Phase 6: Forge & Polish — bug-crush stability phase

README:
- Phase 6 blacksmith SVG + styled banner above CAUTION block
- CAUTION rewritten: known bugs exist, features halted, links CURRENT-BUGS.md
- Roadmap updated with Forge & Polish section

WORKLOG:
- Phase 6 renamed from PhoenixCore to Forge & Polish with full scope + exit criteria

Bug fixes (from prior session, now committed):
- Entity creator: removed Cancel button that crashed the app on click
- Entity creation: 504 timeout handling with entity-list polling for all 4 modes
- Setup wizard: removed invalid claude-sonnet-4 model, fixed fast/hybrid presets
- Chat: lock input during startup resume recap pipeline call
- Chat: chat input disabled + placeholder while initial entity message runs

Author: voardwalker-code

README.md

@@ -43,11 +43,28 @@
 
 <br>
 
+<p align="center">
+  <img src="project/assets/neko-blacksmith.svg" width="120" alt="Phase 6 — Forge & Polish"/>
+</p>
+<h3 align="center">⚒ Phase 6 — <em>Forge & Polish</em></h3>
+<p align="center">
+  <strong>The raw metal becomes the blade.</strong><br>
+  All new features halted. Every bug gets crushed. Every edge gets filed.
+</p>
+
+<br>
+
 > [!CAUTION]
-> **PRE-ALPHA SOFTWARE — USE AT YOUR OWN RISK**
+> **PRE-ALPHA SOFTWARE — KNOWN BUGS EXIST**
+>
+> NekoCore OS is in **pre-alpha**. All subsystems are functional but **bugs and rough edges remain**.
+> We know about them — and we've **halted all new feature work** to fix them.
+>
+> **Phase 6: Forge & Polish** is now active — a dedicated stability pass to crush every known issue,
+> harden error recovery, and polish the entire system for real-world use.
 >
-> NekoCore OS is in **pre-alpha**. All subsystems are **functional but not yet battle-tested**.
 > APIs, data formats, and behaviour may change without notice between releases.
+> Active bug tracking: [`docs/CURRENT-BUGS.md`](docs/CURRENT-BUGS.md)
 >
 > **Before experimenting:** back up your `entities/` and `memories/` folders.
 >
@@ -530,7 +547,7 @@ pie title Estimated Per-Turn Token Allocation
 
 ## ⟶ Development Roadmap
 
-All **35 phases** complete — from initial bug fixes to predictive memory topology:
+**35 feature phases** complete. **Phase 6: Forge & Polish** is active — all new features halted while we crush every bug and harden every subsystem:
 
 ```mermaid
 timeline
@@ -576,6 +593,8 @@ timeline
         Phase 4.32 : Book-to-Entity Ingestion
         Phase 4.33 : Bug Tracker Export
         Phase 5   : Predictive Memory Topology (2,816 tests)
+    section Forge & Polish
+        Phase 6 : 🔥 Bug Crush · Stability Hardening · Refactor
 ```
 
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docs/WORKLOG.md

@@ -49,10 +49,25 @@ Phase 5 encompasses the cognitive-layer and entity intelligence work built on th
 
 ---
 
-## 📋 PHASE 6 — PhoenixCore (Next)
+## � PHASE 6 — Forge & Polish (Next)
 
-Codename: **PhoenixCore**
-Phase 6 is the next major milestone after AgentEcho. Scope to be defined.
+Codename: **Forge & Polish**
+*The raw metal becomes the blade.*
+
+Phase 6 is a full stability pass — every known bug crushed, every rough edge filed down, every subsystem hardened for real-world use. No new features. No scope expansion. The codebase that exists today gets forged into something you can hand to a stranger and say "run it."
+
+**All new feature work is halted** until this phase exits cleanly.
+
+**Scope:**
+- Systematic bug triage and resolution (CURRENT-BUGS.md + newly discovered)
+- Timeout and error-recovery hardening across all LLM call paths
+- Entity creation reliability (hatch hang, 504 recovery, progress reporting)
+- UI polish and edge-case cleanup across all 31 apps
+- Code refactoring where files exceed size/complexity thresholds
+- Test coverage expansion for untested paths
+- Documentation accuracy pass (docs match code, not the other way around)
+
+**Exit criteria:** QA checklist green across all 61 sections. No known P0/P1 bugs. Every LLM call path has a timeout. Entity creation succeeds reliably on all three providers.
 
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