diff --git a/core/Cargo.lock b/core/Cargo.lock
index e57b7b67..3236f32b 100644
--- a/core/Cargo.lock
+++ b/core/Cargo.lock
@@ -80,7 +80,7 @@ checksum = "a23eb6b1614318a8071c9b2521f36b424b2c83db5eb3a0fead4a6c0809af6e61"
 
 [[package]]
 name = "archipelago"
-version = "1.5.0-alpha"
+version = "1.6.0-alpha"
 dependencies = [
  "anyhow",
  "archipelago-container",
diff --git a/core/archipelago/Cargo.toml b/core/archipelago/Cargo.toml
index b599844c..05f330b3 100644
--- a/core/archipelago/Cargo.toml
+++ b/core/archipelago/Cargo.toml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 [package]
 name = "archipelago"
-version = "1.5.0-alpha"
+version = "1.6.0-alpha"
 edition = "2021"
 description = "Archipelago Bitcoin Node OS - Native backend"
 authors = ["Archipelago Team"]
diff --git a/neode-ui/package.json b/neode-ui/package.json
index 258ac501..8939b508 100644
--- a/neode-ui/package.json
+++ b/neode-ui/package.json
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 {
   "name": "neode-ui",
   "private": true,
-  "version": "1.5.0-alpha",
+  "version": "1.6.0-alpha",
   "type": "module",
   "scripts": {
     "start": "./start-dev.sh",
diff --git a/releases/manifest.json b/releases/manifest.json
index bcdfdd59..fd246bbe 100644
--- a/releases/manifest.json
+++ b/releases/manifest.json
@@ -1,39 +1,25 @@
 {
-  "version": "1.5.0-alpha",
+  "version": "1.6.0-alpha",
   "release_date": "2026-04-19",
   "changelog": [
-    "FIPS-first transport for federation, messaging, peer linking, and file sharing — Tor stays as automatic fallback",
-    "Per-service transport preference Settings card (Auto / FIPS / Tor) per node-to-node surface",
-    "Transport badge (FIPS / TOR / LAN / MESH) on every federated node card, reflecting the transport actually used on the last reach",
-    "Transitive federation — accepting one peer automatically learns their trusted peers (one hop) so subsequent syncs go over FIPS directly",
-    "State snapshots advertise own_fips_npub so pre-v1.4 federation pairs auto-upgrade to FIPS on the next sync",
-    "Cancel button for outbound pending peer requests: withdraws locally and notifies the recipient to drop their inbound row",
-    "Bidirectional /network peer requests — accept notifies the requester so both sides show the relationship without a manual second click",
-    "Dedicated FIPS peer listener bound to fips0 ULA on port 5679 with a path whitelist (only signed endpoints are reachable from the mesh)",
-    "Lazy-bind peer listener — fips.install post-onboarding activates the mesh without an archipelago restart",
-    "Self-add guard on peers.json so messages echoed back through federation can't leave a phantom self-peer entry",
-    "Multi-relay nostr profile publish — kind:0 broadcasts to every enabled relay in Manage Relays with per-relay accept/reject feedback",
-    "Profile avatar + banner upload via /api/blob on the Edit Profile dialog",
-    "nginx body-size limit raised to 256m on mesh/content/dwn peer paths (fixes 413 on attachments)",
-    "Deploy script writes /opt/archipelago/build-info.txt on every deploy so the UI sidebar version never drifts from the binary again",
-    "Deploy script forces sites-enabled to be a symlink to sites-available so config updates actually take effect"
+    "System-update flow smoke test — this release exists solely to validate the in-app update path end-to-end; there are no functional changes versus v1.5.0-alpha."
   ],
   "components": [
     {
       "name": "archipelago",
-      "current_version": "1.4.0",
-      "new_version": "1.5.0-alpha",
-      "download_url": "https://git.tx1138.com/lfg2025/archy/raw/branch/main/releases/v1.5.0-alpha/archipelago",
-      "sha256": "e3df7a68f31a1e76e072a27eac6c84599d340697a672ab0bd8f85e4d2b65ed71",
-      "size_bytes": 40078936
+      "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": "a65da755af87a4bc6b0ab2e2db376e0ea8a663ef78bfeebf541d576bf0104676",
+      "size_bytes": 40262192
     },
     {
-      "name": "archipelago-frontend-1.5.0-alpha.tar.gz",
-      "current_version": "1.4.0",
-      "new_version": "1.5.0-alpha",
-      "download_url": "https://git.tx1138.com/lfg2025/archy/raw/branch/main/releases/v1.5.0-alpha/archipelago-frontend-1.5.0-alpha.tar.gz",
-      "sha256": "2bf973eeb1998d4d9f829e54fd249c5a33625ee3d24a4abfc980ff86f3a3af51",
-      "size_bytes": 53358751
+      "name": "archipelago-frontend-1.6.0-alpha.tar.gz",
+      "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-frontend-1.6.0-alpha.tar.gz",
+      "sha256": "4ece4f264c25c30a7a4e9c2c573c4b34a566f17572d21e531b8087e187e5f1fd",
+      "size_bytes": 76985962
     }
   ]
 }
diff --git a/releases/v1.6.0-alpha/archipelago b/releases/v1.6.0-alpha/archipelago
new file mode 100755
index 00000000..ef75e577
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diff --git a/releases/v1.6.0-alpha/archipelago-frontend-1.6.0-alpha.tar.gz b/releases/v1.6.0-alpha/archipelago-frontend-1.6.0-alpha.tar.gz
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..28eb801a
Binary files /dev/null and b/releases/v1.6.0-alpha/archipelago-frontend-1.6.0-alpha.tar.gz differ