diff --git a/PLAN.md b/PLAN.md
index 3f26d90..4c32d67 100644
--- a/PLAN.md
+++ b/PLAN.md
@@ -111,44 +111,158 @@ CODEX_HOME redirect, env propagation). The live API smoke was deferred — see
 ARCHITECTURE.md "What Phase 2 deliberately doesn't do". Phase 3's host-OAuth
 work closes the gap naturally.
 
-### Phase 3 — Static host-rooted secrets [pending]
+### Phase 2.x — Post-MVP polish [done — commits `7608f27`..`d3914b9`]
+
+A series of small fixes landed between Phase 2 and Phase 3, all triggered by
+real testing on the user's laptop. Listed here so the next reader knows
+they're in already and doesn't redo the work.
+
+- **`RUST_LOG` wiring** (`7608f27`). `tracing-subscriber` initialized in
+  `main`, defaults to `warn`. The microsandbox stack is silent otherwise.
+- **Auto-recover the local registry container** (`a57ed6d`). `build.sh`'s
+  `ensure_registry` was rewritten as a state machine that handles every
+  `docker ps` state, polls `/v2/` after start, and recreates from scratch
+  if a stale container is running with no port mapping. Plus per-phase
+  banners so long waits don't look like a hang.
+- **Mirror the host project path inside the guest** (`92ff582`). `cwd` is
+  bind-mounted at the same absolute path, so anything the agent emits
+  (compiler errors, stack traces, file:line references) is interpretable on
+  the host. Paths under tmpfs mount points (`/tmp`, `/run`, `/dev/shm`,
+  `/var/run`) fall back to `/workspace` with a warning, because the guest
+  tmpfs-mounts them at boot and wipes any patch-created mount point.
+- **`AGENT_VM_PROFILE=1`** (`127f6b3`). Prints per-phase wall-time
+  (create / run / stop / remove) for the launcher. Confirmed total is
+  ~1.5 s, dominated by VM boot (~1.0 s of libkrun kernel boot).
+- **Pull progress bar** (`2489168`..`66ed8f3`..`3ffd6b6`..`984680a`).
+  Two-phase indicatif renderer: spinner with text during download, real
+  byte-weighted bar during materialize. Single line, single spinner, ETA
+  based on materialize-only rate (no more "29 minute" → "17 second" jumps).
+- **`agent-vm pull` + per-launch update-available banner**
+  (`bfab9d3`..`d3914b9`). Pulls are explicit; `agent-vm shell` only does a
+  cheap manifest-digest HEAD against the registry and prints a banner when
+  the per-platform digest differs from what we last pulled. The "what we
+  last pulled" digest is tracked in our own marker file
+  (`~/.local/state/agent-vm/pulled-digests/<hash>`), atomically written
+  only after a successful pull, so an interrupted pull never leaves the
+  microsandbox cache in an empty or stale state.
+
+### Phase 3 — Static host-rooted secrets [next]
+
+The big architectural payoff of moving to microsandbox: real tokens never
+enter the VM.
 
 - Branch `vendor/microsandbox` to add a `SecretValue::File(PathBuf)` variant
-  alongside the existing `String` value. The TLS-intercept proxy re-reads the
-  file on every substitution.
+  alongside the existing `String` value. The TLS-intercept proxy re-reads
+  the file on every substitution. Required because microsandbox's
+  `SecretEntry.value: String` is captured at sandbox-builder time, with no
+  runtime update path.
+- Enable TLS interception on the sandbox (`network(|n| n.tls(...))`) —
+  microsandbox's secrets are only substituted on TLS-intercepted
+  connections to allowed hosts, and the guest needs the sandbox CA in its
+  trust store.
 - `agent-vm` on startup snapshots host `~/.claude/.credentials.json` and
-  `~/.codex/auth.json` into `<state>/tokens/{anthropic,openai}.token` files.
+  `~/.codex/auth.json` into `<state>/tokens/{anthropic,openai}.token`
+  files (just the `access_token`, never the refresh token).
 - Register file-backed secret entries for `api.anthropic.com`,
-  `api.openai.com`, `chatgpt.com`, `platform.claude.com`, etc.
-- Cross-instance lock so two `agent-vm` processes don't fight over the token
-  files.
+  `api.openai.com`, `chatgpt.com`, `platform.claude.com`,
+  `auth.openai.com`, etc.
+- Cross-instance lockfile under `<state>/tokens/` so two `agent-vm`
+  processes don't race when both want to refresh.
 
-**Done when:** inside the guest, `cat /proc/$$/environ | tr '\0' '\n' | grep
-ANTHROPIC` shows only placeholders, while a real Claude request succeeds.
+**Done when:** inside the guest, `cat /proc/$$/environ | tr '\0' '\n' |
+grep -i token` shows only placeholders, while a real Claude (host OAuth)
+request succeeds end-to-end and writes a turn to disk.
 
 ### Phase 4 — Refresh semantics [pending]
 
+Tokens rotate; long-running sandbox sessions must survive that without
+re-attaching. Phase 3 makes the access token swappable; this phase teaches
+agent-vm to actually do the swap.
+
 - inotify (Linux) / kqueue (macOS) watcher on host creds files: when host
-  Claude/Codex rotates tokens, we re-snapshot to the file microsandbox watches.
-- Proactive expiry watch: when the access token is < 5 minutes from expiry
-  and no host activity has refreshed it, spawn `claude -p "ping" --model
-  sonnet` / `codex exec --skip-git-repo-check "Reply OK"` on the host.
+  Claude/Codex rotates tokens externally (the user runs `claude` on the
+  host, etc.), we re-snapshot to the file microsandbox watches.
+- Proactive expiry watch: when the access token is < 5 minutes from
+  expiry and no host activity has refreshed it, spawn `claude -p "ping"
+  --model sonnet` / `codex exec --skip-git-repo-check "Reply OK"` on the
+  host so the host-side CLI rotates the file.
 - Single-flight per credential; cross-instance lockfile so concurrent
   `agent-vm` instances don't all kick off a refresh at once.
 
-**Done when:** a multi-hour session crosses a token rotation without the agent
-seeing an auth error.
+**Done when:** a multi-hour session crosses a token rotation without the
+agent seeing an auth error and without manual intervention.
 
-### Phase 5 — Polish & docs [pending]
+### Phase 5 — Snapshot-based fast launch [pending — perf win]
 
-- `.agent-vm.runtime.sh` project hook.
-- `--memory N` flag (passed through to microsandbox builder).
-- Full arg passthrough to the agent command.
-- README rewrite: install, setup, usage, troubleshooting.
-- Smoke tests: at least one end-to-end test that boots the image and runs a
-  trivial agent command.
+Surfaced during Phase 2.x profiling and discussed with the user when they
+asked why `agent-vm pull` was so slow. Every `agent-vm shell` currently
+spends ~1.0 s booting the libkrun kernel + initing the guest agent;
+microsandbox has a snapshot/restore API that should drop that to ~100 ms
+*and* skip the EROFS materialize step on a re-pull.
 
-**Done when:** README is publishable; one CI smoke test green.
+- One-shot snapshot generation: `agent-vm setup` (or a new `agent-vm
+  snapshot`) boots the image once, lets it reach a quiet steady state,
+  takes a snapshot, and stashes it under `<microsandbox-home>/snapshots/`.
+- Launcher: if a snapshot exists, use `Sandbox::builder(...).from_snapshot
+  (snapshot_path)` instead of `.image(...)`. Falls back to cold boot if
+  the snapshot is missing or wrong-digest.
+- Re-snapshot whenever `agent-vm pull` lands a new manifest (snapshots are
+  pinned to a specific image digest by microsandbox).
+- Bake the per-agent symlinks + state mount point into the snapshot so
+  the launcher doesn't need to re-apply patches each invocation.
+
+**Done when:** `time agent-vm shell -- -c true` is well under 500 ms in
+the steady state.
+
+### Phase 6 — Distribution + polish + docs [pending]
+
+The "ready to share with a teammate" phase.
+
+- **Auto-install of the microsandbox runtime.** The agent-vm binary ships
+  on its own; `~/.microsandbox/{bin/msb, lib/libkrunfw.so.5.2.1}` are
+  needed but not bundled. Wrap `microsandbox::setup::install()` so first
+  run downloads them automatically if missing. Verify version matches the
+  prebuilt the binary was built against.
+- **CLI flag promotion.** `--memory N`, `--cpus N`, `--image REF`,
+  `--no-update-check`. Today these are env-var only (`AGENT_VM_*`).
+- **`.agent-vm.runtime.sh` project hook.** Script executed in the guest
+  immediately before the agent starts, for project-local setup
+  (`npm install`, `docker compose up`, etc.).
+- **README rewrite.** Install, prereqs, setup, usage, troubleshooting,
+  the registry/marker/snapshot internals at a high level.
+- **CI smoke test.** GitHub Actions workflow that builds the image, runs
+  `agent-vm setup --no-verify`, and `agent-vm shell -- -c 'echo ok'`.
+- **macOS/aarch64 binary.** Cross-compile or native-build on each
+  platform microsandbox supports.
+
+**Done when:** README is publishable, CI smoke green on at least linux-amd64,
+binary works from a fresh checkout on a host where microsandbox runtime is
+not pre-installed.
+
+## Discovered upstream issues
+
+Things we worked around during Phase 2.x that should eventually be filed
+or fixed in `wirenboard/microsandbox`:
+
+1. **`PullPolicy::Always` doesn't refresh the cached manifest digest.**
+   It re-fetches layer blobs correctly, but `Image::persist`'s fast-path
+   detection skips the DB update under the same reference even when the
+   per-platform manifest digest changed. We work around it with our own
+   marker file rather than `Image::remove` (because remove + re-pull
+   opens an empty-cache window).
+2. **`LayerDownloadProgress` events are often elided** for fast registries
+   (we never see them with localhost). Only `LayerDownloadComplete` fires.
+   Not exactly a bug, but undocumented and bit us when we tried to drive a
+   download-bytes bar.
+3. **libkrun virtio IRQ cap is low** (~6 devices). We're constrained to
+   2 bind mounts on top of the OCI overlay's 2-device cost. Bigger fan-out
+   needs upstream tuning of the libkrun build.
+4. **Manifest media-type assumptions.** Microsandbox stores the
+   per-platform manifest digest; a registry HEAD on a tag returns the
+   multi-arch index digest by default. Either would be fine to use, but
+   the SDK doesn't expose either as "ask the registry what's there now"
+   so we end up doing raw HTTP. A `Image::resolve(reference) -> RemoteRef`
+   helper would clean this up.
 
 ## Working agreements
 
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 323d810..1340a7b 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -21,7 +21,13 @@ until v1 of the rewrite ships.
 - Phase 1 (base OCI image + `agent-vm setup`): done.
 - Phase 2 (launcher MVP — `claude`/`codex`/`opencode`/`shell`): done; live
   API smoke deferred to Phase 3.
-- Phase 3 (host-rooted secrets via microsandbox TLS intercept): pending.
+- Phase 2.x (RUST_LOG, host-path mounting, pull progress bar,
+  `agent-vm pull` + update-available banner, registry auto-recovery):
+  done.
+- Phase 3 (host-rooted secrets via microsandbox TLS intercept): **next**.
+- Phase 4 (token-refresh semantics): pending.
+- Phase 5 (snapshot-based fast launch): pending.
+- Phase 6 (distribution + polish + docs): pending.
 
 ## Building