ign — operate Ignition 8.3+ gateways from the terminal

Documentation · Releases · Issues

One binary that lets a developer (or an AI agent) fully operate and inspect an Ignition 8.3+ gateway — health, projects, tags, rigs — without opening the gateway webpage or Designer. Every subcommand is non-interactive by default and scriptable with JSON output; ign tui (below) is the interactive cockpit over the same actions layer. v1.1 completes the agent surface end to end: ign api call passthrough + curated daily checks, guarded EAM write lifecycle with blast-radius preview, byte-faithful XML/CSV tag transfer, a workspace checkout / ign edit round-trip, and protocol transports — MCP (ign mcp serve) and LSP (ign lsp) — so agents and editors drive the same binary humans do.

Watch it in use

Ignition CLI

Gateway inspection, project discovery, and batch tag reads.

Ignition CLI TUI

Explore gateway health, browse tags, and inspect projects from the keyboard.

Open the recordings with playback controls and written summaries. Recorded against a fictional batch process; playback runs at 1.2×.

Install

cargo install ignition-cli

(or grab a prebuilt binary from the releases — macOS arm64/x86_64, Linux x86_64/arm64). Requires Rust 1.88+ when building from source. The binary is ign.

Agent harnesses can also install the playbook: the ignition-ops skills (5 SKILL.md files — contract, gateway, tags, workspace, rigs) ride any skills-CLI-compatible agent:

npx skills add TheThoughtagen/ignition-cli -g

Claude Code can alternatively load them as a plugin (see Agent transports below).

Output contract (for agents)

Success prints a stable envelope on stdout; errors go to stderr in both modes (exit code carries the same signal):

• Success: {"ok": true, "profile": <name|null>, "data": {...}}
• Failure: {"ok": false, "profile": <name|null>, "error": {"code": "<slug>", "message": "...", "endpoint": <url|null>, "hint": "..."}}

--compact implies --json and renders the same envelope on a single line. Two documented exceptions: clap usage errors exit 2 and are rendered by clap itself (not JSON); the exit-2 class also covers destructive operations run without --yes.

One success-path exception: ign completions <SHELL> writes the raw completion script to stdout regardless of --json — shells source its output directly, so it is never JSON-wrapped.

The ign api call contract exception

ign api call is the one documented exception on the SUCCESS side: its data.result.data is the gateway's OWN JSON — gateway-verbatim (no field dropped, no value coerced, key order preserved), not a curated model. A 2xx answer with a non-JSON body refuses exit 1 internal with an explanatory message — binary endpoints belong to the logs/backup download pipelines, never this command. Gateway error bodies on the api-call path ride the error envelope's message verbatim, truncated at 4 KiB with an explicit ... [truncated] marker. Auth-pattern headers (Authorization, X-Ignition-API-Token, Cookie — case-insensitive) are refused exit 2 BEFORE any request: credentials come from the profile, full stop.

The MCP refusal-prose exception (2026-09-16)

The frozen envelope governs the CLI's own stdout/stderr only — byte-for-byte, always. Over the MCP transport (ign mcp serve), a confirmation_required refusal is the SECOND dated envelope-transport exception (alongside ign api call above): its message/hint PROSE adapts to the transport — the JSON names confirm: true (the MCP-native confirmation) and marks --yes/IGNITION_YES=1 CLI-only — while the shape stays byte-stable (same keys, same order, ok:false/code/profile:null/endpoint:null untouched). The MCP input schema correspondingly keeps confirm OUT of required for guarded verbs: schema-required would invite agents to auto-fill confirm:true, so omission is legal and answered by the refusal.

The deploy verify verdict exception (2026-10-14)

ign deploy verify is the THIRD documented success-path exit exception (after ign lint --strict and ign testing run), and the first in the deploy family: deploy apply and the redundant-pair checks of later phases will reuse the same envelope. A red verdict is not an error. The command prints the frozen success envelope, then ends with exit 6 (target state):

• stdout: {"ok": true, "profile": "<master profile>", "data": {..., "ok": false, "slug": "deploy_verify_failed", "checks": [...]}}. The envelope's own ok: true stays (the command ran and produced a verdict); the verdict is data.ok. The findings are in data.checks[].findings[]. There is no error member.
• exit 6, set after the envelope is rendered.
• A green verdict has data.ok: true, data.slug: null and exits 0. That includes a verdict whose read_back check is warn (a REST difference on a resource the plan reports same; see deploy verify): a warn never fails the verdict.

ign deploy verify --node backup|both uses the same verdict shape: the backup node's checks are in data.backup and the secret-name check of each node in data.secrets, and a red result there is data.ok: false, deploy_verify_failed and exit 6 after the envelope.

deploy_verify_failed lives only in data.slug. It is not a CoreError slug and is never a row of the exit-code table below; an agent that wants the verdict reads data.ok, and one that only looks at the exit code sees 6. The rule exists because the error envelope has no data field, and a verdict is only useful with its findings.

Failures before a verdict exists stay ordinary error envelopes on stderr with their own exit codes and an empty stdout: an unreachable gateway (network_error, exit 4), an unknown or secretless profile (exit 3), an unreadable host (transport_failed, exit 4), a refused tree (exit 2), and a gateway that refuses the scan, mode or resource reads. Over MCP the same envelope is returned with isError false, because the envelope's ok is true.

The deploy apply rolled-back verdict exception (2026-10-18)

ign deploy apply is the FOURTH documented success-path exit exception, and it reuses the deploy verify shape above. An apply whose post-write verify is red, whose lock lapsed, whose scan did not complete or whose write failed has restored the pre-apply snapshot and scanned. That is a finished run with a verdict, not an error, so the command prints the frozen success envelope and then ends with exit 6 (target state), as Decision A of the v1.6 milestone fixed:

• stdout: {"ok": true, "profile": "<master profile>", "data": {..., "outcome": "rolled_back", "ok": false, "slug": "deploy_rolled_back", "cause": "<cause>"}}. The envelope's own ok: true stays (the command ran to a defined end and the gateway is back on its snapshot); the verdict is data.ok. There is no error member.
• data.cause is one of lock_expired, write_failed, scan_incomplete or verify_failed; the run directory's events.ndjson and result.json carry the detail. A step after the commit that cannot be answered at all (the lock read, the scan or the verify fails with a gateway error) is restored like a red verify with the closest cause (lock_expired, scan_incomplete, verify_failed), and data.warnings holds post_commit_error (<step>: <code>).
• exit 6, set after the envelope is rendered.
• A successful apply has data.outcome applied, data.ok: true, data.slug: null, data.cause: null and exits 0; an empty plan is outcome noop, exits 0 and touched nothing.

deploy_rolled_back lives only in data.slug. It is not a CoreError slug and is never a row of the exit-code table below. A caller that only checks the envelope's ok would read a rolled-back apply as a success, so an agent that applies must read data.ok (or data.outcome); one that only looks at the exit code sees 6.

Failures before the write, and a rollback that could not restore, are ordinary error envelopes on stderr with their own exit codes and an empty stdout: plan_stale, deploy_unreadable, deploy_pair_tags_refused, destructive_change_refused, deploy_blocked, deploy_preflight_failed, deploy_journal_present and rollback_failed are rows of the table below. The verb is not in the MCP catalog.

The deploy apply backup-unsynced verdict exception (2026-10-20)

ign deploy apply to a redundant pair has a second verdict, and it is the FIFTH documented success-path exit exception (after ign lint --strict, ign testing run, deploy verify and the rolled-back apply above). The master applied and verified, but the backup node could not be proven to hold the same files within --backup-timeout. That is a finished run with a verdict, not an error, so the command prints the frozen success envelope and then ends with exit 6 (target state), as Decision A of the v1.6 milestone fixed:

• stdout: {"ok": true, "profile": "<master profile>", "data": {..., "outcome": "applied_backup_unsynced", "ok": false, "slug": "deploy_backup_unsynced", "cause": null, "backup": {"converged": false, "reason": "<reason>", ...}}}. The envelope's own ok: true stays (the command ran to a defined end and the master is deployed); the verdict is data.ok. There is no error member.
• data.backup.reason is one of four words, ranked in this order when more than one is true on the final observation: unreachable (a backup REST call or file read could not be answered; the check detail carries the error code), sync_exhausted (the backup logged that it gave up syncing during this run and will not catch up by waiting; a line logged before the run began does not count, and the CLI host's clock and the gateway's are assumed to agree to within a few seconds), not_syncing (the pair link is down or the backup's lastSyncTimestamp did not advance past the value sampled once the scan-lock was held, just before the first write) and content_differs (the backup is syncing but its files or its REST read-back differ from the render).
• A backup with no ssh or local transport in nodes.backup is checked over REST only: its convergence rests on the timestamp, the mode and the REST read-back, and the file comparison is a warn.
• exit 6, set after the envelope is rendered.
• The master is not rolled back: its run record stays applied, its files are the verified render, and nothing is restored. The only write the backup check makes is one resync request to the master (data.backup.resync).
• A converged backup has data.outcome applied, data.ok: true, data.slug: null and exits 0; a target without nodes.backup has data.backup: null.

deploy_backup_unsynced lives only in data.slug. It is not a CoreError slug and is never a row of the exit-code table below. A caller that only checks the envelope's ok would read an unsynced backup as a success, so an agent that applies must read data.ok (or data.outcome); one that only looks at the exit code sees 6, the same code as a rolled-back apply, and tells them apart by data.outcome.

A run killed during the backup wait (Ctrl-C, a lost terminal) has an applied master and no verdict. Follow it with ign deploy verify --env <ENV> --node backup to see whether the backup caught up.

The deploy projects unverified verdict exception (2026-10-23)

ign deploy projects has a verdict of its own, and it is the SIXTH documented success-path exit exception (after ign lint --strict, ign testing run, deploy verify, the rolled-back apply and the backup-unsynced apply above). The artifact was imported, but the project read back from the gateway does not equal the artifact by canonical hash, or could not be read back or compared at all. That is a finished run with a verdict, not an error, so the command prints the frozen success envelope and then ends with exit 6 (target state), as Decision A of the v1.6 milestone fixed:

• stdout: {"ok": true, "profile": "<profile>", "data": {..., "outcome": "imported_unverified", "ok": false, "slug": "deploy_project_unverified", "restore_command": "<command>"|null, ...}}. The envelope's own ok: true stays (the command ran to a defined end and the import was sent); the verdict is data.ok. There is no error member, and result.json in the run directory holds the same fields.
• exit 6, set after the envelope is rendered.
• No release record is written, no second import is sent and no further gateway request is made. Nothing is restored automatically: the project the gateway holds is what the import left, and the saved pre-image stays in the run directory.
• data.restore_command is the command that puts the saved pre-image back: ign project import <name> --file <run_dir>/export/<name>.zip --collision-policy overwrite --yes. It is a normal guarded project import; the operator reviews and runs it. The path is relative to the repo root (where the run directory lives), the command carries no --profile, and the human output names the gateway it is meant for, so run it from the repo root with the profile for that gateway. It is null when the project was created by the run (overwrite=false), because no pre-image exists to go back to.
• A verified import has data.outcome imported (or created), data.ok: true, data.slug: null and restore_command: null, and exits 0.

deploy_project_unverified lives only in data.slug. It is not a CoreError slug and is never a row of the exit-code table below. A caller that only checks the envelope's ok would read an unverified import as a success, so an agent that deploys must read data.ok (or data.outcome); one that only looks at the exit code sees 6, the same code as the other verdicts and as project_hash_mismatch, and tells them apart by data.outcome and data.slug.

Exit codes

Code	Class	Meaning	Stable slugs
0	ok	success	—
1	internal	unexpected failure — report as a bug	internal
2	usage	usage error (rendered by clap), destructive op without --yes, JVM profiling without --i-accept-the-risk, an invalid import file, an unreadable command input, a raw api call the gateway rejected with an unclassified 4xx (body carried verbatim), a declared deploy tree that fails render validation or carries an embedded secret, or a deploy apply of a destructive or drifted plan without its flag	confirmation_required, profiling_risk_not_accepted, invalid_import_file, invalid_input, gateway_client_error (P9), deploy_tree_invalid, embedded_secret, destructive_change_refused
3	config	local configuration problem	profile_not_found, no_active_profile, secret_unavailable, password_unavailable, config_invalid, poll_interval_too_small, module_not_registered
4	network	gateway, or a module release feed, unreachable / timeout / TLS, or a deploy host transport failure (an unreadable gateway data directory or a hostile live tree)	network_error, module_feed_unreachable, transport_failed
5	auth	gateway rejected credentials	auth_rejected
6	target_state	command invalid for the gateway's current state, a module artifact the feed refused to serve or verify, a held config scan-lock, a resource write refused for its signature, a create naming a resource or mode that already exists, an unusable on-box deploy declared-names ledger, a deploy plan that changed since it was reviewed, a deploy removal a core copy shadows, a failed apply preflight, an interrupted deploy's journal still on the box, live files a rollback would overwrite, an unusable deploy run record, a rollback that could not restore, a project the git module still manages (.git present), a project whose parent is missing, cyclic or not inheritable, an artifact whose hash is not the one that was reviewed, a deploy unit whose live path the host's sftp server cannot read, or a tag unit or tag type folder a deploy would leave or restore in a redundant pair's mode collection	gateway_too_old, gateway_not_commissioned, gateway_restarting, not_found, project_exists, resource_binary, trial_not_expired, provider_not_found, routes_not_deployed, webdev_unlicensed, route_version_mismatch, webdev_route_error, tag_collision, alarm_journal_missing, import_denied, session_not_prunable, eam_not_controller, eam_task_type_refused, eam_task_in_flight, script_exec_not_configured, lint_tool_absent, node_tool_absent, provider_root_unsupported, bundle_not_available, module_release_not_found, module_digest_mismatch, module_feed_unusable, module_digest_changed, module_uninstall_denied, scan_lock_held, resource_signature_rejected, resource_exists, mode_exists, deploy_ledger_invalid, plan_stale, deploy_blocked, deploy_preflight_failed, deploy_journal_present, deploy_live_changed, deploy_run_invalid, rollback_failed, project_git_managed, project_parent_invalid, project_hash_mismatch, deploy_unreadable, deploy_pair_tags_refused
7	rig	docker/compose rig failure (discovery, lifecycle, port conflicts)	rig_error

The exit-code table lives in exactly two places — this README and CoreError::exit_code() in crates/ignition-core/src/error.rs — kept in sync by two tests: exit_code_mapping_enumerated pins the enum to its exit-code/slug literals, and readme_exit_table_agreement parses THIS table via include_str! and cross-checks every slug ↔ exit-code row against those literals in both directions, so a missing, stale, or misplaced table row fails the test suite (the Three-Place rule: enum + literals + this table, all machine-checked).

ign api call partitions gateway answers through the same classifier: 401/403 → 5 auth_rejected, 404 → 6 not_found, 503 → 6 gateway_restarting, 500 → 1 internal, and every OTHER 4xx → 2 gateway_client_error with the response body carried verbatim in the message (4 KiB cap, ... [truncated] marker). Usage-class input problems (auth-pattern headers, bad --path, malformed --header/--query) refuse exit 2 invalid_input BEFORE any resolution — the envelope's profile is null and zero requests hit the gateway.

Gateway authentication (8.3)

Machine auth against Ignition 8.3 /data REST routes is token-only:

• Send the header X-Ignition-API-Token: <name>:<key> — the FULL name:key string the gateway UI shows when you create the key (Platform → Security → API Keys). Key-only headers are rejected (401).
• Basic auth does not work on 8.3 /data routes (verified: valid commissioned admin credentials → 401). ign keeps the basic-credential profile arm for future/legacy surfaces, warns loudly on stderr each time it is used against the gateway, and never silently retries — create an API token instead.
• Token-authenticated mutations need no CSRF machinery (CSRF applies only to cookie/session auth).

Creating a working token: gateway UI → Platform → Security → API Keys → Create (Basic Token) → pick a security level → uncheck "Require secure connections" for http:// gateways → copy the full name:key string.

The two rejection codes carry distinct diagnoses:

Response	Meaning	What to fix
401	token not recognized	the header must be the full name:key string — no name: prefix or wrong key → 401; Basic never works on /data
403	token recognized but under-permitted	three-part setup: (1) token holds an adequate security level, (2) gateway read/write permissions include that level, (3) "Require secure connections" unchecked for http — ign doctor diagnoses all three

Credential resolution order

Which env var or store answers for a profile depends on that profile's declared auth shape — the generic, profile-less env vars no longer win for every profile:

Step	Source	Applies to
1	IGNITION_TOKEN_<PROFILE_UP>	EVERY auth shape — the universal explicit override
2	the profile's own token_env var	TokenEnv profiles
3	bare IGNITION_TOKEN	ONLY a profile whose auth equals the default — i.e. no auth key in the TOML
4	keyring entry ignition-cli / profile:<name>	every profile (unconditional — the lookup is already profile-named)
5	the profile's own user_env/password_env	Basic profiles
6	bare IGNITION_USER + IGNITION_PASSWORD	a default-auth profile, or a Basic profile whose own named vars are unset

The generic IGNITION_TOKEN and IGNITION_USER/IGNITION_PASSWORD vars (steps 3 and 6) apply ONLY to a profile with no auth block. A profile that declares auth = { keyring = ... } or auth = { token_env = ... } / auth = { user_env = ..., password_env = ... } authenticates as itself — it never falls through to an unrelated shell credential meant for a different gateway.

IGNITION_TOKEN_<PROFILE_UP> (step 1) is the universal escape hatch: it still overrides every auth shape, including keyring profiles. The profile name maps to the var name by uppercasing and turning every non-alphanumeric character into _ — profile my-rig reads IGNITION_TOKEN_MY_RIG.

This matters most right after ign adopt, which rewrites the adopted profile to auth = { keyring = ... }. Before this order existed, a leftover IGNITION_TOKEN for some OTHER gateway in the developer's shell would shadow the freshly-stored keyring credential, and ign --profile <name> status would answer auth_rejected (exit 5) immediately after a successful adopt. Now a keyring profile with an empty keyring entry and a foreign IGNITION_TOKEN in the shell refuses loudly with secret_unavailable (exit 3) instead of silently sending the wrong token — a diagnosable refusal beats a misleading rejection.

Token-setup troubleshooting (the three-part failure, ign doctor's bread and butter)

A 403 means the gateway RECOGNIZED your token but its security level doesn't satisfy the gateway's permissions. The setup has exactly three parts — all three must hold:

1. The token holds an adequate security level. When creating the key (Platform → Security → API Keys), pick a level the gateway's permissions already accept — only leaf paths count (granting Authenticated/Roles mid-tree logs a WARN and is ignored).
2. The gateway's read/write permissions include that level. Under 8.3 defaults, Gateway Read/Write Permissions only include Authenticated/Roles/Administrator — a token granted just Authenticated gets 403 (verified live, then fixed by adding the level to the permission lists). ign doctor reads the security-properties config and shows you the actual wiring; when even that read 403s, the wiring is your culprit.
3. "Require secure connections" is unchecked when the gateway URL is http:// (the create dialog CHECKS it by default — the #1 http-rig trap; uncheck it).

ign doctor walks the whole chain — URL/TCP reachability, liveness (no credential involved, so down-ness is never confused with bad auth), commissioning, 401-vs-403, the permissions wiring, write permission, WebDev-route presence, and Docker presence — and exits 0 whenever the diagnosis completes so agents can parse checks[] from a broken setup without a nonzero exit getting in the way.

Gateway adoption (ign adopt)

Doctor diagnoses the three-part token setup; adopt fixes it. One idempotent, profile-scoped verb walks a commissioned-but-unadopted gateway to a fully working profile:

export IGNITION_PASSWORD='<gateway admin password>'
ign adopt --profile se-slot5-backend --project Flux --testing \
  --checkout ~/gateways/slot5 --bake ~/rigs/slot5/restore.gwbk

Five bootstrap steps, each reported as a doctor-shaped row, each skippable when already satisfied — re-running on an adopted gateway is an all-skip no-op:

Step	What it does
login	The native OIDC dance (session cookie + CSRF) — the same machinery as ign rig trial reset, the only credential path that can mint the first key
key	Mints an Administrator-level API key named ign-cli with "Require secure connections" off — idempotent by name over the ignition/api-token resource list. The key gets --level and also the default write level Authenticated/IgnCliWrite (see below)
permissions	Adds the bare root of --level to the gateway's read permissions and exactly the write levels to its write permissions — never a bare Authenticated (every API key holds it). Merge-only; reports warn when the write list still admits every key (--restrict-write fixes that)
probe	gateway-info plus the harmless scan/projects rescan with the fresh name:key — the key must read and write (or, with --read-only, read and be refused write with a 403). The live end-to-end proof
persist	Stores the credential in the OS keyring and rewrites the profile to auth = { keyring = … }; on headless hosts falls back to IGNITION_TOKEN_<PROFILE> and prints the token exactly once

Composition flags ride the bootstrap after the key is proven working: --project NAME deploys the CLI's WebDev routes (scriptExec on, the existing secret lifecycle), --project … --testing additionally ships the embedded Jython test framework + testing/run/testing/tags routes and asserts the suite is live before reporting green (discover ≥1 module + a passing smoke run — the empty-suite trap; a freshly deployed route's first-touch lazy-compile 500 is retried once), --checkout DIR lands every enabled project at DIR/<project> (scripts decoded, existing targets skip), and --bake FILE saves a roaming gwbk after everything landed — a gateway reset restored from it keeps the key, the wiring, and the routes (live-proven on 8.3.6).

Flags: --user NAME (default admin), --key-name NAME (default ign-cli), --level PATH (default Authenticated/Roles/Administrator), --write-level PATH (repeatable), --read-only and --restrict-write.

• --write-level PATH names a level to add to the gateway's write permissions and to grant to the key. The default is Authenticated/IgnCliWrite. It is not the key's own level: a live capture on fresh 8.3.6 and 8.3.3 gateways found that a nested write entry for the key's exact path (Authenticated>Roles>Administrator) admits no key, while a dedicated nested level (Authenticated>IgnCliWrite) admits exactly the keys granted it. The bare root (Authenticated) admits every key, so adopt never adds it and refuses --write-level Authenticated and --write-level Public (invalid_input, exit 2, before any login).
• --read-only mints a key at --level that the gateway refuses writes. It needs its own --key-name: under the default ign-cli (the write key) it is refused as invalid_input, exit 2, before any login. It never touches the write permissions. It refuses before minting when the write permissions already admit every key (a bare Authenticated or Public, or an empty list), so no orphan key is left behind. Its probe proves the result: gateway-info answers 200 and scan/projects answers 403 (a 2xx is a hard error). It conflicts with --write-level and --restrict-write (usage error, exit 2).
• --restrict-write removes the bare Authenticated entry from the write permissions after the write levels are in place. It is opt-in: other integrations' keys may rely on that entry. It refuses, before any change, when the removal would leave the list empty (Ignition reads an empty list as Public). It never touches the read permissions.

The password comes from IGNITION_PASSWORD env-only (missing → exit 3, rejected → exit 5). Unlike doctor, adopt mutates: a failed step is a hard error through the normal exit-code taxonomy, never a skip-ahead table. A same-name key that is disabled or secure-connections-only is a hard error (its plaintext is unrecoverable — delete it and re-run).

--testing only smoke-checks the bundle it deploys (discover ≥1 module + a green testing.__tests__ sentinel run). Running the suite itself is ign testing run --project NAME — the standalone verb over the same testing/run route, with --discover, --module/--package selection, --format junit|text, and the verdict in the exit code (0 green, 6 red with the full results still in the envelope).

A read-only check token

The deploy workflow's check job runs before any reviewer approves, so its token must not be able to write. Mint one with --read-only and verify the gateway itself refuses its writes:

ign profile add dev-check http://gateway.example:8088
# On a gateway adopted before this release, delete the old `ign-cli` key in
# Platform > Security > API Keys first, then mint and close the old write hole
# in one run (see "Gateways adopted by earlier releases" below):
IGNITION_PASSWORD=... ign adopt --profile dev --restrict-write
IGNITION_PASSWORD=... ign adopt --profile dev-check --key-name ign-ci-check \
  --level Authenticated/Roles/IgnCheckRead --read-only
ign doctor --profile dev-check --check-write --json

The doctor's write check must be warn with read-only token (HTTP 403 on scan/projects). Store the token as the caller's IGN_CHECK_TOKEN_<ENV> repository secret. On macOS, adopt keeps it in the keychain:

security find-generic-password -s ignition-cli -a profile:dev-check -w \
  | gh secret set IGN_CHECK_TOKEN_DEV

On a host without a keyring, adopt prints the token once; copy it from that output.

Gateways adopted by earlier releases

Earlier adopts added a bare Authenticated to Gateway Write Permissions, which lets every API key write, including a key minted for a read-only level. adopt now warns about it (the permissions row is warn) and ign adopt --restrict-write removes it. Check which other keys rely on it first: after the removal they lose write access. Re-adding the entry in Platform > Security > General Settings > Gateway Write Permissions undoes it. The default write level is now granted to the key as well, so a key minted by an earlier release does not hold it: adopt refuses it with exists at level ... was requested, before the permissions step runs, so --restrict-write cannot be run against that key. Do it in this order:

1. Delete the old ign-cli key in the gateway (Platform > Security > API Keys).
2. Run ign adopt --profile dev --restrict-write. One run mints the new key with the write level, adds that level to Gateway Write Permissions, removes the bare Authenticated entry, and probes the new key for read and write.

Other keys that relied on the bare entry lose write access at step 2, as described above.

Live-gateway verification (opt-in)

An #[ignore]-gated suite (crates/ignition-core/tests/live_gateway.rs) runs read-only checks against a real commissioned gateway when IGNITION_LIVE_URL (and optionally IGNITION_LIVE_TOKEN) are set:

cargo test -p ignition-core --test live_gateway -- --ignored

With no envs set the suite skips cleanly (green no-op). The file header carries the one-command Docker rig recipe for reproducing a test gateway.

A second #[ignore]-gated suite (crates/ignition-core/tests/live_rig_module_injection.rs) spins a real stock Ignition container and is the only proof that a declared module is mounted, loaded, undeclared and finally uninstalled from the gateway. It needs Docker in Linux-container mode and network egress to GitHub, and it is destructive by design — the uninstall it performs cannot be undone within a run:

IGNITION_LIVE_RIG_MODULES=1 \
  cargo test -p ignition-core --test live_rig_module_injection -- --ignored --nocapture

# and again on a second pinned 8.3.x, because the uninstall contract was
# probed live on 8.3.3 only
IGNITION_LIVE_RIG_MODULES=1 IGNITION_LIVE_RIG_IMAGE_TAG=8.3.9 \
  cargo test -p ignition-core --test live_rig_module_injection -- --ignored --nocapture

With IGNITION_LIVE_RIG_MODULES unset the suite skips cleanly, so CI and any machine without a Docker daemon are unaffected. IGNITION_LIVE_RIG_IMAGE_TAG defaults to 8.3.3; unset reproduces the default run exactly.

Production scale is the gate for deploy transport changes. crates/ignition-core/tests/common/prod_shape.rs generates the shape of a production pair's core tag folders (14,119 + 156 files, 7,500 + 85 folders, depth 14, fanout 89, 7 paths of 260 characters or more). Any change to a deploy transport must keep three layers of tests on it green: the offline connection-count tests in src/deploy/transport/sftp.rs (windows_prod_shape_*: a Windows read of that tree opens the same small, fixed number of ssh connections as a read of a tiny tree; and windows_bundled_*: it moves its files, about 48 MB with production bytes, with one sftp get of one archive, and refuses every hostile archive), the timed rows of tests/deploy_prod_scale.rs (a full read of the materialized tree, and the bundled download's archive build and extraction, inside a measured wall-clock budget), and the live wincap_prod_shape_* gate in tests/live_transport_wincap.rs (seed the test VM's core tag folders, read them, downloads included, in under 2 minutes, restore them exactly):

cargo test -p ignition-core --test deploy_prod_scale -- --nocapture --test-threads=1

Commands

Command	What it does	Notes
ign version	CLI version; gateway check when a profile resolves	unreachable gateway degrades to a warning (exit 0)
ign status	Identity, platform (Java/OS), uptime, CPU/memory/disk, license incl. trial countdown	merges gateway-info + /overview + unauthenticated /StatusPing; authed read (exit 3 without a secret, exit 5 on bad credentials)
ign modules [--quarantined]	Every module: id name version state licenseState	default = healthy list; --quarantined swaps to the quarantined list (usually empty)
ign metrics [--history]	Current CPU %/heap and thread execution counts	--history appends first/last datapoint summaries per series (systemPerformance endpoints)
ign sessions [--type designer|perspective|vision]	All three session families in one merged output (designers (N) / perspective (N) / vision (N) sections)	--type filters to one family; JSON always carries all three keys (filtered-out = []); replaces the webpage's Sessions pages
ign sessions terminate --type <T> --id <ID> [--message MSG]	Terminate a session (designer: prune / vision: close / perspective: terminate, --message shown to the user)	destructive: exit 2 (confirmation_required) without --yes or IGNITION_YES=1; a nonexistent id exits 6 (not_found); pruning a LIVE Designer session answers 409 on the gateway and exits 6 (session_not_prunable) — prune removes stale entries only, close the Designer first
ign connections [--type database|opc]	Database/OPC connections: name enabled healthchecks	healthchecks is passthrough as the gateway reports it (populated detail LOW-confidence until captured live); replaces the webpage's Connections pages
ign project list	Every runnable project: name title enabled parent inheritable	inheritance info comes from the list items themselves; JSON items also carry description (all six keys always present, null when unset); replaces the webpage's Projects list
ign project new <NAME> [--title --description --parent --inheritable --disabled]	Create a project	only provided fields ride the create body (never empty-string references); the result is a find read-back; audit-logged server-side
ign rig module uninstall <REGISTRY-ID>	Remove a provisioned module from the rig's gateway (DELETE /data/api/v1/modules/uninstall)	destructive: exit 2 (confirmation_required) without --yes or IGNITION_YES=1; refuses with exit 7 while the rig still declares the module, and exit 3 (module_not_registered) for an unknown registry id; the gateway refuses a module whose .modl is still mounted, answering exit 6 (module_uninstall_denied). NOT reversible by re-declaring — recovery is ign rig reset, which destroys the data volume
ign project copy <SRC> <DST>	Copy a project with all its resources	non-destructive (creates DST) — no --yes; audit-logged server-side
ign project rename <OLD> <NEW>	Rename a project (native rename, not copy+delete)	non-destructive relabel — no --yes; audit-logged server-side
ign project set <NAME> [--title --description --parent --set-enabled|--disabled --inheritable BOOL]	Set project fields — --parent IS the inheritance move (reparent)	only provided flags ride the modify body (absent = untouched); at least one field required; audit-logged server-side
ign project delete <NAME>	Delete a project	destructive: exit 2 (confirmation_required) without --yes; the wire DELETE always carries the server's own confirm=true query param (both guard layers); a nonexistent name exits 6 (not_found); audit-logged server-side
ign project export <NAME> [-o FILE]	Export a project as a ZIP archive	the ZIP STREAMS to disk chunk-by-chunk (no memory buffering; 120 s per-request timeout); default filename from Content-Disposition, else <name>.zip; stdout stays data-only — JSON carries {project, file, bytes, scope} (see scope metadata below)
ign project import <NAME> --file PATH|--file - [--collision-policy abort|overwrite]	Import a project from a ZIP (- reads stdin)	default policy abort: importing over an existing name exits 6 (project_exists) BEFORE any upload; overwrite is destructive — exit 2 without --yes and it REPLACES the entire project (resources absent from the ZIP are deleted; merge is Designer-only); a non-ZIP, >512 MB, or structurally-corrupt (truncated) input exits 2 (invalid_import_file) before any network I/O — every member is validated up front because the gateway would otherwise accept a truncated ZIP and wipe the target (live-witnessed); a gateway import refusal riding HTTP 200 ({success:false}) exits 6 (import_denied) with the gateway's problem text; 300 s per-request timeout
ign project diff <PROFILE_A> <PROFILE_B> --project <NAME>	Compare a project across two gateway profiles — per-resource added/removed/changed/same statuses (read-only, no guard)	statuses are B-relative-to-A: added = in B only, removed = in A only, changed = differing content after resource.json normalization (attributes.lastModification/…Signature stripped, keys canonicalized — identical content exported from two gateways reports same); each side exports once and NOTHING is imported; the envelope's profile stays the ACTIVE profile while the data carries profile_a/profile_b; the root project.json rides project_meta (title/enabled/parent deltas), never the resource entries; diffing a profile against itself exits 2 invalid_input; scope is project-only (see the tag-promotion pipe below); a missing project on either side exits 6 not_found
ign project sync <PROFILE_A> <PROFILE_B> --project <NAME> --resource PATH... [--all-changed] [--delete]	Promote selected resources from A into B (direction is ALWAYS A→B — source A, target B)	destructive on B: the whole project is overwrite-imported — exit 2 (confirmation_required, profile null, ZERO requests) without --yes; at least one of --resource (repeatable) or --all-changed required (else exit 2 pre-resolution); --all-changed promotes everything A has that B lacks or differs on (the diff's removed+changed under B-relative-to-A labels); default is upsert-ONLY — B's extra resources are never deleted unless --delete is passed (then the diff's added set — B-only — is removed; an explicit --resource path absent in A is a deletion request under --delete, not_found without); replace_member's descriptor-merge landing rules ride free; B's project.json is never touched; --all-changed with nothing changed performs NO import (zero-write honesty); JSON data {scope, profile_a, profile_b, project, synced, removed}
ign workspace checkout <PROJECT> <TARGET> [--decode-scripts]	Check a project's resources out to a local tree — mapped paths + the recorded .ign-workspace.json manifest + an idempotent .gitignore	read-only on the wire (one export GET, ZERO imports); an unrelated non-empty target refuses exit 2 (never clobbered — the pre-existing file is untouched), a corrupt or foreign-manifest target refuses naming what it found, a same-project re-checkout refreshes; --decode-scripts decodes embedded JSON scripts to editable .py sidecars (nvim-editable; the UNEDITED re-encode is byte-exact — see the workspace section and Script decode/encode below); profile NAME rides into the manifest; JSON data {project, target, member_count, scripts_decoded}
ign workspace status [PATH]	Report workspace drift against the gateway — a PATH/STATE table (clean rows INCLUDED — agents diff full state) + the x local edits, y gateway drift, z conflicts, n untracked summary	states are push-relative (each row names what push would do — the table in the workspace section below); the project comes from the manifest, never re-typed; a missing/corrupt/foreign-schema manifest refuses exit 2 PRE-resolution (profile null, ZERO requests — the usage-guard convention); read-only (one export GET); JSON data {project, clean, rows}
ign workspace push [PATH] [--delete]	Push local edits to the gateway — manifest-recorded local bytes spliced into a FRESH export, imported exactly once	destructive: exit 2 (confirmation_required) without --yes and the refusal message IS the blast-radius preview (exactly what would be written/deleted); conflicts refuse EVEN WITH --yes (manual reconciliation — see the workspace section); locally-deleted members need --delete (default: reported as skipped); untracked files are NEVER imported; an empty selection writes nothing and never prompts; JSON data {project, wrote, deleted, skipped}; over MCP the tool carries an OPTIONAL confirm boolean and confirm: true is the MCP-native confirmation for it — --yes/IGNITION_YES remain CLI-only, and the conflict refusal is still never confirmable on either surface
ign deploy render --env <ENV> [--repo DIR] [--targets DIR] [--out DIR]	Render a declared gateways/<name>/ tree for one environment into the bytes the gateway holds on disk, and report file and byte counts plus the render_sha256 digest	offline: profile: null, no network, no credentials, no profile resolution; deterministic render_sha256 (listing format in the deploy section); refusals exit 2 deploy_tree_invalid / embedded_secret; --env must be a safe single path component (invalid_input otherwise); MCP tool deploy_render is unguarded (Decision D; the --out clobber ladder is the safety); JSON data {env, gateway, mode, out, files, bytes, render_sha256, resources, tag_providers, uuids_minted, opaque_files, warnings}
ign deploy plan --env <ENV> [--repo DIR] [--targets DIR] [--base DIR] [--diff]	Plan one environment against the master node's live gateway files: each unit is added, changed, removed, same or unmanaged, with where live copies sit (live_in) and the core relation, plus the canonical plan_sha256	read-only (nothing is written to the gateway or its data directory; on a Windows ssh host the read stages one temporary archive below the deploy account's home and removes it before the verb returns); exits 0 whether or not anything changed (SF-2); resolves no session, so no secret is needed and no gateway is contacted; profile is the master node's profile name from the target; reads the host through nodes.master.local (or ssh); refusals exit 2 deploy_tree_invalid (master with neither ssh nor local) and exit 4 transport_failed (unreadable host); MCP tool deploy_plan is unguarded (Decision D); JSON data {env, gateway, mode, node, transport, render_sha256, plan_sha256, summary, entries, delete_set, base, warnings, excluded_tag_providers, unreadable} (unreadable lists the units a Windows sftp host could not serve whole, a live path of 240 characters or more, LONG_PATH_LIMIT; never an entry, never deleted); --base DIR adds three-way drift against a re-hashed previous render, --diff adds a redacted text diff (secret-bearing members withheld)
ign deploy pull --env <ENV> [--repo DIR] [--targets DIR]	Bootstrap gateways/<name>/ in the local repo from the master node's live tree: core files into resources/ and tags/, the mode collection's files into modes/<ENV>/, a manifest generated when none exists	read-only against the gateway (it reads the host through nodes.master.local or ssh, resolves no session, sends no REST request, writes nothing to the gateway or its data directory; on a Windows ssh host the read stages one temporary archive below the deploy account's home and removes it before the verb returns); writes only the local repo; units holding a secret, or that render would not reproduce byte for byte, are skipped and listed in data.skipped[] with a reason (they show as unmanaged in plan; a unit with a live path of 240 characters or more on a Windows sftp host is skipped path_too_long and shows under unreadable); guarded: replacing existing files in resources/, tags/ or modes/<ENV>/ exits 2 confirmation_required without the global --yes (the message names the file count and the first five paths), manifest.yaml and other environments' overlays are never touched; with --yes the repo copy of a path_too_long unit is removed, not kept, and named in data.warnings; MCP tool deploy_pull advertises confirm; JSON data {env, gateway, mode, node, transport, out, files_written, manifest, render_sha256, skipped, warnings, excluded_tag_providers}
ign deploy verify --env <ENV> [--repo DIR] [--targets DIR] [--project NAME] [--node master|backup|both]	Verify that the master gateway runs what the target declares, through six checks: scan, mode, read_back, files, loaded, probes; --node backup|both also checks the backup node of a redundant pair and that every secret name the tree references exists on each node	read-only (no scan is triggered, no scan-lock taken, nothing written to the gateway or its data directory; on a Windows ssh host the read stages one temporary archive below the deploy account's home and removes it before the verb returns); the master's profile from the target resolves through the normal secret chain (profile_not_found exit 3, secret_unavailable exit 3, network_error exit 4 when unreachable, transport_failed exit 4 when the host cannot be read); verdict exit: green exits 0, a RED verdict renders the success envelope with data.ok: false, data.slug: deploy_verify_failed and the findings in data.checks, and exits 6 after the envelope (see the verdict exception); failures before a verdict exists stay ordinary error envelopes with their own exit codes; --project (default ign-cli) names the project hosting the WebDev tags route used for probes; MCP tool deploy_verify is unguarded (Decision D); JSON data {env, gateway, mode, node, project, ok, slug, checks, resources_checked, warnings, excluded_tag_providers}, plus backup and secrets for --node backup|both only
ign deploy apply --env <ENV> [--project NAME] [--repo DIR] [--targets DIR] [--base DIR] [--plan-sha256 HASH] [--allow-destructive] [--allow-drift REASON] [--designers fail|wait|proceed] [--designers-timeout SECS] [--skip-gwbk] [--backup-timeout SECS]	Apply one environment: write the declared tree into the master node's mode collection (a redundant pair's tag-definition and tag-type-definition units into its core collection) under the gateway scan-lock, scan, then verify it; a red verify restores the pre-apply snapshot automatically; when the target declares nodes.backup, then wait (default 300 s, --backup-timeout 1 to 86400, twice at most) for the backup node to hold the same files, reading it only (never writing to it)	guarded: exit 2 confirmation_required without the global --yes, and the refusal message IS the plan (env, gateway, mode, each changing entry with its flags, the delete-set count and plan_sha256); Decision C: with --json, or when stdin or stdout is not a terminal, a missing --plan-sha256 is invalid_input (exit 2) before any host or gateway contact, and a hash that is not the current plan's is plan_stale (exit 6); a declared or ledgered unit whose live path the host's sftp server cannot read is deploy_unreadable (exit 6) before any write, even when the rest of the plan is empty; for a target with nodes.backup, a tag-definition or tag-type-definition unit with a file the apply would leave in the mode collection (one the ledger does not list; an unmanaged unit, neither declared nor ledgered, is not refused) is deploy_pair_tags_refused (exit 6) before any write, even when the rest of the plan is empty (see Tags and redundant pairs); an empty plan prints outcome noop, exits 0 and creates no .ign/ directory and sends no lock, backup, scan or restart request; a red post-apply verify renders the success envelope with data.outcome rolled_back, data.ok: false, data.slug deploy_rolled_back and data.cause, and exits 6 after the envelope; a master that applied with a backup that did not converge renders the success envelope with data.outcome applied_backup_unsynced, data.ok: false, data.slug deploy_backup_unsynced and data.backup.reason, and also exits 6 after the envelope (the master is not rolled back); one fixed 176 s lock hold serves every target, and a change of 1,528 or more files (writes plus deletes) is refused by the hold_budget preflight (deploy_preflight_failed, exit 6); staging a large tree is silent on the wire (up to about 9 minutes at 1,520 files), so in human mode a stderr line announces it, and progress lines are prefixed ign deploy apply: (under --json stderr stays silent until an error envelope); the flag set has no option that skips the plan hash, the verify or the rollback; not in the MCP catalog (Decision D); JSON data {env, gateway, mode, node, transport, run_id, run_dir, outcome, ok, slug, cause, plan_sha256, render_sha256, summary, written, deleted, warnings, excluded_tag_providers, gwbk, skip_gwbk, restart_pending, restart_pending_new, backup}
ign deploy rollback --env <ENV> --run <ID> [--repo DIR] [--targets DIR] [--discard-live-changes] [--designers fail|wait|proceed] [--designers-timeout SECS]	Roll back one past run by id, from a fresh process: restore the on-box snapshot the run took into the master node's mode collection, delete the files the run created, scan, and record the rollback in a run directory of its own. Also recovers an interrupted run (see deploy rollback)	guarded: exit 2 confirmation_required without the global --yes, and the refusal message names the run, the gateway, the mode and how many files it would restore and delete (and any live change it would overwrite); a malformed --run is invalid_input (exit 2) before any host or gateway contact; a file changed since the run is deploy_live_changed (exit 6) unless --discard-live-changes; a journal of another run is deploy_journal_present (exit 6); one fixed 176 s lock hold serves the rollback; in human mode progress lines are prefixed ign deploy rollback: on stderr (under --json stderr stays silent until an error envelope); not in the MCP catalog (Decision D); JSON data {env, gateway, mode, run_id, target_run_id, run_dir, outcome, ok, restored, deleted, discarded_live_changes, warnings, restart_pending, restart_pending_new}
ign deploy projects --env <ENV> --release <TAG> [--allow-downgrade] [--allow-first-change REASON] [--check | --artifact-sha256 HASH --yes] [--designers fail|wait|proceed] [--designers-timeout SECS] [--repo DIR] [--targets DIR]	Deploy one Ignition project from its own repo, or with --check report what that would do. Reads deploy/project.yaml (strict, schema_version: 1, project, environments) and the root project.json, reads targets/<ENV>.yaml below --targets (default --repo), builds the artifact from the checkout, reads the live project, and reports the action: create for a project absent from the gateway, skip when the live project equals the artifact and the release record already names this release, record when it equals the artifact and the record is absent or names another release, import otherwise. Without --check it is guarded: exit 2 confirmation_required without the global --yes, and the refusal message IS the plan (action, project, gateway, environment, release, member counts, the paths an overwrite deletes and the hash); Decision C: with --json, or when stdin or stdout is not a terminal, a missing --artifact-sha256 is invalid_input (exit 2) before any host or gateway contact, and a hash that is not the checkout's artifact is project_hash_mismatch (exit 6) with nothing uploaded. It saves the live project, imports the artifact (create uses overwrite=false), reads the project back, compares it by canonical hash and records the release. Outcomes: checked (--check), skipped, created (a project absent from the gateway, D-13), imported, recorded, imported_unverified; a read-back that does not equal the artifact renders the success envelope with data.outcome imported_unverified, data.ok: false, data.slug deploy_project_unverified and data.restore_command, writes no record, sends no second import, and exits 6 after the envelope	--check sends GET requests only (projects/list, projects/find/<name>, projects/export/<name>, and, when the project's code holds a [provider]path literal of a provider the target does not exclude, resources/list/ignition/tag-provider once and tags/export?provider=<P>&type=json once per referenced provider), creates no .ign/ directory and writes nothing; a deploy goes to the master node only (never nodes.backup), declared with local or ssh (Linux or Windows); --env must be listed in deploy/project.yaml (deploy_tree_invalid, exit 2, before any request); the artifact holds the root project.json and, below the top-level ignition and module-id directories, each resource.json with the files it lists, and a symlink in that walk refuses deploy_tree_invalid; artifact_sha256 and live_sha256 are canonical digests that ignore zip entry order and the fields the gateway rewrites on import; other projects on the gateway are listed by name in unmanaged and never read or changed; not in the MCP catalog (Decision D); JSON data {env, gateway, project, release, check, action, would_change, artifact_sha256, live_sha256, members, removed, removed_count, excluded, excluded_count, unmanaged, unmanaged_count, parent, previous_release, recorded_sha256, live_matches_last_deploy, allow_downgrade, allow_first_change, warnings, run_id, run_dir, record_written, restore_command, missing_tags, missing_tags_count, missing_tags_unknown_providers, missing_tags_unknown_providers_count, missing_tags_unavailable, missing_tags_limit, outcome, ok, slug}, with members as {added, changed, removed, same} and the lists byte-sorted and capped at 200 entries; missing_tags* is a warning about tags the project uses that the target lacks, never a gate (see deploy projects, Tags the project uses)
ign edit <PROJECT> <RESOURCE_PATH> [--yes]	Fetch a gateway resource, edit it in $EDITOR, push back — the kubectl-edit loop over ONE resource (whole-tree authoring is ign workspace's job)	destructive: the push re-imports the project — exit 2 (confirmation_required) without --yes and the refusal message IS the blast-radius summary; ZERO stdout in every mode (the editor owns the terminal — all prose on stderr, see the edit section); an unchanged save is a clean no-op (nothing pushed, never prompted); a gateway changed since fetch refuses EVEN WITH --yes (changed on gateway since fetch — re-run to fetch fresh); a JSON-breaking save refuses FAIL-CLOSED with the temp tree kept (path printed); no $EDITOR/VISUAL refuses exit 2 pre-resolution (profile null, zero requests)
ign resource list <PROJECT> [--prefix PREFIX]	A project's resource members, one path per line	rides project-export ZIP surgery (05-02): the project is exported, the member tree under <collection>/resources/… is mapped to user paths (resources/ stripped — ignition/script-python/…); --prefix filters client-side; JSON items carry exactly the typed path
ign resource get <PROJECT> <PATH>	Read ONE resource: JSON pretty-printed, text raw — the surgical edit loop's first half	PATH keeps its slashes (e.g. ignition/script-python/myscript) and addresses a ZIP MEMBER (the file at <collection>/resources/<rest>); a binary member (data.bin-class, sniffed from the member bytes) refuses with exit 6 resource_binary (use export/import instead — never corrupted through the JSON loop); JSON data carries {project, path, content_kind, content}
ign resource put <PROJECT> <PATH> --file PATH|--file -	Write ONE resource member (upsert: created if absent, replaced if present)	destructive: the whole project is re-imported (overwrite=true) after the member surgery — exit 2 (confirmation_required) without --yes; content is sniffed (json/text); binary input refuses exit 6 resource_binary before any network I/O; an unreadable file/stdin exits 2 invalid_input; concurrent Designer edits are REPLACED (see the resource section)
ign resource delete <PROJECT> <PATH>	Delete ONE resource member	destructive: exit 2 (confirmation_required) without --yes; the surgery drops the member and re-imports the project; a nonexistent path/member exits 6 (not_found)
ign logs [--logger L] [--min-level L] [--since SPAN] [--limit N]	Recent log entries, newest first (ISO-UTC LEVEL logger message)	--limit is ALWAYS explicit (default 200 — the server default is unlimited); --since takes EPOCH-MS or 500ms/30s/5min/2h; sorts desc(timestamp) so you see the NEWEST entries, never the oldest 200
ign logs -f [--interval S] [--timeout S]	Live tail: entries stream to stdout as they occur	poll-based (no server push exists — GET /logs?startTime=<cursor> IS the tail); --timeout expiry ends cleanly (exit 0); without it, run until Ctrl-C (default process kill, no envelope); see the streaming exception below
ign logs download [-o FILE]	Download the log archive — a SQLite .idb, never a zip	bytes written exactly as received; default filename from Content-Disposition, else <profile>-logs-<ts>.idb; --json data is {file, bytes, content_type}
ign logs loggers [--search S]	Logger registry: name level context	explicit limit 200 (same unlimited-default guard)
ign logs loggers set <NAME> <LEVEL>	Set one logger's level (TRACE..OFF)	mutation: exit 2 (confirmation_required) without --yes; audit-logged server-side
ign logs loggers reset	Reset ALL custom logger levels to defaults	mutation: exit 2 without --yes; audit-logged server-side
ign restart [--wait] [--timeout S] [--interval S]	Restart the gateway — the one big red button	always --yes-guarded (it takes the whole gateway down); without --wait: POST + "READY in ~1 min" advisory; with --wait: POST → 5 s floor → polls the unauthenticated /StatusPing until RUNNING (default 300 s budget; a timeout exits 4 naming the last observed state)
ign wait gateway [--interval S --timeout S]	Wait until the gateway reports RUNNING	unauthenticated /StatusPing poll — works with no/broken credential; already-RUNNING = immediate success (default 120 s)
ign wait restart [--interval S --timeout S]	Wait for a restart to complete	shares restart --wait's semantics: a non-RUNNING state observed once → RUNNING completes immediately (witnessed restart, no floor wait); an all-RUNNING wait reports success only after the same 5 s floor — no false positive when run right after ign restart
ign wait module <ID> [--interval S --timeout S]	Wait until a module reports ACTIVE	polls modules/healthy?search=<id> (authed); timeout names the id + last observed state
ign doctor [--check-write] [--webdev-route NAME]	Diagnose the setup: url (parse + TCP dial), liveness (unauth /StatusPing), commissioning (302→/welcome), auth (401 vs 403), the permissions deep-dive (security-properties), write permission, WebDev-route presence, Docker/rig presence	exits 0 whenever the diagnosis completes — failing checks are data, not CLI errors (agents parse checks[]; humans read the table); --check-write fires the harmless scan/projects rescan (2xx = write OK, 403 = read-only token); --webdev-route NAME probes that route's version action in the CLI's ign-cli WebDev project — 405 = absent (the live-proven 8.3 marker; the earlier 404 assumption was wrong), 402 = module unlicensed, 200 = present (+ handshake version); config errors (no profile) still exit 3
ign adopt [--user NAME] [--key-name NAME] [--level PATH] [--write-level PATH]... [--read-only] [--restrict-write] [--project NAME] [--testing] [--checkout DIR] [--bake FILE]	Bootstrap a commissioned gateway to a working profile: native OIDC login → mint an Administrator-level API key (ign-cli, secure-connections off, idempotent by name) → merge the level root into the gateway's read permissions and exactly the write levels into its write permissions (never a bare Authenticated) → live-probe the fresh name:key for read and write (--read-only mints a key proven refused write; --restrict-write removes the bare Authenticated write entry) → persist (OS keyring + profile rewrite; env-var fallback prints the token exactly once)	password from IGNITION_PASSWORD env-only (missing → exit 3, rejected → exit 5); mutating-verb exits — a failed step is a hard error (doctor-shaped steps[] rows, SKIP = already satisfied; re-run on an adopted gateway is an all-skip no-op); a same-name key that is disabled or secure-only is a hard error (delete it and re-run); composition flags run after the key is proven: --project deploys the WebDev routes, --testing (requires --project) ships the Jython test framework + testing routes and asserts discover ≥1 module + a green smoke run, --checkout DIR lands every enabled project (scripts decoded), --bake FILE saves a restore-ready roaming gwbk; see the Gateway adoption section
ign session login [--user NAME]	Obtain a live gateway login session through the native OIDC dance — the SAME flow ign adopt and the trial-reset ladder already run, exposed as JSON so a browser harness can skip the login form entirely. Returns {cookie_name, cookie_value, csrf_token, gateway_url, storage_state}, where storage_state is a ready-to-write Playwright storageState document (one cookie, empty origins)	this verb emits a LIVE credential by design — that is its product, and the exposure is disciplined: the session material (cookie value, CSRF token, storage_state) rides the envelope only under the global --json flag; the human render deliberately prints just the cookie NAME and the gateway URL and withholds the rest (pinned by a unit test over the pure render function, so a future edit cannot leak it silently). Password is env-only via IGNITION_PASSWORD (never a flag — the rig family's rule): missing → exit 3 password_unavailable, rejected → exit 5 auth_rejected, and neither refusal path emits any session material. --user resolves flag → $IGNITION_USER → admin. The profile resolves DEGRADED (no API token required — logging in is what happens before one exists). The storage-state cookie follows Playwright's rules: domain is the gateway host without its port, path is /, httpOnly true, sameSite Strict, expires -1 (a session cookie), and secure true only for an https gateway. Consumed verbatim by the ign e2e init scaffold's global-setup.mjs
ign webdev deploy [--project NAME] [--with-script-exec] [--rotate-secret] [--with-testing]	Install the CLI's own WebDev route bundle into the dedicated ign-cli project (default) — tags, tagConfig, alarms, tagHistory (+ scriptExec only with --with-script-exec, + the testing bundle only with --with-testing)	not --yes-guarded by design: the dedicated project is CLI-OWNED — born from the first deploy zip, overwrite-REPLACED on every deploy (replace-not-merge is the contract here; user projects are never touched); every WebDev-dependent tag command (Phase 5) refuses exit 6 routes_not_deployed naming ign webdev deploy until this runs; --with-script-exec generates a fresh hex secret (stored in the profile config at 0600) when none exists, --rotate-secret regenerates unconditionally (requires --with-script-exec); the secret NEVER appears in any output, envelope, or log (it lives in exactly one place: the baked route zip member); --with-testing appends the embedded TESTING bundle (the Jython framework, the permanent testing.__tests__ smoke sentinel, and the POST-only testing/run/testing/tags routes) — NOTE: a testing-only deploy OVERWRITES and drops scriptExec; compose both flags (or let ign adopt --project … --testing do it); JSON data {project, routes, script_exec, secret_rotated, import}
ign webdev status [--project NAME]	The version-handshake sweep: probe every route's version action — per-route {route, status, deployed_version, expected_version}	a read — exits 0 whenever the sweep completes (per-route degradation is DATA, the doctor precedent): present/absent/unlicensed/auth_gated/secret_mismatch/version_mismatch per route; the ok flag (data, not exit code) is true only when every always-on route is present with a matching version; scriptExec is probed ONLY when a secret is configured for the profile and never gates ok
ign tags provider list	The gateway's tag providers: name enabled tags health (+ (managed) marker)	NATIVE config-resource REST (no deployed routes needed) — the healthy seam: metrics.tagCount + healthchecks.status ride as the gateway reports them; the built-in System provider (and any MANAGED-type) is flagged; JSON rows carry {name, enabled, tag_count, health, managed} (all keys always)
ign tags provider create <NAME>	Create a STANDARD tag provider	MVP creates the fixed STANDARD shape only ({profile:{type:"STANDARD"}, settings:{}} — the live-proven array-body POST); DB-backed providers are out of scope; audit-logged server-side
ign tags provider delete <NAME>	Delete a tag provider (find → signature → delete chain)	destructive: exit 2 (confirmation_required) without --yes — the guard fires before ANY resolution (zero network work); a nonexistent provider exits 6 (provider_not_found, hint names ign tags provider list); the delete embeds the record's server signature on the path; audit-logged server-side
ign tags browse [PATH] [--filter SUBSTR] [--include-properties] [--project NAME]	Browse tags as a tree — providers at the root, folders/tags nested	needs the deployed routes (see the version-negotiation matrix above — refuses exit 6 pre-deploy); Property children are filtered out by default (--include-properties keeps them — the display default); --filter is a case-insensitive substring on name and full path; human mode renders the indented tree with tagType badges, JSON is the flat {path, name, tag_type, has_children, data_type}[] (nesting derivable from path)
ign tags browse --from-export PATH [--filter SUBSTR] [--include-properties]	Browse a tag export OFFLINE — no gateway, no credential, no deployed routes (profile: null; the positional browse path and this flag are mutually exclusive)	THREE layouts accepted: the CLI's own tags export JSON (the interchange file — provider = file stem), a legacy <provider>.json whole tree, or a git-module directory (a tags/ root, or the dir itself when it holds provider folders/.json files) — per provider: individual .json-per-leaf files (folders = directories, _types_/*.json = UDT definitions, names decoded from %XX-encoded filenames, dot-entries skipped, System excluded, .tag-config.json ignored) OR the legacy single-file tree; the output reuses the SAME tree render + flat JSON row shape as the live browse; a nonexistent path or unparseable JSON exits 2 invalid_input (zero network)
ign tags read <PATH>... [--project NAME]	Read one or more tag values — path = value [quality] timestamp	needs the deployed routes; always batch on the wire (a single path is a one-element batch); rows pass through VERBATIM — quality strings carry their own detail (Good, Bad_NotFound, …) and are never parsed further: a missing tag is DATA (exit 0, quality Bad_NotFound), not an error
ign tags write <PATH> --value V [--project NAME]	Write a value to a tag — returns the post-write quality	needs the deployed routes; the write-scalar-is-JSON rule: --value parses as a JSON scalar (42, 1.5, true, null, "quoted"); text that does not parse is sent as the bare string (--value hello is the string hello); arrays/objects refuse exit 2 (invalid_input) before any network I/O — the tag value wire slot is a scalar; a nonexistent target writes back a Bad… quality (quality is data)
ign tags config get <PATH> [--project NAME]	A tag's configuration as (pretty) JSON — the surgical edit loop's read half	needs the deployed routes; the gateway hands value/defaultValue back as STRINGIFIED JSON — the CLI re-parses them into real JSON objects/arrays so agents see structured data, not JSON-in-a-string (unparseable and scalar-parse strings stay strings); JSON data carries {project, path, tag_type, config}; a missing tag exits 6 (not_found — the route's own denial); provider-ROOT paths ([default] alone) exit 6 provider_root_unsupported (see the bulk export note below); a config carrying history bindings appends an additive history: block in human mode (see Tag↔historian bindings below)
ign tags config create <PATH> --file FILE|- [--project NAME]	Create a tag from a JSON definition (- = stdin)	needs the deployed routes; the definition is the configure shape — see the configure-shape traps table below; the CLI splits the path into configure's basePath + per-tag name (a bare path rides under [default]; the path-derived name wins over any name in the definition) and does NOT otherwise reshape the dict; collision policy 'a' (abort): creating over an existing node refuses server-side; --file JSON errors exit 2 (invalid_input) pre-resolution
ign tags config edit <PATH> --file FILE|- [--project NAME]	Edit a tag's configuration from a JSON definition (- = stdin)	the same configure call with collision policy 'o' scoped to the single named node (edit = overwrite that node); NOT --yes-guarded — a single-node edit is not a project-wide destructive
ign tags config delete <PATH>... [--project NAME]	Delete tag configurations	destructive: exit 2 (confirmation_required) without --yes — the guard fires before ANY resolution (zero network work); the delete is batch on the wire (deleteTags {paths}); JSON data {project, deleted}
ign tags udt types [--provider NAME] [--project NAME]	List a provider's UDT types ([provider]_types_ browse)	needs the deployed routes; JSON data {project, provider, types: [{name, tag_type}]}
ign tags udt def <NAME> [--provider NAME] [--project NAME]	A UDT definition (parameters + nested children, recursive)	needs the deployed routes; the SAME stringified re-parse applies (parameter defaultValues and child values become real JSON); JSON data {project, provider, name, definition}
ign tags export <PATH>... [-o FILE] [--format json|xml|csv] [--project NAME]	Export tag subtrees — the bulk-transfer half	needs the deployed routes; --format json (default) fetches the gateway's native JSON interchange: the payload is parsed, validated (a list of subtrees), and written PRETTY — default file <last-path-segment>.json in the cwd, -o FILE overrides, -o - prints the raw pretty payload in every mode (the fourth sanctioned stdout exception — pipe it into tags import --file -); --format xml passes the gateway's own XML through RAW-BYTE (CRLF/no-declaration document verbatim, no added trailing newline; default file .xml); --format csv is CLI-GENERATED and LOSSY — see the CSV honesty note below (default file .csv; what was dropped prints on stderr and rides data.loss_report); JSON data {project, paths, file, stdout, tag_count, loss_report?}; provider-ROOT paths ([default] alone, or a bare provider name like default) exit 6 provider_root_unsupported — see the bulk export note below
ign tags import --file FILE|- --provider NAME [--format json|xml|csv] [--collision-policy abort|overwrite] [--project NAME]	Import a tag export into a target provider	needs the deployed routes; the provider must exist (ign tags provider create NAME); the loss gate (TAGS-12): xml/csv inputs are SCANNED before anything is sent — if the scan reports losses, the CLI prints the loss report and refuses exit 2 invalid_input (profile null, zero requests) unless --yes; with --yes the structured scan summary rides data.loss_report; the locked collision matrix: abort (default) pre-checks by browsing the target and refuses exit 6 (tag_collision, hint names --collision-policy overwrite) BEFORE any write, then imports with server-side abort as the backstop; overwrite replaces existing tags — destructive: exit 2 without --yes, no pre-check (the server is the authority); merge is Designer-only (not a value); JSON data {project, provider, collision_policy, imported, format, top_level_names, loss_facts, failed?, loss_report?}
ign tags alarms active [--source S] [--priority P] [--state S] [--project NAME]	List ACTIVE alarms — eventId (FULL uuid) source state priority name	needs the deployed routes; only present filters ride the wire (kwargs passthrough to system.alarm.queryStatus); state strings read 'Active, Unacknowledged' verbatim — never parsed; JSON rows carry {event_id, source, state, priority, name} (name null when the event carries none); the printed eventId is copy-pasteable straight into tags alarms ack
ign tags alarms history --start T --end T [--project NAME]	Query alarm history (journal rows, columns dataset-dependent)	needs the deployed routes; a journal-provisioned gateway only — default rigs refuse exit 6 alarm_journal_missing with the hint naming the provisioning chain (see Alarm history below); --start/--end take RFC3339 or epoch-ms; rows ride VERBATIM (the journal schema varies by Ignition version — the header IS the column list)
ign tags alarms ack ID... --username NAME [--note NOTE] [--project NAME]	Acknowledge alarms — the count + the unacknowledged remainder	needs the deployed routes; the gateway-scope 3-arg wire form needs the username, so --username is REQUIRED (the CLI never guesses one); NOT --yes-guarded by design — acknowledging never un-acknowledges anything (a state-advancing, read-adjacent verb); ids: full UUIDs pass through verbatim, SHORT prefixes expand against the active-alarm list (ambiguous → exit 2 naming the candidates; unknown → exit 2 naming the miss); the 8.3 return IS the unacknowledged remainder — acknowledged is computed honestly (requested − remainder); JSON data {project, acknowledged, unacknowledged}
ign tags history query PATH... --start T --end T [--return-size N] [--aggregation MODE] [--project NAME]	Query HISTORICAL tag values — the t_stamp column + one column per tag	needs the deployed routes; structurally safe on ANY rig (zero historians → a well-formed dataset with null values, exit 0); DATA requires a provisioned historian (see Tag history below); t_stamp is preserved EXACTLY (never renamed) and tag columns ride PROVIDER-RELATIVE ([default]P5H/T1 surfaces as P5H/T1 — live-proven); --start/--end take RFC3339 or epoch-ms; --aggregation defaults to the route's LastValue; JSON data {project, paths, columns, rows, row_count}
ign rig [--rig NAME] up [--timeout S]	Bring a Docker compose rig up (compose up -d --wait) and wait for the gateway	docker-only (profile: null envelope); --timeout is BOTH compose's --wait-timeout and the commissioned-probe deadline (default 300 s); a fresh-volume rig reports "up, uncommissioned" as DATA (exit 0, wizard URL in warnings)
ign rig [--rig NAME] down	Stop the rig (compose down --remove-orphans; volumes KEPT)	docker-only; the volume-deleting teardown belongs to rig reset
ign rig [--rig NAME] reset [--timeout S]	Tear the rig down AND remove its volumes, then bring it back up fresh (down -v --remove-orphans → pre-flight → up --wait → commissioned wait)	destructive: exit 2 (confirmation_required) without --yes or IGNITION_YES=1, BEFORE any discovery runs; removed_volumes in the data reports exactly what -v took; no stale project/trial state survives (a fresh volume usually boots uncommissioned — exit 0, wizard URL in warnings)
ign rig [--rig NAME] status	Structured rig status: services (state/health/ports), volumes, ports occupancy	docker-only; an ALLOWLIST only — never a compose-config passthrough (the resolved config contains gateway passwords); a down rig is exit-0 data
ign rig [--rig NAME] logs [--tail N] [-f] [SERVICE]	Stream the rig's container logs (compose logs passthrough)	raw lines in EVERY mode — the third stdout exception (see §Streaming); --tail default 200; -f follows until Ctrl-C (default process kill); compose diagnostics go to stderr, never the data stream
ign rig [--rig NAME] trial status	Show the rig gateway's trial state: licenseMode, trialState, seconds left, expired — plus the banners cross-check	credential-free (the trial/banners endpoints answer unauthenticated — verified live on 8.3.3 AND 8.3.6; a fresh rig with no token reports fine); addresses the RIG's derived gateway URL (never the profile's); data {license_mode, trial_state, trial_remaining_s, expired, emergency, emergency_remaining_s, development, banners: {severity, expire_time_ms, active}, warnings} — banners.active is the Pitfall-7 cross-check (severity=="info" AND expireTime>now_ms), never the primary truth (expired is)
ign rig [--rig NAME] trial reset [--user NAME]	Reset an EXPIRED trial to a fresh ~2 h window via the mechanism ladder	destructive: exit 2 (confirmation_required) without --yes, BEFORE any discovery; ladder = tier 0 POST /data/api/v1/trial with X-Ignition-API-Token (token from IGNITION_TOKEN) → tier 1 native gateway login (internal-IdP OIDC challenge dance → session cookie + CSRF header), creds --user/IGNITION_USER + IGNITION_PASSWORD (password NEVER a flag); success REQUIRES the read-back flip (expired false on re-fetch — a bare 2xx never suffices); a NON-expired trial refuses exit 6 trial_not_expired (the gateway 403s resets while active — live-verified); no creds at all → exit 3
ign rig [--rig NAME] snapshot [-o DIR]	Snapshot the rig's gateway: native gwbk (GET /backup?type=roaming, STREAMED to disk) + per-project exports + manifest.json — composed in a timestamped dir	addresses the rig's derived gateway URL; requires IGNITION_TOKEN (the backup route 401s unauthenticated — live-verified shape); default dir ./ign-rig-snapshots/<rig>-<yyyyMMdd-HHmmss>/; data {dir, gwbk_bytes, projects, manifest_path} — the manifest names BOTH composition exclusions (see §rig snapshot/restore)
ign rig [--rig NAME] restore --file PATH [--timeout S]	Restore a gwbk onto the rig's gateway (raw octet-stream POST), wait for the witnessed post-restore RUNNING	destructive: exit 2 without --yes, BEFORE any discovery; the restore is synchronous and the gateway RESTARTS after — success is a WITNESSED StatusPing→RUNNING (deadline floored at 300 s), never a bare 2xx; data always carries the token-clobber warning (API tokens may have been reset by restore…, see §rig snapshot/restore); requires IGNITION_TOKEN
ign backup download [-o FILE] [--type roaming|all]	Download a gwbk from ANY profiled gateway (streamed to disk — the standalone sibling of rig snapshot's gwbk leg)	--type roaming (default) = the portable backup; all includes gateway-specific state; default filename from Content-Disposition, else <profile>-backup.gwbk; read, unguarded; JSON data {file, type}
ign backup restore <FILE> --yes	Restore a gwbk onto THIS gateway (the ACTIVE profile's — rig restore's standalone sibling without the rig wait)	destructive — the 8th --yes-guarded verb: exit 2 (confirmation_required, profile null, ZERO network) without --yes; REPLACES this gateway's state, then the gateway restarts and blocks for minutes (the 2xx is acceptance — see §Backups); a nonexistent/empty/non-regular file exits 2 invalid_input pre-network; JSON data {restored: true}
ign eam history [--limit N] [--search TEXT]	EAM task run history — ISO taskName [level] target detail rows (newest first)	rides the RUNTIME seam: a stock (non-controller) gateway refuses exit 6 eam_not_controller with the manual-flip hint (definitions still list — see below); --limit defaults to 200 and is ALWAYS sent explicitly (the server default is unlimited); outcomes are DATA (Failed + GNET-not-connected detail read exit 0); JSON data {items, count} — items passthrough under the gateway's own camelCase keys (taskName, taskStart epoch-ms, taskType)
ign eam tasks [NAME]	Task definitions: bare form lists (name type schedule state); with a name shows the full definition + its scheduled state	rides the config-resource seam (com.inductiveautomation.eam/eam-tasks) — definitions answer on STOCK gateways (no controller needed); JSON list data {tasks: [{name, task_type, schedule_mode, current_state}]} (all keys always; current_state null on list records — find answers carry it); detail data {name, definition, state}; an unknown name exits 6 not_found
ign eam task new <NAME> <TYPE> [--target NAME]... [--setting K=V]... [--definition PATH] [--schedule-mode MODE]	Create a task definition — the typed guard ladder	the planner-locked ladder: eam_backup + OnDemand (the default schedule) fires UNGUARDED (it never auto-fires and only acts when forced); MUTATING types (eam_restart, eam_sendProject, eam_sendResource, eam_sendTags, eam_activateLicense, eam_updateLicense, eam_unactivateLicense) and ANY non-OnDemand --schedule-mode (Immediate/Scheduled/AtTime/AtDelay — they arm autonomous actions) need --yes (exit 2 pre-resolution, zero network); the FLEET-DESTRUCTIVE trio (eam_restoreBackup, eam_installModules, eam_remoteUpgrade) REFUSES outright — exit 6 eam_task_type_refused naming the EXT-03 (v2) scope (run them from the EAM console); --setting K=V auto-types scalars (bool/int ride typed, else string); --definition PATH deep-merges a full-JSON settings file over the composed config.settings (objects merge, arrays/scalars replace) — mutually exclusive with --setting; the POST body is the config-resource ARRAY shape with the live 8.3.3 profile/settings split (config.profile = {type, scheduleMode} only; config.settings = {targetGateways, targetGroups, …}); targetGateways defaults to ["_controller"] when no --target is given (the controller itself); JSON data carries the composed definition verbatim
ign eam task force <NAME> --yes	Force-dispatch a task NOW (find → owner → POST → history read-back)	destructive — always --yes-guarded (dispatches to the agent targets immediately; exit 2 pre-resolution without); the guard is the two-tier blast-radius gate (see below): the refusal message IS the preview line naming the task, its agent targets, and the factual impact; the owner resolves from the healthcheck's scheduledTaskState.details.owner (fallback eam); a 2xx is DISPATCH acceptance — the run's OUTCOME lands in history as data (Failed + GNET-not-connected detail is the honest shape of an unconfigured agent; trial expiry blocks runs); JSON data {task, owner, dispatched, history}
ign eam task suspend <NAME> --yes	Suspend a task definition's scheduled dispatches (runtime seam)	guarded — the two-tier blast-radius gate (exit 2 pre-check + preview-in-the-refusal without --yes, zero writes; exit 6 not_found on a bad name BEFORE any prompt); on a stock gateway the runtime seam honestly refuses exit 6 eam_not_controller (manual-flip hint); TASK-scoped — there is NO agent-level suspend on the wire (see the reconciliation note below); JSON data {task, action, previous_state, config_suspended, pending, fired, reason}
ign eam task resume <NAME> --yes	Resume a suspended task definition (runtime seam)	the suspend inverse — same guard, same seams, same honesty; JSON data as suspend
ign eam task cancel <NAME> --yes	Cancel a task's PENDING execution (runtime seam)	same guard; nothing pending is an honest no-op (fired: false + the reason ride the data — a write we declined is reported, never disguised); a canCancel: false row surfaces the gateway's own refusal
ign eam task modify <NAME> [--enable|--disable] [--schedule-mode MODE] [--setting K=V]... [--description TEXT] --yes	Rewrite targeted keys of a task definition (config seam — works on stock gateways)	full-record read-modify-write: every key the gateway answered rides back, only the targeted keys change, and the body carries the record's signature (a stale signature is refused by the gateway); --enable/--disable conflict (clap-validated); --setting reuses the eam task new K=V auto-typing and deep-merges over config.settings (repeatable); a modify that targets nothing refuses exit 2 pre-network (a no-op PUT would still rotate the server-side signature); no --rename by wire honesty — the gateway answers a renamed PUT with 404 empty; rename is the create-new + delete-old composite; the guard is the two-tier gate (preview reflects the post-change impact); JSON data {task, changed, definition, put_outcome, readback}
ign eam task delete <NAME> --yes	Delete a task definition (config seam — works on stock gateways)	signature-keyed (the gateway refuses a stale signature) behind the two-tier gate; JSON data {task, deleted, affected} — affected names the resources the gateway reported
ign script run --code PY|--file PATH|- [--project NAME]	Execute gateway-side Python (Jython) through the secret-gated scriptExec route — non-interactive, the route's entire purpose	the opt-in is STRUCTURAL, not a flag: scriptExec deploys only via ign webdev deploy --with-script-exec (which generates + persists the secret); without it the verb exits 6 script_exec_not_configured with ZERO HTTP, hint naming the deploy flag; no --yes by design — the deploy flag IS the opt-in and agents need it non-interactive; --code/--file are mutually exclusive (both or neither → exit 2 invalid_input before any resolution; --file - reads stdin — the agent pipe path); each run probes the route's version handshake then execs (two round trips); JSON data {stdout, result, elapsedMs} — ALL keys always; a route-side Python exception surfaces its traceback verbatim (exit 6 webdev_route_error); NO server-side execution timeout exists — a long-running script holds the HTTP connection (the client's per-request timeout class applies); the secret NEVER appears in any output mode (see the scriptExec posture below)
ign testing run --project NAME [--discover] [--module DOTTED|--package PREFIX] [--format json|junit|text]	Run the gateway's own Jython test suite through the deployed testing bundle and return a machine verdict — the agent/CI verb (no Designer, no ign adopt)	--project is required (the bundle deploys per project and a run executes THAT project's gateway-side code — there is deliberately no ign-cli default); --discover lists the discovered test modules; --discover/--module/--package are mutually exclusive (exit 2 invalid_input naming both flags, with ZERO HTTP requests); the verdict rides the BODY, never the status line — the route answers 200 on green and 207 on failures/errors and both are success transport shapes, so failed + errors > 0 is the only oracle; a green run exits 0; a RED run renders the FULL results in the success envelope and exits 6 with data.slug = "tests_failed" (the ign lint --strict precedent — the error envelope has no data field to carry results, and every test runner puts the report on stdout and the verdict in the exit code; tests_failed is NOT a CoreError slug and never appears in the exit-code table); an undeployed bundle exits 6 routes_not_deployed with a hint naming ign webdev deploy --with-testing / ign adopt --project NAME --testing (404/405/501 are all absent markers — a raw-status probe runs BEFORE the run POST so an absent bundle can never read as a passing suite); a first-touch lazy-compile 500 is retried exactly once (3 s) on each leg; --format renders client-side — the route is ALWAYS asked for json, so the verdict and exit code are identical in every format (the route's own junit/text answers stay HTTP 200 and carry no counts), with the rendered document in data.report and the structured truth in data.results; JSON data {mode, project, modules, count, verdict, slug, passed, failed, skipped, errors, total, durationMs, report, results} — ALL keys always; NO server-side execution timeout exists — a long-running suite holds the HTTP connection (the client's per-request timeout class applies)
ign lint PATH... [--strict] [-- ARGS...]	Lint local project files by delegating to ignition-lint (PATH-discovered; no gateway, profile: null)	doctor posture: exit 0 whenever the tool RAN — findings, child_exit_code, and the parsed JSON report ride as data (ALL keys always; report null + stdout verbatim when unparseable; stderr_preview capped at 4000 chars); --strict exits with the tool's own code for CI (envelope prints first — the one sanctioned success-path exit exception; 1 = findings at the --fail-on threshold); PATHS map to --target <path> pairs + --report-format json on an ARG VECTOR (never a shell string); anything after -- passes through verbatim; no tool on PATH → exit 6 lint_tool_absent with the install hint (uv tool install ignition-lint-toolkit); pair with project export --decode-scripts to lint the decoded sidecars
ign e2e doctor [DIR] [--project NAME]	Diagnose the browser-E2E setup before (or instead of) scaffolding one: node (≥20, version-probed), npm, @playwright/test inside DIR (default ./e2e), a downloaded chromium in the Playwright browsers cache, the gateway's testing bundle, and the gateway's trial state	doctor posture — exits 0 whenever the diagnosis COMPLETES: every finding is a checks[] row, never an exit code, so a toolless host, an unreachable gateway, and an undeployed bundle all still return the full report (agents parse checks[]; humans read the table). Six rows in a fixed order — node, npm, playwright, chromium, testing-bundle, trial — each in the standard {name, status, detail, hint} shape with status one of ok/warn/fail/skip. Read-only and offline-safe: chromium presence is a pure filesystem scan of PLAYWRIGHT_BROWSERS_PATH (else the per-OS default — ~/Library/Caches/ms-playwright on macOS, ~/.cache/ms-playwright on Linux) for a chromium-* or chromium_headless_shell-* entry, deliberately not npx playwright install --dry-run, which would reach for the npm registry. A missing browser or an uninstalled runner is warn (one command away), an absent or too-old node is fail with the install hint. The two gateway rows report skip when no profile resolves or no --project is given — --project has no default, and a profile that will not resolve is not an error for this verb (envelope profile is null); an absent bundle is fail hinting at ign webdev deploy --with-testing, an expired trial is warn hinting at ign rig trial reset
ign e2e init [DIR] [--project NAME] [--run-project NAME] [--browsers] [--yes]	Scaffold a Playwright browser-E2E suite into DIR (default ./e2e) and npm install it: playwright.config.mjs, a global-setup.mjs that logs in via ign session login and gates on ign testing run, lib/gateway.mjs (tag/script helpers over the testing routes), tests/example.spec.mjs, .gitignore, README.md — seven members, all embedded in the binary	requires the global --yes; without it the verb writes NOTHING and spawns NOTHING and refuses exit 2 confirmation_required after previewing the target, every member with its would-be status, and both command lines verbatim — the refusal IS the dry run, which is why no separate --dry-run flag exists. Idempotent: an existing file is reported skipped and never overwritten, so a re-init over a suite you have edited is safe. A non-empty target that is not already a scaffold (no playwright.config.mjs) refuses exit 2 invalid_input naming files it found, before any write. A host with no node on PATH refuses exit 6 node_tool_absent with the same install hint ign e2e doctor's node row carries. Both gates run before any write AND are re-run inside the action, so in-process TUI/MCP callers get the same refusals. npm install (and, with --browsers, the Chromium download) run with ARG VECTORS, never shell strings, streaming their output through; a non-zero installer is DATA, not an error — a network-less host is still left with a usable scaffold on disk. --project defaults to ign-cli (the CLI's own WebDev project), --run-project defaults to the effective --project; the gateway URL comes from the profile, falling back to http://localhost:8088 when none resolves (scaffolding must work before a profile exists). JSON data {dir, files[{path, status}], npm_install, browsers} — ALL keys always
ign api call --method M --path /P [--data TEXT] [--header "Name: Value"]... [--query k=v]...	Raw passthrough to any gateway REST endpoint — the escape hatch for the uncurated endpoint families (any HTTP verb accepted)	the envelope's data.result.data IS the gateway's JSON verbatim (no field dropped, no value coerced, key order preserved — the documented contract exception above); a non-JSON 2xx body exits 1 internal with the explanation (binary endpoints: use logs/backup downloads); auth-pattern headers (Authorization, X-Ignition-API-Token, Cookie — case-insensitive) refuse exit 2 pre-resolve with ZERO gateway requests (credentials come from the profile); --path must start with /, refuses host-shaped URLs and embedded ? (use repeatable --query k=v — the ONE query mechanism); --header splits on the FIRST : (repeatable), --data is raw text on ANY method (GET/DELETE bodies allowed — curl parity); exit partition: 401/403→5, 404→6, 503→6, 500→1, every other 4xx→2 gateway_client_error with the body verbatim (4 KiB cap + ... [truncated] marker)
ign license status	The license morning-check in ONE command: license mode + countdown, then per-hardware-key item rows (name title version)	merges TWO reads — /data/api/v1/licenses (the inventory) + /data/api/v1/trial (the trial companion); the license MODE lives on the trial wire, not the licenses payload (live-capture fact — fresh-rig /licenses carries no mode/edition keys); models are version-tolerant: unknown keys ride the JSON passthrough, license-array ELEMENT shapes were not capturable on fresh rigs (no activations) and stay lenient; JSON data {license, trial} — trial carries license_mode, trial_seconds_left, expired; authed read (exit 3 without a credential, exit 5 on bad auth)
ign redundancy status [--peer PROFILE]	The redundancy morning-check: role, project state, activity, peer connection, config access, sync/failover pending, uptime, last-sync	units AS CAPTURED on 8.3.3 + 8.3.6: uptime = ms since gateway start (wall-clock proven twice); lastSyncTimestamp = epoch-ms (proven on a live 8.3.6 pair), -1 = never synced (JSON rides the raw value); role is a String (Independent/Master/Backup seen — unknown future roles ride, never refuse), and activity (Active/Cold) decides which node serves; role does not; peer-connected shapes were not capturable on a single fresh rig (peer fields lenient); JSON data {status} with the gateway's own camelCase keys; --peer reads the second node (through PROFILE's own secret chain) and adds active_node (this, peer, both or neither), decided by activity level, never role; both is a split-brain signal; a Cold backup with uptime: -1 is a healthy standby; naming the active profile as --peer is exit 2 invalid_input before any request; without --peer the output is unchanged; authed read
ign gan status	The Gateway Area Network morning-check: total/running connections, in/out byte rates, remote gateways	the zero-connection capture IS the canonical shape — all zeros on a non-GAN gateway are healthy data, not absence of feature; byte rates ride JSON floats (0.0), counts ints; one-command truth (overview/gan) — the full remote-gateway list stays with ign api call; JSON data {status}; authed read
ign diagnostics bundle generate	Start a diagnostics support-bundle generation (POST, no body) — the 200 answer IS the fresh status	capture-encoded state machine (8.3.3 + 8.3.6, 09-02 rigs; Invalid added from the 2026-09-07 UAT): the captured vocabulary is Generating (mid-generation), Valid (terminal/ready), and Invalid (terminal "no current bundle" — see wait); PascalCase; state is a String, never an enum, so an unobserved future state rides verbatim and never refuses; generation takes ~2–6 s on a fresh rig — pair with wait; JSON data {state}; authed read
ign diagnostics bundle status	The bundle status: captured state + size	fileSize (bytes) is ABSENT while Generating (the key is missing on the wire — not null, not 0) and appears with Valid, equal to the download's byte count exactly; JSON data {state, fileSize}; authed read
ign diagnostics bundle download [-o FILE]	Download the bundle ZIP (streamed to disk)	the request rides a 300 s per-request timeout override (the 30 s client default would truncate MB-sized bundles — Pitfall 8); bytes land verbatim (PK\x03\x04 ZIP magic live-verified); default filename is the gateway's Content-Disposition basename, else ignition-diagnostics-bundle-<unix_ts>.zip; the ready state persists after download (repeatable — live-captured); JSON data {file, bytes, content_type}
ign diagnostics bundle wait [--interval SECS] [--timeout SECS]	Poll the status until the bundle is ready — defaults 2 s / 300 s (the restart --wait shape)	the captured vocabulary drives termination (three states, live-proven on the 09-02 rigs + the 2026-09-07 UAT): Valid (terminal/ready) exits 0 with {state, fileSize}; Generating (mid-generation) keeps polling; Invalid is a TERMINAL steady state — the gateway's "no current bundle" answer (observed 2026-09-07 on 8.3.6: a Valid bundle decays to Invalid within ~2 min unprompted and stays Invalid) — wait exits IMMEDIATELY exit 6 bundle_not_available naming the state; only a fresh generate changes it (polling cannot); an UNKNOWN state (outside the captured vocabulary) is honestly NOT terminal — it keeps polling until the deadline, and the deadline message carries the last observation instead of claiming unreachability (the gateway answered, so it never says the gateway was unreachable); a deadline with NO observation stays exit 4 network_error; JSON data {state, fileSize}; authed read
ign jvm sample [--duration-secs 5–120] [--interval-ms 5–1000] [--top 1–100] [--folded-out PATH] [--follow] --i-accept-the-risk [--project NAME]	SPECIAL MODE — sample every JVM thread's stack for a capped window through the secret-gated scriptExec route and rank the hottest methods/stacks (folded output is flamegraph-ready); --follow is CONTINUOUS mode: bounded windows back-to-back until Ctrl-C	ACTIVE instrumentation — never a routine diagnostic: refused exit 2 profiling_risk_not_accepted without --i-accept-the-risk (the global --yes/IGNITION_YES deliberately does NOT satisfy this gate — zero HTTP either way); durations are HARD-CAPPED (120 s; refused, never clamped — over-cap is exit 2 invalid_input, profile null, before any resolution); CPU overhead grows with thread count × frequency — never run on a production server outside an approved change window; every render leads with the production warning (stderr banner in human mode, data.warning in JSON); --follow streams each window as it lands — NDJSON envelopes under --json/--compact (the logs -f streaming exception, data.warning on every line), defaults drop to the gentler 10 s @ 50 ms cadence, and --folded-out is refused with it (exit 2 — one sidecar cannot hold every window); requires the scriptExec deploy (ign webdev deploy --with-script-exec, else exit 6 script_exec_not_configured); JSON data {warning, duration_secs, interval_ms, samples, thread_peak, observations, wall_ms, hot_methods, top_stacks, folded, elapsedMs} — ALL keys always, warning first; every pct is count / observations (per-THREAD counts normalize against total thread stacks observed, never against samples), and wall_ms is the gateway-measured loop time (the requested interval rides on dump cost — the effective cadence is longer on busy gateways)
ign jvm jfr start [--duration-secs 10–300] [--settings default|profile] --i-accept-the-risk [--project NAME]	Start a Java Flight Recording named ign-cli via the JVM's DiagnosticCommand MBean	same special-mode gate as sample (--i-accept-the-risk required, --yes does not satisfy); memory-buffered (nothing touches gateway disk until stop dumps) and duration-capped so it AUTO-STOPS even if you forget (hard cap 300 s, refused not clamped); a leftover ign-cli recording refuses route-side naming ign jvm jfr stop; JSON data {warning, name, duration_secs, settings, detail, elapsedMs}
ign jvm jfr status [--project NAME]	List the JVM's flight recordings verbatim (jfrCheck)	READ-only and ungated — checking is how you confirm cleanup; JSON data {warning, active, recordings, elapsedMs} (active = an ign-cli recording exists)
ign jvm jfr stop [-o FILE] [--project NAME]	Stop the ign-cli recording, dump it, fetch the .jfr (base64 through the envelope), and DELETE the gateway-side file	cleanup — ungated by design (stopping reduces risk and must never be refused); dumps over 32 MiB are NOT streamed: the recording stops, the file stays on the gateway, and fetched:false + remote_file report it (never silently truncated); default local name ign-cli-<unix_ts>.jfr; JSON data {warning, name, file?, fetched, bytes, remote_file, remote_deleted, elapsedMs}
ign profile add/list/use	Manage gateway profiles	—
ign completions <SHELL>	Shell completion scripts	raw stdout regardless of --json

All gateway commands honor the envelope (--json/--compact) with the [profile: NAME] header in human mode. The inspection trio (status, modules, metrics) replaces the gateway webpage's Status Overview, Config > Modules, and Performance & Diagnostics pages; sessions, connections, the logs tree, and the project tree replace its Sessions, Connections, Logs console, logger-config, and Projects pages.

TUI cockpit (ign tui)

An interactive ratatui cockpit over the SAME actions layer the CLI dispatches through — every screen is the CLI family rendered live, not a parallel implementation:

Screen	What it shows
Dashboard	Status/modules/metrics/sessions panels on a 5 s refresh; the global verbs (version, connections, wait …, doctor, restart) and the profile switcher (p)
Logs	Live tail (ign logs -f) with the level filter (l), follow/scrollback, and the loggers family behind a
Tags	The k9s-style browser: providers → tree → detail with on-demand reads; live watch (w); the tags family behind a; the Alarms tab carries active/history/ack
Projects	Project list → detail (record + resources) → resource preview; the project/resource/webdev families behind a
Rig	The compose rig's status summary, the full rig verb menu behind a, and a raw rig logs -f pane (l)
JVM profiling (special mode — not a tab)	Deliberately outside the Tab rotation: J opens a typed-ACKNOWLEDGE interstitial (the TUI-side --i-accept-the-risk) before the screen exists; inside, a persistent red banner, a flight-recorder status pane, and the capped safe defaults only — s sample 30 s @ 20 ms, w live watch (continuous 10 s @ 50 ms windows; stops on toggle/exit), f JFR start (60 s cap), F JFR stop + fetch, r refresh, Esc leaves. Switching profiles revokes the acknowledgment (see JVM profiling below)

Behavior contract:

• Interactive-only. ign tui requires a TTY — piped stdout refuses with a usage error (exit 2) before the alternate screen is ever touched. Profile resolution failures (no profile, missing secret) also surface BEFORE the terminal flips: the normal stderr envelope and exit taxonomy, not a flash of alt-screen.
• Silent stdout on success. The alternate screen owns all display; a clean exit prints NOTHING on stdout (no envelope, no summary line). Errors after the terminal is restored render to stderr per the frozen taxonomy — the envelope contract is the CLI's.
• Confirm parity. Exactly the CLI's --yes-guarded verbs open a Confirm modal first (y ≡ --yes, Esc spawns nothing): restart, sessions terminate, loggers set/reset, tags provider/config delete, tags import-overwrite, project delete/import-overwrite, resource put/delete, rig reset/restore, rig trial reset. Everything else fires directly — including rig down and webdev deploy, which the CLI deliberately leaves unguarded.
• Keybindings. q/Ctrl-C quit (Ctrl-C works even behind a modal; q never quits behind a modal — it types) · Tab/Shift-Tab cycle screens (the JVM-profiling special mode is NOT in the cycle — J enters it through its gate, Esc or Tab leaves) · Enter/Esc navigate (Esc ascends one level on the browser screens) · a opens the screen's actions menu (grouped and prose-labeled — the Projects menu clusters project/resource/webdev verbs with each row naming its consequence) · p opens the profile switcher. Per-screen: r refresh (Dashboard/Rig; on Tags it refires the deepest-visible pane so a stale error visibly reloads), l level filter (Logs) / logs pane toggle (Rig), f follow, w watch a tag (Tags), h alarm history (Alarms), t terminate a session (Dashboard). Modals take vim motions: in every list-bearing menu j/k step and g/G jump to first/last; the Result modal scrolls line-wise with j/k (arrows and PgUp/PgDn unchanged) and half-pages with Ctrl-d/Ctrl-u.
• Coverage is CI-enforced. A structural test (crates/ignition-cli/tests/tui_coverage.rs) walks the live clap command tree and asserts bidirectional equality with the TUI route registry: every CLI leaf (plus the bare-invocable sessions, logs, logs loggers forms) has a TUI mapping and no orphan rows exist — adding a CLI command without a cockpit surface FAILS CI. The only unmapped leaf is completions (out-of-band by design).

Themes & capability degradation ([ui].theme)

Four named themes — default, dark, light, mono — selected by the top-level [ui].theme config key (set it with any TOML editor; ign profile never needs to be involved). Every theme is AUTHORED at four capability tiers — truecolor, ANSI-256, ANSI-16, mono — detected at startup from NO_COLOR / COLORTERM / TERM: the palette steps down without breaking layout or contrast. default and mono render byte-identically at every tier (their non-mono slots are Reset); dark carries WCAG-AAA body contrast (14.2:1 text on black); light keeps black-text structure on either terminal background. Discipline is CI-enforced: Color:: literals live ONLY in the style-tokens module (ui/theme.rs) — a grep gate fails any style literal anywhere else. A wrong-typed or unknown [ui].theme value warns and falls back to default — a config typo never kills TUI startup.

Polling cadence (poll_interval_secs)

Each profile takes an optional poll_interval_secs — the Dashboard refresh period, default 5 s, with ONE source of truth in the code. Sub-second values are refused at config load (poll_interval_too_small, exit 3 — the hard floor against hammering the gateway). The active value adopts live across profile switches (same ride-along path as the theme).

itop — the live monitor (ign top, alias ign itop)

htop for the gateway: one full-screen ratatui instrument over ONE profile — header CPU/heap gauges with sparkline history, a thread-state mix panel, a scriptExec diagnostics probe, and a sortable, filterable process list of the gateway's live entities. It is deliberately NOT a cockpit tab: htop is a single-view instrument, and itop is the same actions layer composed for watching, not operating.

(captured live against a disposable local rig: 8.3.6, 32 modules, seeded history, the honest Trial Expired scriptExec refusal in the footer)

What	Where
Header	CPU % and heap used/max gauge bars (threshold-colored), gateway identity, RUNNING state, uptime, disk fill, license incl. trial countdown
Threads	The execution-state mix as four bars — running / waiting / timed-waiting / blocked, share of the total; any blocked thread renders the error slot
History	CPU %, heap MiB, and non-heap MiB sparklines — 240-sample rings, SEEDED from the gateway's own performance history (systemPerformance/charts) so they open full, then continued from the sampled gauges
Table	One row per live entity: module (healthy list), designer / perspective / vision sessions, database / opc connections, tag provider — KIND/NAME/STATE/CPU/AGE/DETAIL columns, state-colored
Footer	Per-section errors verbatim (one failing endpoint degrades its section, never the screen), cadence/pause/staleness state, key hints

The e probe runs one gateway-side Jython snapshot through the deployed scriptExec route — JMX internals (thread pool mix, JVM memory pools, class-loader counts) that NO REST endpoint exposes — and renders the result document in a modal. A profile without the route refuses inline (ign webdev deploy --with-script-exec first); a refused route renders the gateway's own error verbatim, as above.

More views (click through): connections · filter applied · paused · keymap

The threads view (6) — Gateway-web-UI parity

6 enters the threads view AND fetches the live dump (/data/api/v1/diagnostics/threads/dump/formatted + …/deadlocks, fetched concurrently, each call degrading independently). One JVM thread per row: NAME, verbatim java.lang.Thread STATE, CPU (the dump's cpuUsage, threshold-colored) with the Thread ID folded in, and the DETAIL column's monitor evidence — daemon / system / scope markers, what the thread is waiting on, and what it holds. Threads the JVM's own deadlock detection names carry the ⚠ in the STATE cell and the banner in the table title.

Enter on a row opens the stack viewer: header facts, the holds/ waiting annotations, then the stack frames verbatim — scrollable (j/k, pgup/pgdn), with the line position in the title.

The dump is ON-DEMAND, never on the sample cadence (a hundreds-of- threads snapshot every 2 s would hammer the gateway; the web UI fetches on click and so does itop). Re-pressing 6 re-dumps; 1 returns to the mixed view.

Keys (htop's gestures, ign's verbs):

• q/Ctrl-C quit · space/p pause sampling (the rings freeze; a manual r still works) · +/- sample interval 1–60 s (default 2 s — itop's own cadence, not the Dashboard's poll_interval_secs)
• s cycles the sort key (kind/name/state/age/cpu/detail), S reverses · / filters by substring across every rendered column (Esc clears) · 1–6 switch the view (all / modules / sessions / connections / providers / threads) · j/k/arrows move (pgup/pgdn page, g/G jump) · in the threads view, 6 re-dumps and Enter opens the row's stack viewer
• x/F9 terminates the selected session (designer prune / perspective terminate / vision close) behind a Confirm modal — y ≡ --yes, Esc spawns nothing; non-session rows refuse honestly (modules and connections have no safe per-entity restart verb)

Behavior contract — the cockpit's, verbatim where it applies: a TTY is required (piped stdout refuses exit 2 before alt-screen), a clean exit prints NOTHING on stdout, resolution failures surface BEFORE the terminal flips, themes apply ([ui].theme), and the profile is fixed at launch — restart with --profile to retarget.

Rigs (Docker compose lifecycle)

ign rig manages a compose rig — a Docker compose project running an Ignition gateway plus its satellites. It shells out to docker compose (the v2 plugin line; compose ≥ v2 required — the legacy docker-compose v1 binary is not supported and a missing/old compose fails fast with exit 7 and an install hint). Every operation starts with a one-shot resolve run (docker compose -f <file> --project-directory <dir> config --format json); the resolved project .name — which honors the rig's own .env COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME — is the identity truth, and every later op passes it as an explicit -p <name> (no implicit directory-name projects, ever).

Rig discovery (in this order)

Level	Source	Notes
1	--rig NAME	looks up [rigs.NAME] in the config; unknown name → exit 7 with the known rigs listed
2	IGNITION_RIG env	same lookup (folded into the flag — one env→flag home)
3	[rig].default	the config's explicit preference — BEATS the cwd scan; a stale default is a loud exit 7
4	cwd compose files	./docker/compose.yml, ./docker/docker-compose.yml, ./compose.yml, ./compose.yaml, ./docker-compose.yml
5	WHK conventions	ignition-git-module/docker/docker-compose.yml, then whk-environment-orchestration/docker-compose.yml — each probed under BOTH ~/Documents/whiskeyhouse/ and ~/whiskeyhouse/ (first hit wins)

Config surface:

[rig]
default = "git-module"

[rigs.git-module]
compose_file = "~/Documents/whiskeyhouse/ignition-git-module/docker/docker-compose.yml"
# project_name optional — omit to honor the rig's own .env

compose_file expands ~ and ${VAR}. IGNITION_RIG_ROOTS (path-separated) overrides the convention home roots — for machines whose WHK checkouts live elsewhere (and for test isolation). Nothing found → exit 7 with the full search trail in the message.

The docker-only contract: profile: null

Rig verbs are the first commands with no gateway dependency: no profile, secret, or client is resolved, and the envelope echoes profile: null on both success and error. --profile has no effect on rig.

rig up semantics

1. compose version gate (fail fast, exit 7 + install hint);
2. port pre-flight — a host port held by ANOTHER project's container aborts before anything starts: port 9088 in use by container X (rig Y) (same-project occupants are recreate-safe; a non-docker host process is attributed via lsof when available);
3. up -d --wait --wait-timeout <N> --remove-orphans;
4. commissioned wait: the rig's own gateway port is derived from the resolved mappings (first target 8088 → http://localhost:<pub>, else target 443 → https) and its /StatusPing is polled header-less until RUNNING — same budget as --timeout.

Uncommissioned is data, not failure. A fresh-volume gateway terminally 302s to /welcome — there is no headless commissioning (verified: no commissioning endpoints exist). rig up then exits 0 with state: "uncommissioned" and the wizard URL inside warnings (the version-command degradation precedent). A deadline reached while still STARTING is a real exit-7 failure.

{"ok": true, "profile": null, "data": {"rig": "ignition-devops", "project": "ignition-devops",
 "state": "uncommissioned", "gateway_url": "http://localhost:9088",
 "warnings": ["gateway uncommissioned — open http://localhost:9088/welcome in a browser and complete the commissioning wizard (no headless commissioning exists)"]}}

Rig modules — opt-in, signed, never automatic

A rig can declare modules to provision. Nothing is installed unless you ask for it: a rig with no modules table behaves exactly as it always has.

[rigs.dev]
compose_file = "docker/compose.yml"
# Optional: only needed when the gateway service cannot be derived from
# the compose file (ign picks the first service publishing a port
# targeting 8088, then 443).
# module_service = "gateway"

[rigs.dev.modules.git]
version = "2.3.4"

[rigs.dev.modules.project-scan-endpoint]
version = "1.0.0"

Registered modules:

Registry id	Source repository	Gateway module id	Min gateway
git	WhiskeyHouse/ignition-git-module	com.axone_io.ignition.git	8.3.1
project-scan-endpoint	bw-design-group/ignition-project-scan-endpoint	project-scan-endpoint	8.3.0

The two rows differ in every column — including the gateway module id's shape (reverse-DNS vs bare slug), which is why it is a separate field rather than derived from the registry id. Only signed release artifacts are ever installed; ign will not build, sign, or fetch an unsigned module.

Trying one without editing config. --with-module ID@VERSION on rig up and rig reset is repeatable and additive for that invocation only. A flag wins over a config declaration for the same id. There is deliberately no subtractive form — you cannot run without a config-declared module; remove it from config instead.

ign rig up --with-module project-scan-endpoint@1.0.0

Fetch policy. A verified artifact is cached by version, and a cache hit makes no network request. Two flags change that:

Flag	Effect
--refresh	Re-checks the feed for the pinned version. If upstream now publishes a different digest than the one cached, this REFUSES (exit 6) and names both digests; the cached artifact is left untouched.
--accept-upstream-change	Accepts a changed upstream digest and caches the new bytes — which are still verified against the newly published digest. Never implied by --refresh: accepting a re-released artifact is a deliberate act.

The override file. ign writes compose.ign-modules.yml next to the rig's compose file and passes it as a second -f. That file is ign's: it is regenerated whole on every provisioning run, never hand-merged. ign never writes to the compose file you wrote. Deleting compose.ign-modules.yml stops the module being mounted, and the next rig up with nothing declared removes the file for you.

It does not uninstall the module from the gateway. Ignition installs an accepted module into its own data directory, which lives in the rig's volume and outlives the mount — so a gateway that already loaded a module keeps reporting it after the override is gone (verified live, not inferred).

To remove it from the gateway, use the deliberate verb:

ign rig module uninstall git --yes

The id is a registry id — the same one --with-module and the config table take, not the gateway's own module id. The verb needs IGNITION_TOKEN, the same credential contract as rig snapshot and rig restore.

In the TUI it is the Rig screen's actions menu (a → module uninstall): a form takes the registry id, an unknown id is refused locally against the same registry, and a Confirm gate — the cockpit's --yes — states the irreversibility before the write goes out.

The order matters, and the gateway enforces it. Undeclare the module, run ign rig up so the mount goes, then uninstall. The gateway refuses to uninstall a module whose .modl is still mounted. Once it succeeds the effect is immediate — no gateway restart. ign refuses up front if the rig's config still declares the module, rather than letting you get a confusing failure back from the gateway.

This is not undone by re-declaring the module. A re-declared, re-mounted module does not come back — verified live. Recovery today means ign rig reset, which destroys the rig's whole data volume along with everything else in it. That makes this the most severe of ign's guarded operations: the others cost you a re-run, this one costs the volume. It refuses without --yes for that reason, and it is a separate verb rather than something ign rig up offers, because IGNITION_YES=1 would turn a mid-up prompt into no prompt at all.

When you stop declaring a module, ign rig up tells you. It drops the mount and deletes the override, then reports the module rather than removing it from the gateway:

$ ign rig up
...
orphaned: git (com.axone_io.ignition.git) — still installed on the gateway
  remove with: ign rig module uninstall git --rig dev --yes

The same data is on the --json envelope, on an always-present key that is an empty list when there is nothing orphaned:

{
  "orphaned_modules": [
    {
      "id": "git",
      "gateway_module_id": "com.axone_io.ignition.git",
      "remove_with": "ign rig module uninstall git --rig dev --yes"
    }
  ]
}

rig up does not remove it for you, for two reasons that are not style preferences. IGNITION_YES=1 is a documented pattern for agents and CI, and it merges into --yes — so a confirmation asked mid-up would be no confirmation at all for exactly the callers least able to notice an irreversible act. And rig up needs no gateway credential today; performing a gateway write would change that contract for every user of the verb. Removal stays something you type.

The report comes from ign's own override file, not the gateway's module list. ign diffs what it provisioned last time against what you declare now, so it can only ever report modules it installed itself. A module you installed by hand is invisible to that diff and will never be named — which is the point: the report leads to an irreversible command, so it must not point at something ign did not put there.

Provisioning mounts a module; it does not commission one. No repository, credential, or module configuration is supplied — a provisioned module is present and accepted by the gateway, not set up.

rig status is an allowlist

Status NEVER passes through docker compose config/inspect output — the resolved config contains GATEWAY_ADMIN_PASSWORD and friends. The JSON data is exactly {rig, project, compose_file, services[]: {name, state, health, exit_code, publishers[]: {published_port, target_port, protocol}}, volumes: [names], ports_free} — all keys always present (empty arrays when none). A down rig is exit-0 data (ports_free: true, empty services).

rig reset semantics (the no-stale-state contract)

reset is the phase's destructive verb: it refuses without --yes (exit 2, confirmation_required, hint names --yes and IGNITION_YES=1) and the guard fires BEFORE any discovery runs — a refusal costs nothing (no docker, no config scan; binary-pinned by exiting 2 in a directory with no rig discoverable at all).

The cycle, in order:

1. preview — docker volume ls label-filtered to the project: the removed_volumes array in the result data reports exactly what reset removes, as it acts;
2. compose version gate (exit 7 + install hint when absent);
3. down -v --remove-orphans — the LOCKED teardown: -v removes the project's named AND anonymous volumes (gateway data, trial state, everything), --remove-orphans kills renamed-service strays — down && up without -v is the classic stale-state anti-pattern reset exists to kill;
4. port pre-flight with FRESH EYES — teardown frees the rig's own ports first; if another rig grabbed one mid-cycle, reset aborts with attribution and names the torn-down state in the hint;
5. up -d --wait (the rig up invocation verbatim);
6. commissioned wait — same semantics as rig up: a fresh volume usually terminally reports the wizard, which is DATA (exit 0, state: "uncommissioned", wizard URL in warnings); still-STARTING at the deadline is a real exit-7 failure.

The result data is {rig, project, removed_volumes, state, warnings} — all keys always. No project, trial, or gateway state survives the volume deletion; commission from scratch or restore a backup (04-04) afterward.

rig logs is passthrough

rig logs streams docker compose logs output RAW: one line per stdout line, no envelope in ANY mode — compose log lines are not gateway JSON objects, and wrapping would corrupt them (rig logs --json is the same passthrough; contrast logs -f --json, whose entries ARE gateway NDJSON). --tail N (default 200) bounds the history; -f follows until Ctrl-C (default process kill, no envelope); an optional SERVICE positional filters to one service. Compose's own stderr diagnostics go to ign's stderr, never the data stream.

rig trial — state, and the reset ladder

rig trial status is credential-free truth: both GET /data/api/v1/trial and GET /data/api/v1/overview/banners answer unauthenticated (live-verified on 8.3.3 and 8.3.6, expired AND active states), so a fresh rig with no provisioned token reports its trial state fine. The trial endpoint is the PRIMARY source (trialState ∈ {AllInDemo, SomeInDemo, NoneInDemo}, trialSecondsLeft in seconds, the expired flag); the trial banner is the cross-check — expireTime is epoch milliseconds or null, and an EXPIRED trial shows severity:"warning" + null (code expecting a future timestamp misreads expired as active), so banners.active is computed as severity=="info" AND expireTime>now_ms and never the reverse derivation.

rig trial reset runs the mechanism ladder (the spike-resolved native approach — browser delegation rejected: it needs Node+chromium, broke across 8.3.3's UI rewrite, and verifies via DOM text):

1. tier 0 — token-auth POST POST /data/api/v1/trial with X-Ignition-API-Token (token from IGNITION_TOKEN; token mutations need no CSRF). One cheap call; on 2xx it wins.
2. tier 1 — native gateway login (the live-verified mechanism, end-to-end on 8.3.3: expired:true → false, 0 → 7199s): the internal IdP's OIDC challenge dance (rotating tokens, ~4 captured cookies replayed by hand, webui-sid-<id> session cookie, csrfToken from /data/app/session) → the reset POST with the session cookie + X-CSRF-Token. Credentials: --user (or IGNITION_USER) + IGNITION_PASSWORD — the password NEVER rides a flag, env only.

Success REQUIRES the read-back flip: after a 2xx the trial is re-fetched and expired must be false — a bare 2xx never suffices (the mutation-reads-back discipline). The result data is {rig_url, mechanism: "token"|"login", expired_before, expired_after, trial_remaining_s}.

State gate (live-discovered): the gateway answers 403 to reset attempts on a NON-expired trial (verified from the browser page with the exact UI headers) — ign surfaces this honestly as exit 6 trial_not_expired naming the seconds left, instead of a misleading auth error. Wait for expiry (watch rig trial status) or rig reset --yes for a completely fresh trial volume.

Verification note: the reset path is verified end-to-end against 8.3.3 (the git-module rig, by hand during 04-03) and the login-flow machinery against 8.3.6 (ign-research; steps 1–5 + bad-credential shapes). Repeatable live gates ship as #[ignore] tests (cargo test -p ignition-core --test trial_contract -- --ignored with IGNITION_LIVE_URL + credentials + IGNITION_LIVE_MUTATIONS=1 against an expired rig). A tier-2 Playwright fallback exists ONLY as this documented env contract — ignition-trial-resetter / a site repo's e2e/reset_trial.mjs — and is never shipped as ign's mechanism.

rig snapshot / rig restore — repeatable state

rig snapshot composes a rig's gateway state HONESTLY into one directory (default ./ign-rig-snapshots/<rig>-<yyyyMMdd-HHmmss>/, -o overrides; the stamp is std-only, no clock dependency):

• <rig>.gwbk — the native roaming backup (GET /data/api/v1/backup?type=roaming, Accept: application/octet-stream), STREAMED to disk chunk-by-chunk (never buffered in memory — gwbks are tens of MB);
• projects/<name>.zip — one export per runnable project (the project export machinery reused; file names percent-encode the project name injectively, so My Project → My%20Project.zip). The gwbk should already contain projects (postman semantics, MEDIUM confidence), but the explicit exports are the honest redundancy that makes the manifest truthful either way;
• manifest.json — the composition record: {rig, taken_at (epoch s), ignition: {version}, gwbk, projects: [{name, file}], notes}. The notes name BOTH exclusions explicitly, verbatim: the trial clock is NOT captured by gwbk (its restore behavior is unknown — reset separately via rig trial reset), and tag-provider bulk export is Phase 5 scope (gwbk captures tag config via gateway data). No reader can mistake either for a silent drop.

rig restore --file <path.gwbk> is the guarded inverse (--yes-refusal exit 2 before any discovery, the fifth destructive verb). The POST is a RAW application/octet-stream body — NOT multipart — with the four scope params (restoreDisabled, disableTempProjectBackup, renameEnabled, restoreLocal) sent explicitly as false. Restore is synchronous AND the gateway restarts afterward, so BOTH wire directions ride a 300 s per-request budget and success is a witnessed post-restore StatusPing→RUNNING (the --timeout budget floors at 300 s — a short explicit timeout cannot buy an unknown-state mid-restart report). A bare 2xx never suffices.

⚠ API tokens may be clobbered (Pitfall 5). Tokens stored under CORE config (data/config/CORE/ignition/api-token) are "modified/cleared often by gwbk restores" (83-api) — after a restore, stored profiles may 401. The restore data ALWAYS carries "API tokens may have been reset by restore — re-provision via gateway UI, then ign doctor" as its first warning, in every render mode. 83-api's recommendation: keep durable tokens in an EXTERNAL location, not CORE config.

Both verbs address the rig's derived gateway URL and source their credential from IGNITION_TOKEN (the rig-family chain — the backup route 401s unauthenticated, unlike the trial endpoints; a missing token is exit 3). The round-trip is pinned live by the opt-in e2e gate:

IGNITION_LIVE_URL=http://localhost:9088 \
IGNITION_LIVE_TOKEN='name:key' \
IGNITION_LIVE_MUTATIONS=1 \
cargo test -p ignition-cli --test e2e_rig -- --ignored

(the rig must be discoverable — run from the rig's checkout, set IGNITION_RIG, or configure [rig].default; verify with ign rig status first that the intended rig is the one UP — the gateway verbs address the derived localhost:<port> URL, and a port collision with another stack would silently point them at the WRONG gateway). The gate snapshots a pre-witness project, creates a post-snapshot marker, restores, and asserts BOTH halves: witness SURVIVED, marker GONE.

Gateway backups (ign backup)

The standalone gwbk surface on ANY profiled gateway — the same wire rig snapshot/rig restore ride (Phase 4), without the rig machinery:

• ign backup download [-o FILE] [--type roaming|all] — a streamed read (never buffered in memory; 300 s per-request timeout). roaming is the portable backup (cross-gateway — the default); all includes gateway-specific state. Default filename follows the export convention: the gateway's Content-Disposition basename when it sends one, else <profile>-backup.gwbk (streamed to a .part first, renamed on completion — a failed download leaves no half-written impostor).
• ign backup restore <FILE> --yes — REPLACES this gateway's state from the gwbk. Destructive: the 8th --yes-guarded verb (guard BEFORE resolution — a refusal does zero work). The restore POST is synchronous; the gateway then RESTARTS and blocks for minutes — the 2xx is acceptance, not readiness (ign wait restart is the readiness witness if you want one; rig restore bundles that wait for rigs). API tokens inside the backup may clobber current ones — see the rig restore token warning, same mechanics here.
• There is NO ign backup list — no native listing endpoint exists (exactly GET/POST on /data/api/v1/backup). Honesty over verb theater: your filesystem is the list. The EAM archive store (storage/archived-backups) is a DIFFERENT thing — it belongs to the EAM controller's fleet backups, not this gateway's gwbk files.

The trial clock is NOT captured by a gwbk (see the rig snapshot exclusions — same mechanics).

EAM tasks (ign eam)

The Enterprise Administration Module's task surface — the read-heavy family with guarded writes (eam task new, force, and the 10-04 lifecycle/mutation verbs: suspend/resume/cancel/ modify/delete).

The controller state gate. On a stock gateway the EAM module is installed but its module-settings singleton carries installMode: "NotInstalled" — every RUNTIME endpoint (/data/eam/api/v1/*) answers 403 with "This operation can only be performed when EAM is configured as a controller." That is a STATE refusal, not an auth failure: the CLI classifies it to eam_not_controller (exit 6) with the manual-flip hint, never a misleading auth_rejected. Definitions are different: they are plain config resources (resources/com.inductiveautomation.eam/eam-tasks) and answer on stock gateways — ign eam tasks works everywhere; ign eam history needs the controller.

The manual flip (deliberately NOT a CLI verb — a gateway-ROLE decision): config-resource PUT on com.inductiveautomation.eam/module-settings with installMode: "Controller", array body carrying the current record's signature (find it first: GET …/resources/find/ com.inductiveautomation.eam/module-settings). Live-proven during 07-RESEARCH; the CLI surfaces the state and refuses honestly instead of automating the role change.

Execution honesty (research Pitfall 3). Even on a controller, task EXECUTION needs (1) a Gateway-Network-connected agent target (even _controller self-targets fail with "Gateway network for agent … not connected" until GNET is configured) and (2) a live trial/license ("Trial timer is expired" blocks runs). These outcomes surface as DATA in history rows (level: Failed + the gateway's own detail text) — exit 0 reads, never hidden.

Deferred reads: the scheduled/retry list views remain v1 backlog. The suspend/resume/cancel task verbs shipped (the guarded lifecycle set below); agent-level writes did NOT — see the reconciliation note. The EAM archive store (storage/archived-backups — a controller's fleet-backup inventory, needs serverids) is a different thing from this gateway's gwbk files and stays out of MVP scope.

The guarded task lifecycle verbs (suspend / resume / cancel / modify / delete)

All five run the two-tier blast-radius guard, and force composes onto the same gate:

1. Tier 0 — pure precheck (no network): an empty or whitespace task name (or a modify that targets no keys) refuses exit 2 invalid_input before anything is resolved.
2. Tier 1 — preview fetch (read-only): the CLI finds the definition and its scheduled state and composes the blast radius — task, type, agent targets, pending executions, and the factual controller impact. A bad task name refuses exit 6 not_found HERE, before any prompt: the preview IS the pre-flight.
3. Tier 2 — confirm-with-preview: without --yes the CLI refuses exit 2 confirmation_required and the refusal message IS the preview line (suspend nightly-backup: suspends task nightly-backup … targets: [gw-a, _controller] pending: 1). The refusal names the task, its agent targets, and the impact — an agent can read the blast radius from stderr alone. Zero mutations have fired.
4. With --yes the action runs — and core re-checks the state it captured (the authoritative re-read), so a race between preview and write still lands honestly (e.g. suspend on an already-suspended task refuses, fired: false on cancel with nothing pending).

The seam honesty: suspend/resume/cancel ride the RUNTIME seam — on a stock gateway they refuse exit 6 eam_not_controller with the manual-flip hint (the preview fetch's definition read still works everywhere; the refusal comes from the write). modify and delete ride the config-resource seam and work on stock gateways.

The agent-vs-task reconciliation (read this before scripting): the EAM wire has no agent-level suspend/resume. Suspend, resume, and cancel are TASK-scoped runtime verbs — an "agent" is suspended by suspending its tasks, and the blast-radius preview names the affected agents through targetGateways so the task-scoped verb still answers the fleet question. Genuinely agent-level writes DO exist on the wire — quarantined-agent delete, agent approve, agent upgrade — but they are deliberately NOT exposed in v1.1 (deferred scope; nothing plans them).

The eam task new guard ladder

type class	examples	guard
benign	eam_backup	none with the default OnDemand schedule (it never auto-fires; force owns the dispatch)
mutating	eam_restart, eam_sendProject, eam_sendResource, eam_sendTags, eam_activateLicense, eam_updateLicense, eam_unactivateLicense	--yes — they act on their agent targets when dispatched
fleet-destructive	eam_restoreBackup, eam_installModules, eam_remoteUpgrade	REFUSED outright (exit 6 eam_task_type_refused) — they push backups/modules/upgrades to every agent; run them from the Ignition EAM console (EXT-03 v2 scope)

ANY --schedule-mode other than OnDemand additionally requires --yes (it arms autonomous gateway actions — even eam_backup). An unknown type classifies fail-safe (--yes); the server's own validation is the backstop.

Settings forms (--setting vs --definition)

• --setting K=V auto-types scalars: a value that parses cleanly as true/false or an integer serializes as a JSON bool/number; anything else stays a string. Arrays and objects are OUT of scope for K=V.

• --definition PATH is the typed/array path: a full-JSON file whose top-level object deep-merges over the composed config.settings (objects merge recursively; arrays and scalars REPLACE). Example (the live-captured eam_backup settings shape):

  {
    "targetGateways": ["gw-a", "gw-b"],
    "targetGroups": [],
    "concurrentBackups": 2,
    "forceBackups": true
  }
  

  (--setting + --definition together is a usage error.)

eam task force semantics

force = find (owner from scheduledTaskState.details.owner, fallback eam) → POST /eam-tasks/force/{owner}/{name} (204 = dispatched) → a history re-read. The history entry rides the result so the OUTCOME is visible immediately: level/detail are data — a Failed run with "Gateway network for agent … not connected" or "Trial timer is expired" is the honest report of the gateway's execution prerequisites (GNET agent + live trial), never hidden.

A leftover run occupying the task's slot refuses with exit 6 eam_task_in_flight — the gateway's own 409 page text ("Task 'X (forced)' already exists! It must be completed or deleted …") rides the message verbatim; resolve the run from the EAM console (no ign verb deletes runs).

eam_restoreBackup vs ign backup restore — different axes: ign backup restore restores THIS gateway from gwbk bytes; the EAM eam_restoreBackup type dispatches an ARCHIVED backup to fleet AGENTS (and is therefore refused in task new — run it from the EAM console).

Project export/import specifics

Timeouts. Long transfers are the classic default-timeout death, so both operations carry per-request budgets instead of the 30 s client default: export 120 s, import 300 s. The import is synchronous (the gateway answers when it finishes — no job IDs). If an import times out or the connection drops mid-flight, the gateway state is unknown: verify with ign project list (and re-run) rather than assuming.

Scope metadata. A project export contains views, scripts, named-queries, and the other module project-resources — it does NOT contain tag providers, tags, or UDTs: those are gateway configuration, not project resources (this is why git-module conventions keep a separate tags/ tree). Both project export and project import carry the same static scope: {includes, excludes} arrays in their JSON data so agents and humans always know what a ZIP does and does not contain.

Collision policy. REST exposes exactly two choices: abort (the default — the CLI pre-checks with find and refuses with project_exists before uploading anything) and overwrite (replaces the ENTIRE project — resources absent from the ZIP are deleted). merge is the Designer import popup's mode and is not available via REST; the CLI rejects it at the flag level by simply not offering it.

Script decode/encode (--decode-scripts / --encode-scripts)

ign project export NAME --decode-scripts [-o DIR] writes the export's members to a DIRECTORY (default <name>-export/) plus, for every JSON member with embedded scripts, editable sidecars:

MyProj-export/
├── project.json
├── com.inductiveautomation.perspective/resources/views/Dashboard/
│   ├── view.json                  # the member, marker-free
│   ├── view.json.1.py             # decoded + dedented script
│   ├── view.json.2.py
│   └── resource.json
└── scripts-manifest.json          # JSON-pointer addresses → sidecar

Edit the .py sidecars in nvim/VS Code, lint them with ignition-lint, then re-import the whole tree: ign project import NAME --file MyProj-export --encode-scripts (the sidecars are spliced back and the manifest stripped before the standard import path — --file - is invalid in this mode). An edited member changes ONLY at the spliced spans; a sidecar deleted from the tree keeps the JSON's current value.

The unedited round-trip is byte-exact. Decode → encode with no edits reproduces every member byte-identically (contract-pinned). This rides the exact "Ignition Flint" escape codec ignition-nvim uses (backslash-first multi-pass encode, single-pass decode, common tab-prefix dedent/reindent) with splicing done at raw byte spans — key order and formatting of the gateway's JSON are never touched.

Scope honesty. Only scripts EMBEDDED in JSON resources decode (Perspective view.json component/event scripts, tag event scripts, …). ignition/script-python project resources are ALREADY plain .py members in the export — they land in the tree verbatim and never grow sidecars. Single-line Ignition expressions (under expression and friends) pass through untouched: a value decodes only when it carries script-ish escape markers AND decodes to multiple lines.

Cross-gateway diff & sync

ign project diff <PROFILE_A> <PROFILE_B> --project <NAME> compares one project's resources across two gateway profiles — the dev→test→ prod promotion workflow's first half. Direction semantics: the output is always B-relative-to-A — added means the resource exists only in B, removed only in A, changed in both with differing content (after normalization), same in both. Human mode prints grouped ADDED/REMOVED/CHANGED sections plus the N same, N added, N removed, N changed summary; JSON carries {scope, profile_a, profile_b, project, project_meta, summary, entries} with every key always present.

Normalization. Every gateway-written resource.json carries attributes.lastModification and attributes.lastModificationSignature, which differ between gateways even for identical content — a byte compare would report everything CHANGED. The diff strips exactly those two fields and compares canonicalized (key-sorted) JSON; every other byte — script bodies, view JSON, descriptors' semantic fields — compares as-is.

Scope honesty. Diff and sync carry scope: "project" in their output metadata: they operate on project resources ONLY. Tag providers are gateway configuration on a different seam — promote them with the shipped pipe across profiles instead:

ign --profile dev tags export [default]P5 -o - | ign --profile prod tags import --file - --provider P5

Two-sided secrets. Each side resolves its own credential through the same chain (env tokens → keyring → basic env pair), and that chain is auth-shape-conditional (see Credential resolution order): the generic IGNITION_TOKEN and basic env pair reach a side only when THAT side's profile declares no auth block. A side declaring keyring or named-env auth resolves its own credential and never picks up the other side's — or the shell's — generic token. For real two-gateway use, store per-profile tokens in the keyring (ign profile add --keyring) so each side authenticates as itself.

Envelope. The output envelope keeps its single profile field — the ACTIVE profile, exactly as every other command resolves it — while data.profile_a/data.profile_b name both sides explicitly.

Sync. ign project sync <A> <B> --project <NAME> --resource PATH... [--all-changed] [--delete] --yes is the second half: the selected resources from A land in B. The mechanism is the resource family's surgery generalized to two clients — export both sides, splice A's member bytes into B's zip (replace_member's put-new descriptor landing rules ride free), then ONE overwrite-import into B. Semantics: direction is always explicit A→B; the default is upsert-only (nothing on B is ever deleted unless --delete is passed); --all-changed promotes everything A has that B lacks or differs on. The --yes guard is mandatory — sync implicitly overwrite-imports the WHOLE project on B (replacing concurrent Designer edits, the resource-put consequence pattern) — and fires before either client resolves: a refusal is exit 2 with profile null and performs zero requests of any kind. An empty effective selection (--all-changed with nothing changed) performs NO import — zero writes, empty synced/removed lists.

e2e witness. The promotion loop is live-runnable against two real gateways: crates/ignition-cli/tests/e2e_projects.rs (project_sync_two_gateways_witness, -- --ignored, needs IGNITION_LIVE_URL + IGNITION_LIVE_URL_B + IGNITION_LIVE_TOKEN + IGNITION_LIVE_MUTATIONS=1) puts a differing resource on A, diffs it, syncs it, and re-reads it on B (the adoption oracle — never trusting the import's success body). IGNITION_LIVE_TOKEN applies to both sides in the harness (the two-sided-secret caveat above).

Resource editing — the surgical loop (export-zip surgery)

ign resource changes ONE view/script/query member — the get → edit → put loop:

ign resource list PlantFloor                       # member paths from the export tree
ign resource get PlantFloor ignition/script-python/e2e/scratch > scratch.json
# ...edit scratch.json...
ign resource put PlantFloor ignition/script-python/e2e/scratch --file scratch.json --yes
ign resource delete PlantFloor com.example/views/OldView/view.json --yes

Mechanism (05-02 re-point). There are NO per-resource REST endpoints on 8.3 gateways (the Phase-3 family originally targeted /projects/{p}/resources/** routes that do not exist — openapi-evidenced against real 8.3.x, 575 paths, zero matches). Every resource op therefore rides the native export/import round-trip: export the project to a temp ZIP → perform member surgery (list / read / replace-inject / remove) → import back with overwrite=true. Paths keep their slashes and address ZIP MEMBERS — the file at <collection>/resources/<rest>, listed as <collection>/<rest> (the core module's folder is ignition/, not the com.inductiveautomation.ignition the old docs suggest).

put sniffs its input: valid JSON parses, other UTF-8 rides as text — and BINARY content (a NUL byte near the head, data.bin-class resources like Perspective session-permissions) refuses with exit 6 resource_binary on BOTH get and put: binary resources belong to the export/import family, never the JSON loop.

Perf honesty (accepted trade). Every resource op round-trips the WHOLE project ZIP — heavier than a hypothetical per-resource route, but rigs and dev projects are small and the alternative was the family not working at all. Concurrent-edit race: because put and delete re-import the project, edits made in a Designer between the CLI's export and import are REPLACED (replace-not-merge — resources absent from the ZIP are deleted). This is the documented, accepted trade for the CLI's dev-tool scope; both verbs are --yes-guarded and their refusal messages name the consequence.

e2e witness. The loop is live-runnable for the first time since Phase 3: crates/ignition-cli/tests/e2e_projects.rs (-- --ignored, needs IGNITION_LIVE_URL + IGNITION_LIVE_TOKEN + IGNITION_LIVE_MUTATIONS=1) drives list/get/put/delete through the surgery implementation against a real gateway, including two-sided put honesty (the export before a put carries the member's old content; the export after carries the new).

Workspace — the local edit loop (checkout / status / push)

ign workspace is a git-like loop over a project's resources: check the resources out to a local tree, edit them with any tool, then push guarded changes back to the gateway.

ign workspace checkout PlantFloor ./plantfloor --decode-scripts
# ...edit ./plantfloor/... with your editor; commit the tree...
ign workspace status ./plantfloor
ign workspace push ./plantfloor --yes --delete

Scope honesty. The workspace is PROJECT RESOURCES only — the source is strictly the project export zip. Tag values NEVER appear in the tree (tags are ign tags verbs, and this is structural: checkout ingests the export zip and nothing else, so tag data cannot ride in).

The manifest is the workspace identity. Checkout records .ign-workspace.json at the tree root: the project, the profile it resolved against, the checkout time, and every member's gateway↔local path pair plus a content hash (descriptor-normalized — gateway lastModification volatility never masquerades as drift). Status and push READ that manifest and never re-derive anything, so the project is never re-typed. Commit .ign-workspace.json; checkout also writes an idempotent .gitignore covering scripts-manifest.json and *.py — the decode artifacts are generated, not source.

Status states are push-relative — one direction, every row names what push would do to the GATEWAY:

State	Meaning	What push does
clean	both sides match checkout	nothing
local_edit	changed locally, gateway at baseline	writes the member
gateway_drift	gateway moved, local at baseline	untouched (re-checkout to refresh)
conflict	BOTH sides diverged since checkout	refuses — see below
deleted (local)	member removed locally	removes gateway-side under --delete, else reported as skipped
deleted (gateway)	member removed gateway-side	untouched (re-checkout to refresh)
added	exported gateway-side since checkout	untouched (re-checkout brings it in)
untracked	a local file that is not a member	ignored — never imported

Human mode includes clean rows (agents diff the full state) and ends with the x local edits, y gateway drift, z conflicts, n untracked summary; the JSON's clean flag is the same verdict in one key.

Push is guarded, spliced, and honest. The refusal without --yes carries the blast-radius preview AS its message — exactly which members would be written and deleted. Conflicts refuse EVEN WITH --yes: writing over a concurrent Designer edit is beyond any flag, so reconcile manually (keep your local change or the gateway's) and re-checkout. The splice rides the manifest-recorded local bytes into a FRESH export — never a stale full zip, so members the gateway deleted since checkout are not resurrected — and imports exactly once. Deletions are --delete opt-in (without it, locally-deleted members are reported as skipped). Untracked files are never imported. An empty selection performs zero mutations and never prompts. Over MCP, confirm is the field: omitting it returns the blast-radius preview as the tool result, setting confirm: true executes the push, and neither form can push over a conflict.

--decode-scripts round-trip guarantee. Embedded JSON scripts decode to counter-named <member>.<n>.py sidecars keyed by scripts-manifest.json (also gitignored); the UNEDITED tree re-encodes through the codec BYTE-EXACTLY per member — proven at tree scale by the checkout contract suite. See Script decode/encode for the codec contract.

Editing ONE resource without checking out the whole tree is ign edit's job — the workspace is for whole-tree authoring.

Edit — the kubectl-edit loop over one resource (ign edit)

ign edit <PROJECT> <RESOURCE_PATH> is the single-resource counterpart of the workspace loop: fetch the project export → decode the whole tree into a private (0700) temp directory → open the ONE resource in $EDITOR → on save, re-encode, gate, and push the spliced result back with exactly one project import.

EDITOR="code --wait" ign edit PlantFloor ignition/script-python/e2e/scratch

The $EDITOR contract. VISUAL wins over EDITOR (trimmed; an empty value counts as unset); both unset refuses exit 2 BEFORE anything resolves — the envelope's profile is null and zero requests hit the gateway. The variable may carry flags: EDITOR="code --wait" splits into an argument vector with the file path appended LAST (never a shell string) — IDE users need the wait flag INSIDE EDITOR so the CLI observes the saved file, not just the opened one. The editor's exit code is ADVISORY: whether an edit happened is decided by CONTENT (a byte-compare of the re-encode against the untouched re-encode), never by the exit code — editors that daemonize or fork cannot flip a verdict.

Behavior table.

What you did	What happens
saved unchanged	clean no-op — edit: no changes — nothing pushed, exit 0; nothing is pushed, nothing is prompted
saved a change	the blast-radius summary renders (exactly which members the push would write); without --yes that same summary IS the refusal (exit 2 confirmation_required); with --yes the push rides one overwrite import
the gateway moved since the fetch	refuses exit 2 invalid_input — changed on gateway since fetch — EVEN WITH --yes (forcing would clobber a concurrent Designer edit); re-run to fetch fresh and retry
saved something the codec cannot encode	refuses FAIL-CLOSED exit 2 with the codec's own reason, and the temp edit tree is KEPT — its path is printed (the edit tree is preserved at …); fix the member by hand and re-run to retry

Stdout contract. ign edit writes ZERO bytes to stdout in EVERY mode — the child $EDITOR owns the terminal, so all prose (the no-op line, the blast-radius summary, the pushed line, and every refusal) renders to stderr. The contract is byte-scan pinned at the binary level under maximum diagnostics. Success prose is stable and greppable: edit: no changes — nothing pushed and edit: pushed N member(s) to <PROJECT>.

Streaming output (the stdout exceptions)

ign logs -f is a STREAM: entries print to stdout as they arrive, so there is no single result to wrap. In human mode that means live lines (ISO-UTC LEVEL logger message, profile header first). Under --json/--compact the tail emits NDJSON — one compact entry object per line, no envelope — the second sanctioned stdout exception (after completions). Every other command still emits exactly one envelope. A --timeout expiry ends the tail cleanly with exit 0; without it the tail runs until Ctrl-C, which uses the process default kill (no envelope — plan for it in pipelines).

ign rig logs is the THIRD exception: its output is raw compose log lines, NOT gateway JSON — so it streams verbatim in EVERY mode (--json changes nothing; there is no envelope to add and no NDJSON transformation to attempt). -f follows until Ctrl-C (default process kill, no envelope), exactly the logs -f pipeline caveat.

ign tags export -o - is the FOURTH exception: the export payload IS the product, so it prints raw in EVERY mode (no envelope even under --json/--compact — the rig-logs precedent). This is what makes the pipe round-trip work: ign tags export [default]P5 -o - | ign tags import --file - --provider other. File-mode exports (the default, -o FILE) keep the normal envelope. Since Phase 11 the exception covers every format: --format xml and --format csv stdout mode write the RAW BYTES — the gateway's XML document (CRLF line endings, no declaration, trailing CRLF) or the generated CSV, byte-for-byte, never re-encoded, never pretty-printed, no added trailing newline. In human mode the artifact summary line (exported … → stdout …) goes to STDERR so a pipe stays pure; json mode keeps stdout data-only. The loss-gate refusal prose (below) is stderr-only for the same reason.

ign edit is the inverted FIFTH exception: it writes NOTHING to stdout in ANY mode — the child $EDITOR owns the terminal and all prose renders to stderr — so it never participates in the envelope system at all (see the edit section).

Destructive operations

Commands that change gateway state (sessions terminate, logs loggers set/reset, project delete, project import --collision-policy overwrite, project sync (the cross-gateway promotion — overwrite-imports the whole project on its TARGET profile), resource put, resource delete (both re-import the whole project — their refusal messages name the consequence), workspace push (splices local edits into a fresh export of the workspace's project — its refusal message IS the blast-radius preview, and its conflict refusal fires even with --yes), edit (the single-resource loop — its guarded push re-imports the project and its refusal message IS the staged diff summary; its staleness and fail-closed refusals fire regardless of any flag), tags provider delete, tags config delete, and tags import --collision-policy overwrite (abort-policy imports need no --yes — the pre-check fails safely before any write), restart — the big one: it takes the whole gateway down for ~1 min — and rig reset, which deletes the rig's volumes, plus rig trial reset, which restarts the trial window, and rig restore, which REPLACES the gateway's state with a gwbk, and backup restore — rig restore's standalone sibling on any profiled gateway, same whole-state replacement — plus the EAM writes: eam task new for MUTATING types or any non-OnDemand schedule (the typed ladder above; eam_backup + OnDemand needs no --yes and the fleet-destructive trio refuses outright instead of guarding), and eam task force, which dispatches NOW, plus the guarded task lifecycle verbs eam task suspend/resume/cancel/modify/ delete — each refusal carries the blast-radius preview in the message (the two-tier gate above)) refuse without --yes (exit 2, confirmation_required, hint names both the flag and IGNITION_YES=1) — non-interactive by design, so scripts and agents pass --yes once and humans get a speed bump. restart is guarded in BOTH forms: plain and --wait. The guard fires before any network activity: a refusal never touches the gateway. The rig guards (rig reset, rig trial reset, rig restore) fire before even rig DISCOVERY (a refusal does zero work of any kind). project delete and project import --collision-policy overwrite are the doubly-relevant pair: besides the CLI refusal, delete's wire request always carries the gateway's own confirm=true query param, and overwrite REPLACES the entire project (abort-policy imports need no --yes — they fail safely server-side). resource put joined this family in 05-02: its member surgery implicitly overwrite-imports the project (the 03-03 unguarded put is superseded), as does resource delete. Termination, restart, project mutations, and resource writes are audit-logged server-side by the gateway. Non-destructive project mutations (copy, rename, set, export) create, relabel, or read rather than destroy, so they carry no --yes. tags alarms ack likewise carries no guard — acknowledging is state-advancing but never destructive (it cannot un-acknowledge anything), the read-adjacent verb family's line.

The CLI's WebDev routes (ign webdev)

Every tag operation the CLI performs on a gateway rides the CLI's own WebDev route bundle — small Jython doPost.py routes deployed into a DEDICATED project (ign-cli by default) under /system/webdev/ign-cli/cli/{route} (the wire protocol — NOT /data/webdev/*, which does not exist). The bundle is embedded in the binary at build time and carries a ROUTE_BUNDLE_VERSION handshake ({"action":"version"} → {routeVersion, minCli}) on every route.

Deploy semantics

ign webdev deploy packs the embedded bundle into a project zip and imports it with overwrite=true — a clean replace, never a merge. The dedicated project is CLI-OWNED: it is born from the first deploy zip and wholesale-replaced by every later deploy, which is why deploy carries no --yes guard (user projects are never touched; you cannot accidentally deploy over anything you own — use --project only if you deliberately want a different name). There is no pre-flight project create (the gateway's first-import quirk); the import is the deployment.

The version-negotiation refusal matrix

WebDev-dependent commands (the tag family, from Phase 5 on) probe the canonical tags route's handshake BEFORE doing anything, and refuse exit 6 with an actionable error — no auto-upgrade magic, ever:

Probe answer	Slug	Hint
405 (route/project absent)	routes_not_deployed	run ign webdev deploy
deployed < expected	route_version_mismatch	run ign webdev deploy (old routes on the gateway)
deployed > expected	route_version_mismatch	update ign (the binary is older than the routes)
402	webdev_unlicensed	license the gateway (trial-expired rigs cannot serve /system/webdev)
200 body denial, unmapped code	webdev_route_error	the route's own code + message verbatim

Two wire facts the matrix is built on (live-proven on 8.3): denials ride HTTP 200 — WebDev ignores a status key in route returns, so every refusal is detectable only from the body envelope {ok, data|error}; and 405 = absent (missing routes and missing projects both answer 405 — ign doctor's earlier 404 assumption was wrong and has been re-pinned).

The route-authoring contract (live-bisected 05-06): every doPost.py must begin with def doPost(...) at BYTE 0. Any module-level content before it — comments, constants, even a blank line — makes the route silently unloadable on the real WebDev engine (the servlet answers 200 with an empty body; nothing is logged). The route sources keep their header docs and ROUTE_VERSION/MIN_CLI constants NESTED inside doPost for exactly this reason. A second, related engine quirk: the exec(...) CALL form can fail to compile at deep nesting on this Jython build — use the statement form (exec code in globals) in route scripts.

ign webdev status itself is a READ: it exits 0 whenever the sweep completes and reports per-route degradation as data (the doctor precedent) — the refusal matrix above belongs to the tag commands that DEPEND on the routes, not to the sweep that inspects them.

The configure-shape traps (authoring tag definitions)

tags config create|edit definitions ride system.tag.configure verbatim — the CLI never reshapes them. Four traps reproduced live during Phase 5 research (each one silently breaks or misleadingly errors on a real 8.3 gateway — author definitions against this table):

Trap	Wrong	Right
Discriminator key	"type": "AtomicTag"	"tagType": "AtomicTag" (type is silently ignored)
Nesting	slash-names ("name": "P5/T1") — rejected	children NEST under a tags array on Folder/UdtType entries
Alarms	a name-keyed dict — silently ignored (returns Good, no alarm attached)	alarms are a LIST of dicts: "alarms": [{"name": "HighLimit", "mode": "AboveValue", "setpointA": 100, "priority": "High"}]
Base path	a provider name as configure's first arg	a basePath ([default]P5) + per-tag names — the CLI derives both from the PATH you pass, so this trap cannot bite via the CLI

A minimal memory tag definition: {"tagType": "AtomicTag", "dataType": "Int4", "value": 123}.

Tag↔historian bindings — the surfaced field set (TAGS-13)

When a tag's config carries history-binding keys, tags config get human mode appends an additive history: block after the pretty JSON — one line per present field. The key names are CAPTURE-LOCKED to the 13-01 live spike record (both trial rigs, read-back + data proof). No name below is guessed:

Config key	Type	history: line	Meaning
historyEnabled	Boolean	enabled: true	The binding switch
historyProvider	String	provider: <name>	The storage provider's name (the doc-corrected key — historicalProvider is a documented typo that does NOT bind)
sampleMode	Enum	sample mode: TagGroup	The capture enum VERBATIM ("TagGroup" binds via the gateway's DEFAULT historical group — no group key is needed and none is guessed)
— (no captured key)	—	historical group: …	Rendered only if a key is ever captured; the spike bound without one

Additive-only contract: a config WITHOUT history keys renders byte-identically to the pre-TAGS-13 output (pinned by test), and the compact/JSON envelope is unchanged (the full config passthrough already carries the keys there).

The binding recipe (TAGS-14, live-proven on both trial rigs): binding a tag to a storage provider is a plain tag-config write — the CLI's existing tags config create|edit passthrough needs NO new surface. Provision an InternalHistorian first (native REST, no database: POST /data/api/v1/resources/com.inductiveautomation.historian/historian-provider with the array body [{name, type: "com.inductiveautomation.historian/historian-provider", collection: "core", enabled: true, config: {profile: {type: "InternalHistorian"}, settings: {}}}]), then send the COMPLETE node shape plus the three history keys in ONE write:

{"tagType": "AtomicTag", "dataType": "Int4", "value": 0,
 "historyEnabled": true, "historyProvider": "my-historian",
 "sampleMode": "TagGroup"}

Two wire truths make the "complete node shape" mandatory (both from the 13-01 captures): (1) tags config writes REPLACE the whole node — an edit that sends only the history keys silently drops dataType/defaultValue and nulls value; (2) NO historical-group key is needed — at sampleMode: "TagGroup" the gateway binds its DEFAULT historical group. Follow-through: write tag values, then ign tags history query — the tag-group scan stores at 40–50 s cadence, so allow a couple of scans before expecting the written values as DATA rows (live-proven on 8.3.6 AND 8.3.3; the e2e gate live_tags_history_bindings re-proves the full chain). Provider cleanup rides the generic resources API: find GET /data/api/v1/resources/find/{module}/{type}/{name} → signature → DELETE /data/api/v1/resources/{module}/{type}/{name}/{signature}.

Bulk export/import (the portability loop)

tags export → tags import moves a tag subtree between providers (or gateways) with values intact. --format json (both sides' default) is the gateway's own JSON interchange, parsed and written pretty — the lossless round-trip. --format xml passes the gateway's own XML document through RAW-BYTE both directions (export: the gateway's exportTags format=xml answer decoded verbatim; import: your bytes ride base64 to the gateway's importTags untouched — the gateway's parser is the only semantic actor). The collision conventions are IDENTICAL to project import's (locked in Phase 3): abort pre-checks and refuses before any write; overwrite is --yes-guarded with no pre-check. export -o - pipes into import --file - in any format.

The CSV contract (read this before --format csv)

The gateway cannot export tags to CSV (official Ignition 8.3 docs: "Ignition does not export tags to a CSV format"). ign tags export --format csv output is CLI-generated from the gateway's JSON interchange and is LOSSY:

• No alarm configurations — the legacy CSV grammar cannot carry them; alarm data in the source is dropped (live-proven: even a CSV imported with the undocumented AlarmStates column lands nothing).
• The legacy column set only — modern properties (tag groups, bindings, UDT parameter overrides, scan-class-adjacent and history-retention columns) have no legacy column and are dropped.
• Numeric enum coercion — TagType/DataType/ExpressionType ride legacy numeric codes; folders flatten (the legacy Path column is unusable — any non-empty value crashes the gateway's importer wholesale, so every row carries an empty Path).

The command prints exactly what was dropped on stderr (warning: csv export dropped field(s): …) and carries the structured twin in data.loss_report ({format, dropped_keys, coerced, rows}). Generation is warn-and-continue, never gated (nothing destructive happens — no gate applies); the column-by-column coverage table (what lands, coerces, drops, or crashes) is live-proven on 8.3.3 and 8.3.6.

The loss gate (imports, TAGS-12)

When importing xml/csv, the CLI SCANS the input before anything is sent and reports what the import would drop or coerce — UDT type definition transfer caveats (definitions DO import on this command's provider-root path, routing to [provider]_types_/Name; but exported udtParentType stays provider-qualified, so cross-provider imports keep pointing at the source provider, and instance parameter overrides silently drop when the referenced type is unresolvable in the target provider on 8.3.3), gateway-export-shaped files carrying only edited properties, and (for CSV, unconditionally) the no-alarms/legacy-columns facts. If the scan reports losses, the CLI prints the loss report as prose on STDERR and refuses exit 2 invalid_input unless --yes — the refusal happens before any network activity (profile null, zero requests). With --yes the import proceeds and the structured scan summary rides the success envelope as data.loss_report ({format, facts, top_level_names}), so agents can read the same findings without parsing prose. The scan is advisory — the gateway remains the parsing authority; a clean scan never blocks an import, and a gateway-side parse error still surfaces as the gateway's own error.

Collision policy (xml/csv)

The gateway's importTags also accepts an Ignore collision policy ('i') that silently keeps existing tags. ign deliberately surfaces only abort and overwrite (the same two-value matrix as tags import's JSON path since 03-02): abort is the safe default with a real pre-check, overwrite is honest about being destructive and requires --yes — a silent-ignore policy has no honest CLI story, so it is not a value.

Live-proven payload shapes (05-06): the gateway's exportTags never answers a bare array — one path yields a SINGLE subtree object, several yield the {"tags": [...]} wrapper. tags export NORMALIZES both to the list-of-subtrees interchange (what the export file carries and tags import consumes). A provider-shaped export subtree (empty name) lands its CHILDREN at the import target — the abort pre-check and the imported count therefore key on the EFFECTIVE top-level names, and the structural _types_ folder (present on every provider; the server's own abort policy accepts configuring it) never counts as a collision.

Provider-ROOT paths are not supported on 8.3 WebDev threads — system.tag.getConfiguration/exportTags need an RPC context the WebDev route's threads don't carry (live-proven 8.3.3 b2026012009 on both devops-rig gateways; ign tags export [default] and ign tags export default both hit it). The deployed route refuses honestly — exit 6 provider_root_unsupported with the subtree workaround in the message and hint — where the bracket form is detected before the call and the bare form (a leading provider-matching segment) is translated from the gateway's own No RpcContext throw. Subtree paths ([default]folder) are the supported form and behave exactly as documented.

Browsing tag exports offline (--from-export)

ign tags browse --from-export <PATH> reads a tag export WITHOUT a gateway — no profile resolution, no credential, no deployed routes (the envelope carries profile: null; the positional browse path and the flag are mutually exclusive). Three layouts are accepted:

1. The CLI's own export — the JSON file ign tags export -o writes (the list-of-subtrees interchange). The provider is the file stem (default.json → [default]… rows).
2. A legacy whole-tree file — a <provider>.json carrying the entire provider (the pre-individual-file git-module format). Provider = file stem.
3. A git-module directory — the layout ignition-git-module checks in: a tags/ root (or the directory itself when it directly holds provider folders/.json files), one folder or legacy <provider>.json per provider. In the individual-file format, folders are DIRECTORIES, each leaf tag is one .json (the tag's name field is stripped — the filename is the name, %XX-decoded for reserved characters), and _types_/*.json at the provider root are the UDT definitions. Dot-entries skip (the module's own rule), .tag-config.json is config (not a provider), and the System provider is always excluded.

The rows ride the SAME renderer and flat JSON shape as the live browse ({path, name, tag_type, has_children, data_type} with bracketed fullPaths) — --filter applies client-side. Offline errors (missing path, unparseable JSON) exit 2 invalid_input before any network. The natural pipe: browse an export from one gateway's git module, then promote it with ign tags import --provider <prov> --file <interchange> (or the README's cross-profile pipe).

Alarms and tag history

The alarms + tagHistory routes close the tag surface (TAGS-07/08). The alarm lifecycle is live-proven end-to-end (configure a LIST-form alarm → write past the setpoint → alarms active shows Active, Unacknowledged → alarms ack → the state flips to Active, Acknowledged):

• alarms active filters ride system.alarm.queryStatus kwargs verbatim; quality/state strings are data, never parsed.
• Alarm history needs a JOURNAL — and default rigs have none. alarms history on an unprovisioned rig refuses exit 6 (alarm_journal_missing) naming the missing chain — the honest, actionable default-rig path (live-proven). The provisioning chain is: (1) a running database reachable from the gateway (e.g. a sidecar postgres container), (2) a ignition/database-connection resource pointing at it, (3) an ignition/alarm-journal profile referencing that connection, and (4) the ignition/general-alarm-settings singleton pointed at the journal profile. All four steps are native config-resource REST (the same resource family as tag providers) — provisionable headlessly once a database exists; the e2e gate leaves this as a documented stretch (the wiremock pins carry the capability proof).
• alarms ack is the gateway-scope 3-arg form (String[] ids, note, username) — the explicit --username is required, and the unacknowledged REMAINDER comes back as data (acknowledged = requested − remainder, computed client-side honestly).

Tag history (TAGS-08): tags history query works STRUCTURALLY on any rig (a well-formed t_stamp-keyed dataset, null values without a historian — exit 0). DATA requires a provisioned historian: an InternalHistorian needs no database — creatable via native REST (POST /data/api/v1/resources/com.inductiveautomation.historian/historian-provider, profile type InternalHistorian; the e2e gate provisions one live). The tag↔historian binding is CLOSED (13-01 spike, both rigs): the Phase-5 "documented limitation" was a key-name typo — historicalProvider never bound; the captured field set historyEnabled + historyProvider + sampleMode: "TagGroup" (discussed in Tag↔historian bindings above) landed, read back, and returned WRITTEN values from history on 8.3.6 AND 8.3.3. The e2e gate live_tags_history_bindings re-proves the full chain on licensed trial rigs.

Phase 5 requirement map

Requirement	Shipped as
WEB-01 (route bundle + deploy)	ign webdev deploy (+ the embedded 13-member bundle)
WEB-02 (status sweep)	ign webdev status
TAGS-01 (provider CRUD)	ign tags provider list/create/delete
TAGS-02 (browse)	ign tags browse
TAGS-03 (read)	ign tags read
TAGS-04 (write)	ign tags write
TAGS-05 (config CRUD)	ign tags config get/create/edit/delete
TAGS-06 (UDTs)	ign tags udt types/def
TAGS-07 (alarms)	ign tags alarms active/history/ack
TAGS-08 (tag history)	ign tags history query
TAGS-09 (bulk transfer)	ign tags export/import

Parity with the 21-tool MCP tag-domain surface is complete (intent-corrected, not bug-replicated — the prior-art defects the research found are corrected in the routes).

scriptExec — the LOCKED security posture

scriptExec (arbitrary Jython execution through the gateway) ships in the bundle only as a TEMPLATE with a __IGN_CLI_SECRET__ marker and deploys ONLY with an explicit --with-script-exec:

• the deploy generates a fresh 32-byte hex secret from /dev/urandom, substitutes it into the template (the placeholder can never ship — it is excluded from the plain manifest), and persists it in the profile config at 0600; --rotate-secret regenerates (any route copy deployed with the old secret starts refusing);
• the route fail-closes on every action — version included — unless the request carries the matching X-Ignition-CLI-Secret header: no header → secret_required, wrong secret → secret_mismatch (constant-time compare);
• the secret appears in exactly ONE place: the baked zip member on the gateway. Never in command output, JSON envelopes, or logs.

Threat-model honesty: the secret gate is a SHARED-SECRET posture, not real authentication — anyone who can read the gateway project's resources (e.g. a Designer user or a project export) can read the secret. It exists to make scriptExec an opt-in, auditable surface with a definite off switch (never deploy it, or redeploy without the flag), not to protect against gateway insiders. The route keeps its config at require-auth=false deliberately: an auth layer would lock the CLI's own token-authenticated calls out (API tokens 401 on WebDev require-auth — live-verified).

The ign script run verb contract

ign script run (07-03) is the route's entire consumer surface, and its security posture is the deploy flag — nothing more:

• Input forms: --code PY (inline — a one-liner's best form), --file PATH, --file - (stdin — the agent pipe path). Giving both --code and --file, or neither, refuses invalid_input (exit 2) before any resolution work.
• The opt-in is structural: a profile with no persisted webdev_secret can only mean the route was never deployed through the flag — the verb refuses exit 6 script_exec_not_configured with zero HTTP requests, its hint naming ign webdev deploy --with-script-exec verbatim. There is deliberately NO --yes guard here: the deploy flag is the opt-in, and requiring a second confirmation would only tax the non-interactive agents the route exists for.
• Result shape: {stdout, result, elapsedMs} — all keys always (empty string / null / 0 when the answer carried nothing; agents never key-hunt). stdout is the script's captured output verbatim; result is a final expression's value or the _result global's statements; elapsedMs is the route-measured wall time.
• Timeout honesty: v1.0.0's route has NO server-side execution timeout — a long-running script simply holds the HTTP connection while it runs (the client rides its existing per-request timeout class). Budget long scripts accordingly.
• Redaction guarantee: the secret appears in exactly one place (the baked zip member) — never in the JSON envelope, the human render, logs, or any error path (the refusal and result canaries are contract-pinned at both the action and binary levels).
• Threat-model cross-reference: the shared-secret honesty note above applies to every script run invocation — the gate makes the surface opt-in and auditable; it does not defend against gateway insiders who can read the project's resources.

JVM profiling (ign jvm) — the special mode

ign jvm is a special mode, not a routine diagnostic: every intrusive verb ACTIVELY instruments the gateway JVM. Do not run it against a production server casually — it belongs inside an approved change window, with a rollback plan, at the shortest duration that answers the question. The mode exists for the non-production deep-dive (a rig, a UAT gateway, a repro environment) and for the rare, deliberate production incident.

Both mechanisms ride the ALREADY-deployed, secret-gated scriptExec route (the posture above applies in full — an undeployed route refuses exit 6 script_exec_not_configured with zero HTTP):

• ign jvm sample — a sampling thread profiler: a Jython loop inside the gateway JVM takes ThreadMXBean.dumpAllThreads every --interval-ms for --duration-secs, aggregating server-side into a hot-methods rollup and occurrence-counted stacks. The folded field (and --folded-out PATH sidecar) is flamegraph-ready input. Pure JVM reads — no JVM flags, no agents, no disk. CPU overhead grows with thread count × frequency.
• ign jvm jfr — Java Flight Recorder over the com.sun.management:type=DiagnosticCommand MBean (the jcmd-over-MBean trick). start is memory-buffered and duration-capped so the recording auto-stops even if you forget; stop dumps to the gateway's temp dir, streams the bytes back base64, and deletes the remote file; status lists recordings verbatim.

The safety contract, in order of enforcement:

1. A dedicated gate flag, not --yes. The intrusive verbs (sample, jfr start) refuse exit 2 profiling_risk_not_accepted without --i-accept-the-risk — BEFORE any HTTP request. The global --yes/IGNITION_YES deliberately does NOT satisfy this gate: a blanket destructive-ops confirm must never silently cover active JVM instrumentation. (jfr status and jfr stop are ungated — checking and cleaning up must always be cheap to reach; stopping reduces risk and is never refused.)
2. Hard caps, refused — never clamped. Sample duration ≤ 120 s (default 30), interval 5–1000 ms (default 20); JFR duration ≤ 300 s (default 60) with an auto-stop deadline baked into the recording itself; JFR dumps over 32 MiB are NOT streamed (the recording stops, the file stays on the gateway, and fetched:false + remote_file report it — retrieve and delete it manually). Over-cap asks exit 2 invalid_input BEFORE profile resolution (profile null): you must SEE the boundary, not have it silently moved.
3. The warning rides everything. Every result — JSON envelope, compact, and human render — leads with the production warning (data.warning first field; a stderr banner in human mode so piping the report never swallows it).

The TUI surface

The cockpit mirrors the mode as a gated room, not a tab: press J anywhere in ign tui and an interstitial makes you type ACKNOWLEDGE (Enter is inert until the phrase is exact) before the JVM screen opens. The screen carries a persistent red banner, a flight-recorder status pane, and the result of the last action; the keys are s (sample, fixed safe defaults 30 s @ 20 ms), w (live watch — continuous 10 s @ 50 ms windows refreshing the result pane; the status line shouts sampling LIVE while it runs and it stops on toggle, Esc, or a profile switch), f (JFR start, 60 s cap), F (JFR stop + fetch), r (refresh status), Esc (leave the mode). The TUI deliberately exposes NO way to raise durations or intervals — raising them is a CLI-side, still-capped decision. Switching profiles REVOKES the acknowledgment: a new gateway is a new risk decision.

Continuous mode (--follow, w)

For a live, ongoing view instead of a bounded capture: the CLI's ign jvm sample --follow and the TUI's w watch run bounded sampling windows back-to-back — the per-window caps are unchanged, but the LOOP is open-ended and so is the gateway overhead. Defaults drop to the gentler 10 s @ 50 ms cadence (explicit --duration-secs/--interval-ms still apply, still capped). The CLI streams each window's rollup as it lands (NDJSON envelopes under --json/--compact, human reports otherwise) until Ctrl-C — the same "live, but only while you're watching" posture as logs -f; --folded-out is refused with --follow (a sidecar is one window's stacks). In the TUI the watch stops the moment you leave the mode or switch profiles: continuous instrumentation never outlives the surface showing it.

Declared gateway deploy (ign deploy)

ign deploy operates on a declared repo: a git tree that says what a gateway should hold, kept separate from any live gateway. Phase 21 ships the first verb, render, which turns the declared tree into the exact bytes the gateway keeps on disk. Later verbs (plan, pull, verify, apply, rollback, projects) append their own subsections below.

The repo layout:

targets/<env>.yaml                      # where an environment deploys
gateways/<name>/manifest.yaml           # what the gateway tree may contain
gateways/<name>/resources/<module>/<type>[/<name>]/…   # the resource files

<module>/<type> is the gateway's own resource collection (for example ignition/database-translator); a <name> directory is one named resource, and a type with no <name> level is a singleton (for example ignition/general-alarm-settings).

--targets DIR (D-07, D-10, D-14) is accepted by render, plan, pull, verify, apply, rollback and projects; it defaults to --repo, and without it every verb reads and writes exactly what it did before. The reviewed targets/<ENV>.yaml files and the known_hosts files they name live only in the shared IaC repository (WhiskeyHouse/whk-onprem-infra-iac, folder ignition/), so a gateway-config repo holds no targets/ directory and points --targets at a checkout of that folder. DIR roots the target file and what it names: targets/<ENV>.yaml is read from DIR, and a relative known_hosts or relative local.data_dir in it resolves against DIR (a known_hosts path that leaves DIR is refused when the target is read). Everything else stays under --repo: the gateways/<name>/ tree, render --out, the tree pull writes, and the .ign/ run directory of apply and rollback. Such a repo runs deploy apply for its tag providers and deploy projects for its project as separate jobs (D-10), each with the same --targets checkout.

deploy render

ign deploy render --env <ENV> [--repo DIR] [--targets DIR] [--out DIR] is offline. It opens no network connection, resolves no profile and reads no credential, so the envelope carries profile: null and it needs no config file. Without --out it writes nothing to disk; --out DIR writes the rendered tree (see Writing the rendered tree). --repo defaults to the current directory.

--env resolution. --env dev selects targets/dev.yaml; that file's gateway field names gateways/<gateway>/, whose manifest.yaml is read next. --env must be a safe single path component (not empty, no / or \, not ./.., not dot-leading); anything else exits 2 invalid_input before any path is built. A missing targets/<env>.yaml, a missing gateway directory or manifest, or a symlink anywhere in the tree read exits 2 deploy_tree_invalid naming the repo-relative path. Symlinks are never followed.

manifest.yaml (schema_version: 1; unknown fields are refused with file:line:column, missing or duplicate fields name the file only):

Field	Meaning
schema_version	required, always 1
standards_version	optional free-form label; informational
types	required list of allowed module/type resource types
tag_providers	optional list of tag provider directory names
exclude_tag_providers	optional list of tag provider directory names that are gateway-owned (for example MQTT Engine), for every environment. Unioned with the target's list and the built-in System default; see Excluded tag providers
projects	optional list of pinned project artifacts (name, version, sha256, artifact)
verify.tag_probes	optional list of tag paths read back after a deploy

targets/<env>.yaml (schema_version: 1, same strictness):

Field	Meaning
schema_version	required, always 1
gateway	required directory name under gateways/
mode	required deployment mode name
exclude_tag_providers	optional list of tag provider directory names that are gateway-owned (for example MQTT Engine), for this environment. Unioned with the manifest's list and the built-in System default. It lives in the target too so that a bootstrap deploy pull, which has no manifest yet, skips them; see Excluded tag providers
nodes.master, nodes.backup	master required, backup optional; each has profile (an ign profile NAME, never a secret) and an optional ssh block. The two nodes are two gateways: nodes.backup.profile equal to nodes.master.profile, the same local.data_dir on both, or the same ssh host, port and data_dir on both is refused with deploy_tree_invalid (exit 2) when the target is read, before any gateway or host is contacted (otherwise deploy verify --node backup would read the master as the backup). Two different profiles that point at one URL are not detected
nodes.*.ssh	host, port, user, key_file or key_env (a file path or an env var NAME, never both and never a key), os (windows or linux), data_dir, known_hosts, connect_timeout_s, op_timeout_s
nodes.*.ssh.known_hosts	required: a repo-relative path (no leading /, no .., no backslash) to the reviewed known_hosts file that pins the host key. ign copies it into a private temp directory and gives ssh that copy with StrictHostKeyChecking=yes; the runner's own ~/.ssh/known_hosts is never read
nodes.*.ssh.connect_timeout_s	optional, 1..120, default 10: ssh ConnectTimeout in seconds
nodes.*.ssh.op_timeout_s	optional, 1..3600, default 1050: one ssh or sftp call may run this long before it is killed (transport_failed). The default is three times the larger p95 of a measured read and commit of a 152-file tree over the internet to a Windows host (348 s), rounded up to 30 s; a tree ten times that size needs a larger value and is not covered by the default
nodes.*.gateway_name	optional: the gateway's system name. When set, deploy apply refuses (deploy_preflight_failed, check wrong_target) unless the gateway's REST name equals it; on the master the REST name must also equal the host's systemName whether or not this is set. Not empty, no control characters. Only nodes.master is compared today; a value on nodes.backup is validated and not yet used
nodes.*.local	data_dir: the gateway data directory on the machine running ign (rigs, tests, a runner on the gateway host). A relative value resolves against --repo. Mutually exclusive with ssh

Excluded tag providers

Some tag providers belong to the gateway, not to the declared tree: the built-in System provider, and providers a module builds itself (Cirrus Link's MQTT Engine creates its tags from Sparkplug births). Such a provider is excluded.

• The effective set is the union of System (always; it cannot be turned off in this release), the target's exclude_tag_providers and the manifest's exclude_tag_providers. Overlap between the sources is allowed and unioned. Names are matched case-insensitively (ASCII case fold), because Ignition provider names and NTFS paths are case-insensitive: a declared system is the excluded System. The set is deduplicated by that fold, keeping the byte-smallest spelling, and reported byte-sorted.
• Never touched. An excluded provider's four tag-type subtrees (ignition/tag-provider/<P>/, tag-group/<P>/, tag-type-definition/<P>/, tag-definition/<P>/) are never listed, read, written or deleted by deploy pull, plan, verify or apply (including apply's backup preflight read and its backup convergence read). A ledger file under an excluded provider is never deleted (see the delete set under deploy plan).
• Strict. An entry that is empty, blank, has leading or trailing whitespace, contains a control character anywhere (a newline, a carriage return, ESC), is not a safe single path component (a /, \, NUL, ., .. or a leading .), or repeats an earlier entry of the same list under ASCII case folding is refused with deploy_tree_invalid (exit 2) naming exclude_tag_providers[i]. Duplicates are refused, not normalized. A provider that is excluded and also declared (in the manifest's tag_providers, or present as tags/<P>/ or modes/<env>/tags/<P>/) is refused with deploy_tree_invalid (exit 2) by render, and so by plan, verify and apply; deploy pull refuses a kept manifest that declares one before it reads the host.
• Upgrading a repo that lists System. Up to v1.6.0 a manifest could declare System in tag_providers (a manifest deploy pull generated then listed every provider directory it found). From v1.6.1 such a manifest fails every deploy render, plan, verify, apply and pull with deploy_tree_invalid (exit 2) naming tag_providers[i]. To migrate, remove System (in any case) from tag_providers in gateways/<name>/manifest.yaml, and remove any tags/System/ or modes/<env>/tags/System/ directory from the repo. Nothing on the gateway changes: an excluded provider was never written or deleted by the deploy, and a ledger that still lists System files deletes none of them.
• Reported, not hashed. data.excluded_tag_providers (byte-sorted, always holding System) is in the JSON data of deploy pull, plan, verify and apply, and human mode prints exactly one stderr line excluded tag providers: <a>, <b>. Under --json stderr stays silent. The set is not part of plan_sha256.

The allowlist (D-02). Only the module/type directories listed in the manifest types are rendered. A type directory that is not listed is refused, not skipped: exit 2 deploy_tree_invalid naming gateways/<name>/resources/<module>/<type>/, with every such directory reported together. A file directly under resources/ or resources/<module>/ is refused the same way.

Rendered bytes. Every file the render does not need to change is rendered byte for byte. Paths are ordered by the UTF-8 bytes of the /-joined collection path (<module>/<type>/…, the repo path with gateways/<name>/resources/ removed), and file contents are compared as raw bytes; no Unicode normalization or case folding is applied to either.

render_sha256 is the lowercase hex SHA-256 of a listing with one entry per rendered file, in byte-sorted collection-path order:

<collection path> NUL <lowercase hex sha256 of the file bytes> LF

NUL is the byte 0x00 and LF is 0x0a. The digest is stable across runs and operating systems. An allowlist that matches no files renders files: 0 with the digest of the empty listing, e3b0c44298fc1c149afbf4c8996fb92427ae41e4649b934ca495991b7852b855, exit 0, and the warning render produced no files.

Data keys. With --json the envelope's data carries, in this order, env, gateway, mode, out (the --out path as given, null without --out), files, bytes, render_sha256, resources, tag_providers, uuids_minted, opaque_files and warnings. resources is ordered by (module, type, name) bytes with singletons (name null) first, each entry {module, type, name, files} with files relative to the resource directory; the other arrays are in byte order, and warnings are in pipeline order. Keys are only ever added, never renamed. Human output is rendered gateways/<name> for env <env> (mode <mode>): <n> files, <n> bytes and render_sha256 <hex> on stdout (plus wrote <n> files to <dir> as a third line with --out), with each warning on stderr as warning: …. A refusal leaves stdout empty.

Over MCP. deploy render is in the ign mcp serve tool catalog as deploy_render. It reads the repo and writes only through --out, whose ladder (next section) is the safety, so the tool is not guarded and takes no confirm argument.

Writing the rendered tree (--out)

--out DIR writes every rendered file under DIR at its collection path (<module>/<type>/…), byte for byte, plus a marker DIR/render.json. Nothing is written unless the whole render succeeded, so a refused render (policy, Gson gate, uuid, lint or secret) creates nothing: an absent DIR stays absent (no ancestor is created either) and an empty DIR stays empty.

DIR is accepted only when it is one of:

• absent: it and any missing parents are created;
• an empty directory;
• exactly a previous render of the same gateway and environment: every regular file in it is listed in its render.json with an unchanged SHA-256, every listed file is present, there is no directory without a listed file, and the new render still produces every listed file. Listed files are then replaced with the new bytes.

Anything else is refused as invalid_input (exit 2) with the reason and the first offending path, and nothing is written: an unrelated non-empty directory, a directory without a render.json (including one left by an interrupted write), a marker of another gateway or environment or with an unknown schema_version, a file edited since it was rendered, an unlisted file, a listed file the new render dropped, a regular file at DIR, a symlink at DIR or anywhere under it, and any special file. Render never follows or creates links.

Render never deletes a file, and it never overwrites a file that is not listed, unchanged, in a prior render.json of the same gateway and environment. New files are created exclusively (a second writer racing for the same new directory loses and is refused); replaced files and the marker are written to <name>.ign-render-tmp and renamed into place. The marker is written last, so an interrupted write leaves no valid marker, and the next render into that directory is refused until you remove it or choose another. This ladder is the safety for the unguarded MCP tool.

render.json is ign's own file, not a gateway file, and is not part of render_sha256. It is pretty-printed JSON with one trailing LF:

{
  "schema_version": 1,
  "gateway": "<gateway directory name>",
  "env": "<--env>",
  "mode": "<target mode>",
  "render_sha256": "<same value as the envelope>",
  "files": [{ "path": "<collection path>", "sha256": "<hex>", "bytes": 123 }]
}

files is sorted by path bytes. Later deploy verbs read this marker, so unknown fields are refused and its shape is versioned by schema_version. With --json, data.out holds the path exactly as given.

Byte fidelity

Files pass through byte for byte. Render rewrites a .json file only when write(parse(bytes)) == bytes, where the writer is the gateway's own format: members in source order (never sorted), 2-space indent, ": " between key and value, {} and [] for empty containers, no trailing newline, the HTML-safe escapes < > & = ' as < > & = ', U+2028 and U+2029 escaped, other non-ASCII as raw UTF-8, and every number kept exactly as written (2.50, 1.0E10 and integers beyond 2^53 survive). A .json file that parses but is not in that format (a trailing newline, a compact one-liner, other indentation) is opaque: it is listed in opaque_files and render never mutates it.

JSON that render cannot parse is refused, not copied blind, because render must inspect it for secrets: exit 2 deploy_tree_invalid naming each gateways/<name>/… source path, with all such files reported together. Refused are invalid UTF-8, a byte-order mark, a syntax error, nesting deeper than 128 levels, a key repeated within one object, and a file over the 16 MiB (16,777,216 bytes) per-JSON cap. The message carries positions and key names, never values.

Environments and overlays

gateways/<name>/modes/<env>/ is the overlay for environment <env>. It mirrors the base layout: modes/<env>/resources/<module>/<type>/… and modes/<env>/tags/<provider>/<tag type>/… (anything else directly under modes/<env>/ is refused). A file in the overlay replaces the base file at the same path whole (there is no merging of keys inside a file), or is added when the base has no file there; a base file with no overlay counterpart is rendered unchanged. Only the directory named for the --env being rendered is opened: another environment's modes/<other>/ tree is never read, so content in it (including content that would be refused) cannot affect this render. A finding on an overlay file names the overlay path (gateways/<name>/modes/<env>/…).

Overlays can only add or replace. A base resource cannot be removed for one environment; keep a resource that differs per environment out of the base tree and add it from each modes/<env>/ instead. This is a documented limitation (SF-7), not an oversight.

Tags layout

Tags live under gateways/<name>/tags/<provider>/<tag type>/…, where <tag type> is one of tag-provider, tag-group, tag-type-definition or tag-definition. Render maps each file to the collection path the gateway holds on disk, as captured against an 8.3.6 gateway (decision CD5):

tags/<provider>/<type>/<rest>  ->  ignition/<type>/<provider>/<rest>

For example tags/default/tag-group/Default/config.json renders as ignition/tag-group/default/Default/config.json, and a folder of tags tags/default/tag-definition/Plant/tags.json as ignition/tag-definition/default/Plant/tags.json, beside the folder's tags/default/tag-definition/Plant/unary-resource.json marker that lists it (every tag folder needs one; see below). Folders nest as directories. Every provider directory must be listed in the manifest tag_providers; a provider that is not listed is refused (naming tags/<provider>/), and the tag_providers data key lists the providers that rendered at least one file. Tag types are not declared under resources/ (and do not need a manifest types entry); resources/ignition/<tag type>/… is refused.

Two layouts that CD5 left refused were captured later, on an 8.3.6 Docker rig and on a Windows 8.3 gateway over sftp, and are now accepted (decisions CD5a and CD5b of quick task 261030-8m8, 261030-8m8-LIVE-CAPTURES.md). On both hosts a plain file write, change and delete at these paths took effect after one config scan, as for folder tags:

• Root-level tags (CD5a). A tags.json or udts.json directly at the root of tag-definition, beside the provider-root marker that lists it:

  tags/default/tag-definition/unary-resource.json   "files": ["tags.json"]
  tags/default/tag-definition/tags.json
  

  tags/default/tag-definition/tags.json renders as ignition/tag-definition/default/tags.json, and pull places that live file back at tags/default/tag-definition/tags.json. The root files join the provider-root unit ignition/tag-definition/<provider>, together with the provider-root unary-resource.json.

• Nested type folders (CD5b). UDT types in sub-folders of _types_: tags/default/tag-type-definition/Motors/Pump/udts.json renders as ignition/tag-type-definition/default/Motors/Pump/udts.json, and back. There is no _types_ directory on disk; the folder chain sits directly under the provider. Each folder with its own unary-resource.json is its own unit (.../default/Motors and .../default/Motors/Pump); the gateway writes a marker (with files: []) even in a folder that holds only sub-folders.

The gateway reads a tag folder's unary-resource.json files list and loads only the member files it names (CD5c): an unlisted tags.json or udts.json is silently skipped, and a listed one that is missing logs an error. Render therefore checks every unary-resource.json under tag-definition and tag-type-definition, at every level, against the tags.json and udts.json in its own folder, and refuses a mismatch (see What render refuses). It is fail-closed: a tags.json or udts.json in a folder with no unary-resource.json of its own, and a marker that is not a JSON object or has no files member, are refused too. Every marker the gateway writes is an object with files (files: [] in a folder with no member file), so a pulled tree always passes.

On a Windows gateway, nested type folders spend the path budget. A live path of 240 characters or more (LONG_PATH_LIMIT) cannot be read: pull skips its unit path_too_long and plan lists it under unreadable. On the default data directory, the folder C:\Program Files\Inductive Automation\Ignition\data\config\resources\production\ignition\tag-type-definition\default\ is 117 characters, which leaves 122 characters for the folder chain plus the file name (Motors\Pump\unary-resource.json is 31). A longer provider name takes from the same budget, one character each; the core copy of the same folder is 6 characters shorter.

One layout is still not exercised and stays refused: a non-default collection. Two source files that map to the same collection path are refused, naming both.

Tags and redundant pairs

ign deploy writes every unit into the mode collection (config/resources/<mode>/). On a redundant pair (a target with nodes.backup) that is not possible for tag-definition and tag-type-definition units, captured on an 8.3.6 Docker pair (debug session deploy-tag-redundancy-sync). Ignition's config-resource synchronizer counts those resources of a mode collection in its snapshot digest but leaves them out of every diff it sends, and the tag-config-resource synchronizer syncs only core. So when the master's mode collection holds such a path, the backup can never match the master's digest: it fails its full pulls, logs Sync operation has failed 5 time(s), which exceeds the max attempt count, stops syncing configuration (non-tag changes too), and both nodes report projectState SyncError. An empty ignition/tag-definition/ folder in the mode collection is enough. The same files in core sync normally, and so do tag-provider and tag-group units in the mode collection. A master restart does not fix it: it turns projectState back to Good while the backup still does not sync. The gateway's own tag writes (Designer, tags/import) go to core even in a deployment mode, both a create and an edit of an existing core tag (debug C3 and the 261103-ell rig check), so they are not affected.

What ign does about it: on a redundant pair, tag units are deployed to core. The routing rule is one: when the target declares nodes.backup, every tag-definition and tag-type-definition file is written into config/resources/core/ instead of the mode collection. Plan, apply, the ledger, rollback, pull and verify all apply it. A standalone target (no nodes.backup) keeps its tag units in the mode collection, exactly as before, and a pair's other units (tag-provider, tag-group and every non-tag type) stay in the mode collection too.

• The .core/ spelling. A file of the core collection is named .core/<collection path> wherever ign lists files it writes or deletes: entries[].files[].path and delete_set.files of the plan JSON, the written and deleted lists of deploy apply, and the on-box ledger and run records. For example .core/ignition/tag-definition/default/Deploy/tags.json. Mode-collection paths stay bare, so a standalone or tag-free plan, its plan_sha256 and its ledger are byte-for-byte what they were. An ign older than this one refuses a ledger with .core/ entries (deploy_ledger_invalid) instead of misreading it.
• deploy plan compares a pair's tag unit with its core copy: no copy is added, a byte-equal one same, anything else changed. The entry's files hold the .core/ rows and, when the mode collection still holds a copy, that copy's bare rows (desired_sha256 null). core is never hidden for such a unit.
• Moving units out of the mode collection (the migration). A pair whose mode collection holds tag units a deploy wrote earlier (the ledger lists them bare) recovers in one apply: the plan writes the units into core and puts their mode files in the delete set, and the apply does both in one commit and one scan, removing the emptied ignition/tag-definition/ and ignition/tag-type-definition/ folders too. The ledger then lists the .core/ paths. The entry deletes files, so it is destructive (tag_data_loss) and the apply needs --allow-destructive. With --base, a moved unit's core rows are judged by the mode copy the apply deletes, so the migration is drift: true only when that mode copy differs from the base or a core copy already exists that differs from it; a clean migration needs no --allow-drift. The backup of a pair that was wedged before converges after the apply's one resync; the next change converges without one.
• What is still refused. deploy apply refuses, with deploy_pair_tags_refused (exit 6) and before anything is written, a pair plan that would leave a file of a tag unit in the mode collection: one the ledger does not list, or one the delete set skips (an excluded provider, a case variant). added, changed and same units that land in core are not refused. No flag permits the residue; remove those files by hand on the master (runbook T6e below). An unmanaged tag unit (live in the mode collection, neither declared nor listed by the ledger) is not refused: the deploy never deletes what it does not own, deploy plan lists it with status unmanaged but its pair-refusal warning does not name it, and its files, which the plan reads, are not residue of the folder listing below. Its mode files still keep the backup from syncing: deploy verify warns about them (below), and they are removed by hand on the master the same way. The check runs after plan_stale and deploy_unreadable and before the no-op step, so a plan that changes nothing else is still refused while a residue file of the kind refused above is there. On a pair the deploy lists the mode collection's ignition/tag-definition and ignition/tag-type-definition folders whole. Any file or folder in them it does not read (an empty folder, one holding only empty folders, files of a tag provider the deploy does not read, or a loose file), also beside in-scope files the apply deletes, is refused the same way, naming the topmost such path, and is removed by hand on the master. deploy apply lists the folders again after staging, just before it takes the scan lock, so one made after the plan is refused the same way. Then no collection file is written and no lock is taken, the run's staging and snapshot folders on the host are dropped, and the run directory stays: its run.json, plan.json, events.ndjson, read_back_baseline.json, the downloaded .gwbk (unless --skip-gwbk) and the result.json that records the refusal. deploy plan on a pair adds one warning naming those units and paths (the first ten and the count); the warning is not part of plan_sha256.
• Designer edits are drift. ign deploys into the same core tag folders Designer and the gateway's tag import write. A Designer edit to a folder ign manages shows as changed with core differs; with --base it is drift: true, and apply refuses it until the repo takes the edit or --allow-drift is given. ign deletes a core file only when its ledger lists that file as .core/: a removal whose mode copy the ledger lists while an unledgered core copy exists is shadows_removal and deploy_blocked (exit 6), because deleting the mode copy would bring the core copy back.
• Rollback. A run that only wrote core rolls back like any other. A migration run carries the mode copies it deleted, and restoring them would wedge the pair again, so deploy rollback of such a run is refused deploy_pair_tags_refused; apply again instead. An automatic rollback of a failed migration (a red verify) does restore the mode copies: that is the pre-apply state, a wedged pair, and the next successful apply moves them again. Recovering an interrupted run is never refused.
• deploy verify judges a pair's tag units against core. A declared tag unit that also has a copy in the master's mode collection fails the files check with a files_differ finding naming the mode paths (the first ten and the count): the copy overrides core and blocks the backup's sync, and since the gateway's own tag writes stay in core, it is drift. Every other tag file still in the mode collection, and every file or folder of its tag type folders the deploy does not read (named by its topmost path), stays one data.warnings line (paths only, the first ten and the count), whatever its status. That line is a warning, not a check; the check ids are unchanged, and --node both carries the finding and the warning once.
• The backup's files check compares unary-resource.json as parsed JSON (every member counts), because the backup pretty-prints the marker of a tag folder it receives in core; tags.json and udts.json stay byte-equal.
• Deletes and rollbacks (every host: local, Linux commit.sh, Windows commit.ps1) remove an emptied ignition/tag-definition/ or ignition/tag-type-definition/ folder of the mode collection along with the emptied folders below it. In core they stop at <module>/<type>: core/ignition/tag-definition/ and core/ignition/tag-type-definition/ always stay, and config/resources/core/ itself is never created by ign. For every other type the <module>/<type> folder stays, as before, and ignition/ itself always stays. A rollback whose core records are only files the run created succeeds even when config/resources/core/ is gone (the mode pre-images are still put back); one with a core pre-image to put back still needs it, and fails naming the core collection.
• A pair turned standalone. When a target drops nodes.backup, its tag units go back to the mode collection: the next apply writes them there and deletes the .core/ files its ledger lists. Nothing else in core is touched.
• Host access. The deploy account needs write access to config/resources/core/ignition/tag-definition and config/resources/core/ignition/tag-type-definition on both nodes (a failover makes the backup the master): Modify on Windows, rwx on Linux. The write_host preflight checks it for a run that touches core and refuses before any write, naming the folder. It walks every existing folder on a path the run writes, from core/ignition down: each one at or below core/ignition/<tag type> must be writable and searchable, and none may be a symlink, a junction or a non-directory, core/ignition included. Where the commit must create folders, the nearest existing one must be writable too; on Windows that means Modify (create folders) on it. On a Windows test host (Ignition 8.3.6, single node) the grant icacls <type folder> /grant '<deploy account>:(OI)(CI)M' /C on both type folders, without /T, reached every existing child through inheritance. Before it the preflight refused both folders; after it the deploy account created, replaced and deleted files and folders there, including ones owned by BUILTIN\Administrators. That capture covers the file system and ACL layer only, not the scan or a pair's sync of core.

The files check cannot see this wedge on its own. A resync makes the backup apply the master's diff before it compares digests, so the files a deploy changed do reach a wedged backup when apply sends its one resync, and the files check passes. Two signs tell a wedged pair from a healthy one: the backup converged only after the resync (data.backup.resync is not null and waited_s is past the first budget), and projectState reads SyncError on the nodes afterwards. A healthy pair converges on a change without a resync.

Recovering a wedged production pair (runbook T6e). Proven on the 8.3.6 Docker pair; no restart is needed. Take a VM snapshot and a .gwbk of both nodes first.

1. On the master only, remove every tag-definition and tag-type-definition path from the mode collection, the empty folders included: <data>/config/resources/<mode>/ignition/tag-definition/ and <data>/config/resources/<mode>/ignition/tag-type-definition/. When the tags there are ones a deploy wrote and the ledger lists, an ign deploy apply --allow-destructive does this step and the next two: a repo that still declares them moves them into core (the migration above), and one that no longer declares them (their provider still in tag_providers, not in exclude_tag_providers) deletes them. Either way the apply removes the emptied folders, scans and, when the backup does not converge in the first budget, sends its one resync. Files no ledger lists, and an empty folder with no ledgered file in it (what a rollback before v1.6.5 left), are removed by hand. Never write to the backup.
2. Run a config scan on the master (POST /data/api/v1/scan/config).
3. Ask the master to resync its backup (POST /data/api/v1/redundancy/gwaction/resync, on the master only).
4. Confirm: both nodes report projectState Good with no sync pending, the master's mode collection has no ignition/tag-definition or ignition/tag-type-definition folder, ign deploy verify --env <env> --node both passes with files pass, and the next non-tag deploy to the pair ends applied with data.backup.resync null. A Good read alone is not proof, because a master restart shows Good on a pair that is still wedged.

What render refuses

Render is fail-closed: a defect is a refusal (exit 2 deploy_tree_invalid), never a skip, and every defect found in one render is reported together, each naming the repo path to open (an overlay path when the overlay supplied it). Refused:

• a type directory under resources/ that is not in the manifest types (D-02);
• the security types ignition/security-properties, ignition/security-levels, ignition/api-token and ignition/user-source, even when the manifest lists them: rendering them can lock an administrator out of the gateway, so they stay gateway-owned. A manifest types entry for one of them is refused too, naming manifest.yaml;
• config-mode.json at any depth, in the base or an overlay: the gateway writes it itself;
• any path component that starts with . (.DS_Store, .hidden/, .env). A file named .gitkeep is the one exception: it is skipped at any depth and never rendered or listed. Only the first character decides, so a module directory such as com.inductiveautomation.perspective is fine;
• a tag provider directory not listed in the manifest tag_providers, a directory under tags/<provider>/ that is not one of the four tag types, and tag types placed under resources/ignition/;
• two source files that map to one collection path;
• a tag folder named tags.json, udts.json or unary-resource.json (in any letter case) below tag-definition/<provider>/ or tag-type-definition/<provider>/. The gateway accepts such a folder despite its own error and then loses the provider's root tags.json to an I/O error (CD5d);
• a tag folder's unary-resource.json whose files list does not name exactly the tags.json and udts.json in its own folder (CD5c). The finding names the marker's repo path, the member files that are not listed and those listed but absent; any other entry is only counted, never quoted. A marker that is not a JSON object or has no files member, and a tags.json or udts.json whose own folder has no unary-resource.json, are refused the same way;
• any other file below tag-definition/<provider>/ or tag-type-definition/<provider>/, a letter-case variant such as Tags.json included. Every CD5 capture, on both hosts, shows the gateway writing only tags.json, udts.json and unary-resource.json in a tag folder, and it loads nothing else: a Linux gateway never matches a case variant, and an NTFS host folds it onto the real file, which the marker then does not list;
• symlinks, special files and non-UTF-8 names anywhere in the walked tree;
• unparseable JSON (see Byte fidelity);
• a resource type with no render rule, in the manifest types or in the tree (see Resource identity): only types backed by evidence render;
• a singleton type with a name directory, or a named type with a file directly under its type directory;
• an invalid, or missing where required, resource.json or attributes.uuid (see Resource identity).
• an Embedded secret, a plaintext value at a secret-typed schema path, or a plaintext password/secret string in an undescribed module type (see Secrets); this is embedded_secret, exit 2.
• a Windows-illegal name, two siblings that differ only by case, a path over the Windows budget, or a carriage return in a text member (see Windows safety and line endings).

Resource identity (attributes.uuid)

A named resource whose resource.json has no attributes.uuid is silently never loaded by the gateway, so render gives every new named resource one. The uuid is deterministic (RFC 9562 version 8, built on SHA-256):

SHA-256( "ign-deploy:uuid:v1" NUL <gateway> NUL <module> "/" <type> "/" <name> )

Take the first 16 bytes, set the version nibble to 8 and the two top bits of the variant byte to 10, and print lowercase 8-4-4-4-12 hex. NUL is the byte 0x00; <gateway> is the gateways/<name> directory name. The inputs are the exact UTF-8 bytes of each name: no normalization and no case folding, so Pump and pump, or NFC and NFD spellings, get different uuids. The environment is not an input, so one resource keeps one identity across a gateway's environments; the gateway is, so two gateway trees never share ids. An existing uuid is never recomputed. The derivation was checked against a live Ignition 8.3.6 gateway, which loaded a hand-written resource carrying the uuid this formula gives (decision CD1).

Every rendered resource type has one of three rules, taken from the sanitized gateway corpus and from resources created on an 8.3.6 gateway:

Rule	Layout	attributes.uuid
Singleton	files directly under <module>/<type>/	none; a resource.json that carries one, or is missing, is refused
Named	one directory per resource	kept if present; derived and inserted if absent
Named, no uuid (ignition/store-and-forward-engine, com.inductiveautomation.perspective/themes)	one directory per resource	never derived or inserted; a resource.json is required; an existing valid uuid is kept

What render does for a Named resource:

• resource.json present with a valid attributes.uuid: kept byte for byte. An empty, null, non-string or non-8-4-4-4-12 value is refused naming the file; it is never replaced.
• resource.json present without one, in the gateway's writer format: the uuid is inserted into attributes right after lastModification (and legacyId when present) and the rest of the file is unchanged. A resource.json that is not in the gateway's writer format (see Byte fidelity) is refused instead of rewritten; add the uuid yourself or re-pull the resource.
• no resource.json: one is written in the gateway's own shape, with scope from the type's rule, version 1, restricted false, overridable true, files listing the resource's files in byte order, and attributes holding the uuid and enabled: true. The gateway loads such a file without lastModification or a signature (decision CD2). The data key uuids_minted lists these resources as module/type/name, in byte order.

Fail-closed. A type with no rule is refused, whether it is a manifest types entry or a directory in the tree: only types with corpus or capture evidence render. The four tag types follow the tags/ layout instead and are not subject to these rules.

Secrets

Render never ships a secret. A secret field is accepted only when it is absent, null, or a Referenced secret, which points at a secret held by a gateway secret provider:

{ "type": "Referenced", "data": { "providerName": "vault", "secretName": "db-pass" } }

A Referenced secret carries a provider and a secret name, not a value, so it is safe to commit (decision CD7). Everything else is refused as embedded_secret (exit 2), and the error names <source file>: <json path> and the kind of defect, never a value.

The accepted shape is exact. A Referenced secret is an object with exactly two members: type, the string "Referenced", and data. data holds exactly the two string members providerName and secretName. Member order does not matter; the gateway writes data then type (CD7). Any other shape is not a Referenced secret: an extra member inside data or beside it, a missing member, a wrong-case name or a non-string name. Such a value is refused as (plaintext) at a schema path. Elsewhere it is scanned like any other object, so the key-name rule (or its warning, in a described type) applies to its members.

The checks, in the order they apply:

• Embedded anywhere. Any JSON object with "type": "Embedded" and an object data, at any depth of any .json member of any resource or tag file, is refused. Embedded is how a gateway stores an encrypted secret inline; the ciphertext is tied to one gateway and must not be committed. The path reads <file>: password (embedded).

• Plaintext at a schema path. For the ten resource types whose 8.3.6 OpenAPI schema has secret-typed fields, config.json must hold absent, null or a well-formed Referenced at each path; a string (even an empty one) or any other value is refused as (plaintext):

  Type	Secret paths in config.json
  com.inductiveautomation.alarm-notification/alarm-notification-profile	settings.settings.password, settings.twoWayPop3.pop3Password, settings.voipGateway.password
  com.inductiveautomation.opcua/device	settings.advanced.password
  ignition/database-connection	password
  ignition/email-profile	settings.settings.password
  ignition/identity-provider	settings.clientSecret
  ignition/oauth2-client	clientSecret
  ignition/opc-connection	settings.authentication.password, settings.authentication.privateKeyPem, settings.security.keyStoreAliasPassword
  ignition/service-connector	settings.password, settings.ssl.keyPassword, settings.ssl.keystore.key, settings.ssl.keystore.password, settings.ssl.truststore.password
  ignition/system-properties	errorReportPassword
  ignition/user-source	settings.connectionPassword, settings.ldap.connectionPassword (a denied type; listed for completeness)

• Plaintext by key name, in module types the OpenAPI does not describe. For a type outside the 8.3.6 OpenAPI (for example the Cirrus Link MQTT types), a non-empty string under a key whose name contains password or secret (ASCII, any case) in config.json is refused as (plaintext, by key name). The secretName of a well-formed Referenced object is a name, not a secret, and is not checked. To fix a refusal, move the value into the gateway's secret provider and reference it as above. An empty string, null, a number and a boolean under such a key are fine.

• A warning, in described types. In a type the OpenAPI does describe, the schema is authoritative: its secret-typed fields are refused at their exact paths, and a string under a secret-looking key elsewhere (a field that is not secret-typed) only produces a warning naming the path. Render still succeeds.

The --json envelope, stderr, stdout and the warnings carry paths only. Tests plant canary values in each of these cases and assert they appear nowhere.

Residual risk (DRND-07). Detection in an undescribed module type is by key name, so a plaintext secret under another name (apiKey, token, privateKey, credentials) is not detected. Conversely, a string field in such a type whose name merely contains password or secret is refused, and Phase 21 has no override: rename the field in the source only if the module allows it, or keep that resource out of the declared tree. The corpus has no such string value. When a secret and tree defects are found together, one embedded_secret error lists the secret paths and then the other findings. Tag files are scanned for Embedded objects only: they have no resource schema.

Windows safety and line endings

resources/ is shared by every environment, so a tree committed for a Linux dev rig can later be deployed to a Windows production host. Render therefore applies the Windows rules to every environment and refuses what NTFS would reject at deploy time (D-04: fail-closed now; the real NTFS behaviour is captured in Phase 22, so these rules are an approximation made deliberately strict). The error names the offending component or file. Refused:

• a path component (a directory or a file name) containing < > : " | ? * or a control character, ending in . or a space, longer than 255 UTF-16 code units, or whose stem (the part before the first .) is CON, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1-COM9 or LPT1-LPT9 in any case. The mode in targets/<env>.yaml is held to the same rules. An 8.3.6 gateway on Linux writes such a name encoded (a:b as a%3ab, decision CD6); a name already encoded that way is legal and passes;

• two siblings (files or directories) whose names are equal once lower-cased, such as Pump and pump; every colliding sibling is named. Whole names are compared with str::to_lowercase;

• a file whose Windows path is too long. A full path must be shorter than 248 UTF-16 code units, counted as:

  data directory + \config\resources\ + mode + \ + path under resources/
  

  The data directory is the longest of the default C:\Program Files\Inductive Automation\Ignition\data (51 characters) and the ssh.data_dir of every Windows node in the target (a trailing separator is ignored; a Linux node never counts). \config\resources\ is 18 characters. With the default directory and the mode production, a path under resources/ of 167 units passes (total 247) and 168 is refused (248);

• a carriage return (0x0D) in a text member, naming the file, line and column. A text member has the extension .json .css .yaml .yml .txt .md .xml .py .csv .properties .html .js .svg, or is any file whose bytes are valid UTF-8 with no NUL byte. Git and editors silently convert line endings, which would change the bytes the gateway receives, so render refuses CR instead of guessing. Binary members are exempt (D-01): a JDBC driver jar containing 0x0D bytes renders byte for byte.

Lengths count UTF-16 code units (a character outside the Basic Multilingual Plane counts as 2), not bytes or characters. Reserved names compare the ASCII-uppercased stem. A zero-byte non-JSON member renders as a zero-byte file; an empty directory contributes no file and no resource entry. These checks also apply to tag files, which use their mapped collection paths.

deploy plan

ign deploy plan --env <ENV> [--repo DIR] [--targets DIR] [--base DIR] [--diff] compares the rendered tree for one environment with the live gateway files of nodes.master and reports what a deploy would do. It is read-only: it writes nothing to the gateway or its data directory (on a Windows ssh host the read stages one temporary archive below the deploy account's home and removes it before the verb returns, see Windows OpenSSH hosts), takes no lock, opens no gateway session and sends no REST request, so it needs no secret and no reachable gateway; the envelope profile is the master node's profile name from the target file, used as a label only. The host is read through nodes.master.local (the gateway data directory on this machine) or nodes.master.ssh. A master with neither block exits 2 deploy_tree_invalid naming nodes.master; a host that cannot be read exits 4 transport_failed naming nodes.master. A read failure is never treated as an empty gateway.

A journal blocks the plan. While an interrupted deploy apply has left its journal.json on the host, deploy plan refuses with deploy_journal_present (exit 6) before it reads the collections, and the message prints the recovery command; see deploy rollback.

Exit 0 always. A plan that finds changes still exits 0 (the success envelope carries data.summary.has_changes); only a refusal exits non-zero.

Basis and live_in (D-17). The plan reasons about units, not files: one <module>/<type>/<name> resource, one singleton, or one tag folder. A rendered unit is compared with its effective live copy: the copy in the mode collection (config/resources/<mode>/) when the unit exists there, else the copy in core, because the gateway overrides whole resources and tag folders by name. live_in lists where live copies sit, the ordered subset of ["core", "mode"], so a same unit that is not yet in the mode collection is still visible. Comparison is byte-exact: a whitespace-only change is changed.

Statuses (D-06).

Status	Meaning
added	rendered, no effective live copy
changed	rendered, the effective copy differs in file set or any byte
removed	not rendered, and the declared-names ledger lists a file of the unit that still exists in the mode collection (the delete set)
same	rendered, the effective copy has the same files, byte-equal
unmanaged	live, of an allowlisted type or declared provider, not rendered; never deleted and never counted in has_changes

Unreadable units. On a Windows sftp host, a live file whose host path is 240 characters or more (LONG_PATH_LIMIT, the conservative margin the reader keeps below the sftp server's limit; the production run of 2026-10-29 failed on a 240-character path) cannot be read. Its unit is listed in data.unreadable[] as {key, live_in, declared, in_ledger, paths, longest} (live_in is where the unit has live files, readable or not; paths are the collection paths that could not be read; longest is the longest host path length) and counted in summary.unreadable. An unreadable unit is never an entry (its readable files are not planned either, so no partial unit is ever compared), never treated as absent and never in the delete set. It sets has_changes when it is declared or the ledger lists a file of it, because the deploy must act on a unit it cannot see; an unreadable unit that is neither is left alone like unmanaged, does not set has_changes, and raises one warning naming it. Linux sftp and local hosts never report an unreadable unit.

core relation. core relates the core collection's copy of a unit to the rendered unit: none (no core copy), identical, differs, hidden (a tag folder defined in the mode collection, or rendered and so about to be, whose core copy holds files the rendered folder lacks; the gateway overrides these by folder, so those core files are invisible. A first deploy over core is hidden like a later one. hidden is informational; such a unit is destructive only when it drops a member file of its effective live copy, see Flags) or shadows_removal (status removed while a core copy exists: deleting from the mode collection will not take effect, because the gateway keeps running the core copy; Phase 23 blocks an apply on it).

Redundant pairs. For a target with nodes.backup, the tag-definition and tag-type-definition units are planned into the core collection: compared with their core copy, their files listed as .core/<collection path> rows (plus bare rows for a copy still in the mode collection), and a ledgered mode copy put in the delete set so the apply moves it (see Tags and redundant pairs). A plan that would leave a file of such a unit in the mode collection (one the ledger does not list) gets one warning naming those units (the first ten and the count; an unmanaged unit, neither declared nor ledgered, is not named): deploy apply refuses that plan with deploy_pair_tags_refused. The warning is not part of plan_sha256.

Data keys. With --json the envelope's data carries env, gateway, mode, node (always master), transport (local or ssh), render_sha256, plan_sha256, summary (added, changed, removed, same, unmanaged, unreadable, has_changes, drifted), entries, delete_set, base, warnings, excluded_tag_providers (the effective exclusion set, byte-sorted, always holding System; not part of plan_sha256) and unreadable (see Unreadable units above; empty on Linux and local hosts). Each entry is {key, module, type, name, status, live_in, core, destructive, destructive_reason, lockout_risk, drift, files, diff} where files are {path, live_sha256, desired_sha256}; entries are in unit-key byte order. delete_set is {"files": [...]}, byte-sorted. drift, summary.drifted and base are null without --base; diff is null without --diff. Keys are only ever added, never renamed. Entries carry paths and hashes, never file bytes; the only file text in a plan is a --diff section that passed the secret scan (see below).

Human output. The first line is plan <gateway> (<env>, mode <mode>) via <transport>: <a> added, <c> changed, <r> removed, <s> same, <u> unmanaged, then one line per entry whose status is not same (<status> <key> core=<core> live_in=<a,b>, followed by destructive=<reason>, lockout_risk and drift when set, and, with --diff, the entry's diff text indented two spaces), then one unreadable <key> live_in=<a,b> declared=<true|false> in_ledger=<true|false> longest=<n> line per unreadable unit, then one delete <path> line per delete-set file, then plan_sha256 <hex>. Stderr gets one excluded tag providers: <a>, <b> line, then each warning as warning: ....

plan_sha256 (D-08). The lowercase hex SHA-256 of this UTF-8 text, byte for byte. LF is 0x0A and NUL is 0x00:

ign-deploy:plan:v1 LF
render_sha256 NUL <render_sha256 hex> LF
E NUL <key> NUL <status> NUL <core> NUL <live_in joined by ","> LF
F NUL <collection path> NUL <live sha256 or -> NUL <desired sha256 or -> LF
D NUL <collection path> LF
U NUL <key> NUL <live_in joined by ","> NUL <declared 0|1> NUL <in_ledger 0|1> LF

One E line per entry that is not unmanaged, in unit-key byte order, each followed by its F lines in path byte order; then one D line per delete-set path in byte order (none without a ledger); then one U line per unreadable unit in key byte order. U lines appear only when a unit is unreadable, so the header stays ign-deploy:plan:v1 and a plan without unreadable units hashes exactly as before. Every unreadable unit has a U line, declared or not, so a plan with an unreadable unit is never mistaken for one without it. status and core are the serialized words. Drift, diff text and warnings are excluded on purpose, as are unmanaged entries, so a review hash is reproducible and unrelated live resources never invalidate it. Because the D lines carry the delete set, a ledger that changes after review changes plan_sha256, so Phase 23's --plan-sha256 gate refuses the stale plan.

The delete set (DPLN-04). delete_set.files is exactly the ledger's files minus the rendered files, restricted to files that exist in the mode collection. Plan reads the ledger once, never writes or rewrites it, and never puts into the delete set a file the ledger does not list, a config-mode.json, a dot-named path, a file under an excluded tag provider, even one the ledger lists from before the provider was excluded and even when the provider's files are live (reported as one warning per excluded provider, named as the exclusion list spells it, with the file count across every case spelling the ledger uses, never deleted; see Excluded tag providers), a file under a type or tag provider the manifest no longer allows (reported in warnings, never deleted), a file of an unreadable unit (the unit is marked in_ledger; it is never read as absent), or a ledger path that equals a rendered path under ASCII case folding (reported in warnings: a case-insensitive host would delete the rendered file). Paths compare as exact UTF-8 bytes otherwise. No ledger is a first deploy: an empty delete set and no removed entries. A rendered unit that loses only some of its ledger files is changed (those files are deleted, nothing else); a unit that is not rendered and has delete-set files is removed; a live unit with no delete-set file stays unmanaged.

Flags (DPLN-03). They derive only from status, delete-set membership and type, so the same input gives the same flags.

Flag	Value
destructive	true for every removed entry, every entry with delete-set files, and every added or changed tag-definition or tag-type-definition unit that drops tag data the gateway runs now: its effective live copy (the mode copy when one exists, otherwise the core copy) holds a tags.json or udts.json (any letter case) that the rendered unit lacks. No file is deleted there, but the gateway loads only the member files a folder's unary-resource.json lists (CD5c) and a mode-collection folder hides its core copy whole (CD5a), so those tags or UDT types leave the running gateway. On a first deploy the effective copy is the core copy, so core members about to be hidden count; once a mode copy already hides them there is nothing left to lose, and hidden alone is not destructive. Each such entry adds one warning naming the unit and the dropped paths. A same unit is never flagged this way, because the apply does not touch it
destructive_reason	null unless destructive: tag_data_loss (ignition/tag-provider, tag-group, tag-type-definition, tag-definition), connection_removed (ignition/database-connection, opc-connection, identity-provider), storage_removed (ignition/store-and-forward-engine, alarm-journal), otherwise resource_removed for removed and files_removed for changed
lockout_risk	true for an added, changed or removed entry of ignition/identity-provider or ignition/security-zone; a same or unmanaged unit is never a lockout risk because the plan does not touch it

A live tag folder named like a tag file (CD5d). The gateway can create a tag folder named tags.json, udts.json or unary-resource.json itself (an import or the Designer), as a directory where the provider's root tag file belongs, and then loses that file. Render refuses the shape in a declared tree; when the core or mode collection holds one live, deploy plan, and so deploy apply, refuses with deploy_tree_invalid (exit 2), one finding per folder naming it under the data directory (config/resources/<collection>/ignition/tag-definition/<provider>/tags.json/). Rename or remove the folder on the gateway, then plan again. deploy pull skips the folder's unit render_refused.

The local/ collection. The gateway loads the local collection over the mode collection. The plan does not model it: when a unit also exists in config/resources/local/, the plan adds a warning that it does not describe what the gateway runs for that unit.

The declared-names ledger

The ledger is an on-box record of the mode-collection files the last apply wrote for one gateway and mode. Plan reads it to learn which names this tool previously declared; it never writes it (only an apply does, Phase 23). Format v1 is one strict JSON object:

{
  "schema_version": 1,
  "gateway": "<target gateway>",
  "mode": "<target mode>",
  "render_sha256": "<64 lowercase hex>",
  "run_id": "<[A-Za-z0-9._-]{1,128}>",
  "files": ["<module>/<type>/..."]
}

• Location (Decision B, below): ign-deploy/<gateway>/<mode>/ledger.json, below the service account's home directory for an ssh node and below the node's data directory for a local node. Never inside config/resources/, so the gateway never scans it.
• Size and encoding: at most 8 MiB (8388608 bytes), strict UTF-8, never empty (a 0-byte file is refused). Unknown fields and repeated keys are refused; nesting is bounded.
• files: collection-relative paths, byte-sorted and unique, with no per-file hashes (it is a name list, not a drift base). "files": [] is valid. Each path has at least three components, no dot-named component, is not config-mode.json, is not a case-variant of another entry, and sits under a type the gateway describes (an OpenAPI resource type, or one of the four tag types under ignition).
• Absent means first deploy: no ledger gives an empty delete set.
• Refusals: a ledger that exists but is unreadable (a symlink, not a regular file, a read error), empty, over the cap, not strict JSON, of another schema_version, naming a different gateway or mode than the target, unsorted or duplicated, or listing any path the rules above refuse, exits 6 deploy_ledger_invalid, naming the ledger location and the problem. Plan never falls back to an empty delete set. The problem text names fields and listed paths only, never other file content.

SSH transport hardening

An ssh node is reached with the system ssh and sftp clients, started with an argument vector and never through a shell string; host and user may not start with -, hold whitespace or control characters, or contain @, and -- always precedes user@host. Every call pins, on the command line (so a user's ~/.ssh/config cannot weaken them): BatchMode=yes, StrictHostKeyChecking=yes, UserKnownHostsFile set to the copy of the repo's known_hosts, GlobalKnownHostsFile set to the null device, UpdateHostKeys=no, VerifyHostKeyDNS=no, public-key authentication only (no password or keyboard-interactive prompts), no agent, X11 or port forwarding, no local command, no control socket, ConnectTimeout from connect_timeout_s, ServerAliveInterval=5, ServerAliveCountMax=3 and LogLevel=ERROR. Stdin is closed after the call's input, a call that outlives op_timeout_s is killed, and captured output is bounded; a failure keeps only the last five stderr lines (at most 1 KiB, control characters and the private temp path removed).

The OpenSSH sftp client prints a newline or carriage return inside a file name as is, so a directory of a Linux or macOS host is listed with ls -lan: the client then prints every entry with the listed directory in front of its name, whatever the server. A listing line without that prefix (the rest of a name that holds a newline) is exit 4 transport_failed, never read as another entry. The output is split on newlines alone, and one carriage return per line is dropped only when every line ends in CRLF (the Win32-OpenSSH client), so a name that holds a carriage return keeps it and is refused like any other control character.

key_env names an environment variable holding the private key text. It is normalised (CRLF to LF, one trailing newline), written with owner-only permissions into a private temp directory (an owner-only ACL through icacls on a Windows runner), passed as -i <file> with IdentitiesOnly=yes, and deleted when the call set ends. The key never appears in an argument, an error, the JSON envelope or a log line; an unset or empty variable is exit 4 transport_failed naming the variable. With neither key_file nor key_env the SSH agent is used.

Windows OpenSSH hosts

os: windows nodes are read (and, by tests and Phase 23, mirrored) over the same hardened ssh and sftp, with the behaviour recorded against a real Windows Server 2022 / Win32-OpenSSH 8.1 host as a non-admin account (22-LIVE-CAPTURES.md, sections C7a, C6 and C6-post):

• data_dir is a drive-letter path (C:\Program Files\Inductive Automation\Ignition\data; forward slashes and a lowercase drive letter are accepted). UNC and \\?\ paths, relative and drive-relative paths (C:foo), .., an alternate data stream (:), a component ending in a dot or a space, and a path over 150 characters are refused with exit 2 deploy_tree_invalid. sftp is always given /C:/Program Files/...: the server resolves C:/... against the account home, so that form is never sent.
• Listings. A Windows server prints long-listing names without their directory, so each ls -la is preceded by pwd and the Remote working directory: line marks where one directory's entries start. The client runs in a UTF-8 locale; an escaped name (caf\303\251) is refused, never read as the real one. Names pass the Windows component gate on top of the POSIX one: no :, no trailing dot or space, no reserved device name (CON, NUL, COM1...), no < > " | ? *, and no two names that differ only by case.
• Reads list with PowerShell, not sftp. The sftp server drops entries whose path is 260 characters or more, with exit 0 and no message, get -R follows junctions, and every folder it lists costs about 0.8 s (plus about 3.5 s per session), which made a read of a production tag tree (7,500 folders) take about 100 minutes. So a Windows read lists the folders on the path to its requested trees with one PowerShell call and walks the requested trees with another (the \\?\ prefix, names, sizes, reparse-point flags): a fixed number of ssh calls, more only when the 8000-character command budget splits a call, and never one per folder. The listed files are fetched as one archive (quick 261105-dl1): one get per file cost about 0.37 s each on this server, so a production tag tree (14,270 files) took about 88 minutes and one download session ran past the op timeout. ign uploads the exact list the listing produced, one PowerShell call zips exactly those files (System.IO.Compression, no re-walk; the list is refused unless its SHA-256 matches) into a fresh .ign-ctl-* directory below the deploy account's home, never below the data directory, one sftp get downloads it and the same session removes it. After a failure one more PowerShell call removes what is left. When that call fails too, the archive can stay in the staging directory, and the read's error names that directory and why it could not be removed. Otherwise a read leaves the archive behind only when it is killed. The staging needs free space on the home's drive for one compressed copy plus 256 MiB, and a home at or inside the data directory is refused before anything is written. Local extraction refuses, exit 4 transport_failed naming the entry: a name that is not UTF-8, holds a backslash, is absolute, ends with /, names a drive or a stream (:), or has an empty, . or .. component; a symlink, device, socket, fifo or directory entry; an encrypted entry or a compression method other than Stored or Deflate; a name twice; an entry that was not listed; a listed file that is missing; a declared size other than the listed one; an entry that inflates past its listed size (a zip bomb stops there); data before the first entry; and an archive larger than the listed files can take or that arrives at another size than reported. Every file must then arrive at its listed size, as on a POSIX host, where each listed file is still fetched with its own get. A junction or symlink on the path or in a requested tree is exit 4 transport_failed naming it, before any file is downloaded, and a requested folder the host holds is never read as absent. An entry of 240 characters or more (LONG_PATH_LIMIT, a conservative margin the reader keeps below the server's limit) is classified unreadable: it is never downloaded and never treated as absent (pull skips its unit path_too_long, plan lists it under unreadable). The names-only listing a bootstrap pull uses to discover tag providers (the tag-provider directory) is checked against a PowerShell listing of that directory's direct children only: nothing below a provider directory is opened, so a large generated provider tree such as MQTT Engine is never walked. A provider directory the sftp listing omits, whatever its length, is transport_failed naming it, so a provider is never silently missing from a generated manifest; a junction or symlink directly below tag-provider is refused the same way. A denied read of a file that exists reports "not found" on this server, so a not-found answer for a name the listing returned means unreadable.
• PowerShell runs only as fixed scripts: powershell -NoProfile -NonInteractive -EncodedCommand <base64 UTF-16LE>, parameters passed only as a base64 JSON blob decoded inside the script (never interpolated), the whole command held to 8000 characters (the host fails at 8162), a prelude that makes a failed step exit non-zero. Success needs exit 0 and exactly one IGN-RESULT: stdout line (ASCII, \uXXXX-escaped); stderr is treated as opaque CLIXML and is decoded only to explain a failure.
• Writes. A file renamed over an existing file replaces it; a rename onto itself deletes the file on this server, so such a rename is refused for every host. A rename answered Failure (a scanner holding the target) is retried up to three times, then reported; nothing else is retried.

Decision B: where the ledger, the journal and staging live

Recorded at the 22-12 checkpoint (option B(i)) and applied by 22-13:

Node	Ledger, journal and staging root
ssh (Windows or Linux)	ign-deploy/<gateway>/<mode>/ relative to the service account's home directory, as the server reports it (/C:/Users/svc-ignition-deploy/ign-deploy/<gateway>/<mode>/ on Windows)
local	<data_dir>/ign-deploy/<gateway>/<mode>/

The default StagingMode Phase 23 uses is Separate at ign-deploy/<gateway>/<mode>/staging/<run_id>/ below that root (transport::default_staging_mode): files are staged in the account home, outside every collection, then committed into config/resources/<mode>/ by rename (same volume, no upload under the scan lock). The reason is measured: the service account can write its own home and nothing under the data directory (C6), and Modify on each mode collection directory is the one grant it needs (C6-post). A ledger is per service account, not per gateway. Nothing writes a ledger before Phase 23, so nothing was migrated. The design spec section 9 amendment (the account also writes ign-deploy/ in its home) lives in whk-environment-orchestration and is still to do.

Drift (--base DIR)

--base DIR takes a directory written by ign deploy render --out (a previous render of the same gateway, environment and mode) and marks each entry drift: true when any of its files has a live sha256 that differs from both the base sha256 and the desired sha256. An absent side counts as its own value, so a unit created on the gateway outside the pipeline (absent from the base and the desired tree, so unmanaged) is drift, and a unit deleted outside the pipeline (in the base and the desired tree, not live, so added) is drift. A live copy that equals the base while the desired tree moved on (a pipeline change not yet applied) and a live copy that equals the desired tree while the base is older are not drift. Without --base, drift, summary.drifted and base are null. base otherwise carries {dir, render_sha256, files}.

The base is re-hashed, never trusted. render.json supplies the identity (gateway, env and mode must equal the plan's) and a consistency record only. Plan walks the directory, hashes every file's real bytes and refuses the base as invalid_input, naming the first difference, when the walked files are not exactly the marker's files, when any recomputed sha256 or size disagrees with the marker, or when the recomputed render_sha256 disagrees with the marker's. An extra file, an edited file, a missing file or a leftover <file>.ign-render-tmp from an interrupted render --out refresh therefore never passes as a clean base. An absent path, a regular file, a symlink, or a directory holding a symlink, a special file or a non-UTF-8 name is refused the same way, before the live tree is read. drift is excluded from plan_sha256: the same plan with and without --base has the same hash.

The diff (--diff)

--diff adds a diff text to every added, changed and removed entry (null for same and unmanaged). For each file of the unit whose live and desired sha256 differ, in path order:

• a .json member where both present sides parse and carry no secret-bearing location is a unified text diff, live against desired, 3 lines of context, with headers --- live/<path> and +++ desired/<path> (an absent side is empty);
• a .json member where the render's secret scan reports any refused location or warning on either side (an Embedded secret object, a value at a secret-typed path, a possible secret by key name) is printed as <path>: withheld: contains secret-bearing locations (<n>); live <sha256 or ->, desired <sha256 or ->, with no content;
• a .json member (any file, tag files included) where either side holds a non-empty string or a non-null scalar at or beneath an object key whose ASCII-lowercased name contains password, passwd, secret, token, apikey, api_key, credential, privatekey or private_key is withheld the same way. This diff-only check is stricter than the render lints on purpose: the render lints were built for the desired (repo) side, but the live side is written by the gateway and never linted, so a plaintext "password": "x" in a live non-config .json would otherwise print in the diff. It runs regardless of file name or OpenAPI description, adds to the (<n>) count, and keeps only the count, never the key path or the value. Render behaviour is unchanged;
• any other member, and a .json member that does not parse, is printed as <path>: differs (live <sha256 or ->, desired <sha256 or ->).

An entry's diff is capped at 65536 bytes; a longer one ends with ... [diff truncated at 65536 bytes]. Diff text is excluded from plan_sha256. No secret value, Embedded ciphertext or plaintext secret is printed in the plan, its diff, stderr or the debug form of the result.

Over MCP. deploy plan is in the ign mcp serve tool catalog as deploy_plan. It is read-only, so the tool is not guarded and takes no confirm argument.

deploy pull

ign deploy pull --env <ENV> [--repo DIR] [--targets DIR] bootstraps gateways/<name>/ from the live tree of nodes.master. It is a bootstrap, not a sync: pull once, review the result in git, and compare later pulls with git diff. It is read-only against the gateway: the host is read through the same reader as deploy plan (nodes.master.local or nodes.master.ssh), no gateway session is resolved, no REST request is sent, and nothing is written to the gateway or its data directory (a Windows ssh read stages one temporary archive below the deploy account's home and removes it before the verb returns). The envelope profile is the master node's profile name, used as a label only. It writes only the local repo, under gateways/<name>/, and never follows or creates a symlink there.

Layering (D-12). Pull mirrors the layering render applies. Files of the core collection go to the base tree (resources/, tags/); files of the target's mode collection go to the modes/<ENV>/ overlay. A unit that is in both lands in both, so render reproduces what the gateway runs. An absent mode collection writes no modes/<ENV>/ directory. Bytes are kept exactly as read (no newline conversion, re-encoding or JSON reformatting), and a bootstrapped resource keeps the gateway's own attributes.uuid.

The manifest (D-10). An existing gateways/<name>/manifest.yaml is used and kept (data.manifest is kept). Otherwise one is generated (generated) from the live types of core and the mode collection: every type that has a render rule, byte-sorted, minus the types that stay gateway-owned (security singletons, security levels, API tokens, user sources) and minus the four tag types, which are carried by tag_providers. tag_providers lists the provider directory names under ignition/tag-provider/ of core and the mode collection, minus the excluded providers (System and the target's exclude_tag_providers; see Excluded tag providers). Discovery lists provider directory names only: it reads no provider, so an excluded one is never walked. Because discovery lists names only, a provider directory with no files in it (no config.json) is named in the generated manifest's tag_providers; v1.6.0 named only providers with at least one file. A kept manifest that declares an excluded provider is refused with deploy_tree_invalid (exit 2) before the host is read. Types left out are listed in data.skipped[] with the reason type_without_rule or denied_type.

What is skipped, and why. Pull writes only units it can reproduce. It renders its own tree and repeats, dropping units, until a round drops nothing (at most 8 rounds), then checks that every kept unit renders to exactly its effective live files. Every live unit not written appears in data.skipped[] as {path, reason}, byte-sorted by path (the same unit key plan uses), with one of:

Reason	Meaning
embedded_secret	the unit holds an Embedded secret or a plaintext secret location; nothing of it is written
not_round_trippable	render would change the unit (for example it mints a uuid, drops a .gitkeep, or a core file is hidden by the mode copy), so the written tree would not plan as same
render_refused: <finding>	render refuses the unit (for example a Windows-illegal name, a case-fold collision, or a tag marker whose files disagrees with its member files, CD5c); the finding names paths and keys, never a value. Root-level tags (CD5a) and nested type folders (CD5b) are no longer refused; only a non-default collection still is
type_without_rule	a live type with no render rule (generated manifest only)
denied_type	a live type on the deny list (generated manifest only)
path_too_long	the unit has a live path of 240 characters or more (LONG_PATH_LIMIT) on a Windows sftp host, so it cannot be read whole; nothing of it is written (readable files of the unit included), the rest of the bootstrap continues, and the next plan reports it under unreadable, not unmanaged. Because --yes replaces resources/, tags/ and modes/<ENV>/, a repo copy of the unit from an earlier pull or commit is not kept: it is removed with the rest of the old tree (keeping it would make the written tree render differently from the render_sha256 pull reports, and render then plan would no longer be empty). The removal is never silent: one data.warnings line per unit names it, path_too_long and every removed repo file; git still holds them. A unit the repo did not hold warns nothing

No reason carries a value, and a secret is never written to the repo, the envelope or stderr. A skipped unit stays on the gateway: the next plan reports it as unmanaged (a path_too_long unit under unreadable). After a pull, render then plan against the same gateway reports has_changes: false: every written unit is same, every skipped unit is unmanaged, and an unreadable unit is undeclared and unledgered, so it does not count. A render defect that names no unit (for example a manifest that allowlists a type with no render rule) is returned as deploy_tree_invalid instead.

Overwriting (D-11, --yes). If resources/, tags/ or modes/<ENV>/ already hold files, pull refuses with exit 2 confirmation_required unless the global --yes is given. The refusal is raised before the gateway is read and before any write, and its message names the number of existing files and the first five paths that would be replaced. With --yes only those three subtrees are replaced; manifest.yaml, other environments' overlays and targets/ are never touched. A symlink anywhere in the subtrees to be replaced is refused (deploy_tree_invalid) and nothing is removed. A pull into an absent or empty gateways/<name>/ (or one holding only a manifest and other overlays) needs no --yes.

Data keys. With --json, data carries, in this order: env, gateway, mode, node, transport (local or ssh), out (gateways/<name>), files_written (source files under resources/, tags/ and modes/<ENV>/; the manifest is not counted), manifest (kept or generated), render_sha256 (what deploy render produces from the pulled tree), skipped, warnings and excluded_tag_providers (byte-sorted, always holding System). Human output is pulled <n> files into gateways/<name>/ from nodes.master via <transport> (<k> skipped, manifest <kept|generated>), one skipped <path>: <reason> line per skipped unit, then render_sha256 <hex>; stderr gets one excluded tag providers: <a>, <b> line before any warning.

Over MCP. deploy pull is in the ign mcp serve catalog as deploy_pull and, being guarded, advertises the synthetic optional confirm. A pull into an absent or empty gateways/<name>/ runs without confirm, because D-11 guards only a non-empty overwrite; the write is confined to gateways/<name>/ of the caller's own --repo.

deploy verify

ign deploy verify --env <ENV> [--repo DIR] [--targets DIR] [--project NAME] asks whether the master gateway runs what targets/<ENV>.yaml declares. It is read-only: it triggers no scan, takes no scan-lock and writes nothing to the gateway or its data directory (a Windows ssh read stages one temporary archive below the deploy account's home and removes it before the verb returns). The master's profile name comes from the target and is resolved through the normal secret chain (flag, keyring and environment, as for any gateway verb), so the credential used is the one the target names; the envelope profile echoes it. The host files are read through the same reader as deploy plan (nodes.master.local or nodes.master.ssh).

The six checks run in a fixed order and always all appear in data.checks. Each is pass, warn or fail; warn never fails the verdict. A finding that does not count against its check carries "status": "warn" (human output ends its line with (warn)); a finding without status counts, as before. A check with only warn findings is warn; for read_back its detail then ends ; <w> difference(s) reported as warnings.

Check	Passes when	Finding codes
scan	no config scan is running	scan_active
mode	the gateway runs the target's mode exactly (no mode is a mismatch)	mode_mismatch
read_back	every declared resource is present over REST with an equal config. A difference, or a resource_missing, on a resource the plan reports same (its live files equal the repo) is a warn finding ("status": "warn") plus one data.warnings line, not a failure; on a changed or added resource, or one with no plan status, it stays red. After an apply, read_back is judged against the pre-apply REST baseline instead (see deploy apply, The read-back baseline)	resource_missing, resource_differs (JSON paths only)
files	every declared tag unit on the host is byte-equal to the render, and no declared unit is unreadable	files_differ, unreadable
loaded	the gateway log holds no will not be loaded line for a declared resource	unloaded_resource, logs_unavailable
probes	every verify.tag_probes[] path of the manifest reads quality Good*	tag_probe_not_good, tag_probes_unavailable, tag_probes_absent (warn)

Unreadable units in verify. A declared unit (a tag unit or a resource) whose live path the host's sftp server cannot read (see deploy plan, Unreadable units) is one red unreadable finding in files, with the detail the unit has a live path the host's sftp server cannot read; its live copy is unknown. For a tag unit it replaces the files_differ "not found" finding: the unit is never treated as absent. An unreadable unit that is not declared keeps files green and adds one data.warnings line, files: <key> is unreadable on the host and is not declared; it was not compared.

Redundant pairs in verify. For a target with nodes.backup, files judges each tag-definition and tag-type-definition unit against its copy in the master's core collection, where a deploy writes it (see Tags and redundant pairs). A declared tag unit that also has a copy in the master's mode collection fails files with a files_differ finding naming the mode paths (the first ten and the count). Other content adds one data.warnings line naming the paths (the first ten and the count): a mode tag file of a unit the target does not declare, and any file or folder in a mode tag type folder the deploy does not read (an empty folder included). Such content stops the backup from syncing configuration. That line is a warning, not a check; --node both carries the finding and the warning once and --node backup neither.

The log window (CV1). loaded reads WARN-or-higher gateway log lines from lastScanTimestamp - lastScanDuration - 1000 ms (gateway clock only; 30 s when the gateway gives no scan duration), up to 5 pages of 200 lines, and matches client-side. The gateway writes a line about 1.5 s after the scan completes, so the check waits up to 5 s after the scan was read unless the gateway has logged something since. It sees the last scan only: a clean log is evidence about that scan, and the pass detail says so. While a scan is running the check is warn (not observed). A log that cannot be read, or that fills all 5 pages, is fail with logs_unavailable.

The read-back comparison (CV2). Equality is JSON value equality (key order is ignored, 1 equals 1.0). A null member counts as absent on both sides: nulls are dropped from the file and from the REST value before comparing (N1). ignition/cobranding is the type whose REST view reports its unset members as explicit null; a null on one side against a value on the other still differs. ignition/security-levels compares by name: every level of the file must appear in REST with its members, extra REST levels are fine (N2). A unit with no config.json compares only the attribute keys REST also carries (N3). A REST item whose effective collection is system, and the types that have no REST read route (com.inductiveautomation.opcua/one-time, ignition/images), are listed in data.warnings and are not counted in data.resources_checked. A hand-written, minimal config.json can differ from REST in members the gateway fills with defaults; a tree made by deploy pull carries the full config and compares equal.

When a REST difference is a warning (quick 261031-bbs). Verify reads the live files once anyway, so it knows each resource's plan status. When the plan reports a resource same (its live files equal the repo) but its REST view differs from its file, or it is missing from the effective view, that is a pre-existing REST/file difference on a plan-same resource, and verify cannot tell why. A module may fill defaults or normalise a shape (production shows this on historian providers, OPC UA devices, Cirrus Link MQTT settings and core settings), but the gateway may also not be running the file at all: files copied in without a config scan, a scan that ignored a file without logging will not be loaded, or a backup whose files synced but whose gateway never reloaded. Such a difference is a warn finding and one data.warnings line, read_back: <key> differs from its file at: <paths> (the live files equal the repo; the gateway's REST view differs), or, for a missing one, read_back: <key> is not in the gateway's effective view (the live files equal the repo). A green verify therefore does not prove that the REST effective view matches the repo for a same resource: read the warnings. When the plan reports it changed or added, or has no status for it, the difference stays red. The files check still catches real drift of tag units on disk.

Probes. The manifest's verify.tag_probes are read through the WebDev tags route of --project, every second for up to 30 s, and the last reading is judged. No probes declared is a warn (tag_probes_absent), never a pass. A route that cannot be read (for example routes_not_deployed) is a fail carrying only the error slug.

What is never printed. A finding carries a code, a subject (a resource key, unit key, tag path, mode or logs) and a detail made of JSON paths, quality codes, timestamps, logger names and error slugs. Log message text, tag values and file bytes never reach stdout, stderr or the envelope.

Output. Human output is verify <gateway> (<env>, mode <mode>): PASS|FAIL, one <id>: <status> <detail> line per check, and one indented <code> <subject> <detail> line per finding. With --json, data carries, in this order: env, gateway, mode, node (master), project, ok, slug, checks, resources_checked, warnings and excluded_tag_providers (byte-sorted, always holding System; those providers are not read or checked). Human mode prints one excluded tag providers: <a>, <b> line on stderr. slug is deploy_verify_failed when ok is false, else null.

Checking the backup (--node). --node master|backup|both picks which node of a redundant pair is checked; the default master prints exactly what deploy verify printed before the pair existed (no backup and no secrets key). --node backup runs only the backup checks, --node both runs the six master checks and then the backup checks. The backup checks are the same four that deploy apply reports for the backup (data.backup): redundancy (the backup is linked to the master and has no sync pending), mode (it runs the target's mode), read_back (the rendered resources over its REST view, judged by the same rule as the master's: a difference on a resource the master's plan reports same is a warn; the statuses come from the master's live read, and when there are none every difference stays red. Under --node backup there are none in two cases: the backup has no file transport, or the backup's or the master's files read fails, which files reports as a red backup_unreachable finding naming the node and the error code) and files (its files against the master's live copy of every rendered path, compared byte for byte except resource.json, which is compared as a JSON document that leaves out only attributes.lastModification and attributes.lastModificationSignature (a node that re-saves a unit rewrites them), and unary-resource.json, compared as a JSON document with every member (the backup pretty-prints the marker of a tag folder it receives in core); a backup with no ssh or local transport in nodes.backup reports files as warn). A rendered unit that the master's or the backup's sftp server cannot read is a red unreadable finding naming the unit and the node, never file_missing_on_backup and never equal; an unreadable unit that is not rendered makes files a warn and adds one data.warnings line, <node>: <key> is unreadable on the host and is neither rendered nor deleted; it was not compared. Verify never waits, never sends a resync and never writes: it takes one look, so a backup that is still catching up reports not_syncing and the command exits 6; run it again later. In data.backup the budget_s and waited_s are 0 and resync is null, and with --node backup the envelope profile is the backup's and data.checks is empty.

The secret-name check (data.secrets). With --node backup|both the secret names the rendered tree references (Referenced secrets, by provider and name) must exist on each checked node. data.secrets.nodes[] has one entry per node, master first, with node, status, providers_checked, missing ([{provider, name}], byte-sorted) and unverifiable (providers that cannot list their names). Names compare exactly and case-sensitively. A name missing on any checked node is fail and turns the verdict red. A provider the render declares but a node does not have counts as missing. A provider that cannot list its names (the gateway answers 501, or 500 for a remote provider) is warn, is named in unverifiable and does not fail the verdict. Any other refusal of the listing is an ordinary error envelope. The check lists names only: no secret value is read, printed or stored. Human output adds secrets on <node>: <status> (<n> providers) with missing: <provider>/<name> and unverifiable: <provider> lines.

--node backup and --node both against a target without nodes.backup are invalid_input (exit 2), raised before any gateway or host is contacted.

Exit codes. A green verdict exits 0. A red verdict exits 6 after the success envelope is printed; see the verdict exception. A gateway that cannot be reached, a refused scan, mode or resource read, an unreadable host and a refused tree are ordinary error envelopes with their own exit codes: there is no evidence to judge, so no verdict is given.

Over MCP. deploy verify is in the ign mcp serve catalog as deploy_verify. It is read-only, so the tool is not guarded and takes no confirm. A red verdict is a normal result (ok: true, data.ok: false), not an MCP error.

deploy apply

ign deploy apply --env <ENV> [--project NAME] [--repo DIR] [--targets DIR] [--base DIR] [--plan-sha256 HASH] [--allow-destructive] [--allow-drift REASON] [--designers fail|wait|proceed] [--designers-timeout SECS] [--skip-gwbk] [--backup-timeout SECS] writes what targets/<ENV>.yaml declares into the master node's mode collection, then verifies it and, for a redundant pair, checks the backup. The Commands row has the flag summary. The verb is guarded (it needs the global --yes; the refusal message is the plan) and is not in the MCP catalog. It has no --force, --skip-verify or --no-rollback: an apply ends verified, or with its pre-apply snapshot restored and scanned.

Order. Each step refuses before the next one starts, and the refusals up to the confirmation write nothing to the host, the gateway or the repo:

1. The flags are validated, and Decision C is checked (below).
2. A journal left by an interrupted run is refused (deploy_journal_present, exit 6; the message prints the exact ign deploy rollback --run <id> --env <env> recovery command).
3. The plan is rebuilt from the repo and the live tree. A --plan-sha256 that is not this plan's hash is plan_stale (exit 6), checked before anything else about the plan.
4. An unreadable unit (see deploy plan, Unreadable units) that is declared or that the ledger lists is deploy_unreadable (exit 6) whatever the flags: the deploy would write, check or delete a unit whose live copy the host's sftp server cannot read. It is checked before the no-op step, so a plan that changes nothing else is still refused. Nothing is written, no lock is taken and no .ign/ directory is created. An unreadable unit that is neither declared nor in the ledger does not gate; the plan's warning naming it is carried into the apply's data.warnings. A rendered or deleted unit the backup cannot read is refused with the same slug by the backup_read preflight (below), before the lock and any master write.
5. For a target with nodes.backup, the tag-definition and tag-type-definition units are written into the core collection, and a copy the ledger lists in the mode collection is deleted in the same commit (see Tags and redundant pairs). A unit with a mode-collection file the apply would leave behind (one the ledger does not list, or one the delete set skips; an unmanaged unit, neither declared nor ledgered, is not refused) is deploy_pair_tags_refused (exit 6) whatever the flags, also before the no-op step: a redundant pair cannot sync it. Nothing is written, no lock is taken and no .ign/ directory is created.
6. An empty plan is outcome noop (exit 0). It sends no lock, backup, scan or restart request and creates no .ign/ directory.
7. An entry that a core copy shadows (shadows_removal) is deploy_blocked (exit 6) whatever the flags.
8. A destructive entry (a removal, or a change that deletes files) without --allow-destructive, and an entry with drift (--base, see Drift) without --allow-drift REASON, are destructive_change_refused (exit 2). The reason is kept in run.json exactly as validated: not empty, at most 500 characters, no control characters (otherwise invalid_input).
9. Without --yes, confirmation_required (exit 2) prints the plan: env, gateway, mode, each changing entry with its flags, the delete-set count and plan_sha256.
10. The run directory is created (below), the preflights run, the .gwbk is downloaded, the read-back baseline is read and written (below), the files are staged on the host, on a pair the mode tag type folders are listed again (residue made after the plan is deploy_pair_tags_refused: no collection file is written and no lock is taken, the run's staging and snapshot folders on the host are dropped, and the run directory keeps its .gwbk (unless --skip-gwbk) and result.json), then the lock is taken, the snapshot copied, the files moved, the scan run and the result verified with the same six checks as deploy verify, read_back judged against the baseline. A pre-image that no longer matches the plan under the lock aborts with nothing moved as plan_stale.

Decision C. --plan-sha256 is required when --json is given or when stdin or stdout is not a terminal; a missing hash is invalid_input (exit 2) before any host or gateway contact. Interactively it is optional, and the refusal without --yes shows the hash to pass. To review and apply unattended, run deploy plan --json, read plan_sha256, and pass it back: a plan that changed since is plan_stale.

Preflights. Ten checks run in a fixed order and are reported together as one deploy_preflight_failed (exit 6), so one run shows every problem; the detail strings name checks, counts and sources, never values.

Check	Fails when
mode_master	the master runs a different deploymentMode than the target's mode
mode_backup	the target names a backup node and it runs a different mode (skipped with no backup node)
wrong_target	the gateway's REST name is not the host's systemName (or not nodes.master.gateway_name when set). The systemName is read from the mode collection's ignition/system-properties copy, or from core when the mode collection has none; a copy the host's sftp server cannot read (an over-long path, see Unreadable units) fails the check and is never skipped in favour of the other collection's copy
write_rest	the gateway refuses the project scan with a 403
write_host	the host account cannot write its staging and snapshot directories
designers	a Designer session is open (per --designers, below)
hold_budget	the change does not fit the lock hold (the size limit is in the Commands row)
master_active	the master is not the only node reporting activityLevel Active: the pair switched over (the backup is active), both nodes are active (split-brain) or neither is. Decided by activityLevel, never by role, so a healthy Cold standby passes. skipped without a backup node, and a backup node with no gateway connection cannot be confirmed and fails
backup_read	the backup's mode collection cannot be read through the read-only access in nodes.backup (the detail carries the error code), or the read holds a rendered unit or a unit this apply deletes that the backup's sftp server cannot read (an unreadable unit on the backup). That second case is refused deploy_unreadable (exit 6, the message names the backup and each unit) instead of deploy_preflight_failed, before the lock and before any write to the master, so it can never end as applied_backup_unsynced; any other unit the backup cannot read is a warning of the post-apply file check. skipped for a backup with only a gateway connection (the detail says the file-hash check did not run), without a backup node, and in a rollback
secrets	a secret name the rendered tree references is missing, by exact case-sensitive name, from a secret provider on the master or on the backup. Only names are listed, never values. A provider the tree itself declares that answers 404 is skipped and named in the detail. A name the tree itself adds to a provider it declares (an entry in settings.files or settings.secrets of that provider's own config.json) is defined by the deploy, so it is not asked of a node and never refused, even when the provider already exists there; only names the tree references and does not provide are checked. A provider that answers 500 or 501 cannot list its names, is named unverifiable and is not a failure. skipped when the tree references no secret, and in a rollback

Two more refusals use the same slug and are raised on their own: gwbk (the backup download) and run_dir_not_ignored (below). A gateway or host that cannot be reached is not a finding; it is network_error or transport_failed (exit 4).

The backup (.gwbk). After the preflights and before the lock, so it never spends lock time, apply downloads a gateway backup (type=all) into the run directory as <run id>.gwbk, created at 0600. It must open as a ZIP with at least one entry; an empty, truncated or failed download is deploy_preflight_failed with check gwbk, and the file is deleted. --skip-gwbk bypasses it and is recorded in run.json and result.json (skip_gwbk: true). The backup is a whole-gateway secret archive.

The read-back baseline (quick 261031-bbs). A gateway's REST view of a resource can differ from its file through its own defaults and normalisation, so judging every declared resource against its file after the write would roll back an apply that changed nothing about them. After the .gwbk and before anything is staged or locked (outside the 176 s lock hold), apply reads the REST view of every declared resource read_back compares, on the master and, for a pair, on the backup, and records which JSON paths already differed. A changed unit is measured against its live file before the apply, read in one targeted read of its types. A baseline read that fails ends the run before anything is staged, with the underlying error's own envelope, slug and exit code (for example network_error for a REST read or transport_failed for the live-file read, both exit 4), not deploy_preflight_failed; result.json records the same error.code. After the scan, read_back is red only for what this run changed or disturbed:

• A resource the run did not write is red when its REST view changed since the baseline and still differs from its file. A difference that was already there and did not move is a warn finding and one data.warnings line, read_back: <key> differs from its file at: <paths> (already different before this apply); a resource that was missing before and still is warns the same way. The check's detail then reads <n> declared resource(s) compared with the REST effective view; <w> difference(s) reported as warnings, and the apply's data.warnings carries it as read_back: <that detail>.
• A changed unit the run wrote is red when any of these holds:
  • its post-apply difference holds a JSON path that did not differ between REST and its live file before the apply (a path counts as covered when it, an ancestor of it, or (root) already differed);
  • it is missing afterwards;
  • its desired file differs from its live file but its REST view did not move at all (the write did not take effect);
  • a written leaf that REST exposes as a structured member (a path the write changes, the desired file against the live file) still differs from the desired file afterwards, at that path, an ancestor or a descendant, and the REST view did not move at that path, an ancestor or a descendant during the apply. That part of the write did not take effect. This holds even when the path is covered by a pre-existing difference (for example a REST list with an extra gateway entry, which differs at the list or at (root)) and other members did move: a write that changes two members, of which the gateway applies one, is red. Where REST shows less than member by member, this rule cannot see the members; see the next two bullets and the residual risks below.
• A path the write changes that REST does not show at all, before or after the apply (the path, every ancestor and every descendant are absent, or the resource's REST view has no config), cannot be verified through REST. It is left out of the first and the last two rules above and reported as a warn finding and a data.warnings line, read_back: <key>: <path> is not visible in the gateway's REST view, so the write could not be verified. Production shows this on OPC UA devices (the file's settings.deviceSettings string has no counterpart in REST), historian providers (settings.profile) and Cirrus Link namespace server sets (REST carries no config for them). A secret field that REST leaves out of its view is unobservable in the same way, so a write to it warns, and so is an explicit default the gateway leaves out of its view. Any other difference left on the resource is judged as above.
• A path the write changes at which REST already showed the desired value before the apply is left out of the last two rules: the gateway already shows what the write asks for, so no move is expected there.
• A changed unit that is missing from the REST view before the apply is judged strictly, like an added one: missing afterwards is red. An apply that changes such a unit therefore rolls back every time, unless the write makes its REST view appear (and match the file). This is a known blocker for any resource the gateway never surfaces over REST. On production, ignition/edge-sync-settings is in this state today; its plan status is same, so it has no impact until a change to it is deployed.
• A resource whose effective copy is in the system collection after the apply is red resource_missing when the run wrote it (the written file is not what the gateway runs, so the write did not take effect) or when it was file-backed before the apply (it dropped out during the apply). Otherwise it is not compared and gets the data.warnings line, as in standalone verify.
• An added unit is judged strictly, as before: every difference is red. A hand-written, minimal config.json for a new resource can differ from REST in members the gateway fills with defaults; a tree made by deploy pull carries the full config.
• read_back does not verify deleted (removed) units. It never checked them, and nothing after the apply reads the REST view to confirm that a deleted resource is gone. On the master, files covers tag units only, so a deleted non-tag unit (a historian provider or an OPC UA device, say) is accounted for only by the host commit's own move-and-delete step and the ledger. A gateway that still serves it over REST afterwards, from a scan that did not drop it or from a core copy that took over, is not reported. In a pair, the backup's files check does compare the deleted paths with the master's.

A real read_back failure still rolls the apply back; no flag skips the verify or the rollback. These residual risks are accepted:

• A written path whose REST view moved during the apply, and still differs from the file only where it already differed before, is a warning: REST moved there, so the write reached it, but its final value is not compared with the file.
• Collapse. A write is judged at the shallowest path at which the desired file and the live file differ. When a whole subtree differs, its written members collapse into that one path, and a REST move anywhere under it counts for all of them, so a member that did not land can pass as a warning. This happens for a key the live file lacks (the whole new member is one path), an array whose length changes (the whole array is one path), and a member REST reports as one opaque value (a string where the file holds an object: any change to the string covers every member under it). Tests pin these verdicts; collapse-aware path sets are a tracked follow-up.
• A written path the gateway normalises back to the value it already showed reads as not taken and rolls the apply back.
• Two hand-authored edits roll back although the gateway took them, through the first rule (a path that did not differ before and differs after): removing a member set to a default the gateway keeps reporting in its REST view, and reordering a list the gateway reports in its own order. Author changed units with deploy pull, which writes the gateway's own shape, so defaults and order match what REST shows. (An explicit default the gateway leaves out of its REST view, before and after, is unobservable: it gets the not-visible warning only.)
• Another change to an unwritten resource between the baseline and the scan reads as this run's disturbance and rolls the apply back.

The backup check. When targets/<ENV>.yaml declares nodes.backup, apply ends with proof that the backup node holds what the master now holds, and never writes to the backup: it reads the backup's REST API and, only when nodes.backup declares ssh or local, its mode collection files through the read-only file access. Before the first write it samples the backup's lastSyncTimestamp (an unreadable sample refuses with its own error before any write). After the master is verified and the lock released it waits outside the lock for up to --backup-timeout SECS (default 300, 1 to 86400), polling the backup every 5 s, until the pair link is up, no sync is pending, the timestamp is later than the sample, and, where files can be read, every rendered and deleted path matches the master's and a REST read-back of the rendered resources agrees. The backup's read-back is judged against its own pre-write baseline by the same rules (a written unit against the master's live file before the apply), so a difference the backup already had is a warn that does not block convergence. A rendered or deleted unit that either node's sftp server cannot read never matches and is never taken as gone: the files check fails with an unreadable finding naming the unit and the node, so the backup does not converge. An unreadable unit that is neither rendered nor deleted is a warn with one data.warnings line and does not block convergence. If that does not happen, apply sends one resync request to the master (never to the backup) and waits once more. The result is data.backup (converged, reason, budget_s, waited_s, resync {ok, code} or null, last_sync_before, last_sync_after, project_state, files_checked and checks with ids redundancy, mode, read_back and files, each pass, fail or warn, with findings that carry no values). A backup that does not converge ends applied_backup_unsynced with exit 6; see the backup-unsynced verdict exception.

A backup reachable only by REST has no file access, so the file-hash check cannot run: its files check reads warn with the sentence the file-hash check did not run, in human output and in --json, and convergence rests on the REST checks. Human output adds backup: converged or backup: NOT converged (<reason>), the seconds waited, whether the resync was sent and its result, and one line per check; progress goes to stderr, and under --json stderr stays empty.

Designers. --designers fail (the default) refuses while any Designer session is open. wait polls every 10 s for up to 600 s, or --designers-timeout SECS (1 to 86400), and on timeout refuses with the same session list. proceed takes no reason string; run.json and events.ndjson record that it was used and the sessions open at the time (user, project, host).

The run directory. Every run (after the gates and the confirmation) gets <repo>/.ign/deploy/<gateway>/<run-id>/, created at 0700 with files at 0600 (an owner-only ACL on Windows). The run id is a UTC timestamp and a random suffix, for example 20261015T142233Z-a1b2c3. It holds run.json, result.json, plan.json, events.ndjson, read_back_baseline.json, the downloaded snapshot (snapshot/) and the .gwbk. read_back_baseline.json is {"schema_version": 1, "nodes": [{"node": "master", "resources": {"<key>": {"state": "config|missing|system", "basis": "declared_file|live_file|strict", "differs_at": ["<path>", ...], "writes_at": ["<path>", ...]}}}, ...]}: per node and resource only the state, the basis it is judged on, the JSON paths that differed and the JSON paths the run's write changes (live_file units only, empty otherwise), never a value and no hash of one (the REST views themselves stay in memory for the post-apply comparison). A rolled-back run's verify_checks event in events.ndjson carries each check's findings (code, subject, detail with JSON paths only, and status when warn), so the run directory alone explains a rollback. Add .ign/ to the repo's .gitignore: the directory holds the pre-apply files and the backup, so apply refuses before any write when git would commit it (deploy_preflight_failed, check run_dir_not_ignored; a directory that is not a git work tree proceeds and says so in run.json).

Where secrets can be, and where they cannot. The run directory holds secrets in exactly two places: snapshot/ (copies of the gateway files the run replaced or deleted) and the .gwbk. That is why the directory must be git-ignored and owner-only. Nothing else a run writes or prints carries a secret value: not run.json, result.json, plan.json, events.ndjson or read_back_baseline.json (states, bases and paths only), not stdout, stderr or the --json envelope, not the on-box journal.json and record.json, and not the confirmation text, which names the run, gateway, mode, counts, plan_sha256 and changed paths only. Tests plant a canary value in a secret field of the live resources apply replaces, in the .gwbk the gateway serves, in gateway log lines and in an error body, then run apply (applied, no-op, rolled back, refused) and rollback (restored, refused, recovered) and assert it appears in no file or stream except those two named, private, git-ignored artifacts. Free text you type is recorded once: an --allow-drift reason is written to run.json as given and is not echoed anywhere else, so do not put a secret in it.

Runs are never pruned. Nothing deletes a run directory or an on-box snapshot, in this release. To remove a run by hand, delete its run directory and the host's snapshots/<run-id>/ directory under the ledger root (ign-deploy/<gateway>/<mode>/). A run whose snapshot is removed can no longer be rolled back. Never delete a journal.json by hand unless the rollback_failed guidance says to.

Restarts are reported, never performed. Apply reads the gateway's pending restart list before and after the run and never restarts anything: data.restart_pending is the list after the run and data.restart_pending_new the entries that were not pending before it (both [] when none). A list that cannot be read is the warning restart_pending_unavailable, never a failure. snapshot_copy_differs (<path>) warns when the run directory's copy of a pre-image does not match the host's.

Windows hosts. The deploy account needs Modify on the mode collection (and, on a redundant pair, on config\resources\core\ignition\tag-definition and config\resources\core\ignition\tag-type-definition of both nodes, see Tags and redundant pairs; this grant has not been captured on a real host yet) and ownership of the files it moves (apply resets each moved file's ACL, which needs the owner's WRITE_DAC). The sftp server cannot read a path of 260 characters or more, so a collection path whose copy below the account home would pass 259 characters is refused by write_host, with the path named. A file another process holds open cannot be read or moved: apply stops before the first move as transport_failed naming the path, and nothing changed.

Linux hosts. The deploy account needs read and execute (list) on data and data/config (not recursive, no write), read on config/resources, read, write and execute on each mode collection directory (inherited by new entries), on a redundant pair the same on config/resources/core/ignition/tag-definition and config/resources/core/ignition/tag-type-definition of both nodes (the write_host preflight refuses a run that touches core without it), and a writable home for ign-deploy/. Without the list right on data, deploy plan stops with transport_failed (remote readdir(".../data/"): Permission denied) because the read half lists every ancestor to refuse a symlink on the path.

Project deploys (deploy projects). The .git probe of deploy projects needs only the list right (read and execute on Linux, ReadAndExecute on Windows) on data/projects and on each project directory it asks about, and no write right anywhere under data/projects: the deploy account's write right stays on the mode collection. As the capture hosts are provisioned no grant is needed (a project directory the gateway creates is 755 on Linux and inherits Users read-and-execute on Windows). A host that keeps its project directories private needs one:

• Linux: setfacl -m u:<deploy-account>:r-x <data>/projects/<project> for an existing project directory, and, so that project directories created later inherit the right, a default ACL on the parent: setfacl -d -m u:<deploy-account>:r-x <data>/projects.
• Windows: icacls "<data>\projects\<project>" /grant "<COMPUTERNAME>\<deploy-account>:(OI)(CI)(RX)" for one project directory, or the same ACE on <data>\projects for all of them.

Without the right the probe cannot tell a missing .git from one it may not see, so it says so: transport_failed naming the path (Permission denied on Linux, UnauthorizedAccessException on Windows), never "no git". A project directory that does not exist is the create case and needs no right. On ssh nodes the release record lives in the account home, ign-deploy/<gateway>/projects/<project>/release.json (the same home as the ledger); on a local node it is <data_dir>/ign-deploy/<gateway>/projects/<project>/release.json. The record is the one file deploy projects writes on a gateway host: on an ssh node it is written only in the deploy account's home (ign-deploy/<gateway>/projects/<project>/release.json), as a temporary file beside it that then replaces the record in one atomic step (mv -f on a Linux host, a Win32 MoveFileEx replace on a Windows one), so a reader sees the old record or the new one on NTFS (Windows) and with Linux rename(2), never a missing or half-written file, and no write right on the gateway's data directory is needed for it. The replace is atomic for readers, not a durable write. A reader that holds the record open without delete sharing makes the Windows replace retry (Win32 error 32 or 5, RENAME_RETRIES times, a second apart) and then fail with transport_failed, keeping the previous record and removing the temporary file; after a verified import that is record_written: false plus a warning. The Windows record write needs three things from the deploy account: a FullLanguage PowerShell session, the .NET Framework C# compiler csc.exe that Add-Type runs, and a writable %TEMP%. Without any of them every record write fails closed with transport_failed naming the cause. Each record write compiles once in a fresh PowerShell process (the whole replace took 2.70 s on the capture host).

The commit has a deadline. The scan-lock is held for 176 s and the commit must be done inside it. The work list carries a time budget (the hold less a 2 s margin, 174 s), counted from the start of the commit script: the script starts no move, delete or retry after it, stops, and says so (deadline). The apply then ends as a restore with the cause lock_expired, under the lock if it is still held. The ssh call itself is killed 60 s after the budget instead of after ssh.op_timeout_s; if that backstop fires, the run is the interrupted run below (deploy_journal_present, recover with ign deploy rollback --run <id> --env <env>).

A failure after the verify. If the verify is green and the fingerprint or the final record step then fails, the deploy is live but not recorded: the run ends as deploy_journal_present with the recovery command, the files are left as written and nothing is restored on a guess. rollback --run restores the pre-apply files (the post-verify window below). When the answer was lost but the host had finished (the journal is gone), the apply is applied with the warning finalize_reported_error (<code>). A commit error when the host cannot be read back is the original error with the same recovery command appended.

After an ssh drop. A recovery started right after a dropped ssh connection should wait out the dead apply's lock hold, because its remote script may still be running until the hold lapses.

Output. Human output is apply <gateway> (<env>, mode <mode>) via <transport>: <outcome>, then the run id and directory, the counts written and deleted, for a rollback the cause, the backup name or its skip, any restart lines and plan_sha256; stderr gets one excluded tag providers: <a>, <b> line, then the warnings. With --json, data carries the keys listed in the Commands row; excluded_tag_providers is the plan's effective exclusion set (byte-sorted, always holding System).

Exit codes. 0 applied or noop. 2 confirmation_required, invalid_input and destructive_change_refused. 3, 4 and 5 for configuration, network (including transport_failed) and authentication, as for every gateway verb. 6 for plan_stale, deploy_unreadable, deploy_pair_tags_refused, deploy_blocked, deploy_preflight_failed, deploy_journal_present, scan_lock_held, rollback_failed, for a rolled-back apply, which prints its envelope first, see the rolled-back verdict exception, and for an apply whose backup did not converge (applied_backup_unsynced), see the backup-unsynced verdict exception.

deploy rollback

ign deploy rollback --env <ENV> --run <ID> [--repo DIR] [--targets DIR] [--discard-live-changes] [--designers fail|wait|proceed] [--designers-timeout SECS] puts a past run back: it restores the pre-run files from the run's on-box snapshot into the master node's mode collection, deletes the files that run created, scans, and records the rollback. It also recovers an interrupted run (below). The Commands row has the flag summary. The verb is guarded (it needs the global --yes; the refusal message names what it would do) and is not in the MCP catalog.

From a fresh process. --run is the run_id that deploy apply printed, or the name of its run directory. Only targets/<ENV>.yaml is read: the declared tree is not rendered, and no run directory has to exist (the on-box record is the source of truth; a local run directory that does exist is cross-checked against it). A malformed --run is invalid_input (exit 2) before the target file, any host or any gateway is touched.

Order. Each step refuses before the next one starts, and the refusals up to the confirmation write nothing:

1. A journal of another run is deploy_journal_present (exit 6) and prints the recovery command for that run (below).
2. The run's on-box record is read. A record that is missing or damaged, for another gateway or mode, still applying with no journal, or already rolled back is deploy_run_invalid (exit 6), naming the run; a run is rolled back once. For a target with nodes.backup, a restore that would put a tag-definition or tag-type-definition file back into the mode collection is deploy_pair_tags_refused (exit 6), naming the folders (see Tags and redundant pairs): a run that moved tag units out of the mode collection into core is not rolled back; apply again instead. A run that only wrote core, and a rollback that only deletes the tag files its run created, are allowed.
3. Files the run touched that changed after it (a later apply, a Designer save) are deploy_live_changed (exit 6), naming the first ten paths and the count, unless --discard-live-changes is given. With the flag they are overwritten, and listed in the rollback's run.json, its events.ndjson and result.json (discarded_live_changes, [] when none). Files the run never touched are left alone and never block. Rolling back an older run while a newer run changed the same file therefore refuses; roll back the newer run first, or discard. The check is made again under the scan-lock, just before the restore (the preflights can wait for Designer sessions), so a save that lands in between is refused the same way (the lock is released by one no-op scan), or listed when the flag is given.
4. Without --yes, confirmation_required (exit 2) prints the run, the gateway, the mode, how many files it would restore and delete, the plan_sha256 of the run, and any live change it would overwrite.
5. The rollback gets a run directory of its own (kind: rollback, same layout and .ign/ ignore rule as deploy apply), the same preflights and --designers policy as an apply (rollback runs master_active, so it refuses when the master is no longer the active node; backup_read and secrets are skipped, because a rollback renders no tree) (the hold_budget check is sized by the files the run wrote and deleted, counted as the apply counted them, so a change the apply accepted can be rolled back), the same one 176 s lock hold, then the restore, the config scan and the on-box record is marked rolled_back with the rolling-back run's id. No .gwbk is taken: the restore point is the on-box snapshot.

A rollback removes the files the run created and the directories that emptied below <module>/<type>. The <module>/<type> directory itself and the module directory above it are not removed, so an empty one can remain after rolling back a run that created the first resource of a type; the live rollback (23-16) left such directories and deploy plan and the REST view were as before. The exception is an emptied ignition/tag-definition/ or ignition/tag-type-definition/ folder of the mode collection, which is removed (by an apply's deletes too): on a redundant pair an empty one alone stops the backup from syncing (see Tags and redundant pairs). In core the <module>/<type> folder always stays. The module directory ignition/ always stays.

Runs and snapshots are never pruned, and a run whose snapshot was removed can no longer be rolled back: see "Runs are never pruned" under deploy apply, which also says when journal.json may be deleted by hand. The restart-pending lists are reported, never acted on, as for an apply.

Recovering an interrupted run (DAPL-09). An apply that was killed after it began leaves journal.json on the host. While it is there, deploy plan, deploy apply and deploy rollback --run <another run> all refuse with deploy_journal_present, and the message ends with the exact command that recovers it:

ign deploy rollback --run <id> --env <env>

That command is the whole recovery; no flag is needed and none discards a journal (D-09, D-12). It skips the live-change check, because a killed run has no post-run state to compare against (D-11), and records the files' hashes as it found them in the new run's interrupted_run event. What it does depends on the journal:

• A run that died before any file moved, whose touched files are still what they were before the run, is cleared: the journal, the partial snapshot and the staging are removed, nothing is restored and nothing is scanned (data.outcome cleared, D-10).
• Anything else is restored from the snapshot exactly as a rollback is (restored). That includes a journal whose files a foreign edit changed before the first move: the snapshot overwrites that edit.
• The post-verify window (A9): an apply killed after a green verify and before it recorded itself leaves a journal for a good deploy. Recovery cannot tell the difference and restores the pre-apply files. Re-run the apply afterwards.
• Recovery reads the snapshot and checks it against the journal before it restores anything. A lost or corrupt snapshot is rollback_failed (exit 6) with the journal left in place. Any rollback_failed leaves the journal and the on-box snapshot snapshots/<run-id>/ (beside the journal) as they were, so first retry ign deploy rollback --run <id> --env <env>, which the message prints. Only when the retry reports a lost or damaged snapshot, restore the files by hand from the run's .gwbk (when it took one) or from that on-box snapshot, then delete the journal at the path the message prints. That message is the only case in which the journal is deleted by hand (D-12). The run directory's snapshot/ copy is made only after a restore has succeeded, so it is not a source here.

A recovery started right after a dropped ssh connection should wait out the 176 s hold first (see "After an ssh drop" under deploy apply). Seen live (23-16): a run killed during the write still holds its scan-lock, and a recovery started at once is refused scan_lock_held (exit 6, naming the dead run's token) until that hold lapses; a run killed after the scan, in the A9 window, has already released the lock and recovers at once. There is no Ctrl-C handler in v1.6 (A10): an interrupt leaves the lock to expire with its hold and, once the journal exists, a journal to recover as above.

Hosts. The local host is covered by the CLI tests, and the Windows ssh host's script was run on a live Windows host; the Windows notes under deploy apply apply to the restore too. Linux ssh was run against a live host (FA-23-05, OQ8, 2026-10-19): an Ubuntu 22.04 host with OpenSSH 8.9p1 and dash as /bin/sh, reached as a key-only account with no sudo. There commit.sh and its restore ran over ssh (prepare, commit, the stub's tamper refusal, restore), the commit left 0644 files and 0755 directories under a session umask of 0002, a commit stopped at its time budget, the shared host conformance table passed 48 of 48, and ign deploy plan, apply, verify and rollback --run against the real production collection restored it exactly. The account needs read and execute (list) on data and data/config as well as write on the mode collection: the read half lists every ancestor from the data directory to refuse a symlink on the path. Not captured: the move of staged files when the account home and the gateway data directory are on different file systems (a copy and delete, not an atomic rename). Run a first Linux ssh apply or rollback against a disposable gateway, and keep the .gwbk.

Output. Human output is rollback <gateway> (<env>, mode <mode>): <outcome>, then rolled back run <id>, run <id>, run directory <dir>, the counts restored and deleted, any discarded live changes and the restart lines; progress lines are prefixed ign deploy rollback: on stderr, in human mode only. With --json, data carries the keys listed in the Commands row; data.ok is always true because a rollback that cannot restore is an error envelope.

Exit codes. 0 restored or cleared. 2 confirmation_required and invalid_input. 3, 4 and 5 for configuration, network (including transport_failed) and authentication. 6 for deploy_journal_present, deploy_run_invalid, deploy_live_changed, deploy_preflight_failed, scan_lock_held and rollback_failed. A rollback has no verdict exit: unlike deploy apply, it never ends in a success envelope with a non-zero code, so the rolled-back verdict exception does not apply to it.

deploy projects

ign deploy projects --env <ENV> --release <TAG> [--allow-downgrade] [--allow-first-change REASON] [--check | --artifact-sha256 HASH --yes] [--designers fail|wait|proceed] [--designers-timeout SECS] [--repo DIR] [--targets DIR] deploys one Ignition project from its own repo, and with --check reports what that would do. The Commands row has the flag summary. --check sends GET requests only, creates no .ign/ directory and writes nothing on the gateway or the host. Without --check the verb is a guarded write (Deploying). The verb is not in the MCP catalog, --check included.

What it deploys. One project per repo. The repo is the project's own checkout (a root project.json beside the ignition/ directory and the module directories), not a gateway-configuration repo. The artifact is built from the checkout at run time (D-01), and nothing needs to be committed as a pin: Manifest.projects is not read by this verb (D-04). A project's parent comes from the repo's own project.json. The verb never imports, exports or modifies the parent, and never touches any other project on the gateway (D-05).

deploy/project.yaml names the gateway project and the environments it may deploy to (D-08). The file is strict: exactly these three keys, no others.

schema_version: 1
project: CapApp
environments: [dev, prod]

• schema_version must be 1.
• project is the project's name on the gateway. It must be one path component that is safe on POSIX and Windows hosts, because it becomes a directory name on the gateway host.
• environments lists every --env the project may be deployed with. An --env that is not listed refuses deploy_tree_invalid (exit 2) naming deploy/project.yaml, before any request.

What goes into the artifact (D-09, K1 to K4). The gateway keeps only what it adopts on an overwrite import and drops the rest without saying so, so the artifact holds exactly that and nothing more:

• The layout is the checkout layout, verbatim. A member's key is its path in the zip; no resources segment is stripped by name (a com.inductiveautomation.webdev/resources directory is real).
• The root project.json, plus the top-level directories named ignition or shaped like a module id (com.inductiveautomation.perspective). Every other root entry (tags/, docs/, deploy/, .github/, and so on) stays out.
• Below those, each directory holding a resource.json contributes that file and exactly the files its files array lists (K2). Two refusals, both deploy_tree_invalid naming the path, because the gateway would drop the whole resource: a listed file that is missing from the folder, and a directory inside a resource folder. Unlisted files, dotfiles and folders without a resource.json are left out.
• .git, .github, .ign, node_modules, __pycache__ and *.pyc are never read, at any depth, so a previous run's .ign/ directory never enters the artifact. deploy is left out at the repo root only, because the root allowlist already does that; a script package or view named deploy below a module directory is kept. A symlink or special file in the walk refuses deploy_tree_invalid; it is never followed.
• An optional .ignexclude at the repo root removes more paths. One repo-relative path per line; a trailing / names a directory and its whole subtree; * matches within one path segment and never crosses a /; a line starting with # is a comment; blank lines are ignored; spaces and tabs around a line are trimmed; CRLF line endings are tolerated. There is no negation. A line using !, **, an absolute path, a . or .. segment, a backslash, a control character or a non-printing format character (such as a byte order mark) refuses deploy_tree_invalid naming .ignexclude and the line number. .ignexclude cannot remove project.json, and a .ignexclude line that removes a file a resource.json lists refuses rather than shipping a resource the gateway would drop. .ignexclude itself must be a regular file, not a symlink.
• Everything left out is reported in data.excluded (byte-sorted, at most 200 paths, excluded_count beside it; a directory appears once with a trailing /), and the human output prints the count and the first 20, with control characters in a name written out as escapes. Read it in the check: it is the list of what stays out of the uploaded project.
• Limits, all refused as deploy_tree_invalid before any gateway contact: a walk past 200,000 entries, a built zip over the 512 MB import limit, a file name below a module directory that is not valid UTF-8, and a checkout whose artifact holds nothing besides project.json (an import would empty the project). The built zip is also checked like projects import checks a file (ZIP magic, size, every entry readable to its end) before it is reported.

Mark the deploy files -text in .gitattributes:

deploy/** -text

deploy/project.yaml refuses CR line endings, while .ignexclude tolerates them, so a Windows checkout with core.autocrlf would break the first and not the second.

The artifact_sha256 and live_sha256 digests are canonical: they hash each member under its zip path and ignore zip entry order, directory entries and the fields the gateway rewrites (attributes.lastModification and lastModificationSignature in each resource.json, the order of its files array, the defaults it adds to a resource.json that lacks them (version: 1, restricted: false, overridable: true), and the description, parent and inheritable: false keys it adds to project.json). A key written with any other value still counts as a change. An export of an unchanged project therefore compares equal to the artifact, and a project that holds no members is refused rather than compared.

--targets is a root directory (D-07, D-14). targets/<ENV>.yaml is read below it, and it defaults to --repo. A target file that is not found under the root refuses deploy_tree_invalid naming targets/<ENV>.yaml, so a repo that keeps its targets elsewhere passes the directory that holds targets/. The same root resolves the known_hosts path of an ssh node (D-07): a target block's known_hosts: hosts/lnx.known_hosts is read from <DIR>/hosts/lnx.known_hosts, and a path that leaves the root (.., an absolute path) is refused when the target is read.

The check output. JSON data keys, in order: env, gateway, project, release, check, action, would_change, artifact_sha256, live_sha256, members, removed, removed_count, excluded, excluded_count, unmanaged, unmanaged_count, parent, previous_release, recorded_sha256, live_matches_last_deploy, allow_downgrade, allow_first_change, warnings, run_id, run_dir, record_written, restore_command, children, missing_tags, missing_tags_count, missing_tags_unknown_providers, missing_tags_unknown_providers_count, missing_tags_unavailable, missing_tags_limit, outcome, ok, slug.

• action is create (the project is absent from the gateway), skip (the live project equals the artifact and the release record already names this release), record (it equals the artifact but the record is absent or names another release, so only the record would be written) or import (it differs). would_change is false only for skip. live_sha256 is null when the project is absent.
• members counts added, changed, removed and same members against the live project. removed lists the live members an overwrite would delete, which the gateway never reports itself (it answers 200 and success: true); it is the only place those deletions show.
• excluded lists the repo paths left out of the artifact (see above).
• unmanaged lists the names of the other projects on the gateway, and nothing else about them. Lists are byte-sorted and capped at 200 entries with the full count beside them (removed_count, unmanaged_count).
• parent is the parent named in the repo's project.json, or null for a root project.
• outcome is checked, ok is true, slug is null, run_id and run_dir are null, record_written is false and restore_command is null in a check.

Tags the project uses. ign deploy projects does not deploy tags. A project can therefore go live pointing at tags the target gateway does not have, and its timers and bindings then write to tags that are not there. The check reports them, in --check and again on the confirmed run, so an approver sees them before the import:

• It reads the artifact it would import, not the repo: every .py member (project scripts, timer, tag-change, scheduled and update scripts, WebDev handlers) and every .json member except resource.json and the root project.json (Perspective views and the like). A reference is a literal [provider]path: a whole Python string (a b"..." string included, because Jython 2.7 reads it as a plain string), a whole JSON string value (a script property holding only a tag path included), a {[provider]path} expression reference, or a quoted '[provider]path' in an expression. These are not references: comments (Python # and expression //), docstrings (triple-quoted, or a one-line string right after a def or class header), triple-quoted Python strings (SQL), f-strings, any piece of adjacent string concatenation, a literal with a + on either side, and text that merely mentions a path. A property suffix (Area/Tank.value) resolves to its tag, so a missing Area/v1.2 reads as found when a tag Area/v1 exists.
• It reads the target with GET requests only: the provider list once, and one native export (tags/export?provider=<P>&type=json, 300 s ceiling) per referenced provider, however many tags the provider holds. A UDT instance member resolves whether or not the export carries a stub for it, through nested instances and inherited types. The token needs read access to the tag export. A refusal does not fail the check; it becomes missing_tags_unavailable.
• A path whose lookup reaches a UDT instance or type the export cannot resolve is neither missing nor clean: a typeId naming another provider's type, a type the export lacks, a cycle, or a chain of more than 32 links. Its provider gets one missing_tags_unavailable entry whose reason counts those paths and names up to 3 of them, byte-sorted. Paths the same export confirms missing are still listed.
• missing_tags lists the paths the target lacks as {path, files}, with at most 3 referencing files per path, byte-sorted and capped at 200, and missing_tags_count has the full count. missing_tags and missing_tags_count are null, not an empty list, when nothing could be read or no path could be resolved, because an empty list reads as "no missing tags". A provider read that failed is named in missing_tags_unavailable as {provider, reason} (provider is null when the failure is not per provider); the reason is fixed wording plus an error slug, the names of files read only in part, or the paths a UDT type left unresolved; never a response body. It is null when every read was made. A file name holding a control or non-printing format character is written out with escapes, in files and in the reason. A path holding one is not treated as a reference.
• A project file over 16 MiB is read only up to that size, which bounds the memory one file can cost. A tag path past that point is not seen, so the check does not read as clean. missing_tags_unavailable holds one entry with provider null whose reason names up to 3 of those files and counts the rest. A path found in the part that was read is still reported, but in a JSON file read in part only a value that is wholly a tag path is seen, not an expression or a script. When the part read finds nothing, missing_tags and missing_tags_unknown_providers and their counts are null, not empty. A file of that size that is binary is skipped like any other binary resource and is not named.
• A reference to a provider the target does not list is never reported as clean. It goes to missing_tags_unknown_providers as {provider, path_count, files}, with missing_tags_unknown_providers_count, and never to missing_tags. A provider the target excludes (System and the target's exclude_tag_providers) is not read and not reported; a project whose references all name excluded providers makes no tag request. Bracket text that cannot be a provider name, such as [.], [~], [0], [%s] or [client], is not treated as a reference.
• It is a warning. warnings names the counts, action, would_change, artifact_sha256, members, the slugs, the exit code and the import are the same with or without a finding, and the confirmation refusal text names the missing paths and unknown providers. In human mode a tags: block prints the count, up to 20 paths with their files, and tags: NOT CHECKED (never "no missing tag paths") after a failed read, a file over 16 MiB or a path a UDT type left unresolved.

The check has limits, and the output states them (missing_tags_limit): paths built at runtime aren't checked; a path through a UDT type the tag export does not resolve isn't checked; triple-quoted Python strings are not scanned, so a tag path held in one isn't checked; a tag project code creates at runtime can appear as a warning; text that looks like a path outside a comment or triple-quoted string can appear as a warning; binary resources are not read (the event scripts resource is one); and members below a __tests__ folder are not scanned. Get the missing tags onto the target first (for example with ign deploy apply from the gateway-configuration repo), then deploy the project.

Release order and the first deploy. --release <TAG> is a semver tag with at most one leading v (v1.4.0, 1.4.0, v1.5.0-rc.1). It is parsed before anything is read from the host or the gateway, and a tag that is not semver refuses invalid_input (exit 2). Releases are ordered by semver precedence, so v1.2.0-rc.1 is older than v1.2.0, and build metadata (+build) is ignored. The tag is taken as given; it is not checked against the repo's tags. The host keeps a release record for each project at ign-deploy/<gateway>/projects/<project>/release.json, below the same root the other deploy records use on that node (the deploy account's home for an ssh node, the data directory for a local node); it names the release this tool last deployed, the canonical digest of what it deployed and the run that did it. The check reads the record and never writes it, and creates nothing on the host. A record that cannot be trusted (not JSON, an unknown field, a schema_version other than 1, over 64 KiB, a gateway or project that is not this deploy's, a digest that is not 64 lowercase hex characters, a release or run id that is not valid) refuses deploy_run_invalid (exit 6) naming the file; it is never read as absent. A mode collection named projects is refused in a target file, so it can never share that directory.

• Downgrade. When the record names a newer release than --release, the check refuses destructive_change_refused (exit 2) with gate downgrade, naming the project, before any gateway request, and so will the apply. An equal release is allowed. --allow-downgrade lets the older release through; it is reported in data.allow_downgrade. data.previous_release is the release the record names, or null.
• First deploy of a project the git module left (D-12). With no record, a project that exists on the gateway and differs from the artifact refuses destructive_change_refused with gate first_deploy, because the first deploy by this tool would change what the gateway runs. Release what the gateway runs first, or give a reason: --allow-first-change <REASON>, 1 to 500 characters, reported in data.allow_first_change. A project absent from the gateway is create and needs no reason.
• Record only (K14). When the live project already equals the artifact the project is never touched. With no record, or a record that names another release, the action is record and would_change is true: a deploy will write only the release record, which adopts a git-module project without an import. When the record names this release, the action is skip and nothing is written.
• Drift (K13). data.recorded_sha256 is the digest the record holds, and data.live_matches_last_deploy says whether the live project still equals it (null without a record or without a live project). A live project that no longer matches is a warning, "the live project no longer matches the last release this tool deployed", and does not refuse: someone changed the project on the gateway since the last deploy, and an import would replace that.

The check applies both refusals with the flags a deploy will take, so a CI check job fails before a reviewer is asked to approve.

A project absent from the gateway is created (D-13). The check reports it as create, with live_sha256: null and every artifact member counted as added. It is not a refusal. A deploy creates the project (overwrite=false, no pre-image because there is nothing to save), with the same confirmation and artifact hash as an import, and the outcome is created.

Git-managed projects. Before it asks the gateway anything, the check looks for data/projects/<name>/.git on the master node's host (the node must declare ssh or local; a node with neither refuses deploy_tree_invalid before any gateway contact). Any .git entry counts: a directory, a file (a worktree or submodule pointer) or a symlink, and a symlink is never followed. A project that has one refuses project_git_managed (exit 6), naming the project, the location and the kind. The probe fails closed: a projects directory that does not exist or a project directory that cannot be read is transport_failed (exit 4), never "no git". An absent project directory is the create case and reads as no .git. The verb never deletes or renames a .git, and offers no flag that does. Cutover is per project: an administrator removes that project's .git on the gateway, then runs the check again (D-11; the runbook is Cutting a project over from the git module).

Parents. A child project's parent is read from the repo's own project.json (D-05), and the check looks it up with reads only: one projects/list call carries the parent, its inheritable flag and its own parent for every project, so nothing is asked by name. A parent the gateway does not list refuses project_parent_invalid with reason missing (exit 6); a project that names itself, or whose parent chain leads back to it or never ends, refuses with cycle (the walk takes at most as many steps as the gateway lists projects, plus one); a parent whose inheritable is false refuses with not_inheritable. All three refuse before the project is exported, and the verb never imports, exports, modifies or reparents the parent or any other project. Order is the CI's job: deploy the parent from its own repo first, then the child. A project without a parent in project.json is not checked, and the human output prints parent: none. The gateway's importer refuses none of these (it answers 200 and flags invalidParent afterwards), which is why the check runs first. When the parent is usable but the live project sits under a different parent, the check warns that an import changes it from one to the other; that is a warning, not a refusal. A usable parent that the gateway itself flags invalidParent (a problem further up its own chain) is a warning too.

Deploying. The same command without --check deploys. It runs the same refusals as the check first (.git, parent, downgrade, first deploy), then:

1. The artifact hash (D-01). --artifact-sha256 HASH is the artifact_sha256 that --check --json reported for this checkout, 64 lowercase hex characters. It is compared with the artifact the checkout builds after the build and before any host or gateway request, so a different artifact refuses project_hash_mismatch (exit 6, the project and the two hashes only) with nothing contacted or uploaded. Without --check, --json, --compact, or a stdin or stdout that is not a terminal needs the hash (invalid_input, exit 2, before any contact); a value that is not 64 lowercase hex is invalid_input too.
2. Confirmation. Without --yes the plan is the refusal (confirmation_required, exit 2): the action, project, gateway, environment, release, member counts, the paths an overwrite deletes (the gateway never reports them) and the hash. A project that is already this release (skip) is returned before that, and writes nothing, not even a .ign/ directory.
3. A run directory. <repo>/.ign/deploy/<gateway>/<run-id>/ (mode 0700, files 0600, created only after git is shown to ignore .ign/) holds run.json, plan.json, events.ndjson and, on every end, result.json. run.json records the release, the artifact hash and the override flags.
4. The pre-image. For an import the live project is exported into export/<project>.zip (0600) before anything is sent. If its canonical digest is not the one the plan was drawn against, the run refuses plan_stale ("live project changed since the plan", exit 6) and imports nothing. The export holds the live project's files and is never printed or copied into any other file; keep the directory private.
5. The import goes to the master node's gateway only (nodes.backup is never contacted: the redundancy sync carries the project to it). An existing project is replaced (overwrite=true); an absent one is created (overwrite=false).
6. The verify. The project is exported again and its canonical digest is compared with the artifact's. Equal is outcome imported (or created), and the release record is written on the master node's host, to a temporary file that is then renamed over release.json in one atomic step (mv -f on Linux, a Win32 MoveFileEx replace on Windows; on NTFS a replace still blocked by a reader after its retries keeps the previous record, and the run ends with record_written: false and a warning). A gateway answer that lists no change adds a warning and the comparison decides. When the project has a parent, the gateway's invalidParent flag is read after the import and a true value is a warning.
7. A record-only run (record). When the live project already equals the artifact, nothing is imported: the live project is read once more to be sure it still equals the artifact, and only the record is written (outcome recorded).

If the digest read back is not the artifact's, or the read-back fails or cannot be compared, the outcome is imported_unverified and ok is false: no record is written, no second import is sent and no further gateway request is made. The saved pre-image is in the run directory. An import request that fails after it may have reached the gateway (a timeout or a reset, or an unclassified gateway answer) is read back the same way, with a warning naming the error code: an equal read-back is imported, anything else is this verdict. A refusal the gateway gave (import_denied, an authentication error) or a connection that was never made still ends the run with that error, and nothing was applied. The result carries slug deploy_project_unverified and, after an overwrite, restore_command (ign project import <name> --file <run_dir>/export/<name>.zip --collision-policy overwrite --yes, relative to the repo root, with no --profile; the human output names the gateway), and the process exits 6 after the envelope: see the unverified verdict exception. In human mode, stderr carries progress lines prefixed ign deploy projects: for the pre-image, the import, the verify and the record (ids, counts and flags only, never project content); under --json stderr stays empty. A release record that cannot be written after a verified import is a warning and record_written is false: the project is deployed, and the next run plans a record. A node declared with ssh takes the record like a local one: it is written in the deploy account's home, so the record needs no write right on the gateway's data directory. Because that write rides an sftp batch line, a project name (in deploy/project.yaml) or a target gateway holding an sftp glob character ([ ] { } * ?), a quote, a backslash or a control character is refused on an ssh node as deploy_tree_invalid before any gateway or host is contacted.

Pre-checks. A confirmed run reads the gateway before it writes anything, with the same checks and the same flags as deploy apply, and a refusal leaves no run directory, no pre-image, no import and no record (deploy_preflight_failed, exit 6, naming the check). --check runs none of them.

• wrong_target runs for every confirmed run, a record-only run included, because the record is a write to the host. The gateway's name over REST (gateway-info) must be the systemName of the node's own ignition/system-properties (read through the node's read half) and, when the target declares nodes.master.gateway_name, that name too. A gateway that reports no name, a host whose systemName cannot be read (including a system-properties file whose path the host's sftp server cannot read), or two names that differ refuse. The refusal says which comparison failed and never repeats a name the gateway or the host reported.
• designers runs for create and import, before the import. Any open Designer session refuses by default (--designers fail). --designers wait polls every 10 s until none is open or --designers-timeout SECS (1 to 86400, default 600) passes, and then refuses with the same session list. --designers proceed goes ahead and records the open sessions (user, project, host; names only) in run.json and events.ndjson. It takes no reason string. The check covers every open session, not only those on this project. A record-only run does not touch the project, so it skips the check and says so in events.ndjson (designers_skipped) and run.json.
• An unanswerable read (the gateway or the host cannot be reached) is its own error (network_error, transport_failed), never deploy_preflight_failed.

Children of a parent project. After an imported or imported_unverified outcome the run looks at the projects whose parent is the project it just replaced (D-06): the gateway's project list names them, and only direct children count (a grandchild is not looked at when its grandparent deploys). A project nothing inherits from, a created, recorded or skipped outcome and --check run no sweep, and data.children is then the empty list.

The gateway keeps re-reading a child for a few seconds after its parent is overwritten, so the sweep does not compare at once. It exports every child every 5 s and compares each export's canonical digest with the one before; when two consecutive reads of every child agree it stops, and it never waits longer than 30 s (CHILDREN_SETTLE_S, six times the 5 s that capture C9 measured; the two values are fixed and have no flag). A child still changing at the bound is classified on the last read and a warning says it did not settle. Each child then gets one entry in data.children, byte-sorted by name, as {name, status, release, recorded_sha256, live_sha256}:

• ok: the child's digest equals the artifact_sha256 of the release record that the last ign deploy of that child left.
• mismatch: they differ. The child changed since its last deploy, whether or not the parent's overwrite is the cause, and a warning names it and the release it was last deployed at.
• unverified: there is nothing to compare. The child has no record (this tool never deployed it), or its export or its record could not be read; in the last case a warning carries the error code only. release, recorded_sha256 or live_sha256 is null for what is missing.

In human mode the output gains a children: block with one line per child (ok, MISMATCH or unverified, and the release or no record), and stderr carries a progress line when the wait starts and one per child. The sweep reports and nothing else: a drifted child is a warning, never a failure; it does not change the outcome or the exit code (an imported_unverified parent still exits 6 on its own verdict), starts no rollback, and writes nothing. Its only gateway requests are the project list and the children's exports, and its only host reads are the children's release records; no child is imported, restored or modified. It reports hash drift only. What an open Designer or Perspective session of a child sees after its parent is overwritten is not claimed either way. The warnings are in data.warnings like any other, so a CI job summary that lists warnings shows them.

Cutting a project over from the git module

Cutover is per project and it is administrator work (D-11, D-12). ign never deletes, renames or edits a .git, offers no flag that does, and refuses a project that still has one (project_git_managed).

Which procedure applies (K8 a). The git module stays installed and an administrator removes .git from one project at a time while the module keeps serving the others. That is the procedure because of what capture C10 observed with the signed git module 2.3.4 on an 8.3.6 gateway, in a template variant and in a production variant (production_mode: true, production_branch: production, production_tagPattern: "v*"), and the production keys of the real gateway were confirmed by the owner to be the set that was exercised:

• api-import-reverted: no. An API overwrite import of a module-managed project was not reverted by a gateway restart, by the module's startup sync or by a project scan.
• import-removes-git: yes. The overwrite import itself removes the project's .git directory. This is why deploy projects refuses a project that still has one: an import over a module-managed project would end its management by accident.
• git-recreated: no. A removed .git was not recreated, and the module then logs that the project has no .git directory and skips it. A project without a .git was never touched by the module.

So nothing the module does at gateway start undoes a deploy once the project's .git is gone, and the module need not be uninstalled. What C10 did not exercise: the Designer-side pull, save and hotfix paths of the module, tags_importOnStartup, commissioning_enforceBranch: true and the real production git.yaml (the owner confirmed its keys; none was pasted). A gateway whose module configuration uses any of those is outside this procedure; K8 b, uninstalling the module gateway-wide before any project cuts over, is the fallback for it.

Per project, in this order:

1. Pick the release. The production module is driven by v* tags, so the tag it last pulled for this project is the release to use. Check the project repo out at that tag. The cutover only works if this tag is what the gateway runs; step 4 proves it.
2. Confirm the deploy account's grant. The .git probe needs the list right on data/projects and on the project directory (Project deploys, under the account scope of deploy apply), and no write right there. Use one deploy account per gateway: the release record is written in that account's home (ign-deploy/<gateway>/projects/<project>/release.json), so a different account later sees no record and plans the first deploy again.
3. An administrator removes the project's .git (data/projects/<project>/.git) on the gateway host, with the host's own tools, while the module keeps serving the other projects. Until this is done the check below refuses project_git_managed naming the location and the kind.
4. Check. Run ign deploy projects --env <ENV> --release <TAG> --check (add --targets DIR when the target files live elsewhere). Expect action: record and would_change: true: the gateway already runs exactly the artifact, so a deploy writes only the record (D-12, K14). Read members (all same) and removed_count (zero) as the proof. action: import means the project is not what the release holds; without a record that refuses destructive_change_refused with gate first_deploy, and the right answer is the tag that matches, not a flag. --allow-first-change <REASON> (1 to 500 characters, kept in run.json and the result) is for a difference a reviewer has read in the check and accepts: the first deploy then replaces the project. Also read missing_tags, missing_tags_unknown_providers and missing_tags_unavailable: this verb does not deploy tags, so deploy them first.
5. Apply with the reviewed hash. Run ign deploy projects --env <ENV> --release <TAG> --artifact-sha256 <HASH> --yes, where <HASH> is the artifact_sha256 that step 4 printed. Expect outcome recorded, ok: true, no import request and the release record written on the master node's host. From here the tool owns the project's deploys.
6. Disable the git module's tag pull for this project (spec section 13 step 8). The same v* tag now starts the ign deploy job, and the module's pull for the project must not also fire, or one tag has two deployers. This is human work on the module's side (its pull trigger and its configuration for the project). A project without .git is skipped by the module until it is cloned again, and a fresh clone would make it module-managed again.
7. Later releases are an ordinary --check followed by an apply. The tool never touches .git; a .git that reappears refuses the next run.

OPEN, an owner question this runbook does not settle. On 2026-10-22, asked about the production git module keys, the owner said: "We won't want this to be on a stray production branch forever. May need to think this through." That question is OPEN. The long-term branch lifecycle of module-managed projects is not decided by Phase 25 and not by this procedure, and it does not change K8.

What a project repo needs

Before a project repo's first deploy it holds:

• project.json at the root (the project's own export layout, with the ignition/ directory and the module directories beside it).
• deploy/project.yaml with schema_version: 1, the gateway project name and the environments it may deploy to (the example above). Target files are not kept here: they live in the infrastructure repo and are passed with --targets DIR (D-07).
• .ign/ in .gitignore. The run directory .ign/deploy/<gateway>/<run-id>/ holds the pre-image export of the live project, which can hold credentials a script embeds. A confirmed run creates it only after git shows it is ignored; otherwise it refuses deploy_preflight_failed and nothing is written. A tree that is not a git work tree is not refused.
• deploy/** -text in .gitattributes, so a Windows checkout with core.autocrlf cannot put CR line endings into deploy/project.yaml, which refuses them.
• An optional .ignexclude at the root to keep more paths out of the artifact (see the grammar above). Read data.excluded in the check to see what stays out.

Manifest.projects pins in a gateway tree are not read by this verb (D-04): the artifact is built from the checkout at run time and its digest is the pin.

Open question: images and themes

OPEN, with no owner yet. A gateway-config repo's images/ and themes/ directories are gateway resources, not project content: a project export does not carry them, and the artifact leaves any root images/ or themes/ directory out (it is not a project directory). The git module's production pull imports tags, themes and images (commissioning_importThemes, commissioning_importTags and commissioning_importImages are true in the exercised production keys). After such a repo's cutover nothing in this tool delivers its images/ and themes/. Someone must decide how, or whether, they reach the gateway before that cutover; this section records the gap and does not close it.

Running deploy in CI

Two reusable GitHub Actions workflows ship in this repository: .github/workflows/deploy-plan.yml and .github/workflows/deploy-apply.yml. They plan and apply gateway configuration with ign deploy; projects are not deployed by them. A gateway-config repository calls them with a short caller workflow and pins both the workflow ref and ign-version to the same release tag. The first release tag that contains the two files is cut separately, so replace v1.6.0 below with that tag.

name: gateway deploy
on:
  pull_request:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  plan:
    uses: TheThoughtagen/ignition-cli/.github/workflows/deploy-plan.yml@v1.6.0
    permissions:
      contents: read
      pull-requests: write
    with:
      env: production
      ign-version: v1.6.0
      runs-on: '["self-hosted", "windows", "ign-deploy"]'
      master-profile: prod
      master-url: https://gateway.example.com:8043
      # Optional: read targets/<env>.yaml from the infrastructure repository.
      targets-repository: WhiskeyHouse/whk-onprem-infra-iac
      targets-ref: v2026.10.1
      targets-dir: ignition
    secrets:
      IGN_SSH_KEY: ${{ secrets.IGN_SSH_KEY }}
      IGN_TARGETS_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.IGN_TARGETS_TOKEN }}

  apply:
    needs: plan
    if: github.event_name != 'pull_request'
    uses: TheThoughtagen/ignition-cli/.github/workflows/deploy-apply.yml@v1.6.0
    permissions:
      contents: write
      pull-requests: write
    with:
      env: production
      environment: production
      ign-version: v1.6.0
      plan-sha256: ${{ needs.plan.outputs.plan_sha256 }}
      runs-on: '["self-hosted", "windows", "ign-deploy"]'
      master-profile: prod
      master-url: https://gateway.example.com:8043
      targets-repository: WhiskeyHouse/whk-onprem-infra-iac
      targets-ref: v2026.10.1
      targets-dir: ignition
    secrets:
      IGN_MASTER_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.IGN_MASTER_TOKEN }}
      IGN_BACKUP_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.IGN_BACKUP_TOKEN }}
      IGN_SSH_KEY: ${{ secrets.IGN_SSH_KEY }}
      IGN_TARGETS_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.IGN_TARGETS_TOKEN }}

The three targets-* inputs are optional and the example shows them for a gateway-config repo whose targets live in whk-onprem-infra-iac (--targets DIR). Leave targets-repository out and the workflows read targets/<env>.yaml from the caller repository, exactly as before. When it is set, the workflows check that repository out read-only into .ign-targets at the workspace root with IGN_TARGETS_TOKEN (no persisted credentials) and pass --targets .ign-targets/<targets-dir>. ign reads the declared tree only from <repo-dir>/gateways/<gateway>/, so .ign-targets is not part of it and is never walked. Such a repo's tag deploy and its project deploy are two separate callers with separate approvals: this one deploys gateway configuration, and each project repository deploys its own project through deploy-projects.yml.

Before enabling apply, create the GitHub environment named by environment (here production) in the caller repository, under Settings, Environments, and add its required reviewers. A job that names an environment that does not exist gets an unprotected one created for it, so an apply with no reviewers configured runs without approval.

On a pull request the plan job posts one sticky comment per env, updated in place, with the counts, the changing entries and the plan_sha256; the same text goes to the job summary. On a push to main the plan job re-plans the merged commit, and the apply job waits for the production environment's reviewers, who read that plan in the plan job's summary. The apply passes the plan job's plan_sha256 as --plan-sha256 (Decision C): a gateway that changed between the review and the approval makes the apply stop as plan_stale, with nothing written.

Inputs. Apply-only inputs are marked.

Input	Required	Default	Meaning
env	yes		environment name; selects targets/<env>.yaml
ign-version	yes		release tag to install, for example v1.6.0
environment (apply only)	yes		GitHub environment whose protection rules approve the apply
plan-sha256 (apply only)	yes		the reviewed plan's plan_sha256, from the plan job's plan_sha256 output
master-profile, master-url	apply: yes	empty	profile name and gateway URL of the master; a profile and its URL come together
backup-profile, backup-url	no	empty	the same for a target with nodes.backup; the names must differ
runs-on	no	'["self-hosted"]'	a JSON list of runner labels, for example '["self-hosted", "windows", "ign-deploy"]'; use a label only the deploy runner carries
repo-dir	no	.	the declared repo root, relative to the checkout
ssl-verify	no	true	verify gateway TLS certificates
ssh-key-env	no	empty	the env var NAME that the target's nodes.*.ssh.key_env names
targets-repository	no	empty	owner/name of the repository that holds targets/<env>.yaml and the known_hosts files; empty reads them from the caller repository
targets-ref	no	main	branch, tag or commit of targets-repository; pin a tag or commit for a reproducible deploy
targets-dir	no	ignition	folder of targets-repository that holds targets/ (the --targets directory)
designers-timeout (apply only)	no	600	seconds to wait for open Designer sessions, 1 to 86400

Secrets. The workflows read four fixed secret names. The example maps them explicitly, which works from any caller. secrets: inherit passes them too, but only when the caller repository is in the same organization or enterprise as this repository; a caller anywhere else must map them as shown (deploy-plan.yml takes IGN_SSH_KEY and IGN_TARGETS_TOKEN, deploy-apply.yml all four).

Secret	Used for
IGN_MASTER_TOKEN	exported as IGNITION_TOKEN_<MASTER_PROFILE_UP>, the first step of the credential resolution order; apply only
IGN_BACKUP_TOKEN	the same for backup-profile, for a target with nodes.backup; apply only
IGN_SSH_KEY	the private key text, exported under the ssh-key-env name for an ssh target with key_env
IGN_TARGETS_TOKEN	a same-organization token with read access (contents) to targets-repository only; required when targets-repository is set

Tokens are never written to a file. The generated config.toml holds profile names and URLs only, at a job-temp path set through IGNITION_CLI_CONFIG, so the runner user's own config is not read; no keyring is used. known_hosts is the repo-committed file the target names. A job of these workflows that names an environment: reads that environment's secrets, but only for a name the caller passes: mapped by name as shown, from any organization, or through secrets: inherit from the same organization or enterprise. A name the caller does not pass reads empty. The plan job has no environment, so IGN_SSH_KEY for the plan must be a repository or organization secret. The probe results are listed under Secrets and the approval gate in the next section.

Runner requirements.

• Either a self-hosted Windows x64 runner with Git for Windows (bash, curl, sha256sum, git) and the Win32-OpenSSH client in System32\OpenSSH. The workflow puts that directory ahead of Git's own ssh and refuses an ssh target when ssh -V does not report OpenSSH_for_Windows.
• Or a Linux x64 or arm64 runner with bash, curl, tar, sha256sum, git and the OpenSSH ssh and sftp clients. The install was exercised in buildpack-deps:noble-curl (Ubuntu 24.04, glibc 2.39).
• Actions runner 2.327.1 or later (the artifact and script actions run on Node 24).
• Outbound https to the GitHub release downloads.
• A caller .gitignore that lists .ign/; otherwise the apply fails the run_dir_not_ignored preflight.
• Do not attach self-hosted runners to public repositories. A pull request from a fork receives no secrets and a read-only token.
• Give the deploy runner a label that no other runner in the organization carries, and put it in runs-on (the examples use ign-deploy). GitHub gives a job to any online runner whose labels include every label in runs-on; in the UAT an organization-wide runner without bash took the check job and the secrets that came with it.
• On Windows, Git for Windows 2.31 or later, with C:\Program Files\Git\bin (bash.exe) on the machine PATH that the runner service sees. The service does not read an interactive user's PATH; restart the service after changing it.
• Run the runner service as a dedicated local or domain user. ign also works under NETWORK SERVICE or LocalSystem, because it restricts its key file and run directory to the account's SID, but every service running as that account can then read the key.
• Line endings need no runner setting: every checkout and every git or ign step sets core.autocrlf=false for itself through GIT_CONFIG_COUNT.
• The Windows release zip links the C runtime statically from the first release built that way; earlier Windows builds need the VC++ 2015-2022 x64 redistributable.
• The caller organization's Actions policy must allow TheThoughtagen/ignition-cli actions and reusable workflows.

What the apply job does.

• It runs under the caller's GitHub environment:, so the environment's required reviewers approve it, once the environment exists and has reviewers (see Before enabling apply above).
• It runs in one concurrency group per env with cancel-in-progress: false. GitHub keeps one run going and one pending; a newer pending run replaces an older pending one.
• It passes --designers wait --designers-timeout <designers-timeout>.
• It always takes the .gwbk; the workflow never passes --skip-gwbk, --allow-destructive or --allow-drift.
• It installs the pinned release binary only after the asset's SHA-256 matches the release's published .sha256 file; a mismatch fails before extraction. This proves integrity against the release, not provenance; the deploy projects actions can additionally verify a build-provenance attestation (verify-attestation).

Exit and slug handling. The job classifies the result from the exit code, the stdout data.outcome and data.slug, and the stderr error.code, as ign emits them. The rolled_back and applied_backup_unsynced rows are the rolled-back and backup-unsynced verdict exceptions: a success envelope on stdout with exit 6.

What ign returned	Read from	What the job does
exit 0, applied or noop	stdout data.outcome	passes
exit 6, rolled_back (deploy_rolled_back)	stdout data.outcome, data.slug, data.cause	fails: restored automatically, nothing needs undoing
exit 6, applied_backup_unsynced (deploy_backup_unsynced)	stdout data.outcome, data.backup.reason	fails: master is live, backup lagging, do not rerun
exit 6, deploy_preflight_failed	stderr error.code and error.message	fails naming each failed check; nothing written. A designers line in the message is the Designer wait timing out
exit 6, plan_stale	stderr error.code	fails: the plan changed since review; nothing written
exit 2, destructive_change_refused	stderr error.code	fails: the plan has destructive or drifted entries and the workflow never passes the allow flags
any other exit 2	stderr error.code	fails as a pipeline bug
anything else	stderr error.code, error.message, error.hint	fails showing all three; the message carries recovery commands such as the one for deploy_journal_present

Notifications. A failed apply posts a new comment that @mentions the actor who triggered the run, and the re-running actor when different. The comment goes on the pull request (the event's own, or the one that merged the commit), otherwise on the commit, and the same text is always in the job summary. A notification API error is a warning and never replaces the deploy's own failure message. GitHub's own failure email comes in addition.

Artifacts. The apply job uploads run.json, result.json and events.ndjson from the run directories it created, plus the two ign envelopes. It never uploads snapshot/ or the .gwbk. They stay owner-only in the runner's workspace until the next checkout cleans it, so prefer ephemeral runners.

Rollback. The apply job summary prints the run_id and the command ign deploy rollback --env <env> --run <run_id> --yes. Only the run_id is needed, because the on-box record is the source of truth; see deploy rollback. Run it from a checkout of the gateway-config repository, with the same profiles and ssh access. A cancelled run can leave a journal; the next plan or apply prints the recovery command.

Testing status. The workflows were linted with actionlint and shellcheck, and their scripts were exercised on Linux and macOS. Run the first deploy from a Windows runner against a disposable gateway.

Running deploy projects in CI

One project is deployed from its own repository to one environment per pair of jobs, a read-only check and an approved apply, and a release tag is promoted from dev to prod by chaining the pairs.

There are two ways to call it:

• The composite actions deploy-projects-check and deploy-projects-apply (.github/actions/), from a caller in any organization. The caller owns both jobs, so its apply job's own environment: releases the write secrets after approval. This is the form to copy.
• The reusable workflow .github/workflows/deploy-projects.yml, with secrets: inherit from a caller in the same organization or enterprise as this repository, or with the secrets mapped by name from any other organization. It runs the same two actions from its own commit.

What each form needs follows from how GitHub delivers environment secrets; it is in Secrets and the approval gate below.

Pin the action refs and ign-version to the same release tag. The first release tag that contains the actions is cut separately, so replace v1.6.0 below with that tag.

Binary trust. The install step checks the release asset against the .sha256 published in the same release. That is integrity against the release, not proof of who built it. verify-attestation: true (an input of both actions and of deploy-projects.yml; the default is false, so nothing is required of a caller) also runs gh attestation verify on the asset after the sha256 check and before the asset is extracted or run. It checks the GitHub build-provenance attestation that this repository's release.yml publishes with actions/attest-build-provenance for the archive each tag build packaged, so a replaced asset fails even when its .sha256 was replaced too. That is provenance from this repo's release.yml, built from the archive of that workflow run, not from whatever the release serves later. Attestations are made only for tag-ref runs (refs/tags/v*), and the check binds to the tag: it passes --source-ref refs/tags/<ign-version> and --deny-self-hosted-runners, so an attestation from another ref or from a self-hosted runner fails. It needs a release built after attestations were added: v1.6.0-rc.2 and earlier have none and fail with verify-attestation: true. It needs gh on the runner's PATH (GitHub-hosted runners have it; install it on a self-hosted runner). The job's github.token is used only for that call and is removed from the environment before ign runs. To check an asset by hand: gh attestation verify <asset> --repo TheThoughtagen/ignition-cli.

name: project deploy
on:
  push:
    tags: ['v*']

permissions:
  contents: read

jobs:
  check-dev:
    runs-on: [self-hosted, windows, ign-deploy-dev]
    outputs:
      artifact_sha256: ${{ steps.check.outputs.artifact_sha256 }}
      targets_sha: ${{ steps.check.outputs.targets_sha }}
    steps:
      - id: check
        uses: TheThoughtagen/ignition-cli/.github/actions/deploy-projects-check@v1.6.0
        with:
          env: dev
          ign-version: v1.6.0
          release: ${{ github.ref_name }}
          master-profile: dev
          master-url: https://dev-gateway.example.com:8043
          ssh-key-env: DEPLOY_SSH_KEY
          targets-ref: v2026.10.1
          check-token: ${{ secrets.IGN_CHECK_TOKEN_DEV }}
          check-ssh-key: ${{ secrets.IGN_CHECK_SSH_KEY }}
          targets-token: ${{ secrets.IGN_TARGETS_TOKEN }}

  apply-dev:
    needs: check-dev
    runs-on: [self-hosted, windows, ign-deploy-dev]
    environment: dev
    concurrency:
      group: ign-deploy-projects-dev-${{ github.repository }}
      cancel-in-progress: false
    steps:
      - uses: TheThoughtagen/ignition-cli/.github/actions/deploy-projects-apply@v1.6.0
        with:
          env: dev
          ign-version: v1.6.0
          release: ${{ github.ref_name }}
          master-profile: dev
          master-url: https://dev-gateway.example.com:8043
          ssh-key-env: DEPLOY_SSH_KEY
          artifact-sha256: ${{ needs.check-dev.outputs.artifact_sha256 }}
          targets-sha: ${{ needs.check-dev.outputs.targets_sha }}
          master-token: ${{ secrets.IGN_MASTER_TOKEN }}
          ssh-key: ${{ secrets.IGN_SSH_KEY }}
          targets-token: ${{ secrets.IGN_TARGETS_TOKEN }}

  check-prod:
    needs: apply-dev
    runs-on: [self-hosted, windows, ign-deploy-prod]
    outputs:
      artifact_sha256: ${{ steps.check.outputs.artifact_sha256 }}
      targets_sha: ${{ steps.check.outputs.targets_sha }}
    steps:
      - id: check
        uses: TheThoughtagen/ignition-cli/.github/actions/deploy-projects-check@v1.6.0
        with:
          env: prod
          ign-version: v1.6.0
          release: ${{ github.ref_name }}
          master-profile: prod
          master-url: https://gateway.example.com:8043
          ssh-key-env: DEPLOY_SSH_KEY
          targets-ref: v2026.10.1
          check-token: ${{ secrets.IGN_CHECK_TOKEN_PROD }}
          check-ssh-key: ${{ secrets.IGN_CHECK_SSH_KEY }}
          targets-token: ${{ secrets.IGN_TARGETS_TOKEN }}

  apply-prod:
    needs: check-prod
    runs-on: [self-hosted, windows, ign-deploy-prod]
    environment: prod
    concurrency:
      group: ign-deploy-projects-prod-${{ github.repository }}
      cancel-in-progress: false
    steps:
      - uses: TheThoughtagen/ignition-cli/.github/actions/deploy-projects-apply@v1.6.0
        with:
          env: prod
          ign-version: v1.6.0
          release: ${{ github.ref_name }}
          master-profile: prod
          master-url: https://gateway.example.com:8043
          ssh-key-env: DEPLOY_SSH_KEY
          artifact-sha256: ${{ needs.check-prod.outputs.artifact_sha256 }}
          targets-sha: ${{ needs.check-prod.outputs.targets_sha }}
          master-token: ${{ secrets.IGN_MASTER_TOKEN }}
          ssh-key: ${{ secrets.IGN_SSH_KEY }}
          targets-token: ${{ secrets.IGN_TARGETS_TOKEN }}

What the template does:

• The check jobs have no environment:, so they run on the tag push without a reviewer. They hold only the read-only check secrets.
• Each apply job is the only place IGN_MASTER_TOKEN and IGN_SSH_KEY appear. Its environment: releases them after a reviewer approves the job.
• needs carries the checked artifact_sha256 and the targets commit (targets_sha) from the check job to the apply job. The apply action refuses to start without both, 64 and 40 lowercase hex characters, before any checkout. An apply checkout that is not the artifact the check hashed is project_hash_mismatch (exit 6) with nothing uploaded; a live project that changed since the check is plan_stale (exit 6) with nothing imported.
• check-prod needs apply-dev, so the prod pair starts only after the dev apply, including its approval, succeeded. release is the tag being deployed (github.ref_name of a v* tag).
• ssh-key-env is the name of the environment variable that the target's nodes.*.ssh.key_env names. Use a name of your own, here DEPLOY_SSH_KEY. The action refuses a reserved name: PATH, HOME, BASH_ENV, ENV, IFS, SHELLOPTS, PS4, CDPATH, and any name that starts with GITHUB_, RUNNER_, ACTIONS_, IGNITION_, IGN_, LD_ or DYLD_.
• ign-deploy-dev and ign-deploy-prod stand for a label that only the intended deploy runner carries. GitHub gives a job to any online runner whose labels include every label in runs-on, so [self-hosted, windows] matches every Windows runner the organization has. In the UAT an organization-wide runner without bash took a check job and the secrets that came with it. Add the unique label when you register the deploy runner.

Same organization: the reusable workflow. A caller in the same organization or enterprise as TheThoughtagen/ignition-cli may instead call deploy-projects.yml, which runs the same two actions from its own commit.

name: project deploy
on:
  push:
    tags: ['v*']

jobs:
  dev:
    uses: TheThoughtagen/ignition-cli/.github/workflows/deploy-projects.yml@v1.6.0
    permissions:
      contents: read
    with:
      env: dev
      environment: dev
      release: ${{ github.ref_name }}
      ign-version: v1.6.0
      runs-on: '["self-hosted", "windows", "ign-deploy-dev"]'
      master-profile: dev
      master-url: https://dev-gateway.example.com:8043
      ssh-key-env: DEPLOY_SSH_KEY
      targets-ref: v2026.10.1
    secrets: inherit

  prod:
    needs: dev
    uses: TheThoughtagen/ignition-cli/.github/workflows/deploy-projects.yml@v1.6.0
    permissions:
      contents: read
    with:
      env: prod
      environment: prod
      release: ${{ github.ref_name }}
      ign-version: v1.6.0
      runs-on: '["self-hosted", "windows", "ign-deploy-prod"]'
      master-profile: prod
      master-url: https://gateway.example.com:8043
      ssh-key-env: DEPLOY_SSH_KEY
      targets-ref: v2026.10.1
    secrets: inherit

From any other organization secrets: inherit passes nothing, and the apply job fails first, naming that cause. A caller there maps the five secrets by name instead (IGN_CHECK_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.IGN_CHECK_TOKEN_DEV }} and so on, with IGN_MASTER_TOKEN and IGN_SSH_KEY mapped as ${{ secrets.IGN_MASTER_TOKEN }} and ${{ secrets.IGN_SSH_KEY }} even though the caller job cannot read them), or writes its own two jobs with the actions as in the template above.

Secrets and the approval gate. The check runs as soon as the tag is pushed, before and without any reviewer, so it must hold nothing that can write. The write secrets must reach only a job that waits for approval. Where each secret can live is decided by how GitHub delivers it.

How GitHub delivers these secrets (probed 2026-10-28 and 2026-10-29):

• In the caller's own workflow, a job with environment: reads that environment's secrets, and a job without one reads only repository and organization secrets.
• A reusable workflow's job with environment: reads that environment's secret only for a name the caller passes. With no secrets: mapping the secret is empty, whether or not the workflow declares it.
• A name mapped in the caller's secrets: (IGN_MASTER_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.IGN_MASTER_TOKEN }}) is enough, even though the caller job has no environment and its own value is empty. This works from any organization: a WhiskeyHouse caller of deploy-projects.yml got the write token in the approved apply job (run 40794529806).
• secrets: inherit passes every name, but only within one organization or enterprise. Across organizations it passes nothing: the run fails with "Secret IGN_CHECK_TOKEN is required, but not provided".

So a caller in the same organization may use deploy-projects.yml with secrets: inherit, a caller anywhere may use it with the five secrets mapped by name, and any caller may write its own two jobs with the actions, where its apply job's own environment: resolves the environment secrets.

Secret	Job	Store it as	What it is
IGN_CHECK_TOKEN_DEV, IGN_CHECK_TOKEN_PROD	check jobs, as check-token	a repository secret, one per environment	a read-only gateway API token for that environment's gateway, minted and verified as in A read-only check token. It must answer 403 to ign doctor --check-write. --check sends GET requests only (projects/list, projects/find/<name>, projects/export/<name>)
IGN_CHECK_SSH_KEY	check jobs, as check-ssh-key	a repository secret	the private key for the check's .git probe and its read of the release record, exported under the ssh-key-env name. Only for an ssh target
IGN_MASTER_TOKEN	apply jobs only, as master-token	a secret of the GitHub environment (Settings, Environments, dev or prod)	the write-capable gateway API token
IGN_SSH_KEY	apply jobs only, as ssh-key	a secret of the GitHub environment	the private key of the deploy account, exported under the ssh-key-env name, for an ssh target
IGN_TARGETS_TOKEN	both	a repository or organization secret	a token with read access (contents) to the targets repository only. Required

Add required reviewers to each environment. The rules that keep the write secrets behind the approval:

• Reference IGN_MASTER_TOKEN and IGN_SSH_KEY only in apply jobs, as the template does. A repository or organization secret is readable by any job that names it, approved or not, which is why the write secrets are environment secrets and never repository or organization secrets.
• With deploy-projects.yml, secrets: inherit passes every secret the caller can see. The workflow itself references the write secrets only in its apply job, and that job fails first, naming the cause, when they arrive empty.

The check ssh key has two reasonable shapes, with a trade-off each:

• The same deploy key as IGN_SSH_KEY. One account to provision and rotate, and the check sees exactly what the apply will see (same account, same release record). The cost is that the key stored for the unapproved job can write the gateway's mode collection, so anyone who can get a workflow to reach that secret before approval has the deploy account.
• A second key for the same deploy account that the host restricts to read access (for example a forced read-only sftp command in authorized_keys on a Linux host; this repository has not exercised that). The unapproved job then holds nothing that can write. Do not use a different account: the release record lives in the deploy account's home (ign-deploy/<gateway>/projects/<project>/release.json), so another account would not see it and the check would report no previous release.

deploy-plan.yml maps IGN_SSH_KEY into its ungated plan job in the same way; this section does not change that. A local node needs no ssh key.

Before enabling apply, create the GitHub environments named by environment in the project repository and add their required reviewers; a job that names an environment that does not exist gets an unprotected one created for it. Restrict who may push v* tags (a tag ruleset) and, on the prod environment, which tags may deploy to it.

What the reviewer approves. The check job summary (the check action's, or the workflow's check job) prints the action (create, skip, record or import), the live and artifact hashes, the member counts, every live member an overwrite would delete, and the warnings. Approve the apply job only if that artifact_sha256 is the artifact you reviewed. The apply job runs even when the check reports skip, so a reviewer may be asked to approve a run that changes nothing: ign then ends with the outcome skipped and writes nothing, not even a release record.

Concurrency. The apply job runs in one concurrency group per environment and repository, ign-deploy-projects-<env>-<repository>, with cancel-in-progress: false. The group lives on the caller's apply job in the template, and on the workflow's apply job in the same-organization form. GitHub keeps one apply running and one pending per group, and a newer pending apply replaces an older pending one: if v1.4.0 is waiting while v1.3.0 deploys and v1.5.0 is then pushed, the v1.4.0 apply is cancelled and never runs, and v1.5.0 takes its place. Re-run the v1.4.0 workflow run if it must still be deployed. The record the deploy writes is replaced atomically, so a torn read is not possible even when a check overlaps an apply.

Targets. targets-repository (default WhiskeyHouse/whk-onprem-infra-iac), targets-ref (default main) and targets-dir (default ignition) name the folder that holds targets/<env>.yaml and the known_hosts files (--targets DIR). Each check and apply checks it out read-only with IGN_TARGETS_TOKEN, a sparse checkout of targets-dir only, and no persisted credentials. The token is never printed. The project is checked out to project/ and the targets to targets/ beside it, because actions/checkout refuses a path outside the workspace; repo-dir (default .) is relative to the project checkout.

The check resolves targets-ref to a commit, shows it in the check summary and exposes it as the targets_sha output. The apply takes no targets-ref: it reads exactly targets-sha, the commit the check read, and stops if the checkout is anywhere else, so a branch that moves between the check and the approval cannot change the host, data_dir, known_hosts pin or gateway name the approved artifact lands on.

Inputs of the deploy-projects-check action:

Input	Required	Default	Meaning
env	yes		environment name; selects targets/<env>.yaml and the entry in deploy/project.yaml
ign-version	yes		release tag to install, for example v1.6.0
release	yes		the release tag being deployed, for example github.ref_name
master-profile, master-url	yes		profile name and gateway URL of the master
check-token	yes		the read-only gateway token (IGN_CHECK_TOKEN_<ENV>); never the write token
targets-token	yes		IGN_TARGETS_TOKEN
check-ssh-key	no	empty	the check's ssh private key text (IGN_CHECK_SSH_KEY); never the apply key
ssh-key-env	no	empty	the env var NAME that the target's nodes.*.ssh.key_env names, for example DEPLOY_SSH_KEY; it receives check-ssh-key. It must not be PATH, HOME, BASH_ENV, ENV, IFS, SHELLOPTS, PS4, CDPATH, or a name starting with GITHUB_, RUNNER_, ACTIONS_, IGNITION_, IGN_, LD_ or DYLD_
repo-dir	no	.	the project repo root, relative to the project checkout
targets-repository, targets-ref, targets-dir	no	see above	where the targets are read from
ssl-verify	no	true	verify gateway TLS certificates
verify-attestation	no	false	true also verifies the release asset's build-provenance attestation with gh attestation verify before it is extracted or run; exactly true or false; needs gh and a release after v1.6.0-rc.2

Inputs of the deploy-projects-apply action:

Input	Required	Default	Meaning
env, ign-version, release, master-profile, master-url	yes		as for the check action
artifact-sha256	yes		the check job's artifact_sha256 output (64 lowercase hex), passed through needs.check-<env>.outputs. The apply deploys exactly this hash
targets-sha	yes		the check job's targets_sha output (40 lowercase hex), passed the same way. The apply reads the targets at exactly this commit
master-token	yes		the write-capable gateway token: the environment's IGN_MASTER_TOKEN
targets-token	yes		IGN_TARGETS_TOKEN
ssh-key	no	empty	the apply's ssh private key text: the environment's IGN_SSH_KEY. Required when ssh-key-env is set
artifact-suffix	no	empty	a discriminator for the deploy-records artifact name ign-deploy-projects-<env>[-<suffix>]-<run id>-<attempt>. Set a different one for each apply of the same env in one workflow run (two projects, two repo-dirs, a matrix): the artifact upload rejects a second artifact with the same name. Empty, or 1 to 40 letters, digits, ., _ or -, starting with a letter or digit
ssh-key-env	no	empty	the env var NAME that the target's nodes.*.ssh.key_env names, for example DEPLOY_SSH_KEY; it receives ssh-key. It must not be PATH, HOME, BASH_ENV, ENV, IFS, SHELLOPTS, PS4, CDPATH, or a name starting with GITHUB_, RUNNER_, ACTIONS_, IGNITION_, IGN_, LD_ or DYLD_
repo-dir, targets-repository, targets-dir	no	as for the check	the project repo root and where the targets are read from
designers-timeout	no	600	seconds to wait for open Designer sessions, 1 to 86400
ssl-verify	no	true	verify gateway TLS certificates
verify-attestation	no	false	as for the check action

The check action outputs artifact_sha256, action and targets_sha; the apply action outputs outcome (created, imported, recorded, skipped, imported_unverified and the refusals) and run_id.

Inputs of the deploy-projects.yml workflow (same-organization form):

Input	Required	Default	Meaning
env	yes		environment name; selects targets/<env>.yaml and the entry in deploy/project.yaml
environment	yes		GitHub environment whose protection rules approve the apply
ign-version	yes		release tag to install, for example v1.6.0
release	yes		the release tag being deployed, for example github.ref_name
master-profile, master-url	yes		profile name and gateway URL of the master
runs-on	no	'["self-hosted"]'	a JSON list of runner labels; include a label only the deploy runner carries, for example '["self-hosted", "windows", "ign-deploy-dev"]'
repo-dir	no	.	the project repo root, relative to the project checkout
targets-repository, targets-ref, targets-dir	no	see above	where the targets are read from
designers-timeout	no	600	seconds to wait for open Designer sessions, 1 to 86400
ssl-verify	no	true	verify gateway TLS certificates
ssh-key-env	no	empty	the env var NAME that the target's nodes.*.ssh.key_env names, for example DEPLOY_SSH_KEY; it receives IGN_CHECK_SSH_KEY in the check and IGN_SSH_KEY in the apply. It must not be PATH, HOME, BASH_ENV, ENV, IFS, SHELLOPTS, PS4, CDPATH, or a name starting with GITHUB_, RUNNER_, ACTIONS_, IGNITION_, IGN_, LD_ or DYLD_
artifact-suffix	no	empty	a discriminator for the apply's deploy-records artifact name, as for the apply action. Set a different one for each call of this workflow that applies to the same env in one workflow run
verify-attestation	no	false	a boolean passed to both actions, as for the check action

The workflow outputs artifact_sha256, targets_sha, outcome and run_id.

Child projects. The apply job summary lists one line per child project of the deployed project with its status, and the job emits one ::warning:: annotation for each child whose live content no longer matches its last deploy. Children are reported and never changed.

Failures. An exit 6 deploy_project_unverified verdict (the gateway answered but the project read back is not the artifact) fails the job with the slug and the restore command from the envelope, or says nothing can be restored when no pre-image was saved. Neither the actions nor the workflow pass --allow-downgrade or --allow-first-change: a downgrade or a first change to a project is refused (destructive_change_refused) and an administrator runs it by hand. The job uploads run.json, result.json and events.ndjson of the run directory it created and the two ign envelopes, never the saved pre-image.

What a project repository needs. The checklist is What a project repo needs; a project that is still managed by the git module is first moved over with Cutting a project over from the git module. The runner requirements are those of Running deploy in CI. For these jobs the ones that bite are a unique deploy label in runs-on, Git for Windows with Git\bin (bash.exe) on the PATH the runner service sees, and a runner service account of its own. Line endings need no setup: every checkout and git or ign step sets core.autocrlf=false through GIT_CONFIG_COUNT.

Testing status. The actions and the workflow are linted with actionlint and shellcheck, their steps are run on a Linux or macOS host against a mock gateway, and the README template is checked against the actions. On 2026-10-28 and 2026-10-29 they also ran live on GitHub, from a WhiskeyHouse caller against a disposable 8.3 gateway on a self-hosted Windows Server runner under NETWORK SERVICE, with Git for Windows' default core.autocrlf=true and no Visual C++ runtime installed, using a pre-release build of this branch: the template's two jobs created the project, then replaced it after a one-line change (imported, read-back equal, release record written), with the environment secrets reaching only the approved apply job and no key or token in the logs; the action refs and job.workflow_sha resolved across organizations; deploy-projects.yml called from that organization with the secrets mapped by name deployed too; and the concurrency queue replaced a pending apply as described above. The prod chain, a backup node and a Linux runner were not run live. Run the first deploy against a disposable gateway.

Linting (ign lint)

ign lint PATH... [--strict] [-- <extra ignition-lint args>] delegates to ignition-lint — the external linter for Ignition project resources (Perspective view structure, naming conventions, embedded scripts). The verb is LOCAL: no gateway, no profile (the envelope carries profile: null), and the tool is discovered on PATH (first executable ignition-lint wins).

The doctor posture (default). The command exits 0 whenever the tool RAN — findings are DATA, never a crash:

{"ok":true,"profile":null,"data":{"ran":true,"tool":"/path/ignition-lint",
 "child_exit_code":1,"issues_found":2,
 "report":{"issues":[...],"summary":{"errors":1,"warnings":1}},
 "stdout":"<the tool's raw stdout>","stderr_preview":"<first 4000 chars>"}}

All keys always ride (report is null when stdout was not the tool's JSON; stdout stays verbatim either way). The child's exit code travels as child_exit_code so agents can branch without parsing.

--strict for CI. With --strict the CLI exits with the linter's own code LITERALLY (exit 1 = findings at/above the tool's --fail-on threshold, default error) — the envelope still prints first, then the exit mirrors the child (masked to the 0–127 shell range; a signal-killed tool exits 1). This is the one sanctioned success-path exit exception.

No tool installed? Exit 6 lint_tool_absent with the install hint: uv tool install ignition-lint-toolkit (or pip install ignition-lint-toolkit).

Argument mapping. Every PATH rides as --target <path> on the tool's arg vector alongside --report-format json (the data contract); anything after -- passes through verbatim for the tool's own flags (--profile perspective, --checks naming, --fail-on warning, …). Spawning is an arg VECTOR — never a shell string. Pair it with project export --decode-scripts: lint the decoded .py sidecars, then re-import with --encode-scripts.

Browser E2E (ign e2e)

Two verbs. ign e2e doctor diagnoses; ign e2e init scaffolds. There is deliberately no ign e2e run — the scaffold's own npm test is the runner, and wrapping it would put this CLI in the business of proxying Playwright's reporter, flags, and exit codes.

ign e2e doctor                      # what's missing?
ign e2e init ./e2e --yes            # scaffold + npm install
cd e2e && IGNITION_PASSWORD=… npm test

What the scaffold ships. Seven members, embedded in the binary: package.json (one dev dependency — @playwright/test), playwright.config.mjs, global-setup.mjs, lib/gateway.mjs, tests/example.spec.mjs, .gitignore, and a README.md documenting every environment variable it reads.

What global setup does. Two steps, both delegating to this CLI so the scaffold never reimplements the gateway's login dance or its test protocol:

1. ign session login --json → writes data.storage_state to .auth/state.json, which playwright.config.mjs points use.storageState at. Every browser context therefore starts already authenticated, and no test ever drives the login form.
2. ign testing run --project NAME --json → runs the gateway's own Jython suite FIRST and throws if the verdict is not passed, aborting before a single page opens. A browser failure caused by broken gateway-side code is an expensive way to learn something one HTTP call already knew. Skip it with IGN_E2E_SKIP_GATEWAY_TESTS=1.

Both steps surface the CLI's own stderr and name its exit code: 3 a missing password, 5 rejected credentials, 6 a red suite.

The example suite is green on a fresh rig. It ships two tests: a tag round trip through the testing routes (passes on any gateway with the bundle deployed), and a Perspective shell check that test.skip()s — naming --run-project — when the navigation answers 404. A gateway with no views of your own must not produce a red run.

TLS. lib/gateway.mjs disables certificate verification only when the gateway host is localhost, 127.0.0.1, or ::1, and prints one warning to stderr when it does. A self-signed cert on your own machine is a papercut; the same relaxation pointed at a remote gateway silently removes the guarantee HTTPS exists to provide. The identical guard is duplicated in playwright.config.mjs (for ignoreHTTPSErrors) rather than imported — a cross-import between the runner config and a test helper is a load-order hazard — and a Rust test renders both bodies and asserts they name the same hosts and the same opt-in variable, so the two copies cannot drift. For a remote gateway behind a private CA, do not set IGNITION_ALLOW_INSECURE_LOCAL; point Node at the CA with NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS=/path/to/ca.pem instead.

.auth/state.json holds a live session cookie. The scaffold's own .gitignore lists the .auth/ directory, and its README names the file and what it contains.

Agent transports — MCP (ign mcp serve) and LSP (ign lsp)

v1.1 exposes the whole command surface over protocols. Both modes own stdout completely — the streaming exceptions above apply doubly, since inside a protocol stream a single stray byte is protocol death. Both are thin lenses: the command surface they mirror is the CLI's own, so a new CLI verb becomes an MCP tool or an LSP capability through derivation, never a second hand-written catalog.

ign mcp serve — the MCP transport

Register with any stdio MCP client:

claude mcp add ign -- ign mcp serve    # Claude Code
# generic client: command `ign`, args ["mcp", "serve"]

• The tool catalog derives from Cli::command() — every CLI verb surfaces as a tool automatically (83 at v1.1) with global args folded into each schema (--json/--compact forced on, --yes replaced by the confirm field, profile ambient). A CI parity test walks the live clap tree, so the catalog structurally cannot drift from the CLI.
• The frozen envelope rides verbatim as tool-result content — the two documented prose exceptions (ign api call's gateway-verbatim data, MCP's own refusal prose below) are dated above and in the Contract exceptions section.
• Guarded writes translate --yes to a confirm tool-call field. This applies to every --yes-guarded verb, including workspace push (confirm: true is the MCP-native confirmation for the splice). confirm is deliberately OPTIONAL in every guarded schema — a required field would invite agents to auto-fill it, defeating the human-in-the-loop gate. Omitting it returns the same refusal envelope (blast radius and all) as the tool result; unknown keys fail closed with -32602. Deliberately unguarded verbs (rig down and the others) carry no confirm property at all on either surface — that asymmetry is by design, not a gap.
• ping never starves: tool calls are served concurrently while one blocks on the gateway. protocolVersion negotiates 2025-06-18 (echo-if-equal).
• Raw-stdout verbs refuse at the bridge: ign rig logs and ign logs --follow print through in-dispatch sinks, so the MCP bridge refuses them before they can corrupt the stream — the refusal names the terminal form.

ign lsp — live gateway truth for editors

A stdio LSP server (sync dispatch loop) serving three completion families (tag paths, named queries, providers), TTL-stamped hover, and diagnostics from a TTL-cached gateway snapshot:

• Never a blocking network call inside an LSP request — handlers are pure functions over one snapshot Arc; the request path cannot hang the editor.
• A dead gateway degrades honestly: diagnostics publish EMPTY (no cached oracle, no verdict) instead of spamming errors; the background refresher re-resolves per cycle so recovery appears next cycle.
• Composition, not replacement: Python ignition-lsp keeps statics ownership (definition, codeAction, workspace symbols); nvim's native multi-client merge composes the two servers. The nvim/zed clients live in ignition-ide-plugins (ignition_live registers ign lsp beside the statics client when ign is on PATH; virtual buffers re-attach across restarts for both clients).

Agent skills — the playbook layer

The ignition-ops skills teach agents the contract rules this README codifies (envelope streams, exit taxonomy, guarded-write semantics, loss gates) without reading 1,600 lines first: ign-contract, ign-gateway, ign-tags, ign-workspace, ign-rigs. Install with npx skills add TheThoughtagen/ignition-cli (any harness the skills CLI supports) or as a Claude Code plugin: /plugin marketplace add TheThoughtagen/ignition-cli → /plugin install ignition-ops@ignition-cli.