hold(dist): do not archive TestFlight 0.9.0 (2) — companion renders the procedural placeholder

[prabu-openclaw]

Hold

docs/design/TESTFLIGHT_RC_CHECKLIST.md lists 0.9.0 (2) on current main as Ready to archive. That build renders the procedural placeholder rather than the packaged companion, for the whole session. Recommend holding the archive until #246 lands.

This is not a regression in the packaged asset — the asset loads correctly. Two runtime bugs meant it was never shown.

Why the diagnostics looked healthy

Field receipts on main report the packaged asset as loaded and animating:

finalLODDescription: animated_usdz:… (usdz_active_animated_skelanim)
motionDiagnosticsLine: … | anim=PLAYING
finalContinuityNote:  ok_present

All of that is true, and the companion on screen is still the placeholder. The two are not contradictory:

1. The placeholder is never swapped out. The companion spawns as soon as the game asks, which is routinely before a large rig finishes decoding, so the first companion is the procedural fallback. Continuity then reports ok_present and never re-plants. The packaged asset finishes loading and sits unused.

2. Replaced companions never leave the scene. Companions sit on AnchorEntitys added via scene.addAnchor, which the scene's anchor collection owns — removeFromParent() does not detach them. Anything that did replace the placeholder rendered behind it.

Operator-visible symptom: cone ears, a gold core sphere and a ground disc — the primitive companion — with the real mesh either absent or occluded. Multiple device sessions across several days showed this while every diagnostic read healthy, which is why it survived so long.

Fix

#246 versions the loader template and upgrades a companion built from an older generation, and detaches anchors through scene.removeAnchor. Covered by tests (scene.anchors 2 → 1 on replace; packaged height/ground/material/clip-selection measurements). Operator-confirmed on device: the packaged companion now renders.

Suggested sequence

1. Land feat(ar): ship the Ember Fox companion — package, placement and animation #246
2. Re-run make validate (code moved past the Phase A receipt SHA)
3. Re-cut the archive from the new tip, or bump to build 3
4. Update the checklist's recommended archive tip

Also worth noting

ACTIVE_WORK.md is stale against the repo: it pins main at d7954ac (actual 850fe7b) and states "Open PRs: prefer none" while #242–#246 are open.