2026-09-26 12:48:12 +00:00
2 changed files with 65 additions and 1 deletions
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 ---
 status: located
 opened: 2026-09-25
-located-in: [mesh-catalog modules/builder, mesh-catalog modules/gitea]
+located-in: [mesh-catalog modules/builder, mesh-catalog modules/gitea, mesh-controller internal/catalogue/resolve.go]
 fixed-by:
 amended-design:
 ---
@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
+# 121 — Diagnosis
+
+## 2026-09-26 — the seats work renamed the requirement; it did not reorder the bootstrap
+
+The seats change landed the same day this was filed (ADRs 0109–0111 accepted, and the code on both
+main branches), and it touches exactly the two manifests this report names. That made it worth
+asking first whether the deadlock had been fixed in passing. It has not.
+
+### Step 1 — what the seats work changed
+
+`builder`'s requirement was renamed from `package-registry` to `npm-package-registry`, which is now
+a **seat** the forge holds; the forge claims `npm-package-registry` and `git` at mesh scope and
+serves both. The provision is the same relationship under a name the mesh defines rather than one a
+manifest invented.
+
+### Step 2 — the seat's holder cannot answer when there is no holder yet
+
+The seat is consulted in exactly one branch of resolution: where **several** nodes provide the
+wanted provision and no pin says which. That is the ambiguity case, and it is not the bootstrap
+case. With nothing providing it at all, resolution takes the branch for no providers and **refuses**,
+naming the remedy:
+
+> nothing in this mesh provides "npm-package-registry", wanted by builder — assign gitea to a node
+
+A refusal, not a deferral. So a seat delivering a provision does not make a requirement optional
+before the seat is filled, and nothing about the seats work moves the order.
+
+### Step 3 — ruled out: genesis has no escape hatch
+
+Resolution has an `Unchecked` mode that "takes brokered requirements on trust instead of refusing
+when nothing answers them", which would be exactly the exemption a bootstrap needs. It is not one:
+it exists for the first of two passes — working out what each node offers — and its own comment
+states that **a declaration is never built from an unchecked resolution**. The second pass, the one
+that produces the declaration, refuses.
+
+### Step 4 — the other arm of the cycle is intact
+
+The forge's manifest still carries a `build` section, its runtime image compiled from the
+toolchain's build and runtime bases like every other built module. `builder` is what runs that
+build. So both arms stand: the builder cannot be assigned before the forge provides the registry,
+and the forge cannot exist as a container before the builder has built its image.
+
+## What did change, and why it is the part worth recording
+
+The three tests that pinned the carried-fallback design — the builder's own `package-binding`
+resource, its port taken from the node, its identity kept — were **deleted** by the controller's
+seats PR and replaced by seat-based tests that pass.
+
+The report deliberately left those three failing so the gap would stay visible. It is no longer
+visible: the suite is green, and the only remaining trace is this issue. That is the same way the
+deadlock was invisible in the first place — a running mesh resolves the grant instantly, because the
+forge is already built and assigned. Twice now, the evidence has been removed by something correct.
+
+## What would actually answer it
+
+- **A provision that resolves to a carried fallback when nothing provides it yet.** Nothing in the
+  model expresses "this, or a carried default until something can answer", for any provision. This
+  would be the first, which is why it belongs in a record rather than in a manifest.
+- **Genesis sequencing instead** — build the forge before granting anything, with the builder never
+  resolving the registry during that window.
+- **The forge's runtime image not being the mesh's to build** — an external image breaks the cycle
+  by removing the dependency rather than by expressing it.
+
+None is chosen here. The report's open questions stand as written.