listener-first startup means an answering listener no longer implies open gates; the websocket cases raced the serving flip on heavypad (503 'bootstrap in progress' at upgrade). wait_ready now polls /status for 'state live' (websocket cases) or merely past 'starting' (the bootstrap case, whose whole point is serving=false during its hung lifecycle). Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>