- GetShardMap: copy Shards and Nodes map contents before returning - hashRing: rebuild from shardMap.Nodes after every rebalance/shard_map update - DistributedVM.handleRebalanceRequest: add leader check and self-broadcast guard - route_message: add hop-count (MaxRouteHops=10) to prevent infinite loops - handleMigrationRequest: broadcast migration updates instead of setting local copy