Observed on .228: /var/lib/archipelago/peers.json contained an entry
matching the node's own node_key.pub pubkey. It had been added
2026-03-02 and stuck around forever since add_peer() only dedupes by
pubkey — nothing stops a pubkey that happens to be ours.
How it probably got there: somewhere in the auto-add paths
(node-message receive, mesh federation bridge, invite back-and-forth)
a message we'd sent was fed back and the receiver-side add used the
echoed from_pubkey without realising it was us. Doesn't matter which
path — the guard belongs in storage.
add_peer now short-circuits when the candidate pubkey matches
data_dir/identity/node_key.pub. Helper is_own_pubkey best-effort:
unreadable identity → returns false so normal peers aren't blocked.
Also manually purged the one stray entry on .228 (1 removed, 2 real
peers remain). Future deploys include this guard so the phantom can't
come back.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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