[kh0pper]

A kiosk voice turn ("play a random album") escalated to the everyday role's model, the local 35B, while a long GPU job held the box. The orchestrator refused it (box_reserved), and the turn fell back to the small fast model, which ran out of time (failed: budget). Another capable model was up the whole time.

Model role bindings already store an optional fallback list of role ids; voice ignored it.

• servers/shared/voice-keys.js: resolveVoiceKeys also returns escalateFallbacks. These are the everyday binding's fallback roles resolved to model keys, in order and de-duplicated, excluding the escalate and fast keys. It's empty when COMPANION_ESCALATION_MODEL is set, when nothing is configured, or on any failure. The module still uses lazy imports only.
• servers/gateway/voice/turn.js:
  • When it falls back: an escalation refused for box_reserved, serving_class, acquire_failed or unresolved tries each fallback key in order.
  • When it doesn't: a cold start, an abort, or every fallback failing degrades exactly as before.
  • Downstream: prompt fit uses the model that really served the turn.
  • Metrics: the kiosk metrics line gains escalation_fallback (the provider id).
• Tests:
  • a box-refused primary escalates on the fallback;
  • no fallbacks degrades as before;
  • a cold timeout tries no fallback;
  • resolveVoiceKeys returns, de-duplicates and env-overrides the fallbacks.
  • Voice and kiosk tests: 1785/0.

Nothing changes until a fallback is configured on the everyday binding.

https://claude.ai/code/session_01N9fXzvNy8rCEArj1y5p6fp