Merge main: 0115 was taken by another record

02-DECISIONS/0115-one-assignment-of-a-module-per-node.md

@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
+---
+topic: what runs on it
+status: accepted
+date: 2026-09-26
+deciders: jochen
+extends: 0112-a-module-definition-names-no-node-mesh-or-path.md
+---
+
+# 115. One assignment of a module per node: the module's name is the assignment's identity
+
+## Context
+
+Everything an assignment owns is named after its module: the database user
+(`mesh_<node>_<module>`), the broker account (`<node>-<module>`), the containers, the sealed
+secrets, and — since ADR 0112 — the placed directory (`<root>/<module>`). A second assignment
+of the same module on the same node would collide on every one of those names at once, which
+is why the mesh has never allowed it.
+
+[Issue 119](../04-ISSUES/119-a-module-definition-decides-where-its-files-live/00-report.md)
+recorded this as a kept limitation, and 0112 deliberately did not fix it — giving assignments
+identities of their own would have touched every naming recipe in one already-large change.
+The question stayed open: is multi-assignment a requirement deferred, or a requirement at all?
+
+The original motivation was real — one module serving two tenants on one machine, a second
+photo site, a second mail domain. The operator held that requirement once and has now weighed
+it against what it costs.
+
+## Decision
+
+**Dropped.** One assignment of a module per node is the rule, not a limitation. The module's
+name IS the assignment's identity on a node, permanently, and every naming recipe may rely on
+it.
+
+Wanting the same software twice on one node has a spelling the mesh already supports: **two
+modules.** A module definition is cheap — two photo sites are two modules sharing artifacts
+(the build's images are content-addressed; nothing is built twice), each with its own name,
+its own directory, its own grants and its own routes. The tenant boundary lands where every
+other boundary already is: the module name.
+
+## Consequences
+
+- The naming recipes stay as simple as they are. No instance suffixes, no assignment ids
+  threaded through six systems, no migration of every existing name.
+- `<root>/<module>` is the assignment's directory with nothing left open (0112's placement
+  language stands unchanged).
+- The controller may refuse a second assignment *plainly* — "novox already runs mailu, and one
+  node runs one of each (ADR 0115)" — instead of failing on whichever name collides first.
+- Multi-tenant asks are answered in the catalogue (a second module definition), not in the
+  control plane.

03-DESIGN/01-to-be/27-a-module-requires-the-mesh-resolves.md

@@ -365,3 +365,29 @@ Each phase ends at a check that holds, so none of them leaves a mechanism half-r
 - The layout a node's default root uses beneath it, beyond one directory per assignment.
 - Whether a module provider's answer can change without the provider being asked, for example a
   provider moving. The rule so far is that it cannot, and moving is re-resolving.
+
+## The three gaps, answered (2026-09-26, operator)
+
+**Where the root comes from.** A node setting, fixed at installation; a node that states none
+gets the default under `/var/lib`. (The adopted-machine placement stays as proposed: a
+per-assignment placement for data that must sit where it already is — mssql is novox's live
+case.)
+
+**What sits beneath it — dissolved, not decided.** The question assumed the mesh's own
+writes (`/var/lib/mesh/<module>`: sealed credentials, composed bindings) need a
+module-visible reservation. They do not: a module *requires* a `host-path` and receives a
+location; what the mesh writes for the module is the mesh's plumbing, placed where the mesh
+chooses and mounted in — never part of the module's contract. One reservation per
+requirement, `<root>/<module>/<name>`.
+
+**Resolution happens in the controller, at declaration composition.** The node receives
+concrete paths exactly as today — the wire format and the host's apply do not change for
+this. What changes is that no *manifest* carries a path; the controller resolves
+requirement → location against the node's root setting. (The host still needs issue 126's
+fix — volumes in the spec comparison — or a resolved path change cannot reach a running
+container.)
+
+**Retirement order** stays per-module data migration with verification, smallest and
+empties first, the mail spool and the store last — the novox session's six-module window
+(mesh-catalog #97, hq 126) is the worked example, hazard included.
+

04-ISSUES/125-a-hold-is-not-a-line-in-the-apply-report/00-report.md

@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+---
+status: open
+opened: 2026-09-26
+located-in: [mesh-host internal/apply, mesh-controller]
+---
+
+# 125 — a hold is not a line in the apply report, and an operator flew blind into an outage
+
+## What was observed
+
+During the route-proxy edge cutover on novox (2026-09-26): the module was assigned, the
+push reported success, `status` said the node was doing everything it was told — and the
+module's three containers did not exist. The operator stopped the predecessor's proxy on
+the strength of those reports, and every public name on the node went dark until rollback.
+
+The cause was correct behaviour, invisibly reported. The first (rolled-back) route-proxy
+attempt had left `/var/lib/route-proxy/*` on disk; on re-assign, the adopted node *found*
+those directories, held them (ADR 0100, exactly as designed), and held every container
+that mounts them — `"would mount /var/lib/route-proxy/ca, found on this adopted node;
+not run until route-proxy is taken"`. All of that lived only in `state.json`. What the
+operator saw:
+
+- the push: `sent novox 346 resource(s)` — the controller's count of what it sent;
+- the node's journal: `applied 330 resource(s)` — sixteen fewer, with no line saying
+  which sixteen or why;
+- `status`: green — a held resource is not "wrong", so nothing was flagged;
+- `node show novox`: the holds list did NOT include route-proxy's (it showed only holds
+  the *controller* knew about from take-time listings, not what the node decided at
+  apply-time).
+
+Four surfaces, none carrying the one sentence that mattered: *route-proxy is assigned
+but not taken, and its containers will not run until it is.*
+
+## Why this is a real fault and not operator error alone
+
+The operator error (an edge-flip runbook that omitted `take`) was only possible because
+every surface reported success. A system whose correct refusals are indistinguishable
+from completed work will keep converting small procedural gaps into outages. The
+`sent 346 / applied 330` discrepancy was the single visible symptom, and interpreting it
+required reading `state.json` by hand.
+
+## What would have prevented it
+
+Any one of:
+
+1. **The apply report says what it held.** `applied 330 resource(s), 16 held for
+   untaken modules (route-proxy: 13, …)` — one line in the journal.
+2. **`status` counts holds against untaken-but-assigned modules.** A module assigned,
+   pushed, and running zero of its containers is at minimum worth a "waiting on take"
+   line — it is never converged in any useful sense.
+3. **`node show <node>` shows the node's own held list**, not only what take-time
+   computed — the node already records it in `state.json` with reasons.
+
+## Precedent
+
+The photos cutover hit the same semantics benignly the same week (assign → held
+containers in `Created` state → take), and the mailu cutover documented "take is the
+verb, and ADR 0100 meant it". The semantics are consistent and right; the reporting is
+what let them be forgotten at the worst moment.

04-ISSUES/126-a-volume-path-is-not-in-the-spec-comparison/00-report.md

@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+---
+status: open
+opened: 2026-09-26
+located-in: [mesh-host internal/apply]
+---
+
+# 126 — a volume path is not in the spec comparison, and a roll-out raced a data move
+
+## What was observed
+
+Landing the "module data lives in /var/lib" change on novox (mesh-catalog #97), two
+distinct faults surfaced in one hour:
+
+1. **Building a module with a roll-out upgrade policy IS deploying it.** gitea's policy
+   was roll-out; the `build` that registered its repathed manifest sent it to the node
+   immediately, which recreated the container mounting the *not-yet-renamed* (empty)
+   `/var/lib/gitea/data`. The forge came back as its own install page, fresh host keys
+   and all, and every subsequent pipeline build died on `repository not found` — which
+   also blocked the fix, since re-registering the other modules needed the forge. The
+   operator narrative "build, then move data, then push" is only safe under the record
+   policy; nothing warned that one module in the batch would skip the pause.
+
+2. **Changing a container's volume paths does not recreate the container.** After the
+   final push, five of the six repathed modules kept their old containers running
+   ("Up 13–26 hours") — the new declaration's volume paths differ from the running
+   containers' mounts, and the apply judged them current. Same class as mesh-host #27
+   (`dns`/`ip` absent from the comparison): a field the comparison does not read is a
+   field that can never change a running container. Benign here only because a rename
+   on one filesystem preserves the mounted inode — the running containers keep serving
+   the same bytes the new path names, and the next natural recreation converges. A
+   cross-filesystem move, or a path change to *different* data, would have silently
+   split the module between two worlds.
+
+## What would have prevented it
+
+- `build` printing the module's upgrade policy when that policy will act on the result
+  ("gitea rolls out on build — the node will receive this immediately"), or a
+  `--register-only` flag for exactly this choreography.
+- Volumes (and every other container field) in the spec comparison, or the honest
+  refusal: "this field changed and I cannot apply it without recreation."
+
+## Recovery that worked
+
+Instant renames both ways broke the circular dependency (forge needed for builds,
+builds needed for the push, push needed for the forge): data back to the old path,
+old-spec forge started, artifacts rebuilt, data renamed forward, push. Nothing lost;
+the install-page junk was discarded twice.