# Diagnosis — 2026-09-21

1. The mixed state is already a first-class, visible one. The controller keeps three outcomes for
   a machine's last report — applied, failed, refused — and defines `failed` as "some of it: the
   machine is in a state nobody declared", with the failed resources and how many did apply beside
   it. `status` lists such a machine as not doing what it was told. So the second open question
   is answered as it stands: "partway through a change" is distinct from "converged" and from
   "refused", and has been since the report was kept.
2. What is not visible is duration, and that is [issue 065](../065-a-permanently-failing-resource-is-retried-for-ever-with-no-escalation/00-report.md),
   resolved alongside: a machine that stays in the mixed state now reads as stuck.
3. The first and third questions — pairings whose half-state is harmful, and whether `restart-on`
   is the seed of a grouping — are a design decision the record does not yet contain. `restart-on`
   couples a service to files within one apply but does not withhold either when the other fails.
   No incident has produced a harmful pair; the report was written from reading the loop. A
   grouping primitive without a case that needs it would be a rule enforced against nothing.

**Located in:** mesh-host `internal/apply` (the loop) and the controller's report. Left open for
the grouping question alone; it closes when a coupled pair that must not be half-applied is
found in a module, and the declaration gains a way to say so — or when enough modules have run
that the absence is evidence. The visibility half is done.