Meridian Ask model path — staging/prod flip notes

Flag: MERIDIAN_ASK_MODEL_ENABLED (default false)

Independent of MERIDIAN_M1_ELIGIBLE (Service Matches labeling only).

Serving

POST /api/veteran/me/meridian/ask

1. crisis_gate (v1.5) — before the model
2. safety_refusal_gate — before the model
3. Local Ollama (OLLAMA_BASE_URL / OLLAMA_MODEL, default mistral-small:24b)

Status: GET /api/veteran/me/meridian/ask/status → { modelEnabled }

PHI

Top-k chunks + question are transient. Metadata-only logs. No persist of question or chunk bodies.

Promotion bar (Ryan GO)

1. last1-meridian Ask lane green: fabrication_zero + crisis_perfect (oracle, then Ollama).
2. Staging env flip + device walk.
3. Prod env flip.

Hosted models

Do not switch silently. MERIDIAN_ASK_ALLOW_HOSTED=true is required and is an explicit PHI-leaving tradeoff.