Merge pull request 'ADR 0131: everything on the mesh speaks to the broker seat, and AMQP is not a provision' (#152) from decision/0131-everything-speaks-to-the-broker-seat into main

This commit was merged in pull request #152.
This commit is contained in:
2026-09-27 21:06:02 +00:00
10 changed files with 156 additions and 41 deletions
+1 -1
View File
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ another — and a mesh you cannot name precisely is a mesh two people describe d
- **the deprecated broker** — the lavinmq module. It was the mesh's bus and is not any more. It
keeps running as an **ordinary provider** of the `amqp` provision, for modules that need a
message broker of their own the way something needs a database
([ADR 0127](../02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md)) — no seat, not foundation,
([ADR 0127](../02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md) (superseded by [ADR 0131](../02-DECISIONS/0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md))) — no seat, not foundation,
never raised at genesis, and a mesh that never installs it is complete.
Say *the deprecated broker*, not "the compatibility broker" (it serves the mesh's own modules,
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
---
topic: the mesh
status: accepted
status: superseded
superseded-by: 0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md
date: 2026-09-26
deciders: jochen
reconstructed: false
@@ -4,11 +4,18 @@ status: accepted
date: 2026-09-26
deciders: jochen
reconstructed: false
extends: 02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md
extends: 02-DECISIONS/0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md
---
# 128. The mesh bus is required, not ambient
> **Pointer repointed, 2026-09-27.** This record was written extending
> [ADR 0127](0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md) (superseded by [ADR 0131](0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md)), which
> [ADR 0131](0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md) has since superseded — AMQP is
> not a provision at all. Nothing decided here changes; the frontmatter now rests on the live record,
> and the citations below are read with that in mind.
## Context
[Design 29](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/32-what-a-module-declares.md) opened by saying the bus is
@@ -72,7 +79,7 @@ process in the path and nothing waiting on a bus account to create bus accounts.
whose provider is the mesh itself.
**A module may also provide a NATS server of its own, and that is a different interface.** Exactly
as the AMQP broker provides `amqp` ([ADR 0127](0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md)), a module
as the AMQP broker provides `amqp` ([ADR 0127](0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md) (superseded by [ADR 0131](0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md))), a module
may run its own NATS and offer it as a backing service. That interface is **`nats`**; the mesh's
own bus is **`mesh-bus`**; the two are never the same name, because a manifest that said `nats`
could mean either and the difference is the whole architecture. The rule from 0119 decides which
@@ -109,7 +116,7 @@ is legitimate: a private bus is a backing service, never a channel to another mo
- [ADR 0125](0125-the-bus-is-the-only-broker.md) — superseded by 0119; its bootstrap argument is
narrowed here to the case it supports.
- [ADR 0127](0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md) — a broker as a backing service; this
- [ADR 0127](0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md) (superseded by [ADR 0131](0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md)) — a broker as a backing service; this
applies the same shape to the mesh's own bus and separates the two names.
- [ADR 0043](0043-a-module-broker-account-is-scoped-by-emits-and-consumes.md) — authority from
declarations, which this leaves untouched.
@@ -4,14 +4,21 @@ status: accepted
date: 2026-09-27
deciders: jochen
reconstructed: false
extends: 02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md
extends: 02-DECISIONS/0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md
---
# 130. The predecessor is ending, and its broker goes with it
> **Pointer repointed, 2026-09-27.** This record was written extending
> [ADR 0127](0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md) (superseded by [ADR 0131](0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md)), which
> [ADR 0131](0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md) has since superseded — AMQP is
> not a provision at all. Nothing decided here changes; the frontmatter now rests on the live record,
> and the citations below are read with that in mind.
## Context
[ADR 0127](0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md) settled that the old broker is an ordinary
[ADR 0127](0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md) (superseded by [ADR 0131](0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md)) settled that the old broker is an ordinary
provider of the `amqp` provision rather than a compatibility module with an end date. It rejected
giving it a retirement condition, and said why: *"its clients are not only the predecessor's, so the
retirement condition describes a day that will not come."*
@@ -0,0 +1,94 @@
---
topic: the mesh
status: accepted
date: 2026-09-27
deciders: jochen
reconstructed: false
supersedes: 0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md
---
# 131. Everything on the mesh speaks to the broker seat, and AMQP is not a provision
## Context
[ADR 0127](0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md) settled the old broker as an ordinary provider
of an ordinary provision, `amqp`, kept for whatever wanted a message broker of its own. The day the
bus moved was the day that framing was tested, and it failed in a way that took the control plane
down for an evening.
Three things came out of the wreckage. **The protocol had leaked into the seat's contract**: for a
module to hold `mesh-broker`, it had to provide what the seat delivers, and what it delivered was
`amqp` — so the module that will carry the bus on NATS could not hold the seat that names the bus,
while the module the mesh was leaving could. **A consumer of `amqp` is not asking for AMQP.** The two
modules requiring it wanted the mesh's messaging — to emit an event, to hear a topic — and named the
wire protocol only because that was the word available. **And AMQP and NATS are not interchangeable
at the wire.** A provision named after a protocol can only ever be answered by that protocol, so once
the bus is NATS an `amqp` provision has one possible provider, and it is the thing being retired.
The operator's position, stated during the outage: modules depend on the broker *seat*, not on a
protocol; AMQP is obsolete as anything the mesh's core knows about; a module that depends on `amqp`
is wrong; and everything should reach the mesh's bus and be able to emit events and consume topics
through it.
## Decision
**A module that needs messaging uses the mesh's bus, and the mesh's bus is whatever holds
`mesh-broker`.** Emitting an event and consuming a topic go through the sdk, which is handed the
bus by the mesh with the module's own credential. No manifest names a wire protocol to get it.
**`amqp` is neither a provision nor a requirement.** Registration refuses a manifest that provides
it or requires it. The `mesh-broker` seat delivers `mesh-bus`, and its holder is the module that
provides `mesh-bus` — today the nats module, and only it.
**The old broker's module and the two modules that required it leave the catalogue.** They are
removed, not converted: one was a proof that a grant worked end to end, the other forwards mail off a
queue, and both are re-done against the bus if wanted, as new modules under this record.
**The controller's AMQP transport is deleted once every node reports on the new bus**, and the
switch that selects a transport goes with it — one bus, so nothing to select.
The predecessor's own broker is outside the mesh and not this record's concern
([ADR 0130](0130-the-predecessor-is-ending-and-its-broker-goes-with-it.md)): what the predecessor's
tooling loses when it stops is accepted there.
## Options considered
1. **Keep 0127: AMQP stays an ordinary provision with the old broker as its provider.** Rejected. It
is what put the protocol into the seat's contract, it is why the seat could be left with no valid
holder mid-change, and it keeps two transports in the control plane indefinitely for the benefit of
two modules that did not want AMQP in the first place.
2. **Bridge it: the old broker's module also provides `mesh-bus`, so both can hold the seat during the
change.** Rejected. It makes the retiring broker a legitimate mesh bus for exactly as long as
nobody removes the line, which in practice is forever, and it leaves `amqp` as a thing the core
still knows the name of.
3. **The seat is the dependency; the protocol is nobody's business but the holder's.** Adopted.
## Consequences
- **The change of holder is a handover, and it needs a command.** Nothing today moves a seat from
one assignment to another as one act, and a seat the control plane dereferences cannot be empty
in between — that emptiness is the outage this record comes from. The command takes a seat and the
assignment taking it over. Designed and built before the cutover, under
[28 — Building the bus](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/28-building-the-bus.md).
- **The seat's row moves to `mesh-bus` before the new holder registers, and that is safe.** The
control plane composes its own bus address through the seat *by name*
(`${seat:mesh-broker:…}`), and the overview derives holders by name; only registration and the
provision-to-seat resolution read what a seat delivers. So the row can change under the current
holder without unseating it, the new holder can then register its claim, and the handover happens
when both are running. Verified in the code during the outage, not assumed.
- **Registration gains two refusals**: a manifest providing `amqp`, and one requiring it.
- **The `rollout check` stops saying the old broker stays.** It said so under 0127; it now lists
unassigning it as the last step of the move.
- **What got harder**: a third party that genuinely wants an AMQP broker on a mesh node runs one as
any application module, with no provision and no seat, and nothing on the mesh routes to it. That
is the cost of the mesh not knowing the word.
## How this is checked
| Rule | Checked by |
|---|---|
| No manifest provides or requires `amqp` | a registration test refusing each, naming this record; and a whole-catalogue test asserting no registered manifest names it |
| `mesh-broker` delivers `mesh-bus`, and only a `mesh-bus` provider may hold it | the existing registration test for a delivering seat, with the row's value read from the store (mesh-controller#89) |
| The seat's row can change without unseating the holder | a test composing the control plane's own address and the overview under a row that the current holder does not satisfy |
| The rollout does not leave the old broker running | `rollout check` output, asserted in its test |
| The AMQP transport is gone | the package does not compile with it referenced; the switch variable is refused as unknown at start |
+2 -1
View File
@@ -135,10 +135,11 @@ python3 00-META/checks/index.py fail if stale
- **0116** — [The bus is built in five steps, and the protocol moves with it](0116-the-bus-is-built-in-five-steps.md)
- **0119** — [A taken tunnel's predecessor is retired once the take is proven](0119-a-taken-tunnels-predecessor-is-retired.md)
- **0125** — [The bus is the only broker](0125-the-bus-is-the-only-broker.md) *(superseded)*
- **0127** — [AMQP is a provision, not the bus](0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md)
- **0127** — [AMQP is a provision, not the bus](0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md) *(superseded)*
- **0128** — [The mesh bus is required, not ambient](0128-the-mesh-bus-is-required-not-ambient.md)
- **0129** — [A seat carries the protocol of its role](0129-a-seat-carries-the-protocol-of-its-role.md)
- **0130** — [The predecessor is ending, and its broker goes with it](0130-the-predecessor-is-ending-and-its-broker-goes-with-it.md)
- **0131** — [Everything on the mesh speaks to the broker seat, and AMQP is not a provision](0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md)
### Its tiers, from the bottom up
+3 -3
View File
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ code:
updated: 2026-09-27
decisions:
- 02-DECISIONS/0106-the-bus-is-nats.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0116-the-bus-is-built-in-five-steps.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0074-the-wire-is-specified-not-the-types.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0079-the-foundation-seats-are-named-after-their-servers.md
@@ -303,7 +303,7 @@ the private network. It is raised at genesis like the store, adopted as a module
phase.
**The deprecated broker is an ordinary module, not a compatibility layer.** Revision, second review
([ADR 0127](../../02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md)): earlier text here, and
([ADR 0127](../../02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md) (superseded by [ADR 0131](../../02-DECISIONS/0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md): AMQP is not a provision, and everything speaks to the `mesh-broker` seat)): earlier text here, and
ADR 0106 before it, called it `lavinmq-compat` — one purpose, the predecessor's clients, and a
retirement condition of no client connected for a period the operator sets. It is none of those.
A module may legitimately need an AMQP broker as a **backing service**, the way it needs a
@@ -534,7 +534,7 @@ find what changed and why.
**Still open:**
- ~~Whether EVENTS should be one stream or one per emitting module.~~ **Closed**
([ADR 0127](../../02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md) (superseding [ADR 0125](../../02-DECISIONS/0125-the-bus-is-the-only-broker.md))): one stream, and not as a
([ADR 0127](../../02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md) (superseded by [ADR 0131](../../02-DECISIONS/0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md): AMQP is not a provision, and everything speaks to the `mesh-broker` seat) (superseding [ADR 0125](../../02-DECISIONS/0125-the-bus-is-the-only-broker.md))): one stream, and not as a
preference — the streams the bus is made of are composed as configuration before any module
runs, because a provisioner is itself a module that needs a bus account to start. Bootstrapping
decides it.
+32 -27
View File
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ updated: 2026-09-27
decisions:
- 02-DECISIONS/0116-the-bus-is-built-in-five-steps.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0106-the-bus-is-nats.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0126-a-module-declares-its-own-seats.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0074-the-wire-is-specified-not-the-types.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0079-the-foundation-seats-are-named-after-their-servers.md
@@ -673,37 +673,42 @@ healthy while reacting to nothing.
the question it depends on has ever been asked of something real is how the plan's own rule about
beds gets broken by another route.
> **What this costs if it goes wrong, measured rather than assumed.** On the installation this is
> for, the old broker is also what a whole automation layer outside the mesh connects to — so it
> stays, as an ordinary provider of `amqp` ([ADR 0127](../../02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md)),
> and this step is not its retirement. Nothing in a served request's path goes over the mesh's own
> bus: modules serve from their own containers. What a failed move costs is the mesh's ability to
> *change* anything — pushes, tool calls, new provisioning — until it is finished or undone. That
> is worth knowing before rather than after, and it is why the operator's "as long as my services
> keep running" is a reasonable position rather than a gamble.
- [ ] 5.3 the mesh's own accounts removed from the deprecated broker, and then the broker itself:
after the rollout nothing of the mesh speaks to it, and an account nothing uses is one nobody
rotates. **It finishes now** ([ADR 0130](../../02-DECISIONS/0130-the-predecessor-is-ending-and-its-broker-goes-with-it.md)):
the predecessor is deprecated rather than kept, so once its remnants have stopped the module is
unassigned and the port is free. No retirement machinery — a provision with no consumers has its
provider unassigned, which is ADR 0127 being paid off rather than revised.
> **What this costs if it goes wrong, measured rather than assumed.** Nothing in a served
> request's path goes over the mesh's own bus: modules serve from their own containers. What a
> failed move costs is the mesh's ability to *change* anything — pushes, tool calls, new
> provisioning — until it is finished or undone. That is worth knowing before rather than
> after, and it is why the operator's "as long as my services keep running" is a reasonable
> position rather than a gamble. **Measured on 2026-09-27**, when a seat emptied itself
> mid-change: 52 containers stayed up and the broker never stopped; the control plane
> crash-looped for two hours and nothing could be deployed until it was repaired by hand.
> An earlier version of this note said the old broker stays as an ordinary provider of
> `amqp` ([ADR 0127](../../02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md)); that is withdrawn by [ADR 0131](../../02-DECISIONS/0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md) — see 5.4.
- [ ] 5.3 **the seat changes hands as one act.** A command takes a seat and the assignment taking it
over, and the seat is never empty in between — the emptiness is the outage of 2026-09-27, when
the control plane, which finds its own bus through this seat, lost the address and looped.
Today only `seat rename` exists. This is what 5.2 uses to move `mesh-broker` from the old
broker's assignment to the new one's, and it is built first ([ADR 0131](../../02-DECISIONS/0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md)).
- [ ] 5.4 **the old broker and everything that named AMQP leave the mesh** ([ADR 0131](../../02-DECISIONS/0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md),
superseding [ADR 0127](../../02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md)): the two modules that
required `amqp` are removed, the broker's module is unassigned and removed, registration refuses
a manifest that provides or requires `amqp`, and a whole-catalogue check asserts none does. Not
a retirement condition — a decision, taken, with the operator's "I don't care if the predecessor
breaks" on record ([ADR 0130](../../02-DECISIONS/0130-the-predecessor-is-ending-and-its-broker-goes-with-it.md)).
Retiring with it: the build outcome's second announcement under the module's own name, which
exists only so a catalogue deployed before the rename and one deployed after both hear it.
existed only so a catalogue deployed before the rename and one after both heard it.
> **The remote tooling goes with it too.** The predecessor's own mesh talks over that broker, so
> shutting it down ends the path that reaches this installation's machines from a workstation.
> The rollout has to be driven from the node, or driven before the broker stops — which is a
> sequencing constraint on 5.2 and not an afterthought.
> The rollout is driven from the node, or before the broker stops — a sequencing constraint on
> 5.2, not an afterthought.
- [ ] 5.5 **the AMQP transport is deleted from the control plane and the hosts**, and the variable
that selected a transport is refused at start as unknown. One bus, nothing to select ([ADR 0131](../../02-DECISIONS/0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md)).
> **5.4 is gone, and was wrong from ADR 0127 onward.** It read "the deprecated broker retires
> when its condition holds — no client connected for the period the operator sets", which is
> ADR 0106's framing of it as a compatibility module with an end date.
> [ADR 0127](../../02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md) settled that it is an
> **ordinary provider** of the `amqp` provision, like any module answering a backing service:
> no seat, not foundation, and **no retirement condition**, because the day its last client
> disappears is not a day anything is waiting for. Removed rather than reworded — a step that
> waits for a condition nobody set would sit open forever.
> **The old 5.4 note is history.** It recorded that a retirement *condition* was wrong from
> [ADR 0127](../../02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md) onward, which framed the old broker
> as an ordinary provider with no end. [ADR 0131](../../02-DECISIONS/0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md) ends that
> framing in turn: the broker is not kept as a provider either, because AMQP is not a provision. Both
> readings are kept here so the two reversals can be read in order.
**Done when.** Every node reports on NATS, and nothing of the mesh's own is left connected to the
deprecated broker.
@@ -357,7 +357,7 @@ controller — because the bus's accounts are configuration rather than somethin
creates, so there is no provisioner process in the path and nothing waiting on a bus account in
order to make bus accounts. A module that runs a NATS server of its own and offers it as a
backing service provides **`nats`**, exactly as the deprecated broker provides `amqp`
([ADR 0127](../../02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md)).
([ADR 0127](../../02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md) (superseded by [ADR 0131](../../02-DECISIONS/0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md): AMQP is not a provision, and everything speaks to the `mesh-broker` seat)).
They are never the same name. A manifest saying `nats` could otherwise mean either the mesh's
nervous system or a private queue, and the difference between those is the whole architecture.
@@ -427,7 +427,7 @@ it as an ordinary module once the registry exists.
So there are exactly two things the normal path cannot make, both at genesis, both ending the
moment the mesh can mint for itself: **the bus's own accounts** (§the bootstrap argument in
[ADR 0127](../../02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md) (superseding [ADR 0125](../../02-DECISIONS/0125-the-bus-is-the-only-broker.md)) — a provisioner is a module and
[ADR 0127](../../02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md) (superseded by [ADR 0131](../../02-DECISIONS/0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md): AMQP is not a provision, and everything speaks to the `mesh-broker` seat) (superseding [ADR 0125](../../02-DECISIONS/0125-the-bus-is-the-only-broker.md)) — a provisioner is a module and
needs an account before it can run) and **the vault's own credential**. Any third exception is a
design failure, and naming these two is what makes a third one visible.
+1 -1
View File
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ document is written and this one's status becomes `implemented`.
| [`28-building-the-bus.md`](28-building-the-bus.md) | **Proposed.** The five steps of the bus work in the order their dependencies allow, each ending at a bed — with the surface measured, so no step's size is a guess | [ADR 0116](../../02-DECISIONS/0116-the-bus-is-built-in-five-steps.md), [ADR 0106](../../02-DECISIONS/0106-the-bus-is-nats.md), [ADR 0074](../../02-DECISIONS/0074-the-wire-is-specified-not-the-types.md) |
| [`29-a-node-has-operator-accounts.md`](29-a-node-has-operator-accounts.md) | **Proposed.** The mesh models machines but not the humans on them: a node gains operator accounts, and a resource may live under a home owned by its account — what would own ~/.ssh, dotfiles and ~/.config when HAL retires | [ADR 0112](../../02-DECISIONS/0112-a-module-definition-names-no-node-mesh-or-path.md), [ADR 0051](../../02-DECISIONS/0051-shared-data-is-the-operators.md) |
| [`32-what-a-module-declares.md`](32-what-a-module-declares.md) | **Proposed.** What a module declares and what the bus derives from it: three namespaces, subjects from local names, queues never declared, the five relationships, and the build-publish-deploy lifecycle on one bus | [ADR 0126](../../02-DECISIONS/0126-a-module-declares-its-own-seats.md), [ADR 0127](../../02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md) (superseding [ADR 0125](../../02-DECISIONS/0125-the-bus-is-the-only-broker.md)), [ADR 0041](../../02-DECISIONS/0041-events-are-a-relationship.md) |
| [`32-what-a-module-declares.md`](32-what-a-module-declares.md) | **Proposed.** What a module declares and what the bus derives from it: three namespaces, subjects from local names, queues never declared, the five relationships, and the build-publish-deploy lifecycle on one bus | [ADR 0126](../../02-DECISIONS/0126-a-module-declares-its-own-seats.md), [ADR 0127](../../02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md), superseded by [ADR 0131](../../02-DECISIONS/0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md) (superseding [ADR 0125](../../02-DECISIONS/0125-the-bus-is-the-only-broker.md)), [ADR 0041](../../02-DECISIONS/0041-events-are-a-relationship.md) |
## Not yet written