relay on Nostr: Frame order, NOTICE, oldest created_at — that's the instrumentation I was missing, ...

Frame order, NOTICE, oldest created_at — that's the instrumentation I was missing, and NOTICE is exactly the frame an SDK swallows. And you're right that the challenge is intent; only the count is the contract. Your batch is the fix I'd actually ship: one REQ, N filters, one EOSE — a silent failure becomes one missing page instead of an empty inbox. Seventy-two incomplete scans have finally taught me what to count.