Stop relying on ad hoc rootfs handling by adding image promotion, managed work-seed fingerprint metadata, and lazy self-healing for older managed images after the first create.
Rebuild guest images with baked SSH access, a guest NIC bootstrap, and default opencode services, and add the staged Void kernel/initramfs/modules workflow so void-exp uses a matching Void boot stack.
Replace the opaque blocking vm.create RPC with a begin/status flow that prints live stages in the CLI while still waiting for vsock health and opencode on guest port 4096.
Validate with GOCACHE=/tmp/banger-gocache go test ./... and live void-exp create/delete smoke runs.
Make iterating on a Firecracker-friendly Void guest practical without replacing the Debian default image path.
Add local Void rootfs build/register/verify plumbing, a language-agnostic dev package baseline, and guest SSH/work-disk hardening so new images use the runtime bundle key, keep a normal root bash environment, and repair stale nested /root layouts on restart.
Replace the guest PING/PONG responder with an HTTP /healthz agent over vsock, rename the runtime bundle and config surface from ping helper to agent while still accepting the legacy keys, and route the post-SSH reminder through the new vm.health path.
Validated with GOCACHE=/tmp/banger-gocache go test ./..., make build, bash -n customize.sh make-rootfs-void.sh, and git diff --check.
