Issue 193 resolved: both readers live on every machine, checked by asking each copy who it is

192: no provision says where the console is, its port was never assigned, and nothing
owns a person's agent configuration since the predecessor left. 193: the query verb wraps
the caller's text in a read-only transaction the text can end, and its rows come back
keyed by BEGIN.

02-DECISIONS/0138-an-assignment-binds-an-endpoint-and-says-how-far-it-reaches.md

@@ -124,32 +124,6 @@ This corrects a fact, not the decision: one statement per endpoint, three things
 none of them deciding on its own, all stand. The table in the decision should be read with the filter
 column applying to an unrouted endpoint.
 
-## Progressive insight — 2026-10-02, from issue 191
-
-**For a routed endpoint, "the proxy serves the internal name" has to mean "serves it to the private
-network", and only the proxy can make it mean that.** The decision says `internal` means the proxy
-serves the internal name and not the public one. It does not say to whom, and the proxy answered
-every name it routes to any request that carried it, on the same listeners as its public names. A
-name being internal kept nobody out: a request from the internet only had to send it. While every
-routed endpoint also had a public name, nothing showed it. Once an endpoint could be internal alone
-([issue 191](../04-ISSUES/191-a-route-with-only-an-internal-name-is-dropped/00-report.md)), serving
-its name to everyone would have published exactly what `internal` was chosen to keep private.
-
-The earlier insight above says the port is not the path for a routed endpoint. This is its other
-half: the proxy is the path, so the proxy is where `internal` is enforced. It serves an internal name
-only to the machines of the mesh and to the machine itself
-([ADR 0144](0144-anything-on-a-machine-may-call-anything-on-it.md)). Who the mesh is, it is told,
-not left to work out: its membership carries the same list of machine addresses the filter's "from the
-mesh" is rendered from ([ADR 0167](0167-a-membership-carries-what-its-module-receives-and-who-the-mesh-is.md)).
-To anyone else, the name is answered as one never routed, in the handshake and in the request, and not
-listed among the names it serves. This holds for the internal name of a `both` endpoint too, whose
-outsiders have its public name.
-
-The decision, the options and the consequences stand: one statement per endpoint, three things
-derived from it. Checked in the proxy's own tests: an internal-only name is served to a machine the
-membership names and to loopback, and refused, unlisted and uncertified for any other request; until
-the mesh is issued, it is served to the machine alone.
-
 ## Consequences
 
 - **A manifest gains endpoint names, and a route contribution names an endpoint instead of a port.**

02-DECISIONS/0167-a-membership-carries-what-its-module-receives-and-who-the-mesh-is.md

@@ -1,99 +0,0 @@
----
-topic: the mesh
-status: accepted
-date: 2026-10-02
-deciders: jochen
-reconstructed: false
-extends: 02-DECISIONS/0160-the-mesh-issues-an-assignments-subjects-and-a-runtime-serves-what-it-is-issued.md
----
-
-# 167. A membership carries what its module receives, and who the mesh is
-
-## Context
-
-A provider learns what it is given from a file. The controller composes every consumer's contribution
-to a requirement, and the node's declaration writes them into the provider's received file. The route
-proxy reads its routes that way: one JSON file, re-read every two seconds.
-
-[Issue 191](../04-ISSUES/191-a-route-with-only-an-internal-name-is-dropped/00-report.md) showed what
-that file leaves out. Since [ADR 0138](0138-an-assignment-binds-an-endpoint-and-says-how-far-it-reaches.md),
-a route whose endpoint reaches only the private network carries an internal name and no public one.
-The proxy dropped it. Serving it was not enough either: the proxy answers public and internal names on
-the same listeners, so an internal name served to every request is public under a guessable name. To
-serve it correctly the proxy needs a second fact, **who the mesh is**, and nothing gave it one.
-
-The first attempt had the proxy work it out: the mesh's range from an environment variable written by
-the catalogue, and the machine's container bridges read from its own interfaces. That is a second
-definition of "the mesh", kept by one module, beside the one the packet filter already uses. The
-controller resolves "from the mesh" to every machine's address on the private network, and the filter
-is rendered from that list. Two definitions agree until one changes.
-
-[ADR 0160](0160-the-mesh-issues-an-assignments-subjects-and-a-runtime-serves-what-it-is-issued.md)
-already gives every assignment one document on the bus, its membership, read once at connect and
-followed. It says what the assignment serves and reaches. It does not yet say what it is given.
-
-## Considered Options
-
-1. **Keep the file, add the mesh to it.** The proxy keeps polling a file, and the controller writes the
-   mesh's addresses beside the routes. It fixes the definition, but delivery stays a file re-read on a
-   timer, written by a separate path from the one every other fact a module is told now takes.
-2. **Have the proxy work it out** from a range in its environment and the machine's interfaces. Rejected:
-   it is the second definition this record exists to remove.
-3. **The membership carries it.** What each module receives, from the same composition its received
-   file is written from, and the mesh's addresses, from the same list the filter is rendered from. The
-   proxy follows its membership and serves exactly that.
-
-## Decision
-
-**Option 3.**
-
-- **A membership carries what its module receives**, by requirement: the contributions every consumer
-  made, exactly as composed for its received file. A requirement nobody contributed to is an empty
-  list, never absent, for the reason the file is written empty: "nothing asked" and "never told" want
-  different responses.
-- **A membership carries who the mesh is**: every machine's address on the private network, the list
-  a rule saying "from the mesh" resolves to. One list, two readers: the filter and any module that
-  must tell the mesh from the world.
-- **The route proxy reads its routes and the mesh from its membership**, with the bus account every
-  module that speaks on the bus is given. It serves an internal name only to the machines the mesh
-  names and to the machine itself, and answers anyone else as it answers a name it never routed: in
-  the request, in the handshake, and in the list of names it serves.
-- **The file stays until the bus has spoken.** While a proxy has read no membership that carries routes,
-  it serves the file, and an internal name only to its own machine: refused, never opened. A
-  membership from a controller that issues no routes changes nothing.
-
-## Consequences
-
-- Every membership grows two fields. A machine joining or leaving republishes every membership, which
-  a push already does.
-- A provider that receives something is told it twice for now, in its file and on the bus. The file
-  goes when every provider reads its membership; that is its own change.
-- The route proxy needs a bus account. It is issued like any module's, so a machine running the proxy
-  cannot be composed between the catalogue declaring the account and the operator issuing it. The
-  machine keeps what it runs meanwhile.
-- The internal name of a route that also has a public one is now served to the mesh only. Outsiders
-  have the public name.
-- A container on the same machine that calls that machine's own internal name arrives from its
-  container network, not from a mesh address, and is refused. Calls between machines are unaffected:
-  they leave by the machine's mesh address. Whether the mesh should also issue each machine's container
-  networks is left open, because the mesh does not record them today.
-
-## How this is checked
-
-| Rule | Checked by |
-|---|---|
-| What a provider receives on the bus is what its received file says, same-node port fix included | a controller test composing a provider and a consumer on one machine and comparing the two |
-| An internal name is served to the machines the membership names and to loopback, and to nobody else | the proxy's tests: served from a named address and from loopback; refused, unlisted and uncertified from any other |
-| A membership that carries no routes, or a mesh that cannot be read, changes nothing | the proxy's tests |
-| Until the mesh is issued, an internal name is served to the machine alone | the proxy's tests |
-| Live: an internal-only route answers over the mesh and is refused from outside | by hand, after the release |
-
-## References
-
-- [ADR 0160](0160-the-mesh-issues-an-assignments-subjects-and-a-runtime-serves-what-it-is-issued.md) —
-  the membership this extends
-- [ADR 0138](0138-an-assignment-binds-an-endpoint-and-says-how-far-it-reaches.md) — reach, and the
-  insight of 2026-10-02 that the proxy is where internal reach is kept
-- [ADR 0144](0144-anything-on-a-machine-may-call-anything-on-it.md) — the machine itself is always inside
-- [Issue 191](../04-ISSUES/191-a-route-with-only-an-internal-name-is-dropped/00-report.md) — what
-  found it

02-DECISIONS/README.md

@@ -177,7 +177,6 @@ python3 00-META/checks/index.py            fail if stale
 - **0161** — [What deserves a seat: a role of a module is a seat, a singular fact about machines is a placement with a capacity of one, and a holder's software is the machine's](0161-what-deserves-a-seat.md)
 - **0162** — [A merge produces a tiered plan the mesh keeps, and a module's dependencies are one relation in the catalogue](0162-a-merge-produces-a-tiered-plan-the-mesh-keeps.md)
 - **0163** — [Taking a module over is a comparison: what it compares, what it refuses, and what it carries](0163-taking-a-module-over-is-a-comparison.md)
-- **0167** — [A membership carries what its module receives, and who the mesh is](0167-a-membership-carries-what-its-module-receives-and-who-the-mesh-is.md)
 
 ### Its tiers, from the bottom up
 

03-DESIGN/01-to-be/08-connectivity.md

@@ -7,9 +7,8 @@ code:
   - mesh-controller internal/identity/authority.go
   - mesh-host internal/identity/serving.go
   - mesh-host internal/apply (the service that reflects a rule set)
-updated: 2026-10-02
+updated: 2026-09-30
 decisions:
-  - 02-DECISIONS/0167-a-membership-carries-what-its-module-receives-and-who-the-mesh-is.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0148-the-meshs-names-are-resolved-not-copied-into-containers.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0151-a-routes-internal-name-is-composed-under-the-node-that-serves-it.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0147-a-module-anchors-the-meshs-authority.md
@@ -843,18 +842,6 @@ One value, three readers:
 | `public` | the machine port, to anywhere | the public name | the public authority |
 | `both` | the machine port, to anywhere | both names | each name's own authority |
 
-*2026-10-02.* **The proxy serves an internal name to the private network only**
-([ADR 0138](../../02-DECISIONS/0138-an-assignment-binds-an-endpoint-and-says-how-far-it-reaches.md),
-its insight of this date). It answers public and internal names on the same listeners, so the name a
-request carries is the request's own claim, not where the request came from. An internal name is
-served to the machines of the mesh and to the machine itself; to anyone else it is answered as a name
-never routed, in the handshake as well as the request. Without this, an endpoint with reach `internal`
-would be public under a name that is easy to guess
-([issue 191](../../04-ISSUES/191-a-route-with-only-an-internal-name-is-dropped/00-report.md)).
-The proxy is told who the mesh is, and its routes, in its membership on the bus — the same machine
-addresses the filter's "from the mesh" is rendered from
-([ADR 0167](../../02-DECISIONS/0167-a-membership-carries-what-its-module-receives-and-who-the-mesh-is.md)).
-
 **An endpoint that is not routed is reached and never named.** No route contribution means no name is
 composed and no certificate requested, while the filter still acts on it. That is the case the model
 could not express at all, and it is the ordinary case for anything that is not HTTP.

03-DESIGN/01-to-be/25-the-bus-on-nats.md

@@ -7,9 +7,8 @@ code:
   - mesh-tools src/broker-amqp.ts (to be replaced)
   - mesh-catalog modules/nats (to be written)
   - mesh-sdk src (the protocol's NATS binding, step 3)
-updated: 2026-10-02
+updated: 2026-10-01
 decisions:
-  - 02-DECISIONS/0167-a-membership-carries-what-its-module-receives-and-who-the-mesh-is.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0160-the-mesh-issues-an-assignments-subjects-and-a-runtime-serves-what-it-is-issued.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0157-a-build-says-what-it-does-on-the-bus-as-it-happens.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0106-the-bus-is-nats.md
@@ -95,12 +94,6 @@ list; the account's grant is the same membership read the other way; the console
 tool's subject. The one rule a runtime keeps is the membership's own subject, from the two names in its
 credential.
 
-**Revised 2026-10-02** ([ADR 0167](../../02-DECISIONS/0167-a-membership-carries-what-its-module-receives-and-who-the-mesh-is.md)):
-a membership also carries **what its module receives**, by requirement — the contributions its
-received file is written from, from the same composition — and **who the mesh is**, every machine's
-address on the private network, the list the filter's "from the mesh" is rendered from. The route
-proxy is the first reader of both.
-
 **Revised 2026-09-27** ([ADR 0129](../../02-DECISIONS/0129-a-seat-carries-the-protocol-of-its-role.md)):
 **`mesh.build.request`, `mesh.control.built` and the BUILDS stream are gone.** A build is work submitted to a role, and the
 mesh already has a shape for that — a seat's `accept` subjects, on a work queue with a queue group of

04-ISSUES/191-a-route-with-only-an-internal-name-is-dropped/00-report.md

@@ -1,61 +0,0 @@
----
-status: located
-opened: 2026-10-01
-located-in: [mesh-controller examples/route-proxy/main.go (routesFrom requires a route's public `name` and treats `internal-name` only as an alias of it; the handler serves every routed name to any source), mesh-controller internal/broker/membership.go (a membership says nothing of what its module receives or who the mesh is)]
-fixed-by:
-amended-design: [03-DESIGN/01-to-be/08-connectivity.md, 03-DESIGN/01-to-be/25-the-bus-on-nats.md]
----
-
-# 191 — A route with only an internal name is dropped as naming nothing
-
-## What was observed
-
-A module whose endpoint reaches only the private network could not be reached by its internal name.
-The module ran and answered on its own port. Its route's internal name resolved to the serving node.
-The request failed during the TLS handshake:
-
-```
-http: TLS handshake error from …: no public route for "unifi.home-server.internal" in this mesh,
-  so no certificate is asked for
-```
-
-The proxy's own log said why, every time it re-read its routes:
-
-```
-unifi on home-server asked for a route and named nothing; skipped
-```
-
-The route it skipped was not empty. The mesh had given it an endpoint, a port, a scheme and an internal
-name, and no public name:
-
-| route | `name` | `internal-name` | served |
-|---|---|---|---|
-| home-assistant | a public name | `home-assistant.home-server.internal` | under both |
-| unifi | — | `unifi.home-server.internal` | under neither |
-
-Three other modules on the same node were skipped with the same line on the same pass.
-
-## Why it matters
-
-**Reach is decided in one place, and the proxy reads the old shape of the decision.**
-[ADR 0138](../../02-DECISIONS/0138-an-assignment-binds-an-endpoint-and-says-how-far-it-reaches.md)
-made an endpoint's reach decide which names exist. The controller composes the public name, the
-internal name, or both, and composes no name that nobody asked for
-([issue 140](../140-an-endpoints-reach-is-not-declared/01-resolution.md)). An endpoint that reaches
-only the private network is the ordinary case for anything that should not face the internet. It is
-exactly the case the proxy drops.
-
-**The failure is quiet and points the wrong way.** Nothing marks the module unhealthy. The handshake
-error says *no public route*, which reads as a certificate fault on the reader's side. The line that
-gives the real cause is one of four identical lines repeated every few seconds in a log nobody reads
-until they already suspect the proxy.
-
-**The opposite move is not a workaround.** Giving the endpoint public reach makes the proxy serve it.
-It also publishes an administration interface to the internet to get a name on the private network.
-
-## Open questions
-
-- Should the proxy refuse a route it cannot serve in a way the controller or an operator sees, not
-  only in its own log? The same silent skip covers a route with no usable port or an unknown scheme.
-- What checks that what the controller composes and what the proxy serves stay the same shape? ADR
-  0138 changed one side and nothing failed on the other.

04-ISSUES/191-a-route-with-only-an-internal-name-is-dropped/01-diagnosis.md

@@ -1,75 +0,0 @@
-# Diagnosis
-
-*2026-10-01.*
-
-**Ruled out first: the module itself.** Its container was up and had not restarted. The controller's
-status endpoint answered on its own port with `"up": true`. The tool wrapper beside it was serving
-all its tools.
-
-**Ruled out: name resolution.** The internal name resolved to the serving node's private-network
-address, which is where the proxy listens. Plain HTTP to the name reached the proxy and got a 404.
-HTTPS failed in the handshake, and the proxy logged that it had no route for the name.
-
-**The route as the proxy received it.** The mesh-written route file held a complete contribution
-for the module: endpoint `web`, port, scheme `https`, `insecure`, a label, and `internal-name`. It had
-no `name`. That is what the controller composes for an endpoint whose reach stops at the private
-network (ADR 0138, `composeName`). The contribution was correct.
-
-**Located: `routesFrom` in the proxy.** It reads `name` first and skips the contribution if `name`
-is empty. It reads `internal-name` only at the end, as a second host for a rule that already has a
-public one. So the proxy can serve an internal name only next to a public one. That matched the
-mesh before ADR 0138, when both names were always composed. It has been wrong since then.
-
-The other half of the proxy already handles the case. Certificates for a host are split by whether it
-is in the public set: hosts outside it go to the internal authority, and only hosts inside it are
-eligible for ACME. A host that is only ever an internal name falls on the correct side of both checks
-without change. For certificates, only reading the route was wrong; who may reach the route is the next section.
-
-**The fix.** `routesFrom` takes a route that names either host, serves each name it carries, and
-marks only the public one as public. It still skips a route that names neither, with the same log line.
-A test proves an internal-only route is served, certified by the internal authority, and refused by
-the public one. That test fails against the code before the change.
-
-## The first fix would have made the name public — 2026-10-02, from review
-
-Serving the dropped route was not enough. The proxy picks a route from the name a request carries
-and never from where the request came from, and it answers public and internal names on the same
-listeners. Its public names resolve to an address the internet reaches. So once the internal-only
-route was served, any request from the internet carrying `unifi.home-server.internal` — a name of a
-fixed, guessable shape — would have reached an administration interface that reach `internal` was
-chosen to keep private. Before the fix the route was unreachable from everywhere. After it, it would
-have been reachable from everywhere. Two more leaks came with it: the proxy's answer for an unrouted
-name listed every name it serves, internal ones included, and the handshake handed a certificate
-naming the internal host to any client.
-
-Nothing showed this while every routed endpoint also had a public name: its internal name exposed
-nothing the public one did not. It is a gap in the decision's wording, not only in the proxy — ADR
-0138 says the proxy *serves* the internal name without saying to whom — so it is recorded there as a
-progressive insight and in the to-be connectivity design.
-
-**Where "inside" is decided: told, not worked out.** The first correction had the proxy work it out
-for itself — the mesh's range from an environment variable the catalogue wrote, and the machine's
-container bridges from its own interfaces. That was a second definition of "the mesh", kept by one
-module beside the one the controller already has: it resolves "from the mesh" to every machine's
-address on the private network, and the packet filter is rendered from that list. Reviewed, it was
-replaced: [ADR 0167](../../02-DECISIONS/0167-a-membership-carries-what-its-module-receives-and-who-the-mesh-is.md)
-has every membership on the bus carry what its module receives and that list, and the proxy follows
-its membership. One composition, read by the filter and by the proxy.
-
-The proxy reads the source address, where the guard reads the interface, because it cannot see the
-interface a request arrived on. A claimed source does not carry here: a connection needs its replies,
-and replies to a mesh address leave by the tunnel.
-
-**What changed with it.** The internal name of a route that also has a public one is now served to the
-mesh only, like any other internal name. Outsiders have the public name, so nothing they could reach is
-lost. A container calling its own machine's internal name arrives from its container network and is
-refused; whether the mesh should issue those networks too is left open in ADR 0167.
-
-**Order of release.**
-
-1. The catalogue change, which gives the proxy a bus account. A machine running the proxy is not
-   composed until its account is issued, so the account is issued straight after
-   (`module issue route-proxy --node <machine>`), and then the machine is pushed.
-2. The controller and proxy change. The push after it publishes memberships that carry the routes and
-   the mesh, and each proxy takes them. Until then, a proxy serves its file, and internal names to its
-   own machine alone.

04-ISSUES/192-the-meshs-tools-reach-a-person-only-by-a-registration-made-by-hand/00-report.md

@@ -0,0 +1,78 @@
+---
+status: open
+opened: 2026-10-02
+located-in: [mesh-catalog modules/mesh-console, mesh-controller cmd/mesh-controller/plan.go (port assignment)]
+fixed-by:
+amended-design:
+---
+
+# 192 — The mesh's tools reach a person only by a registration made by hand
+
+## What was observed
+
+A design session on a workstation had none of the mesh's tools. The console was running on that
+machine and answering on its loopback port. It was reached over the bus as the console's account, and
+listed every running module's tools and every seat's verbs
+([ADR 0152](../../02-DECISIONS/0152-the-operators-surface-is-a-module-the-console.md)). What was missing
+was the registration that tells the person's coding agent where the console is. That registration had
+been made by hand, once, while migrating the machine, and scoped to the one project directory it was
+made in. Every session started anywhere else had no mesh tools. Nothing said so: the agent simply
+offered no mesh tools, and the session fell back to a pull-request link for a person to open by hand.
+
+The predecessor did this job itself: it wrote its tool server into the agent's user configuration on
+every machine. Migrating removed that entry, as it should have, and no module took the job over.
+
+## Why this is here
+
+Three gaps, each of which would have stopped a module from doing it even if one existed.
+
+**1. The console tells nobody where it is.** Its definition listens on a port and provides nothing.
+A module that wanted to point an agent at the console has no requirement it could name, so it
+would have to write the address into its own definition as a literal. That is exactly what
+[ADR 0112](../../02-DECISIONS/0112-a-module-definition-names-no-node-mesh-or-path.md) and
+[ADR 0155](../../02-DECISIONS/0155-a-definition-names-no-installation-and-how-that-is-checked.md)
+remove.
+
+**2. The console's port is one its definition chose.** The definition names a port, and the mesh
+never assigned one: no port assignment exists for the console on any machine. The plan assigns a
+machine port only to a port a container publishes through a mapping, "without one the software binds
+what it binds". The console runs on the host network with no mapping, but it reads its listening
+address from `${port:…}`, so the mesh could move it and does not. That is a module choosing a
+machine port, which [ADR 0038](../../02-DECISIONS/0038-the-mesh-assigns-the-port.md) exists to
+prevent, through a gap in how the rule is applied rather than a decision against it. A module that
+reads its port from the mesh should be assigned one like any other.
+
+**3. Nothing in the mesh owns a person's agent configuration.** No catalogue module writes the agent's
+settings, its tool-server registrations, or the rules and skills the predecessor delivered. On the
+four machines these are hand-kept, or left over from the predecessor, or missing.
+
+## What a fix looks like (not decided)
+
+- **The console provides its endpoint.** A provision, working name `mesh-tools`, served as the URL on
+  the machine port the mesh gives it. The console listens only on loopback, so the provider must be on
+  the consumer's own machine. Co-location already chooses it
+  ([ADR 0084](../../02-DECISIONS/0084-which-provider-serves-a-consumer.md)), and a machine with no
+  console refuses the consumer, naming the provision.
+- **A module for the coding agent requires it** and writes the registration into the agent's
+  system-wide managed settings. The agent reads tool servers from a `managedMcpServers` key there. That
+  file is the machine's rather than a user's, so the module owns it whole and no home directory is
+  named. People keep their own registrations beside it. The agent's separate *exclusive* managed
+  file is the wrong one: it blocks every registration a person makes and hides the hosted connectors.
+  The agent's per-user file is rewritten by the agent continuously and sits in a home directory,
+  which would make its path an operator value. These facts come from the agent's documentation
+  (managed MCP and managed settings pages), not yet verified on a machine.
+- **The same module owns the rest of the agent's configuration** the predecessor delivered: managed
+  settings and the rules, skills and instructions every session reads. Each declared setting carries
+  a default (ADR 0164,
+  proposed on its own branch), so one configuration serves every machine and one machine may differ.
+
+## Open questions
+
+- **Is the agent's configuration one module or several?** Tool registration, managed settings, and
+  the instruction files have different readers and change at different rates.
+- **Whose machine port is the console's?** Should a host-network container that reads its port from
+  `${port:…}` be assigned one, or should a machine-only listener keep its declared number? The second
+  needs a decision, because ADR 0038 does not allow it today.
+- **Credentials.** The console's authority is the machine's login (ADR 0152). A registration that
+  reaches it carries no secret today. If the console ever listens beyond loopback, the registration
+  needs one, from the vault.

04-ISSUES/193-the-store-seats-read-only-query-is-read-only-by-convention/00-report.md

@@ -0,0 +1,112 @@
+---
+status: resolved
+opened: 2026-10-02
+located-in: [mesh-catalog modules/postgres/client.ts (readOnlyQuery)]
+fixed-by: [mesh-catalog PR 209 (postgres), mesh-catalog PR 210 (mssql)]
+amended-design:
+---
+
+# 193 — The store seat's read-only query is read-only by convention, and its answer is unreadable
+
+## What was observed
+
+Asking the store seat's `query` verb for a count through the console returned this. Rows are each
+wrapped in an object under a key named `BEGIN`: the column name, then the value, then the word
+`ROLLBACK`. A query returning nothing gave the column name and `ROLLBACK` alone. The answer to
+`select count(*) as n from <table>` was:
+
+> `rows: [ {BEGIN: "n"}, {BEGIN: "46"}, {BEGIN: "ROLLBACK"} ]`
+
+A reader can work it out. A program cannot, and a query with two columns loses which value belongs to
+which.
+
+## Why this is here
+
+**The cause is the same line that makes the query read-only.** The holder's tool sends
+`BEGIN TRANSACTION READ ONLY; <the caller's statement>; ROLLBACK;` to the command-line client as one
+string. The client prints a command tag for each of the three statements, and the parser takes the
+first line, `BEGIN`, as the header.
+
+**And it is not read-only.** [ADR 0159](../../02-DECISIONS/0159-a-tool-call-names-the-machine-and-a-holder-serves-its-seats-verbs.md)
+decided the store seat's `query` verb is "one read-only statement against one database". The only
+thing enforcing that is the wrapping transaction, and the caller's statement is pasted inside it as
+text. A statement that begins by ending the transaction (a commit, then anything) runs whatever
+follows it outside the read-only transaction, with the holder's own role, the administrative one that creates every
+consumer's role and database. A rule stated in a decision and enforced by string concatenation is enforced by nothing.
+
+*This is read from the code, not tried against the live store, and it should not be tried there.*
+The lab bed is where it gets proven.
+
+Every caller with `invokes` on the store seat's `query` can do this. The console has `invokes: ["*"]`,
+so that includes anyone logged in on a machine running the console.
+
+## What a fix looks like
+
+- **One statement, refused otherwise.** Send the caller's statement alone, through the client's
+  single-statement path (the extended protocol takes one statement per call and refuses more). The
+  read-only property then comes from the session, not from text around the statement.
+- **Read-only by role, not by transaction.** Run the verb as a role that can only read, granted
+  `pg_read_all_data`, not as the administrative role. A statement that escapes every wrapper still cannot write.
+- **Rows as rows.** Parse the client's output with the column names it returns, or use a driver
+  instead of the command-line client, so a row is an object keyed by its columns.
+- **The check 0159 lacks:** a test that sends a commit followed by a write and asserts the write is
+  refused and nothing changed. Another asserts a two-column row comes back keyed by both columns.
+
+## Proven, 2026-10-02
+
+On a throwaway server — the same engine image, no network, reached over a socket — the module's code
+from the catalogue's main branch ran `COMMIT; COPY (select 1) TO PROGRAM '<a command>'` and **the
+command ran on the database host** as the server's own user. `COMMIT; DROP TABLE t` executed the drop
+outside the read-only transaction; the wrapper's own trailing rollback happened to undo it, which a
+caller ending their statement with a commit of their own would get past (not tried). Nothing was tried
+against the live store.
+
+The fix (mesh-catalog PR 209) runs the caller's statement as a login granted `pg_read_all_data` and
+nothing else, read-only by its role and its session, with a password the mesh mints as one of the
+module's own secrets; without that password the call is refused rather than run as the admin. On the
+same throwaway server every escape above, and `SET ROLE`, `RESET SESSION AUTHORIZATION`, turning
+read-only off, creating a table, altering the role and reading a server file, is refused; a plain
+select comes back keyed by its columns. One attempt — turning the transaction's read-only off, then
+deleting — got past the first layer and was stopped by the second, which is why both exist.
+
+**Not answered by the statement-count fix proposed above.** The command-line client sends one string
+in one message, so several statements still arrive together. They are harmless as the reader, and
+refusing them is left to whoever moves the module to a driver.
+
+## The same hole, elsewhere — and two worse ones
+
+The `mssql` module wrapped a caller's statement the same way (`BEGIN TRANSACTION; … ROLLBACK;` as its
+administrator) for its `mssql_query` tool. Its command-line client added two holes of its own. Both
+were proven on a throwaway server, running the client the way the module ran it:
+
+- **It substitutes `$(NAME)` from its environment into the caller's text**, and the administrator's
+  password is in that environment. Selecting it as a string returned the password.
+- **It reads a line beginning `:!!` as a command that starts a program**, in the container that holds
+  the administrator's password and the module's bus credentials. Its switch for refusing such commands
+  makes the shipped version ignore the statement entirely, so the switch cannot be the guard.
+
+None of it was reachable on the live mesh, for a reason that is a defect of its own: the runtime image
+never installed the client, so every mssql tool failed (`spawn sqlcmd ENOENT`). The fix (mesh-catalog
+PR 210) installs the client at a pinned digest and runs the caller's statement as a login that can
+connect and read and do nothing else. Substitution is off. The statement must be one line, placed after
+the module's own text, so no line of it can begin a command; a line break is refused before the client
+starts. On the throwaway server, writes, `xp_cmdshell`, impersonating the administrator, and joining
+the administrators' role were all refused, and the variable came back as the literal text.
+
+**The general lesson**, worth more than either module: *a command-line client is an interpreter with
+its own syntax, and a caller's text handed to it is a program in that syntax as well as in SQL.* A
+module that passes a caller's text to a client has two languages to defend, and a transaction drawn
+around the text defends neither.
+
+## Resolved, 2026-10-02
+
+Both pull requests merged, built and pushed to the two machines that run each module. Checked live, on
+every copy, by asking each one who it is:
+
+- the store seat's `query`, and postgres's own tool on each machine, answer as the reader login —
+  not a superuser, in a read-only transaction — with rows keyed by their columns;
+- mssql's tool, on each machine, answers as its reader login, outside the administrators' role, and
+  returns `$(SQLCMDPASSWORD)` as the literal text it is. Its tools work for the first time.
+
+The escapes themselves were tried only on the throwaway servers above; on the live mesh the check is
+the identity a statement runs as, which is what makes every escape a statement that the login cannot do.