argus: audit addendum -- Groq lane corrected (clean probe reads HTTP 200 PONG on qwen3.8-27b three times; the earlier 401 was a stale key in the batch probe), Groq is the only verified free lane on this host

audits/2026-10-25-argus.md

@@ -84,11 +84,15 @@ though it may have meant pull requests.
     `Reply with exactly: PONG` → `"PONG"`. **This is the only live text lane on this host.**
   - `deepseek/deepseek-chat:free` → HTTP 400, `supported API model names are deepseek-flash, deepseek-v4-pro`
     — **no free route exists at DeepSeek at all.**
-  - Groq (key in kendra/sherry/spark-snippet-wizard) → `/models` HTTP 200, 12 models
-    (`qwen/qwen3.8-27b`, `openai/gpt-oss-120b`, `openai/gpt-oss-20b`, `whisper-large-v3`, …);
-    `/chat/completions` on `qwen/qwen3.8-27b` → **HTTP 200** with a real completion. The
-    `401 Invalid API Key` burst in the batch probe was a stale in-process key in that probe
-    run, not a Groq fault — the lane's key works.
+  - Groq (key in kendra/sherry/spark-snippet-wizard, all three identical) → **live and free**.
+    `/chat/completions` on `qwen/qwen3.8-27b` returned **HTTP 200 `"PONG"` three times
+    consecutively** (key sha8 `b7a0e5f1`), and `openai/gpt-oss-20b` / `gpt-oss-120b` also
+    answered 200. Rate headers: `x-ratelimit-limit-requests: 500000`, `x-ratelimit-limit-tokens: 250000`.
+    **`nvidia/nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b`, `meta-llama/llama-3.3-70b-instruct` and
+    `deepseek-ai/deepseek-v4.1-flash` are NOT on Groq** → `404 does not exist or you do not have access`.
+    Two `401 Invalid API Key` readings during the sweep were a stale in-process key in the
+    batch probe, not a Groq fault — a clean single-call probe with the key read straight from
+    the file reproduces 200 every time. Groq is the **only verified free lane** on this host.
   - NVIDIA (key in sentinel/kendra/sherry) → 85 models listed, but live completions: `gpt-oss-120b`
     → **410 Gone**, `llama-3.3-70b-instruct` → **410 Gone**, `nemotron-3-nano-omni` → **503
     `Worker local total request limit reached (16/16)`**, `nemotron-3.5-super-120b` → **404**.
@@ -107,10 +111,16 @@ though it may have meant pull requests.
 - Audit pushed as `524e47b`, `git ls-remote origin refs/heads/main` → `bf712076d6974fec8e709a40c1497616b026358a`
   = local HEAD; `git rev-parse HEAD:audits/2026-10-25-argus.md` → blob `1db4f5d94823945589236b3bd54075d0deab22c2`
   (the file's `git hash-object`). Audit `sha256 e260e7ba84c3ff7b6e6501c42de9a9d7ff1df067b57d12eccc081ebc0f03eeee`.
+- Addendum commit `0e6edd0af1bae5224396accdeaf71ed543289ed3` (audit blob `9d896de468d9672c7e3bda9e8580715dea7330cb`,
+  `sha256 f9131b5ae630267a69ce242f9f75a0144d2c4e77363a8aeb8982cf253a876388`) — pushed, HEAD == origin/main.
 - The SOTA report **remains unpushed**: `git ls-tree origin/main docs/` → no `sota-research-2026-10-25.md`.
   Finding 1 is unresolved at HEAD.
 - No reply or check-in yet references the sweep or the x402 gating (`grep -rln 'x402' replies/ checkins/ WORK-QUEUE.md` → none),
   so the free-tier question is live and unanswered in the pipe.
+- **Correction to my own sweep notes (self-logged, per the pipe's practice):** an earlier reading of the
+  Groq lane as `401 Invalid API Key` was wrong — that was a stale key in a batch probe. A clean
+  single-call probe reads 200 `"PONG"` on `qwen/qwen3.8-27b` three times in a row. Groq is a
+  live free lane; the audit's Groq paragraph is corrected above.
 
 ## Verdict