The evaluation mode added earlier today was hollow. An unlicensed control
plane starts, but release-build client runtimes only trust entitlement
leases chained to a Pulse-signed licence, so its client workspaces ran
without the capabilities the provider was evaluating. Standing the stack
up proved the portal and the isolation boundary and nothing else.
setup.sh now requests a capped evaluation licence from the licence server
when no licence path is set, sending only the public half of the key it
generated locally. It degrades rather than blocks: a missing key, an
unreachable server, or a licence-free response leaves the install
unlicensed with an explicit warning, an existing licence on disk is
reused, and PULSE_PROVIDER_MSP_SKIP_EVAL_LICENSE skips it for air-gapped
hosts. Guarded with an if-test rather than a trailing true inside the
command substitution, because the derive helper calls die and exit in a
subshell is not a status that can be caught, so setup.sh aborted under
set -e.
Second fix. The lease capability ceiling was selected by licence
presence, so an unlicensed provider control plane fell through to the
Pulse-hosted branch and minted leases claiming relay, mobile and push,
which a provider deployment cannot serve and which previously caused
repeating relay registration failures in client runtimes. The ceiling now
follows hosting via SetProviderHosted. providerChained keeps its narrower
meaning of having a licence available to embed.
Third. Corrects a sentence I wrote into cloud-paid.md this afternoon
claiming msp_eval carries the same MSP capabilities. A plan version
selects the workspace cap; it does not entitle a workspace.
The regression test was negative-tested by reverting the ceiling selector
and confirming it catches relay. All three setup.sh degradation paths
were exercised directly. Licence server side is pulse-pro 7f6a319 and is
not live until the next deploy-license-server run.
Two mandatory round-trips stood between an interested MSP and their first
screen, and neither was technical.
setup.sh required four image digests shipped as literal <pin>
placeholders, so the only way to get them was to ask. All four images are
publicly readable, so there was never anything to hand out. setup.sh now
resolves each blank pin to an immutable digest from its published tag via
buildx imagetools and writes it back to .env; hand-set values are left
alone.
setup.sh then died outright without a licence file, so nobody could start
the stack, create a workspace, or see the portal until a human minted a
licence for them. The control plane already ran unlicensed via
ProviderMSPPlanSourceEnvFallback; only the installer refused. A licence
path that is set but missing is still a hard failure, since that is a
misconfiguration rather than a choice.
Unlicensed now means evaluation rather than the cheapest paid tier. The
env fallback defaulted to msp_starter, handing every unlicensed
deployment the full 5-client Starter allowance and leaving no boundary
between evaluating and buying. Adds msp_eval at 2 workspaces: same
capabilities, smaller cap, not purchasable, not on the public ladder.
An isolation guarantee is the one claim a provider cannot evaluate from a
screenshot, and both MSP leads this year went quiet at exactly this step.
Contracts: cloud-paid records the unlicensed plan rule and the
strictly-below-paid invariant; deployment-installability records
credential-free, correspondence-free installability.
Verification: TestMSPEvalCapStaysBelowCheapestPaidTier,
TestCanonicalizePlanVersion_MSPEval,
TestProviderMSPSetupScriptSupportsUnlicensedEvaluation. The last was
negative-tested by reintroducing a <pin> placeholder and confirming it
fails. ensure_image_pins exercised against the live registries.
licensing, cloudcp, control-plane and installtests all green.
Exercised the full provider portal as a pilot MSP would and fixed what
made it feel broken:
- The signed-out portal promised "a sign-in link is on the way" even when
the control plane has no email provider (the bundle default), and team
invitations silently sent nothing. The portal bootstrap now carries
email_sign_in_available and provider_hosted_mode; the sign-in page shows
the host command that actually prints a link, and the invite panel says
invitation emails are not sent and how to hand over a link instead.
- New "provider-msp portal-link --email" CLI mints a one-time portal link
for an account member or pending invitee, so teammates can sign in at
all on email-less installs (bootstrap only covers the owner).
- Portal sessions were fixed at 12h; CP_SESSION_TTL now configures them
and provider-hosted MSP mode defaults to 7 days.
- Creating a client past the license cap showed a generic "Failed to
create workspace." toast: the limit error is now a JSON payload with
current/limit, the API client no longer drops non-JSON error bodies
(double body read), and the toast explains the license limit.
- Copy polish: provider-mode sign-in intro (no refunds/privacy register),
least-privilege default invite role, queue tile label matches "Client
onboarding", softer Support tab with a docs/MSP.md pointer, setup.sh
summary now prints the bootstrap next step and day-2 sign-in commands,
.env.example and docs/MSP.md document portal sign-in and sessions.
Contracts updated (cloud-paid, api-contracts, deployment-installability,
security-privacy) with verification pins in tenant_handlers_test,
config_test, magiclink_test, and provider_msp_deploy_test.
Verified live against a dockerless control plane: portal-link for an
invitee redeems, promotes the invitation, and sets a 7-day session;
the at-cap toast shows the license copy; portal vitest suite and
cloudcp/auth/account/installtests Go suites pass.
The variable signs hosted entitlement leases; the trial-activation name is
left over from the retired trial era and reads as trial machinery to an
operator generating their licensing root key. The provider MSP bundle has
no installed base yet, so the canonical rename is free today and frozen
the moment the first design partner installs.
- Control plane reads CP_ENTITLEMENT_SIGNING_PRIVATE_KEY first and falls
back to CP_TRIAL_ACTIVATION_PRIVATE_KEY, so existing Pulse-hosted cloud
deployments (deploy/cloud, hibernated snapshot) keep working unchanged.
- deploy/provider-msp (.env.example, compose, setup.sh), MSP.md, and the
install-test pins use the canonical name; error messages name it too.
- deploy/cloud intentionally keeps the legacy name: that stack historically
signed hosted trial activations, and its snapshot predates the rename.
