[Epic] Public beta readiness: install → first conversation with zero dead ends

[charneykaye]

North star

A stranger installs the beta on a mid-spec Windows laptop and reaches a scored debrief without ever seeing a raw error, a jargon dead end, or an empty screen — and when something does break, the app diagnoses itself and reporting it takes under a minute.

This epic exists because v0.1.0 failed that test on first boot: Local runtime: Unavailable, Unexpected token '<' in Workbench and Settings, Packs: None installed, and a model registry that cannot actually download a model.

Program (this epic is blocked by all of the below)

Identity

• [Brand] Retire "Flight Simulator for conversations" — codify the authoritative standalone identity #293 Retire the analogy tagline; codify standalone positioning — designated first issue, intentionally unblocked

Never show a raw error

• [UI] No raw error strings, ever: typed API results, content-type guard, and designed degraded states on every screen #294 Typed API results + content-type guard + degraded states — unblocked engineering root
• [UI] Replace the "Cannot reach the local runtime" dead end with a guided recovery flow #298 Guided runtime recovery flow
• [Core] Preflight self-test: first-run and on-demand health pipeline with per-check remediation #301 Preflight self-test with per-check remediation

Playable out of the box

• [Core] Finalize the model registry: real download URLs, sha256 checksums, and CI validation — remove every PENDING #300 Model registry: real URLs + sha256, zero PENDING
• [Packs] Guarantee official-pack seeding in packaged builds — the zero-pack state must be unreachable #299 Official-pack seeding guarantee
• [Core] Zero-model instant play: scripted "First Words" tutorial playable before any model download #305 Zero-model instant play ("First Words" tutorial)

Fast, current, reportable

• [QA] Latency budgets per hardware tier + nightly real-model CI smoke #304 Latency budgets + nightly real-model CI smoke
• [Desktop] Signed GitHub-release beta channel with in-app update notice #303 Signed GitHub-release beta channel + update notice
• [Beta] One-click beta reporting: redacted diagnostics bundle + prefilled GitHub issue #302 One-click redacted beta reporting

Existing release-ops chain this rides on (tracked separately)

#234 → #235/#236 → #238 → #239 → #241 → #242 (Steam build, signing, deploy, smoke, verification, review, promote) and #221/#227 (paths, depot/model policy).

Exit criteria

Preflight all-green on a clean install of the packaged app on all three platforms; a scripted "first five minutes" walkthrough passes in the packaged smoke suite; a beta tester who yanks the runtime mid-session gets recovered, not stranded.