fix(gateway): don't declare the API started before auto-config completes

[springfall2008]

Problem

The gateway component reported itself started before automatic_config() had wired up the inverter args, so PredBat's startup raced ahead with num_inverters / soc_percent unset.

ComponentManager.start() gates startup on component.wait_api_started(), which is polled from the main thread while the gateway's MQTT listener runs in its own thread (each component gets its own thread + event loop via hass.create_task). api_started — not run() returning — is what actually releases startup, and two paths set it too early:

1. The telemetry handler set the flag before configuring anything. _process_telemetry flipped api_started = True on the first frame, before _inject_entities() and automatic_config() on that same frame. That line dates from the original component commit (9f7fc55); the auto-config wait in run(first=True) was added later (7eac693, 0dc56fb) without removing it, so the wait never gated anything.

2. A failed first connection attempt skipped the auto-config wait. The if self._mqtt_connected guard meant a transient broker failure at startup (_first_connection_attempted is also set from the exception handler) made run() return True immediately, and ComponentBase.start() then set api_started itself. The MQTT loop reconnects after 5s, so the config was usually only seconds away.

Fix

• _process_telemetry injects entities and runs auto-config first, then sets api_started, gated on _auto_configured. If auto-config aborts (e.g. a gateway_inverter_serial filter matching nothing) the flag stays down and the run() timeout is the sole release path — which is what the existing "leave _auto_configured False so we retry on the next telemetry" comment already intended.
• run(first=True) waits for auto-config regardless of whether the first connect attempt succeeded. The connection and auto-config waits now share one _STARTUP_WAIT_TICKS budget (2 minutes) via a small _startup_wait() helper, so they can't stack.

Trade-off: an unreachable broker now costs a startup stall where it previously returned immediately. That's the same stall the code already accepted for a connected-but-offline gateway device, and both warnings are still logged.

Also: Load ML moved to phase 2

Load ML started in phase 1, alongside the cloud components it depends on. It now starts in phase 2 so GECloud and friends have started and initialised pv_today etc. before Load ML reads them — the same reason the solar component was moved to phase 2.

Tests

Four new gateway tests, all failing before the fix:

• test_api_started_only_set_once_auto_config_has_completed — wraps automatic_config to capture api_started at entry; fails on old code with "api_started was set before auto-config ran".
• test_api_started_stays_false_when_auto_config_aborts / test_api_started_set_on_later_frame_that_needs_no_reconfigure — the abort and recovery paths.
• test_auto_config_wait_still_runs_when_first_attempt_failed — replaces test_auto_config_wait_skipped_when_not_connected, which encoded issue 2 as intended behaviour.

Timeout expectations now derive from _STARTUP_WAIT_TICKS rather than being hard-coded, so they can't drift from the constant.

Unrelated gap found while doing this

TestGatewayUnitControlBinding — the 17 regression tests for the 2026-06-04 "Gateway bound as inverter 0" incident — was not registered in run_gateway_tests(), so it had never run, and had bit-rotted (its fixture was missing gateway_evc_automatic, failing since EV auto-config landed). Registered and fixture repaired; all 17 pass.

TestSerialFromEntityId is also unregistered — left alone here, worth a follow-up.

Verification

• ./run_all --test gateway → 269 OK, exit 0
• ./run_all --quick → all passed, exit 0
• pre-commit run on all three changed files → all hooks pass

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR fixes a startup race in the Gateway MQTT component where api_started could become true before automatic_config() had wired up inverter args, letting PredBat continue startup with critical args (e.g. num_inverters, soc_percent) unset. It also updates/extends gateway tests and ensures previously unregistered regression tests are executed.

Changes:

• Delay setting api_started until after telemetry-driven entity injection and successful automatic_config() completion.
• Rework run(first=True) startup waiting so connection and auto-config share a single budget and the auto-config wait is not skipped after a failed first connection attempt.
• Add/adjust tests for the above behavior and register previously unregistered gateway regression tests.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 3 out of 3 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

File	Description
apps/predbat/gateway.py	Adds shared startup-wait helper and defers api_started until auto-config completes.
apps/predbat/tests/test_gateway.py	Adds coverage for the corrected startup gating and registers TestGatewayUnitControlBinding.