diff --git a/stacks/portal-assistant/main.tf b/stacks/portal-assistant/main.tf
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..4ebd18b7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/stacks/portal-assistant/main.tf
@@ -0,0 +1,219 @@
+# =============================================================================
+# portal-assistant gateway — voice orchestrator (STT -> Brain -> TTS)
+# =============================================================================
+# The single service the Client app talks to: POST /v1/talk takes a WAV + a
+# client id, runs Speaches STT -> the claude-agent-service conversational Brain
+# -> Piper TTS, and returns the spoken reply. v1: ClusterIP only (E2E tested
+# in-cluster). In-memory sessions (no SESSION_DB_DSN). See portal-assistant
+# ADR-0001/0002/0003. Public Cloudflare ingress + device-token edge is the next
+# increment.
+# =============================================================================
+
+data "vault_kv_secret_v2" "viktor" {
+  mount = "secret"
+  name  = "viktor"
+}
+
+data "vault_kv_secret_v2" "cas" {
+  mount = "secret"
+  name  = "claude-agent-service"
+}
+
+data "vault_kv_secret_v2" "pa" {
+  mount = "secret"
+  name  = "portal-assistant"
+}
+
+locals {
+  namespace = "portal-assistant"
+  labels    = { app = "portal-assistant-gateway" }
+  image     = "ghcr.io/viktorbarzin/portal-assistant-gateway:latest"
+}
+
+resource "kubernetes_namespace" "portal_assistant" {
+  metadata {
+    name = local.namespace
+    labels = {
+      tier               = local.tiers.edge
+      "istio-injection"  = "disabled"
+      "keel.sh/enrolled" = "true"
+    }
+  }
+  lifecycle {
+    ignore_changes = [metadata[0].labels["goldilocks.fairwinds.com/vpa-update-mode"]]
+  }
+}
+
+# Pull secret — the gateway image is a PRIVATE ghcr package. Uses the read-only
+# ghcr_pull_token (secret/viktor), the same cred the cluster-wide allowlist uses.
+resource "kubernetes_secret" "ghcr" {
+  metadata {
+    name      = "ghcr-pull"
+    namespace = kubernetes_namespace.portal_assistant.metadata[0].name
+  }
+  type = "kubernetes.io/dockerconfigjson"
+  data = {
+    ".dockerconfigjson" = jsonencode({
+      auths = {
+        "ghcr.io" = {
+          username = "viktorbarzin"
+          password = data.vault_kv_secret_v2.viktor.data["ghcr_pull_token"]
+          auth     = base64encode("viktorbarzin:${data.vault_kv_secret_v2.viktor.data["ghcr_pull_token"]}")
+        }
+      }
+    })
+  }
+}
+
+# Tokens the gateway needs: BRAIN_TOKEN = claude-agent-service's bearer (to call
+# the conversational endpoint); DEVICE_TOKEN = the per-Client secret the Portal
+# app carries to authenticate to /v1/talk.
+resource "kubernetes_secret" "gateway" {
+  metadata {
+    name      = "portal-assistant-gateway-secrets"
+    namespace = kubernetes_namespace.portal_assistant.metadata[0].name
+  }
+  data = {
+    BRAIN_TOKEN  = data.vault_kv_secret_v2.cas.data["api_bearer_token"]
+    DEVICE_TOKEN = data.vault_kv_secret_v2.pa.data["device_token"]
+  }
+}
+
+resource "kubernetes_deployment" "gateway" {
+  metadata {
+    name      = "portal-assistant-gateway"
+    namespace = kubernetes_namespace.portal_assistant.metadata[0].name
+    labels    = merge(local.labels, { tier = local.tiers.edge })
+  }
+  spec {
+    replicas = 1
+    selector {
+      match_labels = { app = "portal-assistant-gateway" }
+    }
+    template {
+      metadata {
+        labels = { app = "portal-assistant-gateway" }
+      }
+      spec {
+        image_pull_secrets {
+          name = kubernetes_secret.ghcr.metadata[0].name
+        }
+        container {
+          name              = "gateway"
+          image             = local.image
+          image_pull_policy = "Always"
+          port {
+            container_port = 8000
+            name           = "http"
+          }
+          # STT -> Speaches; TTS -> Piper; Brain -> claude-agent-service.
+          env {
+            name  = "STT_URL"
+            value = "http://portal-stt.portal-stt.svc.cluster.local:8000"
+          }
+          env {
+            name  = "STT_MODEL"
+            value = "deepdml/faster-whisper-large-v3-turbo-ct2"
+          }
+          env {
+            name  = "TTS_URL"
+            value = "http://portal-tts.portal-tts.svc.cluster.local:8000"
+          }
+          env {
+            name  = "BRAIN_URL"
+            value = "http://claude-agent-service.claude-agent.svc.cluster.local:8080"
+          }
+          env {
+            name = "BRAIN_TOKEN"
+            value_from {
+              secret_key_ref {
+                name = kubernetes_secret.gateway.metadata[0].name
+                key  = "BRAIN_TOKEN"
+              }
+            }
+          }
+          env {
+            name = "DEVICE_TOKEN"
+            value_from {
+              secret_key_ref {
+                name = kubernetes_secret.gateway.metadata[0].name
+                key  = "DEVICE_TOKEN"
+              }
+            }
+          }
+          readiness_probe {
+            http_get {
+              path = "/health"
+              port = 8000
+            }
+            period_seconds = 10
+          }
+          liveness_probe {
+            http_get {
+              path = "/health"
+              port = 8000
+            }
+            initial_delay_seconds = 15
+            period_seconds        = 30
+          }
+          resources {
+            requests = {
+              cpu    = "50m"
+              memory = "256Mi"
+            }
+            limits = {
+              memory = "512Mi"
+            }
+          }
+        }
+      }
+    }
+  }
+  lifecycle {
+    ignore_changes = [
+      spec[0].template[0].spec[0].dns_config, # KYVERNO_LIFECYCLE_V1
+    ]
+  }
+}
+
+# ClusterIP — the only externally-exposed component (ADR-0001) gets its public
+# Cloudflare ingress in the next increment; here it's reachable in-cluster for
+# the E2E smoke. /metrics scraped by Prometheus.
+resource "kubernetes_service" "gateway" {
+  metadata {
+    name      = "portal-assistant-gateway"
+    namespace = kubernetes_namespace.portal_assistant.metadata[0].name
+    labels    = local.labels
+    annotations = {
+      "prometheus.io/scrape" = "true"
+      "prometheus.io/path"   = "/metrics"
+      "prometheus.io/port"   = "8000"
+    }
+  }
+  spec {
+    type     = "ClusterIP"
+    selector = { app = "portal-assistant-gateway" }
+    port {
+      name        = "http"
+      port        = 8000
+      target_port = 8000
+    }
+  }
+}
+
+# Public Cloudflare ingress — the Portal app reaches the gateway at
+# https://portal-assistant.viktorbarzin.me/v1/talk. tls-secret is Kyverno-synced
+# into the namespace. The gateway holds its own edge auth (the DEVICE_TOKEN
+# bearer), so no Authentik in front.
+module "ingress" {
+  source          = "../../modules/kubernetes/ingress_factory"
+  name            = "portal-assistant"
+  namespace       = kubernetes_namespace.portal_assistant.metadata[0].name
+  service_name    = kubernetes_service.gateway.metadata[0].name
+  port            = 8000
+  tls_secret_name = "tls-secret"
+  # auth = "app": the gateway enforces its own DEVICE_TOKEN bearer on /v1/talk; Authentik would break the native Portal client (it has no browser login).
+  auth          = "app"
+  dns_type      = "proxied"
+  max_body_size = "25m" # audio (WAV) uploads
+}
diff --git a/stacks/portal-assistant/terragrunt.hcl b/stacks/portal-assistant/terragrunt.hcl
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..222cd339
--- /dev/null
+++ b/stacks/portal-assistant/terragrunt.hcl
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+include "root" {
+  path = find_in_parent_folders()
+}
+
+dependency "platform" {
+  config_path  = "../platform"
+  skip_outputs = true
+}
+
+# portal-assistant gateway — the voice-assistant orchestrator (STT -> Brain ->
+# TTS). v1 is ClusterIP-only (E2E proven in-cluster); the public Cloudflare
+# ingress for the Portal app is added next. In-memory sessions for now (no
+# SESSION_DB_DSN); CNPG Postgres is a later add. portal-assistant issue #10.
diff --git a/stacks/portal-stt/main.tf b/stacks/portal-stt/main.tf
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..78789ce4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/stacks/portal-stt/main.tf
@@ -0,0 +1,352 @@
+# =============================================================================
+# portal-stt — Speaches STT (Whisper large-v3-turbo int8) for portal-assistant
+# =============================================================================
+#
+# DRAFT for operator review (portal-assistant issue #2). HITL apply: an agent
+# drafts; the operator applies via GitOps (presence-claimed) and verifies the
+# rollout. Do NOT `terragrunt apply` this from a worktree.
+#
+# WHAT: a single WARM-RESIDENT Speaches deployment (OpenAI-compatible
+# faster-whisper server) serving `large-v3-turbo` int8, multilingual (Bulgarian
+# + English), on the shared Tesla T4 (one time-slice). ClusterIP only — audio
+# never leaves the LAN; the portal-assistant Gateway is the only externally
+# exposed component (ADR-0001), so no ingress/auth here.
+#
+# WHY WARM-RESIDENT, NOT THE CHATTERBOX DEMAND-GATE:
+#   The TTS (chatterbox) stack scales 0<->1 behind a free-VRAM CronJob gate
+#   because it is a best-effort BATCH tenant (tripit narration) that can wait.
+#   STT here is INTERACTIVE voice — every Turn would pay a multi-second cold
+#   model load (download/mmap + CUDA init) if we scaled to zero. So this stack
+#   keeps the model permanently loaded: replicas=1 + Speaches STT_MODEL_TTL=-1
+#   (never unload) + PRELOAD_MODELS (load at startup). See portal-assistant
+#   CONTEXT.md "Warm window" + ADR-0003.
+#
+# OOM HISTORY / VRAM MATH — the binding constraint is the shared T4 (16 GiB,
+# time-sliced across immich-ml / frigate / llama-swap / android-emulator with
+# NO per-tenant VRAM isolation). See
+# docs/post-mortems/2026-06-02-immich-ml-ttl-gpu-oom-recruiter.md (immich-ml's
+# unbounded onnxruntime arena starved llama-swap's qwen3-8b -> recruiter down).
+#
+#   Live residents measured 2026-06-17 (gpu_pod_memory_used_bytes):
+#     immich-ml        ~2.1 GiB  (capped: MACHINE_LEARNING_MODEL_TTL=600)
+#     frigate (8 proc) ~1.9 GiB  (detector + ffmpeg decode)
+#     android-emulator ~0.15 GiB
+#     llama-swap        0 idle, but loads qwen3-8b on demand = ~4.35 GiB peak
+#                       (cudaMalloc 4455 MiB, per the post-mortem)
+#   Worst-case concurrent baseline (everything hot): 2.1 + 1.9 + 0.15 + 4.35
+#                                                   = ~8.5 GiB.
+#   Speaches large-v3-turbo int8 weights ~= 0.8 GiB on disk; resident CTranslate2
+#   int8 + CUDA context + decode buffers budget conservatively to ~1.5 GiB
+#   (VERIFY at apply against gpu_pod_memory_used_bytes{namespace="portal-stt"}).
+#
+#   8.5 (residents) + 1.5 (this) = ~10.0 GiB used  =>  ~6 GiB T4 headroom.
+#   That headroom is the safety margin against onnxruntime arena drift (the
+#   exact failure mode from 2026-06-02). If a future resident grows, this is the
+#   FIRST place to re-measure. The conservative int8 (not fp16) choice halves
+#   our weight footprint precisely to protect this margin.
+#
+# GPU PRIORITY: this pod requests nvidia.com/gpu, so the Kyverno
+# `inject-gpu-workload-priority` ClusterPolicy auto-stamps the immich-equal
+# `gpu-workload` (1,200,000) priority — portal-stt is NOT in that policy's
+# exclude list (only `tts` is, to keep chatterbox demotable). That is CORRECT
+# here: warm interactive STT is a first-class GPU resident, never the first
+# evicted. We also set priority_class_name explicitly so intent is legible at
+# the call site and survives a policy fail-open. (Contrast tts/main.tf, which
+# pins tier-2-gpu precisely so chatterbox IS evicted first.)
+# =============================================================================
+
+variable "nfs_server" {
+  type        = string
+  description = "NFS server (Proxmox host). From config.tfvars (192.168.1.127)."
+}
+
+variable "speaches_image" {
+  type = string
+  # ghcr.io/speaches-ai/speaches CUDA build. The live registry currently
+  # publishes 0.9.0-rc.3-cuda (+ sha-/cuda-12.x variants) and a moving
+  # :latest-cuda; there is no published :0.8.3-cuda for the last stable. Pinned
+  # to the rc.3 CUDA tag (immutable-ish, beats :latest for the OOM/Keel-churn
+  # history). CUDA 12.4/12.6 image runtime is fine under our 570.195.03 driver
+  # (CUDA 12.8, backward-compatible). OPEN ITEM for operator: confirm this tag
+  # still resolves at apply, or bump to the newest -cuda tag.
+  default     = "ghcr.io/speaches-ai/speaches:0.9.0-rc.3-cuda"
+  description = "Speaches CUDA image. Pin a -cuda tag, not :latest-cuda."
+}
+
+variable "stt_model_id" {
+  type = string
+  # HF repo id of the CTranslate2 large-v3-turbo conversion. deepdml's is the
+  # canonical community ct2 build of openai large-v3-turbo (multilingual,
+  # incl. Bulgarian) and is what ADR-0003's FLEURS-bg bake-off measured at
+  # 8.3% WER. Speaches resolves whisper models by HF repo id.
+  default     = "deepdml/faster-whisper-large-v3-turbo-ct2"
+  description = "HuggingFace repo id of the warm-resident whisper model."
+}
+
+locals {
+  namespace = "portal-stt"
+  labels    = { app = "portal-stt" }
+
+  # Speaches is configured via env vars (pydantic-settings): scalars map from
+  # UPPER_SNAKE, nested whisper.* settings from WHISPER__FIELD. The three knobs
+  # that make this WARM-RESIDENT and int8:
+  #   PRELOAD_MODELS          — JSON list, loaded sequentially at startup so the
+  #                             first Turn is never cold (pod won't go Ready until
+  #                             the model is in VRAM).
+  #   STT_MODEL_TTL=-1        — never unload an idle STT model (0=immediate,
+  #                             default 300s). This is the warm-resident lever.
+  #   WHISPER__COMPUTE_TYPE   — int8 (conservative VRAM; default "default"=fp16).
+  #   WHISPER__INFERENCE_DEVICE — cuda (default "auto").
+  # HF cache is redirected onto the NFS-SSD PVC so weights download once and
+  # persist across pod restarts (image default cache is /home/ubuntu/.cache/
+  # huggingface/hub — ephemeral). Speaches runs as uid 1000 (ubuntu).
+}
+
+resource "kubernetes_namespace" "portal_stt" {
+  metadata {
+    name = local.namespace
+    labels = {
+      tier               = local.tiers.gpu
+      "istio-injection"  = "disabled"
+      "keel.sh/enrolled" = "true"
+    }
+  }
+  lifecycle {
+    # KYVERNO_LIFECYCLE_V1: goldilocks-vpa-auto-mode ClusterPolicy stamps this label on every namespace
+    ignore_changes = [metadata[0].labels["goldilocks.fairwinds.com/vpa-update-mode"]]
+  }
+}
+
+# Model + HF cache on NFS-SSD (fast first-load, persists across restarts). Path
+# /srv/nfs-ssd/portal-stt on the Proxmox host (192.168.1.127). Mirrors the
+# chatterbox nfs_models pattern. RWX so a future seed/inspect pod can touch it.
+module "nfs_models" {
+  source     = "../../modules/kubernetes/nfs_volume"
+  name       = "portal-stt-models"
+  namespace  = kubernetes_namespace.portal_stt.metadata[0].name
+  nfs_server = var.nfs_server
+  nfs_path   = "/srv/nfs-ssd/portal-stt"
+  storage    = "10Gi" # large-v3-turbo ct2 (~0.8Gi) + HF cache headroom
+}
+
+# One-shot bootstrap: /srv/nfs-ssd is exported whole-tree but the portal-stt
+# SUBDIR must exist before kubelet can bind-mount it (chatterbox hit exit 32 on
+# a missing subdir the first window — see stacks/tts/main.tf). Mount the export
+# ROOT (which exists) and mkdir the subtree; kubelet's mount retry then heals
+# the main pod. Idempotent; immutable-once-created.
+resource "kubernetes_job" "models_dir_init" {
+  metadata {
+    name      = "portal-stt-models-dir-init"
+    namespace = kubernetes_namespace.portal_stt.metadata[0].name
+    labels    = local.labels
+  }
+  spec {
+    backoff_limit              = 3
+    ttl_seconds_after_finished = 86400
+    template {
+      metadata { labels = local.labels }
+      spec {
+        restart_policy = "Never"
+        container {
+          name    = "mkdir"
+          image   = "busybox:1.37"
+          # chmod 0777 (not chown) so it works under NFS root_squash: the
+          # squashed-root creator owns the dir, so chmod succeeds, and Speaches
+          # (uid 1000) can then write its HF model cache here at startup.
+          command = ["sh", "-c", "mkdir -p /mnt/portal-stt/hub && chmod -R 0777 /mnt/portal-stt && ls -la /mnt/portal-stt"]
+          volume_mount {
+            name       = "nfs-ssd-root"
+            mount_path = "/mnt"
+          }
+        }
+        volume {
+          name = "nfs-ssd-root"
+          nfs {
+            server = var.nfs_server
+            path   = "/srv/nfs-ssd"
+          }
+        }
+      }
+    }
+  }
+  wait_for_completion = true
+  timeouts { create = "3m" }
+}
+
+# Warm-resident Speaches. replicas=1, NEVER scaled to zero (no off-peak gate,
+# unlike tts) — the model stays in VRAM so interactive Turns never pay a cold
+# load. wait_for_rollout left default (true): a plain apply SHOULD block until
+# the model is loaded and the pod is Ready, surfacing a bad image/model early.
+resource "kubernetes_deployment" "portal_stt" {
+  metadata {
+    name      = "portal-stt"
+    namespace = kubernetes_namespace.portal_stt.metadata[0].name
+    labels    = merge(local.labels, { tier = local.tiers.gpu })
+  }
+  spec {
+    replicas = 1
+    # RWO is not in play (model PVC is RWX NFS), but Recreate avoids two pods
+    # briefly double-loading the model into the shared T4 during a rollout.
+    strategy { type = "Recreate" }
+    selector {
+      match_labels = { app = "portal-stt" }
+    }
+    template {
+      metadata {
+        labels = { app = "portal-stt" }
+      }
+      spec {
+        node_selector = { "nvidia.com/gpu.present" = "true" }
+        toleration {
+          key      = "nvidia.com/gpu"
+          operator = "Equal"
+          value    = "true"
+          effect   = "NoSchedule"
+        }
+        # First-class GPU resident (warm interactive STT) — same priority as
+        # immich-ml. Kyverno would stamp this anyway (portal-stt is not in the
+        # gpu-priority exclude list); set explicitly for legibility + fail-open
+        # safety. NOT tier-2-gpu (that is chatterbox's evict-first demotion).
+        priority_class_name = "gpu-workload"
+
+        container {
+          name  = "portal-stt"
+          image = var.speaches_image
+
+          # --- warm-resident + int8 + cuda config (see locals) ---
+          env {
+            name  = "PRELOAD_MODELS"
+            value = jsonencode([var.stt_model_id])
+          }
+          env {
+            name  = "STT_MODEL_TTL"
+            value = "-1" # never unload — the warm-resident lever
+          }
+          env {
+            name  = "WHISPER__INFERENCE_DEVICE"
+            value = "cuda"
+          }
+          env {
+            name  = "WHISPER__COMPUTE_TYPE"
+            value = "int8" # conservative VRAM (vs fp16 default)
+          }
+          env {
+            name  = "LOG_LEVEL"
+            value = "info" # image default is debug
+          }
+          # Persist the HF model cache on the NFS-SSD PVC (image default cache
+          # dir is ephemeral). Speaches/HF honour HF_HUB_CACHE + HF_HOME.
+          env {
+            name  = "HF_HUB_CACHE"
+            value = "/data/hub"
+          }
+          env {
+            name  = "HF_HOME"
+            value = "/data"
+          }
+
+          port {
+            container_port = 8000
+            name           = "http"
+          }
+
+          volume_mount {
+            name       = "models"
+            mount_path = "/data"
+          }
+
+          # /health is Speaches' liveness/readiness path. Generous startup
+          # allowance: the first boot downloads large-v3-turbo to the PVC before
+          # the server reports healthy (PRELOAD blocks startup). After the model
+          # is cached on NFS-SSD, subsequent boots load in seconds.
+          startup_probe {
+            http_get {
+              path = "/health"
+              port = 8000
+            }
+            period_seconds    = 10
+            failure_threshold = 60 # up to ~10 min for the first model download
+          }
+          readiness_probe {
+            http_get {
+              path = "/health"
+              port = 8000
+            }
+            period_seconds    = 15
+            failure_threshold = 4
+          }
+          liveness_probe {
+            http_get {
+              path = "/health"
+              port = 8000
+            }
+            initial_delay_seconds = 30
+            period_seconds        = 30
+            failure_threshold     = 5
+          }
+
+          resources {
+            requests = {
+              cpu    = "200m"
+              memory = "2Gi"
+            }
+            limits = {
+              memory           = "4Gi"
+              "nvidia.com/gpu" = "1" # ONE time-slice (operator advertises 100), NOT the whole card
+            }
+          }
+        }
+
+        volume {
+          name = "models"
+          persistent_volume_claim {
+            claim_name = module.nfs_models.claim_name
+          }
+        }
+      }
+    }
+  }
+  lifecycle {
+    ignore_changes = [
+      spec[0].template[0].spec[0].dns_config, # KYVERNO_LIFECYCLE_V1
+      # image is TF-OWNED (pinned -cuda tag) — Keel can manage the digest on
+      # this tag if desired, so ignore keel's annotation churn but NOT the image
+      # itself (we want tag pins to apply). Mirrors tts: keel annotations only.
+      metadata[0].annotations["keel.sh/policy"],
+      metadata[0].annotations["keel.sh/trigger"],
+      metadata[0].annotations["keel.sh/pollSchedule"], # KYVERNO_LIFECYCLE_V2
+      metadata[0].annotations["keel.sh/match-tag"],
+      metadata[0].annotations["kubernetes.io/change-cause"],
+      metadata[0].annotations["deployment.kubernetes.io/revision"],
+      spec[0].template[0].metadata[0].annotations["keel.sh/update-time"], # KEEL_LIFECYCLE_V1
+    ]
+  }
+}
+
+# ClusterIP — in-cluster only (the Gateway calls this; audio stays on the LAN).
+# No ingress, no Authentik: the Gateway is the only externally exposed component
+# (ADR-0001) and holds the edge auth. OpenAI transcription path is
+# http://portal-stt.portal-stt.svc.cluster.local:8000/v1/audio/transcriptions
+resource "kubernetes_service" "portal_stt" {
+  metadata {
+    name      = "portal-stt"
+    namespace = kubernetes_namespace.portal_stt.metadata[0].name
+    labels    = local.labels
+    annotations = {
+      # Speaches exposes Prometheus metrics at /metrics — wire annotation-based
+      # scrape (Ready-endpoint relabeling already filters non-Ready pods).
+      "prometheus.io/scrape" = "true"
+      "prometheus.io/path"   = "/metrics"
+      "prometheus.io/port"   = "8000"
+    }
+  }
+  spec {
+    type     = "ClusterIP"
+    selector = { app = "portal-stt" }
+    port {
+      name        = "http"
+      port        = 8000
+      target_port = 8000
+    }
+  }
+}
diff --git a/stacks/portal-stt/terragrunt.hcl b/stacks/portal-stt/terragrunt.hcl
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..b35880be
--- /dev/null
+++ b/stacks/portal-stt/terragrunt.hcl
@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+include "root" {
+  path = find_in_parent_folders()
+}
+
+dependency "platform" {
+  config_path  = "../platform"
+  skip_outputs = true
+}
+
+# portal-stt: in-cluster speech-to-text for the portal-assistant Gateway
+# (portal-assistant issue #2, ADR-0003). One Deployment of Speaches
+# (ghcr.io/speaches-ai/speaches, OpenAI-compatible faster-whisper) serving
+# `large-v3-turbo` int8, multilingual (Bulgarian + English), behind a single
+# ClusterIP Service `portal-stt.portal-stt.svc:8000`. Transcription path:
+# /v1/audio/transcriptions. Requests ONE time-slice of the shared T4
+# (nvidia.com/gpu=1) — a slice, not the card.
+#
+# WARM-RESIDENT (NOT the tts/chatterbox demand-gate): replicas=1, never scaled
+# to zero. The model is preloaded at startup (PRELOAD_MODELS) and never unloaded
+# (STT_MODEL_TTL=-1) so interactive voice Turns never pay a cold model load.
+# Chatterbox can scale 0<->1 because it is best-effort batch narration; STT is
+# latency-critical and must stay warm. See portal-assistant CONTEXT.md
+# "Warm window".
+#
+# VRAM safety on the shared T4 (16 GiB, no per-tenant isolation): int8 weights
+# budget ~1.5 GiB; worst-case alongside immich-ml (~2.1) + frigate (~1.9) +
+# llama-swap qwen3-8b (~4.35) leaves ~6 GiB headroom. This pod is NOT excluded
+# from the kyverno gpu-priority policy, so it correctly gets the immich-equal
+# `gpu-workload` priority (first-class resident, never evicted first) — the
+# inverse of tts. Full VRAM math + the OOM post-mortem reference are in main.tf.
+#
+# HITL: agent drafts; operator presence-claims the T4 and applies via GitOps,
+# then verifies the rollout + a bg/en transcription smoke test.