Board: centre the indicators, and a counting region header in place of the divider

extras/galactic-unicorn/README.md

@@ -11,39 +11,87 @@ floats, nothing cycles.
 
 ```
      +-----------+
-   0 |# #  GGGGG |   V verify      runs 1-5  (oldest first)
-   2 |# #  GGGGG |                 runs 6-10 (newest last)
+   0 |# #        |   V verify
+   1 |# #GGGGG   |   runs 1-5  (oldest first)
+   2 |# #        |
+   3 |# #GGGGG   |   runs 6-10 (newest last)
    4 | #         |
-   5 | b##G#  ## |   P persist     letter on the far edge …
-   7 | G#b#G  ## |                 … dots on the near one
-  10 |###  GGRGG |   E edge        a failure in the older five
-  15 | GGGGG   ##|   S server
-  17 | GGGGY   # |                 newest run in progress
-  20 | #   GGG.. |   A agent       a young repo: only three runs
-  25 |Y Y Y Y Y Y|   overall status
-  26 | GG     ## |   B billing     US EU
-  31 |##   YY    |   P proxy
-  36 | GG     ## |   D database
-  41 |#    GG Y  |   L providers   US EU | GLOBAL
-  46 | GG G   ###|   I infra
+   5 |        ## |   P persist    letter on the far edge …
+   6 |   b##G## #|   … dots never move
+   7 |        ## |
+   8 |   G#b#G#  |
+   9 |        #  |
+  10 |###        |   E edge
+  11 |#  GGRGG   |   a failure in the older five
+  12 |##         |
+  13 |#  GGGGG   |
+  14 |###        |
+  15 |         ##|   S server
+  16 |   GGGGG#  |
+  17 |         # |
+  18 |   GGGGY  #|   newest run in progress
+  19 |        ## |
+  20 | #         |   A agent
+  21 |# #GGG..   |   a young repo: only three runs
+  22 |###        |
+  23 |# #.....   |
+  24 |# #        |
+  25 |       Y   |   region header: column 3 = three dots
+  26 |     Y Y   |   column 2 = two dots
+  27 |   Y Y Y   |   column 1 = one dot
+  28 |        ## |   B billing
+  29 |        # #|
+  30 |   G G  ## |   US EU, on the grid the runs use
+  31 |        # #|
+  32 |        ## |
+  33 |##         |   P proxy
+  34 |# #        |
+  35 |## Y Y     |
+  36 |#          |
+  37 |#          |
+  38 |        ## |   D database
+  39 |        # #|
+  40 |   G G  # #|
+  41 |        # #|
+  42 |        ## |
+  43 |#          |   L providers
+  44 |#          |
+  45 |#  G G Y   |   GLOBAL degraded behind two healthy regions
+  46 |#          |
+  47 |###        |
+  48 |        ###|   I infra
+  49 |         # |
+  50 |   G G G # |
+  51 |         # |
+  52 |        ###|
      +-----------+
+
+     x=   3 4 5 6 7   = the one grid both halves use
 ```
 
 Every row is a 3×5 letter with its status as single-pixel dots beside it. Ten
 rows fill the board exactly.
 
-Rows **alternate edges** — letter left, letter right, letter left. Ten 5-row
-letters stacked flush leave no blank row between them, so two neighbours on the
-same edge touch and blur into each other; putting them on opposite edges
-separates them horizontally instead. The whole band mirrors, letter and dots
-together, but the dots always read left to right, so run order and the
-west-to-east region order never flip.
+**Letters** alternate edges — left, right, left. Ten 5-row letters stacked flush
+leave no blank row between them, so two neighbours on the same edge touch and
+blur; opposite edges separate them horizontally instead.
+
+**Dots never move.** Letters take either the first three columns or the last
+three, so 3–7 are the only five never covered by a glyph, and both halves use
+exactly those. A repo's run columns and the service blocks sit on one grid
+running down the middle of the board. Dots always read left to right, so run
+order and the west→east region order never flip with the letter.
+
+Five columns also means a fourth region needs no layout change. A block beyond
+the fifth is **logged, not dropped** — a board that omits a region silently
+looks healthy by omission.
 
 **Repos (rows 0–24)** — V/P/E/S/A, the substrate in dependency order: verify →
 persist → edge → server → agent. Each row carries that repo's ten most recent
-GitHub Actions runs as **two rows of five dots** — the older five on the band's
-first row, the newer five two rows below, with a blank row between so they
-cannot fuse.
+GitHub Actions runs as **two rows of five dots** — the older five, then the
+newer five — on rows 2 and 4 of the letter's five, with a blank row between so
+they cannot fuse. Centring them against the glyph keeps the pair optically tied
+to its letter instead of floating above dead space.
 
 | Run | Colour |
 |---|---|
@@ -54,12 +102,21 @@ cannot fuse.
 | cancelled / skipped | grey (deliberately *not* red — superseded PR pushes cancel runs constantly) |
 | no data yet | near-black |
 
-**Divider (row 25)** — a dotted line carrying the aggregate `status`:
-green, amber, or red (`partial_outage` and `major_outage` both read red).
-
-**Services (rows 26–50)** — B/P/D/L/I: billing, proxy, database, LLM providers,
-infrastructure. One dot per region sorted **west → east** (US left of EU, like a
-map), then a gap and one dot for GLOBAL — whatever belongs to no region. Adding
+**Region header (rows 25–27)** — one column per block, its **height counting the
+column**: one dot for the first, two for the second, three for the third, so
+there is no legend to memorise. Each column is lit in that block's worst-of
+rollup colour, so the header is also a per-region summary — strictly more than
+the dotted divider it replaced, in the same space.
+
+Known limit: three header rows can count to three. A fourth or fifth block would
+pack into adjacent columns but their heights would both cap at three and the
+count would start lying. Three blocks (US, EU, GLOBAL) is what exists today.
+
+**Services (rows 28–52)** — B/P/D/L/I: billing, proxy, database, LLM providers,
+infrastructure. One dot per block, centred on the letter's middle row, on the
+same centre grid the runs use — spaced every other column while they fit, which
+reads better and keeps neighbours from merging. Sorted **west → east** (US left
+of EU, like a map), with GLOBAL last — whatever belongs to no region. Adding
 a region adds a dot, no code change. Each dot is the **worst** status among that
 block's components, so a single sick provider cannot hide behind healthy
 siblings. Green operational, amber degraded, red outage, dim blue unknown.
@@ -72,6 +129,12 @@ independently: no successful `/api/v1/status` for 90 s turns the health grid
 blue, and no successful `/api/v1/ci` for 3 minutes turns the centipedes blue,
 each without touching the other.
 
+The service also reports staleness of its own: when its poll loop has not
+produced a snapshot within the poll window it answers `stale: true` with
+`age_seconds`, and the board goes blue on that alone. Otherwise an HTTP 200
+carrying a stalled node's last healthy snapshot would render as current
+indefinitely — the board would be reporting freshness it does not have.
+
 ## Orientation
 
 The default is a counter-clockwise rotation, which is correct when the panel