feat(compat): a floor, not an equality — and the ordering trap under it

[emooreatx]

Closes #16. The client half of CIRISServer#497.

Yes to the decoupling. The measurement behind it is sound and the sequencing is right — a range without this ships a permanent nag.

The part that would have shipped quietly

Equality never ordered anything, so it could not be wrong about order. A floor is nothing but order, and string comparison is wrong at the versions this repo actually ships:

"0.5.9"   > "0.5.190"   lexically, because '9' > '1'
"0.5.191" < "0.5.9"     lexically

Three-digit patch numbers make that the common case here, not an edge — a floor written the obvious way decides a 0.5.9 node clears a 0.5.190 floor. compareVersions is numeric per component and the tests name those exact pairs.

Two directions, which equality conflated

question	who answers	why
node too old for this client?	MIN_NODE_VERSION, held here	a node predating the idea of declaring a floor can't tell us anything about itself
client too old for this node?	declared by the node	only the node knows which clients it supports; no client-held constant can learn that a newer node needs a newer client — it would call itself compatible and be wrong

Nothing declares the second today, so it's optional, and absent means "did not say", not "is happy". The floor this side holds still applies, which preserves the property you asked us to keep: a genuinely incompatible pair still says so.

One thing I want your view on

MIN_NODE_VERSION = 0.5.190 is not earned the way your floor was, and the code says so in place. You mutation-tested both ends — 0.5.186 fails the id gate, 0.5.188 passes it and fails the wheel gate, so neither gate alone would have blessed a safe floor. Ours is just the pairing both sides are standardising on; nothing here proves this client cannot drive an older node.

To match your rigour this needs a gate that installs the floor and exercises the API surface the client actually calls. Until then it's your phrase exactly: an untested bound is a guess with a version number on it. Happy to build that gate — it's the natural next corner for the walk-test harness in #10.

Behaviour changes, recorded rather than deleted

• version_mismatch_ignores_the_v_prefix paired 0.5.176 with itself and asserted no flag — true only under equality. A 0.5.176 node is now genuinely too old, so the prefix is demonstrated at versions where the answer isn't about age.
• version_mismatch_fires_on_a_real_difference → ..._on_a_node_below_the_floor. It still fires, for a different reason; a mere difference no longer fires at all.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

https://claude.ai/code/session_01EGE52kPzjGFiPzGcs63ZC1

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