[variablenix]

Summary

• Fix discarded hostname/URL arguments: status, ping, and uptime now check the supplied public HTTP(S) website on port 80/443, independently of the IRC network.
• Report response status and HTTP latency, including 403/404/429/5xx responses; distinguish DNS, TLS, timeout, and blocked-target failures.
• Preserve no-argument local bot status and aliases; clarify that HTTP timing is not ICMP ping or historical website uptime.
• Enforce public-address validation, DNS pinning, verified TLS, proxy restrictions, bounded workers/headers/redirects, safe output, and body-free checks.
• Add regression and opt-in live tests and update both plugin/configuration guides.

Verification and deployment

• Full race suite including offline Chrome fixtures, vet, staticcheck, govulncheck, module verification, Linux build, and required GitHub checks passed.
• Exact screenshot targets passed on the deployment host, without IRC messages, using both bare domains and full URLs across the aliases.
• Follow-up security hardening in Harden note and owner isolation, public fetchers, and IRC resource bounds #182 is merged and deployed together with this fix at b4889dd, built with Go 1.26.10.
• Post-restart live status, Ask, 21 provider-plugin, and YouTube checks all passed. Both IRC networks and four channels are connected; runtime metrics show zero plugin panics and dropped messages.
• Production configuration contents and credentials were preserved. No user-side rebuild is needed.