ADR 0152: the operator's surface is a module, the console

The work order's group-3 question answered: an ordinary module the mesh assigns to the machine a
person sits at, holding a minted credential, calling tools under a manifest grant (invokes), serving
MCP on loopback. Design 34; pointers in 33, 25 and 0095; module check designed into 12 (issue 148);
README stops claiming an indexing nothing provides (issue 006).

03-DESIGN/01-to-be/12-a-module-repository.md

@@ -7,9 +7,10 @@ code:
   - mesh-controller internal/catalogue/build.go
   - mesh-controller internal/inventory/secrets.go
   - mesh-controller cmd/mesh-builder
-updated: 2026-09-12
+updated: 2026-09-30
 decisions:
   - 02-DECISIONS/0069-a-module-is-a-repository-and-a-path.md
+  - 02-DECISIONS/0037-where-a-module-lives.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0009-modules-and-the-graph.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0010-delivery.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0005-the-node-host.md
@@ -60,6 +61,32 @@ module from a repository and a path, and the root-only reading left every existi
 unbuildable — pointed at the catalogue the builder finds no manifest, pointed at a module's source
 it finds no manifest either.*
 
+## A manifest is checked where it is written
+
+*Added 2026-09-30, from [issue 148](../../04-ISSUES/148-a-manifest-outside-this-catalogue-has-no-check/00-report.md).*
+
+The check the mesh applies at registration — the manifest parses strictly, every name in it is a
+usable one, its routes and events and seats are well formed, and no two manifests given together
+declare one seat — is a verb on the controller's binary, `module check <manifest>…`, and it needs no
+mesh. It reads the files it is given, runs the same functions registration runs, prints every problem
+in the manifest's own words, and exits non-zero if there was one. Somebody describing their own
+application in their own repository — the case [ADR 0037](../../02-DECISIONS/0037-where-a-module-lives.md)
+calls the one that matters most — runs it before pushing, and finds out there rather than when a
+running mesh refuses the registration, or later, when a machine applies something that resolved and
+should not have.
+
+**What it cannot know, it says.** A seat another module declares elsewhere is unknown to a check that
+was not handed that module's manifest, and the output says so rather than refusing: pass the other
+manifest too. The mesh's own seats it knows from the binary, which is the one place that set may be
+read without a store ([ADR 0122](../../02-DECISIONS/0122-a-seat-is-data-a-rename-is-a-database-update.md)
+keeps the store authoritative, so a claim on a mesh seat is judged fully only at registration, and the
+check says that too).
+
+*How it is checked:* the controller's test runs the check over the catalogue checkout beside it and
+over a manifest with a known fault, and asserts the first passes and the second names the fault; the
+test that used to be the only check, `TestEveryCatalogueManifestParses`, now stands beside a command
+anybody can run.
+
 ## The manifest in the repository is not the manifest the mesh holds
 
 A resource names an artifact:

03-DESIGN/01-to-be/25-the-bus-on-nats.md

@@ -361,6 +361,13 @@ bridged. It is three things:
 
 Nothing is built of this before §10's bed passes; the MCP surface is a thin adapter over (2).
 
+*Built, and then made a module — 2026-09-30.* (1) and (2) exist: `operator issue` and the `mesh`
+client. What (2) describes as a program on the workstation is now the recovery path; the surface an
+operator uses is a module the mesh assigns to the machine, holding a credential the mesh minted —
+[ADR 0152](../../02-DECISIONS/0152-the-operators-surface-is-a-module-the-console.md),
+[34 — The console](34-the-console.md). The tool list it asks for is no longer
+`catalog_tools`, which nothing served: each runtime answers `tools` for its own module.
+
 ## 8. What a module sees, and what the wire does
 
 **The contract a module is written against does not change.** `publish` on an envelope becomes a

03-DESIGN/01-to-be/33-the-tools-the-mesh-answers.md

@@ -102,6 +102,12 @@ being something a person carries and becomes something the mesh runs, on a node,
 An agent's authority can then be role-shaped: *the forge's tools*, rather than a list of
 module-specific names that changes the day the forge is replaced.
 
+*Decided and designed on 2026-09-30:* the module is the console —
+[ADR 0152](../../02-DECISIONS/0152-the-operators-surface-is-a-module-the-console.md),
+[34 — The console](34-the-console.md). It builds the second half of §5 now (a module's tools are
+asked of the module, through a `tools` verb every runtime answers) and lists a role's tools when the
+records carry them.
+
 ## 7. Versioning
 
 A seat's tools are an interface and change like one. Additive within a version. A change that would

03-DESIGN/01-to-be/34-the-console.md

@@ -0,0 +1,116 @@
+---
+layer: to-be
+status: in-progress
+code: [mesh-catalog, mesh-tools, mesh-controller]
+updated: 2026-09-30
+decisions:
+  - 02-DECISIONS/0152-the-operators-surface-is-a-module-the-console.md
+  - 02-DECISIONS/0132-a-seat-carries-the-tools-its-holder-must-serve.md
+  - 02-DECISIONS/0095-the-control-plane-is-the-way-to-ask-a-module.md
+  - 02-DECISIONS/0035-one-implementation-several-surfaces.md
+  - 02-DECISIONS/0034-the-local-account-owns-the-mesh.md
+---
+
+# 34 — The console
+
+**The mesh's tools, on the machine a person sits at, served by a module the mesh assigned there.**
+An agent reaches them over MCP on the machine's loopback; a person reaches the same endpoint. Nothing is
+installed by hand, nothing is configured with an address, and the mesh knows the surface exists because
+it put it there ([ADR 0152](../../02-DECISIONS/0152-the-operators-surface-is-a-module-the-console.md)).
+
+## 1. What it is
+
+A module, `mesh-console`, in the catalogue. Its image is the tool runtime's own — the client that
+already speaks the bus as a command line and as an MCP server — started in a mode that reads the
+module's credential and listens on loopback. It has no state, no provision, no seat. What it needs is
+the bus, which it gets the way every module does: a credential the mesh minted for `<node>.mesh-console`,
+sealed to the machine, delivered as the module's own secret.
+
+Its manifest says three things nothing else in the catalogue says together:
+
+- `invokes: ["*"]` — it calls every tool on the mesh, and the bus grants exactly that publish side;
+- `listens` on a port `from: machine` — the filter opens nothing for it, because loopback is not outside;
+- no `emits`, no `consumes`, no `tools` — it answers nothing on the bus and nobody can address it there.
+
+## 2. What it serves, and to whom
+
+**One endpoint, `POST /mcp` on the machine's loopback**, speaking MCP over HTTP: `initialize`,
+`tools/list`, `tools/call`. An agent on the machine is pointed at it once — the address is the machine's
+own and never changes — and sees every tool the mesh can say it has. A person at a terminal uses the
+same endpoint through the `mesh` client, or through anything that can make an HTTP request; the client
+needs no credential, because the console holds it.
+
+**The endpoint is the machine's login.** It binds `127.0.0.1` and nothing else. Whoever can connect is
+on the machine, and whoever is on the machine is the account that owns the mesh there
+([ADR 0034](../../02-DECISIONS/0034-the-local-account-owns-the-mesh.md),
+[ADR 0144](../../02-DECISIONS/0144-anything-on-a-machine-may-call-anything-on-it.md)). There is no
+token, no login page and no second identity, on purpose: a credential a person had to carry to reach
+their own machine's console would be the arrangement this replaces, moved one hop.
+
+## 3. How it knows what the mesh can do
+
+Design [33](33-the-tools-the-mesh-answers.md) §5 splits discovery in two: a role's tools are read from
+the mesh's records, a module's own are asked of the module. The console builds the second half now and
+reads the first when it exists.
+
+**Every tool runtime answers `tools`.** The runtime that serves a module's tools also serves one verb of
+its own under that module's name, `mesh.mod.<module>.tool.tools`, answering the module's tool names,
+descriptions and argument schemas — the definitions from the code that answers them, and from nowhere
+else. A module may not name a tool of its own `tools`; the runtime refuses the collision at load.
+
+**The console asks the catalogue which modules the mesh holds, then asks each.** `catalog_modules`
+answers the roster; one `tools` request per module, in parallel, answers the list. The bus refuses at
+once a request nothing serves, so a module that is not running costs nothing and is named in the answer
+as not answering, rather than silently absent — *silence and success must never look alike*. The list is
+kept for a short while and refreshed, so an agent asking on every turn does not fan out on every turn.
+
+**A tool that was not listed can still be called.** Listing is discovery; calling is the grant. An agent
+that knows a tool's name asks for it by `<module>.<tool>` and the module answers or the bus says why not.
+
+**What is missing from the list, and until when.** A role's tools and the mesh's own verbs — `status`,
+`push`, `assign` — are the `mesh-controller` seat's under ADR 0132 and are not served yet; their three
+prerequisites are listed in that record. When the seat serves them, the console lists them beside the
+modules' own, and the person stops opening a shell for the mesh's own questions. Until then the console
+says so in its handshake.
+
+## 4. Where it runs
+
+On whichever machines an operator sits at, by assignment. It is not on the control node by default and
+does not need to be: it reaches the bus like any module, from anywhere in the mesh. A machine that is
+not a node cannot have it, which is the right refusal — the mesh reaches what it declares, and a
+workstation that wants the console joins first.
+
+The person's credential and the `mesh` client (design [25](25-the-bus-on-nats.md) §7) remain the path
+for a machine that is not a node, and the path to a mesh not yet far enough along to assign anything.
+
+## 5. Removing it
+
+Unassigning the console from a machine revokes its bus account at the next composition and stops the
+container; nothing is left on the machine that could still connect. An agent pointed at the loopback
+address gets a refused connection, which is the truthful answer.
+
+## How it is checked
+
+| Check | Defends |
+|---|---|
+| a module invoking one tool may publish that subject and no other tool's; `*` may publish every one; neither may publish an event or subscribe what it did not consume | ADR 0152, the grant |
+| a module registering two tools answers three names to `tools`, with schemas; a module naming its own `tools` is refused at load | ADR 0152, discovery |
+| against a real bus: two modules up, a third held and not running — the console lists the two and names the third as not answering | ADR 0152, silence is not success |
+| a call through the console's endpoint reaches a module over the bus and the answer is the module's own, unshaped | ADR 0035, a surface decides nothing |
+| on the live mesh: the console assigned to a workstation answers `tools/list` on loopback and a call to the forge returns repositories | the exit of work-order step 3 |
+| the composed filter for a machine carrying the console opens no port for it | ADR 0144 |
+
+## What this does not settle
+
+- Narrowing a console's grant per assignment. ADR 0046 makes it a setting; nothing reads one yet.
+- The mesh's own verbs on the bus. Design 33's third family; this document only says where they appear
+  once they exist.
+- A person's identity behind the console. The mesh sees the console's account; design 15 keeps the
+  question open.
+
+## References
+
+- [ADR 0152](../../02-DECISIONS/0152-the-operators-surface-is-a-module-the-console.md) — the decision
+- [33 — The tools the mesh answers](33-the-tools-the-mesh-answers.md) — what the console lists
+- [25 — The bus on NATS](25-the-bus-on-nats.md) §7 — the person's client this makes a module of
+- [issue 147](../../04-ISSUES/147-the-operators-tools-still-dial-the-bus-that-was-removed/00-report.md) — the symptom