connectivity: name the code that builds the one resolver, zones and the hosts file

ADR 0199: a module that answers names declares its zone, and a node's hosts file is one module's
The per-node resolvers 0194 retires held two kinds of names that are neither nodes nor routes: the lab's scenario machines and an operator's own lines. A zone a module declares is forwarded by the mesh's resolver to that module; /etc/hosts is held per node through node-hosts-file, the operator's lines in its kept region. Research 023 parks seats that define what their holder owns.
2026-10-04 00:23:43 +02:00 · 2026-10-03 23:19:36 +02:00
24 changed files with 193 additions and 603 deletions
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+---
+status: active
+initiated: 2026-10-03
+touches: [the seats, the seat protocol, the controller's ownership check, 03-DESIGN/01-to-be/26-the-seats.md]
+---
+
+# 023 — A seat protocol that defines what its holder owns
+
+## What is investigated
+
+**A seat is a definition — a protocol — and a module occupies it by implementing that protocol.**
+Today the protocol is what the holder accepts, emits and serves (ADR 0118, 0129, 0132): its verbs, as MCP
+tool definitions. This asks whether the protocol should also name the **files and directories the
+holder owns**, so that occupying the seat means owning them: `node-resolver-config` owns
+`/etc/resolv.conf`, `node-hosts-file` owns `/etc/hosts`, the intrusion prevention owns its jail file.
+
+The direction is the protocol's, not the holder's: the seat states what any holder must own; a module
+that wants the seat must declare those paths among its resources, or the controller refuses the claim
+as not implementing the seat. Two seats may not name one path.
+
+## Why
+
+Who owns a singular file is today answered by reading every manifest, and enforced only after the fact,
+when two modules on one machine both declare the same path. The question *which module owns
+`/etc/resolv.conf`?* came up on 2026-10-03 with no place to look it up. A seat that names the path answers
+it from the seat table, before any module is written, and makes "implements the seat" checkable.
+
+## What it touches
+
+- The seat definition and its table (ADR 0122) — a new part of the protocol.
+- The controller's ownership check (`checkResources`), which already refuses two modules owning one path.
+- Every node seat that is really about a file: `node-resolver-config`, `node-hosts-file`
+  ([ADR 0199](../../02-DECISIONS/0199-a-module-that-answers-names-declares-its-zone-and-a-nodes-hosts-file-is-one-modules.md)),
+  `node-intrusion-prevention`, `node-packet-filter`.
+
+Raised by the operator during the resolver work of ADRs 0194–0199 and parked there so that work was not
+widened by it.
@@ -0,0 +1,127 @@
+---
+topic: the tiers
+status: accepted
+date: 2026-10-03
+deciders: jochen
+reconstructed: false
+extends: 0194-the-mesh-has-one-resolver-and-every-node-asks-it-for-the-meshs-names.md
+---
+
+# 199. A module that answers names declares its zone, and a node's hosts file is one module's
+
+## Context
+
+**[ADR 0194](0194-the-mesh-has-one-resolver-and-every-node-asks-it-for-the-meshs-names.md) and
+[ADR 0196](0196-a-node-asks-the-meshs-resolver-first-and-a-public-one-only-when-it-is-silent.md) leave
+one resolver holding the nodes' internal domains, and retire the resolver every node ran.** Two kinds
+of names lived in those per-node resolvers that are neither a node nor a route, and both were found on
+the workstation on 2026-10-03:
+
+- **Names a module answers.** The lab raises scenario machines and gives them addresses from its
+  scenario files — the anchor's stand-in at a documentation address, the home server's on the LAN —
+  and the workstation resolved `<machine>.incus` through two wildcard lines in a drop-in file its
+  resolver read. The lines were written by hand; the addresses are the lab's, known only while a
+  scenario runs.
+- **The operator's own names, unrelated to the mesh.** Twelve `<loopback> <name>` lines for a
+  client's development hosts, kept in `/etc/hosts` and again in `/etc/hosts.local`, which the per-node
+  resolver read as additional hosts.
+
+**A manifest never names an address, a node or a domain** ([ADR 0112](0112-a-module-definition-names-no-node-mesh-or-path.md)).
+So the lab cannot list `<machine>.incus → <address>` in its definition, and the operator's twelve lines
+are not any module's to define.
+
+## Considered Options
+
+**For a module's names:**
+
+1. **The manifest lists its records.** Refused by ADR 0112: the addresses are the lab's runtime facts
+   and the scenario's choice.
+2. **The module reports its records at runtime to the mesh's resolver**, which writes them into its
+   configuration. It works, and it makes the resolver hold every module's runtime state and decide,
+   per call, whether the caller may write the name it sent — authorisation for a write, on the one
+   server every node depends on.
+3. **The module declares the zone it answers and the listen that answers it; the mesh's resolver
+   forwards that zone there.** The definition names a zone (from a setting) and one of its own listens,
+   which ADR 0112 allows; the address and the port are the mesh's facts. The records stay where they
+   are known — in the module, at runtime. Chosen.
+
+**For the operator's names:**
+
+1. **Records the controller holds, served by the mesh's resolver.** They are not the mesh's: a client's
+   development hosts on one machine are nothing any other node should resolve, and the controller would
+   become the keeper of a workstation's private notes.
+2. **A node-scoped module owns `/etc/hosts`, and the operator's lines live in its kept region**
+   ([ADR 0174](0174-a-node-varies-a-module-through-settings-and-kept-regions-never-an-edit.md)), changed
+   through that module's tools on that machine. Chosen.
+
+## Decision
+
+**1. A module that answers names declares a zone.** Its definition names the zone — a single label or a
+dotted name, from a setting, never a domain the mesh knows — and the listen that answers DNS for it.
+The controller refuses two modules in the mesh declaring one zone, and a zone that is the mesh's suffix,
+under it, or one of a node's public domains: a module may not shadow names the mesh or the public DNS
+answers.
+
+**2. The mesh's resolver forwards each zone to the module that declared it.** The controller hands the
+holder of `mesh-dns-resolver` every declared zone with the private address of the node its module runs
+on and the port that listen is published on; the holder places one forwarding rule per zone into its
+configuration and answers nothing in that zone itself. What names exist in the zone, and their
+addresses, are the module's — answered by its own long-running code
+([ADR 0198](0198-a-modules-long-running-code-is-launched-by-the-node-runtime-and-reaches-the-bus-through-it.md)),
+from its own state, as they change. Whether an answered address is reachable from the asking node is
+the module's matter, not the resolver's.
+
+**3. A node's `/etc/hosts` is held by one module, through a node seat, `node-hosts-file`.** The seat is
+the definition: its holder owns `/etc/hosts`, and implements three verbs — MCP tool definitions served
+as `<node>/node-hosts-file.<verb>` ([ADR 0195](0195-the-meshs-tools-are-found-by-address-not-announced-whole.md)):
+**`entries`** (the file's lines, the module's and the operator's, each marked whose), **`add`** (one
+address and its names, into the operator's region) and **`remove`** (one name or address from it). The
+module writes the machine's own lines — loopback and the machine's name — and keeps a region for the
+operator, which survives every push and is given back when the module goes. Its tools change that
+region on that machine, escalating as the packet filter's do
+([ADR 0175](0175-one-tool-runtime-per-node-serves-every-modules-tools-on-the-host-side.md) §4). **The
+controller holds none of it:** an operator's line is the machine's, not a record.
+
+**4. No other module writes `/etc/hosts`.** The private network's region goes, as ADR 0194 already has
+it; a module that once wrote a line there asks the mesh's resolver instead.
+
+## Consequences
+
+- **The lab's names follow its scenarios.** A scenario raised is resolvable from every node at once; a
+  scenario torn down is gone, with no line left behind in any file.
+- **The mesh's resolver holds no module's state.** It holds the nodes' domains and a table of who
+  answers which zone, both composed by the controller; nothing writes to it at runtime.
+- **A module answering a zone needs a DNS answerer of its own** — a long-running bundle, or a resolver
+  it runs. The lab gains one.
+- **The operator's names reach the machine's own programs, not its containers.** A container does not
+  read the machine's `/etc/hosts`. For names unrelated to the mesh that is the right boundary; a name a
+  container needs belongs in a zone.
+- **Taking `/etc/hosts` keeps what is there.** The first time the module writes the file, every line
+  that is not the machine's own goes into the operator's region, so a workstation's twelve lines survive
+  the take — the same adoption [ADR 0102](0102-the-mesh-writes-into-a-shared-file-never-over-it.md) gives
+  every shared file.
+
+**How each is checked:**
+
+- **Zones:** the controller's catalogue tests refuse a second module declaring a zone, a zone under the
+  mesh suffix, and a zone equal to a node's public domain.
+- **Forwarding:** on the holder, the resolver's configuration carries one forwarding rule per declared
+  zone, at the declaring node's private address and published port; asking any node's resolver for a
+  name in the lab's zone while a scenario runs returns the scenario's address.
+- **The hosts file:** a push leaves the operator's region byte for byte; `add` followed by `entries`
+  shows the line as the operator's; unassigning the module gives the region back.
+
+## References
+
+- [ADR 0194](0194-the-mesh-has-one-resolver-and-every-node-asks-it-for-the-meshs-names.md),
+  [ADR 0196](0196-a-node-asks-the-meshs-resolver-first-and-a-public-one-only-when-it-is-silent.md) —
+  the one resolver and how nodes ask it.
+- [ADR 0112](0112-a-module-definition-names-no-node-mesh-or-path.md) — why a definition names no address.
+- [ADR 0174](0174-a-node-varies-a-module-through-settings-and-kept-regions-never-an-edit.md),
+  [ADR 0102](0102-the-mesh-writes-into-a-shared-file-never-over-it.md) — kept regions and shared files.
+- [ADR 0198](0198-a-modules-long-running-code-is-launched-by-the-node-runtime-and-reaches-the-bus-through-it.md) —
+  where a zone's answerer runs.
+- [Connectivity §2](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/08-connectivity.md) and [the seats](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/26-the-seats.md),
+  amended alongside.
+- [Research 023](../01-RESEARCH/023-a-seat-protocol-that-defines-what-its-holder-owns/00-overview.md) —
+  the general form of decision 3's "the holder owns `/etc/hosts`".
@@ -1,78 +0,0 @@
---
-topic: building it
-status: accepted
-date: 2026-10-04
-deciders: jochen
-reconstructed: false
-extends: 02-DECISIONS/0067-genesis-is-a-pivot.md
---
-
-# 200. Genesis pivots to the controller as a container, and the first push hands it to a process
-
-## Context
-
-The controller is Go, compiled to one static binary, and is the last of the mesh's own programs a
-machine runs from an image ([issue 213](../04-ISSUES/213-the-controller-is-a-go-program-run-in-a-container/00-report.md)).
-[ADR 0188](0188-a-modules-own-code-is-bundles-in-any-language-and-a-tools-bundle-speaks-mcp-to-the-runtime.md)
-§1 says a module's own code is bundles, never an image, and §3 that a service bundle is a `process` the
-host runs. The handover exists: a process may name the container it `replaces`, and the host removes
-that container only after the process has stayed up across two checks; two controllers are safe
-together for that moment, the second standing by on the controller's consumers and every plan held by
-one lock.
-
-What stands in the way is genesis ([ADR 0067](0067-genesis-is-a-pivot.md)), which
-[issue 223](../04-ISSUES/223-a-new-mesh-installs-its-controller-as-a-container/00-report.md) found
-assumes an image and a container at every step from its third: it builds the controller's image,
-starts a temporary controller from it, publishes it, finds the controller's container in the pivot
-declaration, and from then on talks to the controller through it. A process's bundle is fetched from
-the artifact store, and genesis raises the artifact store only after the pivot.
-
-## Considered Options
-
-1. **Raise the artifact store before the pivot**, publish the controller's bundle to it, and talk to
-   the controller from the host's side. Rejected for now: it reorders genesis around a store that is
-   itself a module the controller deploys, and rewrites the steps that talk to the controller — a
-   larger change to the one path that is exercised least, to remove a container that exists for
-   minutes.
-2. **Pivot to the controller as a container, as today, and let the first push hand it over to the
-   process**, through the handover that already exists. Chosen.
-3. **Keep the controller a container.** Rejected: it is the exception to ADR 0188 that every other
-   module's code has now left, and it costs a container runtime on the control machine and a
-   container recreation in the middle of a plan.
-
-## Decision
-
-**Genesis raises the controller as a container, under the resource the controller's process
-`replaces`, and the first declaration the controller composes for its own machine hands it over.**
-The container is genesis's own shape, built from the controller's repository, and is recorded on the
-control machine exactly as the manifest's `replaces` names it, so the first apply after the pivot
-finds a replacement for it and removes it once the process is up. The controller's manifest declares
-only the process; the image form exists for genesis alone and is not a second way to run the
-controller on a live mesh.
-
-This is the one bounded exception to ADR 0188 §1: a module's own code in an image, for the minutes
-between the pivot and the first push, on a mesh being created.
-
-## Consequences
-
- A new mesh ends where a running one is: the controller a process, no controller container.
- Genesis keeps its steps; what changes is that it no longer reads the controller's container from the
-  manifest, and that it records the container under the name the handover expects.
- The controller's repository keeps its image build for genesis and the lab.
- The handover is now on genesis's path too: a process that fails to stay up leaves the genesis
-  container serving, and the apply says so — the same rule as on a live mesh.
-
-## How it is checked
-
-The installer's test raises a mesh whose controller manifest is the process form, and asserts that the
-container genesis recorded is exactly what the process `replaces`, so the first apply hands over and
-leaves one controller. Live, on the running mesh: after the manifest change is pushed, the control
-machine runs the controller as a process and no controller container, and the controller's seat
-answers throughout.
-
-## References
-
- [Issue 213](../04-ISSUES/213-the-controller-is-a-go-program-run-in-a-container/00-report.md),
-  [issue 223](../04-ISSUES/223-a-new-mesh-installs-its-controller-as-a-container/00-report.md)
- mesh-host#86 (the handover), mesh-controller#252 (two controllers safe together),
-  mesh-controller#253 (the controller's manifest as a process)
@@ -225,6 +225,7 @@ python3 00-META/checks/index.py            fail if stale
 - **0191** — [The mesh's resolver holds only the mesh's own names; a public name resolves publicly](0191-the-meshs-resolver-holds-only-the-meshs-own-names.md)
 - **0194** — [The mesh has one resolver, and every node asks it for the mesh's names](0194-the-mesh-has-one-resolver-and-every-node-asks-it-for-the-meshs-names.md)
 - **0196** — [A node asks the mesh's resolver first, and a public one only when it is silent](0196-a-node-asks-the-meshs-resolver-first-and-a-public-one-only-when-it-is-silent.md)
+- **0199** — [A module that answers names declares its zone, and a node's hosts file is one module's](0199-a-module-that-answers-names-declares-its-zone-and-a-nodes-hosts-file-is-one-modules.md)

 ### What runs on them, and how it gets there

@@ -320,7 +321,6 @@ python3 00-META/checks/index.py            fail if stale
 - **0111** — [A build source is on the mesh's git seat, or it is an external repository](0111-a-build-source-is-on-the-git-seat-or-external.md)
 - **0149** — [The live mesh is the test bed](0149-the-live-mesh-is-the-test-bed.md)
 - **0174** — [A node varies a module through settings and kept regions, never through an edit](0174-a-node-varies-a-module-through-settings-and-kept-regions-never-an-edit.md)
- **0200** — [Genesis pivots to the controller as a container, and the first push hands it to a process](0200-genesis-pivots-to-the-controller-as-a-container-and-the-first-push-hands-it-to-a-process.md)

 ### How it is checked

@@ -6,10 +6,16 @@ code:
  - mesh-controller examples/route-proxy
  - mesh-controller internal/identity/authority.go
  - mesh-controller cmd/mesh-controller/plan.go (the names the roster publishes)
+  - mesh-controller internal/catalogue/zones.go (the zones a module answers, ADR 0199)
+  - mesh-controller internal/catalogue/seats.go (mesh-dns-resolver, node-hosts-file)
+  - mesh-catalog modules/dnsmasq (the mesh's one resolver)
+  - mesh-catalog modules/resolv-conf (what a node asks)
+  - mesh-catalog modules/hosts (a node's /etc/hosts)
  - mesh-host internal/identity/serving.go
  - mesh-host internal/apply (the service that reflects a rule set)
 updated: 2026-10-03
 decisions:
+  - 02-DECISIONS/0199-a-module-that-answers-names-declares-its-zone-and-a-nodes-hosts-file-is-one-modules.md
  - 02-DECISIONS/0196-a-node-asks-the-meshs-resolver-first-and-a-public-one-only-when-it-is-silent.md
  - 02-DECISIONS/0194-the-mesh-has-one-resolver-and-every-node-asks-it-for-the-meshs-names.md
  - 02-DECISIONS/0191-the-meshs-resolver-holds-only-the-meshs-own-names.md
@@ -377,6 +383,16 @@ member's resolver answers a LAN; a router pointing at one is moved first. *Check
 `/etc/resolv.conf` naming `mesh-resolver` then a public resolver, by no node but the holder answering
 DNS on any address, and by the router's DHCP DNS option naming the router.*

+**Names that are neither a node nor a route.** A module that answers names declares a zone (a
+setting) and the listen that answers it; the controller hands the `mesh-dns-resolver` holder every
+zone with its module's node address and published port, and the holder forwards that zone there and
+answers nothing in it itself — the lab answers `<machine>.incus` for its running scenarios this way.
+An operator's own names, unrelated to the mesh, live in `/etc/hosts`'s kept region, held per node by
+the `node-hosts-file` seat's holder and changed through its tools; the controller holds none of them
+([ADR 0199](../../02-DECISIONS/0199-a-module-that-answers-names-declares-its-zone-and-a-nodes-hosts-file-is-one-modules.md)).
+*Checked by the holder's configuration carrying one forwarding rule per declared zone, and by a push
+leaving the hosts file's operator region byte for byte.*
+
 *What follows describes the per-node resolver this replaces — how it was built and why the roles were
 split. The split stands; the serving role's scope is what moved.*

@@ -1021,6 +1037,8 @@ The list is worth having in one place, because it is most of the argument:

 - **One resolver ([ADR 0194](../../02-DECISIONS/0194-the-mesh-has-one-resolver-and-every-node-asks-it-for-the-meshs-names.md)).** Not built: every node still runs
  `node-dns-resolver`. The migration's four steps are in the record, in order.
+  Nor are zones or the hosts file's holder ([ADR 0199](../../02-DECISIONS/0199-a-module-that-answers-names-declares-its-zone-and-a-nodes-hosts-file-is-one-modules.md)): the
+  workstation moves to the one resolver only once both exist, its lab and operator names depending on them.

 - ~~**What happens when the hub is down.**~~ **Resolved** by
  [ADR 0006](../../02-DECISIONS/0006-the-substrate-and-the-control-plane.md), together with `06`'s
@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ code:
  - mesh-catalog modules/gitea/module.json
 updated: 2026-10-03
 decisions:
+  - 02-DECISIONS/0199-a-module-that-answers-names-declares-its-zone-and-a-nodes-hosts-file-is-one-modules.md
  - 02-DECISIONS/0194-the-mesh-has-one-resolver-and-every-node-asks-it-for-the-meshs-names.md
  - 02-DECISIONS/0161-what-deserves-a-seat.md
  - 02-DECISIONS/0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md
@@ -129,6 +130,7 @@ convention, which later seats departed from.
 | `mesh-build-machine` | `the-build-machine` | node | — | a builder |
 | `mesh-resolver` | — | mesh | — | the mesh's one resolver, holding every node's internal domain ([ADR 0194](../../02-DECISIONS/0194-the-mesh-has-one-resolver-and-every-node-asks-it-for-the-meshs-names.md)) |
 | ~~`mesh-dns-port`~~ | `the-dns-port` | node | — | retired by [ADR 0194](../../02-DECISIONS/0194-the-mesh-has-one-resolver-and-every-node-asks-it-for-the-meshs-names.md): the local resolver became the mesh's one |
+| `node-hosts-file` | — | node | — | owns `/etc/hosts`: the machine's own lines and the operator's kept region, changed through its verbs `entries`, `add`, `remove` ([ADR 0199](../../02-DECISIONS/0199-a-module-that-answers-names-declares-its-zone-and-a-nodes-hosts-file-is-one-modules.md)) |
 | `mesh-intrusion-prevention` | `the-intrusion-prevention` | node | — | an intrusion-prevention service |
 | `mesh-packet-filter` | `the-packet-filter` | node | — | the packet filter |
 | `mesh-private-network` | `the-private-network` | node | — | the private network the mesh runs over |
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 layer: to-be
 status: in-progress
 code: [mesh-tools, mesh-controller, mesh-host, mesh-catalog]
-updated: 2026-10-04
+updated: 2026-10-03
 decisions:
  - 02-DECISIONS/0175-one-tool-runtime-per-node-serves-every-modules-tools-on-the-host-side.md
  - 02-DECISIONS/0173-the-operators-machine-is-the-meshs-and-a-module-is-what-it-declares.md
@@ -309,25 +309,6 @@ nextcloud, minio), the two whose clients exist on no system (mongodb, mssql: a d
 and last the mesh's own (mesh-catalog, mesh-vault, records, gitea, mailu, audit-logger, lab, and the
 three mains).

-*Built 2026-10-04.* Thirty-four modules no longer run their own code in a container: the first wave
-(mesh-catalog#245), the mesh's own and the media modules (mesh-catalog#248, mesh-media-catalog#13),
-with a step run where and as it is declared (mesh-host#85) and a process's words filled like a
-container's (mesh-controller#250). **Proven live** on every machine that runs them: each moved
-module's tools answer from the node's runtime, the steps run as their oneshot units, and the forge's
-merge events reach the build pipeline from the runtime — the merge after the move started its own
-plan. **Two corrections the machines taught:** a tool that called a broker's command-line client now
-runs it inside the broker's own container, because a host package may be uninstallable on a machine
-whose package index is stale (mesh-catalog#249); and a module reading its application's own key reads
-it through the application's container, because that directory belongs to the account the application
-runs as there, which is not the runtime's (mesh-media-catalog#14). *Completed 2026-10-04:* the last three — mesh-catalog, mongodb and mssql, whose code imports npm
-packages of its own — moved once the builder installs a bundle's own dependencies before compiling,
-keeping the toolchain's SDK authoritative (mesh-controller#255, mesh-catalog#250). Their database
-clients are now drivers inlined into the bundle, not command-line clients fetched by a container; one
-more correction the machines taught: a driver reaching its server on loopback must give TLS a host
-name, since the runtime's Node refuses an address (mesh-catalog#252). **No module's own code runs in
-a container any more;** every module with tools answers from its node's runtime, proven by calling a
-tool of each.
-
 ## WP5 — The shell, on a server first

 *mesh-catalog #224, already written. Half a day to assign and prove.*
@@ -1,10 +1,9 @@
 ---
-status: resolved
+status: located
 opened: 2026-10-03
 located-in:
  - mesh-controller
 fixed-by:
-  - mesh-controller#246
 amended-design:
 ---

@@ -46,7 +45,3 @@ have to write — a bundle of language L depends on the module that publishes L'
 bundle lands in the tier after it. A test: a merge touching the toolchain module and a TypeScript
 bundle plans the bundle one tier later. Worked around on the day by building the bundle again once
 the toolchain was built.
-
-## Resolved
-
-Every mesh-tools plan since the fix ran in two rounds: the toolchain and runtime images first, what is built in or on them after. Before it, a merge moving both tiered them together. The planner's test proves the order: a merge moving a bundle and its toolchain plans two rounds.
@@ -1,11 +0,0 @@
-# 211 — Diagnosis
-
-*2026-10-03.* The planner orders a merge's modules by `inventory.Dependencies`, whose edges come from a
-manifest's `build.on`, from what a build recorded it stood on, from the repositories it read, and from
-the build machine. A bundle names its toolchain by `language`; the builder takes the toolchain image
-(`ToolchainFor(language)`) from what the mesh holds and records nothing of it as stood on. So no edge
-ran from a bundle to the module publishing its toolchain, and a merge moving both (mesh-tools: the
-images and node-tools) tiered them together. **Fix (mesh-controller, branch
-`fix/issue-211-a-bundle-stands-on-its-toolchain`, commit c72f6ca):** `dependenciesOf` adds a `stands-on`
-edge from every bundle artifact to its toolchain's module, read from the manifest. Tested: TypeScript
-bundle → mesh-tools, Go bundle → mesh-tools-go, image → none; a merge moving both plans two tiers.
@@ -1,11 +1,10 @@
 ---
-status: resolved
+status: located
 opened: 2026-10-03
 located-in:
  - mesh-tools
  - mesh-controller
 fixed-by:
-  - mesh-tools#44
 amended-design:
 ---

@@ -43,7 +42,3 @@ install from a lockfile that a release updates, or build the install layer witho
 the build should record which SDK version the image carries, so a bundle's record says what it was
 compiled against. A check: after an SDK release and a toolchain rebuild, a bundle built on it reports
 the released version.
-
-## Resolved
-
-The toolchain now installs the exact SDK version the mesh last published, passed in as a build argument from the SDK module's published package, and the planner orders the toolchain after the SDK. Proven 2026-10-04: the toolchain built with the published SDK, and the six TypeScript bundles built in it serve their tools and seat verbs.
@@ -1,14 +1,10 @@
 ---
-status: resolved
+status: open
 opened: 2026-10-03
 located-in:
  - mesh-controller
-  - mesh-host
+  - mesh-catalog
 fixed-by:
-  - mesh-host#86
-  - mesh-controller#252
-  - mesh-controller#253
-  - mesh-host#88
 amended-design:
 ---

@@ -54,27 +50,3 @@ of a plan today.

 Located only by owner; the move is a change of the controller's module and its deployment, not of
 its code.
-
-## Fix prepared (2026-10-04)
-
-Three changes. mesh-host#86, merged: a process may name the container it `replaces`, and the host
-removes that container only once the process has stayed up across two checks. mesh-controller#252,
-awaiting the operator's merge: the controller's composition for a service process, and two
-controllers safe together for the handover — the second stands by on the controller's consumers
-until the first lets go, and all plan work holds one advisory lock. mesh-controller#253, held: the
-controller's manifest as a Go bundle and a process. It waits on
-[issue 223](../223-a-new-mesh-installs-its-controller-as-a-container/00-report.md), because with it a
-new mesh cannot be installed.
-
-## Resolved
-
-Proven 2026-10-04 on the control machine: after the manifest change was merged and pushed, the host
-created the controller's account, ran its preparation step, started the controller as a process,
-found it up across both checks and removed the container. The controller now runs as its own account
-from its bundle, no controller container remains, its seat answered throughout, and the merge's own
-plan finished all three tiers under the new process.
-
-One fault on the way, fixed before it could leave two controllers or none: the host read the account
-not existing yet as a user database that did not answer — it matched the exit as text in a wording
-its own runner did not use — so the first apply stopped at the account and the container kept serving,
-which is the handover's safe failure (mesh-host#88).
@@ -1,10 +1,9 @@
 ---
-status: resolved
+status: open
 opened: 2026-10-03
 located-in:
  - mesh-controller
 fixed-by:
-  - mesh-controller#246
 amended-design:
 ---

@@ -35,7 +34,3 @@ Owner mesh-controller (the planner). **Fix direction:** on start, and whenever a
 build, the plan settles an `asked` build against the build records — a build recorded as built from
 the plan's commit is that tier's outcome — so a plan resumes after the controller replaced itself.
 A test: a plan whose build outcome was recorded while no controller followed it resumes on start.
-
-## Resolved
-
-A plan settles an asked build from the build records, whoever heard the outcome. Proven 2026-10-03 and 2026-10-04: both controller merge plans since the fix finished all three rounds, including the round that replaced the controller, without being stopped by hand.
@@ -1,10 +0,0 @@
-# 214 — Diagnosis
-
-*2026-10-03.* A plan learns a tier's outcome only through `planBuilt`, called when a controller takes
-in a build result off the bus. A merge to the controller's repository replaces the controller in tier
-0; the build that produced the new controller was recorded, but the plan state the new controller
-loaded still read `asked`, and no path ever revisited it. **Fix (branch
-`fix/issue-214-a-plan-settles-from-the-build-records`, commit d86baeb):** `advanceOnce` settles every
-still-asked module from its build records — a build recorded after the ask is that ask's outcome,
-built or failed — on every advance and on the 30-second ticker. Tested with a pure helper. Live
-proof: the next merge to mesh-controller passes tier 0 on its own.
@@ -1,10 +1,9 @@
 ---
-status: resolved
+status: open
 opened: 2026-10-03
 located-in:
  - mesh-controller
 fixed-by:
-  - mesh-controller#246
 amended-design:
 ---

@@ -34,9 +33,3 @@ Owner mesh-controller. **Fix direction:** a build asked at a commit does not cha
 module follows; or, if pinning is meant, the pin is said — in `module list`, in `status`, and by a
 merge's plan naming the module it leaves out and why. A test: building a module at a commit and then
 merging a change to it plans it.
-
-## Resolved
-
-Proven 2026-10-04: the catalogue merges since the fix rebuilt the module that had been pinned at an
-old commit, at the merge's commit, by an ordinary plan — the same as every other module of the
-catalogue. Nothing was asked for it by hand.
@@ -1,10 +0,0 @@
-# 215 — Diagnosis
-
-*2026-10-03.* `takeIn` registers a build's `Ref` as the branch the module follows. unifi was once
-built with `ref=9c97a8a`, which became its followed ref. `sourceIs` matches a merge only to modules
-whose ref is empty or the merged base — so every merge into main left unifi out — and `askTier`
-re-asks `Source.Ref`, so every plan that rebuilt unifi built the same old commit again (its build
-records all read "at 9c97a8a"). **Fix (branch `fix/issue-215-a-commit-is-never-a-branch-to-follow`,
-commit 6784efa):** registration keeps the followed branch when a build names a commit; matching and
-re-asking read a recorded commit as the default branch, healing existing records; a merge names the
-modules of its repository it leaves out. Store-backed test fails without the fix.
@@ -1,10 +1,9 @@
 ---
-status: resolved
+status: open
 opened: 2026-10-03
 located-in:
  - mesh-controller
 fixed-by:
-  - mesh-controller#246
 amended-design:
 ---

@@ -29,7 +28,3 @@ Owner mesh-controller (the catalogue's registration check). **Fix direction:** a
 loads, runs or unpacks — no `loads`, no `tools` list on its module, no resource naming it — is refused
 at registration, naming the field that would deliver it. A test: such a manifest is refused; adding
 `loads` admits it.
-
-## Resolved
-
-A bundle nothing would deliver is refused at registration, by name. Proven by the controller's tests; the catalogue's bundles all name what the runtime loads (mesh-catalog#243).
@@ -1,9 +0,0 @@
-# 216 — Diagnosis
-
-*2026-10-03.* The composer delivers a bundle as an archive only when its `Loads` is non-empty, and
-`Loads` derives from the artifact's `loads` or, failing that, from the module's `tools` list. The
-seven modules had neither, so their bundles were recorded and never composed into any declaration;
-nothing checked it. **Fix (branch `fix/issue-216-a-bundle-nothing-delivers-is-refused`, commit
-cf2bb3b):** registration refuses a bundle that nothing loads, runs or unpacks — no `loads`, no `tools`,
-no resource naming it, and not the runtime — naming the field that would deliver it. The current
-catalogue passes the check.
@@ -1,58 +0,0 @@
---
-status: resolved
-opened: 2026-10-03
-located-in:
-  - mesh-tools
-fixed-by:
-  - mesh-tools#42
-  - mesh-tools#43
-amended-design:
---
-
-# 217 — A refused announcement took down every container's runtime, and the console with it
-
-## What was observed
-
-2026-10-03, rolling out [ADR 0197](../../02-DECISIONS/0197-every-tool-announces-itself-on-the-bus-in-the-nats-services-protocol.md).
-The tool runtimes announced themselves by subscribing `$SRV.<verb>.>`; the grants composed for them
-allowed only `$SRV.<verb>` and the service's own name and instance. The bus refused the wildcard:
-
-```
-Subscription Violation - User "novox.gitea", Subject "$SRV.PING.>"
-NatsError: 'Permissions Violation for Subscription to "$SRV.PING.>"'
-```
-
-The TypeScript runtime the per-module containers run treats a refused subscription as fatal, so on
-the one machine that had received the new images nine containers crash-looped — gitea's runtime,
-postgres's, the catalogue, the vault, mongodb, mssql, keycloak, mailu, nextcloud. Gitea's tools went
-with them, which closed the usual path for merging the fix.
-
-Then the console stopped answering the controller's verbs, though the controller held every
-subscription: the console builds the list that tells a seat's verb from a module's tool by asking the
-controller *and* the catalogue, and gives up on both when the catalogue does not answer — so
-`mesh-controller.status` was asked of a module subject nobody serves.
-
-## Why it matters beyond this instance
-
-Two properties, each worse than the mistake that exposed it:
-
- **A runtime dies for an optional subscription.** Announcing is discovery; serving tools and running
-  provisioners is the work. A refusal of the first should never stop the second.
- **The console's view of the mesh's own verbs depended on a module.** The controller's verbs are how
-  the operator repairs the mesh; they must not become unreachable because the catalogue is down.
-
-## Diagnosis
-
-Owner mesh-tools. The wildcard is fixed on branch `fix/announce-only-what-the-grants-allow`: both
-runtimes subscribe exactly what the grants allow. The console that discovers from what announces itself
-(ADR 0195, 0197, on main) asks the bus and the controller, not the catalogue, which removes the second
-property once it is deployed. **Still to do:** the TypeScript runtime treats a refused announcement
-subscription as a logged warning, not as fatal; a test against a bus with real grants proves the
-announcement subscriptions are allowed for every principal kind.
-
-Recovered on the day without the forge's API: the toolchain images built by the controller straight
-from the fix branch, every module image rebuilt on them, and the machine pushed.
-
-## Resolved
-
-A refused announcement is logged and the runtime serves on, and every runtime subscribes only the discovery subjects its grants allow. Proven 2026-10-04: after rolling out to every machine, no container restarts anywhere, and the discovery console lists no runtime as not answering. A refused tool subscription was made non-fatal the same way afterwards, under issue 218 (mesh-tools#46).
@@ -1,92 +0,0 @@
---
-status: resolved
-opened: 2026-10-03
-located-in:
-  - mesh-controller
-  - mesh-tools
-fixed-by:
-  - mesh-controller#248
-  - mesh-tools#45
-  - mesh-tools#46
-amended-design:
---
-
-# 218 — A seat held once for the mesh is answered by a module on a machine that does not hold it
-
-## What was observed
-
-2026-10-03. Asked which databases the mesh's store holds, `mesh-store.databases` answered from the
-postgres on one machine with that machine's application databases; the controller's own database
-lives on the postgres of the other machine, which the controller's records name as the seat's one
-holder:
-
-```
-mesh-store  scope: mesh  delivers: postgres-database  holders: [ {node: <the control machine>, module: postgres} ]
-```
-
-The discovery console, which reads what answers on the bus ([ADR 0197](../../02-DECISIONS/0197-every-tool-announces-itself-on-the-bus-in-the-nats-services-protocol.md)),
-shows the same seat announced from **both** machines running postgres.
-
-## Why it matters beyond this instance
-
-A seat held once for the mesh promises one answerer: the role's holder. A module that implements a
-seat's verbs on every machine it runs on, and is let serve them on each, turns "the mesh's store" into
-"whichever postgres replied first" — a read against the wrong database that looks like a right one,
-and a write would be worse. Every mesh-scoped seat whose implementing module runs on more than one
-machine has this shape.
-
-## Where to look
-
-Whether the runtime serves a seat's verbs where its module merely *claims* the seat rather than where
-the mesh made it the holder ([ADR 0159](../../02-DECISIONS/0159-a-tool-call-names-the-machine-and-a-holder-serves-its-seats-verbs.md),
-[ADR 0160](../../02-DECISIONS/0160-the-mesh-issues-an-assignments-subjects-and-a-runtime-serves-what-it-is-issued.md)):
-the membership the controller issues each assignment, and what the runtime admits from it. A check:
-a mesh-scoped seat's verbs are served by exactly the holder the records name, on every machine.
-
-## Root cause
-
-The controller composed each assignment's held seats from what its module *claims*, once per module
-and not once per machine. Every machine running postgres was therefore given the store seat's grants
-and issued its subjects, and each runtime served the seat's verbs because it serves what it is issued
-([ADR 0160](../../02-DECISIONS/0160-the-mesh-issues-an-assignments-subjects-and-a-runtime-serves-what-it-is-issued.md)).
-The runtime behaved as designed. The fault was in what it was issued.
-
-The seat's verbs are not the module's tools. The store's `databases` and `query` are a separate
-implementation registered under the seat's name ([ADR 0159](../../02-DECISIONS/0159-a-tool-call-names-the-machine-and-a-holder-serves-its-seats-verbs.md)).
-Only that implementation should be withdrawn where the module does not hold the seat. postgres's own
-tools stay served on every machine it runs on.
-
-## Fix
-
-The controller now reads the recorded seat holdings when it composes grants and memberships. A seat
-held once for the mesh is issued only to the machine and module the records name as its holder. A
-seat held once per machine, and a mesh seat with no holder on record, are issued as before. Grants
-and memberships come from the same list, so they cannot disagree.
-
-**How it is checked.** A controller test asserts that a claimant on another machine keeps its node
-seats and loses the recorded mesh seat. Live, the discovery console's overview must show each
-mesh-scoped seat announced from exactly the holder the records name. Status moves to `resolved` once
-that holds after the fix is rolled out.
-
-## A second cause, and what the rollout broke (2026-10-04)
-
-With the grants corrected, calls to the store reached only the holder, yet the console still showed
-the seat announced from both machines. The module's runtime added every seat its start-up credential
-claims, even after the mesh issued a membership that left the seat out. Once a membership exists,
-it now alone decides which seat verbs a runtime serves (mesh-tools#45).
-
-The rollout then exposed a third fault. The module on the machine that does not hold the seat was
-still running an image built before #45, so it subscribed to the seat's subject. The corrected grants
-refused that subscription, and the refusal ended the process. Its runtime crash-looped until the
-module was rebuilt on the new runtime image. The database itself kept running. A refused tool
-subscription is now logged and costs only that subject (mesh-tools#46), as a refused announcement
-already did ([issue 217](../217-a-refused-announcement-took-down-every-containers-runtime/00-report.md)).
-
-The module was not rebuilt by the plan that rebuilt the runtime image. This is the ordering gap of
-[issue 211](../211-a-bundle-is-built-before-the-toolchain-it-is-compiled-in/00-report.md) seen
-from a container module.
-
-**Proven 2026-10-04.** The discovery console's overview shows the store seat announced from the
-recorded holder only. Repeated calls to the store are answered by that machine, and the answers
-include the controller's own database. The non-holder still answers its own module tools. No
-container restarts on any machine.
@@ -1,48 +0,0 @@
---
-status: resolved
-opened: 2026-10-04
-located-in:
-  - mesh-controller
-fixed-by:
-  - mesh-controller#249
-amended-design:
---
-
-# 219 — An older build that finishes later replaces a newer one
-
-## What was observed
-
-2026-10-03. Two merges to the runtime module came minutes apart. Each plan asked for every module
-built on the runtime image to be rebuilt. One module's two builds were of the same source and
-differed only in the runtime image they stood on:
-
-| Build | Requested | Finished | Stood on |
-|---|---|---|---|
-| asked by the first plan | 21:33 | 22:04 | the runtime image before the fix |
-| asked by the second plan | 21:49 | 21:56 | the runtime image with the fix |
-
-The older request finished last, and its image became the module's current artifact. The next push
-deployed it, and the module's runtime crash-looped on a fault the newer image had already fixed
-([issue 218](../218-a-mesh-seat-is-answered-by-a-module-that-does-not-hold-it/00-report.md)).
-
-## Why it matters beyond this instance
-
-Which build is current should follow what it was built from, not which build machine was slowest.
-Whenever two plans overlap, which happens on any busy evening, a fix can be silently reverted by a
-build that started before it existed. Every passing check still passes.
-
-## Where to look
-
-How a finished build is recorded and how a module's current artifact is chosen. **How it is checked:**
-a test in which an older request completes after a newer one for the same artifact, and the newer
-stays current.
-
-## Resolved
-
-A build is ordered by when it was requested, read from the id the controller gives it, and a
-module's registered manifest is replaced only by a build requested at or after the one it came from.
-An older request finishing later is recorded and changes nothing; a plan settles only from builds it
-asked for itself. **How it is checked:** store-backed tests replay the incident — the newer request
-stays what the module is — and fail without the fix. Live since 2026-10-04: the rebuilds of every
-runtime-image module and the three waves of module code moves since then each registered the build
-they asked for.
@@ -1,41 +0,0 @@
---
-status: resolved
-opened: 2026-10-04
-located-in:
-  - mesh-host
-fixed-by:
-  - mesh-host#84
-amended-design:
---
-
-# 220 — A delivered bundle keeps the files of the one before
-
-## What was observed
-
-2026-10-04. A tools bundle was rebuilt as one self-contained file per entrypoint
-([ADR 0193](../../02-DECISIONS/0193-every-bundle-the-runtime-serves-is-launched-and-the-runtime-knows-no-language.md)),
-so it no longer carries a package directory. On the machine it was delivered to, its directory still
-held the package directory and a compiled file from the earlier delivery, dated hours before the
-new files. The new files were written over the old directory, and nothing removed what the new
-bundle no longer contains.
-
-## Why it matters beyond this instance
-
-A bundle on disk should be exactly the artifact that was built. Leftover files can be imported by
-code that should no longer find them. A fix that removes a file then works on a fresh machine and
-fails on every machine that ran an earlier version. It also makes "what runs here" impossible to
-read from the artifact.
-
-## Where to look
-
-How the host unpacks a bundle into its directory. **How it is checked:** deliver a bundle, then a
-version without one of its files, and the file is gone.
-
-## Resolved
-
-An archive is unpacked into a fresh directory beside the old one and swapped in by rename; a refused
-or failed unpack leaves the old tree whole. **How it is checked:** a second delivery without a file
-removes it, and nothing is left beside the directory; both tests fail without the fix. Proven
-2026-10-04: a bundle rebuilt and delivered after the fix holds exactly the new build and nothing
-beside it. A bundle that has not changed since keeps its old leftovers until its next version, by
-design: an unchanged archive is not unpacked again.
@@ -1,52 +0,0 @@
---
-status: resolved
-opened: 2026-10-04
-located-in:
-  - mesh-controller
-fixed-by:
-  - policy: `upgrade build-agent roll-out` (2026-10-04)
-amended-design:
---
-
-# 221 — A build machine learns a new builder only from a push
-
-## What was observed
-
-2026-10-04. A controller merge changed how TypeScript bundles are built: one file per entrypoint
-instead of a package directory. Its plan finished, and six bundles were rebuilt right after. They
-came out in the old shape, because the build machines still ran the previous builder. They got the
-new one only from the next push. Rebuilt after that push, the same six came out right.
-
-The same order showed in the bus grants the same night. A push sent while the controller was still
-the previous build composed grants with the previous code. A second push was needed after the new
-controller had started.
-
-## Why it matters beyond this instance
-
-A merge to the controller is not in effect when its plan says done. Anything built or pushed in the
-gap uses the old code and looks current. Today only the operator knows to push first and build
-second, and even the operator forgot.
-
-## Where to look
-
-Whether a controller plan should end by delivering itself to the build machines and the control
-machine, or whether a build should refuse a builder older than the controller that asked for it.
-**How it is checked:** after a controller merge, a build asked right after its plan finishes runs
-the new builder.
-
-## Located
-
-The mechanism existed: a module whose upgrade policy is `roll-out` is sent to its machines when its
-tier is built, and the plan's next tier waits until it is applied. The build agent's policy was
-`record` — built, never sent — as was that of 76 other modules, which is why every rollout on
-2026-10-03 needed a push by hand. The build agent was set to `roll-out`, one machine at a time,
-stopping at the first failure. **How it is checked:** the next controller merge's plan sends the
-build agent to the build machines before its last tier, and a build asked right after the plan
-finishes runs the new builder; then this moves to resolved. Whether the other modules roll out is
-the operator's policy, not this issue's.
-
-## Resolved
-
-Proven 2026-10-04: the next controller merge's plan logged that its first tier was built and the
-build agent sent to all four build machines, and only then asked its next tier. The builder change
-in that merge reached the build machines without a hand push.
@@ -1,51 +0,0 @@
---
-status: resolved
-opened: 2026-10-04
-located-in:
-  - mesh-tools
-fixed-by:
-  - mesh-tools#47
-amended-design:
---
-
-# 222 — An assignment is refused on the bus until the bus's machine is pushed
-
-## What was observed
-
-2026-10-04. A module was assigned to the laptop, and the laptop alone was pushed. The module's two
-bundles arrived and the node's runtime launched both, and then the bus refused every one of the
-module's subjects:
-
-```
-nats: permissions violation: Permissions Violation for Subscription to "mesh.mod.<module>.tool.<tool>.<node>"
-```
-
-The tools were unreachable until a later push that included the machine running the bus. Then the
-runtime served them without a restart, because a new membership arrived and it re-subscribed.
-
-## Why it matters beyond this instance
-
-What an account may answer lives in the bus's user list, and the controller writes that list only
-into the declaration of the machine that runs the bus. Assigning anything to any machine changes
-that list, so `push <machine>` after `assign <machine> <module>`, which is what the controller itself
-tells the operator to run, leaves the module running and unreachable, with nothing reporting a fault.
-
-## Where to look
-
-Whether a push to one machine should also send the bus's machine when the user list it would
-compose differs from the one that machine holds. **How it is checked:** assign a module with tools
-to a machine that does not run the bus, push only that machine, and its tools answer.
-
-## Diagnosed and resolved
-
-The push did send the bus's machine: the controller's log shows both machines applying in the same
-second. The fault was the order within that second. The node's runtime subscribed before the bus
-had reloaded its user list, the bus refused, and the bus client marks a refused subscription dead.
-Nothing asked again until a later membership happened to re-serve the module.
-
-A subject the runtime answers on is now asked for again when the bus refuses it, after waits from
-two seconds to two minutes, and given up and said after about five minutes. **How it is checked:**
-a test refuses a subject and finds it asked for again and answering, given up past its attempts,
-and not asked again once stopped; and by hand against a bus whose permissions were reloaded while
-connected, the runtime answered two seconds after the grant arrived, where the runtime before the
-fix never answered.
@@ -1,60 +0,0 @@
---
-status: resolved
-opened: 2026-10-04
-located-in:
-  - mesh-host
-fixed-by:
-  - mesh-host#87
-amended-design:
---
-
-# 223 — A new mesh installs its controller as a container
-
-## What was observed
-
-2026-10-04. Preparing [issue 213](../213-the-controller-is-a-go-program-run-in-a-container/00-report.md),
-the controller's own manifest was changed to a Go bundle run as a process. The installer that raises a
-new mesh assumes the controller is an image and a container at every step from its third on:
-
- it requires the controller's build to produce exactly one image;
- it starts a temporary controller from that image, and publishes the image to the registry;
- at the pivot, it finds the controller's container in the declaration, reads its environment and
-  volumes, waits for it, and from then on talks to the controller only through the container.
-
-## Why it matters beyond this instance
-
-With the controller's manifest changed, a new mesh cannot be installed: the pivot fails. The deeper
-constraint is ordering. A process's bundle is fetched from the artifact store, and the installer
-raises the artifact store only after the pivot, so the controller's first declaration names a bundle
-nothing can serve yet.
-
-## What a fix has to settle
-
-One of two shapes, and it is a decision, not a repair:
-
-1. raise the artifact store before the pivot, publish the controller's bundle to it, and talk to the
-   controller from the host's side rather than through a container; or
-2. pivot to the image form as today, and let the first push hand over to the process, which
-   requires the controller's manifest to carry both forms.
-
-Until it is settled, the change of the controller's manifest (mesh-controller#253) is held. The
-handover itself is built and merged (mesh-host#86); the controller's half (mesh-controller#252) waits
-on the operator. **How it is checked:** the installer's test raises a mesh whose controller manifest
-is the process form, and the controller answers its seat's verbs at the end.
-
-## Decided (2026-10-04)
-
-Option 2, [ADR 0200](../../02-DECISIONS/0200-genesis-pivots-to-the-controller-as-a-container-and-the-first-push-hands-it-to-a-process.md):
-genesis pivots to the controller as a container recorded under the name the process `replaces`, and
-the first push hands it over.
-
-## Resolved
-
-Built as [ADR 0200](../../02-DECISIONS/0200-genesis-pivots-to-the-controller-as-a-container-and-the-first-push-hands-it-to-a-process.md)
-decided: genesis reads only the controller's process from the manifest, builds the controller's image
-from its repository, and pivots to a container of its own shape recorded under the id the process
-`replaces`; an older controller in the image form still builds as before. **How it is checked:** the
-installer's tests build the genesis form from the controller's real manifest, and apply the
-controller's first process declaration over the recorded container with the host's own apply — the
-process starts, the container is removed, one controller remains. A real install from nothing has not
-been run since; the handover it ends in was proven live on the running mesh (issue 213).