diff --git a/releases/manifest.json b/releases/manifest.json
index 45aa0e5b..1afc9e73 100644
--- a/releases/manifest.json
+++ b/releases/manifest.json
@@ -9,7 +9,9 @@
     "ISO: persistent journalctl (500M cap) so install, first-boot, and onboarding history survive reboots for post-mortem diagnosis.",
     "ISO build: verify_backend_version() refuses to ship a binary whose embedded version doesn't match core/archipelago/Cargo.toml. Catches the stale-local-build regression that shipped v1.4.0 binaries inside v1.5.0-alpha ISOs.",
     "ISO build: installer-env script passed as a bind-mounted file instead of inline `bash -c '…'` — works around a podman/overlay edge case that bricked every rebuild today at debootstrap's first tar extraction.",
-    "VPN status UI: shows 'Not configured' instead of 'Starting…' when no VPN peer has been added yet (wg0 legitimately isn't up; 'Starting' implied something was broken)."
+    "VPN status UI: shows 'Not configured' instead of 'Starting…' when no VPN peer has been added yet (wg0 legitimately isn't up; 'Starting' implied something was broken).",
+    "FIPS auto-activates the moment the seed-derived fips_key materialises at onboarding end — no Activate click on fresh installs, even before the first server restart.",
+    "Kiosk health-poll window bumped from 60s to 5 minutes (+TimeoutStartSec=360) so slower hardware doesn't race Chromium against a not-yet-ready backend and white-screen on first boot."
   ],
   "components": [
     {
@@ -17,8 +19,8 @@
       "current_version": "1.5.0-alpha",
       "new_version": "1.6.0-alpha",
       "download_url": "https://git.tx1138.com/lfg2025/archy/raw/branch/main/releases/v1.6.0-alpha/archipelago",
-      "sha256": "04b472a80ddebb4ca089455a831d8cf82a0522cc9b289a5b66bf53dc57ff466b",
-      "size_bytes": 40310192
+      "sha256": "24fc20d6e76131b44f55e4f41e1355762edf7f6d94b1cbb039fe662e97db41a9",
+      "size_bytes": 40303184
     },
     {
       "name": "archipelago-frontend-1.6.0-alpha.tar.gz",
diff --git a/releases/v1.6.0-alpha/archipelago b/releases/v1.6.0-alpha/archipelago
index c703c6e3..da870aea 100755
Binary files a/releases/v1.6.0-alpha/archipelago and b/releases/v1.6.0-alpha/archipelago differ