Designs 08 and 05 revised; 141 resolved by ADR 0140 and 084 by ADR 0102 and
issue 128, both by reading; 143 and 144 decided, built on the matching
branches in mesh-host and mesh-controller, resolved when the home server's
record names the predecessor's chain.
Issue 191's route proxy needs to know who the mesh is to serve an
internal name correctly, and the first fix had it work that out alone.
The membership on the bus now carries it, from the same list the filter
uses. ADR 0138 gains an insight that the proxy is where internal reach
is kept; designs 08 and 25 say how.
The record gets its built note; designs 05 and 09 the revisions; 086, 098,
099, 100 and 101 stay located because every machine is converged and the
record's live row — a take read on an adopted machine — has not been run;
090 is built in part, its network difference left for the take to say.
Proposed for the operator's review: settings declared with defaults and cost (0164),
container-runtime as a kernel capability (0165), node-container-runtime seat with the
host creating containers through its holder (0166), and the runtime's file written by
modules that are not its own (190).
A setting overrides a key a contribution or served fact declares and adds none; a provider that must
tell its consumers an operator's value declares it as ${setting:…} (173). The mesh's own files for a
module are a placed directory, `place: "mesh"`, and forty-eight definitions name no host path for
them (174). Registration refuses a definition naming an installation, the day the list emptied
rather than a release later (0155, progressive insight; 134). Designs 27 and 18 carry the rules.
Design 33 in progress against ADR 0154 (the twelve verbs, the prerequisites built); design 35 for
the records module under ADR 0153, extending 0025; as-is 07 rewritten to a mesh that keeps no store;
as-is 12 and 13 updated; issue 006 built and waiting on its live check.
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).
Found and fixed the afternoon ADR 0148 landed: mailu-admin lost its
database behind Mailu's own resolver. Two catalogue PRs; an insight on
0148 that a container's dns is a decision, not a preference.
Issue 110's cause was not the filter: the runtime had never been told,
and the resolver dropped a query arriving on a bridge. ADR 0148 step 3
landed once it did (109, 151 resolved). ADR 0151 composes a route's
internal name under the serving node and drops the suffixed alias
(139, 157 resolved). Design 08 amended; a fact in 0148 corrected.
Both of the things ADR 0141's insight named as remaining are built. A Go
toolchain based on a new mesh-tools-go module, so the compiler is named
and not pinned; and ${version} in any value of a resource that uses an
archive or a bundle.
Measured rather than asserted: the mesh built the host through its own
toolchain, published it to its own registry, and the bundle fetched back
out is a statically linked stripped binary that runs and says it is the
host.
The cost was larger again than 0141's note said. Three more things in the
path assumed one language or one shape — an entrypoint became a .ts file
whatever the language, the output directory was the compiler's to create,
and a bundle was refused if it named what it is built from — and a fourth
was in the base image, which is Alpine where the first Dockerfile ran
apt-get. That last one is issue 136 in an image, and the build refused
rather than a module failing later.
The version in a path is the digest, not the commit: two builds of one
commit are the same bytes, so a content-addressed version keeps the path
an unchanged build already had.
Still nothing delivers a version to a machine. The host module declares no
resources, so the bundle sits in the registry and no machine is asked to
take it. 0141 carries the insight and 142 the account.
Extended after the first was proven. Every converged machine now holds
the anchor and verifies an internal name with a plain client; before,
the two unassigned ones answered 'unable to get local issuer
certificate' and held no entry for the mesh.
ace is excluded on purpose: it is adopted, so a module assigned there is
held rather than run, which is right and is not trust.
Both the resolution and 0147's insight said one machine of four, which
was true for about twenty minutes.
Registered ca-trust from the catalogue — it was merged and had never been
registered, which is why "assign it to one machine" had no module to name
— assigned it to the workstation, and verified.
Verified in the form ADR 0147 prescribes, against the authority's own API
so the handshake needs nothing else in the mesh to be right: 200, issuer
Mesh Internal CA, Verify return code 0. Four routed internal names verify
too, and `git ls-remote https://…` works, which is the consequence the
report named.
Removal exercised for the first time. Unassign and push removes the
anchor, empties the trust store of the mesh's authority, and returns the
plain client to the original error; assigning again restores it. That is
the half 0147 claimed and nothing had shown.
One thing it found that is not in the module: removal works only because
the host removes the service before the script. Stopping the unit is what
deletes the certificate and refreshes the bundles, and it needs the script
to still exist. The symmetry rests on an ordering nothing states.
0147's "written, and not yet run" now carries a progressive insight
saying it has run, where, and that it ran on one machine of four.
Three records were left describing a mechanism a new record had moved,
and a reader arrives at them by following a citation: 0066 still said a
routed name is written into every container after 0148 replaced that with
resolution; 0016 still read as though the lab were the test bed after
0149; and issues 109 and 135 said nothing about 0148 ending the copying
that 135's own fix made comparable. Each was a citation leading to the
wrong answer in a record that was not wrong about anything it decided.
This is the second time in one session. The playbook rule I added last
round did not stop it, so the convention is now written where the record
conventions live, with the shape to use and three worked examples — and
with the honest note that it is NOT machine-checked and cannot be from
`extends:` alone: 102 records extend another, 87 have no back-reference,
and that is correct, because extending usually means building on a
context. Making it mechanical means a record declaring the relationship
in frontmatter, which is a schema change and is not mine to decide.
Also: designs 18 and 20 claimed `updated:` dates from before I edited
them, and 117's `fixed-by` gained the commit beside the record.
**0114 accepted.** The separation it draws — a consumer's resource and a
credential that reaches it are different things — is a data-loss rule,
and a record naming one should not sit unresolved while the code that
could hit it is written. Not built, and accepting it schedules nothing;
accepted-and-not-built is where 0141 and 0142 already are.
**0068 superseded by 0149, the live mesh is the test bed.** Never built,
and contradicted by practice that was written down nowhere but a handoff
note. The faults that cost the most are faults of a mesh that already
exists — bound consumers, containers made against an older roster, an
adopted machine — and a bed is by construction a mesh that does not.
Issue 156 settles it: that change was verified honestly, on the only path
where it cannot fail. The lab is not retired; raising a mesh from bare is
now its whole job.
**117 answered by 0150.** A module's own code runs as supervised
processes under the module's one account. 0047's argument was for a
runtime per module, not for a container — a unit satisfies it and runs as
an account. The invariant is the account, not the process count: its
worry was a second identity to scope and seal, and processes sharing one
account create none. Designs 18 and 20 now cite it and 0047 carries a
dated pointer, which closes the third disagreement — that neither design
knew the record existed.
Answers issue 151. Copying the roster into each container made the roster
part of each container's identity, so one name moving replaced every
container in the mesh — and it never stopped the staleness it was for,
since a copy taken at creation is stale the moment the roster moves (109,
135).
A container resolves through its machine's resolver instead, and nothing
is copied. Staleness stops being possible rather than detected, and a
name's blast radius becomes nothing.
Scoping each container to the names it binds was the close call and is
rejected: it contradicts anything-calls-anything, and leaves the roster
in the digest so the churn returns for a widely-bound name.
Gated on issue 110 — a container on the runtime's default network has no
DNS at all today. Removing the copy first reintroduces 109 and 135
silently on a live mesh. 151 stays open until the code lands; design 08's
file-not-resolver passage is narrowed to the machine's own roster.
Three issues named the branch that fixed them, and a branch is deleted
when it merges — so every `fixed-by:` was a pointer that resolved to
nothing by the time anyone followed it. They name commits and pull
requests now, and playbook 03 says to.
Two records were missing the thing a reader arrives for. 146 did not say
that one of its fixes crash-looped the control plane on a running mesh,
which is the whole reason the delivery subject carries the stream and the
raise path was the only one exercised. 151 did not say that 152 removed
the false reasons its roster moved, or that it stays open for the real
ones.
ADR 0080 enumerates what cycle.py enforces and named four things; it
enforces five. A progressive insight names the fifth — the decision
stands, the list had gone stale. The checks README and playbook 03 gained
the same rule, and 155 points at all three.
A number identifies a record, and two were given 127 on 2026-09-27. The one
three documents and three source files cite by number keeps it; the other
becomes 149, says so in its own heading, and its two inbound references are
repointed.
It is also resolved: an empty declaration is sent carrying owns_nothing rather
than skipped, and the host refuses an empty body that does not carry it, so
emptiness cannot be read as a truncated declaration.
0037 (where a module lives), 0113 (the vault makes every secret) and 0115 (one
assignment of a module per node) described arrangements the mesh has — a
catalogue of other people's software plus a table filled by module add, a vault
answering a secret requirement six modules make, and a rule the assignment
table's primary key already enforces. Each is accepted against what was built,
and says so in its own words.
0037's other half is not built: a manifest outside this catalogue has no check,
which is issue 148.
0068 (the lab takes requests) and 0114 (a shared credential rotates over two
credentials) stay proposed. Neither is built, and both are decisions rather
than records of something that happened.
Found trying to run ADR 0147's bed. The older bundle raises the previous
broker and a control plane that refuses to start without MESH_BUS_NATS; the
newer one stops a step earlier, asking for a certificate from openssl in an
image that has none. No bed can run while this holds, so 0147's check section
now says what actually stands behind it — the rendering, not a machine.
Issue 129: every internal HTTPS name fails verification on every machine,
because nothing has ever written the mesh's root into a trust store. The
report proposed the controller inject it the way the private network writes
the registry's trust; this record rejects that — reachability and trust are
not the same fact, and where anchors live is the host's difference, not the
controller's. A module requiring internal-acme-ca does the whole of it, and
being unassigned undoes it.
0145's core stands — a module checks what the mesh claims, from where the callers
are — and everything it said about what to dial was wrong.
A raw port is not how anything in this mesh is reached. A real caller resolves a
name, the proxy answers, the proxy reaches the service; dialling a port tests the
last hop of a four-hop path and skips the three where most connectivity lives.
So each hosting form gets its own endpoint, route and name:
connect-docker.<node>.internal for a container, connect-process for the mesh's own
code in a unit it writes, connect-unit for a unit a package ships — and the same
under each public domain. Every machine checks every machine, by name, over TLS,
verifying the certificate against the authority that should have issued it. The
names are the instrument: a failure reads as connect-docker.g14.internal did not
answer.
No name is written anywhere: the machines come from the roster fact, the labels are
the module's, and a machine that joins is checked by the others on the next push.
Five things this needs that the mesh does not have, named rather than assumed —
a module every machine has (ScopeNode is exclusivity, not obligation), a container
running a bundle, a unit a package ships, the public domain in the roster fact, and
issue 129, until which every internal name will correctly fail verification.
The mesh asserts three things are callable and has never checked any of them. A
module on every machine serves an endpoint of its own and dials every other
machine's, from the position the callers are in — not the host and not the control
plane, both of which reach those addresses by paths no ordinary caller uses and
would have passed throughout the outage.
Its probe is its own endpoint, declared reachable over the private network, so it
is admitted by exactly the rule that governs every internally-exposed service. The
tempting target is a service every machine has, and those are the ones never closed
— ssh above all — which would have passed for all eleven hours.
Resolution and connection reported separately, because they have different owners.
One failure is not a fault, and the count travels with the result. It reports and
repairs nothing.
Built on a scheduled container, a rendered roster fact and a bundle: no new
vocabulary. Adopted on its own merits, which is what 0143 was not.
Everything should be able to call what runs on the same machine, another machine's
service exposed to the private network, and another machine's service exposed
publicly. Three cases; the filter had two.
The first was expressed as the machines' own addresses on the private network. A
caller on the machine carries such an address; a caller in one of its containers
carries a bridge address and matched nothing — measured, same destination and same
machine: src 10.10.0.1 against src 172.17.0.8. The second case worked by accident,
because the tunnel rewrites a caller's address to the sending machine's. Two of
three working is why it read as correct.
0143 answered the wrong question. It proposed verifying each grant from the
consumer's own network position and went to length about which position, because
whether a caller sat in a container changed the answer — and that difference was the
bug. Observing a configuration error is not its remedy. Superseded, and nothing
replaces it; whether the mesh should check a grant is still open in issue 145 and
must stand on its own.
And a module is not a container: 61 of 72 happen to use one, 11 do not, and a rule
reasoning about containers describes most of the mesh rather than the mesh.
A grant is four facts and a credential — the provision, the machine, the port, and
who the consumer is when it connects — and it is the whole mechanism by which
anything in the mesh reaches anything else. The mesh asserted it and never found
out whether it was true. Issue 145 is what that cost: eleven hours of 'every module
current with its source' while a module could not reach its database.
The consumer verifies it, from its own network position. Not the control plane,
which reaches the address by a path no consumer uses. Not the machine, whose own
packets carried a source address the filter admitted while every container's was
refused — so a host-side check would have passed throughout the outage it exists to
catch. That is inference from the rule that was loaded, stated as such.
A connection and nothing more; speaking each provision's protocol would be a second
implementation of every provision. One failure is not news, only consecutive ones,
and the count is reported rather than the last attempt. A consumer that is not
running reads unchecked, which is a different sentence from broken.
What it costs to be wrong is the constraint on all of it: a check that calls a
working provision broken trains a reader to ignore the report.
The record says internal and public each mean something to the filter. For an
endpoint the proxy serves, the second half is wrong, and ADR 0045 said so first:
a public service is exposed through the proxy, listening from the mesh, not by
opening its own port.
Found by trying to express one real module, not by review — routed name public
because browsers post to it, machine port private because it serves a dashboard in
cleartext. Under one value for both, saying public would have reopened a port an
operator had just closed. Measured the same evening: the routed name answered from
the internet over TLS while the port was refused from the same place.
Corrects a fact. One statement per endpoint with three things derived from it
stands; the filter column applies to an unrouted endpoint.
Measured: the host is a binary somebody copied to four machines, owned by no
package and built by nothing, while the controller, catalogue, builder and vault
are container images publishing no ports at all. Same language, same project,
same kind of work, delivered two ways — and the difference is not a judgement
about either, it is that images are the only delivery that works.
What it costs: genesis must raise a container runtime before the control plane
can exist; updating the control plane goes through a registry the control plane
runs; a host change cannot be rolled out at all; and compiling the language the
mesh is written in is not a capability of the builder, so the controller is built
from a hand-written Dockerfile — the incantation the bundle toolchain exists to
abolish.
Third-party software stays a container: the store, the registry, the broker are
somebody else's build. The container runtime stays on the machine for modules.
What changes is that the control plane no longer needs it to exist.
The receiving half is already built and tested (ADR 0141). Staged: compile Go, an
artifact names its target, deliver a binary, the host first, then the rest, genesis
last.
The record claimed a version reaches a machine as an ordinary archive with
nothing new needed. Two things it needs do not exist: no toolchain can compile
the host (the list is typescript and python, and the control plane, also Go, is
built as an image from a Dockerfile instead), and nothing interpolates a built
version into a resource path, so nothing can ask for .../versions/<version>/.
The decision, the options weighed and every consequence stand — the host half is
merged and tested. What was understated was the cost, so it is corrected in place
and dated rather than superseded.
The supervision was already right — a clean exit means the host stood aside and
the launcher runs what is on disk, failures are counted, and a rollback happens
at the limit. Two things made it dead code: nothing told the running host a
successor was waiting, and the rollback resolved its known-good version through
pacman, which no machine here uses and which two of three operating systems do
not have.
Keeping a version rather than a path was the clue. Versions live side by side in
directories named for them; the newest runs; the running one stands aside between
reconciles; a reconcile that completes records itself and retires what is older
than its predecessor; rollback starts that predecessor. No new resource kind and
nothing new on the bus — an archive already fetches by digest, and the path
written is never the path executing.
Answers issue 142.
jschoubben
mesh-admin