server: /api/model and /api/provider return an empty catalog while a Location reboots after idle eviction #51701

Description

After a Location is evicted for inactivity and lazily rebooted, GET /api/model and GET /api/provider return 200 OK with an empty catalog for a short window, before the Location's plugin providers finish registering. The response is indistinguishable from a genuinely empty catalog, so clients consume it as authoritative.

Concrete impact: grinev/opencode-telegram-bot#257 treats the empty snapshot as "model has no image capability" and silently drops an incoming Telegram photo, even though the model supports images. Same class as #36117 (service-restart path) and #35556 (initial empty plugin generation); this report is the idle-eviction trigger with an external SDK client.

Plugins

• opencode-cmd-provider 2.1.9 (provider commandcode)
• tps-counter@git+https://github.com/depler/opencode-tps-counter.git

OpenCode version

2.0.18 (opencode serve --service --port 49374, managed service, npm release install)

Steps to reproduce

1. Run a managed v2 server with at least one plugin provider (opencode-cmd-provider).

2. Leave a Location idle for more than 60 minutes so it is evicted (sweep runs every minute):

   location services evicted  directory=/opt
   location services evicted  directory=/root
   

3. Immediately issue the first Location-scoped read, e.g. GET /api/model (or GET /api/provider).

4. Observe a 200 OK with an empty/partial catalog: {"data": []} (or providers present with zero models).

5. Poll a few seconds later and observe the correct catalog once the plugin providers register.

Screenshot and/or share link

n/a

Operating System

Ubuntu 24.04, Linux 6.8.0-139-generic (x86_64)

Terminal

n/a — headless systemd service; the client is a Telegram bot using the bundled SDK.

Additional context

Server timeline (MSK = UTC+3, 2026-09-27):

19:20:22.193  location services evicted  directory=/opt
19:20:22.438  location services evicted  directory=/root
19:21:02.915  location services booted   directory=/opt   durationMs=256
19:21:04.386  location services booted   directory=/root  durationMs=1271
19:21:04.396  client GET /api/model -> empty
19:21:07.828  event provider.updated     directory=/root   <- models registered only here

The read returned ~10 ms after location services booted for /root, i.e. ~3.4 s before the plugin's models were registered.

Expected: model/provider reads should not present intermediate initialization state as authoritative — either await catalog readiness (as proposed in #36117) or expose readiness (e.g. 503 / Retry-After, or a ready marker) so a client can distinguish "not ready yet" from "no models".

Eviction cadence observed on this host today: 10:29:50, 12:06:56, 14:02:25, 16:20:22 — each after roughly an hour without activity for that Location.