``gated_cache`` bypassed both the fresh-hit and the stale-while-revalidate branches of
``cached_provider_model_ids`` whenever the disk entry contained Astra. For an entitled
account that is every entry: live discovery rewrites the entry with Astra → next call is gated
again → a blocking /models round-trip on every picker open, for exactly the providers the user
is most likely on. The parallel prefetch's staleness check didn't know about the gate either, so
it skipped the slug and the blocking call landed in the serial picker loop the prefetch exists to
avoid.
Gate on provenance, not contents: only live discovery ever writes Astra into a same-credential
entry (the static/offline paths filter it out), so a fresh entry IS the entitlement record. The
one filter that matters stays — a stale entry served because the refresh failed drops Astra, and
the entry itself is left intact so the next successful fetch restores it.
The regression test now pins both halves: fresh entry served with Astra and zero live calls;
failed refresh past the fresh window serves the entry minus Astra.
Every direct-API (api.openai.com) Astra request raised
``TypeError: Responses.create() got an unexpected keyword argument 'prompt_cache_options'``
before reaching the network: openai 2.24.0's Responses.create has no such parameter and no
**kwargs, and neither send path relocates it into extra_body. The PR's tests stopped at
build_kwargs/preflight so the SDK boundary was never crossed.
OpenAI's prompt-caching guide states ``prompt_cache_options.ttl`` accepts only ``30m`` and that
``30m`` is the default, so the field carried no information: sending nothing yields the same
cache lifetime. The sanitizer now only removes what the API rejects (none/minimal effort,
sampling/logprob knobs, the pre-5.6 ``prompt_cache_retention``) and never adds a field, which
also keeps the request body byte-stable for the cache prefix.
Also: none/minimal→low no longer needs a bespoke {"", "none", "disabled", "off"} set —
``clamp_effort`` against CODEX_ASTRA_EFFORTS already resolves to the floor (``low``); and the
auxiliary adapter derives ``is_codex_backend`` from ``classify_responses_route`` (the declared
single owner of that predicate) instead of re-implementing the host test inline.
Tests reshaped to contracts: the two proxy/subdomain cases collapse into one parametrised
"exact host only" test asserting effort and temperature pass through untouched.
kshitijk4poor