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ADR 0113 and to-be 27: the vault makes every secret — provisioning all the way down

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A secret comes into being seven ways today: provider credentials, own secrets (54 modules), broker
accounts through a command that is easy to forget, a vault that only records what the controller
mints (6 modules), operator values, licences, and root secrets. The vault was built to end own secrets
and did not; the old path was never retired.

0113 is rewritten as a waterfall. The vault makes every secret and nothing else does. A provider that
needs a secret for a consumer requires it from the vault, declared once in its provision's contract
and expanded per consumer by resolution; the vault delivers it to both holders, each sealed to its own
node, so a provider's code is unchanged. Own secrets, broker passwords, operator values and licence
credentials take the same path. Genesis is not an exception: it raises the vault first and asks it,
so there is one way a secret is made from the first one on. The vault can sit at the bottom because it
requires nothing but a broker account.

One shared mint function in the SDK was considered and rejected: generation becomes uniform but custody
stays spread over every provider's machine, and each SDK language needs its own implementation.

Rotation is asked of the vault and is provider-first: the value goes to the holder that accepts it,
which confirms, before the holder that presents it gets it, so the lockout window shrinks to the
consumer's own restart, and an unconfirmed provider holds the rotation rather than half-doing it. The
host derives which processes to restart or recreate from the requirement a definition reads, so no
definition declares restart-on for a secret. A rotation shows unconfirmed until each consumer restarted
and passed its health check. Issue 103 becomes a prerequisite.

The file is renamed to match what it now decides. 0112 follows.
This commit is contained in:
jochen
2026-09-25 23:10:52 +02:00
parent 6e3373c879
commit fa2c09a2c5
6 changed files with 265 additions and 173 deletions
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02-DECISIONS/0112-a-module-definition-names-no-node-mesh-or-path.md
+7 -5
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@@ -82,8 +82,9 @@ like an external API key, is still the operator's: the vault is where it is *kep
operator-delivered value ([ADR 0092](0092-an-operator-delivers-a-pair-credential.md)), not who
provides it.
**What a provider answers with is its contract's fields**, made by the provider and carried back to
the consumer by the mesh ([ADR 0113](0113-a-provider-makes-what-it-provides-and-the-mesh-carries-it.md)).
**Every secret is made by the vault, and a provider answers with resources and data**
([ADR 0113](0113-the-vault-makes-every-secret.md)). A provider that needs a secret for a consumer
requires it from the vault, like any consumer. The mesh carries every answer back.
**A directory is a host provision.** Its contract is the owner and mode the module needs, including
the owner its image expects ([ADR 0107](0107-persistent-data-is-a-directory-bind-never-a-named-volume.md)).
@@ -111,8 +112,9 @@ carries, and a provider's identity. So **one module may be assigned to one node
must stay singular stays so by a claim, or by an operator value colliding: a public name already taken
is refused like any other singular thing.
**Genesis is the one exception**, as [ADR 0113](0113-a-provider-makes-what-it-provides-and-the-mesh-carries-it.md)
states: the foundation's requirements are answered by genesis itself, before any provider exists.
**Genesis is not an exception.** It raises the vault first and asks it for the foundation's secrets,
so the foundation's requirements are answered the same way as everything else
([ADR 0113](0113-the-vault-makes-every-secret.md)).
## What this changes in earlier records
@@ -177,7 +179,7 @@ On acceptance, each of these is amended by a record of its own, not edited:
- [ADR 0038](0038-the-mesh-assigns-the-port.md), [ADR 0046](0046-a-module-configuration-is-its-assignments-not-its-manifest.md),
[ADR 0084](0084-which-provider-serves-a-consumer.md): the parts already unified
- [ADR 0110](0110-a-seat-is-a-module-assignment-from-a-closed-set.md): which module provider answers
- [ADR 0113](0113-a-provider-makes-what-it-provides-and-the-mesh-carries-it.md): who makes an answer, and how it travels
- [ADR 0113](0113-the-vault-makes-every-secret.md): the vault makes every secret, and how answers travel
- [ADR 0092](0092-an-operator-delivers-a-pair-credential.md): the operator as a provider
- [ADR 0051](0051-shared-data-is-the-operators.md), [ADR 0107](0107-persistent-data-is-a-directory-bind-never-a-named-volume.md),
[ADR 0030](0030-data-outlives-the-mesh-that-declared-it.md): what a directory's contract carries, and what it must not
02-DECISIONS/0113-a-provider-makes-what-it-provides-and-the-mesh-carries-it.md
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@@ -1,143 +0,0 @@
---
topic: what runs on it
status: proposed
date: 2026-09-25
deciders: jochen
reconstructed: false
---
# 113. A provider makes what it provides, and the mesh carries it back to the consumer
## Context
[ADR 0048](0048-a-provider-creates-the-credential-the-mesh-minted.md) decided that a provider is
handed the credential and makes none: the controller mints one per consumer and provider pair, seals
it to both nodes, and the provider creates the login under it. It fixed a real fault. The provider
harness of the time generated its own password and sealed it with a symmetric key nobody held, so a
consumer could never receive what the provider made. Controller-minting worked because it needed no
way back from provider to consumer.
**It left that way back undecided, deliberately.** 0048 says so: *"delivering provider-generated data
back to a consumer is a return path the mesh does not have and this decision does not build — a
separate shape, left to a separate decision."* Since then, the missing return path has come up
repeatedly:
- **Data provisions have nothing to answer with.** The analytics provider assigns a site id the
consumer needs. The DNS provider registers a name the consumer should be told. Both have no path
back, and say so in their code.
- **Some contracts need a value the controller cannot make.** The broker needs its admin password in
a hashed form the mesh's plain secret delivery cannot produce, so a module-specific bootstrap step
was written to derive it. That admin is a foundation credential, which genesis makes, so this
record does not remove that step. It is the clearest instance of the general problem, though: a
contract can require a form only the party that understands the software can produce.
- **The vault is a ledger.** A module's own secret is "a `secret` provision the controller mints and
the vault records" ([ADR 0085](0085-a-secret-is-a-provision.md), as amended). The one module whose
job is secrets generates none, and cannot apply a policy (length, form, lifetime) because it never
makes one. Every other provider creates what it provides. The vault is the exception.
[ADR 0112](0112-a-module-definition-names-no-node-mesh-or-path.md) proposes that everything a module
needs is a requirement answered by a provider against a contract. Under that, "the controller mints
this one kind of answer on the provider's behalf" is a special case the model would carry forever.
## Considered Options
**1. Keep 0048: the controller mints credentials, and data provisions stay without a way back.**
Rejected. The vault stays a ledger, contracts needing a derived form keep needing bespoke steps, and
a data provision stays unable to answer at all.
**2. The provider makes the value and hands it to the consumer itself.** Rejected. The two may be on
different machines with no path between them the mesh has agreed to, and a provider reaching
consumers directly is a second delivery system beside the mesh's. 0048's objection, a symmetric key
both ends hold, is not what rules this out: node keys are asymmetric, and a provider can seal to a
node's public key without sharing anything.
**3. The provider makes the value and gives it to the controller in plaintext, which seals and
delivers it.** Rejected. It works, and it puts every secret in the controller's memory and on the
broker in the clear, a surface today's design does not have for provider-side values.
**4. The provider makes the value, seals each secret field to the consumer's node itself, and the
mesh carries the sealed answer.** Chosen. The mesh already tells a provider who each consumer is and
where; it also hands it the consumer node's public key. The provider seals to it, and answers over
its own scoped account. The controller delivers the sealed fields as it delivers everything else,
and can open none of them.
## Decision
**A provider makes what it provides.** Given a consumer, it creates the resource and answers with
the fields its contract names: a password, an access key, a site id, a registered name, a hashed
admin secret. The vault generates the secrets it provides, to their contract, and rotates them.
**The provider seals, and the mesh carries.** With each consumer, the mesh hands the provider that
consumer node's public key. The provider seals every field its contract marks secret to it, and
hands the answer to the controller over its own scoped broker account. The controller delivers the
answer as the consumer's resolved values, and can open none of the sealed fields. A provider never
reaches a consumer directly. A secret's plaintext exists where it is made, on the provider's machine,
and where it is used, on the consumer's, and nowhere between. That is stricter than today, where the
controller holds every minted credential in the clear when it makes it.
**Who a consumer is stays the mesh's.** The login a consumer presents is the mesh's derivation, which
both ends agree on by construction ([ADR 0049](0049-a-consumers-identity-fits-the-tightest-backend.md),
issue 023). A provider makes what a consumer is *given*, never what it is *called*.
**Rotation is the provider's act.** Asked to rotate, a provider makes a new value and answers again,
and the mesh redelivers it. An operator-delivered value ([ADR 0092](0092-an-operator-delivers-a-pair-credential.md))
is still never replaced by the mesh: its provider is the operator.
**The foundation is the one exception.** The foundation's own credentials, the vault's own access and
the mesh's root secrets exist before any provider can answer. The controller mints those: at genesis,
and when an operator rotates a root secret ([ADR 0085](0085-a-secret-is-a-provision.md)). It seals
them to the operator key as today, including any form the foundation's software needs, such as the
broker admin's hash. Nothing else is minted by the controller.
## What this changes in earlier records
On acceptance, each of these is superseded or amended by this record, not edited:
- [ADR 0048](0048-a-provider-creates-the-credential-the-mesh-minted.md) is superseded: a provider no
longer receives a minted credential. Its refusal of provider-held symmetric keys stands, and is why
option 2 is rejected here.
- [ADR 0085](0085-a-secret-is-a-provision.md) is amended: the vault generates a module's own secret
rather than recording one the controller minted. "The vault stores no plaintext, ever" stands. It
makes a value, seals it, hands it to the mesh and keeps only what it keeps today.
- [To-be 24](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/24-the-secrets-vault.md) and
[to-be 13](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/13-credentials-and-their-rotation.md) are amended: both describe
the controller minting a module's credentials and rotating them. After this, the controller mints
only the foundation's, and a provider rotates by answering again.
## Consequences
- **A consumer waits for its provider.** Its requirement is not resolved until the provider has
answered, so resolution gains a state, *waiting on a provider*, that is shown rather than silent.
Today a consumer can receive a credential before the resource behind it exists. After this it
cannot.
- The provider harness in the SDK changes: an adapter's create answers with its contract's fields
instead of returning nothing, and every provider in the catalogue moves to it. This is one
migration per provider, the cost 0048 named for changing the contract, and it is paid once.
- The controller gains the return path: receiving a sealed answer on a provider's account and
delivering it. Each contribution gains the consumer node's public key. Data provisions gain the same
path, so the analytics and DNS providers can finally answer.
- A contract needing a derived form is met by its provider. The broker admin's hash stays with the
controller, because that admin is a foundation credential.
- **What got harder:** a provider that is down cannot hand out credentials, where today the controller
could mint one in its absence. That is honest, because a credential for a resource that does not
exist yet was never usable, but it moves a failure from later and silent to earlier and visible.
## How it is checked
| Rule | Checked by |
|---|---|
| A provider's secret fields are sealed before they leave it | An SDK test: an answer whose contract marks a field secret cannot be handed over unsealed. A controller test: an unsealed secret field in an answer is refused, not delivered. |
| A provider's answer reaches the consumer sealed to its node | A controller test delivering a provider's answer: each secret field opens with the consumer node's key and with no other, the controller's included. |
| A consumer's identity is still the mesh's | A resolution test: the login a consumer presents is the mesh's derivation, whatever the provider answers. |
| A consumer waits for its provider | A resolution test with no answer yet: the requirement shows as waiting on a provider, and nothing is delivered. |
| The controller mints only the foundation's credentials | A controller test: the minting function is reachable only from genesis and from root-secret rotation, and never for a module's provision. |
| The vault generates and rotates | A vault test: a requested secret is generated to its contract, and a rotation answers with a new value. |
## References
- [ADR 0048](0048-a-provider-creates-the-credential-the-mesh-minted.md): the decision this supersedes,
and the return path it left open
- [ADR 0049](0049-a-consumers-identity-fits-the-tightest-backend.md): identity stays the mesh's
- [ADR 0085](0085-a-secret-is-a-provision.md), [ADR 0092](0092-an-operator-delivers-a-pair-credential.md):
the vault, and the operator as a provider
- [ADR 0112](0112-a-module-definition-names-no-node-mesh-or-path.md): everything a module needs is a requirement
02-DECISIONS/0113-the-vault-makes-every-secret.md
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---
topic: what runs on it
status: proposed
date: 2026-09-25
deciders: jochen
reconstructed: false
---
# 113. The vault makes every secret, a provider makes resources and data, and the mesh carries both
## Context
**A secret comes into being seven different ways today**, counted across the catalogue and the
controller on 2026-09-25:
| kind | made by | used by |
|---|---|---|
| a credential between a consumer and a provider | the controller | 19 modules |
| a module's own secret (`own-secrets`) | the controller, as a random value nothing owns | 54 modules |
| a broker account | the controller, but only when a person runs a separate command; otherwise the random value above, which cannot work ([issue 095](../04-ISSUES/095-a-module-assigned-after-genesis-has-no-broker-account/00-report.md)) | 49 modules |
| a `secret` from the vault | the controller mints it, and the vault only records it ([ADR 0085](0085-a-secret-is-a-provision.md), as amended) | 6 modules |
| a value an operator accepts | a person ([ADR 0092](0092-an-operator-delivers-a-pair-credential.md)) | where accepted |
| a licence for model access | a separate controller context with its own store | model consumers |
| the mesh's root secrets | genesis, sealed to the operator key | the foundation |
**The vault was built to end the second row, and did not.** ADR 0085 says a module's own secret
*"stops being a generated value that nothing owns"*. 54 modules still use one, and 6 use the vault.
The replacement was added and the old path was never retired. The same has happened to the broker
account, a special case of the second row that fails silently when the separate command is forgotten.
**Rotation has its own gaps.** To-be 13 makes rotation one command, all-or-nothing, and states the
window in which a consumer cannot authenticate: the provider has taken the new password, and the
consumer has not yet restarted with it. A consumer restarts only if its definition remembered to say
so, and a container fed by an env-file is not recreated when that file changes, so it keeps the old
value ([issue 103](../04-ISSUES/103-a-container-is-not-recreated-when-a-file-it-reads-changes/00-report.md)).
Nothing confirms that the new secret works.
**And providers cannot answer with data.** [ADR 0048](0048-a-provider-creates-the-credential-the-mesh-minted.md)
left *"delivering provider-generated data back to a consumer"* to a separate decision. The analytics
provider's site id and the DNS provider's record have no way back, and say so in their code.
## Considered Options
**1. Keep the controller minting, and tidy the seven paths.** Rejected. The paths are the problem:
each is made, kept, rotated and audited differently, and tidying keeps all seven.
**2. Every provider mints its own secrets, with one shared function in the SDK.** Rejected. It makes
generation uniform and leaves custody scattered: every provider's machine holds secrets the vault
never sees, so rotation, audit and the operator's break-glass copies cover only some of them. The
function would also need a conforming implementation in every language a provider is written in.
**3. The vault makes every secret, and a provider that needs one requires it, like any consumer.**
Chosen. A provider serving a consumer requires a secret for that consumer from the vault. Secrets
become provisioning all the way down, with one maker at the bottom.
## Decision
**The vault makes every secret in the mesh.** Generation, to a secret's contract, exists in the vault
and nowhere else. The controller mints nothing.
**A provider that needs a secret for a consumer requires it from the vault.** A provision's contract
declares it: *for each consumer, one secret*. Resolution expands that into one requirement per
consumer, named for the consumer. So gitea requiring a database makes the database's provider require
a secret named for gitea, and the vault answers it. The provider's own code does not change. It is
handed a login and a password, as it is today.
**A secret has holders, and the vault delivers to each.** The database credential has two: the
provider, which creates the login with it, and the consumer, which presents it. The vault hands it to
the mesh, which delivers it to each holder sealed to that holder's node. Plaintext exists in the
vault while it is made and on each holder's machine, and nowhere else. The controller carries sealed
values it cannot open.
**Every other secret takes the same path:**
- a module's **own secret** is a `secret` requirement the vault answers. `own-secrets` is retired;
- a **broker account** is the module's identity on the bus. Its name is the mesh's, its password is a
secret the vault makes, and the controller creates the account with it, as it creates accounts
today. There is no separate command to forget;
- an **operator's value** that is secret is handed to the vault, which provides it like any other
secret. It is never replaced by rotation ([ADR 0092](0092-an-operator-delivers-a-pair-credential.md));
- a **licence's** credential is an operator's value the vault keeps. What the licences context adds,
refreshing a token and a manager holding the refresh credential, is provider behaviour, decided in
its own record.
**Genesis is the vault's first answer, not an exception.** Genesis raises the vault before anything
else and asks it for the foundation's secrets: the store's superuser, the broker's admin and its hashed
form, and the vault's own broker account. The vault answers with the same code it always uses, before
the bus exists. Genesis mints nothing itself.
**A provider makes resources and data, and the mesh carries data back.** A provider answers with its
contract's non-secret fields: a site id, a registered name. The mesh delivers them to the consumer as
resolved values. Who a consumer is stays the mesh's: a provider makes what a consumer is *given*,
never what it is *called* ([ADR 0049](0049-a-consumers-identity-fits-the-tightest-backend.md)).
### Rotation
**It is asked of the vault**, by an operator or by the vault's own policy, such as the maximum age a
secret's contract sets.
**It is provider-first.** The vault delivers the new value first to the holders that *accept* it,
such as the database, and waits for each to confirm it has applied it. Only then does it release the
value to the holders that *present* it, such as gitea. A consumer is never sent a value its provider
has not accepted, so the window shrinks to the consumer's own restart. A provider that does not
confirm holds the rotation: the consumer keeps the old value, which still works, and `status` shows the
rotation as waiting on that provider. It is never half-done and never silently abandoned.
**Restarts are derived, not declared.** The mesh knows which process reads which secret, because the
definition reads it through its requirement ([to-be 27](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/27-a-module-requires-the-mesh-resolves.md)).
When a secret changes, the host restarts every process that reads it, and recreates a container whose
env-file carries it. No definition has to remember `restart-on` for a secret.
**It is confirmed.** A rotated secret is shown as unconfirmed until each consumer has restarted with
it and, where its definition declares a health check, passed it. Delivered is not the same as working,
and the mesh says which one it knows.
| step | who |
|---|---|
| asks | an operator, or the vault's policy |
| makes the value | the vault |
| carries it | the controller, sealed, provider first |
| applies it on the provider | the provider's provisioner, which confirms |
| applies it on the consumer | the host, restarting or recreating what reads it |
| confirms it works | the consumer's restart and health check, shown in `status` |
## What this changes in earlier records
On acceptance, each of these is superseded or amended by this record, not edited:
- [ADR 0048](0048-a-provider-creates-the-credential-the-mesh-minted.md) is superseded: the controller
no longer mints a provider's credential; the vault makes it. That a provider is handed its
credential and seals nothing stands.
- [ADR 0085](0085-a-secret-is-a-provision.md) is amended: the vault makes a module's own secret rather
than recording one the controller minted, own secrets are retired, and genesis asks the vault for
the root secrets. "The vault stores no plaintext, ever" stands.
- [ADR 0092](0092-an-operator-delivers-a-pair-credential.md) is amended: an operator delivers a secret
to the vault.
- [To-be 13](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/13-credentials-and-their-rotation.md) and
[to-be 24](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/24-the-secrets-vault.md) are amended: rotation is provider-first,
derived and confirmed, and the vault is the only maker.
- [Issue 103](../04-ISSUES/103-a-container-is-not-recreated-when-a-file-it-reads-changes/00-report.md)
becomes a prerequisite: rotation cannot be trusted while a changed env-file leaves a container on
its old value.
## Consequences
- **The vault is on the path of every new or rotated secret.** Today the controller is, and both run
on the control-node, so no new single point of failure appears. It is stated rather than implied.
- Resolution expands per-consumer requirements from a provision's contract. The contract declares
them, never the provider's code, so what a provider requires stays predictable from the catalogue.
- The SDK's provider loop gains one thing: confirming that a rotation was applied. Adapters are
unchanged.
- The mesh gains the way back from provider to consumer, for confirmations and for data.
- 54 modules move from own secrets to vault requirements, and the broker account stops needing a
separate command.
- **What got harder:** a secret can no longer be made when the vault is down, where today the
controller makes one regardless. And a rotation waits for its provider. Both move failures from
late and silent to early and visible, which is the trade this record makes throughout.
## How it is checked
| Rule | Checked by |
|---|---|
| Only the vault makes secrets | A controller test: no code path mints a secret. A vault test: the one generation function is the only one, and genesis reaches it through the vault. |
| A provider's per-consumer secret comes from the vault | A resolution test: a consumer requiring a database expands to a secret requirement named for it, answered by the vault. |
| A secret reaches each holder sealed to its node | A controller test: each holder's copy opens with that holder's node key and with no other, the controller's included. |
| Own secrets are retired | A catalogue test: no definition declares an own secret, with a declared list of exceptions that shrinks to empty. |
| A broker account needs no separate command | A resolution test: assigning a module that speaks on the bus yields its account. |
| Rotation is provider-first | A rotation test: the consumer is not sent the new value until the provider confirms; a provider that never confirms leaves the consumer on the old value, shown as waiting. |
| Restarts are derived | A host test: changing a secret restarts every process that reads it, and recreates a container whose env-file carries it, with no `restart-on` declared. |
| Rotation is confirmed | A rotation test: the secret shows as unconfirmed until the consumer restarted and passed its health check. |
| A provider answers data back | A resolution test: the analytics provider's site id reaches its consumer as a resolved value. |
## References
- [ADR 0048](0048-a-provider-creates-the-credential-the-mesh-minted.md): the decision this supersedes,
and the return path it left open
- [ADR 0085](0085-a-secret-is-a-provision.md), [ADR 0092](0092-an-operator-delivers-a-pair-credential.md),
[ADR 0049](0049-a-consumers-identity-fits-the-tightest-backend.md): the vault, the operator, and identity
- [ADR 0112](0112-a-module-definition-names-no-node-mesh-or-path.md), [to-be 27](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/27-a-module-requires-the-mesh-resolves.md):
everything a module needs is a requirement
- [Issue 095](../04-ISSUES/095-a-module-assigned-after-genesis-has-no-broker-account/00-report.md),
[issue 103](../04-ISSUES/103-a-container-is-not-recreated-when-a-file-it-reads-changes/00-report.md): what fails today
02-DECISIONS/README.md
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@@ -158,7 +158,7 @@ python3 00-META/checks/index.py fail if stale
- **0099** — [A step that runs once names what it reads, and runs again when it changed](0099-a-step-that-runs-once-names-what-it-reads.md)
- **0110** — [A seat is a module assignment from a closed set, and it may deliver a provision](0110-a-seat-is-a-module-assignment-from-a-closed-set.md)
- **0112** — [A module definition names no node, no mesh and no path: everything it needs is a requirement the mesh resolves](0112-a-module-definition-names-no-node-mesh-or-path.md) *(proposed)*
- **0113** — [A provider makes what it provides, and the mesh carries it back to the consumer](0113-a-provider-makes-what-it-provides-and-the-mesh-carries-it.md) *(proposed)*
- **0113** — [The vault makes every secret, a provider makes resources and data, and the mesh carries both](0113-the-vault-makes-every-secret.md) *(proposed)*
### How it is built