Commit Graph
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Author SHA1 Message Date
jschoubben c3a2984b3e 011: measured, and the premise was wrong — the graph is not missing
The effort was opened to ask whether the catalogue's missing structure is a
graph. It is not missing. 126 manifests, 103 edges, no cycles, nothing dangling,
deepest chain of five — and a resolver in the SDK that topologically sorts them,
already called by the tool loader at startup, the installer when syncing modules
onto a node, and the delivery coordinator when expanding what a change affects.

It already does something this effort assumed would need designing: a
requirement on another module's provision is treated as an implicit edge to the
module that provides it. So "ordering by the graph", which ADR 0043 makes the
control plane's job, is a thing to call rather than a thing to build.

The one place the graph is wrong, it is wrong about the substrate. A module
needing a database declares `provider: postgres` inside `provisions:` — which is
what a module OFFERS — so the resolver, which reads `dependencies:` and
`requires:`, never sees it. Three edges are invisible this way, and they are the
mesh's own database, the mesh's own broker, and the work engine's database.

The consequence is measurable: computing what a working mesh needs from the
declared graph gives registry -> sdk -> mesh -> meshware. Four modules, four
levels, no database. Arithmetically correct and obviously wrong, for exactly one
reason — a field that means "depends on" is not read as one. That is
04-ISSUES/003 in a new form: not a key nothing reads, but a key read as
something other than what it means.

Two latent defects, both contrary to ADR 0008 and both in the component ADR 0043
makes responsible for ordering a host will apply without question: a cycle warns
and falls back to input order, and a dependency that does not exist warns and
continues. Neither has fired, because the catalogue currently has no cycles and
nothing dangling, which is why nobody has noticed.

And placement is decided in the catalogue: a provision pins itself to a named
node in the manifest. Which node runs what is an inventory decision — tier 2 by
the skeleton's own test — so a second node cannot provide the mesh's database
without editing the module that consumes it.

What the graph would DELETE is currently nothing. What it would add is three
declarations that no manifest uses today: excludes, a required node capability,
and an interface with adapters. Whether they would be used is not measured, and
zero usage is equally consistent with nobody needing them and nobody being able
to express them.
2026-08-26 22:35:39 +02:00
jschoubben 902739acb6 Research 011 — the module graph
The proposal to split modules into provisioning services and applications was
worked through and abandoned, for a reason worth keeping: it cannot be filed
consistently. A git forge is consumed as a service and operated through a web
interface; an analytics service grants tracking identity and is a dashboard.

The operator's correction is the sharper form — what runs on the machine is a
supervised container, not something a user started. That is a fact about HOW a
thing runs, not about what kind of thing it is. So it is a facet, and 0002
survives: everything is a module.

What the catalogue is missing is not a taxonomy but a graph. Grouping asserts
relationships; a graph records them. Five declarations, of which two exist:
requires/provides a resource (yes), requires/excludes another module (no),
requires a node capability (no). Plus interface modules that carry no
implementation, with adapters providing them.

Recorded because it matters: this is a package manager's model, and pacman
already has all of it — depends, conflicts, and provides as virtual packages,
which is exactly the interface/adapter idea. Arriving there independently is
evidence for the shape. It is also a warning about what not to reimplement.

Working position on capabilities, to be tested: intrinsic ones (hardware,
architecture, network position) are detected and never installed, and a module
requiring one it lacks is impossible rather than unresolved. Provided ones (a
display server, a container runtime) are not a separate kind of thing — they are
modules that provide a capability, so "may the mesh install a capability" is not
policy, it is dependency resolution. Issue 007 then bears directly: an installed
package is not a capability.

Also captured: the operator's assessment that the machinery around a module —
scheduled tasks, hooks, migrations, config and env — is worth keeping, seeds are
not, and the integration is wrong enough to need a major refactor. Research 005
found supporting evidence from another direction, that the densest apparent
coupling in the catalogue is manifest boilerplate churn.

The first open question is the one that decides whether this is progress: what
does the graph DELETE? If modules gain declarations and lose nothing, it is
motion.
2026-08-25 23:19:57 +02:00