOT
+claim the actuator, does NOT file a P_SAFETY claim and does NOT latch.
+
+That is a deliberate ordering of costs, not timidity. A false trip here parks
+the battery - on a house that is running this loop precisely to avoid buying
+power at the wrong moment - and the operator's response to a parked battery is
+to switch the guard off. A false notification costs one alert. The trip is a
+separate decision that has to be earned with observed data from a real install,
+and it needs an answer to a question this cut does not have one for: what should
+the loop do instead, given that 0 W is itself a grid import of whatever the
+house is drawing.
+
+⚠️ TRANSPORT-CONDITIONAL. `unchanged_s` exists ONLY on `homewizard_local`,
+because it is the only transport that sees the meter's own document. Under
+`ha_dsmr`, `mqtt_p1`, `ha_signed` and `meter_source: off` this detector is
+silent and the exposure above is uncovered. The caller passes None and gets
+False; there is no half-measure available on those paths, and pretending
+otherwise would be worse than the gap.
+"""
+
+from dataclasses import dataclass
+from datetime import datetime
+
+# See "THE RAIL TERM, PRECISELY" above. A constant, on purpose.
+RAIL_FRAC = 0.95
+
+
+@dataclass(frozen=True)
+class FreezeWatchdogConfig:
+    """Default, not a constant - config.yaml carries `meter_freeze_s`."""
+
+    hold_s: float = 300.0
+
+
+def rail_w(max_w) -> float:
+    """The magnitude at or above which a command counts as railed."""
+    return abs(float(max_w)) * RAIL_FRAC
+
+
+def looks_frozen(unchanged_s, commanded_w, max_w,
+                 cfg: FreezeWatchdogConfig) -> bool:
+    """The predicate, and the ONLY place the conjunction is written down.
+
+    Public for the same reason `watchdog.disagrees()` is: the checks that grade
+    it must assert on THE SHIPPED EXPRESSION. A safety predicate transcribed
+    into its own test is one copy plus a future disagreement about what the
+    check means, and the copy that drifts is always the one doing the grading.
+
+    `unchanged_s`  seconds since the meter served a different measurement, or
+                   None on a transport that cannot know (see the module note).
+    `commanded_w`  the EMITTED setpoint standing on the wire.
+    `max_w`        the configured output bound the rail is measured against.
+    """
+    if unchanged_s is None or commanded_w is None or not max_w:
+        return False
+    return (float(unchanged_s) >= cfg.hold_s
+            and abs(float(commanded_w)) >= rail_w(max_w))
+
+
+class FreezeWatchdog:
+    """One instance per controller, evaluated once per control cycle.
+
+    Level-triggered state with an EDGE for the alarm: `evaluate()` returns True
+    on the cycle the conjunction first becomes true and False on every cycle
+    after, so the caller raises one notification per episode rather than one
+    every second. `active` is the level, for the status page.
+
+    No latch, deliberately - see "NOTIFY, DO NOT TRIP". A latch exists so a trip
+    cannot erase its own evidence by working; nothing here acts, so there is
+    nothing to erase. When the meter starts moving again the alert clears
+    itself, which is the honest report of the state.
+    """
+
+    def __init__(self, cfg: FreezeWatchdogConfig | None = None):
+        self.cfg = cfg or FreezeWatchdogConfig()
+        self.active = False
+        self.since: datetime | None = None
+        self.reason = ""
+        self.episodes = 0
+
+    def evaluate(self, unchanged_s, commanded_w, max_w, now: datetime) -> bool:
+        """Advance one cycle. Returns True ONLY on the rising edge.
+
+        `now` is the caller's clock so this stays testable and replayable - the
+        same discipline as `SignWatchdog.evaluate()`.
+        """
+        if not looks_frozen(unchanged_s, commanded_w, max_w, self.cfg):
+            self.active = False
+            self.since = None
+            self.reason = ""
+            return False
+
+        self.reason = (
+            f"METER_FROZEN: the meter has answered {float(unchanged_s):.0f} s "
+            f"without its measurement changing while the command stands at "
+            f"{float(commanded_w):+.0f} W, at the {float(max_w):.0f} W rail "
+            f"(limits: unchanged over {self.cfg.hold_s:.0f} s, command over "
+            f"{rail_w(max_w):.0f} W)")
+        if self.active:
+            return False
+        self.active = True
+        self.since = now
+        self.episodes += 1
+        return True

goodwe_controller/app/main.py

@@ -36,11 +36,17 @@ from .arbiter import (
     P_LOOP, P_MAINT_SHAPE, P_MAINTENANCE, P_SAFETY, Claim, resolve,
 )
 from .control import Tuning, compute, maintenance_charge_floor, peak_at_risk
+from .clamp import (
+    REASON_CODE as CLAMP_REASON, ClampResult, ClampWatchdog, clamp_to_rating,
+    is_commandable,
+)
+from .freeze import FreezeWatchdog, FreezeWatchdogConfig, rail_w
 from .hass import HomeAssistant
 from .maintenance import IDLE, MaintConfig, Maintenance
 from .mqtt import MqttPublisher
 from .p1 import P1Ingest, build_source, is_enabled
 from .validate import ConfigRefused, refuse, validate_startup_config
+from .watchdog import SignWatchdog, SignWatchdogConfig, loop_is_following
 from . import web
 
 OPTIONS_PATH = "/data/options.json"
@@ -103,6 +109,54 @@ class Controller:
             store,
         )
 
+        # SAFETY-02. One instance, one actuator, one cadence - see watchdog.py.
+        #
+        # ⚠️ RESTORED FROM THE STORE, and that is the difference between a latch
+        # and a pause. A trip held only in memory is cleared by the one action an
+        # operator staring at a FAILSAFE banner is most likely to take - restart
+        # the add-on - and the controller then comes back armed, into the fault,
+        # with nobody involved. Restored here, the banner and the 0 W survive the
+        # restart and only `auto_toggle` clears them.
+        self.sign_wd = SignWatchdog(
+            SignWatchdogConfig(
+                min_w=float(opts.get("sign_disagree_w", 300)),
+                hold_s=float(opts.get("sign_disagree_s", 180)),
+            ),
+            tripped=bool(store.data.get("sign_tripped", False)),
+            reason=str(store.data.get("sign_reason", "") or ""),
+        )
+        if self.sign_wd.tripped:
+            _LOG.error("SAFETY-02 was TRIPPED before this restart and stays "
+                       "tripped: %s. The inverter is held at 0 W. Restarting the "
+                       "add-on does not clear this - start control from the UI "
+                       "once you know why the command opposed the meter.",
+                       self.sign_wd.reason or "(reason not recorded)")
+
+        # SAFETY-18. The frozen-but-fresh meter detector - see freeze.py for why
+        # it is a conjunction and not an `unchanged_s` threshold, and for the
+        # measurements behind the default.
+        #
+        # ⚠️ NOT restored from the store, unlike SAFETY-02's latch, and the
+        # asymmetry is the point: this one does not latch because it does not
+        # act. A restart re-derives its state from the meter within one
+        # `meter_freeze_s` window, and until then the honest report is "not
+        # alarming yet" rather than an alarm nobody can clear.
+        self.freeze_wd = FreezeWatchdog(
+            FreezeWatchdogConfig(hold_s=float(opts.get("meter_freeze_s", 300))))
+
+        # SAFETY-03. The output clamp's alarm - see clamp.py for why the clamp
+        # itself is the cheap half.
+        #
+        # ⚠️ NO CONFIG OF ITS OWN, on purpose. The bound it clamps to is `max_w`,
+        # which is already an option, already validated against the device's
+        # rating at startup, and already used by Tuning and the arbiter. Giving
+        # this a second key would be a fourth place a limit has to be kept in
+        # step (CFG-03 already tracks three) and, worse, would recreate exactly
+        # the two-numbers-that-disagree failure the §14 warning box describes.
+        # The anti-flood cadence is a module constant for the same reason
+        # freeze.RAIL_FRAC is: it describes the event bus, not the plant.
+        self.clamp_wd = ClampWatchdog()
+
         # P1 ingestion (TEL-01). `meter_source: off` keeps the original
         # single-entity meter_entity path, so an existing install is unchanged
         # until it opts in.
@@ -120,6 +174,11 @@ class Controller:
         self.sat_count = 0
         self.i_w = 0.0        # the loop's integrator, carried between cycles
         self.loop_w = None    # what the loop asked for last cycle, or None
+        # Did the grid-following loop actually win the LAST arbitration? That is
+        # the question SAFETY-02 has to ask about the command standing on the
+        # wire right now, so it is recorded when the arbitration happens rather
+        # than re-derived a cycle later. Starts False: nothing is on the wire.
+        self.following = False
         self.reason = "starting"
         self.grid = self.soc = self.batt = None
         self.peak_fc = None
@@ -129,6 +188,11 @@ class Controller:
         self.last_write_ok = None
         self.inputs_bad_since = None
         self.dev_min = self.dev_max = None
+        # SAFETY-03. What the last write's clamp did, and what the loop's own
+        # bounds did last cycle. `loop_clamped` is a (engaged, note) pair so the
+        # alarm can say WHICH bound bit without re-deriving it from a string.
+        self.clamp_last: ClampResult | None = None
+        self.loop_clamped: tuple[bool, str] = (False, "")
         self.events: list[str] = []
         self.stopping = False
 
@@ -187,11 +251,37 @@ class Controller:
         entity = self.o.get("setpoint_entity", "")
         if not entity:
             return
-        # Never send a value the device will reject outright. A rejected write is
-        # silent from the controller's point of view, and the inverter then keeps
-        # doing whatever it was already doing.
-        if self.dev_min is not None and self.dev_max is not None:
-            value = max(self.dev_min, min(self.dev_max, value))
+
+        # --- SAFETY-03: THE CLAMP, AND IT IS ON THE ONLY PATH TO THE WIRE -----
+        # Every write in this add-on comes through here - the cycle, the
+        # heartbeat, the operator's stop button and shutdown() - so no optimizer,
+        # maintenance or manual path can route around it. That placement is the
+        # first acceptance criterion, and it is why the guard is not in
+        # control.py: a guard the control law owns is a guard every other claimer
+        # bypasses.
+        #
+        # ⚠️ A NON-FINITE VALUE IS LOSS OF INPUT, NOT AN OUT-OF-RANGE ONE. §11.1
+        # rule 1: command zero and keep commanding. It must not reach the clamp
+        # arithmetic - see is_commandable() for what a nan does to it - and it
+        # must not be counted as a clamp engagement, or a transport bug lands in
+        # the winding-loop counter.
+        if not is_commandable(value):
+            self.log_event(f"non-finite setpoint {value!r} - commanding 0 W")
+            _LOG.error("refusing to write a non-finite setpoint %r - commanding "
+                       "0 W and continuing to command. This is a bug upstream, "
+                       "not a limit.", value)
+            value = 0.0
+        result = clamp_to_rating(value, float(self.o.get("max_w", 2000)),
+                                 self.dev_min, self.dev_max)
+        self.clamp_last = result
+        if result.engaged:
+            # ⚠️ EVERY engagement, never deduplicated: this is the action log
+            # (§15), and it is a different surface from the notification, which
+            # IS deduplicated. The count is what says how hard the loop pushed;
+            # the notification only says that it did.
+            self.log_event(result.describe())
+        value = result.applied_w
+
         changed = (self.last_write is None or value != self.last_write)
         if not (changed or force):
             return
@@ -214,8 +304,38 @@ class Controller:
         for msg in result.events:
             self.log_event(msg)
 
+        # --- SAFETY-02, and it runs BEFORE the early return below -------------
+        # ⚠️ ORDER MATTERS HERE. If this were evaluated after the "inputs missing
+        # but not yet stale" hold, a run of held cycles would leave
+        # `disagree_since` untouched across the gap and the timer would resume
+        # from a start time that predates it. It is evaluated every cycle,
+        # unconditionally, so a missing meter CLEARS the window - see watchdog.py.
+        #
+        # The value compared is the command STANDING ON THE WIRE, which is what
+        # this cycle's fresh meter reading is a response to. `last_write` is that
+        # value after the device clamp and confirmed accepted; `target` covers
+        # the case where nothing has been written yet (and, deliberately, the
+        # case where the last write was REJECTED - the inverter is then still
+        # latched on `last_write`, which is exactly what `last_write` holds).
+        was_tripped = self.sign_wd.tripped
+        standing = self.last_write if self.last_write is not None else self.target
+        if self.sign_wd.evaluate(standing, self.grid, self.following, now) \
+                and not was_tripped:
+            # ⚠️ REASON FIRST, FLAG SECOND, and each `set` writes the file. The
+            # ordering is the whole atomicity story: a crash between the two
+            # persists a reason nothing reads, which is harmless, where the other
+            # order persists a latch with no explanation for the operator who has
+            # to decide whether to clear it.
+            self.store.set("sign_reason", self.sign_wd.reason)
+            self.store.set("sign_tripped", True)
+            self.log_event("FAILSAFE " + self.sign_wd.reason)
+            _LOG.error("SAFETY-02 TRIPPED - %s. Commanding 0 W and holding it "
+                       "until control is started again. This survives an add-on "
+                       "restart; restarting will not clear it.",
+                       self.sign_wd.reason)
+
         stale_after = float(self.o.get("stale_input_s", 15))
-        if not self.inputs_ok:
+        if not self.inputs_ok and not self.sign_wd.tripped:
             bad_for = (now - self.inputs_bad_since).total_seconds() if self.inputs_bad_since else 0.0
             if bad_for < stale_after:
                 # A single missed poll is not a fault. Hold, keep the heartbeat
@@ -235,6 +355,16 @@ class Controller:
         claims.append(Claim.limit("supervised", P_SAFETY, -max_w, max_w, "max_w"))
 
         # --- safety stops ----------------------------------------------------
+        # ⚠️ SAFETY-02 is claimed FIRST and unconditionally while latched. It is
+        # a SET at P_SAFETY, so it outranks maintenance, peak shaving and the
+        # loop alike - a controller pushing power the wrong way is wrong
+        # whatever it thinks it is doing. Re-filed EVERY cycle: claims are not
+        # sticky, and one filed once would lapse the next cycle and hand the
+        # actuator silently back to the loop that was driving the wrong way.
+        if self.sign_wd.tripped:
+            claims.append(Claim.set("failsafe", P_SAFETY, 0.0,
+                                    "sign disagreement"))
+
         if not self.auto:
             claims.append(Claim.set("safety", P_SAFETY, 0.0, "stopped"))
         elif not self.inputs_ok:
@@ -297,19 +427,201 @@ class Controller:
             self.sat_count = decision.sat_count
             self.i_w = decision.i_w
             self.loop_w = decision.target_w
+            # --- SAFETY-03 ---------------------------------------------------
+            # ⚠️ READ THE BOOLEANS, NOT `decision.reason`. On a default install
+            # the integrator bound is what bites and the output clamp is
+            # unreachable (control.py says so), and `reason` is then overwritten
+            # by whichever of slew-limiting or the saturation freeze ran after
+            # it - so a string test is silent on the two cases a winding loop
+            # most often presents as. These flags are set where the clamp
+            # happens and nothing downstream touches them.
+            self.loop_clamped = (
+                decision.i_clamped or decision.clamped,
+                (f"the loop asked for {decision.i_w:+.0f} W"
+                 + (" (integrator bound)" if decision.i_clamped else "")
+                 + (" (output bound)" if decision.clamped else "")),
+            )
             claims.append(Claim.set("loop", P_LOOP, decision.target_w, decision.reason))
         else:
             # Stopped or blind: no accumulation may survive the outage.
             self.i_w = 0.0
             self.loop_w = None
+            # A loop that is not running cannot be winding. Clearing this here
+            # rather than letting the last value stand is what makes the alarm
+            # de-assert when control is stopped.
+            self.loop_clamped = (False, "")
 
         resolution = resolve(claims)
         if resolution.contradiction:
             self.log_event("ARBITER CONTRADICTION - commanding 0 W, see the log")
+        # --- SAFETY-02's arming gate ------------------------------------------
+        # Was the number about to go on the wire chosen by the grid-following
+        # loop, or by a strategy that commands against the meter on purpose?
+        # Only the former is expected to agree in sign with P1 - without this,
+        # every maintenance grid charge trips the failsafe within three minutes.
+        #
+        # ⚠️ THE EXPRESSION LIVES IN watchdog.py, NOT HERE, and that is not
+        # tidiness. It was inline, test_watchdog.py held a transcription of it,
+        # and the P_PEAK case meant to force whoever lands peak shaving to come
+        # and change an expectation did not: editing this line alone to
+        # `winner in ("loop", "peak")` left every suite green while the watchdog
+        # went blind for every peak event. Read loop_is_following() before
+        # touching the gate - the forward hazard and the reasoning are there.
+        self.following = loop_is_following(resolution, self.loop_w)
         self.target = resolution.target_w
         self.reason = resolution.explain()
         await self.write_setpoint(self.target)
 
+        # --- SAFETY-03, and its boundary is the WRITE ------------------------
+        # ⚠️ NOT THE SAME BOUNDARY AS SAFETY-18's BELOW, THOUGH THE CALLS ABUT.
+        # This one reads `self.clamp_last`, which is None until write_setpoint()
+        # has actually run, so it has to follow the write. The one below grades
+        # `self.target`, which is assigned further up - see check_output_clamp()
+        # and check_meter_frozen() for each. Two guards, two orderings, adjacent
+        # lines: do not "tidy" them into one rule.
+        await self.check_output_clamp()
+
+        # --- SAFETY-18, and its boundary is the ASSIGNMENT --------------------
+        # ⚠️ THE BOUNDARY IS `self.target = resolution.target_w` ABOVE, NOT
+        # write_setpoint(). This comment used to say "the command that has just
+        # gone on the wire", which is wrong twice over and was corrected by
+        # TEST-06's reviewer: `check_meter_frozen()` grades `self.target` - the
+        # arbiter's resolved intent - and `write_setpoint()` clamps only a local
+        # `value` and can skip the write entirely, so that number may never have
+        # gone anywhere.
+        #
+        # What both terms of the conjunction must describe is the SAME moment:
+        # the command this cycle resolved, against how long the meter that chose
+        # it has been standing still. Evaluated before
+        # `self.target = resolution.target_w` it would grade the PREVIOUS
+        # cycle's command against THIS cycle's meter - the one combination that
+        # was true of neither moment. Moving it between the assignment and
+        # write_setpoint() is therefore harmless; moving it above the assignment
+        # is not, and test_freeze.py part 5 fails on exactly that.
+        await self.check_meter_frozen()
+
+    async def check_output_clamp(self) -> None:
+        """SAFETY-03. Alarm whenever a clamp actually engaged this cycle.
+
+        Runs AFTER write_setpoint() for the same reason SAFETY-18 does: the
+        clamp is arithmetic done inside the write, so before the write there is
+        nothing yet to report.
+
+        ⚠️ PUBLISHING IS NOT IN THE WRITE PATH. The clamp itself is synchronous
+        inside write_setpoint(); this - the awaits, the notification, anything
+        that can block on Home Assistant - is out here. A stalled supervisor must
+        never be able to delay or drop a frame.
+
+        ⚠️ THIS IS NOT A TRIP. No claim is filed, nothing is latched, 0 W is not
+        commanded and `publish()` still reports "running". §11.2's action for
+        this row is "clamp and alarm", and the clamped value is written and the
+        loop keeps running. Turning this into a trip means coming here and
+        changing that deliberately, not discovering it in the field.
+        """
+        engaged_write = bool(self.clamp_last and self.clamp_last.engaged)
+        engaged_loop, loop_note = self.loop_clamped
+        engaged = engaged_write or engaged_loop
+        if engaged:
+            where = (self.clamp_last.describe() if engaged_write
+                     else f"{CLAMP_REASON}: {loop_note}, above the "
+                          f"{float(self.o.get('max_w', 2000)):.0f} W rating, and "
+                          f"was clamped to {self.target:+.0f} W")
+            reason = (f"{where}. This is a BUG SIGNAL, not a limit being used: "
+                      f"something upstream computed a setpoint the actuator "
+                      f"cannot deliver.")
+        else:
+            reason = ""
+        fired = self.clamp_wd.note(engaged, reason, datetime.now(timezone.utc))
+
+        # --- THE ACTION LOG, AND IT IS COALESCED PER EPISODE ------------------
+        # Every engagement is recorded, but consecutive ones are recorded by
+        # UPDATING one row's count rather than inserting a row each.
+        #
+        # ⚠️ THAT IS NOT COSMETIC, AND IT WAS FOUND THE HARD WAY. `log_event()`
+        # keeps 40 rows; a winding loop clamps on every cycle, so a row per
+        # engagement flushes the whole ring within 40 cycles - and the first
+        # thing it evicted, in test_freeze.py, was SAFETY-18's "METER FROZEN?"
+        # row. A guard whose log drowns out the other guards' logs has moved the
+        # flood rather than removed it. The count here is `clamp_wd.engagements`,
+        # so nothing is lost: the row says exactly how many, and the number is
+        # read off the counter rather than off the number of rows.
+        #
+        # This lives here rather than only in write_setpoint() because on a
+        # default install the actuator-side clamp is unreachable - compute() has
+        # already bounded the integrator - so the only engagements that exist are
+        # loop-side ones. Measured: 60 cycles of the §10.3 runaway produce 0
+        # write-path engagements and 2 loop-side ones.
+        if engaged and not engaged_write:
+            tag = f"{CLAMP_REASON} episode {self.clamp_wd.episodes}"
+            row = (f"{tag}: {self.clamp_wd.engagements} engagement(s) - "
+                   f"{reason}")
+            if self.events and tag in self.events[0]:
+                stamp = self.events[0].split(" ", 1)[0]
+                self.events[0] = f"{stamp} {row}"
+            else:
+                self.log_event(row)
+        if not fired:
+            return
+        _LOG.error(
+            "SAFETY-03 - %s Silently clipping this is how a winding integrator "
+            "reached 14 768 W on this project before: the clamp makes every "
+            "dashboard read a legal number while the thing producing it goes on "
+            "climbing. The command IS clamped and the loop is STILL RUNNING - "
+            "this is an alarm, not a trip. Engagements so far: %d.",
+            self.clamp_wd.reason, self.clamp_wd.engagements)
+        # A fixed notification_id, for the reason check_meter_frozen() gives -
+        # and a DIFFERENT one from every other alarm this add-on raises, because
+        # a clamp is not a frozen meter and neither is a saturation freeze.
+        await self.hass.call("persistent_notification", "create", {
+            "notification_id": "goodwe_output_clamp",
+            "title": "GoodWe: a computed setpoint exceeded the rating",
+            "message": (
+                f"{self.clamp_wd.reason}\n\nThe command has been clamped and "
+                f"the controller is STILL RUNNING. This is NOT the inverter "
+                f"failing to follow a legal command (that is the saturation "
+                f"freeze, which is normal and does not alarm) - the value asked "
+                f"for was itself out of range."),
+        })
+
+    async def check_meter_frozen(self) -> None:
+        """SAFETY-18. Alarm on a meter that answers forever without changing.
+
+        Notification only - no claim, no latch, no 0 W. freeze.py carries the
+        reasoning and the euro figure; DOCS.md carries the exposure this does
+        NOT close.
+
+        ⚠️ getattr, not an attribute access: `unchanged_s` exists only on
+        `homewizard_local`, and `p1_source` is None until amain() builds the
+        transport. Every other meter_source hands the predicate None and gets
+        False, which is the honest answer - see the transport note in freeze.py.
+        """
+        unchanged = getattr(self.p1_source, "unchanged_s", None)
+        fired = self.freeze_wd.evaluate(unchanged, self.target,
+                                        float(self.o.get("max_w", 2000)),
+                                        datetime.now(timezone.utc))
+        if not fired:
+            return
+        self.log_event("METER FROZEN? " + self.freeze_wd.reason)
+        _LOG.error(
+            "SAFETY-18 - %s. The grid-following loop is regulating against a "
+            "number that has stopped moving, and nothing in this stack stops "
+            "it: the meter is still answering, so the age is fresh, the "
+            "firmware watchdog is fed and the arbiter only bounds the "
+            "magnitude. CHECK THE METER. Sustained for a quarter of an hour "
+            "this sets the month's billed capacity-tariff peak. This is an "
+            "ALARM ONLY - the loop is still running.", self.freeze_wd.reason)
+        # ⚠️ A fixed notification_id, so a second episode REPLACES the first
+        # rather than stacking. An operator who has to dismiss eleven identical
+        # notifications learns to dismiss the twelfth without reading it.
+        await self.hass.call("persistent_notification", "create", {
+            "notification_id": "goodwe_meter_frozen",
+            "title": "GoodWe: the P1 meter may be frozen",
+            "message": (
+                f"{self.freeze_wd.reason}.\n\nThe controller is STILL RUNNING "
+                f"and still following this reading. Check the meter; if it is "
+                f"stuck, stop control from the add-on UI."),
+        })
+
     # -- tasks ---------------------------------------------------------------
     async def run_control(self) -> None:
         entity = self.o.get("setpoint_entity", "")
@@ -342,11 +654,85 @@ class Controller:
         last_grid = object()
         heartbeat = float(self.o.get("heartbeat_s", 10))
         last_beat = 0.0
+        # ⚠️ SAFETY-12. The floor is a DEADLINE ON THE GAP BETWEEN CYCLES, not a
+        # second scheduler running alongside the arrival trigger. Every cycle
+        # resets it, whichever trigger fired, so on a healthy changing meter it
+        # never elapses and not one existing cycle moves - and therefore no
+        # change to the per-cycle gain the tuning was measured against.
+        #
+        # That is true twice over, and the second reason is the sturdier one:
+        # the combined cycle rate is max(arrival rate, 1/floor), never the sum.
+        # At the defaults 1/15 s is strictly slower than the ~1/5 s arrival
+        # rate, so even a floor that raced the arrivals could not push the loop
+        # past its nominal healthy rate. The re-tune is unreachable by
+        # construction, not merely by the reset. ⚠️ That argument holds only
+        # while floor > the meter's update interval - which is why the schema
+        # minimum of 5 s deserves the second look validate.py has not given it
+        # yet: 5 s IS the reference meter's interval, i.e. the one configurable
+        # value that would double the cycle rate.
+        #
+        # Why it has to exist, and it is not only about latency: `self.grid !=
+        # last_grid` alone means a meter that repeats a value runs NO control
+        # cycles at all. The heartbeat below keeps re-emitting the last command
+        # and the firmware keeps putting it on the wire, so every indicator
+        # reads healthy - and, worse, the `inputs missing -> 0 W` claim lives
+        # INSIDE cycle(), so on a repeating meter THAT SAFETY CLAIM CANNOT FIRE.
+        # Demonstrated in test_loop.py: constant meter, SoC entity dies at t=4 s,
+        # and the pre-fix controller holds 220 W through the whole outage with
+        # the status line still reading "loop -> 220 W". Layer 1 does not cover
+        # it on a `meter_source: off` install either - no P1 age sensor is
+        # published, so the firmware has nothing to veto on. Measured on the rig
+        # during TEL-05: 70 s at a literally constant 350.0 W, 14 arrivals, zero
+        # cycles.
+        #
+        # This is NOT a freeze detector, and deliberately so - see
+        # HomeWizardLocalSource.unchanged_s for why one cannot be built here (at
+        # the converged -10 W target a 1 Wh register needs ~6 minutes to move,
+        # so any freeze threshold false-trips at the exact operating point we
+        # run at). Nothing here decides whether a repeated reading is true. It
+        # only stops "the number is the same" from meaning "do not think".
+        #
+        # ⚠️ THE 15 s DEFAULT HAS A CEILING IT DOES NOT OWN. It is under
+        # validate.FIRMWARE_INGEST_VETO_S (30 s) and under meter_max_age_s on
+        # purpose, so the loop re-decides at least twice inside any window in
+        # which layer 1 might otherwise be the only thing deciding. If the
+        # firmware's veto ever moves, this default moves with it - it is not
+        # independently justified at 15.
+        floor = float(self.o.get("cycle_floor_s", 15))
+        last_cycle = None
         while not self.stopping:
             await self.read_inputs()
-            # A cycle is one meter update, exactly as on the reference install.
-            if self.grid != last_grid:
+            now_mono = asyncio.get_running_loop().time()
+            # A cycle is one meter update, exactly as on the reference install -
+            # or the floor elapsing, whichever comes first.
+            overdue = last_cycle is None or (now_mono - last_cycle) >= floor
+            if self.grid != last_grid or overdue:
                 last_grid = self.grid
+                last_cycle = now_mono
+                # ⚠️ The FULL cycle, not a degraded one. A floor cycle runs the
+                # same law on the same inputs as an arrival cycle, because in P1
+                # mode the freshness question is already answered upstream and
+                # answered harder: past `meter_max_age_s` (30 s) p1.net_w is
+                # None, which is "inputs missing", which becomes a P_SAFETY 0 W
+                # claim. So a floor cycle cannot run the PI on a 60 s old
+                # figure, because at 60 s there is no figure.
+                #
+                # ⚠️ THAT GUARANTEE IS TRANSPORT-CONDITIONAL, and saying so
+                # matters more than the guarantee: with `meter_source: off`,
+                # read_inputs() takes self.grid straight from hass.number() with
+                # NO age gate at all, so a Home Assistant entity that has gone
+                # quiet reads as a current value on that path with or without
+                # this change. Running the full law is still the right choice
+                # there - the alternative is a degraded second law reasoning
+                # about an age nobody measured - but the floor does not make
+                # that path fresh, and nothing here should be read as claiming
+                # it does. And the integrator
+                # advances per CYCLE, not per second (control.py), so bounding
+                # the gap bounds the accumulation: at most one extra
+                # gain x error per floor interval, under the same
+                # integrator_max_w as every other cycle. A second, gentler
+                # control law for floor cycles would be a second set of
+                # dynamics nobody can test on this hardware.
                 await self.cycle()
             # ⚠️ The heartbeat is not an optimisation. The ESP32 treats silence
             # longer than ~30 s as "the controller is gone" and zeroes the
@@ -365,7 +751,14 @@ class Controller:
             "battery": self.batt,
             "soc": self.soc,
             "phase": self.maint.phase,
-            "status": "running" if self.auto else "stopped",
+            # ⚠️ SAFETY-02's alarm surface, and it is deliberately an existing
+            # one. IF-01/IF-02 own `ems/event/failsafe` and the `failsafe active`
+            # binary sensor and neither is built yet; inventing a bespoke topic
+            # here would be a surface to migrate later. This sensor is already
+            # discovered, already on every dashboard, and "failsafe" is
+            # additive to its vocabulary rather than a change to it.
+            "status": ("failsafe" if self.sign_wd.tripped
+                       else "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
@@ -417,6 +810,33 @@ class Controller:
                                     f"{self.p1.parse_errors} rejected"
                                     + (f", measurement unchanged for {unchanged:.0f} s"
                                        if unchanged is not None else "")})
+            # SAFETY-18. Reported in both states, for the reason SAFETY-02 is:
+            # a detector nobody can see is armed is a detector nobody trusts
+            # when it fires. ok=False/warn=False so the banner goes red - this
+            # is an alarm, and the banner is the loudest surface we own. It
+            # changes NOTHING about control; see check_meter_frozen().
+            if self.freeze_wd.active:
+                out.append({"ok": False, "warn": False,
+                            "text": "METER MAY BE FROZEN - " + self.freeze_wd.reason
+                                    + ". The loop is STILL FOLLOWING it and is "
+                                      "still running. Check the meter. Held here "
+                                      "for a quarter of an hour this sets the "
+                                      "month's billed capacity peak."})
+            elif getattr(self.p1_source, "unchanged_s", None) is None:
+                # Not "armed". Every transport but homewizard_local is invisible
+                # to this check, and saying "armed" there would be a lie the
+                # status page tells on behalf of a guard that cannot run.
+                out.append({"ok": False, "warn": True,
+                            "text": f"freeze detector: NOT COVERED on "
+                                    f"meter_source {o.get('meter_source')} - only "
+                                    f"homewizard_local sees whether the meter's own "
+                                    f"document changes"})
+            else:
+                out.append({"ok": True, "warn": False,
+                            "text": f"freeze detector: armed (alerts after "
+                                    f"{self.freeze_wd.cfg.hold_s:.0f} s unchanged "
+                                    f"while the command is over "
+                                    f"{rail_w(self.o.get('max_w', 2000)):.0f} W)"})
         rows = [("battery SoC", self.soc, o.get("soc_entity")),
                 ("battery power", self.batt, o.get("batt_entity"))]
         if not self.p1_enabled:
@@ -443,10 +863,44 @@ class Controller:
             out.append({"ok": True, "warn": False,
                         "text": f"setpoint {sp} (range {self.dev_min:g}…{self.dev_max:g} W)"})
 
+        # SAFETY-03. Red while a clamp is engaged, and the engagement COUNT is
+        # shown even after it clears - a loop that wound once and stopped is
+        # still a bug, and a row that vanishes with the condition takes the
+        # evidence with it. Reported only when there is something to report:
+        # unlike the freeze detector this guard has no "not covered" state, it
+        # runs on every write on every transport.
+        if self.clamp_wd.active:
+            out.append({"ok": False, "warn": False,
+                        "text": "OUTPUT CLAMP ENGAGED - " + self.clamp_wd.reason
+                                + f" Engagements: {self.clamp_wd.engagements}."})
+        elif self.clamp_wd.engagements:
+            out.append({"ok": False, "warn": True,
+                        "text": f"output clamp: not engaged now, but it has "
+                                f"engaged {self.clamp_wd.engagements} time(s) in "
+                                f"{self.clamp_wd.episodes} episode(s) since "
+                                f"start - see the event log"})
+
         if self.last_write_ok is False:
             out.append({"ok": False, "warn": False,
                         "text": "last write to the inverter was REJECTED - check the log"})
 
+        # SAFETY-02. Reported in both states: a watchdog nobody can see is armed
+        # is a watchdog nobody trusts when it fires.
+        if self.sign_wd.tripped:
+            out.append({"ok": False, "warn": False,
+                        "text": "SIGN-DISAGREEMENT FAILSAFE - " + self.sign_wd.reason
+                                + ". The inverter is held at 0 W. Find out why the "
+                                  "command opposed the meter before starting control "
+                                  "again; starting clears this. Restarting the "
+                                  "add-on does NOT clear it."})
+        else:
+            held = self.sign_wd.held_s(datetime.now(timezone.utc))
+            out.append({"ok": True, "warn": False,
+                        "text": f"sign watchdog: armed (trips after "
+                                f"{self.sign_wd.cfg.hold_s:.0f} s opposed, both over "
+                                f"{self.sign_wd.cfg.min_w:.0f} W)"
+                                + (f" - opposed for {held:.0f} s now" if held else "")})
+
         if not o.get("estop_fitted", False):
             out.append({"ok": False, "warn": True,
                         "text": "no e-stop fitted: if this host dies the battery stays "
@@ -464,7 +918,11 @@ class Controller:
     def status_payload(self) -> dict:
         checks = self.checks()
         bad = [c for c in checks if not c["ok"] and not c["warn"]]
-        if bad:
+        if self.sign_wd.tripped:
+            # Outranks "NOT READY": nothing is missing, something went wrong.
+            level, banner = "bad", ("FAILSAFE — the command opposed the meter. "
+                                    "Inverter held at 0 W.")
+        elif bad:
             level, banner = "bad", f"NOT READY — {bad[0]['text']}"
         elif not self.auto:
             level, banner = "warn", "Stopped — inverter commanded to 0 W"
@@ -498,6 +956,17 @@ class Controller:
             self.auto = not self.auto
             self.store.set("auto", self.auto)
             self.log_event("control started" if self.auto else "control stopped")
+            if self.auto and self.sign_wd.tripped:
+                # ⚠️ THE ONLY WAY OUT OF A SIGN-DISAGREEMENT TRIP, on purpose.
+                # It clears on a deliberate human start, not on the condition
+                # going away - the condition ALWAYS goes away, because the trip
+                # commands 0 W and a 0 W command cannot disagree with anything.
+                # An operator pressing start has, at minimum, looked at the
+                # banner that says why.
+                self.sign_wd.reset()
+                self.store.set("sign_tripped", False)
+                self.store.set("sign_reason", "")
+                self.log_event("sign-disagreement failsafe cleared by operator")
             if not self.auto:
                 self.target = 0.0
                 await self.write_setpoint(0.0, force=True)

goodwe_controller/app/maintenance.py

@@ -28,9 +28,10 @@ _LOG = logging.getLogger("goodwe.maint")
 
 IDLE, DRAIN, CHARGE, HOLD = "idle", "drain", "charge", "hold"
 
-# A drain of a 13.5 kWh usable pack at 2500 W is ~5 h even with no house load
-# helping. 12 h means the battery is not following commands - a fault, not a
-# slow day. The charge phase deliberately waits for sun and for cheap hours, so
+# A drain of a 13.8 kWh usable pack (300 Ah x 51.2 V, DoD 90) at the shipped
+# 2000 W is ~6.9 h even with no house load helping - and less in practice, since
+# house load drains alongside the export and soc_floor stops short of empty.
+# 12 h means the battery is not following commands - a fault, not a slow day. The charge phase deliberately waits for sun and for cheap hours, so
 # it is expected to span a night; 36 h still bounds it.
 DRAIN_TIMEOUT_MIN = 720
 CHARGE_TIMEOUT_MIN = 2160

goodwe_controller/app/store.py

@@ -22,11 +22,30 @@ _LOG = logging.getLogger("goodwe.store")
 # `auto_start` option only when the key is absent - if a default supplied False,
 # the fallback could never fire and auto_start would silently do nothing on
 # every fresh install.
+#
+# ⚠️ `sign_tripped` IS in here, and the difference from `auto` is the whole
+# reason both decisions are written down. `auto` has an option to fall back to
+# (`auto_start`), so a stored default would mask a fresh install. A latched
+# failsafe has no such fallback: absent means "never tripped", which is exactly
+# what a default of False says.
+#
+# It is persisted for the reason this module's docstring gives for maintenance
+# state, applied to something with a much shorter fuse. SAFETY-02's latch is the
+# only thing standing between a controller that has been caught driving the wrong
+# way and its own restart, and "restart the add-on" is the FIRST thing an operator
+# looking at a FAILSAFE banner will try. Held only in memory it came back armed,
+# into the fault, unattended - measured: after reconstructing Controller against
+# the same store, `tripped` was False, the banner read NOT READY, and it resumed
+# commanding -1000, -2000 W before re-tripping 180 s later. Under a supervisor
+# that restarts a crashed add-on that is a loop, three minutes of wrong-direction
+# power at a time, forever.
 DEFAULTS = {
     "phase": "idle",
     "phase_started": None,
     "last_completed": None,
     "last_start_attempt": None,
+    "sign_tripped": False,
+    "sign_reason": "",
 }
 
 
@@ -42,8 +61,10 @@ class Store:
                 loaded = json.load(fh)
             if isinstance(loaded, dict):
                 self.data = {**DEFAULTS, **loaded}
-                _LOG.info("state restored: phase=%s last_completed=%s",
-                          self.data.get("phase"), self.data.get("last_completed"))
+                _LOG.info("state restored: phase=%s last_completed=%s "
+                          "sign_tripped=%s",
+                          self.data.get("phase"), self.data.get("last_completed"),
+                          self.data.get("sign_tripped"))
         except FileNotFoundError:
             _LOG.info("no saved state, starting fresh")
         except (json.JSONDecodeError, OSError) as err:

goodwe_controller/app/validate.py

@@ -74,6 +74,48 @@ NOT READY banner already names the problem, (b) does not apply.
      was overruled. That firmware file's own comment says a lower bound on this
      "belongs in CFG-01, not here" - so here it is.
 
+  5. `sign_disagree_w` at or above `max_w`.  [(a)]
+     The arbiter's `supervised` limit bounds every command to +-max_w, and
+     SAFETY-02's predicate needs `abs(command) > sign_disagree_w`. Set the
+     threshold at or above the ceiling and the command side of the comparison
+     is unsatisfiable BY CONSTRUCTION: the watchdog can never fire, on any
+     input, ever. Same shape as 1 and 4 - the operator set a number, a layer
+     they cannot see makes it mean something else, and nothing says so. Worse
+     here, because what the status page reports in that state is "sign
+     watchdog: armed". A disarmed guard that advertises itself as armed is the
+     one thing this project has decided repeatedly it will not ship.
+
+  6. `maintenance_charge_w` above `max_w`.  [(a)]
+     The same shape as 5, and found the same way - by checking a worked example
+     against what actually ships. maintenance's cheap-window shaping files
+     `Claim.limit(hi=-maintenance_charge_w)` at P_MAINT_SHAPE, against the
+     `supervised` SAFETY limit's `lo=-max_w`. Both bind (P_SAFETY and
+     P_MAINT_SHAPE both outrank the loop that wins the SET), so a charge rate
+     above the ceiling gives `lo > hi` - the arbiter's clause 3, which it
+     correctly resolves to 0 W and logs as a CONTRADICTION. Measured against
+     the arbiter, loop asking +500 W:
+
+         max_w=2000  hi=-2500  ->     +0 W  contradiction=True
+         max_w=2500  hi=-2500  ->  -2500 W  limited by supervised(max_w)
+         max_w=3000  hi=-2500  ->  -2500 W  limited by maintenance(...)
+
+     So MAINTENANCE SILENTLY NEVER CHARGES IN A CHEAP WINDOW until max_w is at
+     or above the charge rate, and the only evidence is a contradiction line
+     that reads like a bug in the arbiter rather than like the two numbers the
+     operator set. Equality is fine and deliberately not refused - at
+     max_w == charge_w the window is a single reachable point, -max_w.
+
+     ⚠️ `maintenance_discharge_w` IS NOT THE SAME CASE, and this was checked
+     rather than assumed. THE SHAPING IS NOT SYMMETRIC: the drain phase does
+     not shape the loop, it OWNS the actuator - `Claim.set(P_MAINTENANCE,
+     +discharge_w)`. A SET is clamped by the limits above it, not contradicted
+     by them, so 2500 against a 2000 W ceiling emits +2000 W and the arbiter's
+     own explain() says `maintenance -> 2000 W, limited by supervised(max_w)`
+     on the status page every cycle. That is neither (a) - nothing is silent -
+     nor (b) - it moves energy and the cycle still completes, just slower
+     (13.8 kWh usable at 2000 W is ~6.9 h against the 720 min DRAIN_TIMEOUT).
+     It is warned about below, not refused.
+
 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
@@ -91,6 +133,9 @@ WHAT IS DELIBERATELY *NOT* REFUSED, because it is untidy rather than unsafe:
     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.
+  - `maintenance_discharge_w` above `max_w`. Clamped, not contradicted, and the
+    clamp names itself in the arbiter's explain() - see rule 6. Warned about,
+    not refused.
 """
 
 import logging
@@ -238,6 +283,72 @@ def validate_startup_config(opts: dict, dev_min=None, dev_max=None) -> list[str]
             "or rebuild the firmware with a matching max_age_s and update "
             "validate.FIRMWARE_INGEST_VETO_S.")
 
+    # --- 5. a sign watchdog that can actually fire ---------------------------
+    # ⚠️ Strictly `>=`, matching the predicate exactly: watchdog.py tests
+    # `abs(commanded_w) > min_w`, and the arbiter holds `abs(commanded_w)` at or
+    # below max_w, so threshold == max_w is already unsatisfiable. Anything
+    # BELOW max_w is reachable and therefore fine - this refuses the disarmed
+    # case only, not "close to the rail".
+    sign_w = _number(opts, "sign_disagree_w", 300.0)
+    if sign_w is None:
+        problems.append(f"sign_disagree_w {opts.get('sign_disagree_w')!r} is not a number")
+    elif max_w is not None and max_w > 0 and sign_w >= max_w:
+        problems.append(
+            f"sign_disagree_w is {sign_w:.0f} W but max_w is {max_w:.0f} W, so "
+            "the SAFETY-02 sign-disagreement watchdog can never fire: the "
+            "arbiter never lets a command exceed max_w, and the watchdog needs "
+            f"a command over {sign_w:.0f} W. It would sit there reporting "
+            "'armed' on the status page while being incapable of tripping - the "
+            f"one runaway failure mode this system has actually observed. Lower "
+            f"sign_disagree_w below {max_w:.0f} W (300 W is the measured "
+            "default), or raise max_w.")
+
+    # --- 6. a maintenance charge the ceiling can actually accommodate --------
+    # ⚠️ Strictly `>`, matching the arbiter exactly. The shaping is
+    # `Claim.limit(hi=-charge_w)` against `supervised`'s `lo=-max_w`, so
+    # charge_w == max_w leaves the single reachable point -max_w and works;
+    # only ABOVE is `lo > hi`, arbiter clause 3, 0 W and a contradiction.
+    #
+    # Not scoped to maintenance_enabled, deliberately. The pair is
+    # contradictory whether or not the schedule is on, and scoping it would
+    # leave the trap armed for the one operator action - ticking
+    # maintenance_enabled - that cannot possibly be expected to change what a
+    # charge rate means.
+    # ⚠️ THE FALLBACK IS config.yaml's SHIPPED VALUE, and it has to be kept
+    # equal to it - that is the whole point of AC3. It is reachable only when a
+    # caller hands over a dict with the key missing (sim/inject.py, a test); the
+    # Supervisor always supplies every key from config.yaml, so on a real
+    # install the argument is always present.
+    #
+    # ⚠️ KNOWN MISMATCH, LEFT DELIBERATELY AND FLAGGED RATHER THAN FIXED HERE:
+    # `main.py` still falls back to 2500 in two places
+    # (`opts.get("maintenance_charge_w", 2500)`), as does maintenance.py's
+    # MaintConfig dataclass. So a dict with the key ABSENT is accepted by this
+    # rule at 2000 and then built by main.py at 2500 - the contradiction this
+    # rule exists to catch, in the one case it cannot see. It is unreachable on
+    # a Supervisor install and those files are another ticket's right now.
+    # THE REAL FIX is one source of truth for option defaults; until then the
+    # divergence is PINNED BY A CHECK rather than by this comment - see
+    # test_validate.py, "the KNOWN cross-file default divergence". It asserts
+    # the mismatch as it stands and goes red if EITHER side moves, including
+    # when somebody closes it in main.py, at which point this block and that
+    # check both get deleted.
+    charge_w = _number(opts, "maintenance_charge_w", 2000.0)
+    if charge_w is None:
+        problems.append(
+            f"maintenance_charge_w {opts.get('maintenance_charge_w')!r} is not a number")
+    elif max_w is not None and max_w > 0 and charge_w > max_w:
+        problems.append(
+            f"maintenance_charge_w is {charge_w:.0f} W but max_w is "
+            f"{max_w:.0f} W, so a maintenance charge in a cheap window can "
+            "never happen: the shaping asks the arbiter for at most "
+            f"{-charge_w:.0f} W while the supervised limit allows no less than "
+            f"{-max_w:.0f} W, which is a contradiction it resolves to 0 W - "
+            "THE CEILING WINS, and what you would see is an ARBITER "
+            "CONTRADICTION line that reads like a bug rather than like these "
+            f"two numbers. Lower maintenance_charge_w to {max_w:.0f} W or less, "
+            f"or raise max_w to at least {charge_w:.0f} W.")
+
     # --- 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)
@@ -249,6 +360,25 @@ def validate_startup_config(opts: dict, dev_min=None, dev_max=None) -> list[str]
             "saturation. 0 (follow max_w) is the recommended value.",
             integ_w, max_w)
 
+    # ⚠️ THE SIBLING OF RULE 6, AND NOT THE SAME CASE - see the docstring. The
+    # drain phase OWNS the actuator (`Claim.set` at P_MAINTENANCE), and a SET is
+    # clamped by the limits above it rather than contradicted by them. So this
+    # drains at max_w instead of the configured rate, the arbiter says so in
+    # words on the status page every cycle, and the cycle still completes -
+    # slower, and eating into maintenance.DRAIN_TIMEOUT_MIN. Loud and it moves
+    # energy, so it is neither (a) nor (b): warned, not refused.
+    disch_w = _number(opts, "maintenance_discharge_w", 2000.0)
+    if disch_w is not None and max_w is not None and max_w > 0 and disch_w > max_w:
+        _LOG.warning(
+            "maintenance_discharge_w %.0f W is above max_w %.0f W. Not refused - "
+            "the drain phase SETS the setpoint and the arbiter clamps it to "
+            "%.0f W and names the clamp ('limited by supervised(max_w)'), so "
+            "nothing is silent and the cycle still completes. But it drains at "
+            "%.0f W, not the %.0f W you configured, and the drain phase has a "
+            "720 min timeout. Lower it to %.0f W or raise max_w to remove the "
+            "surprise.",
+            disch_w, max_w, max_w, max_w, disch_w, max_w)
+
     return problems
 
 

goodwe_controller/app/watchdog.py

@@ -0,0 +1,354 @@
+"""SAFETY-02 - the sign-disagreement watchdog.
+
+WHAT IT CATCHES, in one sentence: a grid-following loop that is pushing power in
+the wrong direction, which every other guard in this system is blind to.
+
+The stale-input watchdog (SAFETY-01) asks "is the meter still talking?". The
+saturation freeze asks "can the inverter follow?". The output clamp asks "is the
+number too big?". A loop can pass all three and still be charging the battery
+out of the grid while the house imports - the meter is fresh, the inverter is
+tracking beautifully, and the magnitude is inside the rating. The only thing
+that separates that from healthy operation is the SIGN.
+
+⚠️ THIS IS NOT A HYPOTHETICAL. On 2026-08-20 the vendor controller (Illusmart)
+did exactly this four times in one day (NOTES.md §4.7). Both captures of that
+bus are committed - `sim/scenarios/bus-2026-08-20.log.gz` and the healthy
+`bus-2026-08-23.log.gz` in the infra repo - and `sim/replay_sign.py` drives this
+module over both of them. Every number in this file was measured on those two
+days, not chosen:
+
+    day          samples gated in    sign agreement
+    2026-08-23   4 212 / 17 280      93.4 %   (healthy)
+    2026-08-20   7 182 / 17 280      56.4 %   (the whole fault day)
+      cluster A  15:26-16:43            0.3 %
+      cluster B  17:11-18:28            0.9 %
+      cluster C  20:01-20:31           10.5 %
+      cluster D  20:55-21:11            0.0 %
+
+⚠️ THOSE AGREEMENT FIGURES ARE THE WEAKEST EVIDENCE ON THIS PAGE, and an earlier
+version of this comment leaned on them as though they were the strongest. The
+clusters are found by looking for sustained opposed samples, so measuring "how
+opposed is this cluster" over them is close to a tautology - and "the healthy day
+contains no such cluster" is the same sentence as "the healthy day produces no
+trip", not independent corroboration of it.
+
+What actually carries the argument is two things neither the detector nor the
+clustering assumes:
+
+  1. The RUN-LENGTH DISTRIBUTION. The longest unbroken opposed run on the healthy
+     day is 30 s. On the fault day there are 18 runs over 180 s and the longest is
+     1750 s. Nothing about that gap was chosen - it is what the two days measure.
+  2. The clusters land where a human independently wrote down onsets. NOTES.md
+     §4.7 records 15:01, 16:56, 19:57 and 20:23 from watching it happen, before
+     any of this existed, and cluster D coincides with the separately documented
+     inverter-off runaway of §4.7 item 2.
+
+Be precise about (2), because the convenient overstatement is available and wrong:
+the clustering does NOT reproduce four episodes. It yields THREE clusters over the
+four documented onsets - C spans both 19:57 and 20:23 - plus a fourth for §4.7
+item 2, which is not one of the four. Every trip does fall inside a documented
+window, which is the claim worth making.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+WHY IT LIVES HERE AND NOT IN THE FIRMWARE OR THE WITNESS
+
+Three vantage points see three different things. The firmware knows what it
+WROTE, the witness Pi knows what was ON THE WIRE and whether the inverter ACKed
+it, and the add-on knows what it INTENDED and holds the authoritative meter.
+
+This check is not command-versus-wire; it is command-versus-physics. It needs
+the emitted setpoint and the P1 net figure in the same place, and it needs the
+authority to command zero when they fight:
+
+  - the witness is read-only by charter and cannot command anything, so it could
+    raise the alarm but never take the trip action the AC requires;
+  - the firmware has the wire but not the meter. §5.1 makes P1 the only
+    authoritative grid figure and the board only ever receives its AGE
+    (`sensor.goodwe_p1_sample_age`), never its value. Putting the check there
+    would mean shipping the meter to the ESP32 for no other reason, and it would
+    be C++ per install rather than one generic guard;
+  - the add-on has both halves already, plus an arbiter that can outrank every
+    strategy with a P_SAFETY claim.
+
+The cost of standing here is real and worth stating: this watchdog compares what
+we MEANT to put on the wire against the meter. If the firmware or the driver
+inverts the sign on the way out, the add-on's own view still agrees with itself
+and this check stays silent. That gap is a wire-versus-intent problem and it
+belongs to the witness, not here.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+WHAT "DISAGREEMENT" MEANS, PRECISELY
+
+    disagree = following
+               and commanded_w * grid_w < 0
+               and abs(commanded_w) > min_w
+               and abs(grid_w)      > min_w
+
+Four gates, and each one exists to exclude a specific thing that is NOT a fault:
+
+1. `following`. ⚠️ THE GATE THAT IS EASIEST TO FORGET AND MOST EXPENSIVE TO
+   OMIT. Sign agreement is a property of a GRID-FOLLOWING loop. It is not
+   expected of a strategy that deliberately commands against the meter -
+   maintenance is exactly that. A maintenance grid charge of 1500 W into a house
+   drawing 500 W puts +2000 W on the meter against a -1500 W command: opposed,
+   both far over any sane threshold, and sustained for HOURS. Armed
+   unconditionally this watchdog would trip on every single maintenance cycle,
+   which is not a tuning problem, it is the wrong question being asked. So the
+   caller says whether the grid-following loop actually won the arbitration this
+   cycle, and the timer only accumulates when it did.
+
+   ⚠️ 1500 W, NOT THE DEFAULT 2500 W, AND THE REASON IS NOT COSMETIC. At the
+   shipped defaults `maintenance_charge_w` is 2500 and `max_w` is 2000, so the
+   cheap-window claim is `hi = -2500` against a supervised `lo = -2000`: lo > hi,
+   which arbiter.py resolves as a CONTRADICTION and 0 W, not as a -2500 W charge.
+   The example above is written at 1500 W because that is a combination the
+   schema and the arbiter both actually produce. (The contradiction at the
+   defaults is a real pre-existing bug - a default maintenance charge silently
+   never happens in a cheap window - but it is maintenance's, not this module's,
+   and it is filed separately. Do not "fix" it here.)
+
+2. The strict `< 0` product. "Opposed" and "neither side is zero" in one
+   expression.
+
+3. The 300 W magnitude gate ON BOTH SIDES. Near zero the sign is noise, and near
+   zero is where a healthy loop LIVES - the deadband holds the command still
+   while the meter wanders either side of `target_grid_w`. On the healthy day
+   only 4 212 of 17 280 samples (24 %) are even gated in; the other 76 % are the
+   converged band where sign carries no information. This is also why the
+   deadband cannot produce a false trip: inside it the meter is by definition
+   under 300 W.
+
+4. The 180 s continuity requirement. This is what excludes the legitimate
+   transient. A load step reverses the meter's sign instantly while the command
+   is still where the last cycle left it; slew limiting then needs a few cycles
+   to cross over. Measured on the healthy day, the LONGEST such crossing is 30 s
+   - and that is with a vendor controller far cruder than ours. 180 s is six
+   times that. It is not a fitted threshold: at 60 s the healthy day still
+   produces zero trips, and at 300 s the fault day still produces 13.
+
+⚠️ A BATTERY THAT REFUSES A COMMAND CANNOT TRIP THIS, and that is structural
+rather than lucky. At SoC 10 % in Standby, a 1350 W discharge command into a
+1350 W import is DECLINED: the battery does nothing, so the meter stays at
++1350 W and the command stays at +1350 W. Same sign. Agreement. A refusal leaves
+the meter where it was; only the inverter ACTING moves it, and acting in the
+commanded direction moves it toward zero, not through it. The failure mode this
+check keys on is the opposite of a refusal - it is the inverter obediently doing
+a wrong thing.
+
+⚠️ A FROZEN METER cannot trip it either, for the same reason read the other way:
+a stuck reading of +800 W makes the loop command discharge and keep commanding
+discharge. Command and meter converge on AGREEING. Freezes are SAFETY-12's and
+SAFETY-01's problem, and this watchdog neither helps nor hinders there.
+
+⚠️ ALL OF THAT DEPENDS ON ONE PROPERTY OF THE CONTROL LAW, so it is an invariant
+and not a happy accident: the saturation freeze in control.py must keep letting
+the command FALL, CROSS ZERO AND REVERSE - "may not wind further in the direction
+it is already pushing", not "only corrections that shrink |i_w|". control.py
+records the shrink-only encoding as tried and rejected because it pins the command
+at its last value indefinitely; a pinned command against a meter that has moved on
+is precisely a sustained sign disagreement, so under that encoding this watchdog
+WOULD false-trip on a plain load step. If anyone ever revisits that freeze, this
+module's no-false-positive argument is downstream of the answer.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+WHAT IT DOES NOT CATCH
+
+An inverter that ACTS opposite to what it was told. Tell it to discharge 2000 W
+and have it charge instead, and the meter moves FURTHER the way it was already
+going - so the command and the meter agree, all the way into the rail. This
+watchdog compares the loop's output direction against the input state it was
+regulating; it is blind to the plant lying about which way it went. That is the
+saturation freeze's question (|command - the battery's actual power| > 500 W,
+NOTES.md §4.7 row 4), and the two checks are complementary rather than
+overlapping. Neither substitutes for the other.
+
+Nor does it see a sign inversion introduced DOWNSTREAM of this add-on - in the
+firmware, on the wire, or in a future driver. Our view stays self-consistent and
+this stays silent. That is a wire-versus-intent problem and it belongs to the
+witness, which is the only vantage point that sees both.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+STATE, TRIP AND LATCH
+
+One timestamp, not a sample counter. The cycle rate is not fixed - a meter
+arrival, or `cycle_floor_s` elapsing, whichever comes first - so N samples is a
+different wall-clock window on every path, and the AC is written in minutes.
+
+The latch is not optional and not a nicety. Commanding 0 W removes the command
+side of the comparison (|0| is not > 300), so the disagreement disappears the
+instant the trip works. Un-latched, this watchdog would trip, clear itself, and
+hand the actuator straight back to the loop that was driving the wrong way -
+three minutes later, forever. `tripped` therefore stays true until an operator
+`reset()`s it by starting control again, which is a deliberate human act after
+looking at why.
+
+⚠️ AND THE LATCH HAS TO OUTLIVE THE PROCESS. Held only in memory it is not a
+latch at all - a container restart clears it and the add-on comes back armed,
+into the same fault, unattended. Worse than merely losing state: "restart the
+add-on" is the first thing an operator confronted with a FAILSAFE banner and a
+0 W inverter will try, and under a supervisor that restarts a crashed add-on it
+is a loop of three-minute wrong-direction bursts. `tripped` and `reason` are
+therefore constructor arguments, restored from `Store` in `Controller.__init__`
+and written back the moment the trip happens. See store.py.
+"""
+
+from dataclasses import dataclass
+from datetime import datetime
+
+
+@dataclass(frozen=True)
+class SignWatchdogConfig:
+    """Defaults, not constants - config.yaml carries both (SAFETY-02 AC 5)."""
+
+    min_w: float = 300.0
+    hold_s: float = 180.0
+
+
+def disagrees(commanded_w, grid_w, following: bool,
+              cfg: SignWatchdogConfig) -> bool:
+    """The predicate, and the ONLY place it is written down.
+
+    ⚠️ Public because `sim/replay_sign.py` needs it too - to describe episodes, to
+    measure agreement, to sweep the clock-skew guard - and it had reimplemented it
+    inline. Two copies of a safety predicate is one copy plus a future
+    disagreement about what the check means, and the copy that drifts is always
+    the one in the harness that grades it.
+    """
+    return (following
+            and commanded_w is not None and grid_w is not None
+            and commanded_w * grid_w < 0
+            and abs(commanded_w) > cfg.min_w
+            and abs(grid_w) > cfg.min_w)
+
+
+def loop_is_following(resolution, loop_asked) -> bool:
+    """Did the grid-following loop actually choose the number going on the wire?
+
+    Gate 1 of the predicate above, and it lives here rather than inline in
+    `cycle()` for the reason `disagrees()` does: the test suite has to be able to
+    assert on THE SHIPPED EXPRESSION, not on a transcription of it that drifts
+    apart from it in silence.
+
+    ⚠️ IT WAS A TRANSCRIPTION, AND THAT WAS MEASURED, NOT FEARED. The P_PEAK case
+    in test_watchdog.py exists to make whoever lands peak shaving come here and
+    change an expectation. With the expression copied into the test it did not do
+    that: editing the shipped gate alone to `winner in ("loop", "peak")` left every
+    suite green while the watchdog went blind for the whole of every peak event.
+    One definition, two callers, and that test now bites.
+
+    `resolution`  the arbiter's Resolution. Duck-typed on `.winner` and
+                  `.target_w` so this module still imports nothing from arbiter.
+    `loop_asked`  what the grid-following loop claimed this cycle, or None if it
+                  did not claim at all.
+
+    "The loop won" is NOT the question, and the difference is a whole class of
+    false trip. A LIMIT claim can survive the loop winning and still replace its
+    number: maintenance's cheap-window shaping is `hi = -maintenance_charge_w`, so
+    at 1500 W the loop can ask for +500 W of discharge, win the arbitration, and
+    have the emitted value come out at -1500 W of grid charge. Winner says "loop";
+    the wire carries maintenance's intent.
+
+    So the test is on the NUMBER: the loop is following only while the emitted
+    value points the way the loop asked AND is no larger than it asked - limits
+    reduced it, they did not redirect it. The magnitude half is load-bearing on
+    its own, because a `lo` limit can raise magnitude without flipping sign, and
+    that is not the loop following either. Zero on either side falls out as
+    not-following, which costs nothing: a 0 W command cannot be a
+    wrong-direction command.
+
+    ⚠️ FORWARD HAZARD, and the claim block in cycle() already anticipates it.
+    `winner == "loop"` disarms the watchdog under ANY higher-priority SET claim.
+    Today only maintenance and the safety stops emit one and neither follows the
+    meter, so the gate costs nothing. A peak-shaving strategy claiming SET at
+    P_PEAK **is** grid-following in sign, and the moment it lands this goes blind
+    for the duration of every peak event. Widening it means asking "does the
+    winning strategy follow the meter", not adding another name to a comparison.
+    """
+    return (resolution.winner == "loop" and loop_asked is not None
+            and resolution.target_w * loop_asked > 0
+            and abs(resolution.target_w) <= abs(loop_asked))
+
+
+class SignWatchdog:
+    """One instance per actuator, evaluated once per control cycle.
+
+    ⚠️ NOT SHARED ACROSS CADENCES. `disagree_since` is a wall-clock start time,
+    so driving one instance from two loops at two rates would have each one
+    resetting the other's window. If a fast on-device path ever wants this
+    check, it gets its own instance - the same exactly-one-writer discipline the
+    arbiter applies to the actuator, applied to the detector's own state.
+    """
+
+    def __init__(self, cfg: SignWatchdogConfig | None = None, *,
+                 tripped: bool = False, reason: str = ""):
+        self.cfg = cfg or SignWatchdogConfig()
+        self.disagree_since: datetime | None = None
+        # ⚠️ RESTORED FROM THE STORE, NOT DEFAULTED. A latch that lives only in
+        # memory is not a latch: a container restart clears it, and the add-on
+        # comes back armed, into the same fault, with no operator involved. See
+        # store.py's note on `sign_tripped` for the measured behaviour.
+        self.tripped = bool(tripped)
+        self.reason = reason if self.tripped else ""
+
+    # -- the whole check, and it is a pure function of its arguments ----------
+    def evaluate(self, commanded_w, grid_w, following: bool,
+                 now: datetime) -> bool:
+        """Advance the detector one cycle. Returns True while tripped.
+
+        `commanded_w`  the EMITTED setpoint - what is standing on the wire now,
+                       after deadband, slew, quantisation and the arbiter. Not
+                       the optimizer's raw wish: the wire carries the emitted
+                       value, so anything else can disagree with the meter for a
+                       reason that is not a fault.
+        `grid_w`       net P1, + = importing. None when the meter is stale or
+                       missing, which CLEARS the timer rather than accumulating
+                       - a frozen figure held against a moving command would
+                       otherwise manufacture a disagreement in about three
+                       minutes, on top of SAFETY-01 having already commanded
+                       zero for the same cause.
+        `following`    did the grid-following loop actually win this cycle? See
+                       gate 1 in the module docstring.
+        `now`          the caller's clock, so this stays testable and replayable.
+        """
+        if self.tripped:
+            # Latched. Do not re-evaluate: the trip removed the evidence.
+            return True
+
+        cfg = self.cfg
+        if not disagrees(commanded_w, grid_w, following, cfg):
+            self.disagree_since = None
+            return False
+
+        if self.disagree_since is None:
+            self.disagree_since = now
+            return False
+
+        held = (now - self.disagree_since).total_seconds()
+        if held < cfg.hold_s:
+            return False
+
+        self.tripped = True
+        self.reason = (
+            f"SIGN_DISAGREEMENT: commanded {commanded_w:+.0f} W against a meter "
+            f"reading {grid_w:+.0f} W for {held:.0f} s continuously "
+            f"(limits: both over {cfg.min_w:.0f} W, held over {cfg.hold_s:.0f} s)"
+        )
+        return True
+
+    def held_s(self, now: datetime) -> float:
+        """How long the current disagreement has been standing, for the UI.
+
+        ⚠️ Takes the clock rather than reading one. It was a property calling
+        `datetime.now()`, which quietly broke the property this module's header
+        advertises - every other observable here is a pure function of what it
+        was handed - and an unclocked function is one nothing can test, which is
+        exactly what happened to it.
+        """
+        if self.disagree_since is None:
+            return 0.0
+        return (now - self.disagree_since).total_seconds()
+
+    def reset(self) -> None:
+        self.disagree_since = None
+        self.tripped = False
+        self.reason = ""

goodwe_controller/config.yaml

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 name: GoodWe RS485 Controller
-version: "0.4.0"
+version: "0.5.2"
 slug: goodwe_controller
 description: >-
   Drives a GoodWe ES/BP battery inverter over RS485 by emulating its smart
@@ -90,14 +90,71 @@ options:
   integrator_max_w: 0
   heartbeat_s: 10
   stale_input_s: 15
+  cycle_floor_s: 15
   auto_start: false
 
+  # --- SAFETY-02 sign-disagreement watchdog ----------------------------------
+  # Trips when the emitted setpoint and the P1 net figure point OPPOSITE ways,
+  # both over sign_disagree_w, continuously for sign_disagree_s. Action: 0 W and
+  # a failsafe that latches until an operator starts control again.
+  #
+  # Both defaults are measured, not chosen. On the captured healthy day
+  # (2026-08-23) the longest legitimate opposed run - a load step the loop has
+  # not caught up with - is 30 s, and sign agreement over the gated samples is
+  # 93.4 %. On the captured fault day (2026-08-20) the clusters run 0.0-10.5 %
+  # agreement with opposed runs up to 1752 s. 300 W / 180 s sits in the middle of
+  # a very wide gap: at 60 s the healthy day still trips nothing, at 300 s the
+  # fault day still trips 13 times. There is no reason to move either number
+  # without a capture that says so. They are options because the AC says
+  # thresholds are defaults rather than constants - not because they are knobs
+  # anyone is expected to turn.
+  #
+  # ⚠️ sign_disagree_w must stay BELOW max_w or the watchdog can never fire (the
+  # arbiter bounds the command to +-max_w). validate.py refuses that config.
+  sign_disagree_w: 300
+  sign_disagree_s: 180
+
+  # --- SAFETY-18 frozen-but-fresh meter detector -----------------------------
+  # Seconds the meter may keep answering with an UNCHANGED measurement while the
+  # command stands at the rail before the add-on raises an alarm. Both halves
+  # are required: neither one alone is safe, and app/freeze.py carries why.
+  #
+  # ALARM ONLY. It does not command 0 W and does not latch. A false trip parks
+  # the battery; a false notification costs an alert.
+  #
+  # ⚠️ Only `meter_source: homewizard_local` can see this at all - it is the
+  # only transport that reads the meter's own document. On every other source
+  # the status page says NOT COVERED rather than "armed".
+  #
+  # 300 s is measured, not chosen. Over 2399 s of the live house at the
+  # converged operating point (sim/scenarios/p1-age-2026-08-26.jsonl.gz, mean
+  # grid -14.2 W, 1194 polls, 735 of them repeating the previous reading) the
+  # LONGEST run without a distinct reading is 15.4 s (the largest unchanged_s any
+  # sample observes is 8.0 s). 300 s is 19.5x the pessimistic figure, and
+  # still inside the 900 s quarter that bills the capacity tariff.
+  meter_freeze_s: 300
+
   # --- maintenance -----------------------------------------------------------
   maintenance_enabled: false
   maintenance_interval_days: 28
   maintenance_start_hour: 10
-  maintenance_discharge_w: 2500
-  maintenance_charge_w: 2500
+  # ⚠️ BOTH MUST STAY AT OR BELOW max_w, and that is why they are 2000 rather
+  # than the 2500 they shipped as. The cheap-window charge shaping asks the
+  # arbiter for `hi = -maintenance_charge_w` against the supervised `lo =
+  # -max_w`: above the ceiling that is `lo > hi`, a contradiction resolved to
+  # 0 W, so maintenance would SILENTLY NEVER CHARGE in a cheap window on a
+  # default install. validate.py refuses that config (rule 6), so these
+  # defaults had to become self-consistent with the max_w above rather than
+  # ship a configuration the validator rejects.
+  #
+  # The discharge side is clamped rather than contradicted - it drains at max_w
+  # and the arbiter says so - so it is only warned about; it is 2000 here for
+  # symmetry and to keep the shipped config warning-free.
+  #
+  # Raising max_w (the live reference install runs 5000) is what unlocks a
+  # faster maintenance cycle. Raise max_w FIRST, then these.
+  maintenance_discharge_w: 2000
+  maintenance_charge_w: 2000
   maintenance_soc_floor: 11
   maintenance_soc_target: 99
   maintenance_hold_min: 120
@@ -151,8 +208,23 @@ schema:
   integrator_max_w: int(0,15000)
   heartbeat_s: int(2,25)
   stale_input_s: int(5,120)
+  cycle_floor_s: int(5,60)
   auto_start: bool
 
+  # No "off" value, deliberately: this is a P0 safety check and the schema is
+  # not the place to make disarming it a supported configuration.
+  sign_disagree_w: int(50,5000)
+  sign_disagree_s: int(30,1800)
+
+  # No "off" value, for SAFETY-02's reason: disarming a safety alarm is not a
+  # supported configuration. ⚠️ THE FLOOR OF 60 IS NOT A RECOMMENDATION. At 300 s
+  # the slowest a HEALTHY meter's 1 Wh register can tick and still look unchanged
+  # is 12 W, which is inside the 15 W deadband, so the two terms of the
+  # conjunction are mutually exclusive rather than merely far apart. At 60 s that
+  # figure is 60 W and the argument is gone - only the margin is left. See
+  # app/freeze.py.
+  meter_freeze_s: int(60,3600)
+
   maintenance_enabled: bool
   maintenance_interval_days: int(1,90)
   maintenance_start_hour: int(0,23)

goodwe_controller/test_clamp.py

@@ -0,0 +1,550 @@
+"""Runnable check for SAFETY-03, the output clamp and its winding-loop alarm.
+
+    python3 test_clamp.py
+
+No framework, asserts only, same house style as test_freeze.py.
+
+Five parts, and parts 3 and 4 are the ones that carry the acceptance criteria:
+
+  1. THE CLAMP ARITHMETIC, on the shipped `clamp_to_rating()` - boundaries,
+     symmetry, the device second stage, and the non-finite cases. Table driven.
+  2. THE ALARM'S CADENCE - rising edge, re-assert, hysteresis - on the shipped
+     `ClampWatchdog`. Every engagement counted, notifications not flooded.
+  3. AC 1 + AC 3, WIRED. A computed setpoint that exceeds the rating, driven
+     through the REAL `Controller.cycle()`: nothing over the rating reaches the
+     device, and the alarm fires. Includes the historical runaway from
+     specs.md 10.3 replayed against an unclamped transcription, so the check
+     says what the clamp is actually worth in watts rather than asserting a
+     constant.
+  4. AC 2, AND IT IS THE LOAD-BEARING HALF. A loop that SATURATES WITHOUT
+     CLAMPING - the inverter refusing to follow a perfectly legal command - must
+     raise NO clamp alarm. If it does, the bug signal is inside the noise again
+     and the whole ticket has bought nothing.
+  5. NO PATH BYPASSES IT. write_setpoint() is the only route to the wire, so it
+     is called directly with an out-of-range value the way the heartbeat and the
+     operator's buttons call it.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+WHY PART 4 ALSO ASSERTS ON `Decision`'s BOOLEANS AND NOT ON `reason`
+
+`Decision.reason` is one string and the stages after the clamp overwrite it. The
+check below drives a cycle that clamps the integrator AND is then slew limited,
+and asserts that `reason` does NOT say so while `i_clamped` does. That is not a
+style preference - an alarm keyed on the string is silent on exactly the cycles a
+winding loop produces, and this is the check that would go red if someone
+"simplified" main.py back onto it.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+WHAT THIS CHECK DOES NOT COVER
+
+- The firmware-side magnitude clamp (the card's "two clamps, not one"). This
+  add-on's `write_setpoint()` is the add-on half; the ESP32 half is DRIVER-07's
+  and is not in this repo's Python.
+- A rig run. Nothing here needs one: the clamp is arithmetic on the write path
+  and part 3 drives the shipped `Controller.cycle()` against a stub Home
+  Assistant, which is the same surface test_freeze.py part 1-2 use. The wire-
+  level invariant the card asks for (`|emitted| <= rating` on every frame) is
+  asserted here over every value that reached `set_number()`, which is the last
+  thing this process controls; proving it at the inverter needs the witness log
+  and belongs with DRIVER-07.
+"""
+
+import asyncio
+import math
+import sys
+from datetime import datetime, timedelta, timezone
+
+from app.clamp import (
+    CLEAR_CYCLES, REASON_CODE, REASSERT_S, ClampWatchdog, clamp_to_rating,
+    is_commandable,
+)
+from app.control import Tuning, compute
+from app.main import Controller
+
+fails = []
+T0 = datetime(2026, 8, 30, 9, 0, 0, tzinfo=timezone.utc)
+
+# The live install's numbers. NOTES.md and freeze.py both say max_w: 5000 there,
+# which is also the device rating, so this is the bound the alarm is written at.
+LIVE_MAX_W = 5000.0
+CLAMP_ID = "goodwe_output_clamp"
+
+
+def check(name, cond):
+    print(f"  {'ok  ' if cond else 'FAIL'} {name}")
+    if not cond:
+        fails.append(name)
+
+
+# ==============================================================================
+print("1. the clamp arithmetic, on the shipped expression")
+
+# (requested, limit, expected applied, expected engaged, expected bound)
+TABLE = [
+    (5001.0, 5000.0, 5000.0, True, "max_w"),      # +limit+1
+    (-5001.0, 5000.0, -5000.0, True, "max_w"),    # -limit-1, the export side
+    (5000.0, 5000.0, 5000.0, False, ""),          # exactly +limit: NOT engaged
+    (-5000.0, 5000.0, -5000.0, False, ""),        # exactly -limit: NOT engaged
+    (0.0, 5000.0, 0.0, False, ""),                # the failsafe value
+    (1234.0, 5000.0, 1234.0, False, ""),
+    (14768.0, 5000.0, 5000.0, True, "max_w"),     # 10.3's reported runaway
+]
+for requested, limit, want_applied, want_engaged, want_bound in TABLE:
+    r = clamp_to_rating(requested, limit)
+    check(f"{requested:+.0f} W against a {limit:.0f} W rating -> "
+          f"{r.applied_w:+.0f} W, engaged={r.engaged}, bound={r.bound!r}",
+          r.applied_w == want_applied and r.engaged is want_engaged
+          and r.bound == want_bound)
+
+# It is a MAGNITUDE clamp (3.2), so import and export must be bound identically.
+# Derived over a sweep rather than asserted on two hand-picked values.
+asym = [m for m in range(0, 12001, 37)
+        if clamp_to_rating(m, LIVE_MAX_W).applied_w
+        != -clamp_to_rating(-m, LIVE_MAX_W).applied_w]
+check(f"symmetric over {len(range(0, 12001, 37))} magnitudes "
+      f"({len(asym)} asymmetric)", not asym)
+
+# The engagement flag has to mean "the RAW value differed", which is the words
+# AC 2 uses. Re-derived from the result's own fields, not from the table.
+mismatch = [m for m in range(0, 12001, 37)
+            for r in [clamp_to_rating(m, LIVE_MAX_W)]
+            if r.engaged != (r.requested_w != r.applied_w)]
+check("engaged is exactly 'raw differs from applied', over the same sweep",
+      not mismatch)
+
+# The device second stage. Only reachable when max_w is ABOVE the device range,
+# i.e. when validate_startup_config() did not run or no longer holds.
+r = clamp_to_rating(3000.0, 5000.0, dev_min=-2000.0, dev_max=2000.0)
+check(f"a device narrower than max_w still bites, and says which bound "
+      f"({r.applied_w:+.0f} W, {r.bound!r})",
+      r.applied_w == 2000.0 and r.engaged and r.bound == "device")
+r = clamp_to_rating(3000.0, 5000.0, dev_min=-5000.0, dev_max=5000.0)
+check("...and is a no-op once the startup validation holds",
+      r.applied_w == 3000.0 and not r.engaged)
+
+# ⚠️ REGRESSION, REVIEW-FOUND. THE FIRST STAGE USED TO `return` AND THE DEVICE
+# STAGE WAS THEN NEVER REACHED, so the harder the overshoot the less the guard
+# did: at max_w 5000 against a +-4000 device, +9999 emitted +5000 - OUTSIDE THE
+# DEVICE RANGE - while a mere +4500 was correctly held to +4000. That inverts
+# the guard and it was a regression against the pre-PR `write_setpoint()`, whose
+# comment read "never send a value the device will reject outright".
+#
+# The property is asserted over a sweep, not on the two witness values, because
+# the defect was invisible to every single-value check that happened to sit
+# inside one stage.
+DEV_LO, DEV_HI = -4000.0, 4000.0
+escapes = [(m, clamp_to_rating(m, 5000.0, DEV_LO, DEV_HI).applied_w)
+           for m in range(-15000, 15001, 61)
+           for a in [clamp_to_rating(m, 5000.0, DEV_LO, DEV_HI).applied_w]
+           if not (DEV_LO <= a <= DEV_HI)]
+big = clamp_to_rating(9999.0, 5000.0, DEV_LO, DEV_HI)
+small = clamp_to_rating(4500.0, 5000.0, DEV_LO, DEV_HI)
+print(f"    max_w 5000 vs a device of {DEV_LO:+.0f}..{DEV_HI:+.0f}: "
+      f"+9999 -> {big.applied_w:+.0f} W ({big.bound}), "
+      f"+4500 -> {small.applied_w:+.0f} W ({small.bound})")
+check(f"BOTH stages always run - {big.requested_w:+.0f} W emits "
+      f"{big.applied_w:+.0f} W, inside the device's {DEV_HI:+.0f} W, and names "
+      f"both bounds ({big.bound!r})",
+      big.applied_w == DEV_HI and big.bound == "max_w+device")
+check(f"...and it holds over the whole range, so no overshoot escapes the "
+      f"device ({len(escapes)} escapes in {len(range(-15000, 15001, 61))})",
+      not escapes)
+check("...a big overshoot is not clamped LESS than a small one",
+      abs(big.applied_w) <= abs(small.applied_w) + 0.0)
+
+print("   non-finite input is loss of input, not an out-of-range value")
+for bad in (None, float("nan"), float("inf"), float("-inf"), "abc", object()):
+    check(f"is_commandable({bad!r:.30}) is False", is_commandable(bad) is False)
+for good in (0, -5000.0, 5000, 12.5):
+    check(f"is_commandable({good!r}) is True", is_commandable(good) is True)
+
+# ⚠️ WHY THAT GUARD EXISTS, AND THE ANSWER IS WORSE THAN "it passes a nan
+# through". MEASURED HERE, not recalled: every comparison against a nan is
+# False, so `min(limit, nan)` keeps its FIRST argument and a naive clamp turns a
+# nan into a command at the FULL RATING - and then reports engaged=True, because
+# limit != nan, so the winding-loop counter gets a transport bug filed in it.
+# The number below is computed by the same expression the guard replaces.
+nan = float("nan")
+naive = max(-LIVE_MAX_W, min(LIVE_MAX_W, nan))
+check(f"a naive clamp turns a nan into {naive:+,.0f} W and calls it "
+      f"engaged={naive != nan} - hence the guard",
+      naive == LIVE_MAX_W and (naive != nan) is True)
+
+
+# ==============================================================================
+print()
+print("2. the alarm's cadence: every engagement counted, no flood")
+
+wd = ClampWatchdog()
+t = T0
+fired = [wd.note(True, "winding", t + timedelta(seconds=i)) for i in range(10)]
+check(f"the rising edge fires ({fired[0]})", fired[0] is True)
+check(f"the next 9 one-second cycles fire {sum(fired[1:])} more times "
+      f"(re-assert is {REASSERT_S:.0f} s)", sum(fired[1:]) == 0)
+check(f"but every one of them is counted: engagements={wd.engagements}",
+      wd.engagements == 10)
+check(f"and it is one episode, not ten: episodes={wd.episodes}",
+      wd.episodes == 1)
+
+# --- THE RE-ASSERT CADENCE, PINNED IN BOTH DIRECTIONS ------------------------
+# ⚠️ REVIEW-FOUND. This used to read `wd.note(True, ..., T0 + REASSERT_S + 9)`,
+# which is green for ANY value of the constant - REASSERT_S = 3600 passed, and an
+# hour of silence is precisely what the module promises not to do. A check whose
+# stimulus is written in terms of the constant it is grading cannot grade it.
+#
+# The requirements are stated in wall-clock seconds and derived from what the
+# alarm is FOR, so they do not move when the constant does:
+#
+#   floor - a loop pinned on the rail must speak at least MIN_PER_QUARTER times
+#           inside the 900 s quarter that bills the capacity tariff. That window
+#           is the same one freeze.py and DOCS.md reason about.
+#   ceiling - it must not speak on more than MAX_FRACTION of cycles, or it is
+#           the per-cycle flood the split exists to remove.
+QUARTER_S = 900.0
+MIN_PER_QUARTER = 5
+MAX_FRACTION = 0.20
+
+pinned = ClampWatchdog()
+alarms = sum(1 for i in range(int(QUARTER_S))
+             if pinned.note(True, "pinned", T0 + timedelta(seconds=i)))
+print(f"    pinned on the rail for {QUARTER_S:.0f} s at 1 s cycles: "
+      f"{pinned.engagements} engagements, {alarms} alarm(s) "
+      f"({alarms / QUARTER_S:.1%} of cycles)")
+check(f"a loop pinned for a whole billing quarter speaks at least "
+      f"{MIN_PER_QUARTER} times (it spoke {alarms})",
+      alarms >= MIN_PER_QUARTER)
+check(f"...and on no more than {MAX_FRACTION:.0%} of cycles (it was "
+      f"{alarms / QUARTER_S:.1%})", alarms <= MAX_FRACTION * QUARTER_S)
+check("...while every single cycle is still counted",
+      pinned.engagements == int(QUARTER_S))
+
+# --- THE HYSTERESIS, PINNED AGAINST THE CHATTER DIRECTION --------------------
+# ⚠️ REVIEW-FOUND. This used to issue `range(CLEAR_CYCLES - 1)` clean cycles,
+# which at CLEAR_CYCLES = 1 issues ZERO of them and passes while printing
+# "0 clean cycles do NOT clear it". Green for every value >= 1 - including 1,
+# which IS the chatter the constant exists to prevent. The stimulus is a literal
+# now: ONE clean cycle must not clear the alarm, whatever the constant says.
+wd2 = ClampWatchdog()
+wd2.note(True, "winding", T0)
+wd2.note(False, "", T0 + timedelta(seconds=1))
+check(f"ONE clean cycle does NOT clear the alarm (active={wd2.active}) - "
+      f"a command dithering across the rail must not chatter",
+      wd2.active is True)
+survived = 1
+while wd2.active and survived < 50:
+    wd2.note(False, "", T0 + timedelta(seconds=1 + survived))
+    survived += 1
+print(f"    it took {survived} consecutive clean cycles to de-assert "
+      f"(CLEAR_CYCLES = {CLEAR_CYCLES})")
+check(f"...and it does de-assert, after {survived} of them, rather than "
+      f"latching", wd2.active is False and survived == CLEAR_CYCLES)
+check("...and the engagement count survives the clear, so the evidence does",
+      wd2.engagements == 1)
+check("a clean cycle on an idle watchdog says nothing",
+      wd2.note(False, "", T0 + timedelta(seconds=300)) is False)
+
+
+# ==============================================================================
+print()
+print("3. AC 1 + AC 3, wired: over the rating both clamps AND alarms")
+
+
+class _Store:
+    data = {}
+
+    def set(self, *a):
+        pass
+
+    def get_time(self, *a):
+        return None
+
+
+class _Pub:
+    enabled = False
+
+    def publish(self, *a, **k):
+        pass
+
+    def close(self):
+        pass
+
+
+class _Hass:
+    """Stub HA. `track` False models an inverter that is switched off entirely,
+    which is the 10.3 runaway's own setup."""
+
+    def __init__(self, grid, batt=0.0, track=True):
+        self.grid = grid
+        self.batt = batt
+        self.track = track
+        self.calls = []
+        self.writes = []
+
+    async def limits(self, entity):
+        return (-LIVE_MAX_W, LIVE_MAX_W, 1.0)
+
+    async def number(self, entity, invert=False):
+        return {"sensor.grid": self.grid, "sensor.soc": 50.0,
+                "sensor.batt": self.batt}.get(entity)
+
+    async def set_number(self, entity, value):
+        self.writes.append(float(value))
+        if self.track:
+            self.batt = float(value)
+        return True
+
+    async def call(self, domain, service, data):
+        self.calls.append((domain, service, data))
+        return True
+
+
+def wired(grid, cycles=40, batt=0.0, track=True, **over):
+    async def go():
+        hass = _Hass(grid, batt=batt, track=track)
+        c = Controller(dict(
+            {"setpoint_entity": "number.sp", "meter_entity": "sensor.grid",
+             "soc_entity": "sensor.soc", "batt_entity": "sensor.batt",
+             "meter_source": "off", "max_w": LIVE_MAX_W, "gain": 0.6,
+             "slew_w": 1000, "deadband_w": 15, "target_grid_w": 0,
+             "step_w": 10, "heartbeat_s": 10, "stale_input_s": 15},
+            **over), hass, _Store(), _Pub(), stop=asyncio.Event())
+        c.auto = True
+        c.dev_min, c.dev_max = -LIVE_MAX_W, LIVE_MAX_W
+        # The red status row exists only WHILE the clamp is engaged, and the
+        # hysteresis clears it a few cycles later - so it is captured live
+        # rather than looked for after the run, when it is correctly gone.
+        c.red_snapshot = []
+        for _ in range(cycles):
+            await c.read_inputs()
+            await c.cycle()
+            if c.clamp_wd.active and not c.red_snapshot:
+                c.red_snapshot = c.checks()
+        return hass, c
+    return asyncio.run(go())
+
+
+def clamp_notes(hass):
+    return [d for dom, svc, d in hass.calls
+            if (dom, svc) == ("persistent_notification", "create")
+            and d.get("notification_id") == CLAMP_ID]
+
+
+# THE 10.3 RUNAWAY, replayed. "With the inverter switched off entirely, an
+# unclamped integrator climbed ~130 W per 4 s to over 10 kW and, pinned at the
+# 5 kW rail, reported 14 768 W." `track=False` is the inverter switched off: it
+# reports 0 W however hard it is commanded, so the error never closes.
+hass_r, ctl_r = wired(6000.0, cycles=60, track=False)
+emitted = [abs(w) for w in hass_r.writes]
+
+# What the SAME error would have done to an accumulator with no bound - the
+# transcription is deliberately the unclamped velocity form 10.3 describes, so
+# the figure below is computed here and not quoted from the spec.
+runaway, err = 0.0, 6000.0
+for _ in range(60):
+    runaway += 0.6 * err
+print(f"    unclamped, the same 60 cycles reach {runaway:,.0f} W; "
+      f"the largest value that reached the device is {max(emitted):,.0f} W")
+check(f"an unbounded accumulator really does run away here "
+      f"({runaway:,.0f} W >> {LIVE_MAX_W:.0f} W)", runaway > 3 * LIVE_MAX_W)
+check(f"AC 1: NOT ONE of the {len(emitted)} values that reached the device "
+      f"exceeds the {LIVE_MAX_W:.0f} W rating",
+      emitted and max(emitted) <= LIVE_MAX_W)
+# ⚠️ AND THE CLAMP IS NOT THE ONLY THING HOLDING THAT LINE HERE, which is worth
+# saying out loud rather than letting the number above imply otherwise. Against
+# an inverter reporting 0 W the saturation freeze engages after
+# `saturation_cycles` and pins the command well BELOW the rail - that is why the
+# largest emitted value is what it is and not 5000 W. The clamp is what makes it
+# bounded; the freeze is what makes it small. A check that read
+# `max(emitted) == max_w` would have been asserting the freeze, not the clamp.
+check(f"...and the saturation freeze is what pins it at {max(emitted):,.0f} W "
+      f"rather than the rail", ctl_r.sat_count >= ctl_r.tuning.saturation_cycles)
+
+notes_r = clamp_notes(hass_r)
+print(f"    the loop clamped on {ctl_r.clamp_wd.engagements} of {60} cycles, "
+      f"in {ctl_r.clamp_wd.episodes} episode(s), raising {len(notes_r)} "
+      f"notification(s)")
+check("AC 3: and it ALARMED - silently clipping this is the defect",
+      ctl_r.clamp_wd.engagements > 0 and len(notes_r) >= 1)
+check("...with its own notification_id, not shared with any other guard",
+      all(d["notification_id"] == CLAMP_ID for d in notes_r))
+check("...one episode, re-asserted rather than one per cycle",
+      ctl_r.clamp_wd.episodes == 1 and len(notes_r) < ctl_r.clamp_wd.engagements)
+check("...and it names itself a bug signal, not a limit in use",
+      bool(notes_r) and "out of range" in notes_r[0]["message"])
+rows_r = [e for e in ctl_r.events if REASON_CODE in e]
+check(f"the action log records every engagement, coalesced into one row per "
+      f"episode ({len(rows_r)} row(s), {ctl_r.clamp_wd.engagements} "
+      f"engagement(s))",
+      len(rows_r) == ctl_r.clamp_wd.episodes
+      and f"{ctl_r.clamp_wd.engagements} engagement(s)" in rows_r[0])
+
+# ⚠️ REGRESSION, AND IT WAS A REAL BUG BEFORE IT WAS A CHECK. `log_event()` keeps
+# 40 rows. A row per engagement flushes that ring inside 40 cycles of a winding
+# loop, and the first thing it evicted was SAFETY-18's own "METER FROZEN?" row -
+# i.e. this guard silencing another guard's log. Driven here with a plant that
+# TRACKS the command, so the saturation freeze never engages and the integrator
+# clamps on essentially every cycle.
+hass_l, ctl_l = wired(9000.0, cycles=80, track=True)
+rows_l = [e for e in ctl_l.events if REASON_CODE in e]
+other_l = [e for e in ctl_l.events if REASON_CODE not in e]
+print(f"    80 winding cycles: {ctl_l.clamp_wd.engagements} engagement(s) -> "
+      f"{len(rows_l)} log row(s), leaving room for {len(other_l)} other event(s)")
+check(f"a long winding episode does NOT flood the 40-row event log "
+      f"({len(rows_l)} rows for {ctl_l.clamp_wd.engagements} engagements)",
+      ctl_l.clamp_wd.engagements > 40 and len(rows_l) <= ctl_l.clamp_wd.episodes)
+check("...and the count in the row is the counter's, so nothing is lost",
+      f"{ctl_l.clamp_wd.engagements} engagement(s)" in rows_l[-1])
+# The RED row exists only while engaged, and the episode above is short, so it
+# is captured mid-run rather than asserted after the hysteresis has cleared it.
+check("the status page goes red WHILE it is engaged",
+      any(not c["ok"] and not c["warn"] and "OUTPUT CLAMP ENGAGED" in c["text"]
+          for c in ctl_r.red_snapshot))
+check("...and once clear, a warn row still says how many times it engaged",
+      any(c["warn"] and f"{ctl_r.clamp_wd.engagements} time(s)" in c["text"]
+          for c in ctl_r.checks()))
+
+# ⚠️ NOT A TRIP. 11.2's action is "clamp and alarm"; the loop keeps running and
+# keeps writing the clamped value. If a later cut changes that it must come here.
+check(f"it is NOT a trip - the command stands at {ctl_r.target:+.0f} W, not 0 W",
+      ctl_r.target != 0.0 and ctl_r.target == hass_r.writes[-1])
+check("...and the controller still reports itself running, not failsafe",
+      ctl_r.auto and not ctl_r.sign_wd.tripped)
+
+# The export side, because the clamp is a magnitude clamp and a sign bug in it
+# would be invisible on the import case alone.
+hass_x, ctl_x = wired(-6000.0, cycles=60, track=False)
+check(f"the export side clamps and alarms too "
+      f"({min(hass_x.writes):+,.0f} W, {len(clamp_notes(hass_x))} note(s), "
+      f"{ctl_x.clamp_wd.engagements} engagement(s))",
+      min(hass_x.writes) < 0 and abs(min(hass_x.writes)) <= LIVE_MAX_W
+      and clamp_notes(hass_x) and ctl_x.clamp_wd.engagements > 0)
+
+
+# ==============================================================================
+print()
+print("4. AC 2: saturation WITHOUT clamping must NOT raise a clamp alarm")
+
+# A legal command the inverter will not follow. The meter sits just outside the
+# deadband so the loop moves a little and then rests; `batt` is pinned far from
+# whatever is commanded, which is the saturation condition (|cmd - actual| >
+# saturation_w) and nothing else. The integrator never approaches the rating.
+hass_s, ctl_s = wired(60.0, cycles=40, batt=2500.0, track=False)
+peak = max(abs(w) for w in hass_s.writes)
+print(f"    saturated for {ctl_s.sat_count} consecutive cycles; the command "
+      f"peaked at {peak:.0f} W, {peak / LIVE_MAX_W:.1%} of the rating")
+# ⚠️ THE POSITIVE HALF FIRST. A negative check that saw nothing happen is not an
+# observation - if the saturation freeze never engaged, "no clamp alarm" is
+# vacuous and this check is worthless.
+check(f"the saturation freeze REALLY DID engage (sat_count="
+      f"{ctl_s.sat_count} >= {ctl_s.tuning.saturation_cycles})",
+      ctl_s.sat_count >= ctl_s.tuning.saturation_cycles)
+check("...and the event log says so, in the saturation's own words",
+      any("saturation freeze" in e for e in ctl_s.events))
+check(f"...while the command stayed well inside the rating "
+      f"({peak:.0f} W < {LIVE_MAX_W:.0f} W)", peak < LIVE_MAX_W)
+# Now the negative, which is only worth anything because of the three above.
+check("AC 2: NO clamp notification was raised", not clamp_notes(hass_s))
+check("AC 2: the clamp counted ZERO engagements", ctl_s.clamp_wd.engagements == 0)
+check("AC 2: no OUTPUT_CLAMP row in the action log",
+      not [e for e in ctl_s.events if REASON_CODE in e])
+check("AC 2: and no clamp row on the status page",
+      not [c for c in ctl_s.checks() if "output clamp" in c["text"].lower()])
+
+print("   ...and the two alarms do not share a notification_id")
+ids_clamp = {d["notification_id"] for d in clamp_notes(hass_r)}
+ids_other = {d.get("notification_id") for dom, svc, d in hass_r.calls
+             if svc == "create"} - ids_clamp
+check(f"clamp ids {sorted(ids_clamp)} are disjoint from every other alarm's "
+      f"{sorted(x for x in ids_other if x)}", not (ids_clamp & ids_other))
+
+print("   ...and the alarm cannot be keyed on Decision.reason")
+# A cycle that clamps the integrator AND is then slew limited. `reason` reports
+# the LAST stage, so a string-keyed alarm is silent on it; the boolean is not.
+t = Tuning(max_w=2000.0, slew_w=100.0, gain=0.6)
+d = compute(prev_w=1000.0, grid_w=6000.0, actual_w=1000.0, tuning=t, i_w=1900.0)
+print(f"    reason={d.reason!r}  i_clamped={d.i_clamped}  clamped={d.clamped}")
+check("the integrator DID clamp on that cycle", d.i_clamped is True)
+check("...but `reason` says 'slew-limited' - the clamp was overwritten "
+      "downstream, so a string-keyed alarm is SILENT here",
+      d.reason == "slew-limited" and "clamp" not in d.reason)
+# And the same for the OUTPUT clamp, on a config that lets the integrator run
+# above the rail - then both flags fire and `reason` still reports neither.
+t2 = Tuning(max_w=2000.0, integrator_max_w=3000.0, slew_w=100.0, gain=0.6)
+d2 = compute(prev_w=1000.0, grid_w=6000.0, actual_w=1000.0, tuning=t2, i_w=2900.0)
+print(f"    reason={d2.reason!r}  i_clamped={d2.i_clamped}  clamped={d2.clamped}")
+check("both clamps engaged, and `reason` reports neither",
+      d2.i_clamped and d2.clamped and "clamp" not in d2.reason)
+# ⚠️ HOW THE FREEZE AND THE CLAMP INTERACT, MEASURED RATHER THAN ASSUMED, AND
+# THE MEASUREMENT REFUSED TWO GUESSES BEFORE THIS ONE. Written first as "a
+# frozen cycle never clamps" (false), then as "only the i_w == 0 reseed
+# exception clamps" (also false - at i_w == 0 with a matching actual the cycle
+# is not saturated at all, so it is never frozen). What the sweep actually
+# shows: a frozen cycle clamps exactly when the integrator REVERSES. control.py
+# permits that on purpose - "it may fall, cross zero, or reverse outright" -
+# because the alternative deadlocks the loop, and a reversal is a full swing
+# that can clear the bound on the far side in one step.
+#
+# That matters for this ticket rather than being trivia: it is the one shape
+# where the saturation freeze and a clamp engagement coincide, so it is exactly
+# where an alarm that shared a channel with saturation would lose the clamp.
+grid_sweep = (-9000.0, -3000.0, 3000.0, 9000.0)
+grid = [(pp, g) for pp in (-1900.0, -500.0, 0.0, 500.0, 1900.0)
+        for g in grid_sweep]
+runs = {(pp, g): compute(pp, g, 0.0, t, sat_count=5, i_w=pp) for pp, g in grid}
+frozen = [k for k, d in runs.items() if d.frozen]
+frozen_clamps = [k for k in frozen if runs[k].i_clamped]
+# The property, stated independently of the control law's own branches: the
+# correction pushes AGAINST the standing integrator, and the resulting swing
+# clears the bound.
+reversals = [(pp, g) for pp, g in frozen
+             if pp * g < 0 and abs(pp + t.gain * g) > t.max_w]
+print(f"    {len(frozen)} of {len(grid)} sweep cells are frozen; "
+      f"those that also clamp: {frozen_clamps}")
+check(f"a frozen cycle CAN clamp, and only by reversing "
+      f"({len(frozen_clamps)} of {len(frozen)} frozen cells)",
+      frozen_clamps and frozen_clamps == reversals)
+check("...and a frozen cycle pushing the way it already leans never clamps - "
+      "that is the freeze doing its job",
+      not [k for k in frozen if runs[k].i_clamped and k[0] * k[1] > 0])
+check("a healthy cycle sets neither flag",
+      not any([compute(0.0, 100.0, 0.0, t).i_clamped,
+               compute(0.0, 100.0, 0.0, t).clamped]))
+
+
+# ==============================================================================
+print()
+print("5. no path reaches the wire around the clamp")
+
+
+async def _direct():
+    hass = _Hass(0.0)
+    c = Controller({"setpoint_entity": "number.sp", "max_w": 2000,
+                    "meter_source": "off"},
+                   hass, _Store(), _Pub(), stop=asyncio.Event())
+    c.dev_min, c.dev_max = -LIVE_MAX_W, LIVE_MAX_W
+    # The shape the heartbeat, shutdown() and handle_action() all use.
+    await c.write_setpoint(9999.0, force=True)
+    await c.write_setpoint(-9999.0, force=True)
+    await c.write_setpoint(float("nan"), force=True)
+    await c.write_setpoint(1500.0, force=True)
+    return hass, c
+
+
+hass_d, ctl_d = asyncio.run(_direct())
+print(f"    asked for 9999 / -9999 / nan / 1500 W; the device saw "
+      f"{hass_d.writes}")
+check("a direct out-of-range write is clamped, not passed through",
+      hass_d.writes[:2] == [2000.0, -2000.0])
+check("a nan is refused and becomes 0 W, per 11.1 rule 1",
+      hass_d.writes[2] == 0.0)
+check("...and is NOT counted as a clamp engagement - it is a transport bug",
+      sum(1 for e in ctl_d.events if REASON_CODE in e) == 2)
+check("an in-range value is untouched", hass_d.writes[3] == 1500.0)
+check("every emitted frame satisfies |emitted| <= the rating",
+      all(abs(w) <= 2000.0 for w in hass_d.writes))
+
+print()
+if fails:
+    print(f"{len(fails)} FAILED: {', '.join(fails)}")
+    sys.exit(1)
+print("all checks passed")

goodwe_controller/test_loop.py

@@ -0,0 +1,213 @@
+"""Runnable check for the control loop's cadence.  `python3 test_loop.py`
+
+SAFETY-12: the loop must evaluate on a clock as well as on a change. Before the
+fix, `run_control()` ran `cycle()` only when the meter value differed from the
+previous poll, so a meter that repeats a value ran NO control cycles while the
+heartbeat kept re-emitting the last command - measured on the rig during TEL-05
+as 70 s at a literally constant 350.0 W with 14 arrivals and zero cycles.
+
+⚠️ THIS TEST TAKES ~95 SECONDS OF WALL CLOCK (measured 93 s), on purpose, and
+that figure is the only thing standing between it and a future developer who
+decides a slow test is a broken one. The thing under test is a wall-clock floor
+inside a loop that sleeps 1 s; mocking the clock would leave the assertion
+testing the mock. It drives the real `run_control()` and counts what actually
+happened. Eight runs of the real loop is what the eight scenarios cost.
+
+⚠️ If you shorten the windows, re-measure and update this number and the one in
+HANDOVER.md. An understated runtime reads as a hang.
+
+`cycle_floor_s` is read from options with no lower bound in code, so a huge
+value reproduces the pre-fix behaviour exactly. Every claim below is therefore
+an A/B on one binary, not a comparison against a remembered old one.
+"""
+
+import asyncio
+import sys
+import time
+
+from app.main import Controller
+
+fails = []
+NEVER = 1e9          # cycle_floor_s so large the floor can never elapse: pre-fix
+
+
+def check(name, cond):
+    print(f"  {'ok  ' if cond else 'FAIL'} {name}")
+    if not cond:
+        fails.append(name)
+
+
+class FakeHass:
+    """A scripted meter and a plant that tracks the command instantly."""
+
+    def __init__(self, meter, soc_dies_at=None):
+        self.meter = meter
+        self.soc_dies_at = soc_dies_at
+        self.batt = 0.0
+        self.writes = []
+        self.t0 = time.monotonic()
+
+    async def limits(self, entity):
+        return (-5000.0, 5000.0, 1.0)
+
+    async def number(self, entity, invert=False):
+        now = time.monotonic() - self.t0
+        if entity == "sensor.grid":
+            return self.meter(now)
+        if entity == "sensor.batt":
+            return self.batt
+        if entity == "sensor.soc":
+            if self.soc_dies_at is not None and now >= self.soc_dies_at:
+                return None
+            return 50.0
+        return None
+
+    async def set_number(self, entity, value):
+        self.writes.append(float(value))
+        self.batt = float(value)
+        return True
+
+
+class _Store:
+    data = {}
+
+    def set(self, *a):
+        pass
+
+
+class _Pub:
+    enabled = False
+
+    def publish(self, *a, **k):
+        pass
+
+    def close(self):
+        pass
+
+
+BASE = {"setpoint_entity": "number.sp", "meter_entity": "sensor.grid",
+        "soc_entity": "sensor.soc", "batt_entity": "sensor.batt",
+        "meter_source": "off", "max_w": 2000, "gain": 0.6, "slew_w": 1000,
+        "deadband_w": 15, "target_grid_w": -10, "step_w": 10,
+        "heartbeat_s": 10, "stale_input_s": 15}
+
+
+def drive(meter, floor, seconds, soc_dies_at=None, **over):
+    """Run the real control loop for `seconds`; return (cycle times, writes)."""
+    async def go():
+        hass = FakeHass(meter, soc_dies_at)
+        c = Controller(dict(BASE, cycle_floor_s=floor, **over), hass, _Store(),
+                       _Pub(), stop=asyncio.Event())
+        c.auto = True
+        stamps = []
+        real = c.cycle
+
+        async def counted():
+            stamps.append(time.monotonic() - hass.t0)
+            await real()
+
+        c.cycle = counted
+        task = asyncio.create_task(c.run_control())
+        await asyncio.sleep(seconds)
+        c.stopping = True
+        await asyncio.wait_for(task, timeout=10)
+        return stamps, hass.writes, c.target, c.reason
+    return asyncio.run(go())
+
+
+def worst_gap(stamps, seconds):
+    """Longest stretch with no cycle, including the tail after the last one."""
+    edges = [0.0] + list(stamps) + [seconds]
+    return max(b - a for a, b in zip(edges, edges[1:]))
+
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+print("a meter that repeats the same value")
+FLAT = lambda t: 350.0                                          # noqa: E731
+FLOOR, SECONDS = 3.0, 12.0
+
+pre_stamps, pre_writes, _, _ = drive(FLAT, NEVER, SECONDS)
+# The defect itself, demonstrated rather than described: one cycle at startup
+# and then nothing for the rest of the window, while writes keep happening.
+check("pre-fix: a constant meter runs exactly one cycle, at startup",
+      len(pre_stamps) == 1)
+check("...while the heartbeat keeps writing anyway, so nothing looks wrong",
+      len(pre_writes) >= 2)
+
+post_stamps, post_writes, _, _ = drive(FLAT, FLOOR, SECONDS)
+check("post-fix: the same constant meter runs cycles throughout",
+      len(post_stamps) >= int(SECONDS / FLOOR) - 1)
+# The actual acceptance criterion: a BOUND on the gap, not a count.
+gap = worst_gap(post_stamps, SECONDS)
+check(f"...with no gap longer than the floor ({gap:.1f}s <= {FLOOR + 1.5:.1f}s)",
+      gap <= FLOOR + 1.5)
+check("...and the loop actually corrected, instead of holding a stale command",
+      len(post_writes) > len(pre_writes))
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+print("a meter that changes normally - nothing may move")
+# ⚠️ THE REGRESSION GUARD, and the more important half. The floor is a deadline
+# on the gap between cycles, reset by every cycle whichever trigger fired - not
+# a second scheduler. On a healthy meter it must never elapse, so the cycle
+# count, the write count and the commanded values must be IDENTICAL either side
+# of the fix. Anything else is a new write cadence, which SAFETY-12 forbids:
+# the deadband, step_w and the 10 s force-write decide what reaches the wire,
+# and this change is only allowed to alter when the loop thinks.
+STEPS = [0.0, 300.0, 850.0, -400.0, 120.0, -900.0, 60.0]
+LIVE = lambda t: STEPS[int(t // 2) % len(STEPS)]                # noqa: E731
+
+a_stamps, a_writes, _, _ = drive(LIVE, NEVER, 12.0)
+b_stamps, b_writes, _, _ = drive(LIVE, FLOOR, 12.0)
+check("a changing meter runs the same number of cycles as before the fix",
+      len(a_stamps) == len(b_stamps))
+check("...commanding exactly the same sequence of values", a_writes == b_writes)
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+print("a meter parked at the target - the converged operating point")
+# The case TEL-05 warned about: at the converged target the power figure
+# legitimately repeats for minutes. The loop must still run, and must still
+# write nothing but the heartbeat, because the deadband - not the arrival
+# trigger - is what holds the command still.
+AT_TARGET = lambda t: -10.0                                     # noqa: E731
+c_stamps, c_writes, _, _ = drive(AT_TARGET, NEVER, 12.0)
+d_stamps, d_writes, _, _ = drive(AT_TARGET, FLOOR, 12.0)
+check("the loop evaluates at the converged point too", len(d_stamps) > len(c_stamps))
+check("...and the deadband still holds the command, so writes are unchanged",
+      d_writes == c_writes)
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+print("an input dies while the meter repeats - the safety claim must still fire")
+# ⚠️ THE STRONGEST PROPERTY IN SAFETY-12, and the one that makes it a safety fix
+# rather than a latency fix. The `inputs missing -> 0 W` claim lives INSIDE
+# cycle() (main.py, the stale_input_s branch and the P_SAFETY claim below it).
+# Pre-fix, on a meter whose value happened to repeat, cycle() was never called
+# again - so that claim could not fire AT ALL. The controller held its last
+# command through an input outage of unbounded length with the status line still
+# reading "loop -> N W".
+#
+# Layer 1 does not cover this either on a `meter_source: off` install: no P1 age
+# sensor is published (see Controller.publish), so the firmware has nothing to
+# veto on, and the heartbeat keeps its watchdog fed the whole time.
+#
+# stale_input_s is shortened to 3 s here so the outage resolves inside a test
+# rather than inside a quarter of a minute. The mechanism is the default one.
+c2_stamps, c2_writes, pre_target, pre_reason = drive(
+    FLAT, NEVER, 10.0, soc_dies_at=4.0, stale_input_s=3)
+check("pre-fix: a dead input during a constant meter never reaches the safety claim",
+      pre_target != 0.0 and "safety" not in pre_reason)
+check(f"...so it holds its last command instead ({pre_target:g} W, {pre_reason!r})",
+      pre_target == 220.0)
+
+d2_stamps, d2_writes, post_target, post_reason = drive(
+    FLAT, FLOOR, 10.0, soc_dies_at=4.0, stale_input_s=3)
+check("post-fix: the same outage commands 0 W", post_target == 0.0)
+check(f"...through the safety claim, not by accident ({post_reason!r})",
+      "safety" in post_reason)
+check("...and the 0 W actually reached the device", 0.0 in d2_writes)
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+print()
+if fails:
+    print(f"{len(fails)} FAILED: " + "; ".join(fails))
+    sys.exit(1)
+print("all checks passed")

goodwe_controller/test_validate.py

@@ -26,9 +26,15 @@ def check(name, cond):
 
 def base(**over):
     """A configuration that must start. Everything else is this, spoilt."""
+    # ⚠️ The maintenance rates are named EXPLICITLY, at the values config.yaml
+    # ships (MAINT-04). They are not decoration: with the key absent, rule 6
+    # falls back to main.py's 2500 W, which against this 2000 W ceiling is a
+    # genuine refusal - so a base() without them would be a config that does
+    # not start, and every check below would be measuring the wrong thing.
     o = {"setpoint_entity": "number.goodwe_setpoint", "max_w": 2000,
          "soc_entity": "sensor.soc", "batt_entity": "sensor.batt",
-         "meter_source": "off"}
+         "meter_source": "off",
+         "maintenance_charge_w": 2000, "maintenance_discharge_w": 2000}
     o.update(over)
     return o
 
@@ -151,6 +157,255 @@ check("with meter_source off the number governs nothing and is not refused",
 check("the constant is the firmware's, not a rounded guess",
       FIRMWARE_INGEST_VETO_S == 30.0)
 
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+print("6. a maintenance charge the ceiling can actually accommodate (MAINT-04)")
+# ⚠️ THE SHIPPED BUG. config.yaml shipped max_w 2000 against
+# maintenance_charge_w 2500, so the cheap-window shaping asked for hi=-2500
+# against the supervised lo=-2000 - lo > hi, arbiter clause 3, 0 W. Maintenance
+# silently never charged in a cheap window on a default install.
+p = validate_startup_config(base(max_w=2000, maintenance_charge_w=2500),
+                            -5000, 5000)
+check("maintenance_charge_w above max_w is refused", len(p) == 1)
+check("...and the message names the charge rate", why(p, "2500"))
+check("...and the ceiling", why(p, "2000"))
+check("...and says which one wins", why(p, "THE CEILING WINS"))
+# ⚠️ Equality is REACHABLE, not a near miss: lo=-2000, hi=-2000 is the single
+# point -2000 W. Refusing it would be exactly the trivia that gets a validator
+# deleted, and it is the boundary the rule is written `>` for.
+check("maintenance_charge_w exactly at max_w starts",
+      validate_startup_config(base(max_w=2000, maintenance_charge_w=2000),
+                              -5000, 5000) == [])
+check("below it starts",
+      validate_startup_config(base(max_w=2000, maintenance_charge_w=1500),
+                              -5000, 5000) == [])
+# Not scoped to maintenance_enabled: the pair is contradictory either way, and
+# scoping would leave the trap armed for the one action - ticking the box - that
+# cannot be expected to change what a charge rate means.
+check("...and it is refused with maintenance_enabled off, as shipped",
+      why(validate_startup_config(
+          base(max_w=2000, maintenance_charge_w=2500,
+               maintenance_enabled=False), -5000, 5000), "THE CEILING WINS"))
+
+# ⚠️ THE SIBLING, CHECKED RATHER THAN ASSUMED. The shaping is NOT symmetric:
+# drain files Claim.set at P_MAINTENANCE and owns the actuator, so the ceiling
+# CLAMPS it (+2000 W) instead of contradicting it, and the arbiter's explain()
+# names the clamp every cycle. Loud, and it still moves energy - so warned, not
+# refused. If someone later "fixes the asymmetry" by making this a refusal,
+# this check goes red and they have to justify it.
+check("maintenance_discharge_w above max_w WARNS but starts",
+      validate_startup_config(base(max_w=2000, maintenance_discharge_w=2500),
+                              -5000, 5000) == [])
+
+# The demonstration the rule is derived from, asserted rather than described.
+from app.arbiter import (                   # noqa: E402
+    Claim, P_LOOP, P_MAINTENANCE, P_MAINT_SHAPE, P_SAFETY, resolve,
+)
+
+def _charge(max_w, charge_w):
+    return resolve([Claim.limit("supervised", P_SAFETY, -max_w, max_w, "max_w"),
+                    Claim.limit("maintenance", P_MAINT_SHAPE, hi=-charge_w,
+                                reason="cheap-window charge"),
+                    Claim.set("loop", P_LOOP, 500.0, "grid")])
+
+def _drain(max_w, disch_w):
+    return resolve([Claim.limit("supervised", P_SAFETY, -max_w, max_w, "max_w"),
+                    Claim.set("maintenance", P_MAINTENANCE, disch_w, "drain"),
+                    Claim.set("loop", P_LOOP, 500.0, "grid")])
+
+r = _charge(2000, 2500)
+check("arbiter: the refused pair really does emit 0 W",
+      r.target_w == 0.0 and r.contradiction)
+r = _charge(2000, 2000)
+check("arbiter: the permitted equality really does charge",
+      r.target_w == -2000.0 and not r.contradiction)
+r = _charge(3000, 2500)
+check("arbiter: raising max_w above the rate charges at the rate",
+      r.target_w == -2500.0 and not r.contradiction)
+r = _drain(2000, 2500)
+check("arbiter: the drain SET is clamped, not contradicted",
+      r.target_w == 2000.0 and not r.contradiction)
+check("...and the clamp names itself, which is why it is not refused",
+      "supervised" in (r.bound_by or "") and "limited by" in r.explain())
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+print("the SHIPPED defaults must pass the rule they are governed by (AC3)")
+# ⚠️ Shipping a default the validator refuses would be worse than the bug it
+# refuses. Read config.yaml itself rather than a transcription of it - a
+# transcription is what lets the two drift apart silently. Regex, not PyYAML:
+# the add-on image has no PyYAML (Dockerfile installs py3-aiohttp/py3-paho-mqtt
+# only) and a check that skips on ImportError is not a check.
+import os                                   # noqa: E402
+import re                                   # noqa: E402
+
+_CFG = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)), "config.yaml")
+with open(_CFG, encoding="utf-8") as _fh:
+    _txt = _fh.read()
+_shipped = {k: float(v) for k, v in re.findall(
+    r"^  (max_w|maintenance_charge_w|maintenance_discharge_w|sign_disagree_w): "
+    r"(-?\d+(?:\.\d+)?)\s*$", _txt, re.M)}
+check("config.yaml really was read (all four defaults found)",
+      set(_shipped) == {"max_w", "maintenance_charge_w",
+                        "maintenance_discharge_w", "sign_disagree_w"})
+check(f"the shipped defaults are accepted {_shipped}",
+      validate_startup_config(base(**_shipped), -5000, 5000) == [])
+check("...and the shipped charge rate is at or under the shipped ceiling",
+      _shipped["maintenance_charge_w"] <= _shipped["max_w"])
+check("...and the shipped discharge rate too, so it warns about nothing",
+      _shipped["maintenance_discharge_w"] <= _shipped["max_w"])
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+print("the shipped meter_freeze_s, pinned (TEST-06 / AC3)")
+# ⚠️ WHY A NUMBER GETS ITS OWN CHECK. `meter_freeze_s: 300` is the threshold
+# SAFETY-18's entire argument is about, and before this it was pinned NOWHERE:
+# 300 -> 3600 left test_freeze.py AND this file green, because the schema
+# accepts int(60,3600) and no check ever read the shipped value. The schema
+# bounds what is CONFIGURABLE; this pins what is SHIPPED, which is a different
+# question and the one the docs answer.
+#
+# Read by regex like _shipped above, for the same reason: no PyYAML in the
+# image, and a check that skips on ImportError is not a check.
+_freeze_s = [float(v) for v in re.findall(
+    r"^  meter_freeze_s: (\d+(?:\.\d+)?)\s*$", _txt, re.M)]
+_freeze_schema = re.findall(r"^  meter_freeze_s: int\((\d+),(\d+)\)\s*$",
+                            _txt, re.M)
+check(f"config.yaml carries exactly one meter_freeze_s default {_freeze_s}",
+      len(_freeze_s) == 1)
+check("...and exactly one schema range for it", len(_freeze_schema) == 1)
+_hold_s = _freeze_s[0] if _freeze_s else None
+_lo, _hi = ((float(_freeze_schema[0][0]), float(_freeze_schema[0][1]))
+            if _freeze_schema else (None, None))
+check("the shipped meter_freeze_s is still the measured 300 s that freeze.py, "
+      "config.yaml's own comment and test_freeze.py are all written at",
+      _hold_s == 300.0)
+check(f"...and it is inside its own schema range ({_lo}-{_hi} s)",
+      None not in (_lo, _hi, _hold_s) and _lo <= _hold_s <= _hi)
+
+# The two properties the number has to have, DERIVED rather than restated - so
+# they go red on a value that is merely schema-legal. Both come straight from
+# config.yaml's own comment on the key.
+#
+#   upper: the alert must land inside the 900 s quarter that bills the capacity
+#          tariff, or the notification arrives after the money is spent;
+#   lower: the slowest a HEALTHY meter can tick a 1 Wh register and still look
+#          unchanged for hold_s is 3600/hold_s W, and that must stay inside the
+#          deadband or the conjunction's two terms stop being mutually
+#          exclusive (freeze.py, "WHERE hold_s COMES FROM").
+_QUARTER_S = 900.0
+_shipped_deadband = [float(v) for v in re.findall(
+    r"^  deadband_w: (\d+(?:\.\d+)?)\s*$", _txt, re.M)]
+check(f"config.yaml carries exactly one deadband_w default {_shipped_deadband}",
+      len(_shipped_deadband) == 1)
+_db = _shipped_deadband[0] if _shipped_deadband else None
+_slowest_healthy_w = 3600.0 / _hold_s if _hold_s else None
+print(f"    shipped meter_freeze_s {_hold_s} s: alert inside the "
+      f"{_QUARTER_S:.0f} s billing quarter, and a healthy meter slow enough to "
+      f"look unchanged for it is {_slowest_healthy_w} W against a "
+      f"{_db} W deadband")
+check(f"...the alarm still lands inside the {_QUARTER_S:.0f} s billing quarter",
+      _hold_s is not None and _hold_s < _QUARTER_S)
+check("...and a healthy meter that looks unchanged for it is still inside the "
+      "deadband, so the two terms stay mutually exclusive",
+      _slowest_healthy_w is not None and _db is not None
+      and _slowest_healthy_w < _db)
+
+# ⚠️ AND THE RANGE'S OWN BOUNDS. "300 sits inside the range" is worth nothing
+# while the range itself is unpinned: widened to `int(1,86400)` an operator can
+# configure `meter_freeze_s: 86400` and the guard is dead for a day at a time,
+# with every check in this repo still green. That mutation survived the first
+# cut of this PR and is what this block closes. Both numbers are argued for in
+# config.yaml's own comment and in freeze.py, and each is re-derived here:
+#
+#   60 s   the floor freeze.py calls NOT A RECOMMENDATION - there a healthy
+#          meter can look unchanged at 60 W, four times the shipped deadband, so
+#          the conjunction's two terms stop being mutually exclusive and only
+#          the margin is left;
+#   3600 s the ceiling - already four times the billing quarter, so the top of
+#          the range has given up detecting a freeze inside the quarter that
+#          bills it. It is the last bound between a supported configuration and
+#          a disabled guard, and moving it is a decision rather than a tidy-up.
+print(f"    schema range {_lo}-{_hi} s: at the floor a healthy meter that looks "
+      f"unchanged is "
+      + (f"{3600.0 / _lo:.0f} W" if _lo else "?")
+      + f" against a {_db} W deadband; the ceiling is "
+      + (f"{_hi / _QUARTER_S:.1f}x" if _hi else "?")
+      + " the billing quarter")
+check(f"the schema range itself is still the argued 60-3600 s (found "
+      f"{_lo}-{_hi})", (_lo, _hi) == (60.0, 3600.0))
+check("...a floor that gives up the mutual exclusion and keeps only the "
+      "margin, which is why config.yaml calls it not a recommendation",
+      None not in (_lo, _db) and 3600.0 / _lo > _db)
+check("...and a ceiling already past the billing quarter, so no value the "
+      "schema still accepts can alarm inside the quarter that bills it",
+      _hi is not None and _hi > _QUARTER_S)
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
+print("the KNOWN cross-file default divergence, pinned rather than commented")
+# ⚠️ WHAT THIS GUARDS, AND WHY IT ASSERTS THE BUG RATHER THAN THE FIX.
+# config.yaml and validate.py now default maintenance_charge_w to 2000, while
+# main.py's two `opts.get(..., 2500)` fallbacks and MaintConfig's dataclass
+# default still say 2500. So an options dict with the key ABSENT is ACCEPTED by
+# rule 6 at 2000 and then built by main.py at 2500 - which is a contradiction:
+#
+#     validate_startup_config -> []            (accepted)
+#     MaintConfig().charge_w  -> 2500.0
+#     arbiter                 -> 0.0 W, contradiction=True
+#
+# That is the bug rule 6 exists to catch, passing rule 6. It is unreachable on a
+# Supervisor install (every key is always supplied from config.yaml) but fully
+# reachable from sim/inject.py and from tests - which is exactly where anyone
+# debugging maintenance works.
+#
+# The fix is ONE SOURCE OF TRUTH for option defaults. That is a bigger change
+# than this ticket and it lands in main.py, which another ticket is live in - so
+# the divergence is RECORDED here instead of closed. The check therefore passes
+# on the mismatch and FAILS when either side moves, in EITHER direction:
+#
+#   - config.yaml moves           -> FAIL: re-decide what the fallback should be
+#   - main.py is fixed to match   -> FAIL: the divergence is gone, DELETE this
+#                                    check and the ⚠️ block in validate.py
+#
+# A comment cannot do that, and "a comment where a check belonged" is this
+# repo's most repeated defect.
+_APP = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)), "app")
+
+def _read(*parts):
+    with open(os.path.join(*parts), encoding="utf-8") as fh:
+        return fh.read()
+
+# Every literal fallback for this key in main.py, whatever the call shape.
+_main_falls = [float(m) for m in re.findall(
+    r'\.get\(\s*"maintenance_charge_w"\s*,\s*(-?\d+(?:\.\d+)?)\s*\)',
+    _read(_APP, "main.py"))]
+# ...and MaintConfig's own dataclass default, which is the one that bites when
+# main.py is bypassed entirely (a Maintenance built straight from defaults).
+_dc_falls = [float(m) for m in re.findall(
+    r"^\s*charge_w:\s*float\s*=\s*(-?\d+(?:\.\d+)?)\s*$",
+    _read(_APP, "maintenance.py"), re.M)]
+
+check(f"main.py's fallbacks are still found and still 2500 {_main_falls}",
+      len(_main_falls) == 2 and set(_main_falls) == {2500.0})
+check(f"MaintConfig's default is still found and still 2500 {_dc_falls}",
+      len(_dc_falls) == 1 and set(_dc_falls) == {2500.0})
+check(f"...and config.yaml still ships 2000, so the divergence is UNCHANGED "
+      f"(shipped {_shipped['maintenance_charge_w']:.0f}, code 2500)",
+      _shipped["maintenance_charge_w"] == 2000.0)
+
+# ⚠️ And the consequence itself, through the REAL code rather than through the
+# numbers above - so that if someone "fixes" this by changing a literal without
+# understanding it, the thing that goes red is the behaviour, not the transcript.
+from app.maintenance import MaintConfig      # noqa: E402
+
+_absent = {k: v for k, v in base().items() if k != "maintenance_charge_w"}
+_built = MaintConfig().charge_w
+check("with the key ABSENT the validator accepts...",
+      validate_startup_config(_absent, -5000, 5000) == [])
+check(f"...while the code would build {_built:.0f} W against a "
+      f"{_absent['max_w']:.0f} W ceiling...", _built > _absent["max_w"])
+_r = _charge(_absent["max_w"], _built)
+check("...which the arbiter resolves to 0 W as a contradiction - the hole, "
+      "asserted so it cannot widen unnoticed",
+      _r.target_w == 0.0 and _r.contradiction)
+
 # --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
 print("max_w must be a positive magnitude")
 # Schema-blocked on a real install, but validate_startup_config() is also
@@ -160,8 +415,18 @@ for bad in (0, -1, -2000):
     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"))
+# ⚠️ SAFETY-02 changed what this case has to say, and the change is real rather
+# than bookkeeping: with a 1 W ceiling the default 300 W sign-disagreement
+# threshold is unreachable, so rule 5 refuses - correctly, because the watchdog
+# would report itself armed while being incapable of firing. What this check is
+# FOR is "a positive max_w is not itself a refusal", so it now names a sign
+# threshold the ceiling can actually reach, and the interaction gets its own
+# check below.
 check("the smallest sane max_w still starts",
-      validate_startup_config(base(max_w=1), -5000, 5000) == [])
+      validate_startup_config(base(max_w=1, sign_disagree_w=0.5,
+                                   maintenance_charge_w=1), -5000, 5000) == [])
+check("...but that same 1 W ceiling with the DEFAULT sign threshold is refused",
+      why(validate_startup_config(base(max_w=1), -5000, 5000), "never fire"))
 
 # --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
 print("what must NOT be refused - a validator that fires on trivia gets deleted")

goodwe_controller/test_watchdog.py

@@ -0,0 +1,505 @@
+"""Runnable check for the sign-disagreement watchdog.  `python3 test_watchdog.py`
+
+Every case here is either a fault this must catch or a piece of NORMAL behaviour
+it must not mistake for one. The second list is the longer one on purpose: an
+alarm that fires on ordinary operation is worse than no alarm, because the next
+person switches it off.
+
+The headline validation is not here - it is `sim/replay_sign.py` in the infra
+repo, which drives this module over the two captured bus days. This file is the
+table-driven half: boundaries, timers, the latch, and the arming gate.
+"""
+
+import sys
+from datetime import datetime, timedelta, timezone
+
+from app.watchdog import (
+    SignWatchdog, SignWatchdogConfig, loop_is_following,
+)
+
+fails = []
+T0 = datetime(2026, 8, 20, 15, 0, 0, tzinfo=timezone.utc)
+
+
+def check(name, cond):
+    print(f"  {'ok  ' if cond else 'FAIL'} {name}")
+    if not cond:
+        fails.append(name)
+
+
+def drive(samples, cfg=None, following=True):
+    """Feed (offset_s, commanded_w, grid_w) tuples. Returns (wd, trip_offset)."""
+    wd = SignWatchdog(cfg)
+    trip_at = None
+    for item in samples:
+        offset, cmd, grid = item[0], item[1], item[2]
+        f = item[3] if len(item) > 3 else following
+        if wd.evaluate(cmd, grid, f, T0 + timedelta(seconds=offset)) and trip_at is None:
+            trip_at = offset
+    return wd, trip_at
+
+
+def opposed(duration_s, step=5, cmd=-1000, grid=1500, following=True, start=0):
+    return [(start + t, cmd, grid, following)
+            for t in range(0, int(duration_s) + 1, step)]
+
+
+print("the fault it exists to catch")
+wd, at = drive(opposed(300))
+check("charging into an importing house trips", wd.tripped)
+check("and trips at 180 s, not before", at == 180)
+check("the reason names both signals", "-1000" in wd.reason and "+1500" in wd.reason)
+print(f"       e.g. {wd.reason!r}")
+
+wd, at = drive(opposed(300, cmd=2000, grid=-2000))
+check("discharging into an exporting house trips too", wd.tripped and at == 180)
+
+print()
+print("the boundaries")
+wd, _ = drive(opposed(600, cmd=-300, grid=1500))
+check("300 W exactly does NOT qualify (strictly greater)", not wd.tripped)
+wd, _ = drive(opposed(600, cmd=-301, grid=1500))
+check("301 W does", wd.tripped)
+wd, _ = drive(opposed(600, cmd=-1000, grid=300))
+check("a 300 W meter does not qualify either", not wd.tripped)
+wd, _ = drive(opposed(175))
+check("175 s of disagreement does not trip", not wd.tripped)
+wd, _ = drive(opposed(180))
+check("180 s does (>= hold_s)", wd.tripped)
+
+print()
+print("continuity - the rule that produced zero false positives on real data")
+broken = opposed(175) + [(180, -1000, -1500)] + opposed(175, start=185)
+wd, _ = drive(broken)
+check("179 s, one agreeing sample, then 175 s more: no trip", not wd.tripped)
+check("and the window really was reset", wd.disagree_since is not None)
+long_enough = broken + opposed(200, start=365)
+wd, _ = drive(long_enough)
+check("but a full 180 s after the reset does trip", wd.tripped)
+
+print()
+print("things that are NOT faults")
+# The load-step transient. Measured on the healthy capture: longest 30 s.
+wd, _ = drive(opposed(30) + [(35 + t, 800, 900) for t in range(0, 300, 5)])
+check("a 30 s load-step crossover does not trip", not wd.tripped)
+
+# SoC 10 %, Standby, declining a 1350 W discharge. The battery does nothing, so
+# the meter stays where it was and the command agrees with it.
+wd, _ = drive([(t, 1350, 1350) for t in range(0, 900, 5)])
+check("a battery refusing a discharge command cannot trip it", not wd.tripped)
+
+# A frozen meter drives command and reading into agreement, not disagreement.
+wd, _ = drive([(t, 800, 800) for t in range(0, 900, 5)])
+check("a frozen meter cannot trip it", not wd.tripped)
+
+# Maintenance grid charge: 2500 W of charge against an importing house, for
+# hours. Opposed, both huge - and entirely correct.
+wd, _ = drive(opposed(7200, cmd=-2500, grid=3000, following=False))
+check("two hours of maintenance grid charge does not trip", not wd.tripped)
+check("and the timer never even started", wd.disagree_since is None)
+
+wd, _ = drive([(t, -1000, None) for t in range(0, 900, 5)])
+check("a missing meter reading does not trip", not wd.tripped)
+wd, _ = drive(opposed(175) + [(180, -1000, None)] + opposed(600, start=185))
+check("a missing reading mid-window RESETS it rather than accumulating",
+      wd.tripped and wd.disagree_since is not None)
+wd, at = drive(opposed(175) + [(180, -1000, None)] + opposed(600, start=185))
+check("...so the trip lands 180 s after the gap, not after 180 s total",
+      at == 365)
+
+wd, _ = drive([(t, 0.0, 3000) for t in range(0, 900, 5)])
+check("a 0 W command is not a wrong-direction command", not wd.tripped)
+
+print()
+print("the latch")
+wd, _ = drive(opposed(200))
+check("tripped after the fault", wd.tripped)
+# The trip commands 0 W, which removes the command side of the comparison.
+for t in range(200, 900, 5):
+    wd.evaluate(0.0, 3000, True, T0 + timedelta(seconds=t))
+check("stays tripped once the command is zeroed", wd.tripped)
+for t in range(900, 1500, 5):
+    wd.evaluate(1000, 1000, True, T0 + timedelta(seconds=t))
+check("stays tripped even once everything looks healthy again", wd.tripped)
+wd.reset()
+check("reset() is the only way out", not wd.tripped and wd.disagree_since is None)
+check("and the reason is cleared with it", wd.reason == "")
+
+print()
+print("the thresholds are configuration, not constants")
+cfg = SignWatchdogConfig(min_w=800.0, hold_s=60.0)
+wd, at = drive(opposed(300, cmd=-1000, grid=1500), cfg=cfg)
+check("a 60 s hold trips at 60 s", wd.tripped and at == 60)
+wd, _ = drive(opposed(600, cmd=-700, grid=1500), cfg=cfg)
+check("an 800 W gate ignores a 700 W command", not wd.tripped)
+
+print()
+print("the configuration that would disarm it is refused")
+from app.validate import validate_startup_config  # noqa: E402
+
+base = {"setpoint_entity": "number.sp", "meter_source": "off",
+        "meter_phases": 1, "meter_max_age_s": 30}
+p = validate_startup_config({**base, "max_w": 2000, "sign_disagree_w": 300},
+                            -5000, 5000)
+check("300 W under a 2000 W ceiling is accepted", p == [])
+p = validate_startup_config({**base, "max_w": 2000, "sign_disagree_w": 2000},
+                            -5000, 5000)
+check("a threshold AT max_w is refused", len(p) == 1 and "never fire" in p[0])
+# ⚠️ maintenance_charge_w is named here only to keep this case about the SIGN
+# rule. MAINT-04 added a second rule against the same ceiling, and a 500 W
+# max_w is also below the 2000 W shipped maintenance charge - so without this
+# the dict is refused twice, for two correct but different reasons, and the
+# `len(p) == 1` below would be measuring the interaction rather than this rule.
+p = validate_startup_config({**base, "max_w": 500, "sign_disagree_w": 3000,
+                             "maintenance_charge_w": 500}, -5000, 5000)
+check("a threshold above max_w is refused", len(p) == 1 and "never fire" in p[0])
+p = validate_startup_config({**base, "max_w": 2000, "sign_disagree_w": 1999},
+                            -5000, 5000)
+check("one watt under the ceiling is reachable, so accepted", p == [])
+
+print()
+print("the arming gate, derived from the REAL arbiter")
+# ⚠️ THIS IS THE DECISION THE WHOLE TICKET TURNS ON, and until now it was
+# asserted in three comment blocks and verified by nothing: every other case in
+# this file passes `following` in as a literal. What has to hold is that the
+# expression in main.py - loop won AND the emitted value points the way the loop
+# asked AND is no larger - is never True for a resolution the loop did not
+# actually get. So run real claims through the real resolve() and derive it.
+from app.arbiter import (  # noqa: E402
+    P_LOOP, P_MAINT_SHAPE, P_MAINTENANCE, P_PEAK, P_SAFETY, Claim, resolve,
+)
+
+
+def following_from(claims, asked):
+    """THE SHIPPED gate, not a copy of it.
+
+    ⚠️ This used to transcribe main.py's expression with a comment saying
+    "keep the two in step", which is exactly the arrangement that does not keep
+    two things in step. Measured: editing the shipped gate alone to
+    `winner in ("loop", "peak")` left this suite - including the P_PEAK row below,
+    whose entire job is to catch that edit - completely green, while the watchdog
+    went blind for the duration of every peak event. Import it or the P_PEAK
+    assertion is decoration.
+    """
+    r = resolve(claims)
+    return r, loop_is_following(r, asked)
+
+
+MAXW = Claim.limit("supervised", P_SAFETY, -2000, 2000, "max_w")
+DEV = Claim.limit("device", P_SAFETY, -5000, 5000, "rating")
+
+# name, claims, what the loop asked, expected `following`
+TABLE = [
+    ("the loop alone, unopposed",
+     [Claim.set("loop", P_LOOP, 900)], 900, True),
+    ("the loop bound by max_w - reduced, not redirected",
+     [Claim.set("loop", P_LOOP, 4000), MAXW], 4000, True),
+    ("charging, bound by max_w on the other side",
+     [Claim.set("loop", P_LOOP, -4000), MAXW], -4000, True),
+    ("maintenance owns the setpoint outright",
+     [Claim.set("loop", P_LOOP, 900),
+      Claim.set("maintenance", P_MAINTENANCE, -2500, "charge"), MAXW], 900, False),
+    ("maintenance charge-only clamps the loop to 0 W",
+     [Claim.set("loop", P_LOOP, 900),
+      Claim.limit("maintenance", P_MAINT_SHAPE, hi=0.0, reason="charge-only"),
+      MAXW], 900, False),
+    # ⚠️ THE CASE `winner == \"loop\"` ALONE WOULD HAVE GOT WRONG. 1500 W, not
+    # the default 2500 W: at max_w 2000 a -2500 hi against a -2000 lo is an
+    # arbiter contradiction, not a charge - see main.py.
+    ("cheap-window charge REDIRECTS the loop while it still 'wins'",
+     [Claim.set("loop", P_LOOP, 500),
+      Claim.limit("maintenance", P_MAINT_SHAPE, hi=-1500, reason="cheap-window"),
+      MAXW], 500, False),
+    ("...and the contradiction at the shipped defaults is not following either",
+     [Claim.set("loop", P_LOOP, 500),
+      Claim.limit("maintenance", P_MAINT_SHAPE, hi=-2500, reason="cheap-window"),
+      MAXW], 500, False),
+    ("a lo limit RAISES the magnitude without flipping the sign",
+     [Claim.set("loop", P_LOOP, 200),
+      Claim.limit("floor", P_SAFETY, lo=800), MAXW], 200, False),
+    ("a safety stop wins outright",
+     [Claim.set("loop", P_LOOP, 900),
+      Claim.set("safety", P_SAFETY, 0.0, "stopped"), MAXW], 900, False),
+    ("no claims at all - the arbiter's own failsafe",
+     [MAXW, DEV], None, False),
+    ("the loop asked for zero",
+     [Claim.set("loop", P_LOOP, 0.0), MAXW], 0.0, False),
+    # The forward hazard, asserted as it stands TODAY rather than as it should
+    # be. When peak shaving lands, these expectations are what have to change.
+    ("peak shaving at P_PEAK disarms the gate (loop_is_following's forward hazard)",
+     [Claim.set("loop", P_LOOP, 900),
+      Claim.set("peak", P_PEAK, 1800, "shaving"), MAXW], 900, False),
+    # ⚠️ AND THE ROW ABOVE CANNOT DETECT A WIDENED GATE ON ITS OWN, which was
+    # found by trying it: with the shipped gate edited to
+    # `winner in ("loop", "peak")` that case STILL comes out False, because peak
+    # shaving asked for MORE than the loop and the magnitude term rejects it
+    # anyway. The winner term is masked. This row isolates it - a peak claim
+    # smaller than the loop's ask and pointing the same way, so `winner` is the
+    # only term that can decide - and it is what actually turns red if the gate
+    # is widened without anyone revisiting the hazard.
+    ("...and with peak BELOW the loop's ask, only the winner term separates them",
+     [Claim.set("loop", P_LOOP, 1800),
+      Claim.set("peak", P_PEAK, 900, "shaving"), MAXW], 1800, False),
+]
+for name, claims, asked, expect in TABLE:
+    r, got = following_from(claims, asked)
+    check(f"{name} -> following={expect}", got is expect)
+    if got is not expect:
+        print(f"       resolution was {r.explain()!r}")
+
+# And the gate is never True when the loop did not win, whatever else is going on.
+check("no configuration above arms the gate without the loop winning",
+      all(not following_from(c, a)[1]
+          for _, c, a, _ in TABLE if following_from(c, a)[0].winner != "loop"))
+
+print()
+print("end to end: the trip is COMMAND ZERO, not alarm-only")
+# ⚠️ THE FAULT INJECTED HERE IS A NEGATIVE GAIN, and that is not a contrivance -
+# it is the minimal faithful model of what this watchdog is for. The check
+# compares the loop's OUTPUT DIRECTION against the INPUT STATE it was regulating,
+# so what it detects is a loop whose two ends have become decoupled in sign: a
+# gain, a claim or a strategy with its polarity inverted, or an integrator so far
+# wound up that unwinding takes minutes. (Illusmart's was the last one: it
+# reached -14 768 W against a +-5000 W rail while writing once every 20-60 s, and
+# that arithmetic alone is 5-15 minutes of wrong-direction command.)
+#
+# `gain` is float(0.05,1.0) in the schema, so this is not a reachable
+# configuration - it is a stand-in for a code regression, which is the case a
+# unit test can actually hold the line on.
+import asyncio  # noqa: E402
+
+from app.main import Controller  # noqa: E402
+
+
+class _Hass:
+    def __init__(self):
+        self.writes = []
+        self.calls = []
+
+    # ⚠️ ADDED FOR SAFETY-03, AND THE REASON IS WORTH READING. The e2e below
+    # runs a DELIBERATELY INVERTED loop (gain -0.6) into a steady 2000 W import,
+    # which is a loop that winds straight into the rail - so the output-clamp
+    # alarm fires here, and the stub not having `call` is how that was
+    # discovered. This scenario is now a second, independent witness that the
+    # clamp alarm sees a real winding loop; test_clamp.py asserts it explicitly.
+    async def call(self, domain, service, data):
+        self.calls.append((domain, service, data))
+
+    async def limits(self, entity):
+        return (-5000.0, 5000.0, 1.0)
+
+    async def number(self, entity, invert=False):
+        # A house importing 2000 W, steadily, whatever the battery does.
+        return {"sensor.grid": 2000.0, "sensor.soc": 50.0,
+                "sensor.batt": 0.0}.get(entity)
+
+    async def set_number(self, entity, value):
+        self.writes.append(float(value))
+        return True
+
+
+class _S:
+    data = {}
+
+    def set(self, *a):
+        pass
+
+    def get_time(self, *a):
+        return None
+
+
+class _P:
+    enabled = False
+
+    def publish(self, *a, **k):
+        pass
+
+    def close(self):
+        pass
+
+
+async def _e2e():
+    hass = _Hass()
+    opts = {"setpoint_entity": "number.sp", "meter_entity": "sensor.grid",
+            "soc_entity": "sensor.soc", "batt_entity": "sensor.batt",
+            "meter_source": "off", "max_w": 2000, "gain": -0.6,
+            "sign_disagree_w": 300, "sign_disagree_s": 1, "auto_start": True}
+    c = Controller(opts, hass, _S(), _P(), stop=asyncio.Event())
+    c.auto = True
+    c.dev_min, c.dev_max = -5000.0, 5000.0
+    seen_wrong_way = False
+    for _ in range(12):
+        await c.read_inputs()
+        await c.cycle()
+        if c.target < -300 and not c.sign_wd.tripped:
+            seen_wrong_way = True
+        await asyncio.sleep(0.25)
+    return c, hass, seen_wrong_way
+
+
+ctrl, hass, wrong_way = asyncio.run(_e2e())
+check("the broken loop really did command charge into an import first", wrong_way)
+check("the watchdog tripped", ctrl.sign_wd.tripped)
+check("the commanded value is 0 W", ctrl.target == 0.0)
+check("0 W actually reached the device", 0.0 in hass.writes)
+check("and it got there through the failsafe claim, not by accident",
+      "failsafe" in ctrl.reason)
+print(f"       status line: {ctrl.reason!r}")
+check("the status page says so in words",
+      any("SIGN-DISAGREEMENT FAILSAFE" in c["text"] for c in ctrl.checks()))
+check("the banner leads with it",
+      "FAILSAFE" in ctrl.status_payload()["banner"])
+check("it stays at 0 W on later cycles too",
+      hass.writes[-1] == 0.0 and hass.writes.count(0.0) >= 1)
+
+# ⚠️ THIS USED TO BE `check("MQTT reports the failsafe state", ctrl.sign_wd.tripped)`
+# which restates the assertion three lines above and never touches the payload.
+# The `status: "failsafe"` value was shipped untested. Capture what publish()
+# actually hands the broker.
+published = {}
+ctrl.mqtt = type("P", (), {"enabled": True,
+                           "publish": lambda _s, v: published.update(v),
+                           "close": lambda _s: None})()
+ctrl.publish()
+check("MQTT's controller-status sensor reports 'failsafe'",
+      published.get("status") == "failsafe")
+ctrl.sign_wd.reset()
+ctrl.publish()
+check("...and goes back to 'running' once cleared",
+      published.get("status") == "running")
+
+
+print()
+print("the latch survives a restart - it is the only thing between a tripped")
+print("controller and the first thing an operator will try")
+# ⚠️ THE BLOCKER THIS FILE MISSED FIRST TIME ROUND. `auto` is persisted and
+# `tripped` was not, so reconstructing a Controller against the same Store -
+# which is exactly what a container restart does - came back armed, into the
+# fault, with no operator involved: tripped=False, banner NOT READY, and it
+# resumed commanding -1000 then -2000 W before re-tripping 180 s later.
+
+
+class _MemStore:
+    """A Store that keeps its dict across "restarts", like the real file does."""
+
+    def __init__(self):
+        self.data = {"phase": "idle", "sign_tripped": False, "sign_reason": ""}
+
+    def set(self, k, v):
+        self.data[k] = v
+
+    def get_time(self, *a):
+        return None
+
+
+async def _restart():
+    shared = _MemStore()
+    hass1 = _Hass()
+    opts = {"setpoint_entity": "number.sp", "meter_entity": "sensor.grid",
+            "soc_entity": "sensor.soc", "batt_entity": "sensor.batt",
+            "meter_source": "off", "max_w": 2000, "gain": -0.6,
+            "sign_disagree_w": 300, "sign_disagree_s": 1, "auto_start": True}
+    a = Controller(opts, hass1, shared, _P(), stop=asyncio.Event())
+    a.auto = True
+    a.dev_min, a.dev_max = -5000.0, 5000.0
+    for _ in range(12):
+        await a.read_inputs()
+        await a.cycle()
+        await asyncio.sleep(0.25)
+
+    # The restart. Same options, same store, brand new Controller and Hass.
+    hass2 = _Hass()
+    b = Controller(opts, hass2, shared, _P(), stop=asyncio.Event())
+    b.auto = True
+    b.dev_min, b.dev_max = -5000.0, 5000.0
+    for _ in range(6):
+        await b.read_inputs()
+        await b.cycle()
+        await asyncio.sleep(0.05)
+    return a, b, shared, hass2
+
+
+pre, post, store, hass2 = asyncio.run(_restart())
+check("it tripped before the restart", pre.sign_wd.tripped)
+check("the trip reached the store", store.data["sign_tripped"] is True)
+check("...with the reason beside it, so the operator is told why",
+      "SIGN_DISAGREEMENT" in store.data["sign_reason"])
+check("the new Controller comes back TRIPPED", post.sign_wd.tripped)
+check("...and says why, restored rather than re-detected",
+      "SIGN_DISAGREEMENT" in post.sign_wd.reason)
+check("...commands 0 W from its very first cycle", post.target == 0.0)
+check("...and never commanded anything else after the restart",
+      hass2.writes != [] and set(hass2.writes) == {0.0})
+check("the banner still leads with the failsafe",
+      "FAILSAFE" in post.status_payload()["banner"])
+# ⚠️ TWO PRESSES, and the first one must NOT clear it. `auto` is True while
+# tripped, so the first press stops control; only the transition back to True
+# clears. That is the documented behaviour and it is worth an assertion, because
+# a one-press clear would be reachable by an operator who never read the banner.
+asyncio.run(post.handle_action("auto_toggle"))          # -> stopped
+check("pressing stop does not clear the failsafe",
+      post.sign_wd.tripped and store.data["sign_tripped"] is True)
+asyncio.run(post.handle_action("auto_toggle"))          # -> started
+check("pressing start DOES clear it, and clears the store with it",
+      not post.sign_wd.tripped and store.data["sign_tripped"] is False
+      and store.data["sign_reason"] == "")
+# One more restart from the cleared store, to prove the clear persisted too.
+fresh = Controller({"setpoint_entity": "number.sp", "meter_source": "off"},
+                   _Hass(), store, _P(), stop=asyncio.Event())
+check("...so the next restart comes back armed and untripped, as it should",
+      not fresh.sign_wd.tripped)
+
+# ⚠️ THE WRITE ORDERING IS AN INVARIANT, SO IT GETS AN ASSERTION. main.py writes
+# `sign_reason` and THEN `sign_tripped`, each one its own `save()`, so that a
+# process that dies between the two leaves a reason nothing reads - harmless -
+# rather than a latch with no explanation for the operator who has to decide
+# whether to clear it. Documented reasoning is not enforcement: swapping those two
+# lines used to pass every check in this file.
+#
+# The death is modelled as the second write raising. In the field it is a power
+# cut or a container kill (Store.save() swallows OSError rather than raising), so
+# what is asserted here is the PROPERTY - what survives on disk - not the
+# mechanism.
+
+
+class _CrashOnFlag(_MemStore):
+    def set(self, k, v):
+        if k == "sign_tripped" and v:
+            raise RuntimeError("power cut, mid-trip")
+        super().set(k, v)
+
+
+async def _crash_mid_write():
+    store = _CrashOnFlag()
+    hass = _Hass()
+    opts = {"setpoint_entity": "number.sp", "meter_entity": "sensor.grid",
+            "soc_entity": "sensor.soc", "batt_entity": "sensor.batt",
+            "meter_source": "off", "max_w": 2000, "gain": -0.6,
+            "sign_disagree_w": 300, "sign_disagree_s": 1, "auto_start": True}
+    c = Controller(opts, hass, store, _P(), stop=asyncio.Event())
+    c.auto = True
+    c.dev_min, c.dev_max = -5000.0, 5000.0
+    died = False
+    for _ in range(12):
+        try:
+            await c.read_inputs()
+            await c.cycle()
+        except RuntimeError:
+            died = True
+            break
+        await asyncio.sleep(0.25)
+    return store, died
+
+
+crashed_store, died = asyncio.run(_crash_mid_write())
+check("the second write is the one that sets the flag", died)
+check("a crash between the two writes leaves the REASON on disk",
+      "SIGN_DISAGREEMENT" in crashed_store.data.get("sign_reason", ""))
+check("...and never a latch with nothing to explain it",
+      not crashed_store.data.get("sign_tripped"))
+
+print()
+if fails:
+    print(f"{len(fails)} FAILED: {', '.join(fails)}")
+    sys.exit(1)
+print("all checks passed")