Issue 146: the foundation cannot be raised on the bus the mesh runs on

Found trying to run ADR 0147's bed. The older bundle raises the previous
broker and a control plane that refuses to start without MESH_BUS_NATS; the
newer one stops a step earlier, asking for a certificate from openssl in an
image that has none. No bed can run while this holds, so 0147's check section
now says what actually stands behind it — the rendering, not a machine.

04-ISSUES/146-the-foundation-cannot-be-raised-on-the-bus-the-mesh-runs-on/00-report.md

@@ -0,0 +1,73 @@
+---
+status: open
+opened: 2026-09-29
+located-in: []
+---
+
+# 146 — the foundation cannot be raised on the bus the mesh runs on
+
+## What was observed
+
+Raising a first node in the lab, to check a module against a real mesh, fails before any module is
+reached. Two separate faults, in the two bundles that exist:
+
+**The older bundle raises a control plane that cannot start.** It brings up the previous broker,
+and the control plane it then starts says, once every few seconds, for ever:
+
+```
+mesh-controller: this control plane has no MESH_BUS_NATS, so it cannot reach the mesh's bus
+```
+
+That is the control plane being right. The mesh moved to one bus
+([ADR 0131](../../02-DECISIONS/0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md)) and the
+bundle did not. Every bed that raises a foundation raises this one, so every bed is in this state.
+
+**The newer bundle, written for the new bus, stops one step earlier.** Its certificate step asks a
+container to make the broker's certificate:
+
+```
+docker run --rm --entrypoint sh -v <the broker's tls volume>:/tls <the bus image> \
+  -c "test -f /tls/tls.crt || (openssl req -x509 ... )"
+...
+failed bus-certificate: running the action: docker exited 127
+```
+
+127 is *command not found*. The bus's image has a shell and no `openssl`; the previous broker's
+image had both, which is why the step worked when it was written against that one. Substituting the
+store's image — the only other image the bundle carries — does not help: it has no `openssl`
+either. So the step as written cannot succeed with anything the bundle names, and the fault is not
+one image's: **the bundle asks for a certificate to be made by a tool it never says must be there.**
+
+Measured 2026-09-29 on a fresh lab machine, both bundles, from bare.
+
+## Why this is here and not a note in the knowledge base
+
+The mesh's own foundation is the one thing it cannot raise. Nothing reports that: the bundles are
+files in a repository, nothing applies them but a person raising a node, and the last thing that
+did was the hand-driven cut-over
+([ADR 0131](../../02-DECISIONS/0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md), whose
+work was done on the machines rather than from a bundle). So the state where the mesh cannot make
+another one of itself is reachable, and was reached, without anything saying so.
+
+It is also load-bearing for everything else: a lab bed proves a claim by raising a mesh, so while
+this holds, **no bed can run**, and every "checked in the lab" written from now on is a promise
+against a suite nobody can execute.
+
+## What would have prevented it
+
+- **Something raising the foundation on a schedule, from the bundle, as it is written** — the
+  bundle is the mesh's own installer and nothing installs from it. A bed that raises a first node
+  is exactly that check, and it is the bed that cannot run.
+- **A step naming what it needs.** The certificate step names an image and assumes a program inside
+  it. An action that said which tool it requires would have failed at the declaration rather than
+  at 127 on a machine.
+
+## Evidence to carry into diagnosis
+
+- `mesh-host examples/foundation-first-node.lock` — the previous broker, no `MESH_BUS_NATS`.
+- `mesh-host examples/foundation-first-node-nats.lock` — the new bus; `bus-certificate` and its
+  `verify` both run `openssl` in the bus's image.
+- The bus image the bundle pins has `sh` and no `openssl`; the store's image likewise.
+- The lab rewrites a bundle's registry-prefixed third-party references to upstream ones for a
+  machine with an uplink (`test/integration/harness.ts`); the new bundle's bus reference needed
+  that rule added, which is done and is not this issue.