In my Metro Area, the PoCo has required the use of lever bypass in both residential and commercial for over a decade.
The lever is available only after the seal is cut and the cover is off (ringless socket). One raises the lever, the line to load is "jumpered", and at the same time, the squeeze on the meter blades is relaxed.
One cannot replace the cover of the socket without returning the lever to the non-bypass position. There are labels warning about not breaking the load, so, one isn't "supposed" to use the lever bypass to interrupt load.
The PoCo supplies us with a list of manufacturers and model numbers that are approved for connection to the PoCo.
As I noted in the other thread, a PoCo rep explained, back in the '90s, that the increased liability in residential presented by information systems losing data when the meter was serviced was what was driving the change. The PoCo chose to require the bypasses rather than schedule the meter servicing with individual customers. They can schedule meter servicing, unlike outages that are beyond control.