The instance had no idea what version it was: VERSION drives tagging and the
image publish, but was never stamped into the assemblies, so a running build
reported 1.0.0 forever. Directory.Build.props now stamps it into every project.
The dashboard compares that against the newest tag in the source repository and
shows a banner when behind. A plain GET of a public tag list -- nothing about
the instance is sent -- cached six hours, failing quiet.
Two things it deliberately does not do. It never blocks a render: the banner
paints from the cached answer and refreshes after first render, so a cold start
or an unreachable repository costs nothing rather than holding the dashboard
open for an HTTP timeout. And it never guesses: an unknown version on either
side shows no banner at all, because a banner that cannot clear trains people
to ignore the next real one.
Version comparison is numeric on exactly three components, not System.Version
and not string order. Tags are written vX.Y.Z, the assembly reports X.Y.Z with
a +commithash suffix, and "0.10.0" sorts below "0.9.0" as a string -- each of
those is a way the banner sticks or never appears. Prerelease suffixes compare
equal to their release so an rc tag does not nag. Gitea does not promise semver
ordering, so the highest tag wins rather than the first.
The command shown depends on the install: the LXC has `update`, a container is
replaced by pulling an image, and telling container users to run `update` sends
them after a command that does not exist.
No update *button*. The UI has no authentication and the LXC runs the app as
root, and `update` builds whatever is on master, so a click would be an
unauthenticated path to arbitrary code execution for anything on the LAN. The
README now states the no-auth position plainly rather than leaving it implied.
Tests cover the parse and ordering cases that would strand a banner, the Gitea
payload shape captured from the live API, unreachable and garbage responses,
and that the VERSION file actually reaches the assembly -- read from MeterVault's
own assembly rather than GetEntryAssembly(), which under `dotnet test` is the
test host and reported a confident wrong answer. The suite makes no outbound
request: the app factory disables the check.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01V6joyergfvVLFEizH1hJLd
