0044 — Lease reclamation is a claim-predicate branch, not a reaper daemon

Context. With the claim held as row data instead of a DB lock, a worker that crashes mid-process leaves its row stuck at status='processing' with no lock for Postgres to release — something has to make that row claimable again.

Decision. An expired lease is just another claimable row: the claim’s WHERE gains the branch OR (status='processing' AND locked_at < now() - buffer). The next ordinary claim matches the stuck row, re-stamps locked_at, and increments attempts. No separate reaper process exists.

Consequences. The design stays coordinator-free — every worker is symmetric, with no singleton sweeper to deploy, schedule, or fail over. Reclamation happens exactly as often as claims do, and a reclaimed message is a second delivery, which is what makes the contract at-least-once. Rejected: a dedicated reaper daemon — a coordinator and a second code path for a fact the claim predicate already expresses.