diff --git a/infrastructure/authentik/values.yaml b/infrastructure/authentik/values.yaml
index 20f4e3f..132f756 100644
--- a/infrastructure/authentik/values.yaml
+++ b/infrastructure/authentik/values.yaml
@@ -21,12 +21,31 @@ global:
     # Configure external URL for proper OIDC discovery responses
     - name: AUTHENTIK_URL
       value: "https://auth.kube.huskypup.net"
-    # Override to use the correct field names from pg-authentik-app
+    # Multi-site active failover pilot (see
+    # /home/scooby/.claude/plans/jiggly-snacking-iverson.md): HOST/PORT
+    # point at the floating pg-authentik.ha.huskypup.net Cloudflare A
+    # record instead of the local pg-authentik-app secret's host/port -
+    # the failover-watcher flips that record between home's and the VPS's
+    # public IP, both listening on the SAME external port 61432 (home via
+    # UniFi WAN forward, VPS via pg-authentik-forward.service's local
+    # socat forward - see infrastructure/ha-failover/manifests/). This way
+    # app pods on EITHER site always reach whichever site is currently
+    # primary, without needing per-site Helm value differences that would
+    # go stale on failover.
+    #
+    # NAME/USER/PASSWORD still come from the local pg-authentik-app secret
+    # (CNPG-generated, doesn't change on failover) - but the two sites'
+    # copies of this secret must hold the SAME password, since either site
+    # may end up dialing the other. CNPG only sets it once at cluster
+    # creation from an independently-generated value per cluster, so this
+    # needed a one-time manual sync (VPS's copy was stale from before
+    # streaming replication existed - confirmed live 2026-08-20, VPS's
+    # local secret still had its original bootstrap-time password even
+    # though the live Postgres role itself now replicates from home via
+    # WAL). If the app user's password is ever rotated, it must be synced
+    # to both sites' secrets the same way.
     - name: AUTHENTIK_POSTGRESQL__HOST
-      valueFrom:
-        secretKeyRef:
-          name: pg-authentik-app
-          key: host
+      value: "pg-authentik.ha.huskypup.net"
     - name: AUTHENTIK_POSTGRESQL__NAME
       valueFrom:
         secretKeyRef:
@@ -43,7 +62,7 @@ global:
           name: pg-authentik-app
           key: password
     - name: AUTHENTIK_POSTGRESQL__PORT
-      value: "5432"
+      value: "61432"
 
 # Blueprints - Mount ConfigMaps for auto-discovery
 blueprints:
diff --git a/infrastructure/ha-failover/manifests/heartbeat-writer.yaml b/infrastructure/ha-failover/manifests/heartbeat-writer.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f64f642
--- /dev/null
+++ b/infrastructure/ha-failover/manifests/heartbeat-writer.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,85 @@
+# Multi-site active failover pilot (see
+# /home/scooby/.claude/plans/jiggly-snacking-iverson.md) - home's half of
+# the failover-watcher. This is deliberately NOT a general Postgres HA
+# controller: its only job is writing a fresh unix timestamp to etcd every
+# 10s at key /ha-failover/home-heartbeat. The VPS's watcher
+# (scripts/ha-failover-watcher.sh, deployed via systemd - see that
+# script's own header) reads this key and decides whether to promote
+# based purely on how stale it is - no custom voting/consensus logic
+# needed here, etcd's own Raft consensus already provides the "majority
+# agrees" guarantee: a write only succeeds if a majority of the 3 etcd
+# members (home/vps/witness) are reachable and agree, and a linearizable
+# read (the JSON gateway's default) only ever returns majority-confirmed
+# state.
+#
+# Talks to etcd via its LOCAL ClusterIP (ha-etcd.ha-failover.svc.cluster.local
+# :2379) - home reads/writes its OWN cluster member directly, no need to
+# round-trip externally for this side.
+#
+# No RBAC/ServiceAccount needed - this pod never touches the K8s API,
+# only etcd's HTTP gateway via curl.
+apiVersion: v1
+kind: ConfigMap
+metadata:
+  name: ha-heartbeat-script
+  namespace: ha-failover
+data:
+  heartbeat.sh: |
+    #!/bin/sh
+    set -eu
+    KEY_B64="$(printf '%s' '/ha-failover/home-heartbeat' | base64 | tr -d '\n')"
+    while true; do
+      NOW="$(date +%s)"
+      VAL_B64="$(printf '%s' "$NOW" | base64 | tr -d '\n')"
+      if curl -sf --max-time 5 -X POST \
+          http://ha-etcd.ha-failover.svc.cluster.local:2379/v3/kv/put \
+          -d "{\"key\":\"${KEY_B64}\",\"value\":\"${VAL_B64}\"}" >/dev/null; then
+        echo "heartbeat ${NOW} ok"
+      else
+        echo "heartbeat ${NOW} FAILED (etcd unreachable or no quorum)"
+      fi
+      sleep 10
+    done
+---
+apiVersion: apps/v1
+kind: Deployment
+metadata:
+  name: ha-heartbeat-writer
+  namespace: ha-failover
+spec:
+  replicas: 1
+  selector:
+    matchLabels:
+      app: ha-heartbeat-writer
+  template:
+    metadata:
+      labels:
+        app: ha-heartbeat-writer
+    spec:
+      securityContext:
+        runAsNonRoot: true
+        runAsUser: 1000
+        seccompProfile:
+          type: RuntimeDefault
+      containers:
+        - name: heartbeat
+          image: alpine/k8s:1.32.13
+          command: ["/bin/sh", "/scripts/heartbeat.sh"]
+          securityContext:
+            allowPrivilegeEscalation: false
+            capabilities:
+              drop: ["ALL"]
+          resources:
+            requests:
+              cpu: 5m
+              memory: 16Mi
+            limits:
+              memory: 64Mi
+          volumeMounts:
+            - name: script
+              mountPath: /scripts
+      volumes:
+        - name: script
+          configMap:
+            name: ha-heartbeat-script
+            defaultMode: 0755
diff --git a/infrastructure/vps-standby/authentik/values.yaml b/infrastructure/vps-standby/authentik/values.yaml
index 14e8a99..a28e8aa 100644
--- a/infrastructure/vps-standby/authentik/values.yaml
+++ b/infrastructure/vps-standby/authentik/values.yaml
@@ -1,11 +1,16 @@
-# Authentik warm standby on the VPS - Phase 2. The CNPG replica cluster
-# (manifests/cnpg-cluster.yaml) continuously replays WAL from home in the
-# background. The app itself DOES run continuously (replicas: 1, reachable
-# at auth.vps.huskypup.net - see manifests/ingress.yaml) so the replicated
-# data is browsable/verifiable at all times, even though the underlying DB
-# is a read-only CNPG replica - writes (new logins, session creation) will
-# error until a deliberate manual promotion. Promotion runbook: flip the
-# CNPG cluster's spec.replica.enabled to false (see cnpg-cluster.yaml).
+# Authentik warm standby on the VPS - Phase 2, later extended into the
+# multi-site active failover pilot (see
+# /home/scooby/.claude/plans/jiggly-snacking-iverson.md). The CNPG cluster
+# (manifests/cnpg-cluster.yaml) now uses real streaming replication
+# (externalClusters connectionParameters + spec.replica.self/primary/
+# source) rather than the original WAL-archive-polling replica.enabled
+# mode - that flag is gone from cnpg-cluster.yaml now, it's mutually
+# exclusive with the primary/self fields. The app itself DOES run
+# continuously (replicas: 1, reachable at auth.vps.huskypup.net - see
+# manifests/ingress.yaml) so the replicated data is browsable/verifiable
+# at all times, even though the underlying DB is a read-only replica until
+# promoted. Promotion (automatic via the failover-watcher, or manually):
+# patch cnpg-cluster.yaml's spec.replica to self/primary/source: vps.
 #
 # The `authentik:` block below (secret_key/postgresql "env://" indirection)
 # is copied VERBATIM from infrastructure/authentik/values.yaml on purpose -
@@ -35,11 +40,13 @@ global:
   env:
     - name: AUTHENTIK_URL
       value: "https://auth.vps.huskypup.net"
+    # HOST/PORT point at the floating pg-authentik.ha.huskypup.net record
+    # instead of the local secret's host/port - see the matching comment
+    # in infrastructure/authentik/values.yaml (home's copy of this same
+    # block) for the full explanation, including why pg-authentik-app's
+    # password had to be manually synced between the two sites first.
     - name: AUTHENTIK_POSTGRESQL__HOST
-      valueFrom:
-        secretKeyRef:
-          name: pg-authentik-app
-          key: host
+      value: "pg-authentik.ha.huskypup.net"
     - name: AUTHENTIK_POSTGRESQL__NAME
       valueFrom:
         secretKeyRef:
@@ -56,7 +63,7 @@ global:
           name: pg-authentik-app
           key: password
     - name: AUTHENTIK_POSTGRESQL__PORT
-      value: "5432"
+      value: "61432"
 
 server:
   replicas: 1
diff --git a/scripts/ha-failback-authentik.sh b/scripts/ha-failback-authentik.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..ff30263
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/ha-failback-authentik.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,68 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+# Multi-site active failover pilot (see
+# /home/scooby/.claude/plans/jiggly-snacking-iverson.md) - the deliberate
+# MANUAL counterpart to scripts/ha-failover-watcher.sh's automatic
+# promotion. Run this by hand, on the VPS, once you've confirmed home is
+# genuinely healthy again and want to move primary back - never automated,
+# by design (auto-flipping back immediately on reconnect risks flapping,
+# and a human should confirm home's data/state before handing writes back
+# to it).
+#
+# Order matters:
+#   1. Confirm home's pg-authentik Cluster is healthy and NOT still
+#      thinking it's primary (it shouldn't be, since it was down/
+#      unreachable when the VPS promoted - but check
+#      status.currentPrimary on home before proceeding).
+#   2. Re-point home's Cluster to replicate FROM the vps (it needs to
+#      catch up on everything written to the VPS while it was down)
+#      before flipping primary back - home has to actually BE a caught-up
+#      replica of vps first, or this loses the writes the VPS accepted
+#      during the outage.
+#   3. Only once home shows it's streaming and caught up, flip primary
+#      back to home and update DNS.
+#
+# This script only does step 3 (the fast, symmetric part - same shape as
+# the watcher's own promote() but in reverse). Steps 1-2 are a judgment
+# call requiring you to actually look at both clusters' status first -
+# not scripted here on purpose.
+set -euo pipefail
+
+echo "This will flip pg-authentik's primary back to home and repoint DNS."
+echo "Before continuing, you MUST have already confirmed:"
+echo "  - home's pg-authentik Cluster is healthy and replicating FROM vps"
+echo "    (kubectl -n authentik get cluster pg-authentik -o jsonpath='{.status}')"
+echo "  - home is caught up (no meaningful replication lag from vps)"
+read -r -p "Confirmed both of the above? [y/N] " ans
+if [ "${ans:-N}" != "y" ] && [ "${ans:-N}" != "Y" ]; then
+  echo "Aborted."
+  exit 1
+fi
+
+echo "Flipping home's Cluster CR to primary..."
+kubectl -n authentik patch cluster pg-authentik --type merge \
+  -p '{"spec":{"replica":{"self":"home","primary":"home","source":"home"}}}'
+
+echo "Flipping VPS's Cluster CR back to a replica of home..."
+ssh root@172.93.53.139 "kubectl -n authentik patch cluster pg-authentik --type merge \
+  -p '{\"spec\":{\"replica\":{\"self\":\"vps\",\"primary\":\"home\",\"source\":\"home\"}}}'"
+
+echo "Flipping pg-authentik.ha.huskypup.net back to home's IP..."
+HOME_PUBLIC_IP="$(dig +short home.kube.huskypup.net @1.1.1.1 | tail -1)"
+if [ -z "$HOME_PUBLIC_IP" ]; then
+  echo "ERROR: could not resolve home.kube.huskypup.net - fix the DNS record manually"
+  exit 1
+fi
+TOKEN="$(kubectl -n cert-manager get secret cloudflare-token-secret -o jsonpath='{.data.cloudflare-token}' | base64 -d)"
+ZONE_ID="$(curl -sf -H "Authorization: Bearer ${TOKEN}" "https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones?name=huskypup.net" | jq -r '.result[0].id')"
+RECORD_ID="$(curl -sf -H "Authorization: Bearer ${TOKEN}" "https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/${ZONE_ID}/dns_records?name=pg-authentik.ha.huskypup.net&type=A" | jq -r '.result[0].id')"
+curl -sf -X PATCH -H "Authorization: Bearer ${TOKEN}" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
+  -d "{\"type\":\"A\",\"name\":\"pg-authentik.ha.huskypup.net\",\"content\":\"${HOME_PUBLIC_IP}\",\"ttl\":60,\"proxied\":false}" \
+  "https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/${ZONE_ID}/dns_records/${RECORD_ID}" >/dev/null
+
+echo "Clearing the etcd promotion record..."
+curl -sf --max-time 5 -X POST http://172.28.101.41:32379/v3/kv/deleterange \
+  -d "{\"key\":\"$(printf '%s' '/ha-failover/promoted-at' | base64)\"}" >/dev/null || true
+curl -sf --max-time 5 -X POST http://172.28.101.41:32379/v3/kv/deleterange \
+  -d "{\"key\":\"$(printf '%s' '/ha-failover/promoted-by' | base64)\"}" >/dev/null || true
+
+echo "Failback complete. home is primary again, pg-authentik.ha.huskypup.net -> ${HOME_PUBLIC_IP}"
diff --git a/scripts/ha-failover-watcher.service b/scripts/ha-failover-watcher.service
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f06f13f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/ha-failover-watcher.service
@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+# Multi-site active failover pilot (see
+# /home/scooby/.claude/plans/jiggly-snacking-iverson.md). Install on the
+# VPS (172.93.53.139) alongside ha-failover-watcher.sh:
+#   scp scripts/ha-failover-watcher.sh root@172.93.53.139:/usr/local/bin/
+#   ssh root@172.93.53.139 chmod +x /usr/local/bin/ha-failover-watcher.sh
+#   mkdir -p /etc/ha-failover on the VPS, put the Cloudflare DNS-edit
+#     token (same one cert-manager's cloudflare-token-secret uses) in
+#     /etc/ha-failover/cloudflare-token, chmod 600, chown root
+#   scp this file to /etc/systemd/system/ha-failover-watcher.service
+#   systemctl daemon-reload && systemctl enable --now ha-failover-watcher
+#
+# Requires: curl, jq, kubectl, base64 - all already present on the VPS
+# from earlier in this session.
+[Unit]
+Description=HA failover watcher - promotes pg-authentik to primary if home's etcd heartbeat goes stale (majority-confirmed via etcd quorum)
+After=network.target k3s.service
+
+[Service]
+ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/ha-failover-watcher.sh
+Restart=always
+RestartSec=5
+User=root
+
+[Install]
+WantedBy=multi-user.target
diff --git a/scripts/ha-failover-watcher.sh b/scripts/ha-failover-watcher.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..6a23356
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/ha-failover-watcher.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,154 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+# Multi-site active failover pilot (see
+# /home/scooby/.claude/plans/jiggly-snacking-iverson.md) - the VPS's half
+# of the failover-watcher. Runs as a systemd service on the VPS
+# (172.93.53.139), NOT in k3s - it needs to keep running even if the VPS's
+# own k3s/CNPG cluster is unhealthy, and it's the one thing in this whole
+# pilot that's genuinely new/bespoke rather than reusing an existing
+# operator.
+#
+# Deploy (manual, matches every other VPS systemd unit this session - not
+# git-applied automatically):
+#   scp this file to the VPS as /usr/local/bin/ha-failover-watcher.sh
+#   chmod +x it, then install scripts/ha-failover-watcher.service
+#   (see that file) and `systemctl enable --now ha-failover-watcher`.
+#
+# Logic (deliberately simple - see the plan doc's "what CNPG genuinely
+# does NOT provide" paragraph for why this exists at all):
+#   1. Every 10s, read /ha-failover/home-heartbeat from etcd via THIS
+#      node's own local etcd member (127.0.0.1:2379) using a linearizable
+#      (default, quorum-backed) read - home's heartbeat-writer
+#      (infrastructure/ha-failover/manifests/heartbeat-writer.yaml)
+#      refreshes this key every 10s while home is healthy.
+#   2. If the read itself fails/times out, this VPS can't reach a
+#      majority of the 3-member etcd cluster (needs 2 of 3) - meaning
+#      EITHER home is genuinely down AND the witness is also unreachable
+#      from here, OR this VPS itself is the one that's partitioned.
+#      Either way, we cannot safely tell which, so we do NOT promote -
+#      this is the split-brain-prevention property etcd's own Raft
+#      consensus gives us for free, no custom quorum-counting needed.
+#   3. If the read succeeds and the heartbeat is fresher than
+#      STALE_THRESHOLD seconds, home is confirmed up - no-op.
+#   4. If the read succeeds (so we DO have majority/quorum) and the
+#      heartbeat is older than STALE_THRESHOLD - or missing entirely -
+#      home is confirmed down by majority agreement. Promote, once:
+#        a. Skip if already primary (checked via the Cluster CR itself,
+#           idempotent - safe to run this loop forever).
+#        b. kubectl patch the local pg-authentik Cluster:
+#           spec.replica.{self,primary,source} = vps. No promotionToken -
+#           confirmed live via dry-run that CNPG's admission webhook does
+#           NOT require one (it's optional, used for graceful/planned
+#           switchover to cross-check LSNs - not available for a genuine
+#           unplanned outage since home isn't reachable to generate one).
+#           This means promotion accepts whatever the VPS replica had
+#           already streamed - typically a couple seconds of async lag,
+#           an accepted tradeoff of async cross-WAN replication (there is
+#           no realistic sync-replication option over a home/VPS WAN
+#           link without crippling write latency).
+#        c. Flip the pg-authentik.ha.huskypup.net Cloudflare A record to
+#           this VPS's public IP - both sites listen on the SAME external
+#           port 61432 (home via UniFi WAN forward, VPS via
+#           pg-authentik-forward.service's local socat forward)
+#           specifically so a single floating hostname:port works for
+#           both sites without the app tier needing per-site config.
+#        d. Record the promotion in etcd (/ha-failover/promoted-at,
+#           /ha-failover/promoted-by) - both for the idempotency check
+#           above surviving a script restart, and as an audit trail for
+#           whoever does the (deliberately manual - see the plan doc)
+#           failback later.
+#
+# Failback is NOT automated by this script on purpose - see
+# scripts/ha-failback-authentik.sh, run by a human once home is
+# confirmed healthy again.
+set -u
+
+ETCD="http://127.0.0.1:2379"
+STALE_THRESHOLD=45  # ~4-5 missed 10s heartbeats before acting - avoids flapping on one blip
+CHECK_INTERVAL=10
+CLOUDFLARE_TOKEN_FILE="/etc/ha-failover/cloudflare-token"
+CF_ZONE_NAME="huskypup.net"
+CF_RECORD_NAME="pg-authentik.ha.huskypup.net"
+VPS_PUBLIC_IP="172.93.53.139"
+LOG_TAG="ha-failover-watcher"
+
+log() { echo "$(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ) ${LOG_TAG}: $*"; }
+
+b64() { printf '%s' "$1" | base64 | tr -d '\n'; }
+
+etcd_get() {
+  # $1 = key. Prints the decoded value, or nothing + returns 1 if the
+  # read failed (unreachable/no quorum) or the key doesn't exist.
+  local key_b64 resp val_b64
+  key_b64="$(b64 "$1")"
+  resp="$(curl -sf --max-time 5 -X POST "${ETCD}/v3/kv/range" \
+    -d "{\"key\":\"${key_b64}\"}")" || return 1
+  val_b64="$(echo "$resp" | jq -r '.kvs[0].value // empty')"
+  [ -n "$val_b64" ] || return 1
+  echo "$val_b64" | base64 -d
+}
+
+etcd_put() {
+  local key_b64 val_b64
+  key_b64="$(b64 "$1")"
+  val_b64="$(b64 "$2")"
+  curl -sf --max-time 5 -X POST "${ETCD}/v3/kv/put" \
+    -d "{\"key\":\"${key_b64}\",\"value\":\"${val_b64}\"}" >/dev/null
+}
+
+flip_dns_to_vps() {
+  local token zone_id record_id
+  token="$(cat "$CLOUDFLARE_TOKEN_FILE")"
+  zone_id="$(curl -sf -H "Authorization: Bearer ${token}" \
+    "https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones?name=${CF_ZONE_NAME}" | jq -r '.result[0].id')"
+  if [ -z "$zone_id" ] || [ "$zone_id" = "null" ]; then
+    log "ERROR: could not resolve Cloudflare zone id for ${CF_ZONE_NAME}"
+    return 1
+  fi
+  record_id="$(curl -sf -H "Authorization: Bearer ${token}" \
+    "https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/${zone_id}/dns_records?name=${CF_RECORD_NAME}&type=A" \
+    | jq -r '.result[0].id // empty')"
+  if [ -z "$record_id" ]; then
+    log "ERROR: no existing A record for ${CF_RECORD_NAME} - refusing to create one blind, fix manually"
+    return 1
+  fi
+  curl -sf -X PATCH -H "Authorization: Bearer ${token}" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
+    -d "{\"type\":\"A\",\"name\":\"${CF_RECORD_NAME}\",\"content\":\"${VPS_PUBLIC_IP}\",\"ttl\":60,\"proxied\":false}" \
+    "https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/${zone_id}/dns_records/${record_id}" >/dev/null
+}
+
+promote() {
+  local current_primary
+  current_primary="$(kubectl -n authentik get cluster pg-authentik -o jsonpath='{.spec.replica.primary}' 2>/dev/null)"
+  if [ "$current_primary" = "vps" ]; then
+    return 0  # already promoted, nothing to do
+  fi
+  log "PROMOTING: home confirmed down by etcd majority (heartbeat stale/missing). Flipping pg-authentik to vps."
+  if ! kubectl -n authentik patch cluster pg-authentik --type merge \
+      -p '{"spec":{"replica":{"self":"vps","primary":"vps","source":"vps"}}}'; then
+    log "ERROR: kubectl patch failed - Cluster CR NOT promoted, will retry next loop"
+    return 1
+  fi
+  if ! flip_dns_to_vps; then
+    log "ERROR: Cluster CR promoted but Cloudflare DNS flip failed - fix pg-authentik.ha.huskypup.net manually, it still points at home"
+  fi
+  etcd_put "/ha-failover/promoted-at" "$(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ)"
+  etcd_put "/ha-failover/promoted-by" "vps"
+  log "Promotion complete."
+}
+
+log "starting, stale threshold=${STALE_THRESHOLD}s check interval=${CHECK_INTERVAL}s"
+while true; do
+  hb="$(etcd_get /ha-failover/home-heartbeat)"
+  if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
+    log "cannot reach etcd quorum (or no heartbeat key yet) - not acting, will retry"
+    sleep "$CHECK_INTERVAL"
+    continue
+  fi
+  now="$(date +%s)"
+  age=$((now - hb))
+  if [ "$age" -gt "$STALE_THRESHOLD" ]; then
+    log "home heartbeat is ${age}s stale (threshold ${STALE_THRESHOLD}s)"
+    promote
+  fi
+  sleep "$CHECK_INTERVAL"
+done