0.2.40 & server 0.1.30

CLAUDE.md

@@ -1781,9 +1781,20 @@ returns nothing rather than throwing. Things to preserve:
   reason — an older television has no idea the kind is special. That floor is the version
   the feature shipped *in* rather than one after it, so a 0.2.27 build predating it would
   draw the duplicate row; moving the floor up is the fix if that ever bites.
-- **No daily rotation on the server's hero.** The facts behind it already change daily, and
-  rotating a merit ranking is exactly how the best-reviewed release of the week lands in the
-  fourth slot. The rotation below belongs to the direct path, which has no merit to rank by.
+- **The row is a draw from merit bands, re-made four times a day.** Ranking straight to the
+  row's length was the original design, on the reasoning that the facts behind it change
+  daily — and they do not: a digital release date does not move, a premiere aired when it
+  aired, a score settles within a week, so the same two cards led the launcher for five days
+  at a stretch. `rotateHeroCandidates` ranks a pool of `heroPoolLimit` instead, cuts it into
+  as many bands as there are cards to send, and draws one from each by
+  `heroVariationSeed(userID, heroRotationSlot(now, location))` — the `selectSeeds` shape, and
+  for the same reason it is not a shuffle: merit still decides which *band* a title is in, so
+  the best-reviewed release of the week can never land in the fourth slot, and variation only
+  picks between titles the scorer could not separate. The slot is the household's local part
+  of the day and carries the date, the seed is per viewer, and a pool with no spare
+  candidates goes out in merit order untouched. Home is cached for a minute and rebuilt
+  constantly behind it, which is why one slot must always yield the same draw.
+  The rotation further down belongs to the direct path, which has no merit to rank by.
 
 **The reason sits above the ratings strip**, and that order is load-bearing. The featured
 card's text column is what gives way when a title wraps onto two lines, so whatever is last