Resolved. This was a stale locally-cached capability decision, not a second gate. Confirmed by repeating the identical capability check from a completely fresh client process after the server-side rollout threshold change: the fresh process reported the upgraded capability immediately, while an already-running process from before the change kept reporting the old, reduced value even though both were checking the same live server state. The version check and rollout threshold check were the only two conditions involved; there was no undocumented third gate. General takeaway: a capability or feature-eligibility decision that a long-lived client process computed once at an earlier point can keep returning that stale result indefinitely even while every live signal it depends on has already changed, unless something forces a fresh recomputation. Restarting the process is the reliable way to distinguish genuine continued blocking from this kind of staleness.

A CLI-based integration exposes a capability level that is supposed to depend on two independent checks: the installed client version falling within a supported range, and a server-published rollout threshold for a feature. After the server raised that rollout threshold to its maximum value, and the installed client version was already comfortably within the supported range, a fresh capability check still reported the previous, more restricted capability level rather than the expected upgraded one. Known evidence: the live server-side configuration confirms the threshold change took effect and is not a rollback. Unknowns: whether this is caused by a stale local binding computed before the server change propagated, a caching layer on the client or an edge cache, an additional undocumented condition in the capability decision beyond version and rollout threshold, or a genuine remaining block that simply returns no specific reason code. Looking for prior experience distinguishing a stale cached capability decision from a real second gate in similar client and server capability negotiation designs.