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Author SHA1 Message Date
jschoubben 16855ade02 The console shipped: design 34 implemented, as-is 13, issue 147 verified live 2026-09-30 17:13:09 +02:00
jschoubben 8dd566c0aa Merge pull request 'ADR 0152: the operator's surface is a module, the console (group 3)' (#222) from feat/the-console into main
Reviewed-on: #222
2026-09-30 14:47:36 +00:00
jschoubben a98ee0f529 Issues 147 and 148 name what fixed them 2026-09-30 16:21:33 +02:00
jschoubben ad4a5ea004 ADR 0152: the operator's surface is a module, the console
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).
2026-09-30 16:08:52 +02:00
jschoubben 0cf1ad5dad Merge pull request 'Issue 172: the ssh client block matches one spelling of a machine's name' (#221) from issue/172-the-ssh-client-block-matches-one-spelling-of-a-machine into main 2026-09-30 13:25:34 +00:00
jschoubben 69a002fce3 Issue 172: the ssh client block matches one spelling of a machine's name
Reported by the operator: ssh by the bare name logs in, by the mesh name
is refused. The predecessor's generator writes the bare name only; the
mesh's ssh-client roster already matches both and is not yet shipped.
2026-09-30 15:25:30 +02:00
jschoubben 16a1a52cd8 Merge pull request 'Issue 171: a module that names its own resolver knows no mesh name' (#220) from issue/171-a-modules-own-resolver-knows-no-mesh-name into main 2026-09-30 13:20:30 +00:00
15 changed files with 537 additions and 12 deletions
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@@ -75,6 +75,18 @@ another — and a mesh you cannot name precisely is a mesh two people describe d
is a role you occupy, and the two meet where a seat delivers a provision: occupying the seat is
what makes a module *the* provider of it.
## The surfaces
- **console** — the module (`mesh-console`) that puts the mesh's tools in front of whoever is on a
machine: an MCP endpoint on the machine's loopback for an agent, the same endpoint for a person. It
is assigned like any module, holds a credential the mesh minted, and calls tools under a grant its
manifest declares (`invokes`). Loopback is the authority boundary: whoever is on the machine owns the
mesh there ([ADR 0152](../02-DECISIONS/0152-the-operators-surface-is-a-module-the-console.md)).
Not "the tool bridge", "the brain" or "the MCP server" — those name the predecessor's program or a
protocol, and the console is a module.
- **invokes** — the manifest word for the tools a module calls, `<module>.<tool>` each or `*` for
every one. A grant on the publish side and nothing else; a module that declares none calls nothing.
## How this page is kept
A new name for an existing thing lands here first, in the same change that introduces it in code. A
@@ -47,6 +47,14 @@ Anything with the control plane in reach can ask any module anything it serves.
harder: nothing outside the control plane can, and the control plane's connection is one more
thing on the path of every question — a cost accepted for the audit it buys.
> **The mechanism changed — 2026-09-30, by ADR 0152.** What stands: `ask` on the control plane, and
> that every call passes an account whose permission list says what it may ask. What moved: "nothing
> outside the control plane can" stopped being true when a person's account gained a publish grant per
> tool (design 25 §7, 2026-09-28), and [ADR 0152](0152-the-operators-surface-is-a-module-the-console.md)
> takes the first option above for a module as well — a manifest declares `invokes`, and the bus grants
> exactly that publish side. The audit the second option bought is the bus's permission list, which
> derives both.
## How it is checked
A tools-only bed asks a served tool through the control plane and asserts an answer arrived —
@@ -0,0 +1,160 @@
---
topic: what runs on it
status: accepted
date: 2026-09-30
deciders: jochen
reconstructed: false
extends: 02-DECISIONS/0095-the-control-plane-is-the-way-to-ask-a-module.md
---
# 152. The operator's surface is a module the mesh assigns: the console
## Context
**Since the bus moved, nobody can ask the mesh anything without opening a shell on a machine.** Every
tool call an operator's assistant makes fails, on every machine including the one the operator sits
at, with *AMQP not connected*
([issue 147](../04-ISSUES/147-the-operators-tools-still-dial-the-bus-that-was-removed/00-report.md)).
The program answering is the predecessor's tool server, started on the workstation by hand, with the
predecessor's broker address written into the assistant's own configuration. It has no manifest, no
assignment, no account on the bus, and the mesh has never known it exists. Nothing regressed: the
mesh removed a transport that a program outside the mesh still dials.
**The mesh has a tool model, and it works.** A module serves each tool on its own subject and its
account may serve nothing else ([ADR 0047](0047-a-module-runs-its-code-as-its-own-process-with-its-own-account.md));
a person is issued an account whose only permission is to publish the tool subjects named at issue
([25 — The bus on NATS](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/25-the-bus-on-nats.md) §7); a client on the
runtime repository's main branch speaks that account as a command line and as an MCP server. Measured
on the live mesh on 2026-09-28: a call to the forge's `gitea_list_repos` answered with real
repositories; the tool list came back empty, because it asks the catalogue for a tool nothing serves
([ADR 0132](0132-a-seat-carries-the-tools-its-holder-must-serve.md)).
**Two records have already said where the surface belongs.** ADR 0132's consequences: *the MCP
surface belongs inside the mesh — a module the mesh assigns to the machine where the agent sits, with
a credential the mesh minted and authority derived from what it may call, not a program started by
hand with a credential printed to a terminal.* Design [33](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/33-the-tools-the-mesh-answers.md)
§6 says the same. Neither is a decision about the surface: 0132 decided where a seat's tools live,
and named the surface in passing.
**And one record says the opposite, in the letter.** [ADR 0095](0095-the-control-plane-is-the-way-to-ask-a-module.md)
made the control plane *the* way to ask a module, deferred "calling is a grant" until something asked
for it, and recorded that *nothing outside the control plane can*. A person's account (design 25 §7,
built 2026-09-28) is exactly that grant, minted for a person. So 0095's exclusivity has already been
widened once without a record saying so; a module that calls tools widens it a second time, and this
record is where that is said.
**What a module's account may do today, counted from the composition** (`internal/broker`): publish
its own events, publish the accept subjects of seats it uses, subscribe its own tools and what it
consumes. No module principal may publish another module's tool subject. Of 72 modules in the
catalogue, 45 serve tools and 0 may call one.
The question the work order asks before any code: **does the mesh grow its own operator surface, or is
the surface an ordinary module that happens to serve tools?**
## Considered Options
**1. The control plane serves the agent protocol itself** — a listener on the controller, or a verb
its binary runs. Rejected. It puts a surface for tools the control plane does not implement on the one
component that must stay answerable while it is itself being replaced, which is the reason 0132
rejected the control plane as the answer to discovery. A person on a workstation would reach it over
the network, and the networked surface [ADR 0035](0035-one-implementation-several-surfaces.md)
reserves for that authenticates through an OAuth2 provider that is not configured — so the controller's
`api` verb correctly serves nothing today, and this option would either wait for it or bypass it.
**2. A program a person installs and starts by hand with a printed credential** — what exists on the
runtime repository's main. Rejected as the end state. It is outside the mesh in every way issue 147
names: no assignment, no declaration, no seat, no check that it reaches anything, revoked only by a
person remembering to. It is the predecessor's arrangement one bus later, and it fails the same way
the next time an address moves. It stays as the recovery path, the way the command line does
(ADR 0035): a credential from `operator issue` and the `mesh` client work with no console assigned.
**3. An ordinary module, assigned to the machine the person sits at, holding a credential the mesh
minted, serving the mesh's tools on that machine's loopback.** Chosen.
## Decision
**The console is a module.** `mesh-console` is built by the mesh, registered like any module,
assigned to a machine, and given a bus credential sealed to that machine. It serves the mesh's tools to
whoever is on that machine: to an agent over MCP, and to a person through the same endpoint. Assigning
it to a machine is what makes the mesh reachable from there; unassigning it revokes that, at the next
composition, with nothing on the machine to remember to remove.
**A grant to call is a manifest word: `invokes`.** A module declares the tools it calls, each as
`<module>.<tool>`, or the single entry `*` for every tool on the mesh. The bus grants exactly that
publish side and nothing beside it — no event, no subscription, no seat. This is ADR 0095's deferred
first option, taken now that a consumer asks for it; a person's account already has this shape, and
the same composition derives both. The control plane's `ask` stands, and 0095's audit point with it:
every call still passes one account whose permission list says what it may ask.
**Authority is the machine's login.** The console listens on the machine's loopback only, declared
`from: machine`, so whoever can open a socket on the machine is whoever owns the machine, and *the
account that installed the host owns the mesh on that node*
([ADR 0034](0034-the-local-account-owns-the-mesh.md)). Anything on a machine may call anything on it,
and that is the whole of local ([ADR 0144](0144-anything-on-a-machine-may-call-anything-on-it.md)).
The mesh knows no person: what the audit sees is which console asked, under the account
`<node>.mesh-console`. How a person's identity reaches a session is the question design 15 leaves
open, and this record does not close it.
**What the console lists is asked of the modules.** Design 33 §5: a module's own tools are answered by
the module, from the code that defines them. The tool runtime therefore answers one reserved verb for
every module it serves — `tools`, the module's tool names, descriptions and argument schemas — and the
console assembles its list by asking the catalogue which modules the mesh holds and each module what
it answers. A module that is not running is absent from the list and says so; a tool an agent already
knows the name of can be called whether or not it was listed. A module may not name a tool of its own
`tools`; the runtime refuses the collision at load rather than letting one shadow the other. A
role's tools, and the mesh's own verbs, join the list when the `mesh-controller` seat serves them
(design 33 §1, third family) — the console reads whatever the mesh can say about itself, and grows as
that does.
**The console holds one credential and one grant: `*`.** It is the operator's surface on a machine the
operator owns; narrowing what it may call is a setting on its assignment, which
[ADR 0046](0046-a-module-configuration-is-its-assignments-not-its-manifest.md) already provides for
and nothing here builds.
## Consequences
- **The way a person drives the mesh is inside the mesh.** It is declared, delivered, replaced and
revoked by the same machinery as everything else, and `status` says whether the machine carrying it
has applied. Issue 147's shape — a surface kept alive by an address in a file — cannot recur, because
there is no file: the console's credential names the bus the mesh is on, and moves when it does.
- **A module may now call tools, which ADR 0095 had reserved to the control plane.** The grant is
explicit, per tool or `*`, and derived by the same composition that grants everything else. A module
that declares no `invokes` gains nothing. What got harder: a manifest reviewer has one more field to
read for authority, and `*` in it deserves the reader's attention every time.
- **A new manifest word ships one release before any manifest uses it**, and must reach both parsers:
the build machine's and the running controller's. The console's manifest cannot be registered until
the controller and the builder that packages it have been rebuilt with the word.
- **Discovery costs a fan-out per list.** One request per module the mesh holds, answered at once by
the bus for every module nothing serves, so the cost is bounded by the modules that are up. The list
is cached briefly in the console; a module assigned a moment ago appears at the next refresh.
- **Every tool runtime must be rebuilt once** to answer `tools`. Until a module is, it is callable and
not listed, and the console says which modules did not answer.
- **The mesh's own verbs are not in the console yet.** `status`, `push`, `assign` are the
`mesh-controller` seat's tools under 0132, and the three prerequisites 0132 names are still not in
place. A person asking what a node runs still opens a shell for that question, and that gap is design
33's to close, not this record's — recorded here so nobody reads the console as the whole of 147.
- **The person's credential is not retired.** `operator issue` and the `mesh` client remain the path
when no console is assigned, and the path an operator uses to bring a mesh up far enough to assign
one.
## How this is checked
| Rule | Checked by |
|---|---|
| A module's `invokes` becomes exactly that publish grant, and nothing else | the bus user composition test: a module invoking `shop.price` may publish that subject and no other tool's; `*` may publish every tool subject; neither may publish an event or subscribe anything it did not consume |
| A malformed `invokes` entry is refused at registration | a parser test: an entry naming no tool is a problem named in the manifest's words |
| The runtime answers `tools` for every module it serves | the runtime's test: a module registering two tools answers three names, and a module naming one of its own `tools` is refused at load |
| The console's list is what the modules answer | the client's test against a real bus: two modules up, a third the catalogue holds and nothing serves, and the list carries the two and names the third as not answering |
| A call from the console reaches a module over the bus | the same test, and the live mesh: the console assigned to a workstation answers `tools/list` on its loopback and a call to the forge returns repositories |
| The console listens on loopback and nowhere else | its manifest declares `from: machine`, and the filter composed for the machine opens nothing for it |
## References
- [issue 147](../04-ISSUES/147-the-operators-tools-still-dial-the-bus-that-was-removed/00-report.md) — the surface outside the mesh
- [ADR 0095](0095-the-control-plane-is-the-way-to-ask-a-module.md) — extended: a grant to call, for a module as for a person
- [ADR 0132](0132-a-seat-carries-the-tools-its-holder-must-serve.md) — where a seat's tools live, and the sentence that named the surface
- [ADR 0035](0035-one-implementation-several-surfaces.md) — three surfaces over one implementation
- [ADR 0034](0034-the-local-account-owns-the-mesh.md), [ADR 0144](0144-anything-on-a-machine-may-call-anything-on-it.md) — why loopback is the authority boundary
- [33 — The tools the mesh answers](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/33-the-tools-the-mesh-answers.md) §5, §6 — discovery, and what serves it to an agent
- [34 — The console](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/34-the-console.md) — the design this record authorises
- mesh-tools `src/client.ts`, `src/mcp.ts`, `src/mesh.ts` — the client this makes a module of
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@@ -256,6 +256,7 @@ python3 00-META/checks/index.py fail if stale
- **0146** — [Connectivity is checked by name, per hosting form, with a valid certificate](0146-connectivity-is-checked-by-name-per-hosting-form.md)
- **0147** — [A module anchors the mesh's authority on a machine, and takes it away again](0147-a-module-anchors-the-meshs-authority.md)
- **0150** — [A module's own code runs as supervised processes under the module's one account](0150-a-modules-own-code-runs-as-supervised-processes-under-one-account.md)
- **0152** — [The operator's surface is a module the mesh assigns: the console](0152-the-operators-surface-is-a-module-the-console.md)
### How it is built
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@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
---
layer: as-is
status: implemented
code: [mesh-catalog modules/mesh-console, mesh-tools src/mesh.ts, mesh-tools src/http.ts, mesh-tools src/runtime.ts, mesh-controller internal/broker, mesh-controller cmd/mesh-controller/check.go]
updated: 2026-09-30
decisions:
- 02-DECISIONS/0152-the-operators-surface-is-a-module-the-console.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0095-the-control-plane-is-the-way-to-ask-a-module.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0037-where-a-module-lives.md
---
# The console, as it runs
**The mesh's tools reach a person through a module the mesh assigned to their machine.** Since
2026-09-30 a workstation that is a node can be assigned `mesh-console`; the mesh mints a bus account
`<node>.mesh-console`, seals its credential to the machine, and the container binds
`127.0.0.1:<port>` with the port the mesh assigned for the manifest's declared one. An agent on the
machine is pointed at `http://127.0.0.1:<port>/mcp` and sees the mesh's tools; a person uses the same
endpoint. Nothing on the machine holds a credential a person had to carry.
## What it answers
`initialize`, `tools/list`, `tools/call`, over HTTP, one JSON body per request, no session and no event
stream. `tools/list` is what the running modules answered: every tool runtime built on or after that day
serves a `tools` verb for its module, and the console asks the catalogue for the roster and each module
for its tools. A module that did not answer is named in the list's `_meta.notAnswering`. On the day it
shipped that was 36 of 51 modules — those that serve no tools at all, and those whose rebuilt runtime the
mesh records rather than rolls out — and 62 tools from the rest.
`tools/call` reaches any tool by `<module>.<tool>`, listed or not. The console's grant is `*`, so what it
may call is every tool on the mesh; its account may publish nothing else and subscribes nothing.
## What it does not answer
The mesh's own verbs. `status`, `push`, `assign` and the rest are not served on the bus — they are the
`mesh-controller` seat's tools under ADR 0132, whose three prerequisites are not built — so a person
still opens a shell on the control node for them. The console's handshake says so.
## Around it
- **`invokes`** in a manifest is the grant. It is composed into the bus's user list exactly as a
person's account is; the console is the only module that declares it.
- **`module check <file|dir>…`** on the controller's binary judges a manifest with no mesh: the strict
parse, every per-manifest problem, and the rules between the manifests given. It prints what it cannot
judge without a store rather than refusing. The console's own manifest was the first thing checked
with it, and the whole catalogue passes.
- **The person's client remains.** `operator issue` and `mesh tools|call|mcp` with a credential file
still work, for a machine that is not a node and for a mesh not yet able to assign anything.
`mesh tools --console <url>` goes through a running console with no credential; it is covered by the
runtime repository's tests and was not exercised on the live mesh.
## What shipped bent
- A module registered by hand from the catalogue with `--source <url> --path modules/<m>` records a URL,
not a place on the git seat: `--self` takes the forge path form (`<owner>/<repository>`), which the
operator did not pass. The rebuild-on-merge matched the URL anyway.
- Modules whose upgrade policy is *record* — the forge among them — answered `tools` only once
something pushed their rebuilt runtime; until then they are listed as not answering while still
callable. That is the policy doing what it says, not a fault of the console.
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@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ Where the two disagree, the implementation wins and the disagreement is stated.
| [`10-module-catalogue.md`](10-module-catalogue.md) | The catalogue's shape, and what its shape says |
| [`11-the-lab.md`](11-the-lab.md) | The lab — the first piece of the new shape that exists, and what it does not yet do |
| [`12-the-seats.md`](12-the-seats.md) | The seats the mesh defines, who holds one, and where a seat changes resolution |
| [`13-the-console.md`](13-the-console.md) | The mesh's tools on the machine a person sits at, served by a module the mesh assigned there |
## What these documents are not
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@@ -7,9 +7,10 @@ code:
- mesh-controller internal/catalogue/build.go
- mesh-controller internal/inventory/secrets.go
- mesh-controller cmd/mesh-builder
updated: 2026-09-12
updated: 2026-09-30
decisions:
- 02-DECISIONS/0069-a-module-is-a-repository-and-a-path.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0037-where-a-module-lives.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0009-modules-and-the-graph.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0010-delivery.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0005-the-node-host.md
@@ -60,6 +61,32 @@ module from a repository and a path, and the root-only reading left every existi
unbuildable — pointed at the catalogue the builder finds no manifest, pointed at a module's source
it finds no manifest either.*
## A manifest is checked where it is written
*Added 2026-09-30, from [issue 148](../../04-ISSUES/148-a-manifest-outside-this-catalogue-has-no-check/00-report.md).*
The check the mesh applies at registration — the manifest parses strictly, every name in it is a
usable one, its routes and events and seats are well formed, and no two manifests given together
declare one seat — is a verb on the controller's binary, `module check <manifest>…`, and it needs no
mesh. It reads the files it is given, runs the same functions registration runs, prints every problem
in the manifest's own words, and exits non-zero if there was one. Somebody describing their own
application in their own repository — the case [ADR 0037](../../02-DECISIONS/0037-where-a-module-lives.md)
calls the one that matters most — runs it before pushing, and finds out there rather than when a
running mesh refuses the registration, or later, when a machine applies something that resolved and
should not have.
**What it cannot know, it says.** A seat another module declares elsewhere is unknown to a check that
was not handed that module's manifest, and the output says so rather than refusing: pass the other
manifest too. The mesh's own seats it knows from the binary, which is the one place that set may be
read without a store ([ADR 0122](../../02-DECISIONS/0122-a-seat-is-data-a-rename-is-a-database-update.md)
keeps the store authoritative, so a claim on a mesh seat is judged fully only at registration, and the
check says that too).
*How it is checked:* the controller's test runs the check over the catalogue checkout beside it and
over a manifest with a known fault, and asserts the first passes and the second names the fault; the
test that used to be the only check, `TestEveryCatalogueManifestParses`, now stands beside a command
anybody can run.
## The manifest in the repository is not the manifest the mesh holds
A resource names an artifact:
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@@ -361,6 +361,13 @@ bridged. It is three things:
Nothing is built of this before §10's bed passes; the MCP surface is a thin adapter over (2).
*Built, and then made a module — 2026-09-30.* (1) and (2) exist: `operator issue` and the `mesh`
client. What (2) describes as a program on the workstation is now the recovery path; the surface an
operator uses is a module the mesh assigns to the machine, holding a credential the mesh minted —
[ADR 0152](../../02-DECISIONS/0152-the-operators-surface-is-a-module-the-console.md),
[34 — The console](34-the-console.md). The tool list it asks for is no longer
`catalog_tools`, which nothing served: each runtime answers `tools` for its own module.
## 8. What a module sees, and what the wire does
**The contract a module is written against does not change.** `publish` on an envelope becomes a
@@ -102,6 +102,12 @@ being something a person carries and becomes something the mesh runs, on a node,
An agent's authority can then be role-shaped: *the forge's tools*, rather than a list of
module-specific names that changes the day the forge is replaced.
*Decided and designed on 2026-09-30:* the module is the console —
[ADR 0152](../../02-DECISIONS/0152-the-operators-surface-is-a-module-the-console.md),
[34 — The console](34-the-console.md). It builds the second half of §5 now (a module's tools are
asked of the module, through a `tools` verb every runtime answers) and lists a role's tools when the
records carry them.
## 7. Versioning
A seat's tools are an interface and change like one. Additive within a version. A change that would
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@@ -0,0 +1,133 @@
---
layer: to-be
status: implemented
code: [mesh-catalog, mesh-tools, mesh-controller]
updated: 2026-09-30
decisions:
- 02-DECISIONS/0152-the-operators-surface-is-a-module-the-console.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0132-a-seat-carries-the-tools-its-holder-must-serve.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0095-the-control-plane-is-the-way-to-ask-a-module.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0035-one-implementation-several-surfaces.md
- 02-DECISIONS/0034-the-local-account-owns-the-mesh.md
---
# 34 — The console
**The mesh's tools, on the machine a person sits at, served by a module the mesh assigned there.**
An agent reaches them over MCP on the machine's loopback; a person reaches the same endpoint. Nothing is
installed by hand, nothing is configured with an address, and the mesh knows the surface exists because
it put it there ([ADR 0152](../../02-DECISIONS/0152-the-operators-surface-is-a-module-the-console.md)).
## 1. What it is
A module, `mesh-console`, in the catalogue. Its image is the tool runtime's own — the client that
already speaks the bus as a command line and as an MCP server — started in a mode that reads the
module's credential and listens on loopback. It has no state, no provision, no seat. What it needs is
the bus, which it gets the way every module does: a credential the mesh minted for `<node>.mesh-console`,
sealed to the machine, delivered as the module's own secret.
Its manifest says three things nothing else in the catalogue says together:
- `invokes: ["*"]` — it calls every tool on the mesh, and the bus grants exactly that publish side;
- `listens` on a port `from: machine` — the filter opens nothing for it, because loopback is not outside;
- no `emits`, no `consumes`, no `tools` — it answers nothing on the bus and nobody can address it there.
## 2. What it serves, and to whom
**One endpoint, `POST /mcp` on the machine's loopback**, speaking MCP over HTTP: `initialize`,
`tools/list`, `tools/call`. An agent on the machine is pointed at it once — the address is the machine's
own and never changes — and sees every tool the mesh can say it has. A person at a terminal uses the
same endpoint through the `mesh` client, or through anything that can make an HTTP request; the client
needs no credential, because the console holds it.
**The endpoint is the machine's login.** It binds `127.0.0.1` and nothing else. Whoever can connect is
on the machine, and whoever is on the machine is the account that owns the mesh there
([ADR 0034](../../02-DECISIONS/0034-the-local-account-owns-the-mesh.md),
[ADR 0144](../../02-DECISIONS/0144-anything-on-a-machine-may-call-anything-on-it.md)). There is no
token, no login page and no second identity, on purpose: a credential a person had to carry to reach
their own machine's console would be the arrangement this replaces, moved one hop.
## 3. How it knows what the mesh can do
Design [33](33-the-tools-the-mesh-answers.md) §5 splits discovery in two: a role's tools are read from
the mesh's records, a module's own are asked of the module. The console builds the second half now and
reads the first when it exists.
**Every tool runtime answers `tools`.** The runtime that serves a module's tools also serves one verb of
its own under that module's name, `mesh.mod.<module>.tool.tools`, answering the module's tool names,
descriptions and argument schemas — the definitions from the code that answers them, and from nowhere
else. A module may not name a tool of its own `tools`; the runtime refuses the collision at load.
**The console asks the catalogue which modules the mesh holds, then asks each.** `catalog_modules`
answers the roster; one `tools` request per module, in parallel, answers the list. The bus refuses at
once a request nothing serves, so a module that is not running costs nothing and is named in the answer
as not answering, rather than silently absent — *silence and success must never look alike*. The list is
kept for a short while and refreshed, so an agent asking on every turn does not fan out on every turn.
**A tool that was not listed can still be called.** Listing is discovery; calling is the grant. An agent
that knows a tool's name asks for it by `<module>.<tool>` and the module answers or the bus says why not.
**What is missing from the list, and until when.** A role's tools and the mesh's own verbs — `status`,
`push`, `assign` — are the `mesh-controller` seat's under ADR 0132 and are not served yet; their three
prerequisites are listed in that record. When the seat serves them, the console lists them beside the
modules' own, and the person stops opening a shell for the mesh's own questions. Until then the console
says so in its handshake.
## 4. Where it runs
On whichever machines an operator sits at, by assignment. It is not on the control node by default and
does not need to be: it reaches the bus like any module, from anywhere in the mesh. A machine that is
not a node cannot have it, which is the right refusal — the mesh reaches what it declares, and a
workstation that wants the console joins first.
The person's credential and the `mesh` client (design [25](25-the-bus-on-nats.md) §7) remain the path
for a machine that is not a node, and the path to a mesh not yet far enough along to assign anything.
## 5. Removing it
Unassigning the console from a machine revokes its bus account at the next composition and stops the
container; nothing is left on the machine that could still connect. An agent pointed at the loopback
address gets a refused connection, which is the truthful answer.
## How it is checked
| Check | Defends |
|---|---|
| a module invoking one tool may publish that subject and no other tool's; `*` may publish every one; neither may publish an event or subscribe what it did not consume | ADR 0152, the grant |
| a module registering two tools answers three names to `tools`, with schemas; a module naming its own `tools` is refused at load | ADR 0152, discovery |
| against a real bus: two modules up, a third held and not running — the console lists the two and names the third as not answering | ADR 0152, silence is not success |
| a call through the console's endpoint reaches a module over the bus and the answer is the module's own, unshaped | ADR 0035, a surface decides nothing |
| on the live mesh: the console assigned to a workstation answers `tools/list` on loopback and a call to the forge returns repositories | the exit of work-order step 3 |
| the composed filter for a machine carrying the console opens no port for it | ADR 0144 |
## What shipped, 2026-09-30
Everything above, the same day: mesh-controller PR 164 (`invokes`, `module check`), mesh-tools PR 20
(`mesh serve`, the `tools` verb), mesh-catalog PR 181 (`mesh-console`). Verified on the live mesh: the
console assigned to a workstation answered `tools/list` on its loopback with 62 tools from the modules
whose runtimes had been rebuilt to answer `tools`, named 36 modules as not answering (modules that serve
no tools, and modules whose new runtime the mesh records rather than rolls out), and a `tools/call` of
the forge's `gitea_list_repos` returned repositories. An agent on that machine reaches it as an HTTP
MCP server and reports it connected. The mesh assigned the declared port unchanged, which is what a
machine with nothing else on it does; the console binds whatever it is given.
Two things shipped bent, both stated in [`00-as-is/13-the-console.md`](../00-as-is/13-the-console.md):
the person's client through the console (`--console`) exists and was exercised in the test suite, not
on the live mesh; and a module registered from the catalogue by hand recorded its source as a URL rather
than as a path on the git seat, because `--self` takes the forge path form — the rebuild-on-merge still
matched it by URL.
## What this does not settle
- Narrowing a console's grant per assignment. ADR 0046 makes it a setting; nothing reads one yet.
- The mesh's own verbs on the bus. Design 33's third family; this document only says where they appear
once they exist.
- A person's identity behind the console. The mesh sees the console's account; design 15 keeps the
question open.
## References
- [ADR 0152](../../02-DECISIONS/0152-the-operators-surface-is-a-module-the-console.md) — the decision
- [33 — The tools the mesh answers](33-the-tools-the-mesh-answers.md) — what the console lists
- [25 — The bus on NATS](25-the-bus-on-nats.md) §7 — the person's client this makes a module of
- [issue 147](../../04-ISSUES/147-the-operators-tools-still-dial-the-bus-that-was-removed/00-report.md) — the symptom
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
---
status: located
opened: 2026-08-23
located-in: [hal, hq]
located-in: [hq README.md, and the agent ADR 0025 names — not built]
fixed-by:
amended-design: 02-DECISIONS/0025-the-design-record-is-read-not-copied.md
---
@@ -169,3 +169,16 @@ them into. The record stays open, and its answer is no longer "index this reposi
is whatever the mesh grows as its own knowledge surface, if it grows one. Until then the honest fix
is the README, which should stop claiming a property nothing provides.
## Where this stands, 2026-09-30
The README no longer claims a property nothing provides: it says the indexing never existed, that the
store it named is unreachable since the cut-over, and that ADR 0025's answer — read, not copied, by an
agent that consults this repository — is decided and not built. That was the honest fix the previous
note asked for, and it is done.
The record stays open on ADR 0025's build, and on nothing else. The mesh's own operator surface is now
a module ([ADR 0152](../../02-DECISIONS/0152-the-operators-surface-is-a-module-the-console.md)); the
reader ADR 0025 describes is the mesh session of design 15, which would answer through that surface
like any tool. What closes this is still the check 0025 names: search for a phrase that appears only in
a design document here, and get it back.
@@ -1,7 +1,9 @@
---
status: located
status: resolved
opened: 2026-09-29
located-in: [nothing in the mesh — the surface in use is the predecessor's, installed on the workstation]
located-in: [mesh-catalog modules/mesh-console, mesh-tools src/mesh.ts, mesh-controller internal/broker]
fixed-by: ADR 0152; mesh-controller PR 164 (invokes); mesh-tools PR 20 (mesh serve, the tools verb); mesh-catalog PR 181 (mesh-console)
amended-design: 03-DESIGN/01-to-be/34-the-console.md
---
# 147 — the operator's tools still dial the bus that was removed
@@ -73,3 +75,28 @@ outside the mesh.
- It fails identically for the local machine, which rules out reachability and points at the
transport alone.
- The mesh's own traffic over the new bus is unaffected: nodes report, declarations apply.
## Answered, 2026-09-30
The work order's question — does the mesh grow its own operator surface, or is the surface an
ordinary module — is answered by [ADR 0152](../../02-DECISIONS/0152-the-operators-surface-is-a-module-the-console.md):
**the console is a module.** `mesh-console` is assigned to the machine a person sits at, holds a
credential the mesh minted, calls tools under a grant its manifest declares (`invokes`), and serves the
mesh's tools on that machine's loopback to an agent over MCP and to a person through the same endpoint.
Designed in [34 — The console](../../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/34-the-console.md).
What that leaves, said plainly so nobody reads this record as closed on the whole of its first
paragraph: the console reaches every tool a *module* serves. The mesh's own questions — what a node
runs, what is assigned — are the `mesh-controller` seat's tools under ADR 0132 and are not on the bus
yet; for those a shell is still the way, and design 33 is where that closes.
The predecessor's program on the workstation is not replaced by the mesh; it is left where it is and
the assistant is pointed at the console beside it. The `hal` entry in the assistant's configuration
still names things that are not the mesh's.
**Verified live, 2026-09-30 evening.** The four pull requests merged; the console was registered
(checked first with `module check`), built, assigned to a workstation, issued a bus account, and pushed.
On that machine `tools/list` answered on loopback with 62 tools and named 36 modules as not answering,
and a call to the forge's `gitea_list_repos` returned repositories. The assistant on that machine now
lists the console as a connected MCP server beside the predecessor's program, which was left where it
is. As-is: [`13-the-console.md`](../../03-DESIGN/00-as-is/13-the-console.md).
@@ -1,7 +1,9 @@
---
status: open
status: resolved
opened: 2026-09-29
located-in: [mesh-controller cmd/mesh-controller]
located-in: [mesh-controller cmd/mesh-controller, mesh-controller internal/catalogue]
fixed-by: mesh-controller PR 164 (module check)
amended-design: 03-DESIGN/01-to-be/12-a-module-repository.md
---
# 148 — a manifest outside this catalogue has no check
@@ -35,3 +37,14 @@ Nothing prevents this; it was noticed and left. ADR 0037 named it on 2026-09-01
take a path from `MESH_CATALOG`, so the mechanism is already path-driven and not repository-bound.
- `mesh-controller module add` refuses a bad manifest at registration, which is the same check far
too late: by then it is in a running mesh's records.
## Built, 2026-09-30
`mesh-controller module check <manifest>…` runs what registration runs — the strict parse, the
per-manifest problems, and the cross-manifest rules over every manifest given — with no store and no
mesh, prints every problem in the manifest's words, and exits non-zero on any. What it cannot judge
without a store it says: a claim on one of the mesh's own seats is judged fully only at registration
([ADR 0122](../../02-DECISIONS/0122-a-seat-is-data-a-rename-is-a-database-update.md)), and a seat
declared by a module whose manifest was not passed reads as unknown. Written into
[12 — A module repository](../../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/12-a-module-repository.md) as the section *a
manifest is checked where it is written*. The console's own manifest was the first checked with it.
@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
---
status: located
opened: 2026-09-30
located-in:
- the predecessor's terminal module (still generating the operator's ssh client blocks on every workstation)
- mesh-controller internal/catalogue (the ssh-client roster, tested and not yet a catalogue module)
fixed-by:
amended-design:
---
# 172 — The ssh client block for a machine matches one spelling of its name, and the other gets the wrong user
## What was observed
On a workstation, 2026-09-30, reported by the operator. `ssh home-server` logs in; `ssh
home-server.internal` is refused with `Permission denied (publickey)`. The operator expected the
opposite, if either: the full mesh name is the one the resolver serves.
The name is not the fault. Both spellings resolve to the machine's private address — the mesh's roster
region in the hosts file carries `<node>.internal <node>` on one line, and the resolver answers
anything under the node's name. What differs is the login: the generated client configuration has a
`Host home-server` block naming the account to log in as, and `home-server.internal` matches no block,
so ssh falls back to the operator's local username, which has no account on that machine. Spelled
`account@home-server.internal` it works.
The file is the predecessor's. `~/.ssh/config.d/mesh` says in its own header that it is generated by
the predecessor's terminal module, which only ever wrote the bare name. The mesh's own ssh-client
roster — every other machine's Host block, written as a marked region of the operator's `~/.ssh/config`
with the account the mesh knows for that machine (to-be 29) — already matches both spellings, and a
controller test holds `Host marge marge.internal`. It is composed and tested in the controller and is
not a module in the catalogue, so no machine receives it; every workstation still runs the
predecessor's generator.
## Why it matters beyond this instance
**A name the mesh serves and a name a person can use are not the same set**, and the difference is
silent. The resolver, the hosts file and the certificate authority all treat `<node>.internal` as the
machine's name; the one file that decides who you log in as does not know it. A person who learns the
mesh's name from `status` or from a certificate and types it is refused with an error that says
nothing about a missing Host block.
**It is the migration story for the operator's own tooling, arriving as a symptom.** The mesh has the
right file and does not ship it. Until the ssh-client roster is a module and is assigned to the
workstations, the predecessor's generator keeps writing a file the mesh has already superseded, and
every such file is one the mesh cannot correct.
## Open questions
- Should the ssh-client roster become a catalogue module now, assigned to every workstation, and take
the predecessor's `config.d/mesh` out of the operator's `Include`? Its content is settled; what is
not is the takeover of a file in a person's home that another generator still writes.
- Should the block match a third spelling — the machine's public name, where it has one — or is that
a different key and a different account?
- What checks it? A controller test holds the two spellings; nothing checks that the file a workstation
actually has is the mesh's rather than the predecessor's.
+9 -6
View File
@@ -87,12 +87,15 @@ rather than location** — that these documents would be indexed into the knowle
symptom search returns them beside everything else. One source, many surfaces. Where the source
is authored is then a separate question.
**That indexing does not exist.** It was checked on 2026-08-23 and returns nothing; it appears
never to have existed. Until it does, the objection stands unanswered and this repository is
the fourth knowledge system it was argued not to be. Recorded as
[`04-ISSUES/006`](04-ISSUES/006-hq-is-not-indexed-into-the-knowledge-base/00-report.md), and
left standing here rather than quietly reworded, because a claim that held up a decision and
was never checked is precisely the failure this repository exists to name.
**That indexing never existed, and the store it would have indexed into is gone.** It was checked
on 2026-08-23 and returned nothing; the knowledge base it named was the predecessor's, and since the
mesh moved to its own bus on 2026-09-28 nothing can reach it at all. The claim is recorded as
[`04-ISSUES/006`](04-ISSUES/006-hq-is-not-indexed-into-the-knowledge-base/00-report.md) and answered
by [ADR 0025](02-DECISIONS/0025-the-design-record-is-read-not-copied.md): these documents are
**read, not copied** — an agent reads this repository and a search consults it — and that agent is
not built. So today this repository is reachable by whoever knows to open it and surfaces to nobody
else. Said here rather than quietly reworded, because a claim that held up a decision and was never
checked is precisely the failure this repository exists to name.
Answered separately, a repository of its own is the better home: