From 34551a3b8a073194c3e0aaad51da2c7a0ebd8639 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: jochen Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2026 18:09:17 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] The three questions a board answers, in the order they are asked MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit A page nobody had thought to ask for turns out to be the one a person opens first: what is not doing what it was told. Recorded with the order that matters — broken, then quiet, then out of date — because a page leading with the last would bury the first. And refused stays distinct from failed all the way to the page. They are fixed in different places, so one word for both sends half its readers to the wrong one. --- 03-DESIGN/01-to-be/11-a-board.md | 19 +++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 19 insertions(+) diff --git a/03-DESIGN/01-to-be/11-a-board.md b/03-DESIGN/01-to-be/11-a-board.md index 44f60b3..2ea5d7b 100644 --- a/03-DESIGN/01-to-be/11-a-board.md +++ b/03-DESIGN/01-to-be/11-a-board.md @@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ the other four are about the mesh itself. | | what it shows | where it stands here | |---|---|---| | **the mesh** | every node, what each runs, what each takes from another, module versions | **everything behind it exists** — it is a reader, not a second source | +| **what is wrong** | machines not doing what they were told, machines not answering | **the page nobody had thought to ask for**, and the one a person opens first | | **builds** | a build, its stages, its log | **everything behind it exists** — every result is kept, failures included | | **sessions** | model sessions, their usage, and switching between accounts | [ADR 0024](../../02-DECISIONS/0024-model-access-is-a-provision.md) | | **channels** | nodes messaging each other | the agent layer | @@ -53,3 +54,21 @@ where everything else asking gets it too. is a second implementation of a decision. - **Not a dashboard of graphs.** What a person needs from a mesh is *which machine is not doing what it was told*, and that is a list, not a chart. + +## The three questions, in order + +Written down because the order is the design. A person opens this when something is wrong, and a +page that led with the third would bury the first: + +1. **Is anything broken?** A machine whose last declaration was refused or partly failed. It has + consequences now. +2. **Is anything not answering?** A machine not heard from. It may be new, switched off or + unreachable — **which is not the same as tried and could not**, and collapsing the two sends + somebody to debug a machine that was never sent anything. +3. **Is anything out of date?** A module behind its source, and the machines running the old one. + A plan for later rather than a problem now. + +**Refused and failed stay distinct all the way to the page.** Refused means the machine is exactly +as it was and what is wrong is in what was sent; failed means it is in a state nobody declared and +what is wrong is on the machine. They are fixed in different places, so a page that said "error" +for both would send half its readers to the wrong one.