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.
Decided after measuring what renumbering actually costs: 96 references in code
comments across two repositories, none of which would have failed to compile.
They would have pointed at the wrong reasoning, which is worse than a broken
link because nothing reports it.
So a number identifies a record and never changes. It cannot also be a
position -- a position moves when the set changes, and an identity that moves
is not one.
The reading order moves into an index generated from each record's `topic:`.
Six topics, in the order somebody learns the system.
The index is WRITTEN rather than only generated on demand, which reverses what
this repository previously said. The reason it said otherwise is that a
hand-written index drifts -- but a reader looking at the folder on a forge sees
the folder, not a command, and the drift objection is answered by checking
rather than by refusing to write one. That is §5's own rule: a rule states how
it is checked.
Two checks, both confirmed to bite. index.py fails when the written order no
longer matches the records. records.py fails when a record has no topic or one
nobody defined -- the quiet failure being a record that vanishes from the order
rather than appearing in the wrong place.
Jochen asked whether the order made sense. It did not -- it followed when
things happened to be decided, which after consolidation is fictional anyway
since record 5 alone folds decisions taken across a week.
Concretely wrong before: the domain statement sat at 8, after five engineering
rules; the constitution was scattered across 5, 12 and 17; the tiers landed at
15, 16, 21 and 22 with process records in between.
Now it walks: what the mesh is (1-3), its tiers from the bottom up (4-8), what
runs on them and how it gets there (9-10), how it is built (11-16), how it is
checked (17-18), how we work (19-23).
Two things made this safe rather than free. It is a permutation, not a
compaction, so the renames go through temporary names -- otherwise two files
want one slot and one is lost. And the reference rewrite is a single
simultaneous pass, because almost every number moved into a slot another number
was vacating; replacing one at a time would have cascaded and pointed things at
the wrong record while still resolving.
Verified: 284 [ADR NNNN](path) links across the repository, all with matching
text and target.
The ordering principle is now stated in 19 rather than left implicit -- the
repository already said "the numbering is the flow" about its folders, and
there was no reason for the records to be the exception.
The consolidation left a sparse sequence -- 1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 15, 16, 18,
19, 25, 34, 35, 36, 37, 40, 42, 44, 45, 48, 49, 58 -- where the gaps were only
the archaeology of what used to be there.
Renumbered contiguously. Renames run in ascending order, so every target number
is already free and no two files ever collide.
The reference rewrite is one simultaneous pass rather than a sequence of
replacements. Numbers moved into slots other numbers were vacating -- the node
host went 37 to 16 while the lab went 16 to 9 -- so replacing one at a time
would have cascaded and silently pointed things at the wrong record.
Seven plain-text references survived the merges as prose rather than links,
naming records that no longer existed: the enrolment token, the link boundary,
what a declaration is, reachability, the repository structure. Each mapped to
the consolidated record that now holds it.
Verified rather than assumed: every [ADR NNNN](path) link now has matching text
and target, checked across the whole repository, and the checker passes.
Frontmatter `consolidates:` lists dropped -- they named records that are gone,
and each consolidated record already says in prose what it absorbed.
Jochen: a normal application has 3-5 ADRs, maybe 10 for a large one, and we are
at 65. Fair, and the cause is mine -- I recorded every FINDING as a decision
rather than every fork in the road.
Two merges, both cases where one decision had been split across many records
because it was taken over several days rather than at once.
0019 absorbs ten records about how this repository works: what it is and that
it is public, the folder flow, the two design layers, the issue front door,
status in frontmatter, playbooks, the naming rule, the product name. Those were
never ten decisions -- they were one, seen from ten angles as the repository
took shape.
0016 absorbs the five about the lab: a node is a virtual machine, a router is
scenery, a scenario declares the underlay, a scenario is a closed address
space, and the two scenario classes. Same pattern -- one design, split by the
order it was worked out in.
The consolidated 0019 also raises the bar for what earns a record, since that
is what produced 65: a record is warranted when there is a genuine fork -- a
direction reversed, an alternative that will be proposed again, something
contested. A finding is not a decision, and a bug is certainly not. Everything
else belongs in the design document where the reasoning is actually read.
The checker earned its place here. Deleting nine records left 13 dangling links
across the repository and it named every one, including in AGENTS.md. Nothing
was found by reading.
Remaining clusters worth the same treatment: the host (8 records), delivery
(5), modules (6), connectivity (4), substrate and control plane (4). That would
be 52 down to roughly 30.
jschoubben