ADR 0090: a failure that repeats is said to be stuck; issue 065 resolved

The controller kept one report per machine, replaced, so a resource nothing can ever apply looked like a failure that had just happened, every few minutes, for ever. It now counts identical reports and status says stuck after three.
2026-09-21 17:43:02 +02:00
parent a5e351f4cb
commit fcf34727fe
5 changed files with 97 additions and 5 deletions
@@ -1,9 +1,9 @@
 ---
-status: open
+status: resolved
 opened: 2026-09-20
-located-in: []
-fixed-by:
-amended-design:
+located-in: [mesh-controller internal/inventory (node_report), mesh-controller cmd/mesh-controller (status)]
+fixed-by: ADR 0090; mesh-controller feat/multiple-fixes (the report counts identical failures; status says stuck after three)
+amended-design: 03-DESIGN/01-to-be/10-delivery.md
 ---

 # 065 — A permanently failing resource is retried for ever with no escalation
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+# Diagnosis — 2026-09-21
+
+1. The controller keeps one report per machine, replaced on every report, by design: the question
+   is the machine's current state and a history would bury it. A host reports after every apply
+   and applies on its reconcile interval, so a permanent failure is a row that says "failed" at a
+   fresh time every few minutes, indistinguishable from a failure that just happened.
+2. The four open questions, answered in turn. Escalate: yes, as a word in `status`, which is
+   where "what is wrong" is already read. The signal: consecutive identical reports, not a
+   duration — a machine shut for a week has had one attempt. Where: the controller, which sees
+   every node and can tell one stuck machine from a mesh-wide fault; the host does not know
+   whether a failure is permanent and must keep trying. A gating failure: unchanged by this, and
+   left open in the report.
+
+**Located in:** the controller's node report and `status`. The fix keeps, beside the last report,
+when the current failure began and how many reports in a row have said it; three make the machine
+stuck, said in `status` and in its JSON. Decided in
+[ADR 0090](../../02-DECISIONS/0090-a-failure-that-repeats-is-said-to-be-stuck.md).