Minimum hosted-capable control plane

[mathaix]

Goal

Reduce the repo to a minimum control plane that can run locally or be hosted by an operator, while keeping commercial hosted-service policy out of public core.

Rubric gates

• Control-plane dependencies are explicit and documented.
• Deployment profiles separate local, BYO-host, and hosted operator modes.
• Core APIs manage accounts, machines, hosts, credentials, sessions, and routing without assuming OpenClaw Machines commercial billing.
• Hosted-only infrastructure integrations are optional adapters, not required for core startup.

Starting points

• backend/cmd
• backend/internal/config
• backend/internal/api
• backend/internal/store
• docs/designs/deployment-profiles.md
• docs/configuration.md

Expected output

• A minimal documented startup profile for local/operator-hosted control plane.
• Config flags or profile structure that makes hosted-only services optional.
• Removal or isolation of hard dependencies on commercial hosted settings in startup paths.
• Tests around config/profile behavior where possible.

Non-goals

• Do not implement billing.
• Do not add SaaS admin features.
• Do not move private overlay behavior into public core under different names.

[mathaix]

Status update after the public-core scrub.

Done:

• CONTROL_PLANE_PROFILE is documented for local, operator, and hosted in docs/control-plane-profiles.md.
• Hosted-only defaults were removed or made explicit: no default Mathaix GCP project, hosted domain, backup bucket, or artifact manifests.
• Billing/pricing/plan fields and active commercial surfaces were removed from public-core startup paths.
• Config/profile tests were updated around explicit operator manifests and versions.

Still open:

• This should stay open until we have a concrete local/operator control-plane startup smoke test and documented dependency checklist that proves a fresh operator can run the minimum control plane end to end.
• Hosted operator adapters are optional now, but the runnable minimum profile still needs a tighter verification story.