Improve Safety State Reporting and MQTT Reconnect Availability

[chvvkumar]

📋 Overview

This pull request significantly improves the system's reliability by ensuring consistent safety state reporting across the external API, dashboard, and MQTT, resolving previous discrepancies. It also addresses a critical bug that prevented Home Assistant devices from regaining availability after an MQTT broker reconnect, enhancing integration stability.

🔄 Changes by Category

• Bug Fixes:
  • Corrected is_safe reporting for the external API and dashboard, which previously showed false when no ASCOM client was connected (resolves Feature Request: Option to evaluate IsSafe / external API status without requiring an active ASCOM client connection #117, ASCOM state in html dashboard is not updated unless a client is connnected #90).
  • Restored Home Assistant device availability after an MQTT broker reconnect by republishing discovery configs on every successful connection.
• Features:
  • Implemented consistent safety state reporting across external API, dashboard, and MQTT, all reflecting the real debounced detector state.
• Refactoring:
  • Modified the core is_safe() method to return the debounced detector state directly, removing the ASCOM connection gate.
  • Applied the ASCOM client connection gate directly within Alpaca's issafe and devicestate routes, per client.
  • Renamed the dashboard tile from "Safety" to "Safety State" with an updated tooltip.
  • Updated MQTT setup paths to include an on_connect handler for republishing discovery configs.
• Documentation:
  • Updated EXTERNAL_API.md to accurately describe the new behavior of the is_safe endpoint.
• Tests:
  • Added new comprehensive tests for the is_safe gate logic to ensure correct behavior with and without ASCOM client connections.
  • Introduced new tests to verify Home Assistant availability after MQTT reconnects.
  • Updated existing multi-client verification tests to align with the new safety state logic.
• Configuration:
  • Updated .gitignore to include new entries for build artifacts and remove an outdated one.

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_{📊 Analyzed 4 commit(s) | 🕐 Updated: 2026-10-08T07:33:54.485Z | Generated by GitHub Actions}

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02:06:43.978 ASCOM Universal Device Conformance Checker Version 4.5.0.53834, Build time: Thu 06 August 2026 11:42:42
02:06:43.978 
02:06:43.978 Operating system is Windows 11 (25H2), Processor is Intel/AMD 64bit, Application is 64bit.
02:06:43.979 
02:06:43.979 Alpaca device: Manually configured device (127.0.0.1:11112 SafetyMonitor/0)
02:06:43.979 
02:06:43.979 CreateDevice                        INFO     Creating Alpaca device: IP address: 127.0.0.1, IP Port: 11112, Alpaca device number: 0
02:06:43.979 CreateDevice                        INFO     Alpaca device created OK
02:06:43.979 CreateDevice                        INFO     Successfully created driver
02:06:44.998 CreateDevice                        OK       Found a valid interface version: 3
02:06:44.998 CreateDevice                        OK       Driver instance created successfully
02:06:44.999 
02:06:44.999 Pre-connect checks
02:06:44.999 
02:06:45.000 Connect to device
02:06:45.007 Connected                           OK       Connected to device successfully using Connected = True
02:06:45.519 Connected                           OK       Disconnected from device successfully using Connected = False
02:06:45.525 Connect                             OK       Connected to device successfully using Connect()
02:06:45.525 
02:06:45.525 Common Driver Methods
02:06:45.525 InterfaceVersion                    OK       3
02:06:45.526 Connected                           OK       True
02:06:45.528 Description                         OK       ASCOM SafetyMonitor based on ML cloud detection
02:06:45.530 DriverInfo                          OK       ASCOM Alpaca SafetyMonitor v2.0 - Cloud Detection Driver
02:06:45.531 DriverVersion                       OK       2.0
02:06:45.532 Name                                OK       SCD Local Test (issue 117)
02:06:45.532 
02:06:45.534 SupportedActions                    OK       Driver returned an empty action list
02:06:45.534 Action                              INFO     Conform cannot test the Action method
02:06:45.534 
02:06:45.537 DeviceState                         OK       Received 1 operational state property.
02:06:45.537 DeviceState                         OK         IsSafe = False
02:06:45.538 DeviceState                         OK       Found all expected operational properties
02:06:45.538 
02:06:45.538 Properties
02:06:45.539 IsSafe                              OK       False
02:06:45.539 
02:06:45.539 Performance
02:06:50.540 DeviceState                         INFO     Transaction rate: 1276.3 per second
02:06:55.540 IsSafe                              INFO     Transaction rate: 1317.4 per second
02:06:55.541 
02:06:55.541 Disconnect from device
02:06:55.547 Disconnect                          OK       Disconnected from device successfully using Disconnect()
02:06:55.547 
02:06:55.548 Conformance test has finished
02:06:55.548 
02:06:55.548 Congratulations, no errors, warnings or issues found: your driver passes ASCOM validation!!
02:06:55.548  
02:06:55.548 Timing Summary                               See Help for further information.
02:06:55.548 Timing Summary                               FAST target response time: 0.1 seconds, (configuration and state reporting members).
02:06:55.548 Timing Summary                               STANDARD target response time: 1.0 second, (property write and asynchronous initiators).
02:06:55.548 Timing Summary                               EXTENDED target response time: 600.0 seconds, (synchronous methods, ImageArray and ImageArrayVariant).
02:06:55.549 Timing Summary                               Conform is configured to report both good and bad timing outcomes.
02:06:55.549 
02:06:55.549 Connect                                      At 02:06:45.521 Connect                  0.002 seconds. ✓ (STANDARD)
02:06:55.549 InterfaceVersion                             At 02:06:45.525 InterfaceVersion         0.000 seconds. ✓ (FAST)
02:06:55.549 Connected                                    At 02:06:45.526 Connected                0.001 seconds. ✓ (FAST)
02:06:55.549 Description                                  At 02:06:45.528 Description              0.002 seconds. ✓ (FAST)
02:06:55.549 DriverInfo                                   At 02:06:45.530 DriverInfo               0.001 seconds. ✓ (FAST)
02:06:55.549 DriverVersion                                At 02:06:45.531 DriverVersion            0.001 seconds. ✓ (FAST)
02:06:55.549 Name                                         At 02:06:45.532 Name                     0.001 seconds. ✓ (FAST)
02:06:55.549 SupportedActions                             At 02:06:45.534 SupportedActions         0.002 seconds. ✓ (FAST)
02:06:55.549 DeviceState                                  At 02:06:45.537 DeviceState              0.003 seconds. ✓ (FAST)
02:06:55.549 IsSafe                                       At 02:06:45.539 IsSafe                   0.001 seconds. ✓ (FAST)
02:06:55.549 Disconnect                                   At 02:06:55.543 Disconnect               0.001 seconds. ✓ (STANDARD)
02:06:55.549 
02:06:55.550 Congratulations, all members returned within their target response times!!