Readings that Home Assistant delivers late but still changing passed every staleness gate, so the loop corrected again each cycle an error its last command had already fixed (10 s late: the give run swung and exported to -1.9 kW), and the peak guard pushed to the inverter limit on the same late figures (OPT-34 F-2). app/lateness.py fits how long after a power request the meter shows it. Over 8 s the readings are late: a request the battery reading has not answered holds the loop (it may not lead the reading by more than 100 W) and caps the peak guard at what stands; unanswered for 23 s it holds, then 0 W after stale_input_s. An amber row and one log line per episode say so. With readings on time nothing changes (digests equal). DECISIONS/SAFETY-128-late-readings.md; test_safety128.py. Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Bdqr7PiaHcBnzPituu2yTC