Issue 229: a rollout cannot be followed through the mesh's tools

2026-10-04 10:51:45 +02:00
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+---
+status: open
+opened: 2026-10-04
+located-in: []
+fixed-by:
+amended-design:
+---
+
+# 229 — A rollout cannot be followed through the mesh's tools, so an agent goes round them
+
+## What was observed
+
+2026-10-04, rolling out to-be 41. An agent drove the rollout through the mesh's MCP tools: the
+controller seat's `status`, `plans`, `command`, and the forge's merge. Three times it left those tools
+and posted JSON-RPC by hand to the node console's HTTP endpoint with `curl`:
+
+1. **To wait for a plan.** `plans` answers once, with prose. Nothing waits for a plan to reach a tier,
+   finish or fail. An agent's tools cannot be called from a shell loop, so the only way to be told
+   when a plan moved was a background `curl` loop polling the console every twenty seconds and
+   matching the plan's line with `grep`.
+2. **To read `status`.** `status` answers a paragraph of prose (the bus's user list), then a JSON
+   document, both inside one string. Picking out `behind`, `waiting` and `reported` took a script
+   that cut the string at the first brace and parsed the rest.
+3. **To read one module out of `module list`,** whose output was too long to read whole for one line.
+
+The calls were authorised, because the console is the operator's own surface. But each is a raw call
+the mesh's tools were meant to make unnecessary ([ADR 0154](../../02-DECISIONS/0154-the-meshs-own-verbs-are-the-controller-seats-tools.md)
+puts the controller's verbs behind the seat). Each is also a script that breaks silently when a
+sentence in the prose changes.
+
+## Why it matters beyond this instance
+
+Every rollout an agent drives has the same shape: merge, wait for a plan, push, wait for reports,
+check `status`. When the tools answer only once and only in prose, every agent writes its own poller
+and its own parser. Those are invisible to review, different each time, and wrong the first time the
+wording moves. An agent that cannot wait also tends to act early, which is the opposite of what a
+rollout needs.
+
+## What a fix has to settle
+
+- A way to **wait** on the mesh's own progress. For example, `plans` and `status` could take a plan
+  or node and a bound, and answer when it moves or the bound passes. Or a verb could follow one plan
+  to its end.
+- **Structured answers** from the controller's verbs, with the prose as a field beside the data, not
+  around it.
+- Whether `command`'s generic answer should take a filter, or whether the verbs it is used for most
+  (`module list`, `node show`) deserve verbs of their own.
+
+How each is checked belongs to the record that settles it.