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ADR 0030: the repository structure, and the rule that names them

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The tiers were settled and the product was named, but the repositories
themselves existed only in a research sketch. That had already caused two
problems.

ADR 0029 makes the lab phase 0 of the migration and could not say where it
lives, because no record named a repository.

And the sketch contradicted an accepted record: it listed mesh-hq while
ADR 0028 had decided novox/hq and explicitly rejected that name. A design
resting on research is resting on something that can change without a
decision. Corrected in the research too.

The naming rule, which both earlier records implied and neither stated: a
repository belonging to a product carries that product's prefix; a
company-scoped one does not. That is why this repository is hq and the
mesh's are mesh-*.

Seven repositories recorded — host, substrate, control, surfaces, sdk, lab,
and this one. The lab gets its own: it ships to nobody, outlives any single
tier, and drives virtualisation on a workstation, which nothing else does.
Inside the host it would couple development tooling to a shipped
component; inside the control plane the bootstrap scenario would depend on
a tier that does not exist when it is needed.

Tier 4 is deliberately not decided. Whether the catalogue is one
repository, one per domain or one per application stays open from ADR 0015
and is blocked on research 005 — how many repositories hold domains cannot
be answered before knowing what the domains are. mesh-catalog appears in
the sketch and is not decided by this record.

The cost is stated rather than glossed: seven release cadences where there
is one, and cross-repository changes that used to be one commit.
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02-DECISIONS/0029-the-labs-first-scenario-has-no-pipeline.md
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a lab node is a virtual machine, and the scale argument for system containers was found to
have been invented rather than required. The design text did not follow the decision. It does
now.
- The lab's home is `novox/mesh-lab`, recorded in
[ADR 0030](0030-the-repository-structure.md) — written after this record, because this one
needed a repository that no decision had yet named.
- The bootstrap scenario's fidelity is its whole value, and also its risk: if it diverges from
how a real node is raised, it certifies something that does not happen. That is the same
hazard the existing design names for the full scenario, and the same answer applies —
02-DECISIONS/0030-the-repository-structure.md
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---
status: accepted
date: 2026-08-23
deciders: jochen
reconstructed: false
---
# 30. The repository structure, and the rule that names them
## Context
The tiers are settled ([research 006](../01-RESEARCH/006-mesh-from-scratch/code-skeleton.md))
and the product is named ([ADR 0027](0027-the-product-is-novox-mesh.md)), but the repositories
themselves were only ever sketched in research. Two consequences had already appeared.
[ADR 0029](0029-the-labs-first-scenario-has-no-pipeline.md) makes the lab phase 0 of the entire
migration and **could not say where it lives**, because no record named a repository.
And the research contradicted an accepted record: it listed `mesh-hq` for this repository, while
[ADR 0028](0028-hq-is-company-scoped.md) had decided `novox/hq` and explicitly rejected that
name. A design resting on research is a design resting on something that can change without a
decision.
There is also an implied naming rule that has never been written down. ADR 0027 says
repository names take `mesh`; ADR 0028 gives this repository no prefix at all. Both are right,
for a reason neither states.
## Considered options
Only the naming rule had genuine alternatives; the tier repositories follow from the tiers.
1. **No prefix — `novox/host`, `novox/control`.** The organisation already says Novox, so the
prefix reads as stutter. Rejected once it was established that Novox delivers more than the
mesh: with several products the prefix is not stutter, it is the product namespace doing
real work, and the forge has no nested groups to do it instead.
2. **An organisation per product — `novox-mesh/host`.** Puts the product boundary where the
forge's only real grouping primitive lives, so permissions and teams attach to it. Rejected
for now as premature: no per-product access boundary exists yet, and it costs `novox-`
repeated across every organisation.
3. **Product-prefixed repositories in the company organisation.** Chosen.
## Decision
**The naming rule:** a repository that belongs to a product carries that product's prefix. A
repository that is company-scoped does not.
That is why this one is `hq` and the mesh's are `mesh-*`. Both records were already correct;
the rule connecting them is stated here.
**The repositories:**
| Repository | Tier | Holds |
|---|---|---|
| `novox/mesh-host` | 0 | the node host — the one binary installed by hand |
| `novox/mesh-substrate` | 1 | the four pinned services, as declarations |
| `novox/mesh-control` | 2 | the control plane and its contexts |
| `novox/mesh-surfaces` | 3 | tools, web, cli — thin, no logic |
| `novox/mesh-sdk` | — | contracts shared across tiers: types, not behaviour |
| `novox/mesh-lab` | — | the lab: scenario lifecycle, networking, placement |
| `novox/hq` | — | this repository. Company-scoped ([ADR 0028](0028-hq-is-company-scoped.md)) |
**The lab is its own repository.** Its lifecycle differs from everything else in the list: it
is never shipped to a node, it outlives any single tier, and it drives virtualisation on a
workstation — which nothing else in the mesh does. Putting it inside the host would couple
development tooling to a shipped component; putting it inside the control plane would make the
bootstrap scenario depend on a tier that does not exist when it is needed.
**Tier 4 is deliberately not decided here.** Whether the catalogue is one repository, one per
domain, or one per application remains open from
[ADR 0015](0015-mesh-brokers-nodes-host-agents-think.md) and is blocked on
[research 005](../01-RESEARCH/005-domain-grouping/00-overview.md): how many repositories hold
domains cannot be answered before what the domains are. Recording the gap is the point —
`mesh-catalog` appears in the research sketch and is **not** decided by this record.
## Consequences
- [ADR 0029](0029-the-labs-first-scenario-has-no-pipeline.md) can name its target. Phase 0 has
a home, which was the immediate blocker.
- The research sketch stops being load-bearing. It remains what it is — a sketch — and the
design layer can now cite a record instead.
- **Seven repositories where there is currently one**, for a mesh that today lives in a single
monorepo. That is the cost, and it is not small: seven release cadences, seven sets of
dependencies, and cross-repository changes that were previously one commit. The offsetting
argument is the tier rule — a boundary that only points downward is enforceable across
repositories and merely conventional inside one.
- The prefix will read as redundant for as long as the mesh is the only product with
repositories. That is accepted deliberately: the alternative is renaming everything at the
moment a second product appears, which is the class of migration this project is trying to
stop performing.
- Nothing is created yet. This records what the repositories *are*; creating them is part of
phase 0 and after.
## References
- [ADR 0027](0027-the-product-is-novox-mesh.md) — the product name the prefix comes from.
- [ADR 0028](0028-hq-is-company-scoped.md) — why this repository has no prefix.
- [ADR 0029](0029-the-labs-first-scenario-has-no-pipeline.md) — the lab, and why it is first.
- [Research 006](../01-RESEARCH/006-mesh-from-scratch/code-skeleton.md) — the tiers, and the
sketch this supersedes as a source.