Merge branch 'rig-work'

simpler check and deps messages
2026-09-17 15:01:55 -03:00 · 2026-09-17 15:01:48 -03:00 · 2026-09-17 01:18:05 -03:00 · 2026-09-17 01:12:15 -03:00
53 changed files with 1515 additions and 1713 deletions
--- a/docs/data/en/station-cabinets.md
+++ b/docs/data/en/station-cabinets.md
@@ -57,8 +57,7 @@ compose, the same dependency installs as a rig addon of that name:

 ```bash
 cd rig
-PROFILE=data make cluster up
-PROFILE=data make addons install
+PROFILE=data make cluster up      # installs the addons too

 kubectl -n data port-forward svc/postgres 5432:5432
 kubectl -n data port-forward svc/airflow  8080:8080
--- a/rig/BOOTSTRAP.md
+++ b/rig/BOOTSTRAP.md
@@ -97,7 +97,7 @@ build has a Makefile target today. **On a genuinely bare machine, run it by
 hand:**

 ```bash
-make deps-image                          # builds rig-deps:deps
+make deps image                          # builds rig-deps:deps
 mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
 docker run --rm \
  -v /:/host:ro \
@@ -141,7 +141,7 @@ If something else on this machine already provides `kubectl`, the installer says
 by name rather than shadowing it quietly. `OUT_BIN=$PWD/def/bin` installs
 somewhere private instead.

-**Two variants worth knowing before you need them.** `make deps-image full` bakes
+**Two variants worth knowing before you need them.** `make deps image full` bakes
 every pinned binary into the image at build time (`DEPS_SOURCE=baked`), so
 `docker save` gives you the entire installer as one file to carry into an
 air-gapped network. And `DEPS_SOURCE=artifactory` with `DEPS_ARTIFACTORY_URL`
@@ -156,16 +156,14 @@ the first-time path.
 ## Prove the machine before blaming the project

 ```bash
-make setup
+make check
 make cluster up
 kubectl get nodes
 ```

-`make setup` re-runs every check as a group. It is idempotent and it deliberately
-does not abort on the first failure — a setup script that dies at step two hides
-the fact that steps four and five were also going to fail. Run now, it should be
-`ok` and `done` all the way down, and that is the point: it is the scoreboard,
-not the installer.
+`make check` re-runs every check — host, docker, toolchain, memory, ports — and
+changes nothing. Run now, it should end with nothing left to do by hand, and that
+is the point: it is the scoreboard, not the installer.

 `make cluster up` builds rig's built-in defaults — one node, no addons,
 boots fast. You do not need it to develop anything, but you do want to know that
--- a/rig/Makefile
+++ b/rig/Makefile
@@ -1,37 +1,13 @@
-# Thin control Makefile — one target per ctrl/ script, and the subcommand is an
-# argument rather than a second target: `make cluster down`, not `make cluster-down`.
-#
-# The logic lives in the scripts, never here. Each target maps to exactly one
-# bash file, and that file holds the variants:
-#
-#   make cluster up      ->  ctrl/cluster.sh up
-#
-# Config layers, weakest first: built-in defaults < ctrl/versions.env (pinned
-# toolchain) < ctrl/env.d/<profile>.env (optional) < ctrl/.env (local,
-# gitignored) < the environment. So `make cluster up PROFILE=<name>` beats them all.
-#
-# Start with:  make setup    (then: make cluster up && make docs)
-
-# Identity follows the FOLDER NAME, so this directory can be copied elsewhere,
-# renamed, and run as a separate environment with no edits. ctrl/.env overrides
-# it when you want a name that differs from the directory.
-#
-# Asked once, of ctrl/ports.sh, which resolves it through lib/config.sh:
-#
+# Thin control Makefile: the subcommand is an argument (`make cluster down`); logic lives in ctrl/ scripts.
+#   make check | deps | cluster up | tilt | docs     (`make help` lists all)
+# Start with:  make check && make deps && make cluster up
+# Notes: docs/notes/Makefile.md
+
+# Identity and ports, asked once of ctrl/ports.sh, read positionally (selftest pins the order):
 #   CLUSTER KUBECONTEXT HTTP HTTPS TILT REGISTRY MANIFESTS_DIR
-#
-# Read positionally, so the order is a contract — ctrl/selftest.sh pins it.
-#
-# This used to be sed over ctrl/.env plus a slug computed here, which is a
-# SECOND derivation of values lib/config.sh already owns — and the two could
-# disagree about the port after `make ports persist`, or about the name for any
-# directory whose sanitised form differs from its raw one. One source now; the
-# Tiltfile reads the same line.
 FACTS     := $(shell bash ctrl/ports.sh active 2>/dev/null)
 SLUG      := $(shell echo '$(notdir $(CURDIR))' | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' | tr -c 'a-z0-9-' '-' | sed 's/^-*//; s/-*$$//')
-# The fallback matters: ports.sh sources config.sh, and if a profile or .env is
-# broken it exits non-zero. Losing the cluster name would send --context to the
-# wrong place, so fall back to the folder rather than to empty.
+# Fall back to the folder name, not empty, if ports.sh fails on a broken config.
 CLUSTER   := $(or $(word 1,$(FACTS)),$(SLUG))
 KCTX      := --context $(or $(word 2,$(FACTS)),kind-$(SLUG))
 TILT_PORT := $(word 5,$(FACTS))
@@ -42,100 +18,68 @@ DEPSIMG   := $(SLUG)-deps
 ARGS := $(wordlist 2,$(words $(MAKECMDGOALS)),$(MAKECMDGOALS))
 ifneq ($(ARGS),)
 $(eval $(ARGS):;@:)
-# ...and as PHONY, because some of those words name real directories. `cfg`,
-# `ctrl`, `docs`, `gen` and `init` all exist at this level, and make considers a
-# target that is an existing directory already built — so `make build ctrl` ran
-# the build and then printed "make: 'ctrl' is up to date". The empty rule above
-# is not enough on its own; only .PHONY stops make consulting the filesystem.
+# ...and as PHONY, because some of those words name real directories (ctrl, docs, ...).
 .PHONY: $(ARGS)
 endif

-.PHONY: help setup check selftest mem deps deps-image standalone cluster registry addons ports \
-        docs tilt \
+.PHONY: help check deps cluster tilt docs selftest standalone \
        kind-up kind-down kind-reset tilt-up tilt-down

 help:                          ## list targets
 	@grep -hE '^[a-z][a-z-]*:.*?##' $(MAKEFILE_LIST) | sed 's/:.*##/\t/' | expand -t16

-# ── setup ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
-
-setup:                         ## prepare this machine  [core] [--cluster]
-	bash ctrl/setup.sh $(ARGS)
-
-check:                         ## is this machine ready? reports, never fixes
-	bash ctrl/check.sh
-
-# The counterpart to check: that one asks about the MACHINE and never fails,
-# this one asks about RIG and exits 1, as `make standalone check` does. Checks are written
-# as the decisions they defend, so a failure names what is being undone.
-selftest:                      ## does rig still do what it says? exits 1 if not
-	bash ctrl/selftest.sh
-
-mem:                           ## memory, its caps, what it survives  [status|push|all|backup|restore]
-	bash ctrl/mem.sh $(or $(ARGS),status)
+# ── this machine ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

-deps:                          ## install the toolchain  [core|dev]  (default dev)
-	bash ctrl/deps.sh install $(or $(ARGS),dev)
-
-# The one-file versions of rig's tools, one folder per profile, for machines the
-# full rig is not going to. Generated from rig as it is, never edited by hand;
-# `check` is what selftest runs to catch a kit left behind by a change to rig.
-standalone:                    ## single-file kits  [write|check|export DIR]  (default write)
-	bash ctrl/standalone.sh $(or $(ARGS),write)
+# Everything that looks and never changes anything: host, docker, toolchain,
+# config, memory, ports, registry, addons. `check mem` goes deeper on memory —
+# how far it really climbs, and the WSL .wslconfig backup/restore.
+check:                         ## is this machine ready?  [all] [mem [status|push|all|backup|restore]]
+	bash ctrl/check.sh $(ARGS)

-deps-image:                    ## build the installer image  [full]
+# `deps image` is for a machine with nothing but Docker: the installer runs from
+# the image instead — see BOOTSTRAP.md. `full` bakes every binary in.
+deps:                          ## install the toolchain  [core|dev]  [image [full]]
+ifeq ($(word 1,$(ARGS)),image)
 	docker build -f ctrl/Dockerfile.deps \
 	  --target $(if $(filter full,$(ARGS)),deps-full,deps) \
 	  -t $(DEPSIMG):$(if $(filter full,$(ARGS)),full,deps) .
+else
+	bash ctrl/deps.sh install $(or $(ARGS),dev)
+endif

-# ── cluster ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+# ── the cluster ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

+# up also starts the registry and installs the profile's addons, and the ports
+# derive from the folder name — there is nothing else to run first.
 cluster:                       ## this env + the machine  [up|down|reset|list|free]
 	bash ctrl/cluster.sh $(or $(ARGS),up)

-registry:                      ## registry wiring  [up|down|status]    (default status)
-	bash ctrl/registry.sh $(or $(ARGS),status)
-
-addons:                        ## profile addons  [install|list]       (default list)
-	bash ctrl/addons.sh $(or $(ARGS),list)
-
-ports:                         ## this environment's port block  [show|persist]
-	bash ctrl/ports.sh $(or $(ARGS),show)
-
-# ── docs + dev loop ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+# ── dev loop + docs ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

 docs:                          ## documentation  [serve|graphs]        (default serve)
 	bash ctrl/docs.sh $(or $(ARGS),serve)

-# --port is only passed when TILT_PORT resolved. It normally does, since FACTS
-# above asks ports.sh — but ports.sh can fail on a broken profile, and without
-# the guard tilt receives a bare `--port` with no value and fails on the flag
-# rather than on anything real. Tilt's own default is 10350, which is the number
-# every project on this machine is trying not to collide on, so falling back to
-# it silently is worse than not passing the flag.
-#
-# The Tiltfile asks ports.sh for the rest itself — cluster, registry and where
-# the manifests are — so nothing needs passing here beyond what tilt's own flags
-# require.
+# --port only when TILT_PORT resolved; the Tiltfile asks ports.sh for the rest itself.
 tilt:                          ## dev loop  [up|down]                  (default up)
 	cd ctrl && tilt $(or $(ARGS),up) $(KCTX) $(if $(filter down,$(ARGS)),,$(if $(TILT_PORT),--port $(TILT_PORT)))

+# ── maintaining rig ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+# The counterpart to check: that one asks about the MACHINE and never fails,
+# this one asks about RIG and exits 1. Checks are written as the decisions they
+# defend, so a failure names what is being undone.
+selftest:                      ## does rig still do what it says? exits 1 if not
+	bash ctrl/selftest.sh
+
+# The one-file versions of rig's tools, one folder per profile, for machines the
+# full rig is not going to. Generated from rig as it is, never edited by hand;
+# `check` is what selftest runs to catch a kit left behind by a change to rig.
+standalone:                    ## single-file kits  [write|check|export DIR]  (default write)
+	bash ctrl/standalone.sh $(or $(ARGS),write)
+
 # ── the shape every other project uses ─────────────────────────────────────
-# Aliases, not a second implementation: each one calls the same script the
-# canonical target does.
-#
-# The header above argues for `make cluster down` over `make cluster-down`, and
-# that still holds *within* this file. But rig is one repo among several on the
-# same machine, and every other one answers to kind-up / tilt-up. Muscle memory
-# spanning six projects beats internal tidiness in one, so both spellings work.
-#
-# `cluster list` and `cluster free` have no hyphenated twin on purpose — they
-# are rig's own, with nothing to be consistent with.
-#
-# Nothing outside this file reads these names: the script is `ctrl/cluster.sh`
-# and it takes the verb. So rename them, delete the ones you never type, or add
-# the spelling your own projects use — an alias is two lines, and adding one
-# costs nothing but a line in .PHONY above.
+# Aliases matching other projects' kind-up / tilt-up; each calls the same script.
+# Nothing else reads these names: rename, delete or add freely (and update .PHONY).

 kind-up:                       ## alias for `cluster up`
 	bash ctrl/cluster.sh up
--- a/rig/README.md
+++ b/rig/README.md
@@ -58,30 +58,34 @@ make docs      # serves on localhost, prints the URL
 They run before anything is installed, which matters because they are the
 instructions for everything else. No cluster and no toolchain required.

+Why the code is the way it is — the reasoning, measurements and gotchas — lives
+in [`docs/notes/`](docs/notes/), one file per script, so the code keeps short comments.
+
 ## Then

 ```bash
-make check         # report host and config problems; changes nothing
+make check         # is this machine ready? short; `make check all` for every detail
 make deps          # install the toolchain (add `core` on a managed machine)
-make cluster up    # build the cluster for the active profile
+make cluster up    # cluster + registry + the profile's addons
 ```

-`make cluster up` also starts this environment's local registry and wires it
-into the node, so an image built locally is pullable by the cluster without
-going near docker.io:
+That is the whole setup. `make cluster up` also starts this environment's local
+registry and wires it into the node, so an image built locally is pullable by the
+cluster without going near docker.io. `make check` shows its port, among
+everything else:

 ```bash
-make registry status        # prints: endpoint  localhost:<port>
+make check                  # ... registry    localhost:<port>  (running)
 docker build -t localhost:<port>/app:1 .
 docker push localhost:<port>/app:1
 kubectl --context kind-$(basename $PWD) run app --image=localhost:<port>/app:1
 ```

 The port block is derived from the directory name, so two copies of rig never
-collide:
+collide — nothing to configure. `make check all` lists it; `bash ctrl/ports.sh persist`
+pins it into `ctrl/.env` if you want it fixed:

 ```bash
-make ports show                            # HTTP / HTTPS / TILT / REGISTRY
 make cluster list                          # every cluster on this machine, with memory
 make cluster free                          # stop the others if memory is tight
 make cluster down                          # remove this cluster and its registry
@@ -151,9 +155,8 @@ than something every rig needs. Copy one to use it:

 ```bash
 cp ctrl/env.d/data.env.example ctrl/env.d/data.env
-PROFILE=data make cluster up
-PROFILE=data make addons install
-make addons                       # what the active profile wants, and what exists
+PROFILE=data make cluster up      # installs the profile's addons too
+PROFILE=data make check           # what the profile wants, and what exists
 ```

 The **cluster itself** is one file, `ctrl/k8s/kind-config.yaml.tpl` (one node).
--- a/rig/ctrl/.env.example
+++ b/rig/ctrl/.env.example
@@ -1,50 +1,38 @@
 # Machine-local config. Copy to ctrl/.env (gitignored) and edit.
-# Cluster SHAPE: an optional profile in ctrl/env.d/ — see the *.env.example there.
-# The architecture MODEL lives in arch/<name>.json — not here either.
+# Cluster SHAPE: an optional profile in ctrl/env.d/. Architecture MODEL: arch/<name>.json.
+# Notes: docs/notes/env.md

 # A profile in ctrl/env.d/ to build. Empty means rig's built-in defaults, which
 # need no profile at all. Copy an env.d/*.env.example to <name>.env to add one.
 PROFILE=

 # Cluster name; the kubectl context becomes kind-<CLUSTER>.
-# LEAVE THIS UNSET unless you need a name that differs from the directory —
-# it defaults to this folder's name, which is what makes the folder copyable:
-# copy it, rename it, and you get a separate environment with no edits.
+# LEAVE UNSET: it defaults to this folder's name, which keeps the folder copyable.
 # CLUSTER=

-# Host ports. LEAVE UNSET — they derive from the directory name so several
-# environments coexist without negotiating (see ctrl/ports.sh). `make ports`
-# shows this environment's block; `make ports persist` writes it here so it stops
-# being derived and becomes fixed. Set a value only to override.
+# Host ports. LEAVE UNSET — derived from the directory name (see ctrl/ports.sh).
+# `bash ctrl/ports.sh persist` pins them here; set a value only to override.
 # HTTP_PORT=
 # HTTPS_PORT=
 # TILT_PORT=
 # REGISTRY_PORT=

-# Where the application manifests live. The real ones are expected to be
-# versioned separately from this installer — they change on a different cadence,
-# by different people. Repoint this at their repo and rig stops owning them:
+# Where the application manifests live; repoint at their own repo, e.g.
 #   MANIFESTS_DIR=../platform-manifests/overlays/dev
 MANIFESTS_DIR=ctrl/k8s/overlays/dev

-# Where the installer fetches the pinned binaries from.
-#   upstream    GitHub releases / dl.k8s.io  (needs internet)
-#   artifactory a generic repo — what a locked-down client usually allows
-#   baked       already inside the installer image; no network at all
+# Where the installer fetches the pinned binaries from:
+#   upstream (needs internet) | artifactory (generic repo) | baked (in the image)
 DEPS_SOURCE=upstream
 DEPS_ARTIFACTORY_URL=

 # --- Registry -------------------------------------------------------------
-# Mode comes from the profile (REGISTRY_MODE). These are the secrets it needs.
-# Required for mirror/remote:
+# Mode comes from the profile (REGISTRY_MODE). Secrets required for mirror/remote:
 REGISTRY_REMOTE_URL=
 REGISTRY_USER=
 REGISTRY_PASSWORD=

-# Corporate root CA, if Artifactory is fronted by an internal CA (it usually is).
-# Trust has to reach THREE places and nothing does it for you: the host docker
-# daemon, every kind node's containerd, and any in-cluster client. registry.sh
-# handles the first two; check.sh reports when it's configured but not trusted.
+# Corporate root CA, if Artifactory is fronted by an internal CA.
 # Symptom when missing: x509: certificate signed by unknown authority
 REGISTRY_CA_FILE=

--- a/rig/ctrl/Dockerfile.deps
+++ b/rig/ctrl/Dockerfile.deps
@@ -1,33 +1,17 @@
-# The toolchain installer image. It does NOT run the cluster — it installs a toolchain
-# onto the host and gets out of the way.
-#
-# This exists to kill a bootstrap paradox: a plain bash installer needs curl, jq
-# and sha256sum to already be present, and a minimal Debian has none of them.
-# It carries its own toolchain, so the only host prerequisite is Docker.
-#
-# Two variants from one file:
+# Toolchain installer image: installs the pinned toolchain onto the host; Docker is the only prerequisite.
 #   docker build -f ctrl/Dockerfile.deps --target deps        -t <slug>-deps        .
 #   docker build -f ctrl/Dockerfile.deps --target deps-full -t <slug>-deps:full   .
-#
-# deps-full bakes every pinned binary in at build time. `docker save` it and
-# you have the whole installer as one file to carry into an air-gapped network.
+# Notes: docs/notes/Dockerfile.deps.md

 FROM debian:trixie-slim AS deps

-# ca-certificates + curl: fetch and verify. graphviz + python3: render diagrams
-# and validate the arch model, so the host never needs an apt package.
-#
-# docker-cli, NOT docker.io: we only ever talk to the host's daemon through the
-# mounted socket, and under --no-install-recommends the docker.io package ships
-# docker-init without the actual `docker` binary.
+# curl: fetch and verify; graphviz + python3: diagrams. docker-cli, NOT docker.io
+# (which lacks the `docker` binary under --no-install-recommends).
 RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
        ca-certificates curl jq graphviz python3 docker-cli \
    && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

-# The installer is the generated standalone kit, not deps.sh plus the files it
-# reads. A kit is one file with its pins frozen in and is proven to run with
-# nothing else from rig present — which is exactly what an image needs, and
-# `make standalone` keeps it current. Pins are the same in every profile's kit.
+# The installer is the generated one-file standalone kit, pins frozen in.
 ARG PROFILE=default
 WORKDIR /work
 COPY standalone/${PROFILE}/rigdeps.sh /work/rigdeps.sh
--- a/rig/ctrl/Dockerfile.example
+++ b/rig/ctrl/Dockerfile.example
@@ -1,33 +1,13 @@
-# EXAMPLE — a component image. Copy, rename, replace.
-#
-# Named like the manifest it feeds and the resource it becomes:
-#
-#   ctrl/Dockerfile.api   ->  image <cluster>-api  ->  image: in k8s/base/api.yaml
-#
-# That image string is the ONLY thing connecting the three. Nothing checks it;
-# a typo shows up as a pod stuck in ImagePullBackOff pulling from the public
-# index, which reads like a network problem and is not one.
-#
-# ── the one that catches everyone ──────────────────────────────────────────
-# The Tiltfile passes two paths with DIFFERENT bases, in adjacent arguments:
-#
-#   context='..'                 the REPO ROOT   (the Tiltfile is in ctrl/)
-#   dockerfile='Dockerfile.api'  relative to the TILTFILE, so ctrl/Dockerfile.api
-#
-# So every COPY below is resolved against the repo root, NOT against this file's
-# directory. A file sitting right beside this one is still reached as `ctrl/`:
-#
-#   COPY ctrl/nginx.conf /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf     # correct
-#   COPY nginx.conf      /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf     # fails — no such file
-#
-# Nothing warns you. The build just cannot find a file that is visibly there.
+# EXAMPLE component image. Copy, rename, replace:
+#   ctrl/Dockerfile.api  ->  image <cluster>-api  ->  image: in k8s/base/api.yaml
+# COPY paths are relative to the REPO ROOT (Tilt context='..'), not this directory.
+# Notes: docs/notes/Dockerfile.example.md

 FROM python:3.12-slim

 WORKDIR /app

-# Dependencies first, in their own layer: they change far less often than the
-# code, so a source edit does not reinstall them on every rebuild.
+# Dependencies first, in their own layer, so a source edit does not reinstall them.
 COPY api/requirements.txt ./
 RUN pip install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt

@@ -40,11 +20,5 @@ EXPOSE 8000

 CMD ["python", "-m", "api"]

-# ── live_update ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
-# The sync in the Tiltfile's docker_build must land where this image expects it:
-#
-#   live_update=[sync('../api', '/app/api')]
-#
-# matches `COPY api/ ./api/` with WORKDIR /app. If the two disagree, Tilt syncs
-# into a path nothing reads and the container keeps serving the built copy —
-# edits appear to do nothing, with no error anywhere.
+# live_update: Tiltfile's sync('../api', '/app/api') must match COPY api/ + WORKDIR /app,
+# or edits silently do nothing.
--- a/rig/ctrl/Tiltfile
+++ b/rig/ctrl/Tiltfile
@@ -1,28 +1,10 @@
 # The dev loop. `make tilt` from the project root, or `cd ctrl && tilt up`.
-#
-# This file ships with rig and works unedited: rig's own k8s/base already boots,
-# so `make tilt` comes up with a running cluster and no editing at all. What it
-# deploys is two EXAMPLES — replace them, and add your own images and resources
-# in the two marked sections near the bottom. The catalogue after them has the
-# blocks to paste, with the parts that are easy to get wrong already commented.
-#
-# rig supplies this file; it does not own it. Nothing in rig reads it back, and
-# nothing here is regenerated — edit it freely, the way you would edit
-# k8s/base/example-mock.yaml. rig owns the machine, you own the workload.
-#
-# Nothing below is hardcoded to this directory, deliberately. Every other
-# project here writes its slug into the Tiltfile five or six times by hand, so a
-# copy of the project deploys into the original's cluster until someone
-# remembers to edit all of them. A rig is meant to be copied and renamed, so it
-# asks instead.
+# Works unedited; replace the two EXAMPLES and add yours in the marked sections.
+# rig supplies this file but does not own it, and nothing here names this directory.
+# Notes: docs/notes/Tiltfile.md

 # ── who we are, and on which ports ─────────────────────────────────────────
-# One question to rig, answered by ctrl/ports.sh, which resolves it through
-# lib/config.sh — the same path every other rig script takes. That is the point:
-# the cluster name is NOT the bare directory name (it is lowercased and reduced
-# to a DNS label), and the ports honour anything pinned in ctrl/.env. Recomputing
-# either of those here in Starlark is how two copies end up disagreeing about
-# which cluster they are talking to.
+# Asked of ctrl/ports.sh (via lib/config.sh), never recomputed here in Starlark.
 _facts   = str(local('bash ports.sh active', quiet=True)).split()
 CLUSTER  = _facts[0]
 CTX      = _facts[1]
@@ -31,22 +13,13 @@ HTTPS    = _facts[3]
 TILT     = _facts[4]
 REGISTRY = _facts[5]

-# Where the manifests live. rig's own are the default; point MANIFESTS_DIR in
-# ctrl/.env at an overlay versioned somewhere else and rig stops owning them —
-# see k8s/README.md. Real manifests usually change on a different cadence, by
-# different people, under different review.
-#
-# The value is REPO-ROOT relative, because that is the root everything else in
-# rig is expressed against. This file runs in ctrl/, so prefix rather than
-# assume: '../' + 'ctrl/k8s/overlays/dev' and '../' + '../platform/overlays/dev'
-# are both right, where stripping a leading 'ctrl/' would only fix the first.
+# Where the manifests live (MANIFESTS_DIR, see k8s/README.md).
+# The value is REPO-ROOT relative and this file runs in ctrl/, so prefix '../'.
 MANIFESTS = '../' + _facts[6]

 # ── refuse to deploy into the wrong cluster ────────────────────────────────
-# Tilt snapshots the kubectl context at startup, BEFORE parsing this file, so it
-# cannot be switched from here — only refused. `make tilt` passes --context for
-# you; this catches a bare `tilt up` after some other project moved the global
-# context.
+# Tilt fixes the context before parsing this file, so it can only be refused here.
+# `make tilt` passes --context; this catches a bare `tilt up`.
 allow_k8s_contexts(CTX)
 if k8s_context() != CTX:
    fail("Wrong kubectl context: '%s'. This is %s — run: make tilt, or tilt up --context %s"
@@ -58,10 +31,8 @@ local('kubectl --context %s create namespace %s --dry-run=client -o yaml | kubec
      % (CTX, CLUSTER, CTX), quiet=True)

 # ── images go to this environment's own registry ───────────────────────────
-# Fail closed. Tilt can usually infer the kind registry on its own, but "usually"
-# is an inference, and when it misses, an unqualified name like 'app' quietly
-# means docker.io/library/app — a push to the public index instead of the
-# registry two lines away. rig runs that registry; name it.
+# Fail closed: name the registry rather than let Tilt infer it, or a miss pushes
+# an unqualified image to docker.io.
 default_registry('localhost:' + REGISTRY)

 k8s_yaml(kustomize(MANIFESTS))
@@ -82,21 +53,12 @@ k8s_resource(

 # ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
 # Catalogue — paste what you need, delete the rest.
-#
-# These are the shapes that recur across every project here, with the reasoning
-# kept next to them. They are comments so this file runs as-is.
+# Commented out so this file runs as-is.
 # ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
 #
 # ── build an image ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
-# The one genuinely non-obvious thing in the whole corpus: `context` and
-# `dockerfile` are relative to DIFFERENT directories, in adjacent arguments,
-# and nothing warns you.
-#
-#   context=    the REPO ROOT — this file is in ctrl/, so '..'
-#   dockerfile= relative to THIS file — so 'Dockerfile.api' is ctrl/Dockerfile.api
-#
-# Every COPY inside those Dockerfiles is therefore repo-root relative: a file
-# sitting BESIDE the Dockerfile is still reached as `COPY ctrl/nginx.conf`.
+# context= is the REPO ROOT ('..'); dockerfile= is relative to THIS file (ctrl/).
+# So every COPY is repo-root relative, even for files beside the Dockerfile.
 #
 # docker_build(
 #     CLUSTER + '-api',                  # must match `image:` in the manifest —
@@ -111,10 +73,8 @@ k8s_resource(
 # k8s_resource('gateway', resource_deps=['api', 'ui'], labels=['app'])
 #
 # ── reload the gateway when its config changes ─────────────────────────────
-# A Caddyfile arriving via configMapGenerator with disableNameSuffixHash does
-# NOT roll the pod — the ConfigMap name never changes, so nothing tells the
-# Deployment anything happened. Without this you edit the routes and watch
-# nothing take effect.
+# A hash-less configMapGenerator ConfigMap never changes name, so edits do NOT
+# roll the pod on their own.
 #
 # local_resource(
 #     'gateway-reload',
@@ -131,9 +91,7 @@ k8s_resource(
 # k8s_yaml(kustomize(MANIFESTS, flags=['--load-restrictor=LoadRestrictionsNone']))
 #
 # ── reach a service directly, bypassing the gateway ────────────────────────
-# For a DB client or an admin UI. Prefer routing through the gateway: host ports
-# are a single shared namespace across every project on this machine, which is
-# why rig derives a block per environment in the first place. If you do need
-# one, take it from this environment's own block rather than picking a number.
+# Prefer the gateway; host ports are shared machine-wide. If you need one, take it
+# from this environment's own port block.
 #
 # k8s_resource('postgres', port_forwards=[str(int(HTTP) + 5) + ':5432'])
--- a/rig/ctrl/addons.sh
+++ b/rig/ctrl/addons.sh
@@ -1,9 +1,8 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
 # Install the addons the active profile asked for, in the order listed.
-# Each addon is its own idempotent script in ctrl/addons/ — adding one is adding
-# a file, not editing a dispatcher.
-#
+# One idempotent script per addon in ctrl/addons/.
 # Usage: addons.sh install | list
+# Notes: docs/notes/addons.md
 set -euo pipefail
 cd "$(dirname "$0")"

--- a/rig/ctrl/addons/airflow.sh
+++ b/rig/ctrl/addons/airflow.sh
@@ -1,13 +1,7 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
-# Apache Airflow — the cluster half of the airflow cabinet.
-#
-# Airflow needs a metadata database before it will start at all, so this refuses
-# rather than rolls a pod that will CrashLoopBackOff while the real problem
-# (postgres missing from ADDONS) stays invisible in the logs.
-#
-# One pod on `standalone`, matching the compose cabinet: migration, admin user,
-# scheduler and webserver in a single container. The official chart's five
-# deployments model an installation; switching this on means wanting pipelines.
+# Apache Airflow — the cluster half of the airflow cabinet (one `standalone` pod).
+# Requires the postgres addon; refuses to install without it.
+# Notes: docs/notes/addons.md
 set -euo pipefail
 cd "$(dirname "$0")/.."

--- a/rig/ctrl/addons/cert-manager.sh
+++ b/rig/ctrl/addons/cert-manager.sh
@@ -1,10 +1,6 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
-# cert-manager plus a self-signed cluster issuer.
-#
-# In a regulated estate almost everything is TLS, so the interesting question
-# during onboarding is "does this service present a cert my client trusts" — not
-# "can I reach a public ACME server". A local CA answers that offline, which is
-# also what makes the air-gapped profile usable.
+# cert-manager plus a self-signed cluster issuer (offline local CA).
+# Notes: docs/notes/addons.md
 set -euo pipefail
 cd "$(dirname "$0")/.."

--- a/rig/ctrl/addons/metallb.sh
+++ b/rig/ctrl/addons/metallb.sh
@@ -1,15 +1,7 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
 # MetalLB — makes `Service type: LoadBalancer` actually get an address.
-#
-# Why it matters here: real manifests use LoadBalancer, because a real cluster
-# has one. On a bare kind cluster those Services sit at EXTERNAL-IP <pending>
-# forever with no error anywhere — the deployment looks fine and simply is not
-# reachable. Without this, every such Service has to be edited to NodePort,
-# which means the local manifests stop matching the ones being modelled.
-#
-# The address pool is derived from the kind Docker network at install time, not
-# hardcoded: Docker picks that subnet, it differs between machines, and a pool
-# outside it is silently unroutable.
+# The pool is derived from the kind Docker network at install time.
+# Notes: docs/notes/addons.md
 set -euo pipefail
 cd "$(dirname "$0")/.."

@@ -57,10 +49,7 @@ else
    $K apply -f "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/metallb/metallb/${METALLB_VERSION}/config/manifests/metallb-native.yaml"
 fi

-# `kubectl wait` on a selector errors out immediately when nothing matches yet,
-# and right after apply the ReplicaSet has not created the pod — so it loses a
-# race it looks like it should win. `rollout status` waits for the Deployment
-# itself and handles the not-yet-created case.
+# `rollout status`, not `kubectl wait`: wait errors out while the pod doesn't exist yet.
 echo "  waiting for the controller..."
 $K rollout status deployment/controller -n metallb-system --timeout=240s
 $K rollout status daemonset/speaker -n metallb-system --timeout=240s
--- a/rig/ctrl/addons/metrics-server.sh
+++ b/rig/ctrl/addons/metrics-server.sh
@@ -1,10 +1,6 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
-# metrics-server — makes `kubectl top` work.
-#
-# kind nodes serve kubelet metrics over a self-signed cert, so the standard
-# manifest never becomes ready without --kubelet-insecure-tls. That is fine here
-# (it is a local cluster) and is the single most common reason metrics-server
-# sits at 0/1 on kind.
+# metrics-server — makes `kubectl top` work (patched with --kubelet-insecure-tls for kind).
+# Notes: docs/notes/addons.md
 set -euo pipefail
 cd "$(dirname "$0")/.."

--- a/rig/ctrl/addons/postgres.sh
+++ b/rig/ctrl/addons/postgres.sh
@@ -1,20 +1,6 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
-# PostgreSQL — the cluster half of the postgres cabinet.
-#
-# A cabinet is a public service dropped into the environment as-is — the
-# upstream image, unmodified, reachable at a known address. This is the cluster
-# half of it; the compose half is a `service.yml` beside a `cabinet.json`. The
-# declaration is made once and both paths read it, so nothing is remembered
-# twice.
-#
-# Plain manifests rather than a helm chart, matching the other addons: a chart
-# repo is a network dependency, and the offline example profile exists precisely so
-# there is a path with none. The image is pinned in ctrl/versions.env and can be
-# preloaded into a local registry like every other image here.
-#
-# One replica on a PVC. This models a dependency for local work, not a
-# highly-available database, and pretending otherwise on a kind node would be a
-# more elaborate lie rather than a more useful one.
+# PostgreSQL — the cluster half of the postgres cabinet: plain manifests, one replica on a PVC.
+# Notes: docs/notes/addons.md
 set -euo pipefail
 cd "$(dirname "$0")/.."

--- a/rig/ctrl/addons/redis.sh
+++ b/rig/ctrl/addons/redis.sh
@@ -1,9 +1,6 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
-# Redis — the cluster half of the redis cabinet.
-#
-# Cache, and the broker anything queue-shaped runs on. No persistence: a broker
-# that loses its queue on restart is the honest local model, and a PVC here buys
-# nothing but a volume to clean up.
+# Redis — the cluster half of the redis cabinet: cache/broker, no persistence.
+# Notes: docs/notes/addons.md
 set -euo pipefail
 cd "$(dirname "$0")/.."

--- a/rig/ctrl/check.sh
+++ b/rig/ctrl/check.sh
@@ -1,61 +1,36 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
-# Readiness check: is this machine ready to run rig?
-#
-# Reports and instructs; never silently fixes anything. Everything it finds is
-# either already fine, or something a human has to decide on.
-#
-# Runs ctrl/deps.sh host detection in a container when Docker is the only thing
-# installed, or directly when the toolchain is already present. Then adds the
-# checks that need this repo's config: profile sanity, CA trust, port clashes.
+# Readiness check: is this machine ready to run rig? Reports and instructs; never fixes.
+# Usage: check.sh [all | mem [status|push|all|backup|restore]]   (all = every detail)
+# Notes: docs/notes/check.md
 set -euo pipefail
 cd "$(dirname "$0")"

-DEPS_IMAGE="${DEPS_IMAGE:-$(basename "$(cd .. && pwd)")-deps}"
+# `check mem` goes deeper on memory than the summary below: how far allocation
+# really climbs, and the WSL .wslconfig backup/restore.
+if [ "${1:-}" = mem ]; then
+    shift
+    exec bash ./mem.sh "${@:-status}"
+fi

-# Host detection. Prefer running it bare — it needs no dependencies beyond
-# coreutils — and fall back to the container only if this shell can't.
-bash ./deps.sh detect
+# Compact by default: facts only with `all`; problems (!) always print.
+VERBOSE=""
+if [ "${1:-}" = all ]; then VERBOSE=1; fi
+fact() { if [ -n "$VERBOSE" ]; then echo "$@"; fi; }

-# ── repo-level checks ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+bash ./deps.sh detect ${VERBOSE:+all}

 source ./lib/config.sh
 load_config

-echo
-echo "config"
-echo "  profile     ${PROFILE_NAME}  (nodes=${NODES})"
-echo "  cluster     ${CLUSTER}  (context ${KUBECONTEXT})"
-echo "  registry    ${REGISTRY_MODE}"
-echo "  ingress     ${INGRESS_MODE}"
-
-if [ ! -f ./.env ]; then
-    echo "  ! ctrl/.env missing — copy it:  cp ctrl/.env.example ctrl/.env"
-fi
-
-# ── memory ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
-#
-# A profile on a box that is already full is the most common first failure, and
-# it presents as pods stuck Pending rather than anything that says "memory".
-# Warns; never blocks. Whether to try anyway is the user's call.
-
-# A /proc/meminfo field in MB, 0 if absent. MEMINFO and OVERCOMMIT_FILE exist
-# only so the tight and does-not-fit branches can be exercised against another
-# machine's real numbers; in normal use they are the kernel's own files.
+# A /proc/meminfo field in MB, 0 if absent. MEMINFO/OVERCOMMIT_FILE override for testing.
 mb_of() {
    awk -v k="$1:" '$1 == k { printf "%d", $2 / 1024; found = 1 }
                    END      { if (!found) printf "0" }' "${MEMINFO:-/proc/meminfo}"
 }

-# NODE_MB — what one node costs — comes from load_config (lib/config.sh), where
-# its measurement is recorded. It lives there, not here, because the memory tool
-# and every standalone kit need the same number: a copy of it is how rigmini.sh
-# came to say 2 GB per node long after rig had measured 800 MB.
+# NODE_MB (cost of one node) comes from load_config in lib/config.sh; do not copy it here.

-# Every running container's working set in MB, tagged with the kind cluster it
-# belongs to ('-' when it is not kind). docker stats reports usage minus page
-# cache, which is what actually competes — cache is handed back under pressure.
-# Counting only kind would hide the usual culprit on a managed workspace, where
-# the memory is held by other containers entirely.
+# Every running container's working set in MB, tagged with its kind cluster ('-' if none).
 container_mb() {
    docker info >/dev/null 2>&1 || return 0
    awk -F'\t' '
@@ -81,6 +56,25 @@ container_mb() {
      <(docker stats --no-stream --format '{{.Name}}\t{{.MemUsage}}' 2>/dev/null)
 }

+port_busy() {
+    if command -v ss >/dev/null 2>&1; then
+        ss -ltn "sport = :$1" 2>/dev/null | grep -q LISTEN && return 0 || return 1
+    fi
+    # iproute2 is absent from a minimal Debian, so fall back to procfs rather
+    # than silently reporting everything as free.
+    local hex; hex=$(printf ':%04X' "$1")
+    grep -qi "^ *[0-9]*: [0-9A-F]*$hex " /proc/net/tcp /proc/net/tcp6 2>/dev/null
+}
+
+echo
+echo "rig"
+echo "  cluster     ${CLUSTER} (${KUBECONTEXT})  profile ${PROFILE_NAME}, ${NODES} node(s), registry ${REGISTRY_MODE}"
+fact "  ingress     ${INGRESS_MODE}"
+if [ ! -f ./.env ]; then
+    fact "  .env        none — built-in defaults (cp ctrl/.env.example ctrl/.env to set values)"
+fi
+
+# ── memory: does this cluster fit right now? Warns; never blocks. ──────────
 total_mb=$(mb_of MemTotal)
 avail_mb=$(mb_of MemAvailable)
 swap_used_mb=$(( $(mb_of SwapTotal) - $(mb_of SwapFree) ))
@@ -88,131 +82,105 @@ overcommit=$(cat "${OVERCOMMIT_FILE:-/proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory}" 2>/dev/nul
 need_mb=$(( NODES * NODE_MB ))

 rows=$(container_mb)
-# Once this environment's own cluster is running, its real footprint is already
-# out of MemAvailable and the per-node estimate stops being relevant. Subtracting
-# the measurement from the estimate would count the same memory twice, and a
-# running cluster that happens to sit under 800 MB would still "need" the gap.
+# If our cluster is already up, its memory is already out of MemAvailable: need nothing more.
 ours_mb=$(awk -F'\t' -v c="$CLUSTER" '$2 == c { s += $1 } END { print s + 0 }' <<< "$rows")
 still_mb=$(( ours_mb > 0 ? 0 : need_mb ))
+headroom=$(( avail_mb - still_mb ))

-echo
-echo "memory"
-printf "  this profile ~%d MB   %s node(s) x %d MB — the cluster alone, your workload on top\n" \
-    "$need_mb" "$NODES" "$NODE_MB"
-if [ "$ours_mb" -gt 0 ]; then
-    printf "  already held %d MB    by '%s', which is up\n" "$ours_mb" "$CLUSTER"
-fi
-printf "  available    %d MB   of %d MB\n" "$avail_mb" "$total_mb"
-
-# The biggest things holding memory right now, other than this cluster: kind
-# clusters summed per cluster, everything else by container name.
+# The biggest things holding memory, other than this cluster: kind clusters summed, the rest by name.
 others=$(awk -F'\t' -v c="$CLUSTER" '
            $2 != c && $2 != "-" && $2 != "" { k["kind cluster \x27" $2 "\x27"] += $1 }
            $2 == "-"                         { k["container \x27" $3 "\x27"]    += $1 }
            END { for (n in k) printf "%d\t%s\n", k[n], n }' <<< "$rows" | sort -rn)
-if [ -n "$others" ]; then
-    echo "  held elsewhere:"
-    head -6 <<< "$others" | awk -F'\t' '{ printf "    %6d MB  %s\n", $1, $2 }'
-    n_others=$(wc -l <<< "$others")
-    if [ "$n_others" -gt 6 ]; then
-        echo "    ... and $((n_others - 6)) more"
-    fi
-fi

-headroom=$(( avail_mb - still_mb ))
-if [ "$still_mb" -eq 0 ]; then
-    if [ "$headroom" -ge 512 ]; then
-        printf "  fits — already up; %d MB headroom for what you deploy\n" "$headroom"
-    else
-        printf "  ! already up, but only %d MB headroom for anything you deploy\n" "$headroom"
-    fi
+if [ "$still_mb" -eq 0 ] && [ "$headroom" -ge 512 ]; then
+    printf "  memory      up, holding %d MB — %d MB headroom for what you deploy\n" "$ours_mb" "$headroom"
+elif [ "$still_mb" -eq 0 ]; then
+    printf "  ! memory    up, but only %d MB headroom for anything you deploy\n" "$headroom"
 elif [ "$headroom" -ge 512 ]; then
-    printf "  fits — %d MB headroom for what you deploy\n" "$headroom"
+    printf "  memory      fits — ~%d MB for %s node(s), %d MB headroom\n" "$need_mb" "$NODES" "$headroom"
 elif [ "$headroom" -ge 0 ]; then
-    printf "  ! fits, but only %d MB headroom for anything you deploy\n" "$headroom"
+    printf "  ! memory    fits, but only %d MB headroom (~%d MB for %s node(s))\n" "$headroom" "$need_mb" "$NODES"
 else
-    printf "  ! does not fit right now: ~%d MB needed, %d MB available\n" "$still_mb" "$avail_mb"
+    printf "  ! memory    does not fit: ~%d MB needed, %d MB available\n" "$still_mb" "$avail_mb"
    # Two failures with opposite fixes, and telling them apart is the point.
    if [ "$still_mb" -le "$total_mb" ]; then
-        echo "    The machine is big enough; something else is holding memory (above)."
-        echo "    Stopping that is what helps — a bigger VM would not."
+        echo "              something else holds it (below) — stopping that helps, a bigger VM would not."
        if grep -q 'kind cluster' <<< "$others"; then
-            echo "    'make cluster free' stops the other kind clusters. It stops, never deletes."
+            echo "              'make cluster free' stops the other kind clusters. It stops, never deletes."
        fi
    else
-        echo "    The machine itself is too small: ~${still_mb} MB needed, ${total_mb} MB total."
+        echo "              the machine itself is too small: ${total_mb} MB total."
+    fi
+fi
+if [ -n "$others" ] && { [ -n "$VERBOSE" ] || [ "$headroom" -lt 512 ]; }; then
+    echo "              held elsewhere:"
+    head -6 <<< "$others" | awk -F'\t' '{ printf "              %6d MB  %s\n", $1, $2 }'
+    n_others=$(wc -l <<< "$others")
+    if [ "$n_others" -gt 6 ]; then
+        echo "              ... and $((n_others - 6)) more"
    fi
 fi
-
 if [ "$swap_used_mb" -gt 0 ]; then
-    printf "  ! %d MB already in swap — available memory does not count it, so expect a\n" "$swap_used_mb"
-    echo "    cluster here to be slow well before it fails"
+    fact "              ${swap_used_mb} MB already in swap, which 'available' does not count: expect slow before failing"
 fi
 if [ "$overcommit" = "1" ]; then
-    echo "  ! overcommit=1: allocations never fail here, so read 'fits' as a ceiling."
-    echo "    A cluster that starts cleanly can still lose processes to the OOM killer."
+    fact "              overcommit=1: allocations never fail, so read 'fits' as a ceiling (OOM killer settles up)"
 fi

-# The CA reaches three places and only one of them is ours. Report the other two.
-if [ -n "${REGISTRY_CA_FILE:-}" ]; then
-    echo
-    echo "registry CA"
-    if [ ! -r "$REGISTRY_CA_FILE" ]; then
-        echo "  ! REGISTRY_CA_FILE not readable: $REGISTRY_CA_FILE"
-    else
-        echo "  file        $REGISTRY_CA_FILE"
-        host="${REGISTRY_REMOTE_URL#*://}"; host="${host%%/*}"
-        if [ -n "$host" ] && [ ! -f "/etc/docker/certs.d/${host}/ca.crt" ]; then
-            echo "  ! the HOST docker daemon does not trust it yet:"
-            echo "      sudo mkdir -p /etc/docker/certs.d/${host}"
-            echo "      sudo cp ${REGISTRY_CA_FILE} /etc/docker/certs.d/${host}/ca.crt"
-            echo "    (kind nodes are handled by registry.sh; in-cluster clients are the workload's job)"
-        fi
-    fi
-fi
-
-# Host ports this environment will try to bind. Checked before cluster creation
-# because docker reports a clash halfway through, as an opaque
-# "failed to bind host port ...: address already in use".
-echo
-echo "ports  (block derived from the directory name — see 'make ports')"
-
-port_busy() {
-    if command -v ss >/dev/null 2>&1; then
-        ss -ltn "sport = :$1" 2>/dev/null | grep -q LISTEN && return 0 || return 1
-    fi
-    # iproute2 is absent from a minimal Debian, so fall back to procfs rather
-    # than silently reporting everything as free.
-    local hex; hex=$(printf ':%04X' "$1")
-    grep -qi "^ *[0-9]*: [0-9A-F]*$hex " /proc/net/tcp /proc/net/tcp6 2>/dev/null
-}
-
-# A port held by THIS environment's own cluster is not a clash — it is the thing
-# working. Reporting it as a problem every time the cluster is up would train
-# people to ignore this section, which is the opposite of the point.
-# Extract with a second grep rather than `tr -d ':->'`: in tr, ':->' is the
-# character RANGE ':' to '>', which does not contain '-', so the trailing dash
-# survives and nothing ever matches.
+# ── ports: checked before creation; docker reports a clash only halfway through. ──
+# Ports held by our own cluster are not clashes. Second grep, not `tr -d ':->'` (a tr range).
 ours=$(docker ps --filter "label=io.x-k8s.kind.cluster=${CLUSTER}" \
        --format '{{.Ports}}' 2>/dev/null | tr ',' '\n' \
        | grep -oE ':[0-9]+->' | grep -oE '[0-9]+' || true)

-clash=0
+clash=0 list="" mine=0
 for entry in "HTTP:${HTTP_PORT}" "HTTPS:${HTTPS_PORT}" \
             "TILT:${TILT_PORT}" "REGISTRY:${REGISTRY_PORT}"; do
    name="${entry%%:*}"; p="${entry#*:}"
    [ -n "$p" ] || continue
+    list+="$p "
    if ! port_busy "$p"; then
-        printf "    %-9s %-6s free\n" "$name" "$p"
+        fact "$(printf "    %-9s %-6s free" "$name" "$p")"
    elif echo "$ours" | grep -qx "$p"; then
-        printf "    %-9s %-6s in use by this environment's cluster\n" "$name" "$p"
+        mine=1
+        fact "$(printf "    %-9s %-6s in use by this environment's cluster" "$name" "$p")"
    else
-        printf "  ! %-9s %-6s IN USE by something else\n" "$name" "$p"
+        printf "  ! ports     %s %s IN USE by something else\n" "$name" "$p"
        clash=1
    fi
 done
-
 if [ "$clash" -eq 1 ]; then
-    echo "    override the clashing one in ctrl/.env, e.g.  HTTP_PORT=21080"
-    echo "    (or rename this directory — the whole block follows the name)"
+    echo "              override it in ctrl/.env (e.g. HTTP_PORT=21080), or rename this directory"
+elif [ "$mine" -eq 1 ]; then
+    echo "  ports       ${list% }  held by this cluster"
+else
+    echo "  ports       ${list% }  free"
+fi
+fact "              derived from the directory name; pin them: bash ctrl/ports.sh persist"
+
+# ── what `make cluster up` wires in beside the cluster ─────────────────────
+REG_NAME="${CLUSTER}-registry"
+if state=$(docker inspect -f '{{.State.Status}}' "$REG_NAME" 2>/dev/null); then
+    echo "  registry    localhost:${REGISTRY_PORT}  ($state)"
+else
+    fact "  registry    no container yet — 'make cluster up' starts it"
+fi
+echo "  addons      ${ADDONS:-none}"
+fact "              available: $(ls addons/*.sh 2>/dev/null | xargs -n1 basename | sed 's/\.sh$//' | tr '\n' ' ')"
+
+# The CA reaches three places and only one of them is ours. Report the other two.
+if [ -n "${REGISTRY_CA_FILE:-}" ]; then
+    if [ ! -r "$REGISTRY_CA_FILE" ]; then
+        echo "  ! CA        REGISTRY_CA_FILE not readable: $REGISTRY_CA_FILE"
+    else
+        fact "  CA          $REGISTRY_CA_FILE"
+        host="${REGISTRY_REMOTE_URL#*://}"; host="${host%%/*}"
+        if [ -n "$host" ] && [ ! -f "/etc/docker/certs.d/${host}/ca.crt" ]; then
+            echo "  ! CA        the HOST docker daemon does not trust it yet:"
+            echo "                sudo mkdir -p /etc/docker/certs.d/${host}"
+            echo "                sudo cp ${REGISTRY_CA_FILE} /etc/docker/certs.d/${host}/ca.crt"
+            echo "              (kind nodes are handled by registry.sh; in-cluster clients are the workload's job)"
+        fi
+    fi
 fi
--- a/rig/ctrl/cluster.sh
+++ b/rig/ctrl/cluster.sh
@@ -1,17 +1,7 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
-# Cluster lifecycle, plus what else is running on this machine.
-#
-# `list` and `free` live here rather than in a separate script because a
-# near-identical second name (cluster / clusters) is a trap — you reach for one
-# and get the other. One target, one file, unambiguous subcommands.
-#
-# "Idempotent" here means CONVERGENT, not "exits early if the cluster exists".
-# That distinction matters: an interrupted first run can leave a cluster created
-# but not finished, and returning early on the re-run would strand it there.
-# The create step is conditional; every step after it always runs, and each one
-# is individually idempotent.
-#
+# Cluster lifecycle (convergent, not exit-early), plus what else runs on this machine.
 # Usage: cluster.sh up | down | reset | list | free
+# Notes: docs/notes/cluster.md
 set -euo pipefail
 cd "$(dirname "$0")"

--- a/rig/ctrl/deps.sh
+++ b/rig/ctrl/deps.sh
@@ -1,38 +1,18 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
 # rig:standalone rigdeps detect
-# Toolchain installer: detect the host, install a pinned toolchain onto it, then
-# report what it could not do.
-#
-# It never runs the cluster, never uses sudo or apt, and writes only into
-# $OUT_BIN (default ~/.local/bin). Everything that would touch the host proper —
-# systemd, inotify limits, .wslconfig, docker group — is REPORTED for a human to
-# decide on, never performed. That is what makes it safe to run on a machine that
-# already has a working setup.
-#
-# Usage (normally via `make deps`, or directly):
-#   deps.sh detect            # report host facts only, change nothing
-#   deps.sh list              # the pinned versions
-#   deps.sh verify [core|dev] # run what is installed and see if it works
-#   deps.sh fetch [core|dev] [--to DIR]   # download + verify into DIR
-#   deps.sh install [core|dev]            # detect, fetch, install, report
-#
-# Tiers: 'core' is kubectl + jq (talk to a cluster); 'dev' adds kind and tilt
-# Default is dev.
-#
-# Runs both inside the installer container and bare on a host. Inside the
-# container, host files are read through $HOST_ROOT (mount / as :ro); bare, it
-# falls back to /.
+# Toolchain installer: detect the host, install pinned tools into $OUT_BIN, report
+# host actions it will not perform (no sudo, no apt). Usually via `make deps`.
+# Usage: deps.sh [detect [all] | list | verify [core|dev] | fetch [core|dev] [--to DIR] | install [core|dev]]
+# Notes: docs/notes/deps.md

 set -euo pipefail

-# Keep the caller's cwd so a relative --to resolves where the user expects,
-# not against ctrl/ once we've moved.
+# Keep the caller's cwd so a relative --to resolves there, not against ctrl/.
 INVOKED_FROM="$PWD"
 cd "$(dirname "$0")"

-# Pins arrive through load_config like every other setting, not by sourcing
-# versions.env here. That is what lets `make standalone` freeze them into a
-# one-file installer: configuration has exactly one way in.
+# Pins arrive through load_config, not by sourcing versions.env, so `make
+# standalone` can freeze them in.
 source ./lib/config.sh
 load_config

@@ -53,12 +33,11 @@ BAKED_BIN="${BAKED_BIN:-/opt/rig/bin}"
 # Collected by detect(), printed by report_manual() at the very end.
 MANUAL=()

-# Host FILES (/etc/..., /mnt/c/...) must be read through the mount. Kernel-level
-# facts (kernel version, meminfo, inotify) are shared with the container, so the
-# container's own view is already the host's.
-# A /proc/meminfo field in MB, 0 if the field is absent. MEMINFO exists so the
-# tight and does-not-fit branches can be exercised against a real machine's
-# numbers from somewhere else; in normal use it is always /proc/meminfo.
+# Facts print only with VERBOSE (`detect all`); problems (! and -) always print.
+fact() { if [ -n "${VERBOSE:-}" ]; then echo "$@"; fi; }
+
+# Host FILES are read through $HOST_ROOT; kernel facts are shared with the container.
+# A /proc/meminfo field in MB, 0 if absent. MEMINFO overrides the source for testing.
 mb_of() {
    awk -v k="$1:" '$1 == k { printf "%d", $2 / 1024; found = 1 }
                    END      { if (!found) printf "0" }' "${MEMINFO:-/proc/meminfo}"
@@ -83,9 +62,7 @@ arch() {
    esac
 }

-# The pins above are amd64. Rather than download something that cannot execute
-# and let it fail as "cannot execute binary file: Exec format error", say so
-# here and hand over the commands that produce the right checksums.
+# Pins are amd64 only: refuse elsewhere and print how to get the right checksums.
 require_amd64() {
    local a; a=$(arch)
    [ "$a" = "amd64" ] && return 0
@@ -138,9 +115,7 @@ pick_sha() {
 }

 # ── package manager, for the instructions only ─────────────────────────────
-# This never runs a package manager. It names one so the reported action is
-# something you can paste, on the distro you are actually on — an apt line on
-# Amazon Linux 2 is a wrong answer dressed up as help.
+# Never runs one; names the right one so reported actions are pasteable.

 pkg_install_cmd() {
    local pkg="$1"
@@ -160,9 +135,7 @@ docker_pkg() {

 # ── detect ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

-# Windows outside WSL — Git Bash, MSYS, Cygwin — looks close enough to work and
-# then fails in a pile of confusing ways: no /proc, no docker socket, none of
-# the tooling. Detectable, so name it instead.
+# Windows outside WSL (Git Bash, MSYS, Cygwin) fails confusingly; name it instead.
 require_linux() {
    case "$(uname -s)" in
        MINGW*|MSYS*|CYGWIN*)
@@ -187,36 +160,30 @@ is_wsl() { grep -qi microsoft /proc/version 2>/dev/null; }

 detect() {
    echo "host"
-    echo "  kernel      $(uname -r)"
-    echo "  arch        $(arch)  ($(uname -m))"
+    fact "  kernel      $(uname -r)"

-    local osr; osr=$(host_file /etc/os-release)
-    [ -r "$osr" ] && echo "  distro      $(sed -n 's/^PRETTY_NAME="\(.*\)"/\1/p' "$osr")"
+    local osr distro=""; osr=$(host_file /etc/os-release)
+    [ -r "$osr" ] && distro=$(sed -n 's/^PRETTY_NAME="\(.*\)"/\1/p' "$osr")
+    echo "  distro      ${distro:-unknown}  $(arch), $(if is_wsl; then echo WSL; else echo native linux; fi)"

-    # In MB. Whole gigabytes lose nearly half a GB on exactly the machines where
-    # it matters: 1874 MB available used to print as "1 GB". Facts only — whether
-    # that is enough depends on the profile, which check.sh knows and this does not.
+    # In MB (whole GB rounds away too much). Facts only; check.sh judges sufficiency.
    local total_mb avail_mb swap_total_mb swap_used_mb om
    total_mb=$(mb_of MemTotal)
    avail_mb=$(mb_of MemAvailable)
    swap_total_mb=$(mb_of SwapTotal)
    swap_used_mb=$(( swap_total_mb - $(mb_of SwapFree) ))
-    printf "  memory      %d MB total, %d MB available\n" "$total_mb" "$avail_mb"
-    if [ "$swap_total_mb" -gt 0 ]; then
-        printf "  swap        %d MB used of %d MB\n" "$swap_used_mb" "$swap_total_mb"
-    fi
+    printf "  memory      %d MB total, %d MB available%s\n" "$total_mb" "$avail_mb" \
+        "$(if [ "$swap_used_mb" -gt 0 ]; then echo ", $swap_used_mb MB in swap"; fi)"

-    # How the kernel answers an allocation it cannot really satisfy. With 1 it
-    # always says yes and settles up later with the OOM killer, so a cluster that
-    # starts cleanly can still lose processes afterwards.
+    # Overcommit mode: with 1 the OOM killer settles up later, after a clean start.
    om=$(cat "${OVERCOMMIT_FILE:-/proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory}" 2>/dev/null || echo '?')
    case "$om" in
-        0) echo "  overcommit  0 heuristic — allocations are granted on a guess" ;;
-        1) echo "  overcommit  1 always — every allocation succeeds; the OOM killer is the only limit" ;;
-        2) echo "  overcommit  2 strict — an allocation fails honestly instead of killing later" ;;
+        0) fact "  overcommit  0 heuristic — allocations are granted on a guess" ;;
+        1) fact "  overcommit  1 always — every allocation succeeds; the OOM killer is the only limit" ;;
+        2) fact "  overcommit  2 strict — an allocation fails honestly instead of killing later" ;;
    esac

-    echo "  install to  $OUT_BIN"
+    fact "  install to  $OUT_BIN"
    detect_libc
    detect_prereqs
    detect_wsl
@@ -228,18 +195,13 @@ detect() {

 detect_wsl() {
    if ! is_wsl; then
-        echo "  platform    native linux"
        return
    fi

-    echo "  platform    WSL"
-
-    # systemd is off by default in WSL, and the ingress/DNS paths that use a
-    # host service need it. Enabling it requires a Windows-side restart, which
-    # cannot be issued from inside the distro.
+    # systemd is off by default in WSL; enabling it needs a Windows-side restart.
    local wc; wc=$(host_file /etc/wsl.conf)
    if [ -r "$wc" ] && grep -qE '^\s*systemd\s*=\s*true' "$wc"; then
-        echo "  systemd     enabled in wsl.conf"
+        fact "  systemd     enabled in wsl.conf"
    else
        echo "  ! systemd not enabled in /etc/wsl.conf"
        MANUAL+=("Enable systemd — add to /etc/wsl.conf:
@@ -251,27 +213,24 @@ detect_wsl() {
    # WSL regenerates /etc/resolv.conf on every boot, which silently reverts any
    # local DNS setup.
    if [ -r "$wc" ] && grep -qE '^\s*generateResolvConf\s*=\s*false' "$wc"; then
-        echo "  resolv.conf pinned (generateResolvConf=false)"
+        fact "  resolv.conf pinned (generateResolvConf=false)"
    else
-        echo "  - resolv.conf is WSL-generated; DNS_MODE=dnsmasq would be reverted on reboot"
+        fact "  - resolv.conf is WSL-generated; DNS_MODE=dnsmasq would be reverted on reboot"
    fi

    local wcfg
    wcfg=$(ls "$HOST_ROOT"/mnt/c/Users/*/.wslconfig 2>/dev/null | head -1 || true)
    if [ -n "$wcfg" ] && grep -qE '^\s*memory\s*=' "$wcfg"; then
-        echo "  wslconfig   memory set: $(grep -E '^\s*memory\s*=' "$wcfg" | tr -d ' ')"
+        fact "  wslconfig   memory set: $(grep -E '^\s*memory\s*=' "$wcfg" | tr -d ' ')"
    else
        MANUAL+=("Cap/raise the WSL VM memory — see what is set versus what booted:
-      make mem status
+      make check mem
  It prints the edit to make and the command to apply it.")
    fi
 }

-# Not a path check: /mnt is an ordinary mount point and an ext4 disk mounted
-# there is perfectly fine. What matters is the filesystem. The Windows drives
-# arrive as 9p (WSL2) or drvfs (WSL1); network and fuse mounts behave the same
-# way. None of them deliver inotify events, so anything watching files goes
-# quiet without saying why.
+# Filesystem types that deliver no inotify events (9p, drvfs, network, fuse).
+# Checks the fs type, not the path.
 watch_hostile_fs() {
    local dir="$1" fstype
    fstype=$(findmnt -no FSTYPE --target "$dir" 2>/dev/null || true)
@@ -292,28 +251,22 @@ detect_filesystem() {
  on a $fstype mount, and everything else is slower:
      cp -r \"$root\" ~/ && cd ~/$(basename "$root")")
    else
-        echo "  filesystem  $root  ($(findmnt -no FSTYPE --target "$root" 2>/dev/null || echo local))"
+        fact "  filesystem  $root  ($(findmnt -no FSTYPE --target "$root" 2>/dev/null || echo local))"
    fi
 }

-# tilt is the one binary here that needs a recent glibc. MEASURED, not guessed:
-# tilt 0.37.6 on Amazon Linux 2 (glibc 2.26) fails with
-#
-#     /lib64/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.34' not found (required by .../tilt)
-#
-# which names a symbol rather than the problem. Amazon Linux 2 is a stock
-# WorkSpaces bundle, so this is the likely case, not an exotic one. Report the
-# version now; `verify` catches the actual failure after installing.
+# tilt needs glibc >= 2.34 (measured on Amazon Linux 2). Report the version here;
+# `verify` catches the actual failure after installing.
 detect_libc() {
    local v=""
    if command -v ldd >/dev/null 2>&1; then
        v=$(ldd --version 2>/dev/null | head -1 | grep -oE '[0-9]+\.[0-9]+$' || true)
    fi
    if [ -z "$v" ]; then
-        echo "  libc        unknown (no ldd) — 'verify' is the real test"
+        fact "  libc        unknown (no ldd) — 'verify' is the real test"
        return 0
    fi
-    echo "  libc        glibc $v"
+    fact "  libc        glibc $v"
    if [ "$(printf '%s\n2.34\n' "$v" | sort -V | head -1)" != "2.34" ]; then
        echo "  ! older than glibc 2.34, which tilt needs. kubectl, kind, jq and"
        echo "    ctlptl are static or libc-only and work here; tilt will not start."
@@ -322,25 +275,23 @@ detect_libc() {
    return 0
 }

-# What this script needs to do its own job. Reported here so `detect` answers
-# "will install work?" instead of leaving you to find out one download in.
-# Amazon Linux 2 ships without tar, which is exactly the surprise this catches.
+# What this script itself needs, so `detect` answers "will install work?".
 detect_prereqs() {
    local missing=""
-    if command -v curl >/dev/null 2>&1; then echo "  download    curl"
-    elif command -v wget >/dev/null 2>&1; then echo "  download    wget"
+    if command -v curl >/dev/null 2>&1; then fact "  download    curl"
+    elif command -v wget >/dev/null 2>&1; then fact "  download    wget"
    else echo "  ! no curl and no wget — nothing can be downloaded"; missing+=" curl"
    fi

    if command -v sha256sum >/dev/null 2>&1 || command -v shasum >/dev/null 2>&1; then
-        echo "  checksums   ok"
+        fact "  checksums   ok"
    else
        echo "  ! no sha256sum or shasum — downloads could not be verified"
        missing+=" coreutils"
    fi

    if command -v tar >/dev/null 2>&1 && command -v gzip >/dev/null 2>&1; then
-        echo "  archives    tar + gzip"
+        fact "  archives    tar + gzip"
    else
        echo "  ! no tar/gzip — tilt and ctlptl ship as tarballs, so the dev tier"
        echo "    cannot be unpacked. The core tier is two bare binaries and is fine."
@@ -355,10 +306,7 @@ detect_prereqs() {
 }

 detect_docker() {
-    # Reachability of the daemon is the real question, and the CLI is only how
-    # we ask it. Note that when this runs inside the installer container, Docker
-    # necessarily exists on the host — otherwise nothing would be executing —
-    # so a missing CLI in here is an installer packaging bug, not a host problem.
+    # Daemon reachability is the real question; the CLI is only how we ask.
    if ! command -v docker >/dev/null 2>&1; then
        if [ -S /var/run/docker.sock ]; then
            echo "  docker      socket present (no cli in this context)"
@@ -377,12 +325,9 @@ detect_docker() {
        echo "  docker      $(docker version --format '{{.Server.Version}}' 2>/dev/null)"
        local n
        n=$(docker ps --filter "label=io.x-k8s.kind.cluster" --format '{{.Names}}' 2>/dev/null | wc -l)
-        # Must be an `if`, not `[ ] && echo`: as the last statement in this
-        # function the latter returns 1 when the count is zero, and `set -e`
-        # then kills the caller. That is the fresh-machine case — no clusters
-        # yet — so the bug only ever shows up where it does most harm.
+        # Must be an `if`, not `[ ] && echo`: a zero count would return 1 under set -e.
        if [ "$n" -gt 0 ]; then
-            echo "  - $n kind node container(s) already running; see 'make cluster list'"
+            echo "  kind        $n node container(s) running — 'make cluster list'"
        fi
    else
        echo "  ! docker cli present but the daemon is unreachable"
@@ -397,7 +342,7 @@ detect_inotify() {
    local w i
    w=$(cat /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches 2>/dev/null || echo 0)
    i=$(cat /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_instances 2>/dev/null || echo 0)
-    echo "  inotify     watches=$w instances=$i"
+    fact "  inotify     watches=$w instances=$i"

    if [ "$w" -lt 524288 ] || [ "$i" -lt 512 ]; then
        echo "  ! inotify limits are low — Tilt will silently stop noticing file changes"
@@ -457,18 +402,13 @@ fetch_tgz() {
    echo "  fetching $name"
    download "$(resolve_url "$url")" "$tmp"
    verify "$tmp" "$sha" "$name"
-    # --no-same-owner: extracting as root would otherwise restore the uid/gid
-    # baked into the archive (some ship as uid 1001), leaving a binary the host
-    # user does not own.
+    # --no-same-owner: as root, tar would restore the archive's uid/gid.
    tar -xzf "$tmp" -C "$dest" --strip-components="$strip" --no-same-owner "$inner"
    rm -f "$tmp"
    chmod +x "$dest/$name"
 }

-# The installer runs as root so it can reach the docker socket, which means
-# everything it writes into a mounted volume lands root-owned and unusable from
-# the host. Hand it back to whoever owns the mount point (the host user created
-# that directory before mounting it).
+# The installer runs as root; hand files in a mounted dir back to the mount point's owner.
 fix_ownership() {
    local dir="$1"
    [ -d "$dir" ] || return 0
@@ -480,38 +420,14 @@ fix_ownership() {
    chown -R "$owner" "$dir" 2>/dev/null || true
 }

-# Two tiers, because not every machine should get cluster tooling.
-#
-#   core  kubectl, jq — talk to a cluster someone else runs. Nothing that
-#         creates one. Appropriate on a managed or corporate-issued machine
-#         where development tools are not wanted by default.
-#   dev   core plus kind and tilt — build clusters and hot-reload into them.
-#
-# The split exists because "install the toolchain" is not one decision: on a
-# managed workspace the right answer is kubectl and nothing else.
+# core: talk to a cluster someone else runs. dev: core plus tools that build clusters.
 CORE_TOOLS="kubectl jq"
-# No helm: every addon installs with `kubectl apply -f <url>`, so nothing here
-# has ever invoked it. Add it back the day something actually needs a chart.
-#
-# ctlptl is 'dev' rather than 'core' for the same reason kind is: core is "talk
-# to a cluster someone else runs", and ctlptl builds them. It earns its place
-# because it is what wires a cluster to a local registry — without one, an
-# unqualified image name resolves to docker.io/library/<name> and there is
-# nothing structural stopping a push there.
-#
-# docker-compose is 'dev' for the same reason, and is here because the distro
-# docker packages ship the daemon and CLI but frequently not the compose
-# plugin — so `docker compose up` fails with "unknown command" on an otherwise
-# working Docker, and nothing about that message names the missing piece.
+# No helm (nothing uses a chart). ctlptl wires in a local registry; compose is often
+# missing from distro docker packages.
 DEV_TOOLS="kind tilt ctlptl docker-compose"

 # ── what is already on this machine ───────────────────────────────────────
-#
-# A tool already on PATH at its pinned version is left where it is. Without
-# this, install downloads a second copy into OUT_BIN and then reports the first
-# one as shadowed — noise, and wrong, when both are the same version. That is
-# the normal state of any machine someone set up by hand, whatever directory
-# they happened to choose.
+# A tool already on PATH at its pinned version is left where it is.

 pin_of() {
    case "$1" in
@@ -524,9 +440,7 @@ pin_of() {
    esac
 }

-# The version string a binary reports. Each tool spells the question
-# differently, and kubectl has to be told --client or it goes looking for a
-# server to ask.
+# The version string a binary reports (kubectl needs --client).
 reported_version() {
    local tool="$1" path="$2"
    case "$tool" in
@@ -536,13 +450,8 @@ reported_version() {
    esac
 }

-# Does the binary at PATH report PIN? Matched as a whole version token, so
-# 0.37.6 never matches 10.37.60, with the leading v optional either side: kind
-# says v0.32.0, jq says jq-1.8.2, and tilt says v0.37.6 against a pin of 0.37.6.
-#
-# Bash's own regex rather than grep, deliberately. grep is not the same program
-# on every machine — some builds reject patterns that others accept — and a
-# failed grep inside a count reads exactly like a zero.
+# Does the binary at PATH report PIN? Whole-token match, leading v optional.
+# Bash regex rather than grep, deliberately.
 version_matches() {
    local tool="$1" path="$2" pin="$3" out v re
    out=$(reported_version "$tool" "$path") || return 1
@@ -552,10 +461,8 @@ version_matches() {
    [[ $out =~ $re ]]
 }

-# DEPS_ONLY narrows a fetch to the tools it names. Unset means the whole tier,
-# which is what an explicit `deps.sh fetch` always gets: "download these into
-# DIR" must not quietly skip something because this machine happens to have it.
-# Only install() sets it, to what detect_toolchain found missing or mismatched.
+# DEPS_ONLY narrows a fetch to the tools it names; unset means the whole tier.
+# Only install() sets it.
 want() { [ -z "${DEPS_ONLY:-}" ] || [[ " $DEPS_ONLY " == *" $1 "* ]]; }

 # Every tool in the tier with its state, probed once and reported once. What
@@ -564,20 +471,18 @@ TOOLCHAIN_NEED=""
 detect_toolchain() {
    local tier="${TIER:-dev}" b pin path found
    TOOLCHAIN_NEED=""
+    local n=0
    echo
-    echo "toolchain  (pinned, tier '$tier')"
+    fact "toolchain  (pinned, tier '$tier')"
    for b in $(tier_tools "$tier"); do
+        n=$((n + 1))
        pin=$(pin_of "$b")
        path=$(command -v "$b" 2>/dev/null || true)
-        # compose is the one tool that is normally NOT a binary on PATH. It is a
-        # docker CLI plugin, so a machine where `docker compose` works perfectly
-        # has no `docker-compose` to find — and probing only PATH would report it
-        # missing and re-download a copy that is already there. That is the exact
-        # noise the version-aware skip exists to prevent, so ask docker instead.
+        # compose is normally a docker CLI plugin, not on PATH: ask docker instead.
        if [ "$b" = docker-compose ] && [ -z "$path" ]; then
            if found=$(docker compose version --short 2>/dev/null) && [ -n "$found" ]; then
                if [ "${found#v}" = "${pin#v}" ]; then
-                    printf "    %-8s %-9s %s\n" "$b" "$pin" "docker cli plugin"
+                    fact "$(printf "    %-8s %-9s %s" "$b" "$pin" "docker cli plugin")"
                else
                    printf "  ! %-8s wants %s, the docker cli plugin reports '%s'\n" \
                        "$b" "$pin" "$found"
@@ -590,7 +495,7 @@ detect_toolchain() {
            printf "  - %-8s %-9s not found\n" "$b" "$pin"
            TOOLCHAIN_NEED+="$b "
        elif version_matches "$b" "$path" "$pin"; then
-            printf "    %-8s %-9s %s\n" "$b" "$pin" "$path"
+            fact "$(printf "    %-8s %-9s %s" "$b" "$pin" "$path")"
        else
            found=$(reported_version "$b" "$path" 2>/dev/null | head -1 || true)
            printf "  ! %-8s wants %s, %s reports '%s'\n" "$b" "$pin" "$path" "$found"
@@ -598,9 +503,10 @@ detect_toolchain() {
        fi
    done
    if [ -z "$TOOLCHAIN_NEED" ]; then
-        echo "  every pinned tool is already on PATH — nothing to fetch"
+        if [ -n "${VERBOSE:-}" ]; then echo "  all $n on PATH — nothing to fetch"
+        else echo "toolchain   all $n pinned tools on PATH  (tier $tier)"; fi
    else
-        echo "  'make deps' fetches only: ${TOOLCHAIN_NEED% }"
+        echo "toolchain   'make deps' fetches only: ${TOOLCHAIN_NEED% }"
    fi
 }

@@ -641,8 +547,7 @@ fetch() {
    fi

    fix_ownership "$dest"
-    # kind writes the kubeconfig as root too; hand that back as well when it's
-    # a mounted host directory rather than container-local state.
+    # kind writes the kubeconfig as root too; hand that back as well.
    fix_ownership "${KUBE_DIR:-/out/kube}"
 }

@@ -664,14 +569,8 @@ report_manual() {
    done
 }

-# Installing into a directory that sits early in PATH silently replaces whatever
-# the machine was already using — which on a shared or client machine can break
-# unrelated work (kubectl more than one minor away from a cluster is the common
-# one). Say so; never decide it for them.
-# Downloading a verified binary proves it is the right file, not that this
-# machine can run it. On an old distro tilt fails here, with a linker error
-# about a missing symbol, and finding that out now beats finding out during a
-# first cluster build.
+# A verified download proves the right file, not that this machine can run it
+# (old glibc breaks tilt). Run each one now.
 verify_tools() {
    local tier="${1:-dev}" b bin out rc broke=0
    echo "checking that each one actually runs"
@@ -681,11 +580,7 @@ verify_tools() {
            printf '  %-14s not installed\n' "$b"
            continue
        fi
-        # Not piped into `head`. With `pipefail` set, a tool that prints more
-        # than one line gets SIGPIPE when head closes the pipe, and the
-        # pipeline reports 141 — so a working kubectl was announced as "does
-        # not run here", with its own correct version string as the evidence.
-        # Take the first line afterwards, from the string.
+        # Not piped into `head`: under pipefail, SIGPIPE (141) looked like failure.
        rc=0
        case "$b" in
            kubectl) out=$("$bin" version --client 2>&1) || rc=$? ;;
@@ -763,18 +658,12 @@ warn_shadowing() {
      OUT_BIN=\$PWD/def/bin make deps   # then put that dir first in PATH")
 }

-# A copy in OUT_BIN only gives you `docker-compose`. That hyphenated form is the
-# retired v1 spelling; every compose file written in the last few years assumes
-# `docker compose`, which resolves plugins BY NAME out of a plugin directory.
-# So the binary is fetched like any other and then linked, in your own home —
-# no root, and nothing outside it.
+# Link the fetched docker-compose into ~/.docker/cli-plugins so `docker compose` works.
 install_compose_plugin() {
    local src="$OUT_BIN/docker-compose" dir="$HOME/.docker/cli-plugins"
    [ -x "$src" ] || return 0
    mkdir -p "$dir"
-    # Something else already owns that name — docker-desktop and some distro
-    # packages install a real file there. Overwriting it would take the plugin
-    # away from whatever put it there, so say so and let the user decide.
+    # A real file there belongs to something else (docker-desktop, distro): don't overwrite.
    if [ -e "$dir/docker-compose" ] && [ ! -L "$dir/docker-compose" ]; then
        MANUAL+=("Something already installs the compose plugin at
      $dir/docker-compose
@@ -805,16 +694,12 @@ install() {
        if [ "$tier" = "core" ]; then
            echo "  (no kind/tilt — 'make deps dev' adds them)"
        fi
-        # Only when compose was one of the things fetched: linking a binary
-        # that is already satisfied elsewhere on PATH would point the plugin at
-        # a copy rig did not install.
+        # Only when compose was fetched, never at a copy rig did not install.
        case " $TOOLCHAIN_NEED " in
            *" docker-compose "*) install_compose_plugin ;;
        esac

-        # Only worth saying when something actually landed in OUT_BIN. When every
-        # tool was satisfied elsewhere, OUT_BIN may reasonably be off PATH, and
-        # telling the user to add it would be advice to fix nothing.
+        # PATH advice only when something actually landed in OUT_BIN.
        case ":${PATH}:" in
            *":$OUT_BIN:"*) ;;
            *) MANUAL+=("Put the toolchain on your PATH — add to ~/.bashrc:
@@ -830,10 +715,7 @@ install() {

 require_linux

-# Read the command, THEN shift — and shift only if there is something there.
-# A bare `shift` with no positional parameters returns 1, and under `set -e`
-# that ended the script before a single line was printed: running this with no
-# arguments at all, the documented default, did nothing and said nothing.
+# Shift only if there is an argument: a bare `shift` returns 1 under set -e.
 cmd="${1:-install}"
 [ $# -gt 0 ] && shift

@@ -845,12 +727,12 @@ need_downloads() {
 }

 case "$cmd" in
-    detect)  detect; report_manual ;;
+    detect)  if [ "${1:-}" = all ]; then VERBOSE=1; fi; detect; report_manual ;;
    list)    list ;;
    verify)  verify_tools "${1:-dev}" ;;
    fetch)   need_downloads; fetch "$@" ;;
    install) need_downloads; install "${1:-dev}" ;;
-    *)       echo "usage: $0 [detect|list|verify|fetch|install]" >&2
+    *)       echo "usage: $0 [detect [all]|list|verify|fetch|install]" >&2
             echo "       install [core|dev]           (default dev)" >&2
             echo "       fetch   [core|dev] [--to DIR]" >&2
             echo "       OUT_BIN=<dir> overrides the install directory" >&2
--- a/rig/ctrl/docs.sh
+++ b/rig/ctrl/docs.sh
@@ -1,16 +1,7 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
-# Documentation: render the diagrams, and serve the pages.
-#
-# The docs are the instructions for building the cluster, so they must work
-# BEFORE anything else exists. That rules out serving them from the cluster, and
-# it rules out python -m http.server too — a minimal Debian has no python3. What
-# it does have, by definition, is Docker: the single prerequisite rig already
-# demands. So a throwaway nginx container serves a read-only bind mount.
-#
-# Rendered SVGs are committed alongside their .dot sources for the same reason:
-# the pages have to read on a machine with no Graphviz installed.
-#
+# Documentation: render the diagrams, and serve the pages from a throwaway nginx container.
 # Usage: docs.sh serve | graphs
+# Notes: docs/notes/docs.md
 set -euo pipefail
 cd "$(dirname "$0")"

--- a/rig/ctrl/env.d/client.env.example
+++ b/rig/ctrl/env.d/client.env.example
@@ -1,10 +1,6 @@
-# EXAMPLE PROFILE. rig needs none of these: with no profile it runs on its
-# built-in defaults (lib/config.sh). To use this one, copy it to client.env in this
-# directory and name it — PROFILE=client in ctrl/.env, or on the command line. It
-# then overlays the defaults; anything it does not set, they still supply.
-#
-# client — images through a pull-through cache of the corporate registry, with
-# TLS and metrics addons. More nodes or port mappings: edit k8s/kind-config.yaml.tpl.
+# EXAMPLE PROFILE (optional): copy to client.env, then PROFILE=client; overlays the defaults.
+# client — images via a pull-through cache of the corporate registry, TLS and metrics addons.
+# Notes: docs/notes/env.md

 PROFILE_NAME=client
 K8S_VERSION=v1_36
@@ -13,14 +9,8 @@ REGISTRY_MODE=mirror
 INGRESS_MODE=hostport
 DNS_MODE=hosts

-# Ports derive from the directory name by default (see ctrl/ports.sh), so
-# several environments run side by side.
-#
-# Opt in to the real ports below only when this is the ONLY environment and
-# nothing else owns :80. They fail to bind otherwise, and docker reports it as an
-# opaque "failed to bind host port 0.0.0.0:80/tcp: address already in use"
-# halfway through cluster creation. `make check` checks before you spend the
-# time. Uncommenting also means only one environment can exist at a time.
+# Ports derive from the directory name by default (see ctrl/ports.sh).
+# Real ports only if this is the ONLY environment and nothing owns :80; `make check` tests it.
 # HTTP_PORT=80
 # HTTPS_PORT=443

--- a/rig/ctrl/env.d/data.env.example
+++ b/rig/ctrl/env.d/data.env.example
@@ -1,16 +1,6 @@
-# EXAMPLE PROFILE. rig needs none of these: with no profile it runs on its
-# built-in defaults (lib/config.sh). To use this one, copy it to data.env in this
-# directory and name it — PROFILE=data in ctrl/.env, or on the command line. It
-# then overlays the defaults; anything it does not set, they still supply.
-#
-# data — databases and a scheduler for an environment that needs them: postgres,
-# redis and airflow, each an upstream image run unmodified.
-#
-# Everything lands in the `data` namespace (DATA_NAMESPACE to move it), so
-# `make cluster reset` on the app namespace leaves the databases alone.
-#
-# Costs roughly 2-3 GB with airflow, under 1 without. Airflow's first boot runs
-# the whole metadata migration, so expect a few minutes before it is ready.
+# EXAMPLE PROFILE (optional): copy to data.env, then PROFILE=data; overlays the defaults.
+# data — postgres, redis and airflow (upstream images) in the `data` namespace.
+# Notes: docs/notes/env.md

 PROFILE_NAME=data
 K8S_VERSION=v1_36
@@ -25,16 +15,12 @@ DNS_MODE=hosts
 # Namespace for the dependency containers.
 DATA_NAMESPACE=data

-# Postgres identity. The password is not here: postgres.sh generates one on
-# first install and keeps it across re-runs, so re-running the addon never
-# rotates the credential out from under whatever is already connected.
+# Postgres identity. The password is generated once by postgres.sh and kept.
 POSTGRES_DB=app
 POSTGRES_USER=app
 POSTGRES_STORAGE=2Gi

 AIRFLOW_ADMIN_USER=admin

-# Ports derive from the directory name by default — see ctrl/ports.sh. Reach
-# the databases with port-forward rather than binding more host ports:
+# Reach the databases with port-forward, e.g.
 #   kubectl -n data port-forward svc/postgres 5432:5432
-#   kubectl -n data port-forward svc/airflow 8080:8080
--- a/rig/ctrl/env.d/offline.env.example
+++ b/rig/ctrl/env.d/offline.env.example
@@ -1,13 +1,6 @@
-# EXAMPLE PROFILE. rig needs none of these: with no profile it runs on its
-# built-in defaults (lib/config.sh). To use this one, copy it to offline.env in this
-# directory and name it — PROFILE=offline in ctrl/.env, or on the command line. It
-# then overlays the defaults; anything it does not set, they still supply.
-#
-# offline — air-gapped. Everything comes from a local registry that was loaded
-# ahead of time; nothing reaches the internet. Pair with the deps-full image
-# (DEPS_SOURCE=baked) so the toolchain install is offline too.
-#
-# The heavier addons are left out to keep first boot viable.
+# EXAMPLE PROFILE (optional): copy to offline.env, then PROFILE=offline; overlays the defaults.
+# offline — air-gapped: images from a preloaded local registry; pair with DEPS_SOURCE=baked.
+# Notes: docs/notes/env.md

 PROFILE_NAME=offline
 K8S_VERSION=v1_36
--- a/rig/ctrl/k8s/kind-config.yaml.tpl
+++ b/rig/ctrl/k8s/kind-config.yaml.tpl
@@ -1,24 +1,12 @@
-# The cluster. One node by default — add nodes or port mappings by editing this
-# file, then `make cluster reset`.
-#
-# A TEMPLATE rather than a plain kind-config.yaml because a rig is copied and
-# renamed to make a second environment, and both the cluster name and the host
-# port follow the directory. A checked-in literal would make every copy collide
-# on both. ctrl/cluster.sh renders it with sed — not envsubst, which is
-# gettext-base and absent from a minimal Debian, and rig's whole premise is that
-# Docker is the only prerequisite.
-#
-# Substituted by ctrl/cluster.sh: CLUSTER, NODE_IMAGE, HTTP_PORT, HOST_WORKDIR
-# (named without the ${...} braces so this line survives the substitution)
-# The node count is READ BACK from this file by lib/config.sh, so this YAML is
-# the source of truth for it — there is no second place to update.
+# The cluster. Add nodes or port mappings here, then `make cluster reset`.
+# ctrl/cluster.sh substitutes (sed): CLUSTER, NODE_IMAGE, HTTP_PORT, HOST_WORKDIR
+# lib/config.sh reads the node count back from this file.
+# Notes: docs/notes/kind-config.md
 kind: Cluster
 apiVersion: kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4
 name: ${CLUSTER}

-# Point containerd at a certs.d directory. registry.sh drops per-host hosts.toml
-# files in there afterwards, so switching registry mode never requires
-# recreating the cluster.
+# containerd reads per-host registry config from certs.d (written by registry.sh).
 containerdConfigPatches:
  - |-
    [plugins."io.containerd.grpc.v1.cri".registry]
@@ -27,9 +15,7 @@ containerdConfigPatches:
 nodes:
  - role: control-plane
    image: ${NODE_IMAGE}
-    # One NodePort bridged to the host; an in-cluster gateway owns it. There is
-    # deliberately no ingress controller — they pin a narrow window of k8s
-    # versions, and running a trailing-edge control plane is the point.
+    # One NodePort bridged to the host, owned by an in-cluster gateway (no ingress controller).
    extraPortMappings:
      - containerPort: 30080
        hostPort: ${HTTP_PORT}
--- a/rig/ctrl/lib/config.sh
+++ b/rig/ctrl/lib/config.sh
@@ -1,38 +1,16 @@
-# Shared config loading. Sourced, never executed.
-#
-# The ecosystem convention is that scripts are standalone with no shared log
-# library — that still holds. This file is not a logging lib; it is the single
-# definition of how the config layers compose, which every script has to agree
-# on exactly. Precedence, weakest first:
-#
-#   built-in defaults      below; fill only what nothing else set
-#   ctrl/versions.env      pinned toolchain + image digests   (committed)
-#   ctrl/env.d/<profile>   addons, registry — OPTIONAL, examples ship as *.env.example
-#   ctrl/.env              machine-local values and secrets   (gitignored)
-#   the caller's env       `make cluster up PROFILE=<name>`   (always wins)
-#
-# That last rule is why this is more than a few `source` lines: .env sets
-# PROFILE, so without snapshotting it would silently override the PROFILE the
-# user just typed on the command line.
-#
+# Shared config loading: how the config layers compose. Sourced, never executed.
+# Precedence, weakest first: defaults < versions.env < env.d/<profile> < .env < caller's env.
 # Run from ctrl/.
+# Notes: docs/notes/config.md

-# Values a user can reasonably override per-invocation. Anything set in the
-# environment when load_config runs is restored after the files are read.
-# NODES is deliberately NOT here: it is read back out of the kind config below,
-# so the file is the one place that decides it.
-#
-# REGISTRY_PORT and MANIFESTS_DIR were missing here while ctrl/.env set them, so
-# the caller's env silently LOST to the file for those two — the one precedence
-# rule this header states. Both are now listed; the other twelve are unchanged.
+# Per-invocation overrides: restored after the files are read, so the caller wins.
+# NODES is deliberately not here (read from the kind config).
 CONFIG_OVERRIDABLE="PROFILE CLUSTER K8S_VERSION KIND_CONFIG ADDONS
                    REGISTRY_MODE INGRESS_MODE DNS_MODE TILT_PORT
                    SOURCE ARCH DEPS_SOURCE HTTP_PORT HTTPS_PORT
                    REGISTRY_PORT MANIFESTS_DIR"

-# The containing folder's name, reduced to something kind accepts as a cluster
-# name (a DNS label: lowercase alphanumerics and dashes). Run from ctrl/, so the
-# repo root is the parent.
+# The repo folder's name, reduced to a DNS label kind accepts as a cluster name.
 default_cluster_name() {
    local n
    n=$(basename "$(cd .. && pwd)")
@@ -41,9 +19,7 @@ default_cluster_name() {
    echo "${n:-rig}"
 }

-# Base of this environment's 10-port block. cksum is used rather than $RANDOM or
-# bash hashing because it is POSIX and returns the same value on every machine,
-# which is what makes the block reproducible instead of merely unique.
+# Base of this environment's 10-port block; cksum so it is the same on every machine.
 derive_port_base() {
    local h; h=$(printf '%s' "$1" | cksum | awk '{print $1}')
    echo $((20000 + (h % 200) * 10))
@@ -61,19 +37,14 @@ load_config() {

    set -a
    source ./versions.env
-    # RIG_PORTABLE skips the machine-local layer. config_snapshot sets it, so a
-    # generated standalone kit never carries this machine's .env — which holds
-    # local values and, by its own description, secrets.
+    # RIG_PORTABLE skips the machine-local .env (set by config_snapshot for kits).
    if [ -z "${RIG_PORTABLE:-}" ] && [ -f ./.env ]; then source ./.env; fi
    set +a

    # Re-apply overrides now so PROFILE is the caller's before we pick the file.
    _config_restore "$saved"

-    # A profile is an optional overlay, never a prerequisite. rig assumes no
-    # configuration: with no profile named — or no env.d/ at all — it runs on the
-    # built-in defaults below. What IS an error is naming a profile that does not
-    # exist, because a typo must not quietly fall back to something else.
+    # A profile is optional; naming one that does not exist is an error.
    local profile="${PROFILE:-}"
    if [ -n "$profile" ] && [ "$profile" != default ]; then
        if [ ! -f "./env.d/${profile}.env" ]; then
@@ -104,27 +75,19 @@ load_config() {
        K8S_VERSION="${K8S_VERSION#NODE_IMAGE_}"
    fi

-    # Identity follows the FOLDER, so copying this directory somewhere else and
-    # renaming it yields a distinct environment with no further edits. Without
-    # this, two copies would share one cluster and `make cluster down` in either
-    # would destroy the other's.
+    # Identity follows the folder, so a renamed copy is a distinct environment.
    CLUSTER="${CLUSTER:-$(default_cluster_name)}"
    KUBECONTEXT="kind-${CLUSTER}"

-    # Host ports are a single shared namespace, so unlike the cluster name they
-    # cannot just follow the directory — they have to be spread out. Anything
-    # already set (ctrl/.env, a profile, the command line) wins; only the gaps
-    # are filled. See ports.sh for the reasoning.
+    # Host ports: fill only the gaps from the derived block; anything already set wins.
    local base; base=$(derive_port_base "$CLUSTER")
    HTTP_PORT="${HTTP_PORT:-$base}"
    HTTPS_PORT="${HTTPS_PORT:-$((base + 1))}"
    TILT_PORT="${TILT_PORT:-$((base + 2))}"
    REGISTRY_PORT="${REGISTRY_PORT:-$((base + 3))}"

-    # Where the workload's manifests live, repo-root relative. Defaulted here so
-    # it is always resolved rather than sometimes-set: it is the seam that lets
-    # the real manifests be versioned away from the installer, and a consumer
-    # should not have to know whether anyone filled it in. See k8s/README.md.
+    # Where the workload's manifests live, repo-root relative; always resolved.
+    # See k8s/README.md.
    MANIFESTS_DIR="${MANIFESTS_DIR:-ctrl/k8s/overlays/dev}"

    # Profiles name a k8s minor (v1_36); versions.env holds the pinned digest.
@@ -148,25 +111,13 @@ load_config() {
    # check.sh and the memory tool size their budget on NODES.
    NODES=$(grep -c '^  - role:' "$KIND_CONFIG")

-    # What one node costs, measured rather than guessed. On 2026-09-11 a minimal
-    # control-plane node ran at 620 MiB idle and ~728 MiB with a small mock, plus
-    # 16 MiB for the local registry — ~745 MiB of working set. 800 rounds that up,
-    # and agrees with the 800 MB observed independently on a larger rig. Worker
-    # nodes carry no etcd or apiserver and are lighter, so for a multi-node shape
-    # this errs high. It is the cluster alone: whatever you deploy comes on top.
-    #
-    # Here rather than in check.sh because the memory tool and every standalone
-    # kit need the same figure.
+    # Measured MB per node (cluster alone, errs high for workers); shared by
+    # check.sh, the memory tool and standalone kits.
    NODE_MB=800
 }

-# Render the kind config to stdout. sed rather than envsubst: envsubst is
-# gettext-base, absent from a minimal Debian, and Docker is meant to be the only
-# prerequisite. The variable list is explicit so a template cannot quietly start
-# depending on something the caller does not set.
-#
-# hostPath entries are resolved by the HOST dockerd, so HOST_WORKDIR must stay a
-# host path even when this runs inside the installer container.
+# Render the kind config to stdout with sed (not envsubst) over an explicit variable list.
+# HOST_WORKDIR must be a host path: the host dockerd resolves hostPath entries.
 render_kind_config() {
    local host_workdir="${HOST_WORKDIR:-$(cd .. && pwd)}"
    sed -e "s|\${CLUSTER}|${CLUSTER}|g" \
@@ -189,14 +140,10 @@ _config_restore() {
 }

 # ── what a standalone kit needs to know ────────────────────────────────────
-# Two questions the kit generator (ctrl/standalone.sh) asks, so that it never has
-# to know how configuration is stored. Where profiles live, which files are
-# layered and what is derived are this file's business and can change freely;
-# the generator only calls these.
+# The questions ctrl/standalone.sh asks, so it never knows how config is stored.

-# Every configuration rig can be run as, one per line: each profile file, or —
-# when there are none — `default`, the built-in configuration load_config uses
-# when no profile is named. Never empty, because rig never needs a profile.
+# Every configuration rig can run as, one per line: each profile, or `default`
+# when there are none. Never empty.
 config_profiles() {
    local f found=""
    for f in ./env.d/*.env; do
@@ -206,20 +153,8 @@ config_profiles() {
    [ -n "$found" ] || echo default
 }

-# The resolved configuration, as `declare -p` lines — exactly what load_config
-# leaves behind, minus the machine-local layer. A kit freezes this in place of
-# load_config, so it carries rig's decisions and not this machine's secrets.
-#
-#   config_snapshot <profile>   that profile, as any machine would resolve it
-#   config_snapshot --current   what THIS machine runs: every overridable key as
-#                               resolved here, handed back in as if typed on the
-#                               command line, over the same portable resolution.
-#                               Values derived from those choices follow them;
-#                               anything else the local layer set — credentials —
-#                               is not carried. config_left_out names it.
-#
-# Found by difference, not by a list: whatever load_config sets today, it sets.
-# A list here would be one more place to forget a variable.
+# What load_config sets, minus the machine-local layer, as `declare -p` lines.
+# Usage: config_snapshot <profile> | --current   (found by difference, not a list)
 config_snapshot() {
    local _rig_snap_choices
    if [ "$1" = --current ]; then
@@ -257,10 +192,7 @@ config_snapshot() {
 # The profile this machine runs, as load_config resolves it here.
 config_current_profile() { ( load_config >/dev/null && echo "$PROFILE_NAME" ); }

-# What an export of this machine's configuration does NOT carry, by name only:
-# keys the machine-local layer sets that are not choices a caller may override.
-# They are this machine's own — registry and mirror credentials, mostly — so the
-# target has to be told to supply them. Values are never printed.
+# Names (never values) of .env keys an export does not carry, e.g. credentials.
 config_left_out() {
    [ -f ./.env ] || return 0
    local k
@@ -272,20 +204,8 @@ config_left_out() {
    done
 }

-# A replacement for load_config with a resolution frozen in (a profile, or
-# --current — see config_snapshot), printed
-# as a function definition for a standalone kit to carry. The generator embeds
-# whatever this prints and interprets none of it, so what "frozen" means stays
-# rig's decision.
-#
-# It keeps load_config's one stated rule: the caller's env wins for anything in
-# CONFIG_OVERRIDABLE. A kit therefore behaves like rig — `OUT_BIN=... rigdeps.sh`
-# still works — rather than like a copy with everything pinned.
-#
-# What freezing does give up, knowingly: values DERIVED from an overridable one
-# are fixed at generation. Override CLUSTER and the ports stay the ones derived
-# for the original name. Re-deriving would mean carrying the layering itself,
-# which is exactly what a kit exists not to need.
+# Print a load_config with a resolution frozen in, for a standalone kit to carry.
+# The caller's env still wins; derived values (e.g. ports) stay fixed.
 config_freeze() {
    local snap
    snap=$(config_snapshot "$1") || return 1
--- a/rig/ctrl/mem.sh
+++ b/rig/ctrl/mem.sh
@@ -1,32 +1,8 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
 # rig:standalone rigmini status
-# How much memory this machine will actually give you before something dies —
-# rig's memory tool, and (generated from this file) the standalone rigmini.sh.
-#
-# There are two numbers and they are rarely the same. `status` reports what the
-# machine ADVERTISES and what is quietly capping it. `push` finds what it will
-# SURVIVE, by allocating until it stops. `all` does both and weighs the result
-# against what this profile's cluster needs.
-#
-# The gap between them is the whole reason this exists. Under WSL the cap lives
-# in .wslconfig; in a container or a managed workspace it is a cgroup limit, and
-# there /proc/meminfo reports the HOST's memory while the kernel kills you at a
-# fraction of it. A script that only read MemTotal would confidently report 32 GB
-# on a box that OOMs at 2.
-#
-# Runs on native Linux and under WSL. On WSL the memory you see is a VM
-# allocation that can be raised, and the commonest failure is raising it without
-# restarting — so status compares what .wslconfig says with what actually booted.
-#
-# Reports and instructs. It never raises a limit, frees anything or installs a
-# package. The one write it can make is `backup`, which copies .wslconfig beside
-# itself, so that `restore` has something to put back after a hand edit.
-#
-# Usage:
-#   mem.sh status                                  what it has, what caps it
-#   mem.sh push [--to GB] [--to-oom]               climb until it stops
-#   mem.sh all  [--budget GB]                      both, then the verdict
-#   mem.sh backup | restore                        .wslconfig, WSL only
+# rig's memory tool (also generated as rigmini.sh): what the machine advertises vs. what it survives.
+# Usage: mem.sh status | push [--to GB] [--to-oom] | all [--budget GB] | backup | restore (WSL)
+# Notes: docs/notes/mem.md
 set -euo pipefail
 cd "$(dirname "$0")"
 source ./lib/config.sh
@@ -42,9 +18,7 @@ BUDGET_EXPLICIT=no    # whether --budget was given, which retires the guess belo

 # ── platform ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

-# Windows outside WSL — Git Bash, MSYS, Cygwin — looks close enough to work and
-# then fails in a pile of confusing ways: no /proc, no docker socket, none of
-# the tooling. Detectable, so name it instead.
+# Refuse Git Bash / MSYS / Cygwin and kernels without /proc, with a clear message.
 require_linux() {
    case "$(uname -s)" in
        MINGW*|MSYS*|CYGWIN*)
@@ -99,9 +73,7 @@ avail_meminfo_mb() {
    fi
 }

-# Where a cgroup records this cgroup's own limit and usage. Set once by
-# find_cgroup, because every later reading needs both and hunting for the files
-# on each call would be the slow part of the poll loop.
+# This cgroup's limit/usage files, set once by find_cgroup (cheap for the poll loop).
 CG_MAX_FILE=""
 CG_CUR_FILE=""
 CG_VERSION=""
@@ -109,10 +81,8 @@ CG_VERSION=""
 find_cgroup() {
    local rel

-    # Inside a container the cgroup namespace makes the top of the tree BE the
-    # container's own cgroup, so the unqualified path is already the right one.
-    # On a host it is the root cgroup, which is never limited — hence the second
-    # attempt via /proc/self/cgroup, which names the slice this shell is in.
+    # Top of tree first (right inside a container), then this shell's own slice
+    # from /proc/self/cgroup (right on a host).
    if [ -r /sys/fs/cgroup/memory.max ]; then
        CG_VERSION=v2
        CG_MAX_FILE=/sys/fs/cgroup/memory.max
@@ -141,10 +111,7 @@ find_cgroup() {
    return 0
 }

-# The cap in MB, or "" when there is none worth reporting. v2 spells unlimited
-# "max"; v1 spells it as a number near 2^63, which is why this compares against
-# MemTotal rather than testing for a magic value — a "limit" above the machine's
-# own memory is not a limit, however it is written.
+# The cap in MB, or "" when unlimited ("max", or any value >= MemTotal).
 cgroup_cap_mb() {
    local raw cap
    [ -n "$CG_MAX_FILE" ] && [ -r "$CG_MAX_FILE" ] || { echo ""; return 0; }
@@ -185,10 +152,7 @@ effective_ceiling_mb() {
    echo "$c"
 }

-# How much room is left RIGHT NOW, from whichever accounting actually governs.
-# In a capped container /proc/meminfo describes the host and is worse than
-# useless for this — it would report tens of gigabytes free on a box that is one
-# allocation from being killed.
+# Room left right now: cgroup cap minus usage when capped, else MemAvailable.
 headroom_mb() {
    local cap used
    cap=$(cgroup_cap_mb)
@@ -202,9 +166,7 @@ headroom_mb() {

 # ── status ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

-# /mnt/c/Users can hold several real accounts — a renamed login leaves the old
-# directory behind — so picking the first alphabetically is a coin toss. Ask
-# Windows, then fall back to whichever profile actually owns a config.
+# Ask Windows for %USERPROFILE%; fall back to whichever profile owns a .wslconfig.
 wslconfig_path() {
    local profile winpath found
    profile=$(cmd.exe /c "echo %USERPROFILE%" 2>/dev/null | tr -d "\r\n" || true)
@@ -260,9 +222,7 @@ status() {
        echo "  ulimit -v   unlimited"
    fi

-    # overcommit_memory=0 is the default heuristic: a large allocation is
-    # granted on a guess, and the reckoning arrives later as an OOM kill rather
-    # than as a failed malloc. It is why `push` touches every page it asks for.
+    # Overcommit mode decides whether limits show as failed mallocs or OOM kills.
    local om or_
    om=$(cat /proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory 2>/dev/null || echo '?')
    or_=$(cat /proc/sys/vm/overcommit_ratio 2>/dev/null || echo '?')
@@ -335,9 +295,7 @@ status() {
        echo "  ! docker     cli present but the daemon is unreachable"
    fi

-    # WSL keeps its cap on the Windows side, in a file this shell can read but
-    # not usefully apply — the change costs a full VM restart. Report it, and
-    # report the commonest mistake, which is editing it and not restarting.
+    # WSL: report the .wslconfig cap and whether it was applied (needs wsl --shutdown).
    if is_wsl; then
        local cfg conf conf_mb n
        cfg=$(wslconfig_path)
@@ -397,7 +355,7 @@ require_wsl() {

 # backup and restore act on the file, so unlike status they must not guess.
 wslconfig_required() {
-    local cfg; cfg=$(wslconfig_required)
+    local cfg; cfg=$(wslconfig_path)
    if [ -z "$cfg" ]; then
        echo "cannot tell which Windows profile owns .wslconfig. Candidates:" >&2
        ls -d /mnt/c/Users/*/ 2>/dev/null \
@@ -429,8 +387,7 @@ backup() {
    local cfg dest
    cfg=$(wslconfig_required)
    [ -r "$cfg" ] || { echo "nothing to back up: $cfg does not exist" >&2; exit 1; }
-    # Timestamped and never overwritten: a backup that can destroy itself on a
-    # second run is not a backup.
+    # Timestamped, never overwritten.
    dest="${cfg}.$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S).bak"
    cp "$cfg" "$dest"
    echo "backed up  $dest"
@@ -449,9 +406,7 @@ restore() {
    echo "        -> $cfg"
    echo

-    # Newest is the right default — undo the last edit — but if you backed up
-    # *after* editing, the state you want is older. Show the rest so a no-op
-    # restore is obviously a no-op rather than a mystery.
+    # Restores the newest; list the others in case an older one is wanted.
    count=$(ls "$cfg".*.bak 2>/dev/null | wc -l)
    if [ "$count" -gt 1 ]; then
        echo "$count backups exist, newest first:"
@@ -495,14 +450,9 @@ cleanup() {
    return 0
 }

-# The child allocates and stops itself; the parent only watches. That split is
-# the point: under --to-oom the allocating process is expected to be killed, and
-# something has to survive to say how far it got.
+# Runs as a child that may be OOM-killed; the parent survives to report.
 allocator() {
-    # Raise our own OOM score to the maximum so the kernel picks THIS process
-    # first. Raising needs no privilege (only lowering does). Without it, the
-    # kernel is free to choose your shell, your ssh session or dockerd — on a
-    # box you are still using, that is not an acceptable coin toss.
+    # Make this process the preferred OOM victim (raising needs no privilege).
    echo 1000 > "/proc/$BASHPID/oom_score_adj" 2>/dev/null || true

    local arr=() held=0 i=0 rss swapped avail first_swap=0
@@ -511,16 +461,7 @@ allocator() {
    swap_used_start=$(( $(mb SwapTotal) - $(mb SwapFree) ))

    while :; do
-        # Written STRAIGHT INTO the array element. The obvious spelling —
-        # build one chunk and `arr+=("$chunk")` — costs three copies per step,
-        # not one: the template stays resident, expanding "$chunk" makes a
-        # temporary word, and the append makes the element. A 128 MB step then
-        # needs 384 MB transiently, and on a small box it is killed on the
-        # first append while reporting a third of the true ceiling.
-        #
-        # printf -v into a subscript also means every page is written, so it is
-        # resident rather than merely promised — the only kind of allocation
-        # that measures anything under heuristic overcommit.
+        # Write straight into the element (one copy, not three) and touch every page.
        printf -v "arr[$i]" '%*s' "$bytes" ''
        i=$((i + 1)); held=$((held + STEP_MB))

@@ -533,9 +474,7 @@ allocator() {
            "$held" "$rss" "$avail" "$swapped"
        printf '%s %s %s %s\n' "$held" "$rss" "$avail" "$swapped" >> "$STATE"

-        # Worth calling out separately from the ceiling: this is where the box
-        # stops being fast and starts being unusable, which for a scheduler is
-        # a different and earlier problem than being killed.
+        # First swap is reported separately: slow comes before killed.
        if [ "$swapped" -gt 0 ] && [ "$first_swap" -eq 0 ]; then
            first_swap=$held
            echo "  - first swap page at ${held} MB — past here it works but crawls"
@@ -556,30 +495,20 @@ push() {
    total=$(mb MemTotal)
    ceiling=$(effective_ceiling_mb)

-    # A step is worth about a sixty-fourth of the ceiling: enough resolution to
-    # find the edge, few enough lines to read, and small enough that the
-    # transient cost of one allocation never dominates a small box. A fixed
-    # size cannot do all three — 128 MB is fine on 16 GB and absurd on 512 MB.
+    # Default step: ceiling/64, clamped to 4..256 MB.
    if [ "$STEP_EXPLICIT" = no ]; then
        STEP_MB=$(( ceiling / 64 ))
        [ "$STEP_MB" -lt 4 ] && STEP_MB=4
        [ "$STEP_MB" -gt 256 ] && STEP_MB=256
    fi

-    # Stop with a cushion rather than riding it to the kill. How big a cushion
-    # depends on what it is protecting. Under a cgroup cap, running out kills
-    # only this container's own processes, so it need cover no more than the
-    # shell that prints the result — and a 512 MB cushion on a 1 GB box would
-    # halve the answer. On a host there is everything else to protect, and the
-    # OOM killer does not promise to pick the process that caused the problem.
+    # Stop with a cushion: 64 MB under a cgroup cap, 512 MB on a host, or 5% of ceiling if larger.
    if [ -n "$(cgroup_cap_mb)" ]; then FLOOR_MB=64; else FLOOR_MB=512; fi
    [ $(( ceiling / 20 )) -gt "$FLOOR_MB" ] && FLOOR_MB=$(( ceiling / 20 ))

    STATE=$(mktemp "${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/rigmini.XXXXXX")
    trap cleanup EXIT
-    # INT kills the child and lets the summary below print anyway, so an
-    # impatient Ctrl-C still tells you how far it got — and, more importantly,
-    # still gives the memory back.
+    # Ctrl-C kills the child, frees the memory, and still prints the summary.
    trap 'echo; echo "  interrupted"; echo "stop interrupted" >> "$STATE"; [ -n "$CHILD" ] && kill -KILL "$CHILD" 2>/dev/null || true' INT

    echo "push"
@@ -652,11 +581,7 @@ push() {
            fi ;;
    esac

-    # The gap between the claim and the measurement is the finding — but only
-    # when the BOX chose where to stop. An empty $stop means the child was ended
-    # rather than deciding to end; anything else (--to, the floor) is a stop we
-    # asked for, and flagging those as short of the ceiling would put a warning
-    # on every deliberately small run.
+    # Warn about claimed-vs-measured gap only when the box, not us, chose the stop.
    local got="${rss:-$held}"
    echo
    if [ -z "$stop" ] && [ "$got" -lt $(( ceiling * 70 / 100 )) ]; then
--- a/rig/ctrl/ports.sh
+++ b/rig/ctrl/ports.sh
@@ -1,25 +1,8 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
-# Give each environment its own block of host ports.
-#
-# New versions of a system mean new clusters on ONE machine, not new machines.
-# Cluster name, kubectl context, registry container and image tag already derive
-# from the directory name, so two copies never collide there — but host ports are
-# a single shared namespace and would.
-#
-# The block is derived from the directory name: stateless, stable, and requiring
-# no coordination between copies that know nothing about each other.
-#
-#   base = 20000 + (hash(slug) % 200) * 10
-#     +0 HTTP   +1 HTTPS   +2 TILT   +3 REGISTRY   (+4..9 reserved)
-#
-# 20000+ deliberately avoids the ports something is already likely to hold: 80,
-# 443, 3000, 5432, 8000, 8080.
-#
-# Derivation is a default, not a decision. On first use the resolved block is
-# written into ctrl/.env, so it becomes pinned, visible and editable rather than
-# a number that appears from nowhere. Anything already in ctrl/.env wins.
-#
+# Give each environment its own block of host ports, derived from the directory name.
+#   base = 20000 + (hash(slug) % 200) * 10;  +0 HTTP +1 HTTPS +2 TILT +3 REGISTRY
 # Usage: ports.sh show | active | derive | persist
+# Notes: docs/notes/ports.md
 set -euo pipefail
 cd "$(dirname "$0")"

@@ -38,28 +21,9 @@ derive() {
    DERIVED_REGISTRY=$((base + 3))
 }

-# The resolved facts a consumer outside bash needs, machine-readable:
-#
+# Resolved facts for consumers outside bash, space-separated, positional:
 #   CLUSTER KUBECONTEXT HTTP HTTPS TILT REGISTRY MANIFESTS_DIR
-#
-# Identity and ports together, because they are one fact set — the header above
-# says so: both derive from the directory name so that copies never collide. A
-# consumer needs all of them or none, and fetching them separately is how two
-# end up disagreeing. MANIFESTS_DIR rides along because the one consumer that
-# needs the addressing is the one that needs to know what to deploy.
-#
-# Space-separated, so MANIFESTS_DIR must not contain spaces. Everything else in
-# rig already assumes that of paths — kind, docker and kubectl all do.
-#
-# `derive` answers a DIFFERENT question — what the directory name alone implies
-# — and deliberately ignores ctrl/.env. Configuring anything from it would
-# silently contradict this file's own rule that "anything already in ctrl/.env
-# wins". `active` is what anything downstream should read.
-#
-# Why this exists at all: the cluster name is not the bare directory name.
-# default_cluster_name() lowercases it and replaces every character outside
-# [a-z0-9-], because it has to be a DNS label. Re-deriving that in another
-# language is how a copy in `My_Project/` ends up guarding the wrong context.
+# Read this, not `derive` (which ignores ctrl/.env).
 active() {
    load_config
    echo "$CLUSTER $KUBECONTEXT $HTTP_PORT $HTTPS_PORT $TILT_PORT $REGISTRY_PORT $MANIFESTS_DIR"
--- a/rig/ctrl/registry.sh
+++ b/rig/ctrl/registry.sh
@@ -1,28 +1,8 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
-# Registry plumbing. THIS is the seam — not a tool.
-#
-# Four modes, selected by REGISTRY_MODE in the active profile:
-#
-#   none     Tilt builds straight into the node. No registry at all — and so no
-#            guard against an outward push: an unqualified image name means
-#            docker.io/library/<name>, and only Tilt's kind detection stands
-#            between that and a real push. Throwaway use only; every profile
-#            here now defaults to `local` instead.
-#   local    a registry:2 container wired into the cluster.
-#   mirror   the same container, but configured as a pull-through CACHE of the
-#            corporate registry. What a locked-down client actually looks like:
-#            images originate from corp, you don't hammer it, and you keep
-#            working when the VPN drops.
-#   remote   no local container; pull straight from the corporate registry using
-#            an imagePullSecret.
-#
-# Deliberately a script rather than a tool. ctlptl collapses the `local` wiring
-# into one line, but its Registry spec only accepts name/port/image/listenAddress
-# — there is no way to set REGISTRY_PROXY_REMOTEURL, so it cannot express
-# `mirror` at all. Keeping the seam here is what keeps the corporate registry
-# swappable.
-#
+# Registry plumbing: REGISTRY_MODE none | local | mirror | remote. A script, not ctlptl,
+# because ctlptl cannot express `mirror`.
 # Usage: registry.sh up | down | status
+# Notes: docs/notes/registry.md
 set -euo pipefail
 cd "$(dirname "$0")"

@@ -34,17 +14,7 @@ REG_PORT="${REGISTRY_PORT:-5005}"
 K="kubectl --context ${KUBECONTEXT}"

 # ── CA trust ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
-# A corporate registry is almost always fronted by an internal CA, and trust has
-# to reach three separate places. Nothing does this for you, and the symptom when
-# it's missing is an opaque:
-#   x509: certificate signed by unknown authority
-#
-#   1. the host docker daemon   — /etc/docker/certs.d/<host>/ca.crt (needs root)
-#   2. every kind node's containerd — nodes do NOT inherit host trust
-#   3. anything doing HTTPS from inside the cluster, in its own trust store
-#
-# We handle (2) here because it's ours to handle. (1) is reported by check.sh
-# since it needs root. (3) belongs to the workload.
+# Copy REGISTRY_CA_FILE into every kind node's trust store (nodes don't inherit host trust).
 install_ca_into_nodes() {
    [ -n "${REGISTRY_CA_FILE:-}" ] || return 0

--- a/rig/ctrl/selftest.sh
+++ b/rig/ctrl/selftest.sh
@@ -1,20 +1,8 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
-# What rig has settled, written down as assertions.
-#
-# These are documentation that runs. Each check is ONE decision that has already
-# been made, with the reason above it — not coverage, and deliberately not an
-# exhaustive sweep of use cases. rig's own index says a rule without its reason
-# gets overridden the first time it is inconvenient; a rule nobody can restate
-# is worse. So the test says what was decided, and failing it should read as
-# "you are about to undo this" rather than "something broke".
-#
-# Scope, on purpose:
-#   - no cluster, no docker, no network. It must be cheap enough to actually run.
-#   - it asserts about RIG. `make check` asserts about the MACHINE and never
-#     fails; this exits 1, the way `make standalone check` does.
-#   - what actually deploys is not testable here. `tilt ci` stays a manual step.
-#
+# What rig has settled, written down as assertions: one decision per check.
+# No cluster, docker or network; exits 1 on failure (unlike `make check`).
 # Usage: make selftest   (or: bash ctrl/selftest.sh)
+# Notes: docs/notes/selftest.md
 set -uo pipefail          # NOT -e: one failing check must not abort the rest
 cd "$(dirname "$0")"

@@ -43,10 +31,7 @@ resolved() {


 note "rig needs no profile"
-# rig assumes no configuration. A profile is an overlay on built-in defaults, so
-# a rig with no env.d/ at all must resolve, report, and still generate a kit —
-# and naming a profile that does not exist must still be an error, because a
-# typo that silently fell back to the defaults would be worse than a failure.
+# No env.d/ must still resolve and generate a kit; an unknown profile stays an error.
 NP="$(mktemp -d)"
 cp -r .. "$NP/rig"; rm -rf "$NP/rig/ctrl/env.d"; sed -i '/^PROFILE=/d' "$NP/rig/ctrl/.env" 2>/dev/null
 check "no env.d: config resolves" "default" \
@@ -63,11 +48,7 @@ rm -rf "$NP"


 note "the ports.sh active contract"
-# ports.sh active is read POSITIONALLY by two other files — the Makefile takes
-# $(word 2) and $(word 5), the Tiltfile takes _facts[0]..[6]. Insert a field in
-# the middle and nothing errors: Tilt simply guards on the wrong context or
-# binds the wrong port. The field count and order are the contract, so they are
-# pinned here rather than left to whoever edits ports.sh next.
+# ports.sh active is read positionally by the Makefile and Tiltfile: pin field count and order.
 FACTS="$(bash ports.sh active)"
 check "active: exactly 7 fields"          "7" "$(printf '%s' "$FACTS" | wc -w)"
 read -r F_CLUSTER F_CTX F_HTTP F_HTTPS F_TILT F_REG F_MANIFESTS <<< "$FACTS"
@@ -83,16 +64,7 @@ check "derive: still 4 fields, not 7"     "4" "$(bash ports.sh derive | wc -w)"


 note "the caller's env beats the files"
-# lib/config.sh states one precedence rule: versions.env < env.d/<profile> <
-# ctrl/.env < the caller's env. It is enforced by CONFIG_OVERRIDABLE, a
-# hand-maintained list — and a key missing from it loses to the file SILENTLY.
-# REGISTRY_PORT and MANIFESTS_DIR were both missing on 2026-09-13 and were found
-# by accident.
-#
-# So this loop is generated FROM the list: add a key to CONFIG_OVERRIDABLE and
-# this test starts asking about it without anyone remembering to come here.
-# Three keys name something that must exist and are validated at load, so they
-# get a real alternative rather than a sentinel.
+# Every key in CONFIG_OVERRIDABLE must lose to the caller's env; the loop follows the list.
 test_value() {
    case "$1" in
        # Picked from what exists, never named: rig must not need any particular
@@ -122,16 +94,8 @@ done


 note "one derivation, not three"
-# The Makefile used to compute the cluster name itself and sed TILT_PORT out of
-# ctrl/.env — a second derivation of values lib/config.sh already owns, which
-# could disagree with it after `make ports persist`. It now reads ports.sh
-# active. Nothing structurally prevents the sed coming back, so the agreement is
-# asserted against the real `make -n` output rather than against the source.
-# --no-print-directory and a grep, not `tail -1`: run from `make selftest` this
-# is a RECURSIVE make, and the "Entering/Leaving directory" lines go to STDOUT.
-# tail -1 then reads "make[1]: Leaving directory ..." and both checks below fail
-# — but only when invoked through make, never when the script is run directly.
-# A test that passes one way and fails the other is worse than no test.
+# The Makefile must take context/port from ports.sh active, checked on real `make -n` output.
+# --no-print-directory + grep, not tail -1: under `make selftest` this is a recursive make.
 MK="$(cd .. && make --no-print-directory -n tilt 2>/dev/null | grep -m1 'tilt ')"
 check "Makefile: --context comes from active" "$F_CTX" \
    "$(printf '%s' "$MK" | sed -n 's/.*--context \([^ ]*\).*/\1/p')"
@@ -140,10 +104,7 @@ check "Makefile: --port comes from active"    "$F_TILT" \


 note "identity follows the folder, safely"
-# The cluster name is NOT the bare directory name: kind needs a DNS label, so
-# default_cluster_name lowercases it and replaces everything outside [a-z0-9-].
-# Re-deriving that anywhere else is how a copy ends up guarding the wrong
-# context — which is exactly why the Tiltfile asks instead of computing.
+# The cluster name is the folder name made a DNS label, derived only in lib/config.sh.
 TMP="$(mktemp -d)"
 trap 'rm -rf "$TMP"' EXIT
 mkdir -p "$TMP/My_Proj"
@@ -159,52 +120,33 @@ check "a renamed copy gets a DIFFERENT block"   "different" \


 note "ports are stable across versions"
-# Not a change-detector. The block is derived, never stored, so if the
-# derivation shifts then every EXISTING environment's ports move underneath it —
-# a running cluster keeps its old ports while rig starts reporting new ones, and
-# `make ports` stops describing reality. Anchored to three known names.
+# Ports are derived, never stored: a changed derivation moves every existing env's ports.
 check "derive_port_base rig"     "20310" "$(derive_port_base rig)"
 check "derive_port_base foo"     "21690" "$(derive_port_base foo)"
 check "derive_port_base my-proj" "21030" "$(derive_port_base my-proj)"


 note "rig stays standalone"
-# rig sits inside a host project's tree but must be copyable straight out of it:
-# no imports, no paths, no assumption the host is there. This grep is the whole
-# test of that claim, and until now it lived only in prose and in whoever
-# remembered to run it.
-#
-# The pattern is assembled from fragments so this file does not match ITSELF.
-# Writing it literally would fail forever; excluding this file instead would put
-# a blind spot in the one check that guards the boundary.
+# rig must be copyable out of its host project: no references to the host.
+# The pattern is assembled from fragments so this file does not match itself.
 HOST_PAT="$(printf '%s' 'sole' 'print' '|\b' 'sp' 'r\b')"
 check "no host-project references" "0" \
    "$(cd .. && grep -rIl -iE "$HOST_PAT" . --exclude-dir=def 2>/dev/null | wc -l)"


 note "the Tiltfile hardcodes nothing"
-# Every other Tiltfile on this machine writes its slug in five or six times by
-# hand, so a copied project deploys into the original's cluster until someone
-# edits all of them. rig's asks ports.sh. A literal kind-<name> here would mean
-# that has been undone.
+# The Tiltfile asks ports.sh for its context; a literal kind-<name> would undo that.
 check "no literal kind-<name>"  "0" "$(grep -cE "['\"]kind-[a-z0-9]" Tiltfile)"
 check "guards on the variable"  "1" "$(grep -c 'allow_k8s_contexts(CTX)' Tiltfile)"
 check "asks ports.sh for facts" "1" "$(grep -c "local('bash ports.sh active'" Tiltfile)"


 note "standalone kits are generated, current, and call only real verbs"
-# The kits under standalone/<profile>/ are rig flattened into single files, one
-# per profile. A kit left behind by a change to rig is exactly the drift they
-# replaced — rigmini.sh once said 2 GB per node long after rig measured 800 MB —
-# so a stale kit fails here rather than waiting to be noticed on another machine.
+# A kit left stale by a change to rig fails here, not on another machine.
 check "every kit matches what rig generates now" "yes" \
    "$(bash standalone.sh check >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo yes || echo "no — run make standalone")"

-# Each kit's Makefile exists so nothing wrapping these scripts has to GUESS how to
-# call them. A generated Makefile once did guess: `rigmini.sh on`, not a verb,
-# and a bare `rigdeps.sh` for "check and report", which installs. So every
-# target's default verb must be one its script's own dispatch accepts — read
-# from that dispatch, not from a list here that could drift from it.
+# Every kit Makefile target must call a verb its script's own dispatch accepts.
 verbs_of() {
    sed -n '/^case "\$cmd" in/,/^esac/p' "$1" | grep -oE '^    [a-z]+\)' | tr -d ' )'
 }
@@ -224,12 +166,8 @@ for mk in ../standalone/*/Makefile; do
 done
 check "there is a kit for every profile" "$(config_profiles | wc -l)" "$kits"

-# An export is "take the setup I have here somewhere else", so it carries this
-# machine's CHOICES — profile, ports, manifest dir — and never its credentials:
-# ctrl/.env can hold registry and mirror logins next to those choices. The
-# committed per-profile kits carry neither, since they must be the same on any
-# machine. Proven with sentinel values in a scratch copy, because the real
-# ctrl/.env may have those keys empty — and an empty value proves nothing.
+# An export carries this machine's choices but never its credentials; committed kits carry neither.
+# Proven with sentinel values in a scratch copy, since the real ctrl/.env may leave them empty.
 SX="$TMP/export-proof"; mkdir -p "$SX"; cp -r .. "$SX/rig"
 cat >> "$SX/rig/ctrl/.env" <<'EOF'
 REGISTRY_USER=selftest-sentinel-user
@@ -250,10 +188,7 @@ check "export: refuses to write inside the repository" "yes" \


 note "optional — needs tilt and this rig's cluster"
-# Parsing the Tiltfile for real is the only way to know it still evaluates, but
-# Tilt snapshots a kubectl context before parsing, so it cannot run without a
-# cluster. Skipped rather than failed when there is none, the same way docgen
-# skips its graphgen section.
+# Tilt needs a cluster context to parse the Tiltfile, so this is skipped without one.
 if ! command -v tilt >/dev/null; then
    printf '  skip  tilt is not installed\n'
 elif ! kubectl config get-contexts -o name 2>/dev/null | grep -qx "$F_CTX"; then
--- a/rig/ctrl/setup.sh
+++ b/rig/ctrl/setup.sh
@@ -1,215 +0,0 @@
-#!/usr/bin/env bash
-# Prepare a machine to run rig, and say plainly what worked, what was already
-# done, and what is left for a human.
-#
-# This is the grouped entry point: `make setup`. Every step is idempotent and
-# independently checked, so running it twice is safe and running it on a
-# half-configured machine finishes the job rather than starting over.
-#
-# It deliberately does NOT abort on the first failure. A setup script that dies
-# at step 2 hides the fact that steps 4 and 5 were also going to fail — and on
-# an unfamiliar machine, the full picture is the whole point. Failures are
-# collected and reported together, and the exit code reflects the worst outcome.
-#
-# Usage:
-#   setup.sh                  # host checks + the dev toolchain
-#   setup.sh core             # kubectl and jq only — no cluster tooling
-#   setup.sh --cluster        # ...and bring the cluster up
-set -euo pipefail
-cd "$(dirname "$0")"
-
-source ./lib/config.sh
-load_config
-
-WITH_CLUSTER=0
-# Cluster tooling is not wanted everywhere: a managed or corporate-issued
-# machine may legitimately want kubectl and nothing that builds clusters.
-TIER=dev
-for a in "$@"; do
-    case "$a" in
-        core|dev)       TIER="$a" ;;
-        --cluster)      WITH_CLUSTER=1 ;;
-        *) echo "unknown option: $a" >&2; exit 1 ;;
-    esac
-done
-
-if [ "$TIER" = "core" ] && [ "$WITH_CLUSTER" -eq 1 ]; then
-    echo "core tier installs no cluster tooling, so --cluster cannot work" >&2
-    exit 1
-fi
-
-# ── step framework ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
-# Statuses are deliberately distinct: "already" and "done" both mean success but
-# tell you very different things about the machine you are on.
-STEP_NAMES=()
-STEP_STATUS=()
-STEP_NOTE=()
-WORST=0
-
-record() {
-    STEP_NAMES+=("$1"); STEP_STATUS+=("$2"); STEP_NOTE+=("${3:-}")
-    # Only a genuine failure is a non-zero exit. "manual" means the machine is
-    # fine and you have something to do — reporting that as an error makes the
-    # whole run look broken and trains people to ignore the output.
-    [ "$2" = "fail" ] && WORST=1 || true
-    local mark
-    case "$2" in
-        already) mark="  ok  " ;;
-        done)    mark=" done " ;;
-        skip)    mark=" skip " ;;
-        manual)  mark="MANUAL" ;;
-        fail)    mark=" FAIL " ;;
-    esac
-    printf "[%s] %-22s %s\n" "$mark" "$1" "${3:-}"
-}
-
-# ── steps ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
-
-step_host() {
-    local out
-    if ! out=$(bash ./deps.sh detect 2>&1); then
-        record host fail "detection failed"
-        return
-    fi
-    # Anything flagged with '!' needs a human; surface the count here
-    # and the detail below rather than burying it.
-    local warns; warns=$(echo "$out" | grep -c '^\s*!' || true)
-    HOST_DETAIL="$out"
-    if [ "$warns" -gt 0 ]; then
-        record host manual "$warns item(s) need attention — see below"
-    else
-        record host already "no problems detected"
-    fi
-}
-
-step_toolchain() {
-    local want="kubectl jq"
-    [ "$TIER" = "dev" ] && want="$want kind tilt"
-
-    local missing=""
-    for b in $want; do
-        command -v "$b" >/dev/null 2>&1 || missing="$missing $b"
-    done
-
-    if [ -z "$missing" ]; then
-        record toolchain already "$TIER: $want"
-        return
-    fi
-
-    if bash ./deps.sh install "$TIER" >/tmp/rig-deps.$$ 2>&1; then
-        local still=""
-        for b in $want; do
-            [ -x "${OUT_BIN:-$HOME/.local/bin}/$b" ] || still="$still $b"
-        done
-        if [ -n "$still" ]; then
-            record toolchain fail "still missing:$still (see /tmp/rig-deps.$$)"
-        else
-            record toolchain done "$TIER, installed:$missing"
-            rm -f "/tmp/rig-deps.$$"
-        fi
-    else
-        record toolchain fail "install failed — see /tmp/rig-deps.$$"
-    fi
-}
-
-step_path() {
-    local bin="${OUT_BIN:-$HOME/.local/bin}"
-    case ":$PATH:" in
-        *":$bin:"*) ;;
-        *) record path manual "add to ~/.bashrc:  export PATH=\"$bin:\$PATH\""; return ;;
-    esac
-    if grep -qs "$bin" "$HOME/.bashrc" "$HOME/.profile" 2>/dev/null; then
-        record path already "$bin on PATH and persisted"
-    else
-        record path manual "on PATH now, but not persisted in ~/.bashrc"
-    fi
-}
-
-step_docker() {
-    if ! command -v docker >/dev/null 2>&1; then
-        record docker fail "no docker cli — this is the one prerequisite rig cannot install"
-        return
-    fi
-    if docker info >/dev/null 2>&1; then
-        record docker already "$(docker version --format '{{.Server.Version}}' 2>/dev/null)"
-    else
-        record docker fail "daemon unreachable (in the docker group? logged out and back in?)"
-    fi
-}
-
-step_ports() {
-    local busy=""
-    for entry in "HTTP:$HTTP_PORT" "HTTPS:$HTTPS_PORT" "TILT:$TILT_PORT" "REGISTRY:$REGISTRY_PORT"; do
-        local p="${entry#*:}"
-        if command -v ss >/dev/null 2>&1 && ss -ltn "sport = :$p" 2>/dev/null | grep -q LISTEN; then
-            busy="$busy ${entry%%:*}($p)"
-        fi
-    done
-    if [ -n "$busy" ]; then
-        record ports fail "in use:$busy — override in ctrl/.env or rename the directory"
-    else
-        record ports already "$HTTP_PORT-$REGISTRY_PORT free"
-    fi
-}
-
-step_cluster() {
-    if [ "$TIER" = "core" ]; then
-        record cluster skip "core tier — no cluster tooling on this machine"
-        return
-    fi
-    if [ "$WITH_CLUSTER" -ne 1 ]; then
-        record cluster skip "not requested (--cluster)"
-        return
-    fi
-    if kind get clusters 2>/dev/null | grep -qx "$CLUSTER"; then
-        record cluster already "'$CLUSTER' exists"
-        return
-    fi
-    if bash ./cluster.sh up >/tmp/rig-cluster.$$ 2>&1; then
-        record cluster done "'$CLUSTER' created"
-        rm -f "/tmp/rig-cluster.$$"
-    else
-        record cluster fail "see /tmp/rig-cluster.$$"
-    fi
-}
-
-# ── run ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
-
-echo "setting up '$CLUSTER'"
-echo
-HOST_DETAIL=""
-step_host
-step_toolchain
-step_path
-step_docker
-step_ports
-step_cluster
-
-echo
-if [ -n "$HOST_DETAIL" ]; then
-    echo "host detail"
-    echo "$HOST_DETAIL" | sed 's/^/  /'
-    echo
-fi
-
-# Repeat only what still needs action, so the tail of the output is a to-do list
-# rather than a transcript.
-outstanding=0
-for i in "${!STEP_NAMES[@]}"; do
-    case "${STEP_STATUS[$i]}" in
-        fail|manual)
-            [ "$outstanding" -eq 0 ] && echo "outstanding:"
-            outstanding=1
-            printf "  %-8s %-16s %s\n" "${STEP_STATUS[$i]}" "${STEP_NAMES[$i]}" "${STEP_NOTE[$i]}"
-            ;;
-    esac
-done
-
-if [ "$outstanding" -eq 0 ]; then
-    echo "ready. next:  make cluster up && make docs"
-else
-    echo
-    echo "(nothing was aborted — every step ran so the list above is complete)"
-fi
-
-exit "$WORST"
--- a/rig/ctrl/standalone.sh
+++ b/rig/ctrl/standalone.sh
@@ -1,52 +1,8 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
-# Generate the standalone kits: single-file versions of rig's own tools, one
-# folder per profile, for machines the full rig is not going to.
-#
-# A kit is a pure function of rig as it is right now. It gains nothing rig lacks
-# and loses nothing rig has — improve rig, regenerate, and every kit follows.
-# Nothing in standalone/<profile>/ is ever edited by hand.
-#
-# What this file does NOT know, on purpose: which tools rig has, what they are
-# called, how its libraries are split, where configuration lives or what it
-# contains. Rig will change shape — scripts get split, renamed and grow new
-# libraries — and a generator that encoded today's layout would quietly produce
-# a wrong kit the first time it did. So this works from a contract a script opts
-# into, and from nothing else:
-#
-#   1. A marker comment, alone on a line near the top, declares an entry point:
-#        (hash) rig:standalone <kit-name> <default-verb>
-#      The default verb must only REPORT: it is run as a smoke test.
-#   2. Every `source` an entry point makes names a .sh file by a path that
-#      resolves relative to the entry point. Libraries may source further
-#      libraries however they like — bash follows those itself.
-#   3. Configuration enters through `load_config`, and the libraries provide
-#      `config_profiles`, `config_freeze <profile|--current>` — which prints a
-#      replacement load_config with that resolution frozen in — and, for an
-#      export, `config_current_profile` and `config_left_out`. How config is layered,
-#      stored, derived or frozen is rig's business; this only asks, and embeds
-#      the answer without interpreting it.
-#
-# Bash does the resolving, not a parser here. Libraries are sourced in a clean
-# shell and read back with `declare -f` and `declare -p`, so any structure bash
-# can load, this can flatten.
-#
-# And every kit is PROVEN to stand alone before it is written: no `source` left,
-# no path into rig's tree in its code, `bash -n` clean, and its default verb run
-# in an empty directory with nothing from rig present. A shape this has never
-# seen either passes that, or generation stops and names the kit, the file, the
-# line and what is wrong. It never writes a kit that only looks finished.
-#
-# Usage:
-#   standalone.sh write         generate every kit into standalone/<profile>/
-#   standalone.sh check         generate into a scratch dir and fail if any kit differs
-#   standalone.sh export DIR    ONE kit for the configuration this machine runs —
-#                               its profile plus the choices in its local config,
-#                               WITHOUT its credentials — written outside the repo.
-#
-# write and check are what gets committed: one kit per profile, identical on any
-# machine. export is the other question — "take the setup I have here somewhere
-# else" — so it reflects this machine, and for exactly that reason it never lands
-# in the repository.
+# Generate standalone kits: rig's tools flattened into single files, one folder per profile.
+# Usage: standalone.sh write|check   generate (or diff) standalone/<profile>/
+#        standalone.sh export DIR    one kit for this machine's config, no credentials, outside the repo
+# Notes: docs/notes/standalone.md
 set -euo pipefail
 cd "$(dirname "$0")"

--- a/rig/ctrl/versions.env
+++ b/rig/ctrl/versions.env
@@ -1,24 +1,7 @@
-# Pinned toolchain — the single manifest ctrl/deps.sh installs from.
-# Every entry is a single binary; none of them needs an apt repo.
-#   kubectl  fully static
-#   kind     libc only
-#   tilt     libc + libstdc++ + libgcc (present in base Debian)
-#   jq       upstream static build (Debian's is linked against libjq/libonig)
-#
-# Checksums are the upstream-published SHA256 of the linux/amd64 artifact.
-#
-# To bump: change the version, then take the checksum from the release's own
-# published list — never hand-edit or hand-copy one from a download you did.
-# For anything hosted on GitHub releases that is:
-#
-#   curl -sSL https://github.com/<org>/<repo>/releases/download/<tag>/checksums.txt \
-#     | grep linux.x86_64
-#
-# (kubectl publishes its own instead: <KUBECTL_URL>.sha256.)
-#
-# There was a `ctrl/versions-refresh.sh` named here that has never existed. If
-# bumping stops being rare enough to do by hand, write it — but a comment
-# pointing at a missing script is worse than no comment.
+# Pinned toolchain (linux/amd64, upstream SHA256) — the manifest ctrl/deps.sh installs from.
+# To bump, take the checksum from the release's own list, e.g.
+#   curl -sSL https://github.com/<org>/<repo>/releases/download/<tag>/checksums.txt | grep linux.x86_64
+# Notes: docs/notes/versions.md

 KIND_VERSION=v0.32.0
 KIND_SHA256=50030de23cf40a18505f20426f6a8506bedf13c6e509244bd1fa9463721b0f54
@@ -32,10 +15,7 @@ TILT_VERSION=0.37.6
 TILT_SHA256=e9672b8a18d43501f35dcfe98465969a7db0e436b36cf0c50c7e6f8d40de5fe6
 TILT_URL=https://github.com/tilt-dev/tilt/releases/download/v${TILT_VERSION}/tilt.${TILT_VERSION}.linux.x86_64.tar.gz

-# ctlptl — creates a kind cluster WITH a local registry wired in, which is what
-# keeps images off docker.io (an unqualified name means docker.io/library/<name>).
-# Same publisher and same archive shape as tilt: binary at the archive root, so
-# fetch_tgz handles it with strip=0 and no special case.
+# ctlptl — kind cluster with a local registry wired in (keeps images off docker.io).
 CTLPTL_VERSION=0.9.4
 CTLPTL_SHA256=c63a1ec28e60bc3faf6becb76f53355c5cf5e0143dafdd27ad85db5584fa6b1e
 CTLPTL_URL=https://github.com/tilt-dev/ctlptl/releases/download/v${CTLPTL_VERSION}/ctlptl.${CTLPTL_VERSION}.linux.x86_64.tar.gz
@@ -44,19 +24,14 @@ JQ_VERSION=1.8.2
 JQ_SHA256=b1c22172dd303f3be49e935aa56aa48a8b7a46e0bc838b4997d3bb451495870f
 JQ_URL=https://github.com/jqlang/jq/releases/download/jq-${JQ_VERSION}/jq-linux-amd64

-# docker compose — the distro docker packages ship the daemon and the CLI but
-# frequently not this, so `docker compose up` fails with "unknown command" on an
-# otherwise working Docker. It is a CLI plugin, found by NAME in a plugin
-# directory, so a copy in the bin dir alone only gives you the retired
-# `docker-compose` v1 spelling; deps.sh links it into ~/.docker/cli-plugins.
+# docker compose — often missing from distro packages; deps.sh links it into
+# ~/.docker/cli-plugins.
 COMPOSE_VERSION=5.5.1
 COMPOSE_SHA256=db1889184726840f75c4f9c001048430d4f25b3be3cb084d3ddd762bc0aed576
 COMPOSE_URL=https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/v${COMPOSE_VERSION}/docker-compose-linux-x86_64

-# Node images shipped with KIND_VERSION above, pinned by digest so a kind upgrade
-# can never silently move the k8s version. Profiles select one via K8S_VERSION.
-# Older entries are kept deliberately: running a trailing-edge control plane is
-# part of simulating a legacy estate.
+# Node images for KIND_VERSION, pinned by digest; profiles pick one via K8S_VERSION.
+# Older entries are kept deliberately (legacy-estate simulation).
 NODE_IMAGE_v1_36=kindest/node:v1.36.1@sha256:3489c7674813ba5d8b1a9977baea8a6e553784dab7b84759d1014dbd78f7ebd5
 NODE_IMAGE_v1_35=kindest/node:v1.35.5@sha256:ce977ae6d65918d0b58a5f8b5e940429c2ce42fa3a5619ec2bbc60b949c0ac95
 NODE_IMAGE_v1_34=kindest/node:v1.34.8@sha256:02722c2dedddcfc00febf5d27fbeb9b7b2c14294c82109ff4a85d89ac9ba3256
@@ -72,11 +47,8 @@ CERT_MANAGER_VERSION=v1.21.1
 METRICS_SERVER_VERSION=v0.9.0
 METALLB_VERSION=v0.16.0

-# Cabinets — public services dropped in as-is, the upstream image unmodified.
-# The same declaration installs on compose or in the cluster, so a dependency is
-# named once and works either way. Pinned by tag rather than
-# digest because they are ordinary upstream images with no supply chain claim
-# attached — bump freely, and preload them for the offline profile.
+# Cabinets — unmodified upstream images, usable on compose or in the cluster.
+# Pinned by tag; bump freely, and preload them for the offline profile.
 POSTGRES_IMAGE=postgres:16-alpine
 REDIS_IMAGE=redis:7-alpine
 AIRFLOW_IMAGE=apache/airflow:2.10.4
--- a/rig/docs/index.html
+++ b/rig/docs/index.html
@@ -267,7 +267,7 @@
 <pre><code><span class="c"># then, in the environment directory:</span>
 make check     <span class="c"># is this machine ready? reports, never fixes</span>
 make deps        <span class="c"># install the pinned toolchain</span>
-make cluster up  <span class="c"># build the cluster for the active profile</span>
+make cluster up  <span class="c"># cluster + registry + addons; ports derive by themselves</span>
 </code></pre>
      <p>Read <code>make check</code> before <code>make deps</code>. It never changes
      anything — it prints what it found and, at the end, the steps it cannot perform
@@ -288,20 +288,14 @@ make cluster up  <span class="c"># build the cluster for the active profile</spa
      one failure at a time.</p>
 <pre><code>make check</code></pre>

-      <h3>2 &middot; make setup</h3>
-      <p>Does the preparation that can be automated: installs the pinned
-      toolchain if it is missing, checks PATH, Docker, and this environment's
-      ports. Every step is independently checked, so running it twice is safe and
-      running it half-configured finishes the job.</p>
-      <p>It <b>does not stop at the first failure</b>. A setup script that dies at
-      step two hides that steps four and five would also have failed, and on an
-      unfamiliar machine the complete list is the point. The tail of the output is
-      a to-do list of only what is outstanding.</p>
-<pre><code>make setup                  <span class="c"># host + toolchain</span>
-</code></pre>
+      <h3>2 &middot; make deps</h3>
+      <p>Installs the pinned toolchain — only what is missing — and tells you
+      if its directory is not on PATH yet. Running it twice is safe.</p>
+<pre><code>make deps</code></pre>

      <h3>3 &middot; make cluster up</h3>
-      <p>Builds the cluster for the active profile. It prints what the profile
+      <p>Builds the cluster, starts its registry and installs the profile's
+      addons — there is nothing else to run first. It prints what the profile
      locks in <i>before</i> spending the time, because the kind config is
      fixed at creation and cannot be changed afterwards.</p>
      <p>Re-running is safe and, more importantly, <b>convergent</b>: if a first
@@ -322,17 +316,17 @@ make cluster reset              <span class="c"># destroy and rebuild — how an
      <h3>Checking on things</h3>
      <dl>
        <dt>make cluster list</dt><dd>Every cluster on the machine, its memory cost and its port block. The usual reason a new one will not start is an old one you forgot about; <code>make cluster free</code> frees them without deleting.</dd>
-        <dt>make ports</dt><dd>This environment's port block, and whether each is derived or overridden.</dd>
-        <dt>make registry</dt><dd>Which of the four registry modes is active, and where it points.</dd>
+        <dt>make check</dt><dd>Short: host, toolchain, and whether this cluster fits, its ports, registry and addons. Details only appear when something needs attention; <code>make check all</code> prints every one.</dd>
+        <dt>make check mem</dt><dd>Memory in depth: what caps it, how far it really climbs, and on WSL the <code>.wslconfig</code> backup and restore.</dd>
      </dl>

      <h3>Running more than one</h3>
-      <p>Copy the directory, rename it, and repeat from step 2. Cluster name,
+      <p>Copy the directory, rename it, and run <code>make cluster up</code>. Cluster name,
      context, image tags and the port block all follow the directory name, so
      the second environment collides with nothing and neither one's teardown can
      reach the other.</p>
 <pre><code>cp -r rig ../platform-v2 &amp;&amp; cd ../platform-v2
-make setup &amp;&amp; make cluster up
+make cluster up
 </code></pre>
    </div>
  </section>
@@ -370,16 +364,15 @@ make setup &amp;&amp; make cluster up
      </table>
 <pre><code>make deps core   <span class="c"># kubectl and jq only — nothing that creates a cluster</span>
 make deps        <span class="c"># dev, the default</span>
-make setup core  <span class="c"># same distinction, via setup</span>
 </code></pre>
      <p>Testing <i>in situ</i> on a managed machine is still possible — install
      the <code>dev</code> tier deliberately when you need it. The point is that
-      it should be a decision rather than a side effect of running setup.</p>
+      it should be a decision rather than a side effect of installing.</p>
      <p>The documentation itself needs neither tier: <code>make docs</code>
      wants only Docker.</p>

      <h3>Air-gapped</h3>
-<pre><code>make deps-image full                       <span class="c"># bakes every binary into the image</span>
+<pre><code>make deps image full                       <span class="c"># bakes every binary into the image</span>
 docker save …-deps:full | gzip &gt; rig.tgz
 <span class="c"># carry that one file in, then:</span>
 docker load &lt; rig.tgz &amp;&amp; make cluster up PROFILE=offline   <span class="c"># from env.d/offline.env.example</span>
@@ -403,8 +396,8 @@ docker load &lt; rig.tgz &amp;&amp; make cluster up PROFILE=offline   <span clas
        <dt>registry + images</dt><dd>Named after the environment, so two copies never share one.</dd>
      </dl>
      <p>Two copies therefore never collide, and neither one's
-      <code>make cluster down</code> can touch the other. <code>make ports</code>
-      shows the block; <code>make ports persist</code> freezes it into
+      <code>make cluster down</code> can touch the other. <code>make check</code>
+      shows the block; <code>bash ctrl/ports.sh persist</code> freezes it into
      <code>ctrl/.env</code> if you want it fixed rather than derived.</p>

      <h3>Configuration layers</h3>
--- a/rig/docs/notes/Dockerfile.deps.md
+++ b/rig/docs/notes/Dockerfile.deps.md
@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+# ctrl/Dockerfile.deps
+
+## Purpose
+
+The toolchain installer image. It does NOT run the cluster — it installs a toolchain onto the host and gets out of the way.
+
+This exists to kill a bootstrap paradox: a plain bash installer needs curl, jq and sha256sum to already be present, and a minimal Debian has none of them. It carries its own toolchain, so the only host prerequisite is Docker.
+
+## Variants
+
+Two variants from one file:
+
+```
+docker build -f ctrl/Dockerfile.deps --target deps      -t <slug>-deps      .
+docker build -f ctrl/Dockerfile.deps --target deps-full -t <slug>-deps:full .
+```
+
+`deps-full` bakes every pinned binary in at build time. `docker save` it and you have the whole installer as one file to carry into an air-gapped network.
+
+## Packages
+
+ca-certificates + curl: fetch and verify. graphviz + python3: render diagrams and validate the arch model, so the host never needs an apt package.
+
+docker-cli, NOT docker.io: we only ever talk to the host's daemon through the mounted socket, and under `--no-install-recommends` the docker.io package ships docker-init without the actual `docker` binary.
+
+## The installer is the standalone kit
+
+The installer is the generated standalone kit, not deps.sh plus the files it reads. A kit is one file with its pins frozen in and is proven to run with nothing else from rig present — which is exactly what an image needs, and `make standalone` keeps it current. Pins are the same in every profile's kit.
--- a/rig/docs/notes/Dockerfile.example.md
+++ b/rig/docs/notes/Dockerfile.example.md
@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+# ctrl/Dockerfile.example
+
+## Naming
+
+EXAMPLE — a component image. Copy, rename, replace. Named like the manifest it feeds and the resource it becomes:
+
+```
+ctrl/Dockerfile.api   ->  image <cluster>-api  ->  image: in k8s/base/api.yaml
+```
+
+That image string is the ONLY thing connecting the three. Nothing checks it; a typo shows up as a pod stuck in ImagePullBackOff pulling from the public index, which reads like a network problem and is not one.
+
+## COPY paths are repo-root relative (the one that catches everyone)
+
+The Tiltfile passes two paths with DIFFERENT bases, in adjacent arguments:
+
+```
+context='..'                 the REPO ROOT   (the Tiltfile is in ctrl/)
+dockerfile='Dockerfile.api'  relative to the TILTFILE, so ctrl/Dockerfile.api
+```
+
+So every COPY is resolved against the repo root, NOT against the Dockerfile's directory. A file sitting right beside it is still reached as `ctrl/`:
+
+```
+COPY ctrl/nginx.conf /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf     # correct
+COPY nginx.conf      /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf     # fails — no such file
+```
+
+Nothing warns you. The build just cannot find a file that is visibly there.
+
+## Dependency layer
+
+Dependencies first, in their own layer: they change far less often than the code, so a source edit does not reinstall them on every rebuild.
+
+## live_update
+
+The sync in the Tiltfile's `docker_build` must land where this image expects it:
+
+```
+live_update=[sync('../api', '/app/api')]
+```
+
+matches `COPY api/ ./api/` with `WORKDIR /app`. If the two disagree, Tilt syncs into a path nothing reads and the container keeps serving the built copy — edits appear to do nothing, with no error anywhere.
--- a/rig/docs/notes/Makefile.md
+++ b/rig/docs/notes/Makefile.md
@@ -0,0 +1,56 @@
+# Makefile
+
+## Shape and config layers
+
+Thin control Makefile: few targets, and the subcommand is an argument rather than a second target: `make cluster down`, not `make cluster-down`.
+
+```
+make check          is this machine ready?        (never changes anything)
+make deps           install the toolchain
+make cluster up     cluster + registry + addons   (ports derive by themselves)
+make tilt / docs    work on it, read about it
+```
+
+The logic lives in the scripts, never here: `make cluster up` -> ctrl/cluster.sh up.
+
+Config layers, weakest first: built-in defaults < ctrl/versions.env (pinned toolchain) < ctrl/env.d/<profile>.env (optional) < ctrl/.env (local, gitignored) < the environment. So `make cluster up PROFILE=<name>` beats them all. See [config.md](config.md).
+
+Start with: `make check && make deps && make cluster up`
+
+## FACTS
+
+Identity follows the FOLDER NAME, so this directory can be copied elsewhere, renamed, and run as a separate environment with no edits. ctrl/.env overrides it when you want a name that differs from the directory.
+
+Asked once, of ctrl/ports.sh, which resolves it through lib/config.sh:
+
+```
+CLUSTER KUBECONTEXT HTTP HTTPS TILT REGISTRY MANIFESTS_DIR
+```
+
+Read positionally, so the order is a contract; ctrl/selftest.sh pins it.
+
+This used to be sed over ctrl/.env plus a slug computed in the Makefile, which is a SECOND derivation of values lib/config.sh already owns, and the two could disagree about the port after `ports.sh persist`, or about the name for any directory whose sanitised form differs from its raw one. One source now; the Tiltfile reads the same line.
+
+## CLUSTER / KCTX fallback
+
+The fallback matters: ports.sh sources config.sh, and if a profile or .env is broken it exits non-zero. Losing the cluster name would send --context to the wrong place, so fall back to the folder rather than to empty.
+
+## ARGS as .PHONY
+
+Words after the target become the script's subcommand; each gets a no-op rule so make does not treat them as goals. They are also marked PHONY, because some of those words name real directories. `cfg`, `ctrl`, `docs`, `gen` and `init` all exist at this level, and make considers a target that is an existing directory already built, so `make build ctrl` ran the build and then printed "make: 'ctrl' is up to date". The empty rule is not enough on its own; only .PHONY stops make consulting the filesystem.
+
+## tilt: --port guard
+
+--port is only passed when TILT_PORT resolved. It normally does, since FACTS asks ports.sh, but ports.sh can fail on a broken profile, and without the guard tilt receives a bare `--port` with no value and fails on the flag rather than on anything real. Tilt's own default is 10350, which is the number every project on this machine is trying not to collide on, so falling back to it silently is worse than not passing the flag.
+
+The Tiltfile asks ports.sh for the rest itself (cluster, registry and where the manifests are), so nothing needs passing here beyond what tilt's own flags require.
+
+## Aliases (kind-up, tilt-up, ...)
+
+Aliases, not a second implementation: each one calls the same script the canonical target does.
+
+The header argues for `make cluster down` over `make cluster-down`, and that still holds *within* the Makefile. But rig is one repo among several on the same machine, and every other one answers to kind-up / tilt-up. Muscle memory spanning six projects beats internal tidiness in one, so both spellings work.
+
+`cluster list` and `cluster free` have no hyphenated twin on purpose: they are rig's own, with nothing to be consistent with.
+
+Nothing outside the Makefile reads these names: the script is `ctrl/cluster.sh` and it takes the verb. So rename them, delete the ones you never type, or add the spelling your own projects use. An alias is two lines, and adding one costs nothing but a line in .PHONY.
--- a/rig/docs/notes/Tiltfile.md
+++ b/rig/docs/notes/Tiltfile.md
@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+# ctrl/Tiltfile
+
+## Purpose and ownership
+
+This file ships with rig and works unedited: rig's own k8s/base already boots, so `make tilt` comes up with a running cluster and no editing at all. What it deploys is two EXAMPLES — replace them, and add your own images and resources in the two marked sections near the bottom. The catalogue after them has the blocks to paste, with the parts that are easy to get wrong already commented.
+
+rig supplies this file; it does not own it. Nothing in rig reads it back, and nothing here is regenerated — edit it freely, the way you would edit k8s/base/example-mock.yaml. rig owns the machine, you own the workload.
+
+## Nothing hardcoded to this directory
+
+Nothing in the Tiltfile is hardcoded to this directory, deliberately. Every other project here writes its slug into the Tiltfile five or six times by hand, so a copy of the project deploys into the original's cluster until someone remembers to edit all of them. A rig is meant to be copied and renamed, so it asks instead.
+
+## Who we are, and on which ports
+
+One question to rig, answered by ctrl/ports.sh, which resolves it through lib/config.sh — the same path every other rig script takes. That is the point: the cluster name is NOT the bare directory name (it is lowercased and reduced to a DNS label), and the ports honour anything pinned in ctrl/.env. Recomputing either of those here in Starlark is how two copies end up disagreeing about which cluster they are talking to.
+
+## Where the manifests live
+
+rig's own manifests are the default; point MANIFESTS_DIR in ctrl/.env at an overlay versioned somewhere else and rig stops owning them — see k8s/README.md. Real manifests usually change on a different cadence, by different people, under different review.
+
+The value is REPO-ROOT relative, because that is the root everything else in rig is expressed against. The Tiltfile runs in ctrl/, so prefix rather than assume: `'../' + 'ctrl/k8s/overlays/dev'` and `'../' + '../platform/overlays/dev'` are both right, where stripping a leading `ctrl/` would only fix the first.
+
+## Refuse to deploy into the wrong cluster
+
+Tilt snapshots the kubectl context at startup, BEFORE parsing this file, so it cannot be switched from here — only refused. `make tilt` passes --context for you; the guard catches a bare `tilt up` after some other project moved the global context.
+
+## Images go to this environment's own registry
+
+Fail closed. Tilt can usually infer the kind registry on its own, but "usually" is an inference, and when it misses, an unqualified name like `app` quietly means docker.io/library/app — a push to the public index instead of the registry two lines away. rig runs that registry; name it.
+
+## Catalogue
+
+The catalogue holds the shapes that recur across every project here, with the reasoning kept next to them. They are comments so the file runs as-is.
+
+## Catalogue: build an image
+
+The one genuinely non-obvious thing in the whole corpus: `context` and `dockerfile` are relative to DIFFERENT directories, in adjacent arguments, and nothing warns you.
+
+- `context=` the REPO ROOT — the Tiltfile is in ctrl/, so `'..'`
+- `dockerfile=` relative to THIS file — so `'Dockerfile.api'` is ctrl/Dockerfile.api
+
+Every COPY inside those Dockerfiles is therefore repo-root relative: a file sitting BESIDE the Dockerfile is still reached as `COPY ctrl/nginx.conf`.
+
+## Catalogue: reload the gateway when its config changes
+
+A Caddyfile arriving via configMapGenerator with disableNameSuffixHash does NOT roll the pod — the ConfigMap name never changes, so nothing tells the Deployment anything happened. Without the `gateway-reload` local_resource you edit the routes and watch nothing take effect.
+
+## Catalogue: reach a service directly, bypassing the gateway
+
+For a DB client or an admin UI. Prefer routing through the gateway: host ports are a single shared namespace across every project on this machine, which is why rig derives a block per environment in the first place. If you do need one, take it from this environment's own block rather than picking a number.
--- a/rig/docs/notes/addons.md
+++ b/rig/docs/notes/addons.md
@@ -0,0 +1,73 @@
+# ctrl/addons.sh and ctrl/addons/*.sh
+
+## addons.sh
+
+Each addon is its own idempotent script in `ctrl/addons/` — adding one is adding
+a file, not editing a dispatcher.
+
+## airflow.sh
+
+Airflow needs a metadata database before it will start at all, so the script
+refuses rather than rolls a pod that will CrashLoopBackOff while the real problem
+(postgres missing from `ADDONS`) stays invisible in the logs.
+
+One pod on `standalone`, matching the compose cabinet: migration, admin user,
+scheduler and webserver in a single container. The official chart's five
+deployments model an installation; switching this on means wanting pipelines.
+
+## cert-manager.sh
+
+In a regulated estate almost everything is TLS, so the interesting question
+during onboarding is "does this service present a cert my client trusts" — not
+"can I reach a public ACME server". A local CA answers that offline, which is
+also what makes the air-gapped profile usable.
+
+## metallb.sh — why it matters
+
+Real manifests use LoadBalancer, because a real cluster has one. On a bare kind
+cluster those Services sit at `EXTERNAL-IP <pending>` forever with no error
+anywhere — the deployment looks fine and simply is not reachable. Without MetalLB,
+every such Service has to be edited to NodePort, which means the local manifests
+stop matching the ones being modelled.
+
+The address pool is derived from the kind Docker network at install time, not
+hardcoded: Docker picks that subnet, it differs between machines, and a pool
+outside it is silently unroutable.
+
+## metallb.sh — waiting for the controller
+
+`kubectl wait` on a selector errors out immediately when nothing matches yet, and
+right after apply the ReplicaSet has not created the pod — so it loses a race it
+looks like it should win. `rollout status` waits for the Deployment itself and
+handles the not-yet-created case.
+
+## metrics-server.sh
+
+kind nodes serve kubelet metrics over a self-signed cert, so the standard
+manifest never becomes ready without `--kubelet-insecure-tls`. That is fine here
+(it is a local cluster) and is the single most common reason metrics-server sits
+at 0/1 on kind.
+
+## postgres.sh — cabinets
+
+A cabinet is a public service dropped into the environment as-is — the upstream
+image, unmodified, reachable at a known address. `postgres.sh` is the cluster
+half of it; the compose half is a `service.yml` beside a `cabinet.json`. The
+declaration is made once and both paths read it, so nothing is remembered twice.
+
+## postgres.sh — plain manifests, one replica
+
+Plain manifests rather than a helm chart, matching the other addons: a chart repo
+is a network dependency, and the offline example profile exists precisely so
+there is a path with none. The image is pinned in `ctrl/versions.env` and can be
+preloaded into a local registry like every other image here.
+
+One replica on a PVC. This models a dependency for local work, not a
+highly-available database, and pretending otherwise on a kind node would be a
+more elaborate lie rather than a more useful one.
+
+## redis.sh
+
+Cache, and the broker anything queue-shaped runs on. No persistence: a broker
+that loses its queue on restart is the honest local model, and a PVC here buys
+nothing but a volume to clean up.
--- a/rig/docs/notes/check.md
+++ b/rig/docs/notes/check.md
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+# ctrl/check.sh
+
+## Purpose
+
+Readiness check: is this machine ready to run rig?
+
+It reports and instructs; it never silently fixes anything. Everything it finds is either already fine, or something a human has to decide on.
+
+Runs ctrl/deps.sh host detection in a container when Docker is the only thing installed, or directly when the toolchain is already present. Then adds the checks that need this repo's config: profile sanity, CA trust, port clashes.
+
+## memory
+
+A profile on a box that is already full is the most common first failure, and it presents as pods stuck Pending rather than anything that says "memory". The check warns; it never blocks. Whether to try anyway is the user's call.
+
+## mb_of
+
+MEMINFO and OVERCOMMIT_FILE exist only so the tight and does-not-fit branches can be exercised against another machine's real numbers; in normal use they are the kernel's own files.
+
+## NODE_MB
+
+NODE_MB (what one node costs) comes from load_config (lib/config.sh), where its measurement is recorded. It lives there, not here, because the memory tool and every standalone kit need the same number: a copy of it is how rigmini.sh came to say 2 GB per node long after rig had measured 800 MB.
+
+## container_mb
+
+Every running container's working set in MB, tagged with the kind cluster it belongs to ('-' when it is not kind). docker stats reports usage minus page cache, which is what actually competes: cache is handed back under pressure. Counting only kind would hide the usual culprit on a managed workspace, where the memory is held by other containers entirely.
+
+## ours_mb / still_mb
+
+Once this environment's own cluster is running, its real footprint is already out of MemAvailable and the per-node estimate stops being relevant. Subtracting the measurement from the estimate would count the same memory twice, and a running cluster that happens to sit under 800 MB would still "need" the gap.
+
+## ports: our own cluster
+
+A port held by THIS environment's own cluster is not a clash; it is the thing working. Reporting it as a problem every time the cluster is up would train people to ignore this section, which is the opposite of the point.
+
+The ports are extracted with a second grep rather than `tr -d ':->'`: in tr, ':->' is the character RANGE ':' to '>', which does not contain '-', so the trailing dash survives and nothing ever matches.
+
+## Compact by default
+
+`make check` prints one line per question — host, toolchain, and for this rig: cluster, memory,
+ports, registry, addons — and adds detail only where something needs attention (`!` lines, the
+"held elsewhere" list when memory is tight, the clashing port). `make check all` prints every fact,
+as the full report did before 2026-09-17. `deps.sh detect all` is the same switch for the host part,
+so the standalone `rigdeps.sh detect` is short too. Changed because the long report buried the few
+lines that mattered.
--- a/rig/docs/notes/cluster.md
+++ b/rig/docs/notes/cluster.md
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+# ctrl/cluster.sh
+
+## Why list and free live here
+
+`list` and `free` live in `cluster.sh` rather than in a separate script because a
+near-identical second name (cluster / clusters) is a trap — you reach for one and
+get the other. One target, one file, unambiguous subcommands.
+
+## Idempotent means convergent
+
+"Idempotent" here means convergent, not "exits early if the cluster exists".
+That distinction matters: an interrupted first run can leave a cluster created
+but not finished, and returning early on the re-run would strand it there. The
+create step is conditional; every step after it always runs, and each one is
+individually idempotent.
--- a/rig/docs/notes/config.md
+++ b/rig/docs/notes/config.md
@@ -0,0 +1,99 @@
+# ctrl/lib/config.sh
+
+## Purpose and precedence
+
+The ecosystem convention is that scripts are standalone with no shared log library, and that still holds. This file is not a logging lib; it is the single definition of how the config layers compose, which every script has to agree on exactly. Precedence, weakest first:
+
+```
+built-in defaults      in load_config; fill only what nothing else set
+ctrl/versions.env      pinned toolchain + image digests   (committed)
+ctrl/env.d/<profile>   addons, registry (OPTIONAL, examples ship as *.env.example)
+ctrl/.env              machine-local values and secrets   (gitignored)
+the caller's env       `make cluster up PROFILE=<name>`   (always wins)
+```
+
+That last rule is why this is more than a few `source` lines: .env sets PROFILE, so without snapshotting it would silently override the PROFILE the user just typed on the command line.
+
+Run from ctrl/.
+
+## CONFIG_OVERRIDABLE
+
+Values a user can reasonably override per-invocation. Anything set in the environment when load_config runs is restored after the files are read. NODES is deliberately NOT here: it is read back out of the kind config, so the file is the one place that decides it.
+
+REGISTRY_PORT and MANIFESTS_DIR were missing here while ctrl/.env set them, so the caller's env silently LOST to the file for those two, breaking the one precedence rule the header states. Both are now listed; the other twelve are unchanged.
+
+## default_cluster_name
+
+The containing folder's name, reduced to something kind accepts as a cluster name (a DNS label: lowercase alphanumerics and dashes). Run from ctrl/, so the repo root is the parent.
+
+## derive_port_base
+
+Base of this environment's 10-port block. cksum is used rather than $RANDOM or bash hashing because it is POSIX and returns the same value on every machine, which is what makes the block reproducible instead of merely unique.
+
+## load_config: RIG_PORTABLE
+
+RIG_PORTABLE skips the machine-local layer. config_snapshot sets it, so a generated standalone kit never carries this machine's .env, which holds local values and, by its own description, secrets.
+
+## load_config: profiles are optional
+
+A profile is an optional overlay, never a prerequisite. rig assumes no configuration: with no profile named, or no env.d/ at all, it runs on the built-in defaults. What IS an error is naming a profile that does not exist, because a typo must not quietly fall back to something else.
+
+## load_config: identity follows the folder
+
+Identity follows the FOLDER, so copying this directory somewhere else and renaming it yields a distinct environment with no further edits. Without this, two copies would share one cluster and `make cluster down` in either would destroy the other's.
+
+## load_config: host ports
+
+Host ports are a single shared namespace, so unlike the cluster name they cannot just follow the directory; they have to be spread out. Anything already set (ctrl/.env, a profile, the command line) wins; only the gaps are filled. See [ports.md](ports.md) for the reasoning.
+
+## load_config: MANIFESTS_DIR
+
+Where the workload's manifests live, repo-root relative. Defaulted here so it is always resolved rather than sometimes-set: it is the seam that lets the real manifests be versioned away from the installer, and a consumer should not have to know whether anyone filled it in. See k8s/README.md.
+
+## load_config: NODE_MB
+
+What one node costs, measured rather than guessed. On 2026-09-11 a minimal control-plane node ran at 620 MiB idle and ~728 MiB with a small mock, plus 16 MiB for the local registry: ~745 MiB of working set. 800 rounds that up, and agrees with the 800 MB observed independently on a larger rig. Worker nodes carry no etcd or apiserver and are lighter, so for a multi-node shape this errs high. It is the cluster alone: whatever you deploy comes on top.
+
+It is set here rather than in check.sh because the memory tool and every standalone kit need the same figure.
+
+## render_kind_config
+
+Renders the kind config to stdout. sed rather than envsubst: envsubst is gettext-base, absent from a minimal Debian, and Docker is meant to be the only prerequisite. The variable list is explicit so a template cannot quietly start depending on something the caller does not set.
+
+hostPath entries are resolved by the HOST dockerd, so HOST_WORKDIR must stay a host path even when this runs inside the installer container.
+
+## What a standalone kit needs to know
+
+The kit generator (ctrl/standalone.sh) asks these questions so that it never has to know how configuration is stored. Where profiles live, which files are layered and what is derived are config.sh's business and can change freely; the generator only calls these functions.
+
+## config_profiles
+
+Every configuration rig can be run as, one per line: each profile file, or, when there are none, `default`, the built-in configuration load_config uses when no profile is named. Never empty, because rig never needs a profile.
+
+## config_snapshot
+
+The resolved configuration, as `declare -p` lines: exactly what load_config leaves behind, minus the machine-local layer. A kit freezes this in place of load_config, so it carries rig's decisions and not this machine's secrets.
+
+```
+config_snapshot <profile>   that profile, as any machine would resolve it
+config_snapshot --current   what THIS machine runs: every overridable key as
+                            resolved here, handed back in as if typed on the
+                            command line, over the same portable resolution.
+                            Values derived from those choices follow them;
+                            anything else the local layer set (credentials)
+                            is not carried. config_left_out names it.
+```
+
+Found by difference, not by a list: whatever load_config sets today, it sets. A list here would be one more place to forget a variable.
+
+## config_left_out
+
+What an export of this machine's configuration does NOT carry, by name only: keys the machine-local layer sets that are not choices a caller may override. They are this machine's own (registry and mirror credentials, mostly), so the target has to be told to supply them. Values are never printed.
+
+## config_freeze
+
+A replacement for load_config with a resolution frozen in (a profile, or --current; see config_snapshot), printed as a function definition for a standalone kit to carry. The generator embeds whatever this prints and interprets none of it, so what "frozen" means stays rig's decision.
+
+It keeps load_config's one stated rule: the caller's env wins for anything in CONFIG_OVERRIDABLE. A kit therefore behaves like rig (`OUT_BIN=... rigdeps.sh` still works) rather than like a copy with everything pinned.
+
+What freezing does give up, knowingly: values DERIVED from an overridable one are fixed at generation. Override CLUSTER and the ports stay the ones derived for the original name. Re-deriving would mean carrying the layering itself, which is exactly what a kit exists not to need.
--- a/rig/docs/notes/deps.md
+++ b/rig/docs/notes/deps.md
@@ -0,0 +1,158 @@
+# ctrl/deps.sh
+
+## Purpose and safety
+
+Toolchain installer: detect the host, install a pinned toolchain onto it, then report what it could not do.
+
+It never runs the cluster, never uses sudo or apt, and writes only into `$OUT_BIN` (default `~/.local/bin`). Everything that would touch the host proper — systemd, inotify limits, `.wslconfig`, docker group — is REPORTED for a human to decide on, never performed. That is what makes it safe to run on a machine that already has a working setup.
+
+## Usage
+
+Normally via `make deps`, or directly:
+
+```
+deps.sh detect            # report host facts only, change nothing
+deps.sh list              # the pinned versions
+deps.sh verify [core|dev] # run what is installed and see if it works
+deps.sh fetch [core|dev] [--to DIR]   # download + verify into DIR
+deps.sh install [core|dev]            # detect, fetch, install, report
+```
+
+Tiers: `core` is kubectl + jq (talk to a cluster); `dev` adds kind and tilt. Default is dev.
+
+## Container vs bare host
+
+Runs both inside the installer container and bare on a host. Inside the container, host files are read through `$HOST_ROOT` (mount `/` as `:ro`); bare, it falls back to `/`.
+
+Host FILES (`/etc/...`, `/mnt/c/...`) must be read through the mount. Kernel-level facts (kernel version, meminfo, inotify) are shared with the container, so the container's own view is already the host's.
+
+## INVOKED_FROM
+
+Keep the caller's cwd so a relative `--to` resolves where the user expects, not against `ctrl/` once we've moved.
+
+## load_config
+
+Pins arrive through `load_config` like every other setting, not by sourcing `versions.env` here. That is what lets `make standalone` freeze them into a one-file installer: configuration has exactly one way in.
+
+## mb_of
+
+A `/proc/meminfo` field in MB, 0 if the field is absent. `MEMINFO` exists so the tight and does-not-fit branches can be exercised against a real machine's numbers from somewhere else; in normal use it is always `/proc/meminfo`.
+
+## require_amd64
+
+The pins are amd64. Rather than download something that cannot execute and let it fail as "cannot execute binary file: Exec format error", say so here and hand over the commands that produce the right checksums.
+
+## pkg_install_cmd
+
+This never runs a package manager. It names one so the reported action is something you can paste, on the distro you are actually on — an apt line on Amazon Linux 2 is a wrong answer dressed up as help.
+
+## require_linux
+
+Windows outside WSL — Git Bash, MSYS, Cygwin — looks close enough to work and then fails in a pile of confusing ways: no /proc, no docker socket, none of the tooling. Detectable, so name it instead.
+
+## detect: memory
+
+In MB. Whole gigabytes lose nearly half a GB on exactly the machines where it matters: 1874 MB available used to print as "1 GB". Facts only — whether that is enough depends on the profile, which `check.sh` knows and this does not.
+
+## detect: overcommit
+
+How the kernel answers an allocation it cannot really satisfy. With 1 it always says yes and settles up later with the OOM killer, so a cluster that starts cleanly can still lose processes afterwards.
+
+## detect_wsl: systemd
+
+systemd is off by default in WSL, and the ingress/DNS paths that use a host service need it. Enabling it requires a Windows-side restart, which cannot be issued from inside the distro.
+
+## watch_hostile_fs
+
+Not a path check: `/mnt` is an ordinary mount point and an ext4 disk mounted there is perfectly fine. What matters is the filesystem. The Windows drives arrive as 9p (WSL2) or drvfs (WSL1); network and fuse mounts behave the same way. None of them deliver inotify events, so anything watching files goes quiet without saying why.
+
+## detect_libc
+
+tilt is the one binary here that needs a recent glibc. MEASURED, not guessed: tilt 0.37.6 on Amazon Linux 2 (glibc 2.26) fails with
+
+```
+/lib64/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.34' not found (required by .../tilt)
+```
+
+which names a symbol rather than the problem. Amazon Linux 2 is a stock WorkSpaces bundle, so this is the likely case, not an exotic one. Report the version now; `verify` catches the actual failure after installing.
+
+## detect_prereqs
+
+What this script needs to do its own job. Reported here so `detect` answers "will install work?" instead of leaving you to find out one download in. Amazon Linux 2 ships without tar, which is exactly the surprise this catches.
+
+## detect_docker
+
+Reachability of the daemon is the real question, and the CLI is only how we ask it. When this runs inside the installer container, Docker necessarily exists on the host — otherwise nothing would be executing — so a missing CLI in there is an installer packaging bug, not a host problem.
+
+The kind-node count check must be an `if`, not `[ ] && echo`: as the last statement in the function the latter returns 1 when the count is zero, and `set -e` then kills the caller. That is the fresh-machine case — no clusters yet — so the bug only ever shows up where it does most harm.
+
+## fetch_tgz: --no-same-owner
+
+Extracting as root would otherwise restore the uid/gid baked into the archive (some ship as uid 1001), leaving a binary the host user does not own.
+
+## fix_ownership
+
+The installer runs as root so it can reach the docker socket, which means everything it writes into a mounted volume lands root-owned and unusable from the host. Hand it back to whoever owns the mount point (the host user created that directory before mounting it).
+
+kind writes the kubeconfig as root too; `fetch` hands that back as well when it's a mounted host directory rather than container-local state.
+
+## Tiers (CORE_TOOLS, DEV_TOOLS)
+
+Two tiers, because not every machine should get cluster tooling.
+
+- `core` — kubectl, jq: talk to a cluster someone else runs. Nothing that creates one. Appropriate on a managed or corporate-issued machine where development tools are not wanted by default.
+- `dev` — core plus kind and tilt: build clusters and hot-reload into them.
+
+The split exists because "install the toolchain" is not one decision: on a managed workspace the right answer is kubectl and nothing else.
+
+No helm: every addon installs with `kubectl apply -f <url>`, so nothing here has ever invoked it. Add it back the day something actually needs a chart.
+
+ctlptl is `dev` rather than `core` for the same reason kind is: core is "talk to a cluster someone else runs", and ctlptl builds them. It earns its place because it is what wires a cluster to a local registry — without one, an unqualified image name resolves to `docker.io/library/<name>` and there is nothing structural stopping a push there.
+
+docker-compose is `dev` for the same reason, and is here because the distro docker packages ship the daemon and CLI but frequently not the compose plugin — so `docker compose up` fails with "unknown command" on an otherwise working Docker, and nothing about that message names the missing piece.
+
+## What is already on this machine (pin_of)
+
+A tool already on PATH at its pinned version is left where it is. Without this, install downloads a second copy into `OUT_BIN` and then reports the first one as shadowed — noise, and wrong, when both are the same version. That is the normal state of any machine someone set up by hand, whatever directory they happened to choose.
+
+## reported_version
+
+Each tool spells the version question differently, and kubectl has to be told `--client` or it goes looking for a server to ask.
+
+## version_matches
+
+Matched as a whole version token, so 0.37.6 never matches 10.37.60, with the leading v optional either side: kind says v0.32.0, jq says jq-1.8.2, and tilt says v0.37.6 against a pin of 0.37.6.
+
+Bash's own regex rather than grep, deliberately. grep is not the same program on every machine — some builds reject patterns that others accept — and a failed grep inside a count reads exactly like a zero.
+
+## want / DEPS_ONLY
+
+`DEPS_ONLY` narrows a fetch to the tools it names. Unset means the whole tier, which is what an explicit `deps.sh fetch` always gets: "download these into DIR" must not quietly skip something because this machine happens to have it. Only `install()` sets it, to what `detect_toolchain` found missing or mismatched.
+
+## detect_toolchain: compose
+
+compose is the one tool that is normally NOT a binary on PATH. It is a docker CLI plugin, so a machine where `docker compose` works perfectly has no `docker-compose` to find — and probing only PATH would report it missing and re-download a copy that is already there. That is the exact noise the version-aware skip exists to prevent, so ask docker instead.
+
+## verify_tools
+
+Installing into a directory that sits early in PATH silently replaces whatever the machine was already using — which on a shared or client machine can break unrelated work (kubectl more than one minor away from a cluster is the common one). Say so; never decide it for them.
+
+Downloading a verified binary proves it is the right file, not that this machine can run it. On an old distro tilt fails here, with a linker error about a missing symbol, and finding that out now beats finding out during a first cluster build.
+
+Output is not piped into `head`. With `pipefail` set, a tool that prints more than one line gets SIGPIPE when head closes the pipe, and the pipeline reports 141 — so a working kubectl was announced as "does not run here", with its own correct version string as the evidence. The first line is taken afterwards, from the string.
+
+## install_compose_plugin
+
+A copy in `OUT_BIN` only gives you `docker-compose`. That hyphenated form is the retired v1 spelling; every compose file written in the last few years assumes `docker compose`, which resolves plugins BY NAME out of a plugin directory. So the binary is fetched like any other and then linked, in your own home — no root, and nothing outside it.
+
+If something else already owns that name — docker-desktop and some distro packages install a real file there — overwriting it would take the plugin away from whatever put it there, so say so and let the user decide.
+
+## install
+
+The plugin is linked only when compose was one of the things fetched: linking a binary that is already satisfied elsewhere on PATH would point the plugin at a copy rig did not install.
+
+The "put OUT_BIN on PATH" advice is only worth giving when something actually landed in `OUT_BIN`. When every tool was satisfied elsewhere, `OUT_BIN` may reasonably be off PATH, and telling the user to add it would be advice to fix nothing.
+
+## main: argument shift
+
+Read the command, THEN shift — and shift only if there is something there. A bare `shift` with no positional parameters returns 1, and under `set -e` that ended the script before a single line was printed: running this with no arguments at all, the documented default, did nothing and said nothing.
--- a/rig/docs/notes/docs.md
+++ b/rig/docs/notes/docs.md
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+# ctrl/docs.sh
+
+## Serving without the cluster or python
+
+The docs are the instructions for building the cluster, so they must work before
+anything else exists. That rules out serving them from the cluster, and it rules
+out `python -m http.server` too — a minimal Debian has no python3. What it does
+have, by definition, is Docker: the single prerequisite rig already demands. So a
+throwaway nginx container serves a read-only bind mount.
+
+## Committed SVGs
+
+Rendered SVGs are committed alongside their `.dot` sources for the same reason:
+the pages have to read on a machine with no Graphviz installed.
--- a/rig/docs/notes/env.md
+++ b/rig/docs/notes/env.md
@@ -0,0 +1,74 @@
+# ctrl/.env.example, ctrl/env.d/*.env.example
+
+## ctrl/.env.example: header
+
+Machine-local config. Copy to ctrl/.env (gitignored) and edit. The cluster SHAPE is an optional profile in ctrl/env.d/ — see the *.env.example there. The architecture MODEL lives in arch/<name>.json — not in .env either.
+
+## ctrl/.env.example: CLUSTER
+
+The kubectl context becomes kind-<CLUSTER>. LEAVE THIS UNSET unless you need a name that differs from the directory — it defaults to this folder's name, which is what makes the folder copyable: copy it, rename it, and you get a separate environment with no edits.
+
+## ctrl/.env.example: host ports
+
+LEAVE UNSET — they derive from the directory name so several environments coexist without negotiating (see ctrl/ports.sh). `make check` shows this environment's block; `bash ctrl/ports.sh persist` writes it into ctrl/.env so it stops being derived and becomes fixed. Set a value only to override.
+
+## ctrl/.env.example: MANIFESTS_DIR
+
+Where the application manifests live. The real ones are expected to be versioned separately from this installer — they change on a different cadence, by different people. Repoint this at their repo and rig stops owning them:
+
+    MANIFESTS_DIR=../platform-manifests/overlays/dev
+
+## ctrl/.env.example: DEPS_SOURCE
+
+Where the installer fetches the pinned binaries from.
+
+- `upstream` — GitHub releases / dl.k8s.io (needs internet)
+- `artifactory` — a generic repo; what a locked-down client usually allows
+- `baked` — already inside the installer image; no network at all
+
+## ctrl/.env.example: registry secrets
+
+The registry mode comes from the profile (REGISTRY_MODE). REGISTRY_REMOTE_URL, REGISTRY_USER and REGISTRY_PASSWORD are the secrets it needs, required for mirror/remote.
+
+## ctrl/.env.example: REGISTRY_CA_FILE
+
+Corporate root CA, if Artifactory is fronted by an internal CA (it usually is). Trust has to reach THREE places and nothing does it for you: the host docker daemon, every kind node's containerd, and any in-cluster client. registry.sh handles the first two; check.sh reports when it's configured but not trusted. Symptom when missing: `x509: certificate signed by unknown authority`.
+
+## env.d/*.env.example: profiles in general
+
+EXAMPLE PROFILES. rig needs none of these: with no profile it runs on its built-in defaults (lib/config.sh). To use one, copy it to <name>.env in ctrl/env.d/ and name it — PROFILE=<name> in ctrl/.env, or on the command line. It then overlays the defaults; anything it does not set, they still supply.
+
+## env.d/client.env.example
+
+client — images through a pull-through cache of the corporate registry, with TLS and metrics addons. More nodes or port mappings: edit k8s/kind-config.yaml.tpl.
+
+### Real ports (80/443)
+
+Ports derive from the directory name by default (see ctrl/ports.sh), so several environments run side by side.
+
+Opt in to the real ports only when this is the ONLY environment and nothing else owns :80. They fail to bind otherwise, and docker reports it as an opaque "failed to bind host port 0.0.0.0:80/tcp: address already in use" halfway through cluster creation. `make check` checks before you spend the time. Uncommenting also means only one environment can exist at a time.
+
+## env.d/data.env.example
+
+data — databases and a scheduler for an environment that needs them: postgres, redis and airflow, each an upstream image run unmodified.
+
+Everything lands in the `data` namespace (DATA_NAMESPACE to move it), so `make cluster reset` on the app namespace leaves the databases alone.
+
+Costs roughly 2-3 GB with airflow, under 1 without. Airflow's first boot runs the whole metadata migration, so expect a few minutes before it is ready.
+
+### Postgres password
+
+The password is not in the profile: postgres.sh generates one on first install and keeps it across re-runs, so re-running the addon never rotates the credential out from under whatever is already connected.
+
+### Reaching the databases
+
+Ports derive from the directory name by default — see ctrl/ports.sh. Reach the databases with port-forward rather than binding more host ports:
+
+    kubectl -n data port-forward svc/postgres 5432:5432
+    kubectl -n data port-forward svc/airflow 8080:8080
+
+## env.d/offline.env.example
+
+offline — air-gapped. Everything comes from a local registry that was loaded ahead of time; nothing reaches the internet. Pair with the deps-full image (DEPS_SOURCE=baked) so the toolchain install is offline too.
+
+The heavier addons are left out to keep first boot viable.
--- a/rig/docs/notes/kind-config.md
+++ b/rig/docs/notes/kind-config.md
@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+# ctrl/k8s/kind-config.yaml.tpl
+
+## Why a template
+
+The cluster: one node by default — add nodes or port mappings by editing the file, then `make cluster reset`.
+
+It is a TEMPLATE rather than a plain kind-config.yaml because a rig is copied and renamed to make a second environment, and both the cluster name and the host port follow the directory. A checked-in literal would make every copy collide on both. ctrl/cluster.sh renders it with sed — not envsubst, which is gettext-base and absent from a minimal Debian, and rig's whole premise is that Docker is the only prerequisite.
+
+## Substituted variables
+
+Substituted by ctrl/cluster.sh: CLUSTER, NODE_IMAGE, HTTP_PORT, HOST_WORKDIR. The header comment names them without the `${...}` braces so that line survives the substitution.
+
+## Node count
+
+The node count is READ BACK from this file by lib/config.sh, so this YAML is the source of truth for it — there is no second place to update.
+
+## containerdConfigPatches
+
+Point containerd at a certs.d directory. registry.sh drops per-host hosts.toml files in there afterwards, so switching registry mode never requires recreating the cluster.
+
+## extraPortMappings
+
+One NodePort bridged to the host; an in-cluster gateway owns it. There is deliberately no ingress controller — they pin a narrow window of k8s versions, and running a trailing-edge control plane is the point.
--- a/rig/docs/notes/mem.md
+++ b/rig/docs/notes/mem.md
@@ -0,0 +1,96 @@
+# ctrl/mem.sh
+
+## Purpose
+
+How much memory this machine will actually give you before something dies. This is rig's memory tool, and the standalone rigmini.sh is generated from this file.
+
+There are two numbers and they are rarely the same. `status` reports what the machine ADVERTISES and what is quietly capping it. `push` finds what it will SURVIVE, by allocating until it stops. `all` does both and weighs the result against what this profile's cluster needs.
+
+The gap between them is the whole reason this exists. Under WSL the cap lives in .wslconfig; in a container or a managed workspace it is a cgroup limit, and there /proc/meminfo reports the HOST's memory while the kernel kills you at a fraction of it. A script that only read MemTotal would confidently report 32 GB on a box that OOMs at 2.
+
+Runs on native Linux and under WSL. On WSL the memory you see is a VM allocation that can be raised, and the commonest failure is raising it without restarting, so status compares what .wslconfig says with what actually booted.
+
+It reports and instructs. It never raises a limit, frees anything or installs a package. The one write it can make is `backup`, which copies .wslconfig beside itself, so that `restore` has something to put back after a hand edit.
+
+Usage:
+
+```
+mem.sh status                                  what it has, what caps it
+mem.sh push [--to GB] [--to-oom]               climb until it stops
+mem.sh all  [--budget GB]                      both, then the verdict
+mem.sh backup | restore                        .wslconfig, WSL only
+```
+
+## require_linux
+
+Windows outside WSL (Git Bash, MSYS, Cygwin) looks close enough to work and then fails in a pile of confusing ways: no /proc, no docker socket, none of the tooling. It is detectable, so name it instead.
+
+## CG_MAX_FILE / CG_CUR_FILE
+
+Where a cgroup records this cgroup's own limit and usage. Set once by find_cgroup, because every later reading needs both, and hunting for the files on each call would be the slow part of the poll loop.
+
+## find_cgroup
+
+Inside a container the cgroup namespace makes the top of the tree BE the container's own cgroup, so the unqualified path is already the right one. On a host it is the root cgroup, which is never limited; hence the second attempt via /proc/self/cgroup, which names the slice this shell is in.
+
+## cgroup_cap_mb
+
+Returns the cap in MB, or "" when there is none worth reporting. cgroup v2 spells unlimited "max"; v1 spells it as a number near 2^63, which is why this compares against MemTotal rather than testing for a magic value. A "limit" above the machine's own memory is not a limit, however it is written.
+
+## headroom_mb
+
+How much room is left RIGHT NOW, from whichever accounting actually governs. In a capped container /proc/meminfo describes the host and is worse than useless for this: it would report tens of gigabytes free on a box that is one allocation from being killed.
+
+## wslconfig_path
+
+/mnt/c/Users can hold several real accounts (a renamed login leaves the old directory behind), so picking the first alphabetically is a coin toss. Ask Windows, then fall back to whichever profile actually owns a config.
+
+## status: overcommit
+
+overcommit_memory=0 is the default heuristic: a large allocation is granted on a guess, and the reckoning arrives later as an OOM kill rather than as a failed malloc. It is why `push` touches every page it asks for.
+
+## status: WSL
+
+WSL keeps its cap on the Windows side, in a file this shell can read but not usefully apply: the change costs a full VM restart. Report it, and report the commonest mistake, which is editing it and not restarting.
+
+## backup
+
+Backups are timestamped and never overwritten: a backup that can destroy itself on a second run is not a backup.
+
+## restore
+
+Newest is the right default (undo the last edit), but if you backed up *after* editing, the state you want is older. The rest are shown so a no-op restore is obviously a no-op rather than a mystery.
+
+## allocator
+
+The child allocates and stops itself; the parent only watches. That split is the point: under --to-oom the allocating process is expected to be killed, and something has to survive to say how far it got.
+
+### OOM score
+
+The child raises its own OOM score to the maximum so the kernel picks THIS process first. Raising needs no privilege (only lowering does). Without it, the kernel is free to choose your shell, your ssh session or dockerd; on a box you are still using, that is not an acceptable coin toss.
+
+### Writing straight into the array element
+
+Each chunk is written STRAIGHT INTO the array element (`printf -v "arr[$i]"`). The obvious spelling, building one chunk and `arr+=("$chunk")`, costs three copies per step, not one: the template stays resident, expanding "$chunk" makes a temporary word, and the append makes the element. A 128 MB step then needs 384 MB transiently, and on a small box it is killed on the first append while reporting a third of the true ceiling.
+
+printf -v into a subscript also means every page is written, so it is resident rather than merely promised: the only kind of allocation that measures anything under heuristic overcommit.
+
+### First swap
+
+Worth calling out separately from the ceiling: this is where the box stops being fast and starts being unusable, which for a scheduler is a different and earlier problem than being killed.
+
+## push: step size
+
+A step is worth about a sixty-fourth of the ceiling: enough resolution to find the edge, few enough lines to read, and small enough that the transient cost of one allocation never dominates a small box. A fixed size cannot do all three: 128 MB is fine on 16 GB and absurd on 512 MB.
+
+## push: floor
+
+Stop with a cushion rather than riding it to the kill. How big a cushion depends on what it is protecting. Under a cgroup cap, running out kills only this container's own processes, so it need cover no more than the shell that prints the result, and a 512 MB cushion on a 1 GB box would halve the answer. On a host there is everything else to protect, and the OOM killer does not promise to pick the process that caused the problem.
+
+## push: Ctrl-C
+
+INT kills the child and lets the summary print anyway, so an impatient Ctrl-C still tells you how far it got and, more importantly, still gives the memory back.
+
+## push: claimed vs. measured
+
+The gap between the claim and the measurement is the finding, but only when the BOX chose where to stop. An empty $stop means the child was ended rather than deciding to end; anything else (--to, the floor) is a stop we asked for, and flagging those as short of the ceiling would put a warning on every deliberately small run.
--- a/rig/docs/notes/ports.md
+++ b/rig/docs/notes/ports.md
@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+# ctrl/ports.sh
+
+## Why each environment gets a port block
+
+New versions of a system mean new clusters on ONE machine, not new machines. Cluster name, kubectl context, registry container and image tag already derive from the directory name, so two copies never collide there, but host ports are a single shared namespace and would.
+
+The block is derived from the directory name: stateless, stable, and requiring no coordination between copies that know nothing about each other.
+
+```
+base = 20000 + (hash(slug) % 200) * 10
+  +0 HTTP   +1 HTTPS   +2 TILT   +3 REGISTRY   (+4..9 reserved)
+```
+
+20000+ deliberately avoids the ports something is already likely to hold: 80, 443, 3000, 5432, 8000, 8080.
+
+Derivation is a default, not a decision. On first use the resolved block is written into ctrl/.env, so it becomes pinned, visible and editable rather than a number that appears from nowhere. Anything already in ctrl/.env wins.
+
+## active
+
+The resolved facts a consumer outside bash needs, machine-readable:
+
+```
+CLUSTER KUBECONTEXT HTTP HTTPS TILT REGISTRY MANIFESTS_DIR
+```
+
+Identity and ports together, because they are one fact set: both derive from the directory name so that copies never collide. A consumer needs all of them or none, and fetching them separately is how two end up disagreeing. MANIFESTS_DIR rides along because the one consumer that needs the addressing is the one that needs to know what to deploy.
+
+Space-separated, so MANIFESTS_DIR must not contain spaces. Everything else in rig already assumes that of paths; kind, docker and kubectl all do.
+
+`derive` answers a DIFFERENT question (what the directory name alone implies) and deliberately ignores ctrl/.env. Configuring anything from it would silently contradict the rule that "anything already in ctrl/.env wins". `active` is what anything downstream should read.
+
+Why this exists at all: the cluster name is not the bare directory name. default_cluster_name() lowercases it and replaces every character outside [a-z0-9-], because it has to be a DNS label. Re-deriving that in another language is how a copy in `My_Project/` ends up guarding the wrong context.
--- a/rig/docs/notes/registry.md
+++ b/rig/docs/notes/registry.md
@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
+# ctrl/registry.sh
+
+## Registry modes
+
+Registry plumbing. This is the seam — not a tool. Four modes, selected by
+`REGISTRY_MODE` in the active profile:
+
+- **none** — Tilt builds straight into the node. No registry at all, and so no
+  guard against an outward push: an unqualified image name means
+  `docker.io/library/<name>`, and only Tilt's kind detection stands between that
+  and a real push. Throwaway use only; every profile here now defaults to `local`
+  instead.
+- **local** — a `registry:2` container wired into the cluster.
+- **mirror** — the same container, but configured as a pull-through cache of the
+  corporate registry. This is what a locked-down client actually looks like:
+  images originate from corp, you don't hammer it, and you keep working when the
+  VPN drops.
+- **remote** — no local container; pull straight from the corporate registry
+  using an imagePullSecret.
+
+## Why a script rather than ctlptl
+
+Deliberately a script rather than a tool. ctlptl collapses the `local` wiring
+into one line, but its Registry spec only accepts name/port/image/listenAddress —
+there is no way to set `REGISTRY_PROXY_REMOTEURL`, so it cannot express `mirror`
+at all. Keeping the seam here is what keeps the corporate registry swappable.
+
+## CA trust (install_ca_into_nodes)
+
+A corporate registry is almost always fronted by an internal CA, and trust has to
+reach three separate places. Nothing does this for you, and the symptom when it's
+missing is an opaque:
+
+    x509: certificate signed by unknown authority
+
+1. the host docker daemon — `/etc/docker/certs.d/<host>/ca.crt` (needs root)
+2. every kind node's containerd — nodes do NOT inherit host trust
+3. anything doing HTTPS from inside the cluster, in its own trust store
+
+`registry.sh` handles (2) because it's ours to handle. (1) is reported by
+`check.sh` since it needs root. (3) belongs to the workload.
--- a/rig/docs/notes/selftest.md
+++ b/rig/docs/notes/selftest.md
@@ -0,0 +1,67 @@
+# ctrl/selftest.sh
+
+## Purpose
+
+What rig has settled, written down as assertions.
+
+These are documentation that runs. Each check is ONE decision that has already been made, with the reason above it: not coverage, and deliberately not an exhaustive sweep of use cases. rig's own index says a rule without its reason gets overridden the first time it is inconvenient; a rule nobody can restate is worse. So the test says what was decided, and failing it should read as "you are about to undo this" rather than "something broke".
+
+Scope, on purpose:
+
+- No cluster, no docker, no network. It must be cheap enough to actually run.
+- It asserts about RIG. `make check` asserts about the MACHINE and never fails; this exits 1, the way `make standalone check` does.
+- What actually deploys is not testable here. `tilt ci` stays a manual step.
+
+## rig needs no profile
+
+rig assumes no configuration. A profile is an overlay on built-in defaults, so a rig with no `env.d/` at all must resolve, report, and still generate a kit. Naming a profile that does not exist must still be an error, because a typo that silently fell back to the defaults would be worse than a failure.
+
+## the ports.sh active contract
+
+`ports.sh active` is read POSITIONALLY by two other files: the Makefile takes `$(word 2)` and `$(word 5)`, the Tiltfile takes `_facts[0]..[6]`. Insert a field in the middle and nothing errors: Tilt simply guards on the wrong context or binds the wrong port. The field count and order are the contract, so they are pinned here rather than left to whoever edits `ports.sh` next.
+
+## the caller's env beats the files
+
+`lib/config.sh` states one precedence rule: `versions.env` < `env.d/<profile>` < `ctrl/.env` < the caller's env. It is enforced by `CONFIG_OVERRIDABLE`, a hand-maintained list, and a key missing from it loses to the file SILENTLY. `REGISTRY_PORT` and `MANIFESTS_DIR` were both missing on 2026-09-13 and were found by accident.
+
+So the loop is generated FROM the list: add a key to `CONFIG_OVERRIDABLE` and the test starts asking about it without anyone remembering to come here. Three keys name something that must exist and are validated at load, so they get a real alternative rather than a sentinel.
+
+## one derivation, not three
+
+The Makefile used to compute the cluster name itself and sed `TILT_PORT` out of `ctrl/.env`: a second derivation of values `lib/config.sh` already owns, which could disagree with it after `ports.sh persist`. It now reads `ports.sh active`. Nothing structurally prevents the sed coming back, so the agreement is asserted against the real `make -n` output rather than against the source.
+
+`--no-print-directory` and a grep, not `tail -1`: run from `make selftest` this is a RECURSIVE make, and the "Entering/Leaving directory" lines go to STDOUT. `tail -1` then reads "make[1]: Leaving directory ..." and both checks fail, but only when invoked through make, never when the script is run directly. A test that passes one way and fails the other is worse than no test.
+
+## identity follows the folder, safely
+
+The cluster name is NOT the bare directory name: kind needs a DNS label, so `default_cluster_name` lowercases it and replaces everything outside `[a-z0-9-]`. Re-deriving that anywhere else is how a copy ends up guarding the wrong context, which is exactly why the Tiltfile asks instead of computing.
+
+## ports are stable across versions
+
+Not a change-detector. The block is derived, never stored, so if the derivation shifts then every EXISTING environment's ports move underneath it: a running cluster keeps its old ports while rig starts reporting new ones, and `ports.sh show` stops describing reality. Anchored to three known names.
+
+## rig stays standalone
+
+rig sits inside a host project's tree but must be copyable straight out of it: no imports, no paths, no assumption the host is there. This grep is the whole test of that claim, and until it was added it lived only in prose and in whoever remembered to run it.
+
+The pattern is assembled from fragments so the file does not match ITSELF. Writing it literally would fail forever; excluding the file instead would put a blind spot in the one check that guards the boundary.
+
+## the Tiltfile hardcodes nothing
+
+Every other Tiltfile on this machine writes its slug in five or six times by hand, so a copied project deploys into the original's cluster until someone edits all of them. rig's asks `ports.sh`. A literal `kind-<name>` in it would mean that has been undone.
+
+## standalone kits are generated and current
+
+The kits under `standalone/<profile>/` are rig flattened into single files, one per profile. A kit left behind by a change to rig is exactly the drift they replaced (`rigmini.sh` once said 2 GB per node long after rig measured 800 MB), so a stale kit fails here rather than waiting to be noticed on another machine.
+
+## kit Makefiles call only real verbs
+
+Each kit's Makefile exists so nothing wrapping these scripts has to GUESS how to call them. A generated Makefile once did guess: `rigmini.sh on`, not a verb, and a bare `rigdeps.sh` for "check and report", which installs. So every target's default verb must be one its script's own dispatch accepts, read from that dispatch, not from a list that could drift from it.
+
+## export carries choices, not credentials
+
+An export is "take the setup I have here somewhere else", so it carries this machine's CHOICES (profile, ports, manifest dir) and never its credentials: `ctrl/.env` can hold registry and mirror logins next to those choices. The committed per-profile kits carry neither, since they must be the same on any machine. Proven with sentinel values in a scratch copy, because the real `ctrl/.env` may have those keys empty, and an empty value proves nothing.
+
+## optional: Tiltfile evaluates
+
+Parsing the Tiltfile for real is the only way to know it still evaluates, but Tilt snapshots a kubectl context before parsing, so it cannot run without a cluster. Skipped rather than failed when there is none, the same way docgen skips its graphgen section.
--- a/rig/docs/notes/standalone.md
+++ b/rig/docs/notes/standalone.md
@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+# ctrl/standalone.sh
+
+## Purpose
+
+Generates the standalone kits: single-file versions of rig's own tools, one folder per profile, for machines the full rig is not going to.
+
+A kit is a pure function of rig as it is right now. It gains nothing rig lacks and loses nothing rig has: improve rig, regenerate, and every kit follows. Nothing in `standalone/<profile>/` is ever edited by hand.
+
+## The contract
+
+What this file does NOT know, on purpose: which tools rig has, what they are called, how its libraries are split, where configuration lives or what it contains. Rig will change shape (scripts get split, renamed and grow new libraries), and a generator that encoded today's layout would quietly produce a wrong kit the first time it did. So it works from a contract a script opts into, and from nothing else:
+
+1. A marker comment, alone on a line near the top, declares an entry point: `(hash) rig:standalone <kit-name> <default-verb>`. The default verb must only REPORT: it is run as a smoke test.
+2. Every `source` an entry point makes names a `.sh` file by a path that resolves relative to the entry point. Libraries may source further libraries however they like; bash follows those itself.
+3. Configuration enters through `load_config`, and the libraries provide `config_profiles`, `config_freeze <profile|--current>` (which prints a replacement `load_config` with that resolution frozen in) and, for an export, `config_current_profile` and `config_left_out`. How config is layered, stored, derived or frozen is rig's business; the generator only asks, and embeds the answer without interpreting it.
+
+## Bash does the resolving
+
+Bash does the resolving, not a parser in the generator. Libraries are sourced in a clean shell and read back with `declare -f` and `declare -p`, so any structure bash can load, this can flatten.
+
+## Every kit is proven before it is written
+
+Every kit is PROVEN to stand alone before it is written: no `source` left, no path into rig's tree in its code, `bash -n` clean, and its default verb run in an empty directory with nothing from rig present. A shape the generator has never seen either passes that, or generation stops and names the kit, the file, the line and what is wrong. It never writes a kit that only looks finished.
+
+## Usage: write, check, export
+
+- `standalone.sh write`: generate every kit into `standalone/<profile>/`.
+- `standalone.sh check`: generate into a scratch dir and fail if any kit differs.
+- `standalone.sh export DIR`: ONE kit for the configuration this machine runs (its profile plus the choices in its local config, WITHOUT its credentials), written outside the repo.
+
+`write` and `check` are what gets committed: one kit per profile, identical on any machine. `export` answers the other question, "take the setup I have here somewhere else", so it reflects this machine, and for exactly that reason it never lands in the repository.
--- a/rig/docs/notes/versions.md
+++ b/rig/docs/notes/versions.md
@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
+# ctrl/versions.env
+
+## Pinned toolchain
+
+The single manifest `ctrl/deps.sh` installs from. Every entry is a single binary; none of them needs an apt repo.
+
+- kubectl — fully static
+- kind — libc only
+- tilt — libc + libstdc++ + libgcc (present in base Debian)
+- jq — upstream static build (Debian's is linked against libjq/libonig)
+
+Checksums are the upstream-published SHA256 of the linux/amd64 artifact.
+
+## Bumping a pin
+
+Change the version, then take the checksum from the release's own published list — never hand-edit or hand-copy one from a download you did. For anything hosted on GitHub releases that is:
+
+```
+curl -sSL https://github.com/<org>/<repo>/releases/download/<tag>/checksums.txt \
+  | grep linux.x86_64
+```
+
+(kubectl publishes its own instead: `<KUBECTL_URL>.sha256`.)
+
+There was a `ctrl/versions-refresh.sh` named here that has never existed. If bumping stops being rare enough to do by hand, write it — but a comment pointing at a missing script is worse than no comment.
+
+## ctlptl
+
+Creates a kind cluster WITH a local registry wired in, which is what keeps images off docker.io (an unqualified name means `docker.io/library/<name>`). Same publisher and same archive shape as tilt: binary at the archive root, so `fetch_tgz` handles it with strip=0 and no special case.
+
+## docker compose
+
+The distro docker packages ship the daemon and the CLI but frequently not this, so `docker compose up` fails with "unknown command" on an otherwise working Docker. It is a CLI plugin, found by NAME in a plugin directory, so a copy in the bin dir alone only gives you the retired `docker-compose` v1 spelling; deps.sh links it into `~/.docker/cli-plugins`.
+
+## Node images
+
+Node images shipped with `KIND_VERSION`, pinned by digest so a kind upgrade can never silently move the k8s version. Profiles select one via `K8S_VERSION`. Older entries are kept deliberately: running a trailing-edge control plane is part of simulating a legacy estate.
+
+## Cabinets
+
+Public services dropped in as-is, the upstream image unmodified. The same declaration installs on compose or in the cluster, so a dependency is named once and works either way. Pinned by tag rather than digest because they are ordinary upstream images with no supply chain claim attached — bump freely, and preload them for the offline profile.
--- a/rig/standalone/default/rigdeps.sh
+++ b/rig/standalone/default/rigdeps.sh
@@ -98,39 +98,19 @@ load_config() {
 # ── end of frozen configuration ──

 # ── ctrl/deps.sh ──
-# Toolchain installer: detect the host, install a pinned toolchain onto it, then
-# report what it could not do.
-#
-# It never runs the cluster, never uses sudo or apt, and writes only into
-# $OUT_BIN (default ~/.local/bin). Everything that would touch the host proper —
-# systemd, inotify limits, .wslconfig, docker group — is REPORTED for a human to
-# decide on, never performed. That is what makes it safe to run on a machine that
-# already has a working setup.
-#
-# Usage (normally via `make deps`, or directly):
-#   deps.sh detect            # report host facts only, change nothing
-#   deps.sh list              # the pinned versions
-#   deps.sh verify [core|dev] # run what is installed and see if it works
-#   deps.sh fetch [core|dev] [--to DIR]   # download + verify into DIR
-#   deps.sh install [core|dev]            # detect, fetch, install, report
-#
-# Tiers: 'core' is kubectl + jq (talk to a cluster); 'dev' adds kind and tilt
-# Default is dev.
-#
-# Runs both inside the installer container and bare on a host. Inside the
-# container, host files are read through $HOST_ROOT (mount / as :ro); bare, it
-# falls back to /.
+# Toolchain installer: detect the host, install pinned tools into $OUT_BIN, report
+# host actions it will not perform (no sudo, no apt). Usually via `make deps`.
+# Usage: deps.sh [detect [all] | list | verify [core|dev] | fetch [core|dev] [--to DIR] | install [core|dev]]
+# Notes: docs/notes/deps.md

 set -euo pipefail

-# Keep the caller's cwd so a relative --to resolves where the user expects,
-# not against ctrl/ once we've moved.
+# Keep the caller's cwd so a relative --to resolves there, not against ctrl/.
 INVOKED_FROM="$PWD"
 cd "$(dirname "$0")"

-# Pins arrive through load_config like every other setting, not by sourcing
-# versions.env here. That is what lets `make standalone` freeze them into a
-# one-file installer: configuration has exactly one way in.
+# Pins arrive through load_config, not by sourcing versions.env, so `make
+# standalone` can freeze them in.
 # (sourced library inlined above)
 load_config

@@ -151,12 +131,11 @@ BAKED_BIN="${BAKED_BIN:-/opt/rig/bin}"
 # Collected by detect(), printed by report_manual() at the very end.
 MANUAL=()

-# Host FILES (/etc/..., /mnt/c/...) must be read through the mount. Kernel-level
-# facts (kernel version, meminfo, inotify) are shared with the container, so the
-# container's own view is already the host's.
-# A /proc/meminfo field in MB, 0 if the field is absent. MEMINFO exists so the
-# tight and does-not-fit branches can be exercised against a real machine's
-# numbers from somewhere else; in normal use it is always /proc/meminfo.
+# Facts print only with VERBOSE (`detect all`); problems (! and -) always print.
+fact() { if [ -n "${VERBOSE:-}" ]; then echo "$@"; fi; }
+
+# Host FILES are read through $HOST_ROOT; kernel facts are shared with the container.
+# A /proc/meminfo field in MB, 0 if absent. MEMINFO overrides the source for testing.
 mb_of() {
    awk -v k="$1:" '$1 == k { printf "%d", $2 / 1024; found = 1 }
                    END      { if (!found) printf "0" }' "${MEMINFO:-/proc/meminfo}"
@@ -181,9 +160,7 @@ arch() {
    esac
 }

-# The pins above are amd64. Rather than download something that cannot execute
-# and let it fail as "cannot execute binary file: Exec format error", say so
-# here and hand over the commands that produce the right checksums.
+# Pins are amd64 only: refuse elsewhere and print how to get the right checksums.
 require_amd64() {
    local a; a=$(arch)
    [ "$a" = "amd64" ] && return 0
@@ -236,9 +213,7 @@ pick_sha() {
 }

 # ── package manager, for the instructions only ─────────────────────────────
-# This never runs a package manager. It names one so the reported action is
-# something you can paste, on the distro you are actually on — an apt line on
-# Amazon Linux 2 is a wrong answer dressed up as help.
+# Never runs one; names the right one so reported actions are pasteable.

 pkg_install_cmd() {
    local pkg="$1"
@@ -258,9 +233,7 @@ docker_pkg() {

 # ── detect ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

-# Windows outside WSL — Git Bash, MSYS, Cygwin — looks close enough to work and
-# then fails in a pile of confusing ways: no /proc, no docker socket, none of
-# the tooling. Detectable, so name it instead.
+# Windows outside WSL (Git Bash, MSYS, Cygwin) fails confusingly; name it instead.
 require_linux() {
    case "$(uname -s)" in
        MINGW*|MSYS*|CYGWIN*)
@@ -285,36 +258,30 @@ is_wsl() { grep -qi microsoft /proc/version 2>/dev/null; }

 detect() {
    echo "host"
-    echo "  kernel      $(uname -r)"
-    echo "  arch        $(arch)  ($(uname -m))"
+    fact "  kernel      $(uname -r)"

-    local osr; osr=$(host_file /etc/os-release)
-    [ -r "$osr" ] && echo "  distro      $(sed -n 's/^PRETTY_NAME="\(.*\)"/\1/p' "$osr")"
+    local osr distro=""; osr=$(host_file /etc/os-release)
+    [ -r "$osr" ] && distro=$(sed -n 's/^PRETTY_NAME="\(.*\)"/\1/p' "$osr")
+    echo "  distro      ${distro:-unknown}  $(arch), $(if is_wsl; then echo WSL; else echo native linux; fi)"

-    # In MB. Whole gigabytes lose nearly half a GB on exactly the machines where
-    # it matters: 1874 MB available used to print as "1 GB". Facts only — whether
-    # that is enough depends on the profile, which check.sh knows and this does not.
+    # In MB (whole GB rounds away too much). Facts only; check.sh judges sufficiency.
    local total_mb avail_mb swap_total_mb swap_used_mb om
    total_mb=$(mb_of MemTotal)
    avail_mb=$(mb_of MemAvailable)
    swap_total_mb=$(mb_of SwapTotal)
    swap_used_mb=$(( swap_total_mb - $(mb_of SwapFree) ))
-    printf "  memory      %d MB total, %d MB available\n" "$total_mb" "$avail_mb"
-    if [ "$swap_total_mb" -gt 0 ]; then
-        printf "  swap        %d MB used of %d MB\n" "$swap_used_mb" "$swap_total_mb"
-    fi
+    printf "  memory      %d MB total, %d MB available%s\n" "$total_mb" "$avail_mb" \
+        "$(if [ "$swap_used_mb" -gt 0 ]; then echo ", $swap_used_mb MB in swap"; fi)"

-    # How the kernel answers an allocation it cannot really satisfy. With 1 it
-    # always says yes and settles up later with the OOM killer, so a cluster that
-    # starts cleanly can still lose processes afterwards.
+    # Overcommit mode: with 1 the OOM killer settles up later, after a clean start.
    om=$(cat "${OVERCOMMIT_FILE:-/proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory}" 2>/dev/null || echo '?')
    case "$om" in
-        0) echo "  overcommit  0 heuristic — allocations are granted on a guess" ;;
-        1) echo "  overcommit  1 always — every allocation succeeds; the OOM killer is the only limit" ;;
-        2) echo "  overcommit  2 strict — an allocation fails honestly instead of killing later" ;;
+        0) fact "  overcommit  0 heuristic — allocations are granted on a guess" ;;
+        1) fact "  overcommit  1 always — every allocation succeeds; the OOM killer is the only limit" ;;
+        2) fact "  overcommit  2 strict — an allocation fails honestly instead of killing later" ;;
    esac

-    echo "  install to  $OUT_BIN"
+    fact "  install to  $OUT_BIN"
    detect_libc
    detect_prereqs
    detect_wsl
@@ -326,18 +293,13 @@ detect() {

 detect_wsl() {
    if ! is_wsl; then
-        echo "  platform    native linux"
        return
    fi

-    echo "  platform    WSL"
-
-    # systemd is off by default in WSL, and the ingress/DNS paths that use a
-    # host service need it. Enabling it requires a Windows-side restart, which
-    # cannot be issued from inside the distro.
+    # systemd is off by default in WSL; enabling it needs a Windows-side restart.
    local wc; wc=$(host_file /etc/wsl.conf)
    if [ -r "$wc" ] && grep -qE '^\s*systemd\s*=\s*true' "$wc"; then
-        echo "  systemd     enabled in wsl.conf"
+        fact "  systemd     enabled in wsl.conf"
    else
        echo "  ! systemd not enabled in /etc/wsl.conf"
        MANUAL+=("Enable systemd — add to /etc/wsl.conf:
@@ -349,27 +311,24 @@ detect_wsl() {
    # WSL regenerates /etc/resolv.conf on every boot, which silently reverts any
    # local DNS setup.
    if [ -r "$wc" ] && grep -qE '^\s*generateResolvConf\s*=\s*false' "$wc"; then
-        echo "  resolv.conf pinned (generateResolvConf=false)"
+        fact "  resolv.conf pinned (generateResolvConf=false)"
    else
-        echo "  - resolv.conf is WSL-generated; DNS_MODE=dnsmasq would be reverted on reboot"
+        fact "  - resolv.conf is WSL-generated; DNS_MODE=dnsmasq would be reverted on reboot"
    fi

    local wcfg
    wcfg=$(ls "$HOST_ROOT"/mnt/c/Users/*/.wslconfig 2>/dev/null | head -1 || true)
    if [ -n "$wcfg" ] && grep -qE '^\s*memory\s*=' "$wcfg"; then
-        echo "  wslconfig   memory set: $(grep -E '^\s*memory\s*=' "$wcfg" | tr -d ' ')"
+        fact "  wslconfig   memory set: $(grep -E '^\s*memory\s*=' "$wcfg" | tr -d ' ')"
    else
        MANUAL+=("Cap/raise the WSL VM memory — see what is set versus what booted:
-      make mem status
+      make check mem
  It prints the edit to make and the command to apply it.")
    fi
 }

-# Not a path check: /mnt is an ordinary mount point and an ext4 disk mounted
-# there is perfectly fine. What matters is the filesystem. The Windows drives
-# arrive as 9p (WSL2) or drvfs (WSL1); network and fuse mounts behave the same
-# way. None of them deliver inotify events, so anything watching files goes
-# quiet without saying why.
+# Filesystem types that deliver no inotify events (9p, drvfs, network, fuse).
+# Checks the fs type, not the path.
 watch_hostile_fs() {
    local dir="$1" fstype
    fstype=$(findmnt -no FSTYPE --target "$dir" 2>/dev/null || true)
@@ -390,28 +349,22 @@ detect_filesystem() {
  on a $fstype mount, and everything else is slower:
      cp -r \"$root\" ~/ && cd ~/$(basename "$root")")
    else
-        echo "  filesystem  $root  ($(findmnt -no FSTYPE --target "$root" 2>/dev/null || echo local))"
+        fact "  filesystem  $root  ($(findmnt -no FSTYPE --target "$root" 2>/dev/null || echo local))"
    fi
 }

-# tilt is the one binary here that needs a recent glibc. MEASURED, not guessed:
-# tilt 0.37.6 on Amazon Linux 2 (glibc 2.26) fails with
-#
-#     /lib64/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.34' not found (required by .../tilt)
-#
-# which names a symbol rather than the problem. Amazon Linux 2 is a stock
-# WorkSpaces bundle, so this is the likely case, not an exotic one. Report the
-# version now; `verify` catches the actual failure after installing.
+# tilt needs glibc >= 2.34 (measured on Amazon Linux 2). Report the version here;
+# `verify` catches the actual failure after installing.
 detect_libc() {
    local v=""
    if command -v ldd >/dev/null 2>&1; then
        v=$(ldd --version 2>/dev/null | head -1 | grep -oE '[0-9]+\.[0-9]+$' || true)
    fi
    if [ -z "$v" ]; then
-        echo "  libc        unknown (no ldd) — 'verify' is the real test"
+        fact "  libc        unknown (no ldd) — 'verify' is the real test"
        return 0
    fi
-    echo "  libc        glibc $v"
+    fact "  libc        glibc $v"
    if [ "$(printf '%s\n2.34\n' "$v" | sort -V | head -1)" != "2.34" ]; then
        echo "  ! older than glibc 2.34, which tilt needs. kubectl, kind, jq and"
        echo "    ctlptl are static or libc-only and work here; tilt will not start."
@@ -420,25 +373,23 @@ detect_libc() {
    return 0
 }

-# What this script needs to do its own job. Reported here so `detect` answers
-# "will install work?" instead of leaving you to find out one download in.
-# Amazon Linux 2 ships without tar, which is exactly the surprise this catches.
+# What this script itself needs, so `detect` answers "will install work?".
 detect_prereqs() {
    local missing=""
-    if command -v curl >/dev/null 2>&1; then echo "  download    curl"
-    elif command -v wget >/dev/null 2>&1; then echo "  download    wget"
+    if command -v curl >/dev/null 2>&1; then fact "  download    curl"
+    elif command -v wget >/dev/null 2>&1; then fact "  download    wget"
    else echo "  ! no curl and no wget — nothing can be downloaded"; missing+=" curl"
    fi

    if command -v sha256sum >/dev/null 2>&1 || command -v shasum >/dev/null 2>&1; then
-        echo "  checksums   ok"
+        fact "  checksums   ok"
    else
        echo "  ! no sha256sum or shasum — downloads could not be verified"
        missing+=" coreutils"
    fi

    if command -v tar >/dev/null 2>&1 && command -v gzip >/dev/null 2>&1; then
-        echo "  archives    tar + gzip"
+        fact "  archives    tar + gzip"
    else
        echo "  ! no tar/gzip — tilt and ctlptl ship as tarballs, so the dev tier"
        echo "    cannot be unpacked. The core tier is two bare binaries and is fine."
@@ -453,10 +404,7 @@ detect_prereqs() {
 }

 detect_docker() {
-    # Reachability of the daemon is the real question, and the CLI is only how
-    # we ask it. Note that when this runs inside the installer container, Docker
-    # necessarily exists on the host — otherwise nothing would be executing —
-    # so a missing CLI in here is an installer packaging bug, not a host problem.
+    # Daemon reachability is the real question; the CLI is only how we ask.
    if ! command -v docker >/dev/null 2>&1; then
        if [ -S /var/run/docker.sock ]; then
            echo "  docker      socket present (no cli in this context)"
@@ -475,12 +423,9 @@ detect_docker() {
        echo "  docker      $(docker version --format '{{.Server.Version}}' 2>/dev/null)"
        local n
        n=$(docker ps --filter "label=io.x-k8s.kind.cluster" --format '{{.Names}}' 2>/dev/null | wc -l)
-        # Must be an `if`, not `[ ] && echo`: as the last statement in this
-        # function the latter returns 1 when the count is zero, and `set -e`
-        # then kills the caller. That is the fresh-machine case — no clusters
-        # yet — so the bug only ever shows up where it does most harm.
+        # Must be an `if`, not `[ ] && echo`: a zero count would return 1 under set -e.
        if [ "$n" -gt 0 ]; then
-            echo "  - $n kind node container(s) already running; see 'make cluster list'"
+            echo "  kind        $n node container(s) running — 'make cluster list'"
        fi
    else
        echo "  ! docker cli present but the daemon is unreachable"
@@ -495,7 +440,7 @@ detect_inotify() {
    local w i
    w=$(cat /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches 2>/dev/null || echo 0)
    i=$(cat /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_instances 2>/dev/null || echo 0)
-    echo "  inotify     watches=$w instances=$i"
+    fact "  inotify     watches=$w instances=$i"

    if [ "$w" -lt 524288 ] || [ "$i" -lt 512 ]; then
        echo "  ! inotify limits are low — Tilt will silently stop noticing file changes"
@@ -555,18 +500,13 @@ fetch_tgz() {
    echo "  fetching $name"
    download "$(resolve_url "$url")" "$tmp"
    verify "$tmp" "$sha" "$name"
-    # --no-same-owner: extracting as root would otherwise restore the uid/gid
-    # baked into the archive (some ship as uid 1001), leaving a binary the host
-    # user does not own.
+    # --no-same-owner: as root, tar would restore the archive's uid/gid.
    tar -xzf "$tmp" -C "$dest" --strip-components="$strip" --no-same-owner "$inner"
    rm -f "$tmp"
    chmod +x "$dest/$name"
 }

-# The installer runs as root so it can reach the docker socket, which means
-# everything it writes into a mounted volume lands root-owned and unusable from
-# the host. Hand it back to whoever owns the mount point (the host user created
-# that directory before mounting it).
+# The installer runs as root; hand files in a mounted dir back to the mount point's owner.
 fix_ownership() {
    local dir="$1"
    [ -d "$dir" ] || return 0
@@ -578,38 +518,14 @@ fix_ownership() {
    chown -R "$owner" "$dir" 2>/dev/null || true
 }

-# Two tiers, because not every machine should get cluster tooling.
-#
-#   core  kubectl, jq — talk to a cluster someone else runs. Nothing that
-#         creates one. Appropriate on a managed or corporate-issued machine
-#         where development tools are not wanted by default.
-#   dev   core plus kind and tilt — build clusters and hot-reload into them.
-#
-# The split exists because "install the toolchain" is not one decision: on a
-# managed workspace the right answer is kubectl and nothing else.
+# core: talk to a cluster someone else runs. dev: core plus tools that build clusters.
 CORE_TOOLS="kubectl jq"
-# No helm: every addon installs with `kubectl apply -f <url>`, so nothing here
-# has ever invoked it. Add it back the day something actually needs a chart.
-#
-# ctlptl is 'dev' rather than 'core' for the same reason kind is: core is "talk
-# to a cluster someone else runs", and ctlptl builds them. It earns its place
-# because it is what wires a cluster to a local registry — without one, an
-# unqualified image name resolves to docker.io/library/<name> and there is
-# nothing structural stopping a push there.
-#
-# docker-compose is 'dev' for the same reason, and is here because the distro
-# docker packages ship the daemon and CLI but frequently not the compose
-# plugin — so `docker compose up` fails with "unknown command" on an otherwise
-# working Docker, and nothing about that message names the missing piece.
+# No helm (nothing uses a chart). ctlptl wires in a local registry; compose is often
+# missing from distro docker packages.
 DEV_TOOLS="kind tilt ctlptl docker-compose"

 # ── what is already on this machine ───────────────────────────────────────
-#
-# A tool already on PATH at its pinned version is left where it is. Without
-# this, install downloads a second copy into OUT_BIN and then reports the first
-# one as shadowed — noise, and wrong, when both are the same version. That is
-# the normal state of any machine someone set up by hand, whatever directory
-# they happened to choose.
+# A tool already on PATH at its pinned version is left where it is.

 pin_of() {
    case "$1" in
@@ -622,9 +538,7 @@ pin_of() {
    esac
 }

-# The version string a binary reports. Each tool spells the question
-# differently, and kubectl has to be told --client or it goes looking for a
-# server to ask.
+# The version string a binary reports (kubectl needs --client).
 reported_version() {
    local tool="$1" path="$2"
    case "$tool" in
@@ -634,13 +548,8 @@ reported_version() {
    esac
 }

-# Does the binary at PATH report PIN? Matched as a whole version token, so
-# 0.37.6 never matches 10.37.60, with the leading v optional either side: kind
-# says v0.32.0, jq says jq-1.8.2, and tilt says v0.37.6 against a pin of 0.37.6.
-#
-# Bash's own regex rather than grep, deliberately. grep is not the same program
-# on every machine — some builds reject patterns that others accept — and a
-# failed grep inside a count reads exactly like a zero.
+# Does the binary at PATH report PIN? Whole-token match, leading v optional.
+# Bash regex rather than grep, deliberately.
 version_matches() {
    local tool="$1" path="$2" pin="$3" out v re
    out=$(reported_version "$tool" "$path") || return 1
@@ -650,10 +559,8 @@ version_matches() {
    [[ $out =~ $re ]]
 }

-# DEPS_ONLY narrows a fetch to the tools it names. Unset means the whole tier,
-# which is what an explicit `deps.sh fetch` always gets: "download these into
-# DIR" must not quietly skip something because this machine happens to have it.
-# Only install() sets it, to what detect_toolchain found missing or mismatched.
+# DEPS_ONLY narrows a fetch to the tools it names; unset means the whole tier.
+# Only install() sets it.
 want() { [ -z "${DEPS_ONLY:-}" ] || [[ " $DEPS_ONLY " == *" $1 "* ]]; }

 # Every tool in the tier with its state, probed once and reported once. What
@@ -662,20 +569,18 @@ TOOLCHAIN_NEED=""
 detect_toolchain() {
    local tier="${TIER:-dev}" b pin path found
    TOOLCHAIN_NEED=""
+    local n=0
    echo
-    echo "toolchain  (pinned, tier '$tier')"
+    fact "toolchain  (pinned, tier '$tier')"
    for b in $(tier_tools "$tier"); do
+        n=$((n + 1))
        pin=$(pin_of "$b")
        path=$(command -v "$b" 2>/dev/null || true)
-        # compose is the one tool that is normally NOT a binary on PATH. It is a
-        # docker CLI plugin, so a machine where `docker compose` works perfectly
-        # has no `docker-compose` to find — and probing only PATH would report it
-        # missing and re-download a copy that is already there. That is the exact
-        # noise the version-aware skip exists to prevent, so ask docker instead.
+        # compose is normally a docker CLI plugin, not on PATH: ask docker instead.
        if [ "$b" = docker-compose ] && [ -z "$path" ]; then
            if found=$(docker compose version --short 2>/dev/null) && [ -n "$found" ]; then
                if [ "${found#v}" = "${pin#v}" ]; then
-                    printf "    %-8s %-9s %s\n" "$b" "$pin" "docker cli plugin"
+                    fact "$(printf "    %-8s %-9s %s" "$b" "$pin" "docker cli plugin")"
                else
                    printf "  ! %-8s wants %s, the docker cli plugin reports '%s'\n" \
                        "$b" "$pin" "$found"
@@ -688,7 +593,7 @@ detect_toolchain() {
            printf "  - %-8s %-9s not found\n" "$b" "$pin"
            TOOLCHAIN_NEED+="$b "
        elif version_matches "$b" "$path" "$pin"; then
-            printf "    %-8s %-9s %s\n" "$b" "$pin" "$path"
+            fact "$(printf "    %-8s %-9s %s" "$b" "$pin" "$path")"
        else
            found=$(reported_version "$b" "$path" 2>/dev/null | head -1 || true)
            printf "  ! %-8s wants %s, %s reports '%s'\n" "$b" "$pin" "$path" "$found"
@@ -696,9 +601,10 @@ detect_toolchain() {
        fi
    done
    if [ -z "$TOOLCHAIN_NEED" ]; then
-        echo "  every pinned tool is already on PATH — nothing to fetch"
+        if [ -n "${VERBOSE:-}" ]; then echo "  all $n on PATH — nothing to fetch"
+        else echo "toolchain   all $n pinned tools on PATH  (tier $tier)"; fi
    else
-        echo "  'make deps' fetches only: ${TOOLCHAIN_NEED% }"
+        echo "toolchain   'make deps' fetches only: ${TOOLCHAIN_NEED% }"
    fi
 }

@@ -739,8 +645,7 @@ fetch() {
    fi

    fix_ownership "$dest"
-    # kind writes the kubeconfig as root too; hand that back as well when it's
-    # a mounted host directory rather than container-local state.
+    # kind writes the kubeconfig as root too; hand that back as well.
    fix_ownership "${KUBE_DIR:-/out/kube}"
 }

@@ -762,14 +667,8 @@ report_manual() {
    done
 }

-# Installing into a directory that sits early in PATH silently replaces whatever
-# the machine was already using — which on a shared or client machine can break
-# unrelated work (kubectl more than one minor away from a cluster is the common
-# one). Say so; never decide it for them.
-# Downloading a verified binary proves it is the right file, not that this
-# machine can run it. On an old distro tilt fails here, with a linker error
-# about a missing symbol, and finding that out now beats finding out during a
-# first cluster build.
+# A verified download proves the right file, not that this machine can run it
+# (old glibc breaks tilt). Run each one now.
 verify_tools() {
    local tier="${1:-dev}" b bin out rc broke=0
    echo "checking that each one actually runs"
@@ -779,11 +678,7 @@ verify_tools() {
            printf '  %-14s not installed\n' "$b"
            continue
        fi
-        # Not piped into `head`. With `pipefail` set, a tool that prints more
-        # than one line gets SIGPIPE when head closes the pipe, and the
-        # pipeline reports 141 — so a working kubectl was announced as "does
-        # not run here", with its own correct version string as the evidence.
-        # Take the first line afterwards, from the string.
+        # Not piped into `head`: under pipefail, SIGPIPE (141) looked like failure.
        rc=0
        case "$b" in
            kubectl) out=$("$bin" version --client 2>&1) || rc=$? ;;
@@ -861,18 +756,12 @@ warn_shadowing() {
      OUT_BIN=\$PWD/def/bin make deps   # then put that dir first in PATH")
 }

-# A copy in OUT_BIN only gives you `docker-compose`. That hyphenated form is the
-# retired v1 spelling; every compose file written in the last few years assumes
-# `docker compose`, which resolves plugins BY NAME out of a plugin directory.
-# So the binary is fetched like any other and then linked, in your own home —
-# no root, and nothing outside it.
+# Link the fetched docker-compose into ~/.docker/cli-plugins so `docker compose` works.
 install_compose_plugin() {
    local src="$OUT_BIN/docker-compose" dir="$HOME/.docker/cli-plugins"
    [ -x "$src" ] || return 0
    mkdir -p "$dir"
-    # Something else already owns that name — docker-desktop and some distro
-    # packages install a real file there. Overwriting it would take the plugin
-    # away from whatever put it there, so say so and let the user decide.
+    # A real file there belongs to something else (docker-desktop, distro): don't overwrite.
    if [ -e "$dir/docker-compose" ] && [ ! -L "$dir/docker-compose" ]; then
        MANUAL+=("Something already installs the compose plugin at
      $dir/docker-compose
@@ -903,16 +792,12 @@ install() {
        if [ "$tier" = "core" ]; then
            echo "  (no kind/tilt — 'make deps dev' adds them)"
        fi
-        # Only when compose was one of the things fetched: linking a binary
-        # that is already satisfied elsewhere on PATH would point the plugin at
-        # a copy rig did not install.
+        # Only when compose was fetched, never at a copy rig did not install.
        case " $TOOLCHAIN_NEED " in
            *" docker-compose "*) install_compose_plugin ;;
        esac

-        # Only worth saying when something actually landed in OUT_BIN. When every
-        # tool was satisfied elsewhere, OUT_BIN may reasonably be off PATH, and
-        # telling the user to add it would be advice to fix nothing.
+        # PATH advice only when something actually landed in OUT_BIN.
        case ":${PATH}:" in
            *":$OUT_BIN:"*) ;;
            *) MANUAL+=("Put the toolchain on your PATH — add to ~/.bashrc:
@@ -928,10 +813,7 @@ install() {

 require_linux

-# Read the command, THEN shift — and shift only if there is something there.
-# A bare `shift` with no positional parameters returns 1, and under `set -e`
-# that ended the script before a single line was printed: running this with no
-# arguments at all, the documented default, did nothing and said nothing.
+# Shift only if there is an argument: a bare `shift` returns 1 under set -e.
 cmd="${1:-install}"
 [ $# -gt 0 ] && shift

@@ -943,12 +825,12 @@ need_downloads() {
 }

 case "$cmd" in
-    detect)  detect; report_manual ;;
+    detect)  if [ "${1:-}" = all ]; then VERBOSE=1; fi; detect; report_manual ;;
    list)    list ;;
    verify)  verify_tools "${1:-dev}" ;;
    fetch)   need_downloads; fetch "$@" ;;
    install) need_downloads; install "${1:-dev}" ;;
-    *)       echo "usage: $0 [detect|list|verify|fetch|install]" >&2
+    *)       echo "usage: $0 [detect [all]|list|verify|fetch|install]" >&2
             echo "       install [core|dev]           (default dev)" >&2
             echo "       fetch   [core|dev] [--to DIR]" >&2
             echo "       OUT_BIN=<dir> overrides the install directory" >&2
--- a/rig/standalone/default/rigmini.sh
+++ b/rig/standalone/default/rigmini.sh
@@ -98,33 +98,9 @@ load_config() {
 # ── end of frozen configuration ──

 # ── ctrl/mem.sh ──
-# How much memory this machine will actually give you before something dies —
-# rig's memory tool, and (generated from this file) the standalone rigmini.sh.
-#
-# There are two numbers and they are rarely the same. `status` reports what the
-# machine ADVERTISES and what is quietly capping it. `push` finds what it will
-# SURVIVE, by allocating until it stops. `all` does both and weighs the result
-# against what this profile's cluster needs.
-#
-# The gap between them is the whole reason this exists. Under WSL the cap lives
-# in .wslconfig; in a container or a managed workspace it is a cgroup limit, and
-# there /proc/meminfo reports the HOST's memory while the kernel kills you at a
-# fraction of it. A script that only read MemTotal would confidently report 32 GB
-# on a box that OOMs at 2.
-#
-# Runs on native Linux and under WSL. On WSL the memory you see is a VM
-# allocation that can be raised, and the commonest failure is raising it without
-# restarting — so status compares what .wslconfig says with what actually booted.
-#
-# Reports and instructs. It never raises a limit, frees anything or installs a
-# package. The one write it can make is `backup`, which copies .wslconfig beside
-# itself, so that `restore` has something to put back after a hand edit.
-#
-# Usage:
-#   mem.sh status                                  what it has, what caps it
-#   mem.sh push [--to GB] [--to-oom]               climb until it stops
-#   mem.sh all  [--budget GB]                      both, then the verdict
-#   mem.sh backup | restore                        .wslconfig, WSL only
+# rig's memory tool (also generated as rigmini.sh): what the machine advertises vs. what it survives.
+# Usage: mem.sh status | push [--to GB] [--to-oom] | all [--budget GB] | backup | restore (WSL)
+# Notes: docs/notes/mem.md
 set -euo pipefail
 cd "$(dirname "$0")"
 # (sourced library inlined above)
@@ -140,9 +116,7 @@ BUDGET_EXPLICIT=no    # whether --budget was given, which retires the guess belo

 # ── platform ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

-# Windows outside WSL — Git Bash, MSYS, Cygwin — looks close enough to work and
-# then fails in a pile of confusing ways: no /proc, no docker socket, none of
-# the tooling. Detectable, so name it instead.
+# Refuse Git Bash / MSYS / Cygwin and kernels without /proc, with a clear message.
 require_linux() {
    case "$(uname -s)" in
        MINGW*|MSYS*|CYGWIN*)
@@ -197,9 +171,7 @@ avail_meminfo_mb() {
    fi
 }

-# Where a cgroup records this cgroup's own limit and usage. Set once by
-# find_cgroup, because every later reading needs both and hunting for the files
-# on each call would be the slow part of the poll loop.
+# This cgroup's limit/usage files, set once by find_cgroup (cheap for the poll loop).
 CG_MAX_FILE=""
 CG_CUR_FILE=""
 CG_VERSION=""
@@ -207,10 +179,8 @@ CG_VERSION=""
 find_cgroup() {
    local rel

-    # Inside a container the cgroup namespace makes the top of the tree BE the
-    # container's own cgroup, so the unqualified path is already the right one.
-    # On a host it is the root cgroup, which is never limited — hence the second
-    # attempt via /proc/self/cgroup, which names the slice this shell is in.
+    # Top of tree first (right inside a container), then this shell's own slice
+    # from /proc/self/cgroup (right on a host).
    if [ -r /sys/fs/cgroup/memory.max ]; then
        CG_VERSION=v2
        CG_MAX_FILE=/sys/fs/cgroup/memory.max
@@ -239,10 +209,7 @@ find_cgroup() {
    return 0
 }

-# The cap in MB, or "" when there is none worth reporting. v2 spells unlimited
-# "max"; v1 spells it as a number near 2^63, which is why this compares against
-# MemTotal rather than testing for a magic value — a "limit" above the machine's
-# own memory is not a limit, however it is written.
+# The cap in MB, or "" when unlimited ("max", or any value >= MemTotal).
 cgroup_cap_mb() {
    local raw cap
    [ -n "$CG_MAX_FILE" ] && [ -r "$CG_MAX_FILE" ] || { echo ""; return 0; }
@@ -283,10 +250,7 @@ effective_ceiling_mb() {
    echo "$c"
 }

-# How much room is left RIGHT NOW, from whichever accounting actually governs.
-# In a capped container /proc/meminfo describes the host and is worse than
-# useless for this — it would report tens of gigabytes free on a box that is one
-# allocation from being killed.
+# Room left right now: cgroup cap minus usage when capped, else MemAvailable.
 headroom_mb() {
    local cap used
    cap=$(cgroup_cap_mb)
@@ -300,9 +264,7 @@ headroom_mb() {

 # ── status ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

-# /mnt/c/Users can hold several real accounts — a renamed login leaves the old
-# directory behind — so picking the first alphabetically is a coin toss. Ask
-# Windows, then fall back to whichever profile actually owns a config.
+# Ask Windows for %USERPROFILE%; fall back to whichever profile owns a .wslconfig.
 wslconfig_path() {
    local profile winpath found
    profile=$(cmd.exe /c "echo %USERPROFILE%" 2>/dev/null | tr -d "\r\n" || true)
@@ -358,9 +320,7 @@ status() {
        echo "  ulimit -v   unlimited"
    fi

-    # overcommit_memory=0 is the default heuristic: a large allocation is
-    # granted on a guess, and the reckoning arrives later as an OOM kill rather
-    # than as a failed malloc. It is why `push` touches every page it asks for.
+    # Overcommit mode decides whether limits show as failed mallocs or OOM kills.
    local om or_
    om=$(cat /proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory 2>/dev/null || echo '?')
    or_=$(cat /proc/sys/vm/overcommit_ratio 2>/dev/null || echo '?')
@@ -433,9 +393,7 @@ status() {
        echo "  ! docker     cli present but the daemon is unreachable"
    fi

-    # WSL keeps its cap on the Windows side, in a file this shell can read but
-    # not usefully apply — the change costs a full VM restart. Report it, and
-    # report the commonest mistake, which is editing it and not restarting.
+    # WSL: report the .wslconfig cap and whether it was applied (needs wsl --shutdown).
    if is_wsl; then
        local cfg conf conf_mb n
        cfg=$(wslconfig_path)
@@ -495,7 +453,7 @@ require_wsl() {

 # backup and restore act on the file, so unlike status they must not guess.
 wslconfig_required() {
-    local cfg; cfg=$(wslconfig_required)
+    local cfg; cfg=$(wslconfig_path)
    if [ -z "$cfg" ]; then
        echo "cannot tell which Windows profile owns .wslconfig. Candidates:" >&2
        ls -d /mnt/c/Users/*/ 2>/dev/null \
@@ -527,8 +485,7 @@ backup() {
    local cfg dest
    cfg=$(wslconfig_required)
    [ -r "$cfg" ] || { echo "nothing to back up: $cfg does not exist" >&2; exit 1; }
-    # Timestamped and never overwritten: a backup that can destroy itself on a
-    # second run is not a backup.
+    # Timestamped, never overwritten.
    dest="${cfg}.$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S).bak"
    cp "$cfg" "$dest"
    echo "backed up  $dest"
@@ -547,9 +504,7 @@ restore() {
    echo "        -> $cfg"
    echo

-    # Newest is the right default — undo the last edit — but if you backed up
-    # *after* editing, the state you want is older. Show the rest so a no-op
-    # restore is obviously a no-op rather than a mystery.
+    # Restores the newest; list the others in case an older one is wanted.
    count=$(ls "$cfg".*.bak 2>/dev/null | wc -l)
    if [ "$count" -gt 1 ]; then
        echo "$count backups exist, newest first:"
@@ -593,14 +548,9 @@ cleanup() {
    return 0
 }

-# The child allocates and stops itself; the parent only watches. That split is
-# the point: under --to-oom the allocating process is expected to be killed, and
-# something has to survive to say how far it got.
+# Runs as a child that may be OOM-killed; the parent survives to report.
 allocator() {
-    # Raise our own OOM score to the maximum so the kernel picks THIS process
-    # first. Raising needs no privilege (only lowering does). Without it, the
-    # kernel is free to choose your shell, your ssh session or dockerd — on a
-    # box you are still using, that is not an acceptable coin toss.
+    # Make this process the preferred OOM victim (raising needs no privilege).
    echo 1000 > "/proc/$BASHPID/oom_score_adj" 2>/dev/null || true

    local arr=() held=0 i=0 rss swapped avail first_swap=0
@@ -609,16 +559,7 @@ allocator() {
    swap_used_start=$(( $(mb SwapTotal) - $(mb SwapFree) ))

    while :; do
-        # Written STRAIGHT INTO the array element. The obvious spelling —
-        # build one chunk and `arr+=("$chunk")` — costs three copies per step,
-        # not one: the template stays resident, expanding "$chunk" makes a
-        # temporary word, and the append makes the element. A 128 MB step then
-        # needs 384 MB transiently, and on a small box it is killed on the
-        # first append while reporting a third of the true ceiling.
-        #
-        # printf -v into a subscript also means every page is written, so it is
-        # resident rather than merely promised — the only kind of allocation
-        # that measures anything under heuristic overcommit.
+        # Write straight into the element (one copy, not three) and touch every page.
        printf -v "arr[$i]" '%*s' "$bytes" ''
        i=$((i + 1)); held=$((held + STEP_MB))

@@ -631,9 +572,7 @@ allocator() {
            "$held" "$rss" "$avail" "$swapped"
        printf '%s %s %s %s\n' "$held" "$rss" "$avail" "$swapped" >> "$STATE"

-        # Worth calling out separately from the ceiling: this is where the box
-        # stops being fast and starts being unusable, which for a scheduler is
-        # a different and earlier problem than being killed.
+        # First swap is reported separately: slow comes before killed.
        if [ "$swapped" -gt 0 ] && [ "$first_swap" -eq 0 ]; then
            first_swap=$held
            echo "  - first swap page at ${held} MB — past here it works but crawls"
@@ -654,30 +593,20 @@ push() {
    total=$(mb MemTotal)
    ceiling=$(effective_ceiling_mb)

-    # A step is worth about a sixty-fourth of the ceiling: enough resolution to
-    # find the edge, few enough lines to read, and small enough that the
-    # transient cost of one allocation never dominates a small box. A fixed
-    # size cannot do all three — 128 MB is fine on 16 GB and absurd on 512 MB.
+    # Default step: ceiling/64, clamped to 4..256 MB.
    if [ "$STEP_EXPLICIT" = no ]; then
        STEP_MB=$(( ceiling / 64 ))
        [ "$STEP_MB" -lt 4 ] && STEP_MB=4
        [ "$STEP_MB" -gt 256 ] && STEP_MB=256
    fi

-    # Stop with a cushion rather than riding it to the kill. How big a cushion
-    # depends on what it is protecting. Under a cgroup cap, running out kills
-    # only this container's own processes, so it need cover no more than the
-    # shell that prints the result — and a 512 MB cushion on a 1 GB box would
-    # halve the answer. On a host there is everything else to protect, and the
-    # OOM killer does not promise to pick the process that caused the problem.
+    # Stop with a cushion: 64 MB under a cgroup cap, 512 MB on a host, or 5% of ceiling if larger.
    if [ -n "$(cgroup_cap_mb)" ]; then FLOOR_MB=64; else FLOOR_MB=512; fi
    [ $(( ceiling / 20 )) -gt "$FLOOR_MB" ] && FLOOR_MB=$(( ceiling / 20 ))

    STATE=$(mktemp "${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/rigmini.XXXXXX")
    trap cleanup EXIT
-    # INT kills the child and lets the summary below print anyway, so an
-    # impatient Ctrl-C still tells you how far it got — and, more importantly,
-    # still gives the memory back.
+    # Ctrl-C kills the child, frees the memory, and still prints the summary.
    trap 'echo; echo "  interrupted"; echo "stop interrupted" >> "$STATE"; [ -n "$CHILD" ] && kill -KILL "$CHILD" 2>/dev/null || true' INT

    echo "push"
@@ -750,11 +679,7 @@ push() {
            fi ;;
    esac

-    # The gap between the claim and the measurement is the finding — but only
-    # when the BOX chose where to stop. An empty $stop means the child was ended
-    # rather than deciding to end; anything else (--to, the floor) is a stop we
-    # asked for, and flagging those as short of the ceiling would put a warning
-    # on every deliberately small run.
+    # Warn about claimed-vs-measured gap only when the box, not us, chose the stop.
    local got="${rss:-$held}"
    echo
    if [ -z "$stop" ] && [ "$got" -lt $(( ceiling * 70 / 100 )) ]; then
--- a/soleprint/station/cabinets/README.md
+++ b/soleprint/station/cabinets/README.md
@@ -50,8 +50,7 @@ compose, the same dependency installs as a rig addon of that name:

 ```bash
 cd rig
-PROFILE=data make cluster up
-PROFILE=data make addons install
+PROFILE=data make cluster up      # installs the addons too
 ```

 The two paths are deliberately separate — compose for a laptop, helm for a
Author	SHA1	Message	Date
buenosairesam	9c963514f1	Merge branch 'rig-work'	2026-09-17 15:01:55 -03:00
buenosairesam	565cecfb50	simpler check and deps messages	2026-09-17 15:01:48 -03:00
buenosairesam	1752a95408	Merge branch 'rig-work'	2026-09-17 01:18:05 -03:00
buenosairesam	1dc9d38c80	clean rig	2026-09-17 01:12:15 -03:00