test(lifecycle): make the electrumx suite sync-aware instead of sync-destroying

Two problems with running the gate against a mid-initial-sync electrumx:

1. The (now honest) protocol probe can only fail — ElectrumX serves no
   sessions until it has caught up to its daemon, so the failure names a
   state nobody can act on.
2. Worse, the destructive stop/start/restart tests actively destroy sync
   progress: electrumx flushes its DB cache at 1GB, i.e. rarely, and every
   restart discards all unflushed work back to the last flush. This node
   spent 8d14h in initial sync largely because gate runs and reboots kept
   taking hours of progress away — it restarted at 06:16 and resumed from
   959,774, the same height it had reported hours earlier.

The suite now detects initial sync POSITIVELY — a fresh (<30 min)
"our height: N daemon: M" line from electrumx's own log, gap > 10 — and
skips the probe and the four destructive tests with the gap named:

  # skip electrumx initial sync in progress (1672 blocks behind) — ...

This is not the container-absent skip trap fixed earlier: absence of the
log line means "unknown" and the tests run and fail honestly. Validated
against the live mid-sync node: all four guards fired with the real gap;
on a synced node the line shows gap 0-1 and everything runs.

Unblocks the release gate from waiting hours on a sync it was itself
prolonging.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

tests/lifecycle/bats/electrumx.bats

@@ -27,6 +27,38 @@ teardown_file() {
   rpc_logout_local
 }
 
+# How far electrumx is behind its bitcoin daemon, from its own recent log
+# ("our height: N ... daemon: M"). Prints the gap; prints nothing when no
+# fresh (<30 min) sync line exists — callers must treat that as "unknown",
+# never as "synced".
+#
+# Why this exists: ElectrumX serves NO sessions until its initial sync has
+# caught up, and it flushes its DB cache at 1GB — i.e. rarely — so every
+# restart discards all unflushed progress back to the last flush. On
+# 2026-08-09 this node had spent 8d14h syncing largely because gate runs and
+# reboots kept taking its progress away. A gate that stop/start/restarts a
+# mid-sync electrumx therefore (a) honestly fails the serving probe and
+# (b) actively destroys hours of sync work. Skipping WITH THE GAP NAMED is
+# the truthful behaviour — this is a positively-detected syncing state, not
+# the container-absent skip trap fixed earlier in this file's history.
+electrumx_sync_gap() {
+  local line ours daemon
+  line=$(podman logs --tail 400 --since 30m electrumx 2>/dev/null \
+    | grep -E 'our height: [0-9,]+ daemon: [0-9,]+' | tail -1)
+  [[ -z "$line" ]] && return 0
+  ours=$(echo "$line" | grep -oE 'our height: [0-9,]+' | tr -dc '0-9')
+  daemon=$(echo "$line" | grep -oE 'daemon: [0-9,]+' | tr -dc '0-9')
+  [[ -n "$ours" && -n "$daemon" ]] && echo $((daemon - ours))
+}
+
+skip_if_initial_sync() {
+  local gap
+  gap=$(electrumx_sync_gap)
+  if [[ -n "$gap" ]] && (( gap > 10 )); then
+    skip "electrumx initial sync in progress ($gap blocks behind) — $1"
+  fi
+}
+
 # ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 # Read-only tier
 # ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
@@ -52,6 +84,10 @@ teardown_file() {
     skip "electrumx not running (state=$state)"
   fi
 
+  # ElectrumX serves no sessions until initial sync completes, so probing a
+  # mid-sync instance can only fail — skip with the gap named instead.
+  skip_if_initial_sync "sessions are not served until it catches up"
+
   # Same probe required-stack.bats uses — divergence flags a real regression.
   # It is a real Electrum round-trip, not a bare connect(): podman's port
   # forwarder accepts the TCP handshake on the host-published port even when
@@ -96,6 +132,7 @@ PY
 
 @test "package.stop transitions electrumx to stopped" {
   [[ "${ARCHY_ALLOW_DESTRUCTIVE:-0}" == "1" ]] || skip "ARCHY_ALLOW_DESTRUCTIVE not set"
+  skip_if_initial_sync "restarting discards unflushed sync progress (1GB flush cache)"
 
   run rpc_result package.stop '{"id":"electrumx"}'
   [ "$status" -eq 0 ]
@@ -106,6 +143,7 @@ PY
 
 @test "package.start brings electrumx back to running" {
   [[ "${ARCHY_ALLOW_DESTRUCTIVE:-0}" == "1" ]] || skip "ARCHY_ALLOW_DESTRUCTIVE not set"
+  skip_if_initial_sync "restarting discards unflushed sync progress (1GB flush cache)"
 
   run rpc_result package.start '{"id":"electrumx"}'
   [ "$status" -eq 0 ]
@@ -116,6 +154,7 @@ PY
 
 @test "package.restart leaves electrumx in running state" {
   [[ "${ARCHY_ALLOW_DESTRUCTIVE:-0}" == "1" ]] || skip "ARCHY_ALLOW_DESTRUCTIVE not set"
+  skip_if_initial_sync "restarting discards unflushed sync progress (1GB flush cache)"
 
   run rpc_result package.restart '{"id":"electrumx"}'
   [ "$status" -eq 0 ]
@@ -126,6 +165,7 @@ PY
 
 @test "electrumx TCP port recovers after restart" {
   [[ "${ARCHY_ALLOW_DESTRUCTIVE:-0}" == "1" ]] || skip "ARCHY_ALLOW_DESTRUCTIVE not set"
+  skip_if_initial_sync "restarting discards unflushed sync progress (1GB flush cache)"
 
   # electrumx replays its index against bitcoind on cold start; allow 120s.
   local deadline=$(( $(date +%s) + 120 ))

tests/lifecycle/bats/required-stack.bats

@@ -50,6 +50,24 @@ skip_if_not_installed() {
   container_installed "$1" || skip "$1 not installed on this node"
 }
 
+# ElectrumX serves no sessions until its initial sync completes, so the
+# protocol probe below can only fail mid-sync. Skip with the gap NAMED (a
+# positively-detected state from a fresh log line, never inferred from
+# absence). Canonical rationale lives in electrumx.bats next to its twin.
+skip_if_electrumx_initial_sync() {
+  local line ours daemon
+  line=$(podman logs --tail 400 --since 30m electrumx 2>/dev/null \
+    | grep -E 'our height: [0-9,]+ daemon: [0-9,]+' | tail -1)
+  [[ -z "$line" ]] && return 0
+  ours=$(echo "$line" | grep -oE 'our height: [0-9,]+' | tr -dc '0-9')
+  daemon=$(echo "$line" | grep -oE 'daemon: [0-9,]+' | tr -dc '0-9')
+  [[ -n "$ours" && -n "$daemon" ]] || return 0
+  local gap=$((daemon - ours))
+  if (( gap > 10 )); then
+    skip "electrumx initial sync in progress ($gap blocks behind) — sessions are not served until it catches up"
+  fi
+}
+
 # The subset of required_containers actually installed on this node.
 installed_required_containers() {
   local c
@@ -135,6 +153,7 @@ bitcoin_json() {
 
 @test "electrumx answers the Electrum protocol (not just an open socket)" {
   skip_if_not_installed electrumx
+  skip_if_electrumx_initial_sync
   # A bare connect() to the HOST-published port proves nothing: podman's port
   # forwarder accepts the TCP handshake even when nothing inside the container
   # is listening. On 2026-08-09 this test was green while mempool-api was in a