Measured live. All four machines run the identical host binary — same
digest, installed within eighteen seconds — and at first only one reported
a version, which read as a difference where there was none.
A machine publishes a report after an apply. The five-minute reconcile
publishes nothing, because it is the machine keeping itself as declared
rather than answering anything. So a current, idle machine never says, and
the mesh cannot tell that from a machine running something ancient.
Confirmed by pushing: not reported, then 04a27ca.
Enough for the purpose, not enough for the claim. For deciding whether a
new declaration field is safe it is sufficient — pushing is what the mesh
is about to do, and the answer arrives with the act. For knowing what the
mesh runs it is not, and "not reported" is worded as "nobody has asked
recently" for that reason.
Making a heartbeat carry it would close the gap and would change what a
heartbeat is — a bare word that the node is there, deliberately carrying
nothing else. Left alone rather than widened in passing.
jschoubben