diff --git a/docs/TODO.md b/docs/TODO.md
index 665fd1e5..554c0e7c 100644
--- a/docs/TODO.md
+++ b/docs/TODO.md
@@ -14,6 +14,39 @@ doc. See [`ROADMAP.md`](ROADMAP.md) for the curated, public-facing direction.
 
 ## Next release after 1.8.21 — reported 2026-09-30
 
+- [ ] **Release blocker: Gitea → Portainer repository integration.** Diagnose
+  smart-HTTP reachability from Portainer's actual request namespace, then provide
+  one declarative topology and idempotent migration for fresh installs and
+  existing nodes. Preserve gate/auth boundaries, operator configuration,
+  repository/key/database mounts and Portainer stacks. Cover install order,
+  lifecycle/reboot/update convergence, clone/push and source-branch/Compose-file
+  acceptance with a disposable integration setup. Ship in both OTA and ISO;
+  a healthy Gitea root page is insufficient. Operator supplied a private handover;
+  deployment addresses and credentials must not be committed.
+
+- [ ] **New X250: GitWorkshop failed at 70%; slow Nginx installation.** Missing
+  ISO build contexts restored on-node; package staging/smoke checks added.
+  GitWorkshop dependency audit refreshed and build/HTTP recovery verified;
+  Nginx was a slow successful image pull. Aggregate progress label corrected.
+  Include the validated repair in the next OTA/ISO. See lifecycle evidence.
+
+- [ ] **Angor indexer service in the app store**, requested after the other
+  current repair/review work (2026-09-30). Follow the repository's app-development
+  and packaging documentation; treat it as a headless service unless upstream
+  documentation establishes a UI. Verify Bitcoin/Mempool requirements, decide
+  whether an existing first-class relay meets Angor's requirements or a relay
+  must be packaged with the indexer, and use the Angor logo from angor.io for its
+  service icon. The mentioned setup-documentation link was not included; asked
+  the operator for it. Include this service in the next-release scope.
+
+- [ ] **App lifecycle: keep installed apps visible through restart and hard
+  refresh; gate embedded/browser launches on actual web and listener readiness.**
+  Source repair and scoped live acceptance passed; full release gate pending.
+  Includes durable inventory reconstruction,
+  concurrent inventory writes, stale scan/lifecycle updates, delayed HTTP startup,
+  and the app gate's post-install listener delay. See
+  [app lifecycle repair evidence](app-lifecycle-repair-20260930.md).
+
 - [x] Review and repair open paid-download PRs #161 and #162, refresh both
   branches from main, run independent and combined isolated suites, and verify
   rootless file permissions in disposable scratch storage. Combined result:
@@ -21,23 +54,17 @@ doc. See [`ROADMAP.md`](ROADMAP.md) for the curated, public-facing direction.
   [review evidence and remaining acceptance work](pr-review-20260930.md).
 - [ ] Integrate the reviewed PR branches into the next release and run funded
   candidate acceptance, including Tor-only transport and payments with change.
-  PRs remain open; the reviewed code has not been deployed to live wallets.
+  Operator authorized completing the normal merge/closure workflow on
+  2026-09-30. Both PRs are now merged and closed through Gitea; integrate
+  local repair commits and sync git/ngit before release. The reviewed code has not yet been deployed to live wallets.
 - [ ] Design durable recovery for an accepted payment whose response is lost.
   Preserve the truthful unconfirmed-refund warning and prevent automatic
   duplicate payment while that recovery work is outstanding.
-- [ ] **ThinkPad X250 kiosk: Bitcoin installation version selector is unreadable
-  and appears underneath the pruning information.** Operator reports white
-  styling with invisible text on the actual kiosk; the same flow works in remote
-  Brave. Reproduce on the X250's kiosk engine and record its version, display
-  scale and resolution. Inspect the native `<select>` in
-  `neode-ui/src/components/InstallVersionModal.vue`, its option colors, and the
-  scroll/stacking behavior in `BaseModal.vue`; these are investigation leads,
-  not a confirmed cause. Fix contrast and popup visibility without changing
-  version selection or pruning behavior. Validate Core and Knots, open/closed
-  and scrolled dropdowns, keyboard/touch selection, and pruning on/off on the
-  actual kiosk, with remote Brave and mobile regression checks. Browser mocks
-  alone do not establish that the kiosk rendering is fixed. Track for the next
-  release; the signed 1.8.21 artifacts remain unchanged.
+- [x] **ThinkPad X250 kiosk: Bitcoin version choices readable above pruning.**
+  Replaced the native popup with inline radio choices. Actual Chromium 152 kiosk
+  assertions and screenshot verify white-on-dark choices, selection changes and
+  layout above pruning controls. Focused component tests pass. Included in the
+  next-release source; published 1.8.21 artifacts remain unchanged.
 
 ## 1.8.21 repair and release tasks — completed 2026-09-30
 
diff --git a/docs/app-lifecycle-repair-20260930.md b/docs/app-lifecycle-repair-20260930.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..4f855095
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/app-lifecycle-repair-20260930.md
@@ -0,0 +1,111 @@
+# App lifecycle repair — 2026-09-30
+
+Status: source repairs, optimized build, new-node recovery and scoped live
+lifecycle acceptance verified. Full release gate remains pending.
+These are next-release changes. Published 1.8.21 artifacts remain unchanged.
+
+## Report
+
+The operator reports that restarting an app can make it disappear, and a hard
+refresh offers installation again. Newly installed apps sometimes fail to
+connect in both embedded views and browser tabs. The new X250 additionally reproduced GitWorkshop disappearing during install
+and Nginx Proxy Manager spending approximately 14 minutes at 70%. A disposable
+app on the dev box exposed a separate restart failure.
+
+## Findings and repairs
+
+- Quadlet removes containers during stop/restart. The scanner protected existing
+  in-memory entries but did not reconstruct an absent app on a fresh daemon.
+  It now synthesizes stopped entries from the durable installed set, respecting
+  uninstall records, normalizing container prefixes, and preserving cached
+  metadata. Absence does not establish an image version or available update.
+- Concurrent read/modify/write operations could lose installed-app records;
+  in-place writes could expose truncated JSON to readers. Serialize writers,
+  publish by atomic rename, and sync the file and parent directory. Legacy
+  package install/uninstall success paths update the durable record too.
+- Scans and lifecycle/progress operations could replace a newer model from an
+  older snapshot. Use locked mutations for lifecycle/progress, and merge scan
+  results only into entries unchanged since the scan's merge snapshot.
+- Container running state and TCP accept alone did not establish HTTP readiness.
+  Add explicit `ui-ready` based on bounded HTTP probes of the loopback upstream;
+  reject connection failures and server errors, accept normal redirects and
+  authentication challenges, and do not follow redirects or send credentials.
+  Self-signed HTTPS apps are probed locally without certificate validation.
+- The app gate swept new listeners only every 60 seconds. Wake that sweep
+  immediately for a ready upstream whose declared gate port is not yet claimed,
+  and withhold readiness until external and Tor listener claims exist.
+- Fixed launch URLs could bypass suppressed runtime URLs. Enforce readiness in
+  app cards, details, centralized embedded/browser launchers, and session frames.
+  Starting/restarting clears readiness immediately. A waiting frame does not
+  load an iframe and resumes when the backend reports readiness.
+
+### New X250 findings
+
+- The published ISO copied only `bitcoin-ui`, `lnd-ui` and `electrs-ui` build
+  directories. GitWorkshop failed because `/opt/archipelago/docker/archipelago-source`
+  was missing. Copy the complete docker source tree for bundled and unbundled
+  ISOs, matching OTA packaging. Validate every manifest build context and
+  Dockerfile in OTA staging, ISO staging and the mounted ISO smoke test.
+- After restoring the omitted contexts, GitWorkshop's retained npm audit rejected
+  newly reported brace-expansion, fast-uri and ip-address vulnerabilities.
+  Refresh the existing pinned dependency patch, keeping the audit enabled.
+  Clean install/audit (zero advisories), type-check, 152 upstream tests and
+  subpath production build pass. The image builds on the X250 and `/healthz`
+  returns 200. No wallet or Bitcoin container restart was needed.
+- Nginx was receiving data, not frozen: over 1 GB read during the pull. It
+  completed at 12:40:46 UTC after starting at 12:26:27; its web endpoint returns
+  200. The orchestrated path previously labelled the entire download/build/start
+  operation "Creating container" at 70%. Give that aggregate operation its own
+  truthful label and earlier phase; no byte-level download estimate is claimed.
+- Restore install progress immediately from an already-loaded server snapshot,
+  so a new store created after hard refresh does not wait for another mutation.
+- Replace the install modal's native version popup with inline radio choices.
+  On this actual X250's Chromium 152 kiosk renderer, selection changes work,
+  options have white text on dark backgrounds, and remain above pruning controls.
+  Screenshot and browser assertions captured; no install confirmation was clicked.
+
+### Restart safety
+
+The disposable fixture restart at 12:38:05 UTC stopped its container, then
+`ss | kill` in runtime port cleanup sent SIGTERM to the management daemon at
+12:38:35. The daemon owned the gate listener on the same port at other addresses.
+Systemd restarted management; Bitcoin and LND container IDs/start times were
+unchanged. Remove port-owner kills and broad `pkill` patterns from restart,
+install recovery and Grafana preparation. Recovery now uses the existing
+container-ID-aware ghost reaper: absent container ownership must be established
+before a process is terminated. A real listening-socket regression checks that
+conflict cleanup preserves the host listener. App-gate manifest lookup now honors
+`ARCHIPELAGO_APPS_DIR`, matching the orchestrator's configured manifest root.
+
+## Validation
+
+- Full frontend suite: 139 files, 1,126 tests passed; final focused kiosk/store
+  checks: nine passed. Production frontend build passed.
+- Final isolated backend suite: 1,567 passed, zero failed, four existing ignored
+  tests. Optimized backend build passed and was deployed to the development node.
+- Tests cover empty runtime inventory, alias deduplication, uninstall exclusion,
+  concurrent durable writes, concurrent state changes, stale scan publication,
+  TCP-without-HTTP, HTTP statuses including 502/503, and gate listener claims.
+- Live disposable Node fixture delayed HTTP startup by 25 seconds. Desktop and
+  mobile retained the waiting screen through hard refresh without mounting an
+  iframe, then opened the exact fixture page automatically when ready.
+- Restart retained the app in both state APIs throughout and returned to ready;
+  the management PID did not change. Stopping removed the Quadlet container;
+  restarting management reconstructed its installed/stopped entry without a
+  false update offer. Starting it again succeeded. Desktop and mobile continued
+  to show the installed app after hard refresh.
+- LAN access required node authentication and returned exact fixture bytes after
+  authentication. The fixture was uninstalled through the package lifecycle API;
+  its temporary manifest root and service override were removed.
+- Bitcoin and LND container IDs and start times stayed unchanged through all
+  scoped checks and management restarts. No wallet data was used by the fixture.
+- X250 kiosk checks also opened the repaired GitWorkshop and Nginx Proxy Manager
+  pages successfully, with no failed local resource loads.
+
+## Limits
+
+This prevents the identified lifecycle/readiness failures; it cannot guarantee
+that an app or network never fails after a successful readiness check. Actual
+application failures must remain visible rather than being labelled successful.
+The full lifecycle/reboot release gate and funded acceptance of the reviewed
+paid-download PRs remain pending. The X250 kiosk fix has live rendering evidence.
diff --git a/docs/pr-review-20260930.md b/docs/pr-review-20260930.md
index 98bdbdb6..6169f790 100644
--- a/docs/pr-review-20260930.md
+++ b/docs/pr-review-20260930.md
@@ -111,3 +111,17 @@ Logs on the development box:
   protected.
 - The separately reported X250 kiosk version-selector rendering issue remains
   open in `TODO.md` and requires validation on the actual kiosk.
+
+## Authorized merge — 2026-09-30
+
+The operator explicitly requested normal merged/closed PR status after review.
+Re-read both PRs and verified their heads still exactly matched the reviewed
+commits. Changes from the integration-test base to main were documentation only.
+Gitea normal merges completed and read-back confirmed `merged=true`, `state=closed`:
+
+- #161: `3daea6623be3e2c7222101b8e6ac411423c7e16c`.
+- #162: `b02ba4100d922dd1b75c6a78121ef446c2159a54`.
+
+Local next-release lifecycle work will be integrated with this main before the
+next release. Funded release acceptance and the documented delivery-receipt
+limitation remain as recorded above; merging does not claim a new release.