@@ -14,7 +14,9 @@ This skill assumes the issue has already been triaged — the daemon only invoke
 
 ## 1. Read the ticket
 
-Fetch it with `gh issue view <number> --json title,body,labels,comments`. The bot's own triage comment (opens with "automated first-pass triage") already has the classification, priority, and any root-cause pointer — start from there rather than re-investigating from scratch.
+Fetch it with `gh issue view <number> --json title,body,labels,comments`. The bot's own triage comment (opens with "automated first-pass triage") already has the classification, priority, and any root-cause pointer — start from there rather than re-investigating from scratch. If it's labelled `bug` and the triage reached a full investigation, the comment also has a one-line statement of the fault right after the classification — use that as the precise claim to fix, not the reporter's (often vaguer) symptom description. If the issue carries any follow-up bot comments (opening with "automated follow-up triage review"), check the most recent one too — it may have restated, sharpened, or only just written that statement, and its version of the claim supersedes the first-pass one. A statement that a later bot comment retracted no longer counts.
+
+A `bug` label can arrive without that statement: the split and evidence gates (`/issue-triage` steps 1a and 1b) apply a type label and stop before any investigation. If no bot comment has a bug statement or a root-cause pointer, the fault hasn't been verified yet — don't fall back to the reporter's title or symptoms. Go to step 8 and say the issue needs a full triage (the follow-up review that the reporter's reply triggers) before a fix can be attempted.
 
 ## 2. Investigate
 
 
@@ -50,11 +50,18 @@ Compare your updated understanding against the original triage comment's classif
 - If the classification, priority, or root-cause should change given the new information, update it. You may change or remove a label **you previously applied as the bot** (classification, priority, `waiting_for_user`) — never remove a label a human added.
 - Apply the same duplicate check as `/issue-triage` step 4 if the new information suggests one.
 
+If the bot's most recent prior comment (the one you found in step 1) carries a one-line bug statement (`/issue-triage` step 3), that statement is a standing claim and this review must settle it rather than silently carry it forward or drop it — including when nothing material changed, one of:
+
+- **Still a bug** — restate the one-line statement in this comment, unchanged if the new evidence doesn't bear on it, updated if it sharpens or changes what the fault actually is.
+- **Not a bug after all** — say so plainly, retract the statement, and give the corrected classification. This is the expected outcome when, as happened on #5390, a maintainer's own reply shows the reported behaviour is Predbat doing what the config says.
+
+If this review concludes the issue is a bug and there is no live statement to restate — the bot's most recent prior comment has none, or retracted one — write the one-line statement now, to the same standard as `/issue-triage` step 3. That covers this review changing the classification **to** `bug` (for the first time, or back to `bug` after an earlier follow-up retracted the statement), and this review confirming a `bug` label that an early-exit gate (`/issue-triage` step 1a or 1b) applied without investigating — those gates stop before step 3, so the first full investigation after one is where the statement gets written, even though the label is already there. A statement in an older comment that a later one retracted is not live, so it never stands in for a new one.
+
 ## 5. Post one follow-up comment
 
 Check the comment history first: if the most recent comment is already a bot comment with nothing from a human posted after it, stop — this review already happened and nothing new has arrived since.
 
-Post exactly one comment via `gh issue comment <number> --body "..."`, opening with a line disclosing this is an automated follow-up triage review (a maintainer will review before any action is taken), followed by: what was new since the last review, whether the classification/priority/root-cause changed and why (or confirmation nothing changed), and any further information request.
+Post exactly one comment via `gh issue comment <number> --body "..."`, opening with a line disclosing this is an automated follow-up triage review (a maintainer will review before any action is taken), followed by: what was new since the last review, whether the classification/priority/root-cause changed and why (or confirmation nothing changed), the one-line bug statement from step 4 whenever one is restated, newly written, or retracted there — restated as-is if the new evidence didn't bear on it — and any further information request.
 
 Do **not** touch the `BOT_TRIAGED` or `BOT_REVIEW` labels — the daemon manages both.
 
 
@@ -73,11 +73,13 @@ A `predbat_debug.yaml` can also be replayed against current main to reproduce th
 
 Apply exactly one of: `bug`, `question`, `configuration` (user error/misconfiguration), `enhancement` (feature request). If genuinely ambiguous, apply `unclear` instead of guessing.
 
+If you classify as `bug`, write a one-line statement of the bug in your own words — what Predbat actually does wrong, not the reporter's symptom description. State the faulty behaviour and, if you have one, the mechanism, e.g. "The dispatch-cancel check re-reads the car's live status instead of the status at cancel time, so a car that resumes charging a second later still loses its slot." A restatement of the title ("battery charging not working") is not acceptable. This line carries into step 9.
+
 ## 4. Check for duplicates
 
 Search existing issues (`gh issue list --search ...`, both open and closed) for the same symptom.
 
-- High confidence match: label `duplicate`, comment linking the original issue, and close this one.
+- High confidence match: label `duplicate`, comment linking the original issue (including the step 3 one-line bug statement, if you wrote one), and close this one.
 - Low confidence: mention "possibly related to #N" in your triage comment; don't close.
 
 Then look for **similar** issues and PRs as well, whether or not they are duplicates: search both open and closed ones for the symptom, the integration and the component it touches (`gh issue list --state all --search ...` and `gh pr list --state all --search ...`). Read the findings in the best matches — what was diagnosed, what was fixed, and what was ruled out — before forming a hypothesis, and link the relevant ones in your triage comment as "related to #N". An issue that shares a symptom or a trigger is not necessarily the same problem: only call it a duplicate when the cause matches, not just the symptom, and treat a past finding as a lead to confirm against current main, not as a conclusion.
@@ -106,6 +108,7 @@ Then look for **similar** issues and PRs as well, whether or not they are duplic
 
 - Form a root-cause hypothesis with a `file:line` pointer if the investigation supports one. It's fine to say the cause needs maintainer review if it doesn't.
 - You may edit files locally to test a hypothesis (e.g. a temporary debug print, a tweaked test fixture) — this clone is hard-reset and cleaned before the next run, so nothing here persists. Never `git commit` or `git push`.
+- If this investigation changes your mind about step 3's classification — e.g. you classified `bug` but the investigation shows Predbat is doing what the config says — go back and revise it, and drop or rewrite the one-line bug statement to match. Don't let step 9 post a statement step 3 wrote before you knew better.
 
 ## 6. Apply component labels
 
@@ -131,6 +134,8 @@ Check existing comments first — if one from you is already there, stop; don't
 
 Post exactly one comment via `gh issue comment <number> --body "..."`, opening with a line disclosing this is an automated first-pass triage (a maintainer will review before any action is taken), followed by: classification, priority (if set), what you investigated and found (including test result if you ran one), a root-cause pointer if you have one, and any information request.
 
+If you reached step 3 and classified as `bug`, lead with the one-line bug statement immediately after the classification. Gates 1a/1b apply a type label without ever reaching step 3, so there's nothing to include if you took one of those paths.
+
 After posting, apply the `BOT_TRIAGED` label via `gh issue edit <number> --add-label BOT_TRIAGED` — every triage run gets this label, including a duplicate-close, regardless of classification. It marks the issue as triaged for the separate PR-creation flow (see `.claude/skills/issue-pr/SKILL.md`).
 
 ## Guardrails
 
@@ -145,6 +145,7 @@ denorm
 derate
 derated
 derating
+dess
 desync
 desynced
 devcontainer
@@ -170,6 +171,7 @@ dtype
 dwindow
 eauth
 echargingpile
+ECONNRESET
 ecosmart
 Eddi
 eddis
@@ -195,6 +197,7 @@ energythroughput
 enho
 Enlighten
 enlm
+ENOTFOUND
 enph
 enphase
 enphaseenergy
@@ -204,6 +207,7 @@ epod
 epvtoday
 errno
 ESSAPI
+ETIMEDOUT
 etoday
 etok
 euids
@@ -348,6 +352,7 @@ labelcolor
 labelledby
 labelnames
 ladybugdb
+Lanmate
 larr
 libbi
 libc
@@ -472,6 +477,7 @@ overfitting
 oversizing
 overvoltage
 ownerapi
+pac
 parseable
 pbat
 pbgw
@@ -531,6 +537,7 @@ pyproject
 pytest
 pythonhashseed
 pytz
+Quattro
 Qwen
 randn
 rany2
 
@@ -27,6 +27,65 @@
 # 3. Consider Octopus API key to access current tariff info and switch links
 
 
+# An empty 'config:' line means no overrides; any other non-mapping value can't be applied
+EMPTY_COMPARE_CONFIG = (None, "", [], {})
+
+
+def check_compare_list(compare_list):
+    """Split compare_list into the entries that can be compared and a message per skipped entry (#5472).
+
+    Each kept entry is a copy with its id and name as stripped strings, and its config either a
+    mapping of overrides or absent, so run_all() and fetch_config() can rely on that shape.
+    """
+    if not compare_list:
+        return [], []
+    if not isinstance(compare_list, list):
+        return [], ["compare_list must be a list of tariffs, each with an id and a name"]
+
+    valid = []
+    problems = []
+    seen_ids = set()
+    for index, entry in enumerate(compare_list):
+        problem = None
+        entry_id = ""
+        if not isinstance(entry, dict):
+            problem = "must be a dictionary with an id and a name"
+        else:
+            # Results, sensor names and the web page are all keyed by the id as a string, so an
+            # unquoted numeric id in apps.yaml must not reach them as an int
+            entry_id = "" if entry.get("id") is None else str(entry["id"]).strip()
+            # A numeric name would likewise break publish_data() building the friendly name
+            entry_name = "" if entry.get("name") is None else str(entry["name"]).strip()
+            if not entry_id:
+                problem = "requires a non-empty 'id'"
+            elif entry_id in seen_ids:
+                problem = "has a duplicate id '{}'".format(entry_id)
+            elif not entry_name:
+                problem = "('{}') requires a non-empty 'name'".format(entry_id)
+            elif entry.get("config") not in EMPTY_COMPARE_CONFIG and not isinstance(entry["config"], dict):
+                # run_all() and fetch_config() look overrides up by key; a list of them raised TypeError
+                # there and ended the whole comparison, and any other value was never a usable override
+                problem = "('{}') has a 'config' that isn't a set of 'setting: value' overrides".format(entry_id)
+        if problem:
+            problems.append("compare_list entry {} {}".format(index + 1, problem))
+            continue
+        seen_ids.add(entry_id)
+        checked = dict(entry, id=entry_id, name=entry_name)
+        if checked.get("config") in EMPTY_COMPARE_CONFIG:
+            checked.pop("config", None)
+        valid.append(checked)
+    return valid, problems
+
+
+def valid_compare_list(compare_list, log=None):
+    """Return the compare_list entries that can be compared, logging a warning for each one skipped (#5472)."""
+    valid, problems = check_compare_list(compare_list)
+    if log:
+        for problem in problems:
+            log("Warn: Compare, {}, skipping it".format(problem))
+    return valid
+
+
 # What Compare.run_all() saves before comparing tariffs and restores afterwards: every tariff fetches, plans and
 # predicts on the live instance. The plan state is what calculate_plan() writes that outlives the run - leaving
 # plan_preclip as the last tariff's plan once made the first re-plan after midnight score the wrong plan as the
@@ -537,12 +596,14 @@ def load_yaml(self):
                 try:
                     data = yaml.safe_load(f)
                     if data:
-                        self.comparisons = data.get("comparisons", {})
+                        # str() keys: a numeric id saved before ids were normalised (#5472) would
+                        # otherwise break publish_data() and never match its compare_list entry again
+                        self.comparisons = {str(tariff_id): result for tariff_id, result in (data.get("comparisons") or {}).items()}
                 except yaml.YAMLError as exc:
                     self.log("Error loading comparisons: {}".format(exc))
 
         if self.comparisons:
-            compare_list = self.pb.get_arg("compare_list", [])
+            compare_list = valid_compare_list(self.pb.get_arg("compare_list", []))
             self.select_best(compare_list, self.comparisons)
             self.publish_data()
 
@@ -566,7 +627,8 @@ def publish_data(self):
 
             if result:
                 cost = result.get("cost", 0)
-                name = result.get("name", "")
+                # str(): a numeric name saved before names were normalised (#5472) must not crash startup
+                name = str(result.get("name", ""))
                 attributes = {
                     "friendly_name": "Compare " + name,
                     "state_class": "measurement",
@@ -593,7 +655,7 @@ def publish_only(self):
         """
         Update HA sensors only
         """
-        compare_list = self.pb.get_arg("compare_list", [])
+        compare_list = valid_compare_list(self.pb.get_arg("compare_list", []))
         if not compare_list:
             return
 
@@ -651,7 +713,7 @@ def run_all(self, debug=False, fetch_sensor=True):
         Compare a comparison in prices across multiple energy tariffs and report results
         take care not to destroy the state of the system for the primary settings
         """
-        compare_list = self.pb.get_arg("compare_list", [])
+        compare_list = valid_compare_list(self.pb.get_arg("compare_list", []), log=self.log)
         if not compare_list:
             return
 
@@ -695,7 +757,8 @@ def run_all(self, debug=False, fetch_sensor=True):
 
         try:
             for tariff in compare_list:
-                prior = results.get(tariff["id"], {})
+                tariff_id = tariff["id"]
+                prior = results.get(tariff_id, {})
                 if prior:
                     prior_date = prior.get("date", "")[:10]
                     if prior_date == today_date:
@@ -707,14 +770,14 @@ def run_all(self, debug=False, fetch_sensor=True):
                 else:
                     # First ever run for this tariff: start from actual midnight SoC
                     start_soc = soc_midnight_fallback
-                self.log("Compare tariff {} starting SoC: {:.2f} kWh".format(tariff.get("id", ""), start_soc))
+                self.log("Compare tariff {} starting SoC: {:.2f} kWh".format(tariff_id, start_soc))
                 # Each tariff plans from scratch: scored against the previous tariff's plan, the keep-or-switch threshold
                 # in calculate_plan() could leave one tariff's result as another tariff's plan
                 my_predbat.plan_valid = False
                 try:
                     result_data = self.run_single(tariff, rate_import_base, rate_export_base, end_record, debug=debug, fetch_sensor=fetch_sensor, car_charging_slots=saved["car_charging_slots"], start_soc=start_soc, io_adjusted_base=io_adjusted_base)
                     if result_data is not None:
-                        results[tariff["id"]] = result_data
+                        results[tariff_id] = result_data
                 finally:
                     # Restore hardware settings after each tariff so overrides don't bleed into the next tariff;
                     # in a finally so a raised run_single() can't leave compare values applied to the live instance