Final acceptance audit: fix all mypy defects, verify full journey matrix and degraded modes

Ran a dedicated post-M7 release-readiness audit. Found and fixed the one real gap: mypy
was a declared dev dependency but had never been run in any milestone's validation loop.
Fixed all 43 pre-existing type errors it surfaced, including two genuine defensive-
programming gaps (unguarded Optional vehicle/customer lookups that could have crashed
with unhandled 500s instead of clean 404/401 responses) rather than suppressing them.
make lint now runs ruff + mypy; mypy reports zero errors across 44 source files.

Re-verified end to end against a genuinely wiped-volumes clean checkout: automatic
migrations, deterministic seed, 66/66 backend tests, and the full user-journey matrix
(login, dashboard, vehicle/booking detail, return workflow, invalid-mileage rejection,
data-quality review, duplicate-customer merge, audit trail, Knowledge Assistant, n8n,
MCP Hub) via curl and Playwright.

Live-verified both external-dependency degraded modes, not just unit tests: stopped n8n
mid-flow and confirmed a return still commits with the outbox event staying pending and
retrying with backoff, then self-healing to succeeded with zero manual intervention once
n8n came back; verified RAGcore's unavailable-degradation path against an unreachable
host. Added frontend/e2e/interactive-elements.spec.ts (11 tests covering every nav item,
filter, tab, and role boundary) alongside the existing demo script test — 12/12 e2e tests
passing.

Verified no secrets are committed (.env never tracked, clean git history scan) and
.env.example covers every operator-configurable setting. Confirmed no placeholders,
TODOs, fake responses, hardcoded metrics, or dead routes anywhere in the codebase.

Updated README.md with an honest integration-status section and PROJECT_STATE.md with
the full audit findings. Added artifacts/final-acceptance/summary.md as the authoritative
final evidence document (commands, results, URLs, demo access, integration status per
external dependency, known limitations, deployment instructions, five-minute demo flow).

backend/app/api/routers/dashboard.py

@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 from __future__ import annotations
 
 from datetime import date, datetime
+from typing import Literal
 
 from fastapi import APIRouter, Depends
 from sqlalchemy import select
@@ -49,6 +50,8 @@ def get_dashboard(
     ).all()
     attention_items = []
     for issue in issues:
+        entity: Vehicle | Customer | None
+        link_type: Literal["vehicle", "customer"]
         if issue.entity_type == "vehicle":
             entity = vehicles_by_id.get(issue.entity_id)
             link_type = "vehicle"