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ADR 0153 and ADR 0154: the record is read by a module, and the mesh's verbs are its seat's tools

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Design 33 in progress against ADR 0154 (the twelve verbs, the prerequisites built); design 35 for
the records module under ADR 0153, extending 0025; as-is 07 rewritten to a mesh that keeps no store;
as-is 12 and 13 updated; issue 006 built and waiting on its live check.
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2026-09-30 17:47:49 +02:00
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03-DESIGN/00-as-is/07-knowledge.md
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---
layer: as-is
status: implemented
code: [hal]
updated: 2026-08-23
decisions: []
code: [mesh-catalog modules/records, mesh-catalog modules/mesh-console]
updated: 2026-09-30
decisions:
- 02-DECISIONS/0025-the-design-record-is-read-not-copied.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0153-the-record-is-read-by-a-module-and-the-console-lists-it.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0152-the-operators-surface-is-a-module-the-console.md
---
# Knowledge
The mesh keeps two knowledge stores. They are not redundant, and knowing which is which is the
difference between finding an answer in one search and rediscovering it over several hours.
**The mesh keeps no knowledge store.** What it knows is what its modules answer, and the way a person
or an agent asks is the console's tool list on the machine they sit at
([13 — The console](13-the-console.md)). This document used to describe two stores; it is rewritten
because neither exists from the mesh's side, and an as-is document that describes what is gone is a
brochure.
## The operational memory
## What was here, and where it went
A store of operational notes, written and read by whoever — human or agent — is working. Each
note is a slug and a body: how something works, what went wrong, what the fix was, what
assumption turned out to be false.
Until the cut-over of 2026-09-28 the predecessor ran two stores: an operational memory of notes
indexed on symptoms, and a structured archive of governed documents with a librarian approving
promotion. Both were reached through the predecessor's tool server over the bus the mesh removed
([issue 147](../../04-ISSUES/147-the-operators-tools-still-dial-the-bus-that-was-removed/00-report.md)).
Nothing in the mesh reaches them now, and nothing in the mesh has replaced them: there is no note
store, no archive, no librarian, and the lessons of the last days were written into this repository by
hand. That is a gap, and it is stated here rather than papered over. What replaces a symptom-indexed
memory, if anything does, is undecided.
It is indexed on **symptoms**. The entry someone needs is usually titled after the error they
are staring at, which is why the standing instruction is to search the literal error text
before forming a hypothesis rather than after one fails.
## The record
Its content is overwhelmingly the record of previous debugging: a large body of
troubleshooting entries, module conventions, and standing notes about work that is open. It is
the mesh's institutional memory of *what has already gone wrong*.
**The design record is read where it is written.** Since 2026-09-30 a module, `records`, keeps a
checkout of this repository from the forge — cloned from the `git` seat, reset to the origin on every
merge the forge announces and every ten minutes — and answers over the bus: where a phrase appears as
written, one document whole, what a folder holds, and where the checkout stands, each naming the
commit it read. Which repository it reads is a setting on its assignment; the module names no mesh.
The cost of skipping it is documented in the mesh's own record: entries have been rediscovered
from scratch, over hours, in sessions where the search was skipped because the trail felt
confident. It fires hardest on familiar ground, not unfamiliar ground.
It is listed by the console beside every other tool, with a description that says to search the
literal words of a symptom before forming a hypothesis. That is what
[ADR 0025](../../02-DECISIONS/0025-the-design-record-is-read-not-copied.md) meant by *beside
everything else*, in a mesh with no store to be beside
([ADR 0153](../../02-DECISIONS/0153-the-record-is-read-by-a-module-and-the-console-lists-it.md)).
## The structured archive
Nothing is copied. A checkout lags the source by seconds after an announced merge and by minutes
otherwise, and says so.
A second store, structured rather than flat: spaces, pages, revisions, tiers, and full-text
search. Where the operational memory is a note, this is a document with an owner and a
lifecycle.
## The constitution
Content is promoted through tiers — private, then team, then platform — with a librarian agent
owning approval and promotion at the boundary. Proposals to edit are reviewed rather than
applied.
This is where the mesh's **governed** documents live, including the constitution injected into
design sessions ([ADR 0020](../../02-DECISIONS/0020-the-mesh-is-governed-by-a-constitution.md)).
## Why both
The distinction is by lifecycle, not by subject.
| Operational memory | Structured archive |
|---|---|
| Written the moment something is learned | Written deliberately, reviewed |
| Flat, symptom-indexed | Structured, tiered, owned |
| Anyone writes; nothing approves | Promotion is approved |
| Truth is "this happened" | Truth is "this is agreed" |
Collapsing them would cost one of the two properties: either every hard-won note waits for
review, or governed documents can be changed by anyone mid-incident.
[`00-META/how-we-build.md`](../../00-META/how-we-build.md) is the source of the mesh constitution
([ADR 0021](../../02-DECISIONS/0021-hq-is-the-source-of-the-constitution.md)). The page it used to be
synchronised into lived in the predecessor's archive and is unreachable; the constitution today is
read from this repository, through the same module, and playbook 05's sync has nothing to write to.
## Where this repository sits
This repository is a third thing, and the objection was raised when it was created: a fourth
knowledge system repeats the mistake the split was made to fix.
The answer given was **indexing, not location** — that these documents are indexed into the
knowledge base so that a symptom search returns them alongside everything else. One source,
many surfaces.
**That indexing does not currently exist.** A search for this repository's content returns
nothing. The claim is load-bearing for the decision to separate the repository at all, and
until it is true, this repository is exactly the fourth knowledge system the objection
described. Recorded here because it is a statement about how the mesh's knowledge actually
works today, and as [`04-ISSUES/006`](../../04-ISSUES/006-hq-is-not-indexed-into-the-knowledge-base/00-report.md).
## The librarian
A single agent owns the archive's approvals and promotions. Its approval capabilities have at
times not been reachable as tools, which does not affect the operational memory but does mean
promotion stops silently — the store keeps accepting proposals that nothing can approve.
A third thing beside two that are gone, which makes it the first: the one governed record the mesh
has, public, read by a module the mesh assigns, and edited nowhere else.