diff --git a/scripts/observer/observer.py b/scripts/observer/observer.py
index ab2432f..0945d28 100644
--- a/scripts/observer/observer.py
+++ b/scripts/observer/observer.py
@@ -7,6 +7,16 @@ import yaml
 from datetime import datetime, timezone
 from pathlib import Path
 
+
+def _atomic_write_json(path: Path, data) -> None:
+    """Write JSON atomically: write to a sibling .tmp, fsync, then os.replace."""
+    tmp = path.with_suffix(".tmp")
+    with open(tmp, "w") as f:
+        json.dump(data, f, indent=2)
+        f.flush()
+        os.fsync(f.fileno())
+    os.replace(tmp, path)
+
 # Constants and Paths
 RUNTIME_PATH = os.getenv("RUNTIME_PATH", "/opt/homelab")
 EVENTS_DIR = Path(RUNTIME_PATH) / "events"
@@ -124,8 +134,7 @@ class Observer:
 
     def _save_checkpoint(self):
         try:
-            with open(OBSERVER_STATE_FILE, "w") as f:
-                json.dump({"node_checkpoints": self.node_checkpoints}, f, indent=2)
+            _atomic_write_json(OBSERVER_STATE_FILE, {"node_checkpoints": self.node_checkpoints})
         except Exception as e:
             logger.error(f"Failed to save checkpoint: {e}")
 
@@ -173,8 +182,30 @@ class Observer:
             logger.info(f"Pruning ghost (hash-prefixed) service key from world state: {k}")
             del self.world_state["services"][k]
 
-        # Remove resolved incidents older than 7 days.
         now = time.time()
+
+        # Auto-resolve active incidents for services that are currently healthy
+        # and whose last_occurrence is older than 30 minutes.  These are phantom
+        # incidents created by race-condition reads of truncated state files; they
+        # never receive a service_recovered event because the service was healthy
+        # all along.
+        for svc_key, svc in self.world_state["services"].items():
+            if svc.get("status") == "healthy":
+                inc_id = svc.get("incident_id")
+                if inc_id and inc_id in self.world_state["incidents"]:
+                    inc = self.world_state["incidents"][inc_id]
+                    last_occ = inc.get("last_occurrence") or 0
+                    if (inc.get("status") == "active"
+                            and (now - last_occ) > 1800):
+                        logger.info(
+                            f"Auto-resolving stale incident {inc_id} for {svc_key}: "
+                            f"service healthy, last_occurrence >{int((now - last_occ) / 60)}min ago"
+                        )
+                        inc["status"] = "resolved"
+                        inc["resolved_at"] = now
+                        svc["incident_id"] = None
+
+        # Remove resolved incidents older than 7 days.
         stale_incidents = [
             k for k, v in self.world_state["incidents"].items()
             if v.get("status") == "resolved"
@@ -202,13 +233,12 @@ class Observer:
             "services.json": self.world_state["services"],
             "deployments.json": self.world_state["deployments"],
             "incidents.json": self.world_state["incidents"],
-            "recommendations.json": [], # Placeholder to satisfy requirements
+            "recommendations.json": [],
             "runtime-summary.json": self.world_state["summary"]
         }
         for filename, data in files.items():
             try:
-                with open(WORLD_DIR / filename, "w") as f:
-                    json.dump(data, f, indent=2)
+                _atomic_write_json(WORLD_DIR / filename, data)
             except Exception as e:
                 logger.error(f"Failed to save {filename}: {e}")