diff --git a/CLAUDE.md b/CLAUDE.md
index 90fe3c5c..849bbd3b 100644
--- a/CLAUDE.md
+++ b/CLAUDE.md
@@ -134,8 +134,13 @@ Other peers in the `scadaproj` family (see `scadaproj/CLAUDE.md` for details): `
     - **Operational constraints (read before upgrading a site pair):** stop and start both nodes TOGETHER — rolling one at a time is no longer supported, since the legacy `SfBufferSnapshot` compatibility handler went with the replicator. And a node offline longer than `LocalDb:Replication:TombstoneRetention` (default 7 days) can resurrect deleted rows on rejoin. See `docs/deployment/topology-guide.md`.
     - `LocalDb:Replication:MaxBatchSize` batches by ROW COUNT, not bytes, against a 4 MB gRPC cap — the rig pins it to **16** (~70 KB worst-case `config_json` x 16 ~= 1.1 MB). The 500 default would allow ~35 MB.
 - All timestamps are UTC throughout the system.
-- Inter-cluster communication uses two transports: ClusterClient for command/control (deployments, lifecycle, subscribe/unsubscribe handshake, snapshots) and gRPC server-streaming for real-time data (attribute values, alarm states). Both CentralCommunicationActor and SiteCommunicationActor registered with receptionist. Central creates one ClusterClient per site using NodeA/NodeB as contact points. Sites configure multiple central contact points for failover. Addresses cached in CentralCommunicationActor, refreshed periodically (60s) and on admin changes. Heartbeats serve health monitoring only.
-- gRPC streaming channel: SiteStreamGrpcServer on each site node (Kestrel HTTP/2, port 8083); central creates per-site SiteStreamGrpcClient via SiteStreamGrpcClientFactory. Site entity has GrpcNodeAAddress/GrpcNodeBAddress fields. Proto: sitestream.proto with SiteStreamService, SiteStreamEvent (oneof: AttributeValueUpdate, AlarmStateUpdate). DebugStreamEvent message removed (no longer flows through ClusterClient).
+- Inter-cluster communication uses **three** transports, not two: **ClusterClient** for command/control (deployments, lifecycle, subscribe/unsubscribe handshake, snapshots); **gRPC** server-streaming for real-time data (attribute values, alarm states); and **plain token-gated HTTP** for the deployment config itself — notify-and-fetch, the site pulls the config from `DeploymentConfigEndpoints` (`ManagementService/DeploymentConfigEndpoints.cs`) with an `X-Deployment-Token` header, `AllowAnonymous` with the per-deployment token as the entire security boundary. Both CentralCommunicationActor and SiteCommunicationActor registered with receptionist (**per node, not as a singleton** — contact rotation reaches whichever node answers). Central creates one ClusterClient per site using NodeA/NodeB as contact points. Sites configure multiple central contact points for failover. Addresses cached in CentralCommunicationActor, refreshed periodically (60s) and on admin changes. Heartbeats serve health monitoring only. **Discovery is asymmetric by design:** central discovers sites from the *database* (`Site.NodeAAddress`/`NodeBAddress`, refreshable at runtime), sites discover central from *appsettings* (`ScadaBridge:Communication:CentralContactPoints`, static — restart required). **Central never buffers for an unreachable site** — the send is dropped with a warning and the caller's Ask times out; a `ConnectionStateChanged` mechanism built for this was deleted as dead code.
+- **All clusters share ONE ActorSystem name**, `"scadabridge"` — hardcoded at `AkkaHostedService.cs:191`. Central and each site are separate clusters *only* by seed-node partitioning. This is required, not incidental: Akka.Remote address matching means a ClusterClient could not reach a differently-named system.
+- **`ActiveNodeEvaluator.SelfIsOldestUp` is THE single definition of "active node"** (`Communication/ClusterState/ActiveNodeEvaluator.cs`) — the **oldest Up member** in a role scope, and explicitly **never `cluster.State.Leader`**: leadership (lowest address) is an Akka-internal concept that diverges from singleton placement permanently once the original first node restarts and rejoins, and both sides claim it during a partition. The equivalence *oldest-Up == where `ClusterSingletonManager` places singletons* **is** the design. `ClusterActivityEvaluator.SelfIsOldest`, the S&F delivery gate, `/health/active` and the heartbeat `IsActive` stamp all delegate here.
+- Site nodes carry **two Akka roles**: the base `Site` plus a site-specific `site-{SiteId}` (`BuildRoles`, `AkkaHostedService.cs:386`). Singletons scope to the **site-specific** role.
+- **Neither inter-cluster transport is authenticated or encrypted.** Akka remoting sets no `enable-ssl`, no secure cookie, no `trusted-selection-paths`; the gRPC listener is **h2c** and `LocalDbSyncAuthInterceptor` gates *only* `/localdb_sync.v1.LocalDbSync/`, so the whole `SiteStreamService` surface — including the `PullAuditEvents`/`PullSiteCalls` RPCs that return audit rows — is callable by anyone who can reach :8083. The boundary assumes a trusted network. (The HTTP fetch token and the LocalDb sync interceptor are the only authenticated pieces.)
+- **Akka frame size is the default 128 KB with `log-frame-size-exceeding` off**, and no custom serializer is configured — so payload carried over ClusterClient is JSON-escaped a second time by the default Newtonsoft serializer, roughly doubling it. Over the limit the transport drops **that one message** without tearing down the association (heartbeats keep flowing, the site still reports healthy) and the central Ask simply times out. See `docs/known-issues/2026-06-26-deploy-config-exceeds-akka-frame-size.md`; `DeployArtifactsCommand` still carries payload and remains exposed.
+- gRPC streaming channel — **note the direction is inverted from the data flow**: data moves site→central, but each **site node hosts the gRPC server** (`SiteStreamGrpcServer`, Kestrel h2c, port 8083, mapped **only in the Site branch** of `Program.cs`) and **central is the client**, dialling in. There is **no gRPC server on central at all**, which is why the two `Ingest*` unary RPCs — documented as a "central-side ingest surface" — are dead in practice (acknowledged in `AkkaHostedService.cs:510-519`); sites reach central over ClusterClient instead. Central creates per-site `SiteStreamGrpcClient` via `SiteStreamGrpcClientFactory`, keyed **`(siteId, endpoint)`** — the key was widened from site-only to fix an arch-review High where one session's NodeA→NodeB flip disposed a channel another session was still using. Site entity has GrpcNodeAAddress/GrpcNodeBAddress fields. Proto: `sitestream.proto`, **6 RPCs** (2 server-streaming: `SubscribeInstance`, `SubscribeSite` (site-wide, alarm-only); 4 unary: `IngestAuditEvents`, `IngestCachedTelemetry`, `PullAuditEvents`, `PullSiteCalls`), `SiteStreamEvent` (oneof: AttributeValueUpdate, AlarmStateUpdate). Field numbers are never reused; evolution is additive only (`AlarmStateUpdate` grew 7→23 fields for the native-alarm mirror). Generated C# is **vendored** under `Communication/SiteStreamGrpc/` with the `<Protobuf>` include commented out — regeneration is a manual toggle-build-copy-untoggle. DebugStreamEvent message removed (no longer flows through ClusterClient).
 - Native alarms: a read-only mirror of native alarms from OPC UA Alarms & Conditions servers and the MxAccess Gateway, unified onto an A&C-style condition model (`AlarmConditionState`: orthogonal Active/Acked/Confirmed/Shelved/Suppressed + 0–1000 severity) plus an `AlarmKind` discriminator (Computed/NativeOpcUa/NativeMxAccess). New DCL capability seam `IAlarmSubscribableConnection` (implemented by the OPC UA and MxGateway adapters); the `DataConnectionActor` opens ONE alarm feed per connection and routes transitions to instances by source-object reference. A `NativeAlarmActor` (peer to the computed `AlarmActor` under `InstanceActor`) mirrors one source binding: snapshot atomic-swap on (re)subscribe, retention (drops once inactive+acked), per-source cap, and site SQLite persistence (`native_alarm_state`, survives failover, cleared on redeploy/undeploy — mirrors static overrides). State streams to central over the additively-enriched gRPC `AlarmStateUpdate` (the existing computed `AlarmStateChanged` was enriched additively) and seeds via the DebugView snapshot. Authoring: `TemplateNativeAlarmSource` / `InstanceNativeAlarmSourceOverride` entities flatten to `ResolvedNativeAlarmSource` (inherit/compose/override); management commands + ManagementActor handlers + CLI (`template/instance native-alarm-source`) + Central UI (template editor tab + instance override panel) + enriched DebugView alarm table. Read-only — no ack-back; no central tables.
 - OPC UA / MxGateway UX (M7): operator **Alarm Summary** page (`/monitoring/alarms`, RequireDeployment, read-only) fans out the existing per-instance `DebugViewSnapshot` Ask (SemaphoreSlim-capped, partial-results tolerant) and aggregates client-side — no central alarm store; shared `AlarmStateBadges` component. **Aggregated live stream shipped 2026-07-10** (`docs/plans/2026-07-10-aggregated-live-alarm-stream-plan.md`): a transient in-memory per-site central live cache (`ISiteAlarmLiveCache`) fed by a site-wide, alarm-only `SubscribeSite` gRPC stream (seed-then-stream), pushing near-real-time deltas to the page over the Blazor circuit with the 15s poll kept as fallback + NotReporting authority — still no persisted central alarm store. OPC UA node browser gains `BrowseNext` continuation paging ("Load more"), a bounded recursive address-space **search** (`IAddressSpaceSearchable` seam; depth + result caps; substring on DisplayName/path), and **type-info** (DataType/ValueRank/Writable on `BrowseNode` for Variables). Attribute-override **CSV bulk import** (`OverrideCsvParser`, all-or-nothing) via InstanceConfigure `InputFile` + CLI `instance import-overrides --file` (native-alarm-source-override CSV deferred). **Verify-endpoint** probe (temporary `RealOpcUaClient`, short timeout, captures an untrusted server cert but NEVER trusts it) + **site-local cert trust**: per-node `CertStoreActor` (runs on every site node, not a singleton) writing the `.der` into the node's OPC UA trusted-peer PKI store; DeploymentManager broadcasts `TrustServerCertCommand`/`RemoveServerCertCommand` to BOTH site nodes so PKI stores stay consistent across failover; Admin-gated cert-management UI (`/design/connections/{id}/certificates`). No central persistence of cert trust (follow-up).
 
@@ -210,9 +215,11 @@ Other peers in the `scadaproj` family (see `scadaproj/CLAUDE.md` for details): `
 ### Cluster & Failover
 - Keep-oldest split-brain resolver with `down-if-alone = on`, 15s stable-after.
 - Both nodes are seed nodes. `min-nr-of-members = 1`.
-- Failure detection: 2s heartbeat, 10s threshold. Total failover ~25s.
+- Failure detection: 2s heartbeat, 10s threshold. Total failover ~25s (drill-measured 27s, 0 routing blips — `docker/failover-drill.sh`).
 - CoordinatedShutdown for graceful singleton handover.
 - Automatic dual-node recovery from persistent storage.
+- **Active/standby is decided by `ActiveNodeEvaluator.SelfIsOldestUp`, never by cluster leadership** — see the Architecture note above. `/health/active` is **central-only** (site nodes map no `/health/*` at all) and backs both Traefik's active-node routing and `IActiveNodeGate`, so the proxy and the Inbound API always agree on which node is active. Central never needs to know which *site* node is active: ClusterClient contact rotation reaches either receptionist and the site-internal `ClusterSingletonProxy` lands the work on the active node for free. The **exception is gRPC**, which picks `GrpcNodeAAddress`/`GrpcNodeBAddress` explicitly and flips on error.
+- **KNOWN GAP — two-node keep-oldest has a total-outage hole.** Only the *first* seed listed in `Cluster:SeedNodes` may self-join to form a new cluster, so a lone restarted non-first-seed node (first seed still down) loops on `InitJoin` forever — never `Up`, never routable. After the oldest/active node crashes, the younger survivor self-downs and **cannot re-bootstrap alone**; recovery is operator-driven. `failover-drill.sh` has `DRILL_MODE=active` specifically *"to make the registered gap observable — not to pretend it is covered."* Closing it is the registered deferred keep-oldest topology/strategy decision. See `docs/requirements/Component-ClusterInfrastructure.md:113`.
 
 ### UI & Monitoring
 - Central UI: Blazor Server (ASP.NET Core + SignalR) with Bootstrap CSS. No third-party component frameworks (no Blazorise, MudBlazor, Radzen, etc.). Build custom Blazor components for tables, grids, forms, etc.