Audited the customer-facing docs against the code: about 5,200 concrete
claims (env vars, endpoints, flags, defaults, ports, UI labels), plus every
environment variable the code reads. Each discrepancy was re-verified
against the source before editing, and every edit was reviewed again.
What users would have hit following the old text:
- UI paths and labels that no longer exist (Settings > Relay, Platform
connections, Access Control, SSO Providers, Create Organization) and
Patrol mode names (now Ask first, Safe auto-fix, Autopilot).
- Wrong values and behaviour: LOG_MAX_AGE=0 does not disable cleanup,
Patrol evidence budget is 10 calls and 12 turns, ALLOW_UNPROTECTED_EXPORT
covers private networks too, PULSE_AUDIT_ASYNC defaults on.
- Agent install: install.sh ignores PULSE_ENABLE_KUBERNETES and
PULSE_ENABLE_PROXMOX, rejects --disable-auto-update, and the token
fallback lives in the state directory.
- API: audit endpoints answer 402 on Community, onboarding QR is GET,
type=container is rejected, several routes need admin plus a scope.
- HTTP_REDIRECT_PORT was not documented anywhere.
Docs are mirrored under frontend-modern/public/docs, so each change is
applied to both copies. The tests that pinned the old wording (including
three that asserted claims the code contradicts) are updated alongside.
Contract-Neutral: Customer docs corrected to match shipped behaviour; no runtime, API or contract change.
Make API-only guest-agent activity and backup precautions explicit, isolate disruptive rollout checks, preserve paid runtime and recovery data during updates, and remove retired Relay/Mobile upgrade claims. Bind the existing guide and shipped mirror to safety and edition guidance.
Contract-Neutral: Existing production guidance and regression checks only; no runtime, entitlement, route or deployment contract changes.
Change-source: pulse-maintainer
The unified agent's Linux installer only offered the root profile, and the
docs called non-root unsupported. That default is the most-cited reason
security-conscious evaluators reject Pulse without trying it. install.sh
gains --least-privilege: the service runs as a dedicated nologin
pulse-agent system user with every existing hardening directive, no
LXC-attach ambient capabilities, docker-group membership for socket reads,
and refusal (not silent root fallback) on appliance platforms, non-systemd
init systems, and --enable-commands. Optional --grant-smart and --grant-pct
restore the only two collectors that need elevation through
visudo-validated exact-command sudoers rules and root-owned wrappers the
agent reaches via new absolute-path-only PULSE_SMARTCTL_PATH /
PULSE_PCT_PATH overrides; the pct grant covers pct list and pct df only
and can never widen into pct exec. --update preserves the profile and its
grants by reading the installed unit.
The agent now authors a privilege block in its report (effective root,
service user, active helpers), carried through models into the fleet
doctor as a descriptive field: Agent Doctor shows the profile and its
helpers instead of presenting intentionally absent collectors as a fault,
and a least-privilege agent can never be marked unhealthy on that evidence
alone.
rcourtman