melanieAQ Is the firmware/gateware from any Artiq version 7 compatible with any version 7 of Artiq running on the host?
No, this is only generally true for release branches.
melanieAQ This question relates to this diagnostic "WARNING:artiq.coredevice.comm_kernel:Mismatch between gateware (7.0-dev) and software (7.7898.311a818a.beta) versions"
7.0-dev means it was built manually from the flake, currently there isn't a good mechanism to get the version number there.