To-be 40 revised for the tools refactor; the manager starts every exchange (ADR 0183 dated note, designs 36 and 39)

Design 38's WP1-WP4b ran: the node's tool runtime is live on all four machines as the operator
account, tools are bundles given only their declared words, and a bundle has no bus credential.
So the wait on design 38 WP3 is over, the agent module calls nothing and the manager starts every
exchange (key, hand-over, waiting login, reconcile), and the manager's daemon now waits on WP4c's
record instead. Accounts are stated on all four, sudo -n works for each, the agent is installed on
all four; the plan's WP0 shrinks and WP2 gets a configuration-only live proof before any licence.

03-DESIGN/01-to-be/39-the-anthropic-licence-manager.md

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 layer: to-be
 status: designed
 code: []
-updated: 2026-10-02
+updated: 2026-10-03
 decisions:
   - 02-DECISIONS/0183-the-anthropic-licence-manager-is-a-module-and-hands-tokens-to-the-agent-over-the-bus.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0024-model-access-is-a-provision.md
@@ -74,8 +74,9 @@ Carried from the predecessor, where each rule was earned by an incident:
 
 ## 4. Handing a token to a node
 
-Every node that runs the agent module registers that module's public key with the seat when it first
-runs. From then on:
+**The manager starts every exchange** (ADR 0183's dated note of 2026-10-03): the agent module is a
+tools bundle, which answers and calls nothing. The manager asks each bound node's module for its public
+key the first time and keeps it. From then on:
 
 - **On rotation**, the manager calls `claude-code.apply@<node>` on every node bound to the rotated
   licence, with the new token sealed to that node's module key. The module answers *applied*, or
@@ -83,11 +84,12 @@ runs. From then on:
 - **On a switch**, the same call with the other licence's token, and the binding is the authority: the
   module applies a bind without comparing expiries, because across two licences the numbers are
   unrelated.
-- **On a pull** — the module starting, or finding its token near expiry — the module calls the seat's
-  `current` verb for its binding and is answered sealed the same way.
+- **On a schedule**, every few minutes, the manager visits each bound node: a node whose token is near
+  expiry, or that did not answer last time, is handed its current token. A node that was away is
+  served when it is back, with nothing for it to ask.
 - **Never as an event.** What the manager emits names the licence and the outcome and carries no token.
 
-A node whose module has not registered a key cannot be handed a token, and the manager says so by name
+A node whose module does not answer for its key cannot be handed a token, and the manager says so by name
 rather than falling silent. A node whose module refuses — a wrong identity, a stale grant within one
 lineage — is recorded as drift and reported.
 
@@ -119,9 +121,9 @@ already keeps.
 A licence enters the mesh one of two ways, and the token never passes through a prompt, a terminal or an
 argument:
 
-- **From a node's login.** A person logs in on a node, as they always have. The agent module there reads
-  the account's identity from the agent's own state file, and offers the full grant to the seat sealed
-  to the manager's key. The manager adopts it into the licence the node is bound to **only if the
+- **From a node's login.** A person logs in on a node, as they always have. On its next visit the manager
+  asks that node's module for a waiting login, giving its own public key; the module answers with the
+  full grant sealed to it and the account's identity read from the agent's own state file. The manager adopts it into the licence the node is bound to **only if the
   identity matches** that licence's recorded account; a licence not yet identified is identified by its
   first adoption; a mismatch is refused and notified, because the predecessor once filed one account's
   grant into another's row this way.
@@ -135,8 +137,8 @@ argument:
 
 **The seat's verbs**, the contract every future holder must serve: `licences` (each with kind,
 identity, expiry, failures, who is bound), `bindings`, `bind`, `switch`, `release`, `refresh` (now, one
-or all), `usage` (current and history), `adopt`, `register` (a node's module key), `current` (a
-consumer's token, sealed, asked by the consumer's module).
+or all), `usage` (current and history), `adopt`, and `visit` (reconcile one node now). A node's key and
+a consumer's token are not seat verbs: the manager asks the node, by the agent module's own tools.
 
 ## 8. Settings