Author SHA1 Message Date
mesh-admin 98d94ef71e Merge pull request 'Design 28: 5.5 done, the mesh has one bus; issue 131 resolved' (#156) from design/28-one-bus-issue-131-resolved into main 2026-09-28 01:59:41 +00:00
jschoubben 4e13280604 Design 28: 5.5 done, the mesh has one bus; issue 131 resolved
The AMQP transport is gone from the control plane and the hosts (mesh-controller #112,
mesh-host #39). On the way: no build had ever recorded its bases, so every bases-first order
walked an empty graph; the builder now reports what it was handed and the graph is read from
builds (mesh-controller #113/#114). Issue 131 is resolved by the forge module's merge event,
the control plane following it, and those edges.
2026-09-28 03:59:39 +02:00
mesh-admin 8783a13448 Merge pull request 'Design 28: the mesh runs on the new bus' (#155) from design/28-the-mesh-runs-on-nats into main 2026-09-28 00:40:29 +00:00
2 changed files with 129 additions and 3 deletions
+22 -3
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@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ code:
- mesh-catalog modules/nats
- mesh-controller internal/catalogue
- mesh-lab scenarios
updated: 2026-09-27
updated: 2026-09-28
decisions:
- 02-DECISIONS/0116-the-bus-is-built-in-five-steps.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0106-the-bus-is-nats.md
@@ -694,8 +694,27 @@ healthy while reacting to nothing.
> shutting it down ends the path that reaches this installation's machines from a workstation.
> The rollout is driven from the node, or before the broker stops — a sequencing constraint on
> 5.2, not an afterthought.
- [ ] 5.5 **the AMQP transport is deleted from the control plane and the hosts**, and the variable
that selected a transport is refused at start as unknown. One bus, nothing to select ([ADR 0131](../../02-DECISIONS/0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md)).
- [x] 5.5 **the AMQP transport is deleted from the control plane and the hosts**. One bus, nothing
to select ([ADR 0131](../../02-DECISIONS/0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md)).
**Done 2026-09-28.** The control plane's old consume loop, build request, tool call, management
API and account scoping went, and the host's old dialling and enrolment paths with them; a
membership or token naming any other bus is refused before anything is sent. Nothing selects a
transport any more: the variable that once did (`MESH_BUS_NATS`) now only names where the
control plane reads its own bus credential, the way any module reads a secret. **Checked by the
build**: neither repository's module file names the AMQP client library, so a line that still
used it would not compile. The store-window guarantee ([issue 083](../../04-ISSUES/083-other-control-messages-are-lost-while-the-store-restarts/00-report.md))
is tested against a bus-less fake rather than the old transport's memory, which is what let
that memory go — the one thing it did that the stream does not (superseding a held report) is
the staleness check on the message itself (design 25 §3).
Found on the way: **no build had ever recorded what it stood on.** A recipe reads its base from
a build argument, so the digest was never in the file the builder derived edges from, and every
order that says *bases first* — `build --on`, `build --behind`, the merge follow-up of
[issue 131](../../04-ISSUES/131-nothing-tells-the-mesh-a-source-moved/00-report.md) — walked a
graph with no edges. The builder now reports the bases it was handed, the control plane records
them by artifact path, and the graph is read from the newest build of each module — a recorded
manifest carries no `build.on`, so the edge is derived from the build or it does not exist.
> **The old 5.4 note is history.** It recorded that a retirement *condition* was wrong from
> [ADR 0127](../../02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md) onward, which framed the old broker
@@ -0,0 +1,107 @@
---
status: resolved
opened: 2026-09-27
located-in: [mesh-catalog modules/gitea, mesh-controller cmd/mesh-controller, mesh-controller internal/builder]
fixed-by: mesh-catalog #124 — the forge module watches for merged pull requests and emits `pull.merged` with the merge commit and the clone address; mesh-controller #110/#111 — the control plane follows that event on the bus, marks every module built from that repository and branch as moved, and builds them bases first, stopping when a base fails; mesh-controller #113/#114 — a build records the bases it was handed and the graph is read from builds, without which "bases first" had no edges to order by.
amended-design: 03-DESIGN/01-to-be/28-building-the-bus.md
---
# 131 — Nothing tells the mesh a source moved, and it reports itself current anyway
## What was observed
Six changes were merged to the trunk of six repositories in one sitting. The build machine built
nothing. Its last build, minutes before the first merge, was still the one it reported; no build was
requested, refused or failed, because none was ever asked for.
Asked afterwards what was wrong, the mesh said:
> 4 machine(s), all doing what they were told, all heard from, running what the mesh would send them,
> and every module current with its source
Every one of the six had moved. The last clause was false for all of them, and it is the clause a
person reads to decide whether there is anything to do.
## Why it matters beyond this instance
**The mesh learns a source moved by being told, and there is no longer anything to tell it.** The
command exists — a person names the module and the commit — and so does the question the overview
answers. What is missing is whatever used to connect the two. One repository still carries a forge
webhook aimed at a port; the rest carry none, and the port belongs to a different service than the
one the arrangement implies. So the state is not "the trigger is broken" but "there is no trigger,
and nothing says so".
**A wrong answer is worse here than no answer.** "Every module current with its source" is
indistinguishable, to a reader, from a mesh that has genuinely caught up. The overview is built to be
the thing you check instead of checking by hand, so a confident false negative removes the habit that
would otherwise have caught it. Nothing in the mesh is at fault for being out of date — it is at
fault for saying it is not.
**It is also why "current with its source" cannot be a stored fact.** The mesh compares what it built
against what it was last told the source was, and calls that agreement. Two facts agreeing tells you
nothing when both come from the same place.
## The intended shape, which is decided and not built
The forge emits what happened to it — a pull request merged — and the build machine reacts by
building what that commit affects. That keeps the forge ignorant of the build system and the build
machine ignorant of the forge's internals, which is the same argument
[ADR 0126](../../02-DECISIONS/0126-a-module-declares-its-own-seats.md) makes for addressing an event
to its emitter: the merge is a fact about the forge, and what should be rebuilt because of it is not
the forge's business to know.
The forge's module already declares the event. The build machine declares that it consumes nothing.
## What the trigger cannot be
**Not one build per changed module.** The modules form a graph: several are built from one
repository, and some are the base another is compiled on — a runtime image, a compiler base, a
repository whose context a second module builds from. Firing a build for each changed module
independently would start work that cannot succeed yet and produce a failure per dependent, for one
cause.
Observed while catching the mesh up by hand on 2026-09-27: a compiler base had to move before
anything compiled against it could build, and when it failed, the right behaviour was for its
dependents to wait rather than each fail the same way. Fifteen modules shared the cause. A trigger
that reports it fifteen times has buried it.
So whatever reacts to the forge's event resolves what changed into an order, builds the bases first,
and holds a dependent while its base is unbuilt or failed. That is a larger thing than "rebuild what
the commit touched", and knowing it now is cheaper than discovering it from fifteen identical
failures.
## Open questions
- Is "the source moved" still a thing a person can assert by hand once the event path exists, or does
the hand-operated form become the thing that made this failure possible?
- Which commit does the build machine act on — the merge, or each commit it brought — and what does
it do when several arrive for one module at once?
- How does the overview stop being able to lie? Comparing what was built against what was recorded
will always agree. Whether the trunk has moved is a question only the forge can answer, so either
the overview asks it, or it stops claiming to know.
- Does this want to be the same mechanism as the build request on the bus
([ADR 0129](../../02-DECISIONS/0129-a-seat-carries-the-protocol-of-its-role.md)), or does it sit in
front of it?
## What was done (2026-09-28)
The shape above was built as described: the forge's module emits the merge, the control plane
consumes it, and nothing on either side knows the other's internals. The build is asked for the
merge commit, not each commit the merge brought — the trunk moved once, to one place. Several merges
for one module arriving in a row are followed in turn, each moving the recorded source to its own
commit, so the last one to arrive is the one the mesh ends up built from.
The hand-operated form stays. `module moved` is how a source is recorded without a forge — a module
built from a repository elsewhere, or a mesh whose forge module is down — and it is the same act the
event performs, so the two cannot disagree about what "moved" means.
**Bases first needed edges, and there were none.** The order this report asked for was written and
walked a graph that no build had ever recorded: a recipe reads its base from a build argument, so the
digest was never in the file the builder read edges from. A build now reports what it was handed, the
control plane records it by artifact path, and the order is read from each module's newest build.
**What still can lie.** The overview compares what was built against where it was last told the
source is; the forge's event is now what moves that mark, so it is right for as long as the forge
module was listening. A merge made while that module was down is a merge the mesh does not know of
until the module next polls — it announces what merged since it last looked, so the gap closes when
it comes back, and not before. The overview does not say so.