diff --git a/docs/swarm/README.md b/docs/swarm/README.md
index 89e9b1e4..87466635 100644
--- a/docs/swarm/README.md
+++ b/docs/swarm/README.md
@@ -332,62 +332,36 @@ socket-directory constraint that governs where `socketPath` may point:
 
 ### Per-hive status (`GET /api/hives/status`)
 
-What each hive last **offered** about itself. Hives publish upward; the
-controller never reaches down to collect. That direction is deliberate:
-during the #3097 gateway outage every recovery channel ran through the
-one broken thing, so a status path that depended on the controller would
-have gone dark exactly when it was needed to diagnose the controller's
-own network. A hive computes its own status locally either way — this
-endpoint is a view of what was published, never the source.
+One row per hive in `swarm.hives`, saying when it last reported and what
+it said. Hives publish upward through the swarm queue; the controller
+never reaches down to collect, so a hive that cannot reach the swarm
+still knows its own state — you just cannot see it from here.
 
-**The queue is the store.** A hive publishes into the `hive-status`
-JetStream KV bucket (`history: 1` — the last thing each hive said), and
-the controller reads that bucket per request, keeping no copy. A cache
-here would be a second answer free to disagree with the first, and the
-disagreement would surface as a hive reading healthy on a dashboard
-while the bucket says otherwise. The bucket is created by whichever side
-gets there first.
+⚠️ **Nothing publishes yet.** The read path is in place; the hive-side
+publisher lands in a later change. Until it does, every hive reads
+`never_reported`.
 
-**Absence is what the endpoint is built around**:
-
-| freshness | means |
+| freshness | what to do about it |
 |---|---|
-| `fresh` | published within `staleAfterSeconds` |
-| `stale` | published longer ago than that — the payload is still returned, because "old" and "absent" are different answers |
-| `never_reported` | in the roster, has never published. Distinct from `stale`: went quiet is a fault, never spoke is usually a deployment that hasn't happened |
-| `unknown` | published but not in `swarm.hives` — surfaced rather than dropped |
+| `fresh` | nothing — reported within `staleAfterSeconds` |
+| `stale` | the hive stopped reporting. Its last payload is still shown, so check `age_seconds` and the payload for what it managed to say |
+| `never_reported` | this hive has never reported at all — normally a deployment that hasn't happened, not an outage |
+| `unknown` | something is publishing under a name that is not in `swarm.hives` — a typo in the roster, or a hive that was removed and is still running |
 
-Rows come from the **roster**, not from the bucket, so a hive that has
-never reported appears rather than not appearing, and an empty bucket
-renders as a swarm nobody has heard from instead of a healthy one.
-Freshness is derived at read time from a timestamp and never stored as a
-flag — a stored `healthy` boolean goes stale silently the moment nothing
-arrives, which is the failure this is designed against. Each row also
-carries `last_seen_unix` and `age_seconds`, so a consumer that disagrees
-with `staleAfterSeconds` can apply its own threshold.
+Every row also carries `last_seen_unix` and `age_seconds` if you want to
+apply your own threshold. The timestamp is the one the queue recorded on
+arrival, not one the hive put in its own payload.
 
-`last_seen_unix` is the **bucket's** timestamp, applied by the NATS
-server when the value landed, not a field inside the payload — a
-publisher cannot make itself look fresher than it is, and a hive with a
-wrong clock skews its own payload rather than its freshness.
+Set `services.hyperhive.swarm.controller.staleAfterSeconds` (default
+`120`) **above the rate hives publish at**, or everything reads `stale`
+between reports. It takes effect on the next request; nothing has to
+re-publish.
 
-Because the bucket outlives a controller restart, a restarted controller
-reports what it reads: `stale, age_seconds: 10800` rather than
-`never_reported`. That is the more honest of the two — it genuinely
-knows when the hive last spoke. Losing the bucket degrades in the same
-direction: every hive reads `never_reported` until its next publish,
-which is the true answer and not a remembered "healthy".
-
-The endpoint answers **503**, not an empty list, when no queue is
-configured on this host or its store cannot be read. "I cannot reach the
-store" and "every hive is silent" are different answers, and rendering
-the second when the first is true would turn a local fault into an
-apparent swarm-wide outage.
-
-⚠️ **Nothing writes to the bucket yet.** The transport and the
-controller's read path are in place; the hive-side publisher is a later
-slice. Until one lands, every hive reads `never_reported` — the correct
-answer for a controller that has been told nothing.
+The endpoint answers **503** when this host has no swarm queue
+configured, or has one and cannot read it — deliberately not an empty
+list, which would look like a silent swarm rather than a controller that
+cannot see. The body says which. Status survives a controller restart:
+it is stored in the queue, not in the daemon.
 
 ## Cross-references