bleak's pair() on Windows only performs the CONFIRM_ONLY ("Just Works")
ceremony and never sends a passkey, so a PIN-protected MeshCore companion
bonds without authentication and then rejects the GATT subscribe on its
authenticated UART characteristic with Insufficient Authentication -- a
correct --ble-pin was reported as "rejected" and the device could never
connect.
MeshCoreDevice now runs the WinRT PROVIDE_PIN ceremony itself before opening
the link, creating the ENCRYPTION_AND_AUTHENTICATION bond the characteristic
requires; Windows persists it, so later reconnects need no PIN. A first GATT
auth failure with a supplied PIN also triggers one unpair-and-re-pair retry to
heal a stale unauthenticated bond from an older attempt. The step is a
best-effort no-op off Windows, when no PIN is set, or when already bonded.
Verified on hardware (AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF, MeshCore-Homestead): correct PIN
pairs and connects (reads model Seeed Tracker T1000-E), wrong PIN fails clean
with the "rejected" DeviceAuthenticationError, no PIN reports "requires a PIN",
and a bonded device reconnects with no PIN. Full CLI path exercised end to end.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>