Collector fleet governance

This is a proposed direction, not an available feature or a delivery commitment. No release date is assigned.

Operator problem

A maintainer needs to distinguish an offline collector from one running an old configuration.

Current alpha boundary

Existing collector profiles and generated intake guides expose deployment-specific readiness. This is not a completed fleet rollout, inventory or automatic repair product. See the current operator guide.

Proposed capability

Study version/configuration drift views and staged, reversible rollout using the existing collector identity.

Evidence required

Exercise disconnected nodes, duplicate identities, invalid configuration, rollback and mixed versions on declared native/JVM platforms.

Non-goals

No silent forced upgrade, fleet-scale performance claim or universal native-platform parity.

Contribution entry

Bring a concrete workflow and a reproducible failure to the contribution process. Agree the smallest contract and acceptance evidence before implementation. Return to the roadmap.