v1.8.4: the om fix lands upstream, pi-atelier v0.8.2, todo edit

Headline: pi-observational-memory 37986b6 -> ce9fc98. The ambient-credential
gate fix (6f694e6 + 699ccc7) was merged upstream as PR #52 on 2026-08-22,
closing issue #51, so this release picks it up through the ordinary
PI_OBSMEM_REF=master path with nothing carried locally. Every image up to
and including v1.8.3 silently recorded zero observations on a Bedrock host
using ambient AWS credentials; from this one on, /opt is the fix and the
settings.json packages[] workaround should be deleted (verify against
/etc/pi-devbox/build-manifest.json first). npm still ships the broken 3.0.4,
which does not matter here because the image clones the ref instead.

Pin bump: PI_ATELIER_REF / PI_ATELIER_VERSION v0.8.1 -> v0.8.2, audited per
the floor note above the ARG. The only version in between is 0.8.2 itself and
both its entries are Workspace-Pulse-internal (inspection coalescing and
serialization; fresh inspection guaranteed at Turn end, retired sessions can
no longer publish stale results). Nothing touches pi's private TUI renderer,
which is the coupling behind the 0.6.0/0.7.0-under-pi-0.84 startup hang, and
pi is unchanged at 0.84.2 - so the bump stays outside that risk class.

Also baked by this build, no pin needed: pi-extensions 98eb07b -> 2022887
(the todo edit action), pi-fork 4a09af4 -> f1ff808, pi-studio 0.9.44 ->
v0.9.48, mempalace-toolkit b609cf5 -> fd8b15f (docs only - the pi-session
false-success guard was already baked in v1.8.3, confirmed by ancestry),
aws-cli 2.36.24 -> 2.36.29 and the other *_VERSION=latest tools.

README: the pin table also said mempalace 3.6.0, stale since v1.8.3 bumped it
to 3.7.1. Fixed in passing.

Unchanged and verified current: pi 0.84.2 (npm latest, published 2026-08-14),
MEMPALACE_VERSION 3.7.1 (PyPI latest), pi-toolkit 0e1369e.

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -11,6 +11,202 @@ Pre-v1.0.0 tags followed the pi npm version (`v{pi_version}[letter]`).
 
 ---
 
+## v1.8.4 — 2026-08-22
+
+Patch release, and the one that ends an eight-week bug: **the baked
+`pi-observational-memory` finally records observations on a Bedrock host that
+uses ambient AWS credentials.** The fix is ours, but it is no longer a patch —
+upstream merged it, so this release picks it up through the ordinary
+`PI_OBSMEM_REF=master` path with no local carry. Also **bumps pi-atelier
+`v0.8.1` → `v0.8.2`** (audited below) and bakes the `todo` extension's new
+`edit` action. `pi` stays `0.84.2` (still the npm latest, published
+2026-08-14) and `MEMPALACE_VERSION` stays `3.7.1` (still the PyPI latest).
+
+### Fixed
+
+- **om consolidation on request-time-signed providers — upstream, not patched
+  (`pi-observational-memory` `37986b6` → `ce9fc98`).** Under `37986b6`, om's
+  pre-flight gate treated "pi exposes no `apiKey` and no auth header" as
+  *unauthenticated* and skipped every consolidation. On Bedrock with ambient
+  AWS credentials that is the normal case — pi signs SigV4 at request time —
+  so om recorded **nothing for eight weeks** with no error, no cost and no log
+  line. Every pi-devbox image up to and including v1.8.3 has that behaviour.
+
+  Two commits, both authored here and now upstream verbatim: `6f694e6` fixes
+  the gate itself (it must not require a credential *payload*), and `699ccc7`
+  adds the second half of pi's own rule — `hasConfiguredAuth` reads an
+  availability snapshot that stays empty when the startup availability pass was
+  skipped/aborted/failed, so on the otherwise-fatal path om now asks pi to
+  re-check the credential live (refresh scoped to the provider, network-free),
+  rate-limited 60 s per provider, bounded by a raced timeout, logged as
+  `resolve.availability_recheck`. Filed as upstream issue #51, merged as PR #52
+  (`ce9fc98`, 2026-08-22T04:46:18Z), which also carries PR #49's `env`/`baseUrl`
+  forwarding merged four minutes earlier; the maintainer resolved the textual
+  conflict between them keeping both behaviours. Verified on `ce9fc98` here:
+  `tsc --noEmit` clean, `vitest` 257 tests / 27 files green.
+
+  **Note for anyone carrying the local workaround:** the interim fix was a
+  `packages[]` override in `~/.pi/agent/settings.json` pointing pi at a patched
+  clone outside the image. From this release on, delete the override — the
+  baked `/opt/pi-observational-memory` has the fix. Confirm with
+  `/etc/pi-devbox/build-manifest.json` → `components.pi-observational-memory`
+  before removing it. The npm-published `pi-observational-memory` is **still
+  `3.0.4` and still broken**; the image does not use npm for this component, so
+  the release cadence there is irrelevant to us.
+
+### Changed
+
+- **`PI_ATELIER_REF` / `PI_ATELIER_VERSION` `v0.8.1` → `v0.8.2`, audited per the
+  floor note above the ARG.** Only one version sits between old and new and its
+  changelog is two lines, both Workspace-Pulse-internal: inspection requests are
+  now coalesced and serialized so short Turns avoid duplicate Git work and
+  overlapping inspections cannot run concurrently, and live tool-driven Pulse
+  updates are preserved while a fresh inspection is guaranteed at Turn end and
+  retired sessions can no longer publish stale results. **Nothing touches pi's
+  private TUI renderer**, which is the coupling that produced the
+  0.6.0/0.7.0-under-pi-0.84 startup hang, and `pi` is unchanged at `0.84.2`, so
+  this bump does not re-enter that risk class. Both the seam and the pin floor
+  (never pair pi-atelier < 0.7.1 with pi >= 0.84) are unaffected.
+- **`pi-studio` `65995fe` (0.9.44) → `v0.9.48`** — 14 commits, four releases.
+  Studio-side only (`INSTALL_STUDIO=false` by default, so this lands in the
+  studio variant): open Studio in Muxy's browser, local PDF preview actions,
+  previews survive Pandoc probe failures, legacy LaTeX styles tolerated in
+  Pandoc previews, native dialogs replaced in embedded browsers, and file-copy
+  import fixes with an explicit fallback. CI resolves the highest semver tag,
+  not `main`, so this is `v0.9.48` exactly.
+- **`pi-fork` `4a09af4` → `f1ff808`** — one commit, "Add fork runtime
+  awareness" (2026-08-19).
+- **`mempalace-toolkit` `b609cf5` → `fd8b15f`** — two commits, **docs only**
+  (backup/recovery + units; the convos-miner mtime correction finished). The
+  `fix(pi-session)` false-success guard was already baked in v1.8.3 — checked
+  by ancestry (`git merge-base --is-ancestor 6e1f4f3 b609cf5`), not by reading
+  the log, because a commit's *date* does not tell you which side of a pin it
+  fell on.
+- **`aws-cli` 2.36.24 → 2.36.29** and the other `*_VERSION=latest` tools
+  (bat/eza/fzf/gitleaks/nvim/micro/zoxide/yq/typst/tealdeer/agent-browser/
+  playwright/gosu/git-lfs/uv) refresh implicitly, as designed.
+- `pi-toolkit` unchanged (`0e1369e`, local `main` == baked).
+
+### Added
+
+- **`todo` extension: an `edit` action** (`pi-extensions` `98eb07b` →
+  `2022887`). The tool is a verbatim vendored copy of pi's own
+  `examples/extensions/todo.ts`, which offers list/add/toggle/clear and no way
+  to change an item's text. On a long-lived list that forces either a "patch"
+  item describing a *different* item, or clear-and-re-add of everything — both
+  hit for real on 2026-08-17 while tracking a 17-item fleet plan, which ended up
+  with `#18` correcting `#17`. `edit` takes `id` + `text` and keeps the id and
+  the done status; `nextId` is untouched. Id stability is the point, because ids
+  are the only handle a palace snapshot of a plan can refer to.
+- Verified live in-container before committing, by repointing
+  `~/.pi/agent/extensions/todo.ts` at a working copy for one session (unknown
+  id and missing text both error as intended; editing a completed item kept its
+  id and its `done` state), then reverting the symlink to the image copy.
+
+### Notes
+
+- **No pi-atelier change was needed for the `todo` action.** Its `tool_result`
+  hook only checks that `details.todos` is a well-shaped array and ignores the
+  action string, so the new action flows through its normalizer and sidebar
+  untouched. Worth knowing while reading agent transcripts: that hook
+  *replaces* todo tool output with `N/M done · see sidebar` whenever the sidebar
+  todo panel is visible (`showSidebarTodos`), so an agent sees only the counter
+  and not the item text — upstream's `list` otherwise returns every item. That
+  is a deliberate context saving, not a tool limitation.
+- The vendored copy now carries a numbered **LOCAL DELTAS** list in its header
+  (the earlier `ctx.mode !== "tui"` → `!ctx.hasUI` API fix, and this action), so
+  reconciling a future upstream version stays mechanical rather than
+  archaeological.
+- **A second om fix is NOT in this image and will not be.** Upstream PR #24
+  ("advance coverage watermark when observer records nothing", head
+  `joakimp:fix/observer-empty-coverage-watermark` `b577b29`) is open but
+  design-rejected by the maintainer on 2026-07-03: an empty observer verdict is
+  usually a *technical* failure, so advancing the watermark would leave a gap in
+  the observed session, and in the genuinely-nothing-to-observe case the next
+  observer simply gets more context. So the observer can still re-fire on a
+  growing span after an empty verdict — that is upstream's intended behaviour,
+  not an image defect. Do not "fix" it by rebasing that branch.
+
+---
+
+## v1.8.3 — 2026-08-16
+
+Patch release. **Bumps mempalace to `3.7.1`** and closes the gap that made the
+baked mempalace skill go stale for four commits. `pi` stays `0.84.2` (still the
+npm latest) and pi-atelier stays `v0.8.1`; every git-ref component
+(pi-toolkit, pi-extensions, pi-fork, pi-observational-memory, pi-studio,
+mempalace-toolkit) was checked against its upstream head and is unchanged.
+
+- **`MEMPALACE_VERSION` `3.6.0` → `3.7.1`.** Verified against the 3.7.1 source
+  rather than its changelog, because the risk is to palaces users cannot
+  reconstruct: legacy drawers lack the new `chunk_total` completion marker and
+  **both** decision sites trust them (`if chunk_total is None: ... trust the
+  match as before`), so there is **no mass re-mine**; `NORMALIZE_VERSION` is `2`
+  in both versions, so the "pre-v2 drawers are stale" gate does not fire either;
+  `chromadb<2,>=1.5.4` keeps the same major, so no index-format migration; there
+  is no auto-migration (the source says *"We do NOT auto-migrate"* twice) and
+  `rebuild_index` has exactly one call site, the explicit `repair rebuild`; the
+  single new palace file (`logstream.sqlite3`) is created lazily on first
+  logstream use. Downgrade stays possible — 3.6.0 has zero references to
+  `chunk_total` and ignores it as unknown metadata.
+
+  Two behaviour changes worth knowing, both turning a silent condition into a
+  hard refusal: `MEMPALACE_MCP_ALLOW_PEER_WRITER` **no longer works on
+  local/chroma palaces** (it is now gated on `backend_requires_single_writer()`,
+  and `_MULTI_PROCESS_WRITER_BACKENDS` is `{pgvector, qdrant}`), and writer-lock
+  *setup* failures now **fail closed** (`refusing this mutating tool`) instead of
+  proceeding with a warning. Neither affects this image's normal
+  MCP-server-plus-CLI-feeder pattern, which already serialised on the same
+  `mine_palace_*.lock` under 3.6.0 — "process-lifetime single-writer ownership"
+  in the upstream changelog describes tightened escape hatches, not a new lease.
+
+  What 3.7.1 buys a **shared central** palace is the real motivation: the stale
+  chromadb `SharedSystemClient` cache is now dropped on reconnect (under 3.6.0 a
+  peer's writes could be overwritten by a stale in-memory HNSW segment, *"index
+  count going backwards"*), the writer lease is released on SIGTERM/SIGHUP
+  instead of leaking a lock naming a dead PID, and an interrupted mine is no
+  longer permanently skipped as though complete.
+
+  **Upgrading a server requires restarting it** — 3.7.1 refuses mutating tools
+  when the served library drifts from what is installed, and `mempalace_reconnect`
+  cannot clear that (it reopens the database but cannot reload Python modules).
+  The fleet primary was upgraded and restarted before this image was tagged.
+
+  Note: opencode-devbox still pins `3.6.0`. The two images are meant to move in
+  lockstep, so that pin diverges until opencode-devbox cuts its own release.
+
+- **Vendored `mempalace` skill snapshot refreshed** to skillset `936fed8` (was
+  `63f3bf5`). This is the gap worth naming: `~/.agents/skills/mempalace`
+  symlinks to the **image-baked** copy under
+  `/usr/local/share/pi-devbox/skills/`, and `entrypoint-user.sh` creates that
+  link *first* while the skillset deploy never clobbers an existing name — so in
+  a devbox container the vendored snapshot always wins, and editing the skillset
+  repo alone changes nothing a container reads. Two commits' worth of guidance
+  had been invisible here: the multi-machine shared-palace section (device
+  provenance in `source_path`, mined drawers carrying the *mine* date with
+  UUIDv7 recovery, the naive-local vs UTC timestamp mismatch, `agent_name` not
+  being device-scoped, single-writer/no-queue semantics) and the
+  hand-crafted-provenance guard.
+
+- **`pi-global-AGENTS.append.md`** gains `### If the palace is central, it is
+  shared — three rules`: never run `mempalace sync` against a shared palace (it
+  prunes drawers whose sources look missing, which on a central palace is most
+  of the content, including other machines' — compounded by RFC-001 §7.2, since
+  feeders stage *inside* the palace root); a client-side timeout is not a
+  failure (single writer, one large mine blocks everyone, so
+  `mine timed out after 30000ms` usually means the mine completed — verify
+  before retrying or you file a duplicate); and the `mempalace` CLI is not
+  remote-aware, so it always opens a local-disk palace and can silently
+  disagree with the MCP tools.
+
+- **`mempalace-census` is now on `PATH`.** It shipped inside the image at
+  `/opt/mempalace-toolkit/bin/` but was never symlinked into `/usr/local/bin`
+  like its three siblings, so RFC-002 Phase A censuses had to be invoked by
+  absolute path. Added to the symlink set, the `chmod +x` set, and the
+  build-time `--help` smoke chain.
+
+---
+
 ## v1.8.2 — 2026-08-16
 
 Patch release. **Ships the fix for a silent transcript-feed failure**, plus the

Dockerfile.base

@@ -384,7 +384,19 @@ ARG INSTALL_MEMPALACE=true
 # mempalace_checkpoint (#2023/#2034).
 #
 # Keep in lockstep with opencode-devbox when bumping.
-ARG MEMPALACE_VERSION=3.6.0
+#
+# 3.7.1 (from 3.6.0) is safe for anyone with an EXISTING LOCAL palace: verified
+# against the 3.7.1 source, not the changelog. Legacy drawers lack the new
+# `chunk_total` marker and both decision sites trust them ("trust the match as
+# before"), NORMALIZE_VERSION is 2 in both, chromadb stays <2 (no index-format
+# migration), there is no auto-migration ("We do NOT auto-migrate"), and the one
+# new palace file (logstream.sqlite3) is created lazily on first logstream use.
+# Two behaviour changes to know: MEMPALACE_MCP_ALLOW_PEER_WRITER no longer works
+# on local/chroma palaces, and writer-lock setup failures now fail CLOSED
+# (refuse the write) rather than fail open. Neither affects the container's
+# normal MCP-server-plus-CLI-feeder pattern, which already serialised on the
+# same lock under 3.6.0.
+ARG MEMPALACE_VERSION=3.7.1
 ENV UV_TOOL_DIR=/opt/uv-tools
 ENV UV_TOOL_BIN_DIR=/usr/local/bin
 RUN if [ "${INSTALL_MEMPALACE}" = "true" ]; then \
@@ -425,11 +437,14 @@ RUN if [ "${INSTALL_MEMPALACE}" = "true" ] && [ "${INSTALL_MEMPALACE_TOOLKIT}" =
       ln -sf /opt/mempalace-toolkit/bin/mempalace-session /usr/local/bin/mempalace-session && \
       ln -sf /opt/mempalace-toolkit/bin/mempalace-docs    /usr/local/bin/mempalace-docs && \
       ln -sf /opt/mempalace-toolkit/bin/mempalace-pi-session /usr/local/bin/mempalace-pi-session && \
+      ln -sf /opt/mempalace-toolkit/bin/mempalace-census  /usr/local/bin/mempalace-census && \
       chmod +x /opt/mempalace-toolkit/bin/mempalace-session /opt/mempalace-toolkit/bin/mempalace-docs \
-               /opt/mempalace-toolkit/bin/mempalace-pi-session && \
+               /opt/mempalace-toolkit/bin/mempalace-pi-session \
+               /opt/mempalace-toolkit/bin/mempalace-census && \
       mempalace-session --help >/dev/null && \
       mempalace-docs    --help >/dev/null && \
       mempalace-pi-session --help >/dev/null && \
+      mempalace-census  --help >/dev/null && \
       echo "mempalace-toolkit installed at $(cd /opt/mempalace-toolkit && git rev-parse --short HEAD)" ; \
     fi
 

Dockerfile.variant

@@ -92,9 +92,9 @@ ARG PI_OBSMEM_REF=master
 # the /opt checkout. Adding an install here would be a no-op that only costs
 # build time.
 ARG PI_ATELIER_REPO=https://github.com/michaelmjhhhh/pi-atelier.git
-ARG PI_ATELIER_REF=v0.8.1
+ARG PI_ATELIER_REF=v0.8.2
 # Human-readable tag PI_ATELIER_REF was resolved from; recorded as a label.
-ARG PI_ATELIER_VERSION=v0.8.1
+ARG PI_ATELIER_VERSION=v0.8.2
 
 RUN set -e && \
     # git_fetch_ref: clone-equivalent helper that accepts EITHER a branch name

README.md

@@ -990,8 +990,8 @@ resolved to `latest` at build time:
 | Component | Pin | Where |
 |---|---|---|
 | pi | `0.84.2` | `ARG PI_VERSION` — `Dockerfile.variant` |
-| pi-atelier | `v0.8.1` | `ARG PI_ATELIER_REF` — `Dockerfile.variant` |
-| mempalace | `3.6.0` | `ARG MEMPALACE_VERSION` — `Dockerfile.base` |
+| pi-atelier | `v0.8.2` | `ARG PI_ATELIER_REF` — `Dockerfile.variant` |
+| mempalace | `3.7.1` | `ARG MEMPALACE_VERSION` — `Dockerfile.base` |
 
 The objective is **not** to freeze versions. Bumping is routine — usually one
 line plus a changelog note. The objective is that adopting a new upstream

rootfs/usr/local/share/pi-devbox/pi-global-AGENTS.append.md

@@ -41,3 +41,32 @@ especially load-bearing here — a pi-devbox container is frequently recreated,
 the palace is your only memory across recreates. Without the habit it is just
 storage, not memory. (The skill is the consumer side; feeding the palace is the
 separate `opencode-mempalace-bridge` skill, if present.)
+
+### If the palace is central, it is shared — three rules
+
+If `MEMPALACE_REMOTE_URL` is set, the MCP tools write to a **central palace
+shared with other machines**, not to a local one. Your drawers are not the only
+ones in there, and most drawers' `source_file` paths do not exist on this host.
+The skill covers the orientation side (provenance, chronology, whose diary is
+whose); these three are here instead because getting them wrong does *damage*
+rather than merely confusing you:
+
+- **Never run `mempalace sync` / `mempalace_sync` against a shared palace.** It
+  prunes drawers whose source files look gitignored, deleted, or moved — and on
+  a shared palace that describes most of the content, including every other
+  machine's. Compounding it (RFC-001 §7.2): feeders now stage *inside* the
+  palace root, so a scoped sync can delete the very drawers it just filed.
+  `mempalace_delete_by_source` is exact-match rather than existence-based, but
+  its blast radius is now the whole fleet's palace — leave it on its default
+  `dry_run=true` and confirm the match count before committing.
+- **A timeout is not a failure.** The palace is single-writer, and one large
+  mine can block every client for minutes, so a write or mine that exceeds the
+  client's deadline has usually *completed* server-side. Verify with
+  `mempalace_get_drawer` or `mempalace_search` before retrying — a blind retry
+  files a duplicate. `[mempalace ext] feed (tick) failed: mine timed out after
+  30000ms` is the common benign instance: the transcript is already in the
+  server's inbox and the mine is idempotent, so nothing is lost either way.
+- **The `mempalace` CLI is not remote-aware.** It always opens a palace on
+  local disk, so `mempalace search` can return older and different results than
+  the MCP tools while both look correct. Use the MCP tools for the central
+  palace; the CLI only for a local one.

rootfs/usr/local/share/pi-devbox/skills/VENDORED.md

@@ -50,4 +50,4 @@ also carries a copy, but it is a downstream duplicate and can lag), and
 `mempalace` from `skillset`. Copying `pi-extensions` from `skillset` would
 regress the snapshot to whatever that repo last mirrored.
 
-Snapshot provenance at last refresh: skillset `63f3bf5`, pi-extensions pkg `e73cb9f`.
+Snapshot provenance at last refresh: skillset `936fed8`, pi-extensions pkg `e73cb9f`.

rootfs/usr/local/share/pi-devbox/skills/mempalace/SKILL.md

@@ -275,18 +275,29 @@ Wings are top-level categories, typically one per project or domain:
 - Named after the project directory (e.g., `cli_utils`, `opencode_devbox`)
 - Agent diaries live in `wing_<agent_name>` (e.g., `wing_orchestrator`, `wing_pi`)
 
-#### Multi-harness palace
+#### Shared palace: multiple harnesses, and possibly multiple machines
 
-A single palace can be fed by multiple coding-agent harnesses. On this machine the palace is shared between **opencode** and **pi** (Mario Zechner's pi-coding-agent). Implications:
+A single palace can be fed by multiple coding-agent harnesses, and — when
+`MEMPALACE_REMOTE_URL` points at a central palace — by multiple *machines*. On
+this machine the palace is shared between **opencode** and **pi** (Mario
+Zechner's pi-coding-agent). Implications:
 
 - **`wing_conversations` mixes sources.** Both harnesses' session feeders write into the same wing. To tell them apart, look at the `source_file` metadata on each drawer:
   - `pi_<uuid>.jsonl` → pi session
   - `<slug>_ses_<id>.jsonl` → opencode session
   - The first chunk of each session also carries a `| source: opencode` or `| source: pi` marker in the synthetic header line.
 - **Other wings may belong to other harnesses.** For example `wing_pi` is pi's diary, not opencode's. Don't assume every diary entry was written by you — check `agent_name` on the entry.
-- **Session feeders run on different schedules.** Pi sessions are fed Tue 03:00, opencode sessions Mon 03:00. Recent sessions from either harness can lag the palace by up to a week, so absence-of-evidence in `wing_conversations` is not evidence-of-absence for recent work.
+- **Session feeders run on different schedules.** Pi sessions are fed Tue 03:00, opencode sessions Mon 03:00 (launchd `Weekday`: `0`/`7`=Sunday, `1`=Monday, `2`=Tuesday — misreading this by one day is easy). Recent sessions from either harness can lag the palace by up to a week, so absence-of-evidence in `wing_conversations` is not evidence-of-absence for recent work.
 - **Reading another harness's diary is useful.** When orienting after a gap, `mempalace_diary_read agent_name=pi` (or whichever sibling agent has been active) often gives a fresher picture than waiting for the conversations feeder to catch up.
 
+When the palace is **central** (shared across machines), five more things apply:
+
+- **Check which machine a conversation came from.** Transcripts are fed per device, so `source_path` reads `…/mempalace-feed/<device>/pi_<uuid>.jsonl` while the displayed `source_file` is only the basename. One search can legitimately return hits from several machines at once — look at the device segment before attributing a decision to *this* project.
+- **Mined drawers carry the MINE date, not the session date.** When history is imported, or re-mined on the palace host, `filed_at`/`created_at` is the *import* time — so sorting by them does not give chronological order. Real session time is recoverable from the UUIDv7 in `pi_<uuid>.jsonl`: the first 12 hex digits are milliseconds since the epoch (and UUIDv7 sorts lexicographically in time order, so a plain filename sort is already chronological). Agent-authored drawers and diaries have no such backdoor — for those `filed_at` is the only chronology, which is why it must never be restamped.
+- **Beware the timezone mismatch when you combine those.** Palace `filed_at`/`created_at` are naive timestamps in the palace host's local time, while a UUIDv7 decodes to UTC. Comparing them directly introduces a silent offset (2 h for a CEST host). Normalise before drawing conclusions about ordering.
+- **`agent_name` is not device-scoped.** `mempalace_diary_read(agent_name="pi")` returns *every* machine's `pi` diary, interleaved. Read the entry before assuming it is your own history.
+- **One writer, no queue.** A concurrent mine returns a structured `already-running` error rather than waiting its turn, and one large mine can make the palace unresponsive to every client for minutes. After another client's mine, call `mempalace_reconnect` to see the new drawers. A client-side timeout is not evidence of failure — verify before retrying, or you file a duplicate.
+
 ### Rooms
 
 Rooms are aspects within a wing:
@@ -324,3 +335,4 @@ Entity-relationship triples with temporal validity. Query with `mempalace_kg_que
 - **Don't mine .git directories or node_modules.** The CLI miner respects .gitignore by default.
 - **Don't create duplicate drawers.** Use `mempalace_check_duplicate` before adding manually.
 - **Don't treat the palace as a task list.** It's for knowledge and context, not todos.
+- **Don't hand-craft provenance.** Leave `added_by` alone (and never put a machine name in a diary's `agent_name` — it becomes the wing name and hides your entries from `diary_read`). Recording *which device* wrote a record is client/server infrastructure, not your job: a hostname or container ID is not a stable identity, and an invented value is worse than none because it silently corrupts any future palace merge. If you find notes in the palace describing an `origin_device` scheme, that is a design for the client to implement — not an instruction for you to start stamping.

scripts/smoke-test.sh

@@ -368,6 +368,14 @@ exec_test "settings.json bootstrapped"             'test -f $HOME/.pi/agent/sett
 exec_test "pi-devbox-environment skill linked"     'test -L $HOME/.agents/skills/pi-devbox-environment && test -f $HOME/.agents/skills/pi-devbox-environment/SKILL.md && echo ok'
 exec_test "pi-extensions skill linked (fallback)"  'test -L $HOME/.agents/skills/pi-extensions && test -f $HOME/.agents/skills/pi-extensions/SKILL.md && echo ok'
 exec_test "mempalace skill linked (fallback)"      'test -L $HOME/.agents/skills/mempalace && test -f $HOME/.agents/skills/mempalace/SKILL.md && echo ok'
+# The vendored mempalace snapshot is refreshed MANUALLY per release (see
+# rootfs/usr/local/share/pi-devbox/skills/VENDORED.md). It silently shadows the
+# skillset copy in a devbox container, so a stale snapshot is invisible: assert
+# the multi-machine shared-palace guidance is actually present, not just the file.
+exec_test "mempalace skill snapshot is current"    'grep -q "Shared palace: multiple harnesses" $HOME/.agents/skills/mempalace/SKILL.md && echo ok'
+# mempalace-census gained a /usr/local/bin symlink in v1.8.3; its three siblings
+# had one since they were added, so this asserts the set stays complete.
+exec_test "mempalace-census on PATH"               'command -v mempalace-census >/dev/null && mempalace-census --help >/dev/null && echo ok'
 
 # pi-fork + pi-observational-memory are registered by entrypoint-user.sh via
 # `pi install /opt/<pkg>`, which runs slightly after the keybindings marker.