Production telemetry (7d, 2026-07-17) shows a persistent tail of live
installs on 6.0.0-rc.x and 6.0.3/6.0.4 while 6.0.5 has been stable since
2026-07-09. Root cause for the reachable stranding class: release
selection trusted GitHub's created_at ordering, and this repo interleaves
v5-line maintenance releases with v6 releases (v5.1.36 was created the
day before v6.0.5). Whenever a v5.1.x release is the most recently
created stable:
- stable channel (getLatestReleaseForChannel) returned the first
non-prerelease in list order -> "no update" for every v6 install
until the next v6 release ships
- the RSS rate-limit fallback returned the first feed entry matching the
channel, same failure, both channels
- the unattended updater trusted /releases/latest, which GitHub defines
as most-recently-created stable -> timer no-ops in the same window
All three now select the highest eligible version: the API path tracks
newest stable + newest prerelease in one pass (prerelease = GitHub flag
OR tag shape), the feed fallback picks the max matching the channel, and
pulse-auto-update.sh scans /releases pairing each tag with its own
draft/prerelease flags before the fail-closed shape filter, keeping
/releases/latest as fallback. helm-chart-* tags fail semver parsing and
are dropped everywhere.
Verified not broken (pinned by new tests): rc-channel installs are
offered the newer stable (6.0.0-rc.6 -> 6.0.5) and move onto the next rc
line when one opens (-> 6.1.0-rc.2); the auto-update prerelease filter
(fail-closed is_prerelease_tag, metadata-flag refusal) still refuses
prerelease targets on stable. Go tests fail on the pre-fix code
(returned 5.1.37 / "no update").
Contract: deployment-installability now pins version-max release
selection with proofs in manager_stranded_upgrade_test.go and
pulse_auto_update_test.go.
The in-app updater and the unattended timer both target the public
rcourtman/Pulse community assets, so a Pro install that used them was
silently downgraded to community. Guard 2 (983a89326) blocked in-app
apply on the Pro edition, which stopped the downgrade but left Pro
installs with no update path except manual portal downloads. That
friction is a plausible driver of the runtime split: as of 2026-07-08
only 10 of 66 active paid licenses have any Pro-runtime install.
Root fix: the compiled Pro binary now checks and applies updates
through the license server download broker (GET /v1/downloads/pulse-pro
with the installation token and instance fingerprint). The check
compares against the broker's pinned private release instead of GitHub,
respecting the stable/rc channel guard. Apply re-resolves fresh signed
R2 URLs at apply time, verifies the archive against the same pinned
pulse-installer SSHSIG key plus the broker manifest sha256, and refuses
GitHub-shaped download URLs outright. An unactivated Pro binary still
refuses with the portal fallback. The community edition path is
unchanged.
The update banner restores in-app apply for auto-updatable Pro
deployments and keeps the portal instructions for deployments the
updater cannot drive (Docker). scripts/pulse-auto-update.sh now skips
when the installed binary reports Pulse Pro so the unattended timer can
never reinstall community over Pro.
Note: internal/updates/pro_update.go and manager_pro_update_test.go for
this change landed one commit early inside 313552deb via a parallel
session committing a shared staged index; this commit completes the
wiring they belong to.
Refuse prerelease-shaped tags and explicit GitHub prerelease responses in the unattended stable updater before installer invocation.
Add installability tests and proof routing for the auto-update prerelease refusal guard.
rcourtman