Surface licensed max_nodes oversell to operators — visibility without the slot-claim mechanism (ruled C on #8501)

[os-zhuang]

Provenance: maintainer ruling 2026-08-27 (PM chat, decision-inbox batch 4, adjudication session session_01DKWDdUJ2XNRESVVWUvcpnh), verbatim: 「其他接受」 — adopting Option C on #8501: make a licensed max_nodes oversell VISIBLE to operators; the atomic slot-claim enforcement mechanism is deliberately NOT built now (deferred until real commercial pull — see the reopen triggers recorded on #8501).

Scope

Make an over-cap boot visible beyond the existing os serve log line: an operator-facing surface (console and/or telemetry) showing declared replicas vs the licensed cap, fed by the MultiNodeGate verdict vocabulary (admitted / refused / capped) that #8367 / PR #8503 landed. Visibility only:

• ⛔ No enforcement, no membership view, no slot claim, no refusal behaviour — all explicitly out (ruled out on A licensed max_nodes cap still cannot be enforced by any replica: the cluster has no membership view and no slot claim, so a count-carrying gate verdict stays advisory #8501; sub-decisions like TTL semantics and refusal posture stay unmade until that card's reopen triggers fire).
• The gate verdict is advisory and stays advisory; this card makes the advisory reading reach a human.

First actions for the implementing dev (premise-first)

1. Re-measure the three facts on today's tree before designing — the seam changed at feat(service-cluster): carry an admitted node count through the multi-node gate (#8367) #8503: gate consulted once per process at boot (packages/cli/src/commands/serve.ts), no cluster membership view (generateNodeId random per process), OS_CLUSTER_REPLICAS is an operator-declared count identical in every replica (split-brain-guard.ts).
2. Establish where the reading can actually land: if the display half lands in objectui (console surface), stop and report for cross-repo splitting per contract-first — do not absorb a cross-repo feature into one PR.

Named reader: the domain:services seat (gate and cluster primitives live in packages/services/service-cluster); routing note for triage. Refs: #8501 (ruling + full four-facet record), #8367 / PR #8503 (the seam), #8504 (the serve-time loud warning, landed), objectstack-ai/cloud#1275 (the 2026-08-13 overflow-semantics ruling — unchanged).

[os-litant]

Triage (triage seat, daily round 2026-08-27, session session_01Czs5tCwMymUvzB9QCA2yhH): routed domain:services, type Feature. Rationale: the gate and cluster primitives live in packages/services/service-cluster (services-lane packages); the deliverable is a new operator-visible reading of the existing advisory verdict — a public-surface addition, hence Feature, already maintainer-authorized (ruled C on #8501, 2026-08-27). The card's own premise-first steps stand; if the display half lands in objectui the dev stops for a contract-first cross-repo split as the card instructs.

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[os-litant]

Claim: PM loop round 3 (services seat)
Session: session_0194kbQJxUvv2yvsGRtuXpP5
Branch: claude/issue-12667-max-nodes-oversell-visibility
Worktree: objectstack-issue-12667
Domain: domain:services
File surface: packages/services/service-cluster/** (the gate verdict surface) + wherever the reading is published from, re-derived by you. ⛔ Zero packages/spec. ⚠️ If the display half lands in objectui, stop and report — cross-repo, split contract-first, ⛔ never absorbed into this PR.
Container & model: M, mode:subagent, model: claude-opus-5. The diff may be small; the judgement is where a reading may honestly land without implying enforcement that does not exist.
Clause-②: no — visibility only; no accept/reject behaviour changes, nothing published gains a new contract. ⚠️ Binding: if surfacing this needs a new REST/API route or a new public client method, that widens the public surface — stop and re-declare, do not ship under a no.
Serial constraints cleared: service-cluster/** free; no services-lane card in flight on it. Sibling dispatches this round are #12685 (service-automation) and #11993 (plugin-approvals) — disjoint packages, no read coupling.

Ruled by the maintainer — ⛔ none of this is re-openable

Provenance on the card: maintainer ruling 2026-08-27, verbatim 「其他接受」, adopting Option C on #8501.

⇒ Settled: make a licensed max_nodes oversell visible to operators. The atomic slot-claim enforcement mechanism is deliberately not built now, deferred until real commercial pull.

⛔ Explicitly out, and this is the line the card will be judged on: no enforcement, no membership view, no slot claim, no refusal behaviour. The gate verdict is advisory and stays advisory — this card makes the advisory reading reach a human. Sub-decisions (TTL semantics, refusal posture) stay unmade until #8501's reopen triggers fire.

⚠️ The tempting overreach is specific: while wiring a display you will see how easy a real count would be. That is the card #8501 deliberately did not order. ⛔ Do not build toward it, and do not word the surface as though enforcement exists.

Premise-first — the card names the three facts and the seam that moved

Re-measure all three on today's tree before designing; the seam changed at #8503:

• the gate is consulted once per process at boot (packages/cli/src/commands/serve.ts);
• there is no cluster membership view (generateNodeId is random per process);
• OS_CLUSTER_REPLICAS is an operator-declared count, identical in every replica (split-brain-guard.ts).

⭐ Those three together are why this is visibility and not enforcement: nothing in the process knows how many peers actually exist. Whatever you surface must not read as though it does. "Declared replicas vs licensed cap" is an honest sentence; "N nodes running" is not, and would be a false statement dressed as telemetry.

Build on the verdict vocabulary #8367 / PR #8503 landed — admitted / refused / capped — rather than inventing a second vocabulary. #8504 already landed the serve-time loud warning; ⛔ do not duplicate it, extend the reach.

Second premise, to settle early

The card's own instruction: establish where the reading can actually land before writing it. If the display half is a console surface in objectui, stop and report for cross-repo splitting. A telemetry-only landing inside this repo is a legitimate smaller answer — say so with the reading rather than reaching for the console.

Verification

• service-cluster suite; a test that asserts what an operator sees for each verdict, not merely that a value was computed.
• ⚠️ Include the honest-wording assertion: pin that the surface does not claim observed membership. That is the regression most likely to arrive later as a "helpful" wording change.
• Gate union from node scripts/pm/dispatch-gates.mjs on your actual changed set; exit codes before any pipe. PREREQUISITE NOT MET is NOT MEASURED, not red — build and re-run, report both.
• Ablation: show the new surface goes red/absent when the verdict changes, on the specific rows.
• Changeset: argue it. ⛔ Never empty.
• ⛔ No model names in any pushed artifact.

Report

Post your terminal JSON report as a comment on this issue first, then return it. Leave your own claim comment (your session id + branch) before starting — the assignee here is the PM session, not you. Include the measured answer to "where can the reading land" as a named field.

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Generated by Claude Code

[os-litant]

Claim (os-dev, dispatched by the domain:services PM seat, round 3)

Session: session_0194kbQJxUvv2yvsGRtuXpP5 (dev subagent under the services PM seat)
Branch: claude/issue-12667-max-nodes-oversell-visibility
Worktree: objectstack-issue-12667

Starting now. Premise-first: re-measuring the three facts (boot-time single gate consult in packages/cli/src/commands/serve.ts; no cluster membership view / random generateNodeId; OS_CLUSTER_REPLICAS as an operator-declared count in split-brain-guard.ts) on today's tree before designing, then establishing where the reading can honestly land. If the display half turns out to be an objectui console surface, I stop and report for a cross-repo split rather than absorbing it.

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Generated by Claude Code

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Generated by Claude Code

[os-litant]

os-dev-report

{
 "issue": 12667,
 "status": "done",
 "branch": "claude/issue-12667-max-nodes-oversell-visibility",
 "pr": "https://github.com/objectstack-ai/objectstack/pull/12720",
 "premise_still_valid": true,
 "reading_landing": "TELEMETRY-ONLY, inside this repo. No cross-repo split is needed and none was taken. Measured: packages/console in this repo is a prebuilt SPA and nothing else — its exports map holds only ./package.json, its files list is dist, and its README names @object-ui/console in objectstack-ai/objectui as the source of truth, frozen at the SHA in .objectui-sha. There is no console source here to add a panel to, so the console half is reported rather than absorbed. The landing that IS here: @objectstack/observability owns SEMCONV and the MetricsRegistry contract, and os serve already builds and registers a backend from OS_OBS_*. No new REST route and no new public client method were needed — clause 2 stays 'no'.",
 "summary": "Publishes the existing multi-node gate verdict as operator telemetry, extending the reach of the #8504 boot warning rather than duplicating it (that warning is untouched and still fires). Three names join SEMCONV in @objectstack/observability — cluster_declared_nodes (gauge), cluster_admitted_nodes (gauge), cluster_node_cap_verdicts_total (counter) — each labelled with the landed verdict vocabulary admitted/capped/refused, emitted once per boot by os serve after every plugin is registered so a host mounting its own ObservabilityServicePlugin is covered too. Visibility only: no enforcement, no membership view, no slot claim, no refusal behaviour; the cap stays advisory and every declared replica still joins. All three premises re-measured and still true on today's tree (single boot-time consult in serve.ts; random per-process generateNodeId with no join/leave registry; OS_CLUSTER_REPLICAS read as a declaration in split-brain-guard.ts) — which is exactly why the surface is named for what was DECLARED and what the licence ADMITS. Three emissions are deliberately omitted rather than faked: no declared gauge when nothing was declared, no admitted gauge when the gate expressed no cap, nothing at all when the gate was never consulted. Also worth PM attention: check:type-check-debt reports a standing informational unrelated to this card — @objectstack/runtime's TEST_DEBT records 227 while tsc now reports 226, so one new error could land in that layer unreported until someone runs --lower. It is pre-existing on main and the gate prints its own repair command every run, so I did not file a card for the gate's own standing advice; flagging it here for your call.",
 "tests": "Gate union derived from the ACTUAL changed set via `node scripts/pm/dispatch-gates.mjs --repo objectstack-ai/objectstack` (it read the change set itself; I passed no paths) and re-run on the final commit b7d45784c — 25 families, 24 green. The one exception is NOT MEASURED, not red: scripts/pm/check-half-states.mjs prints 'PREREQUISITE NOT MET — the token in the environment is not a valid GitHub credential' and exits 3, and its own text says nothing was swept. Separately `pnpm check:type-check-debt` (the --re-measure ratchet) ran against a fully built workspace: its verdict line reads 'check-type-check-coverage --re-measure: OK — 31 ledger entr(ies) re-measured in 224.3s, 1687 raw tsc error(s) total, none above its recorded number.' Exit codes were captured by redirecting to a file first, never after a pipe. REAL RED FOUND AND FIXED: check:slot-lookup printed 'packages/cli/src/commands/serve.ts: erasure count grew 9 -> 10' — my first draft assigned the metrics lookup to an any-declared variable; typing it MetricsRegistry cleared the ratchet and made the emission calls type-checked, which matters because counter(name, labels, value) and gauge(name, value, labels) differ in argument order. Suites: @objectstack/cli 41 passed across the four multi-node/observability files; @objectstack/observability 85 passed; @objectstack/service-cluster 66 passed; `pnpm --filter @objectstack/cli typecheck` clean. NOT-MEASURED check done explicitly: `tsc --noEmit --listFiles` confirms both new test files ARE in the cli program (1 hit each), so the green typecheck genuinely covers them. Note @objectstack/observability and @objectstack/service-cluster ship no typecheck script at all, so a --filter typecheck over them runs nothing — their type coverage is the ledger's, re-measured green above, and I am not reporting a typecheck reading for them. ABLATION, two legs, each proved on disk before its colour was read, both under a trap on EXIT/INT/TERM with absolute paths. Leg A (the reading stops distinguishing verdicts): verdict word pinned to 'admitted' in serve.ts; removed-text grep count went 1 to 0 and injected-marker count 1, git diff --stat non-empty; 3 of 17 tests red, on exactly the verdict rows. No dist is involved on this leg — the suite imports ./serve.js by relative path inside the same package — and that is stated rather than assumed. Leg B (the honest name becomes a membership claim): cluster_declared_nodes renamed to cluster_active_nodes in SEMCONV; because serve.ts consumes that through @objectstack/observability's exports (dist, not src) the package was REBUILT and `node scripts/ablation-dist-preflight.mjs @objectstack/observability cluster_active_nodes` confirmed 'marker present in 4 built files' before the run; 8 of 17 red, including the membership sweep itself. RESTORE legs: both used `git checkout HEAD -- absolute-path`, never a bare checkout, and are proved by STATE — empty git diff HEAD, empty git status --porcelain, and blob hashes identical to their HEAD blobs (serve.ts 4b51811e, semconv.ts 6d11794d). Leg B was rebuilt on restore too. Honest detail: the first --absent pre-flight REPORTED A HIT and it was not a failed restore — cluster_active_nodes legitimately occurs in the new SEMCONV doc comment naming it as a forbidden spelling, and tsup preserves comments into dist; the mutated VALUE was absent from source and dist alike (grep count 0 in both), and re-running the pre-flight with a marker unique to the mutation passes. That is a lesson about marker choice, not about the restore. Confirmation run on the restored tree: 17 passed. One more real defect the work caught: the membership sweep was first written with \\b anchors, which do NOT fire inside cluster_active_nodes because _ is a word character — the vacuity proof went red immediately and the rename this guard exists to reject would otherwise have sailed through green. Anchors are now explicit and the measurement is recorded in the test file.",
 "mcp_calls": "7",
 "open_questions": [],
 "out_of_scope_findings": []
}

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[os-litant]

PM review of record — ACCEPT

domain:services seat, session session_0194kbQJxUvv2yvsGRtuXpP5, round 3. PR #12720 @ b7d45784.

⭐ The cross-repo question was answered by measurement, and I verified it myself

The brief said to stop and report if the display half landed in objectui. It doesn't, and the reason is decisive rather than a judgement call. Checked independently on origin/main, not taken from the report:

• packages/console/package.json → exports: { "./package.json": "./package.json" }, files: ["dist", "README.md", "CHANGELOG.md"];
• zero tracked .ts/.tsx files under packages/console — 4 tracked files in total.

⇒ There is no console source in this repo to add a panel to. A telemetry-only landing is not a smaller answer chosen for convenience; it is the only one available here. ⛔ No cross-repo split needed, and none was taken.

⭐ And the static import is safer than the report claims

The one change carrying real risk was the new static value import into serve.ts. The dev justified it transitively (runtime already re-exports observability). I checked, and the simpler fact holds: @objectstack/observability is already a direct dependencies entry of packages/cli (workspace:^). The transitive path exists too (runtime/src/index.ts:168), but it isn't load-bearing. ⇒ No new failure mode, and no repeat of the boundary problem #12563 spent its whole measurement on.

The fence held — verified in the diff, not in the prose

⛔ No enforcement, no membership view, no slot claim, no refusal. multi-node-gate.ts is +19 lines of comments only; nothing in the diff refuses anything. The verdict is read once at boot, held, and published. The cap stays advisory and every declared replica still joins.

⭐ Three emissions are deliberately omitted rather than faked, each with the false-reading it would produce written down: no cluster_declared_nodes when nothing was declared (0 reads as "declared zero"); no cluster_admitted_nodes when the gate expressed no cap (any number invents a limit); nothing at all when the gate was never consulted. That is the honest-absence discipline applied without being asked for it — the brief asked for honest naming.

⭐ Two real defects the work found in itself

1. Its own guard was vacuous, and its vacuity proof caught it. The membership-claim sweep was first written with \b anchors — and _ is a word character, so \bactive\b does not match inside cluster_active_nodes, precisely the rename the guard exists to reject. Every sweep would have reported green over the exact regression. Anchors are now [^a-z0-9], and the vacuity proof asserting the sweep rejects cluster_active_nodes / cluster_nodes_running / cluster_live_members is what surfaced it. ⭐ A guard that cannot fail is worse than no guard, and this one was caught by the test written to distrust it.
2. check:slot-lookup went red and the fix improved safety rather than satisfying a ratchet. The first draft resolved the metrics service into an any-typed variable (erasure 9 → 10). Typing it MetricsRegistry cleared the ratchet and restored the argument check the erasure had switched off — counter(name, labels, value) and gauge(name, value, labels) differ in argument order, so an any here would have let a swap compile and emit a label map where a number belongs. That is the ratchet doing the job it exists for.

Verification

Suites: @objectstack/cli 41 across the four multi-node/observability files, @objectstack/observability 85, @objectstack/service-cluster 66. tsc --noEmit --listFiles confirms both new test files are in the cli program, so the green typecheck genuinely covers them. ⭐ Honest non-reading recorded rather than papered over: observability and service-cluster ship no typecheck script, so a --filter typecheck over them runs nothing — the dev says so and does not report a reading it did not take.

Gate union re-derived from the actual changed set: 25 families, 24 green; the one exception is check-half-states printing PREREQUISITE NOT MET — the token in the environment is not a valid GitHub credential and exiting 3, read as NOT MEASURED, not red — correct, and its own text says nothing was swept.

Ablation, two legs, each proved on disk before its colour was read: verdict word pinned → 3/17 red on exactly the verdict rows (no dist involved, stated rather than assumed); the honest name renamed to a membership claim → 8/17 red including the sweep itself, with the package rebuilt because that consumption goes through dist. ⭐ And an honest detail worth keeping: the first --absent preflight reported a hit that was not a failed restore — the forbidden spelling legitimately appears in the new doc comment naming it as forbidden, and tsup preserves comments into dist. The mutated value was absent from source and dist alike. That is a lesson about marker choice, disclosed instead of quietly re-run.

Changeset: minor on @objectstack/observability and @objectstack/cli — correct, both gain public names.

Next step

Clause-② no holds: no packages/spec, no new REST route, no new public client method; SEMCONV names are metric identifiers, not a contract accept/reject surface. Path face non-governed — Governed Surface Queue Guard green confirms it mechanically. CI at review time: 29 checks, 0 failures, converging. ⇒ Arming once every check is green (ready + queue), pinned to b7d45784. ⛔ Not on the required subset.

The flagged standing item — filed, not absorbed

The report flags that @objectstack/runtime's TEST_DEBT records 227 while tsc now reports 226, so one new error could land in that layer unreported until someone runs --lower. Pre-existing on main and unrelated to this card. ⛔ Correctly not fixed here. Filed as a finding for triage rather than left in a PR report where no queue can see it — a ratchet with slack is a small declared≠enforced gap, and "the tool prints its own repair command" is disclosure, not a mechanism.

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