02-DECISIONS/0122-the-predecessor-is-ending-and-its-broker-goes-with-it.md

@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
+---
+topic: the mesh
+status: accepted
+date: 2026-09-27
+deciders: jochen
+reconstructed: false
+extends: 02-DECISIONS/0119-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md
+---
+
+# 122. The predecessor is ending, and its broker goes with it
+
+## Context
+
+[ADR 0119](0119-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md) settled that the old broker is an ordinary
+provider of the `amqp` provision rather than a compatibility module with an end date. It rejected
+giving it a retirement condition, and said why: *"its clients are not only the predecessor's, so the
+retirement condition describes a day that will not come."*
+
+**The operator has said that day is coming.** The predecessor is deprecated. Some of it is still
+running, and it is not being migrated — it is being left to stop. Its broker may be shut down.
+
+That is a fact about this installation, not a change of mind about what a broker is. It is recorded
+because three documents reason from the premise it overturns:
+[design 25](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/25-the-bus-on-nats.md) §5 and §9, and
+[design 28](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/28-building-the-bus.md)'s closing note that the predecessor's world
+"does not need to move: its broker is the compatibility module until its last client is gone."
+
+## Decision
+
+**The predecessor's broker retires when nothing requires `amqp`, by being unassigned like any other
+provider.** No retirement condition, no end-date machinery, no special case — which is ADR 0119 being
+paid off rather than revised. Because that record made the broker an ordinary provider, ending it
+needs nothing that does not already exist: a provision with no consumers has its provider unassigned,
+and the module system has done that since it existed.
+
+**So step 5.3 has an ending.** "The mesh's own accounts removed from the deprecated broker" was
+written as the last thing that could be said, because the broker itself was going to outlive the
+question. It now finishes: once the mesh's own traffic has moved and the predecessor's remnants have
+stopped, the module is unassigned and the port is free.
+
+**And the transitional doubling has a date.** The build outcome is announced under both the module's
+name and the role's on the old bus, so that a catalogue deployed before the rename and one deployed
+after both hear it. That exists only while the old bus does, and goes with it.
+
+## Consequences
+
+**The remote access path goes with it, and that is the one practical consequence worth planning
+around.** The predecessor's own mesh communicates over that broker — so shutting it down ends the
+tooling that reaches this installation's machines remotely. Work on the node after that point is done
+from the node. **This matters most for the rollout**, which is the step that would otherwise be driven
+from a workstation: it has to be driven locally, or driven before the broker stops.
+
+**What is still running on it stops when it stops.** Some of the predecessor's services are live and
+are not being moved. That is the operator's decision and it is recorded here so that nobody later reads
+a broker with clients as an accident.
+
+**Nothing in a served request's path is affected.** Modules serve from their own containers; the mesh's
+bus carries the mesh's own traffic — declarations, reports, events, tool calls. This was checked rather
+than assumed when the question came up, and it is why the operator's position (*"as long as my services
+keep running"*) is a bounded risk rather than a gamble.
+
+**One reason to keep the broker survives**: `amqp` remains a provision a module may require, and a
+module that genuinely needs an AMQP broker can be given one. What retires is *this* broker's role as
+the predecessor's, not the mesh's ability to provide the thing.

02-DECISIONS/README.md

@@ -137,6 +137,7 @@ python3 00-META/checks/index.py            fail if stale
 - **0119** — [AMQP is a provision, not the bus](0119-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md)
 - **0120** — [The mesh bus is required, not ambient](0120-the-mesh-bus-is-required-not-ambient.md)
 - **0121** — [A seat carries the protocol of its role](0121-a-seat-carries-the-protocol-of-its-role.md)
+- **0122** — [The predecessor is ending, and its broker goes with it](0122-the-predecessor-is-ending-and-its-broker-goes-with-it.md)
 
 ### Its tiers, from the bottom up
 

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

@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ decisions:
   - 02-DECISIONS/0083-one-push-leaves-the-mesh-consistent.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0039-what-the-sdk-holds-and-refuses.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0121-a-seat-carries-the-protocol-of-its-role.md
+  - 02-DECISIONS/0122-the-predecessor-is-ending-and-its-broker-goes-with-it.md
 ---
 
 # 25. The bus on NATS
@@ -311,6 +312,15 @@ foundation, never raised at genesis, installed when something wants it and absen
 that does not. There is no retirement condition, because the day its last client disappears is
 not a day anything is waiting for.
 
+**Revised 2026-09-27** ([ADR 0122](../../02-DECISIONS/0122-the-predecessor-is-ending-and-its-broker-goes-with-it.md)):
+**that day is coming.** The predecessor is deprecated — some of it still running, none of it being
+migrated, left to stop rather than moved — so the broker retires once nothing requires `amqp`. Still no
+retirement *condition* and no end-date machinery: a provision with no consumers has its provider
+unassigned, which is the ordinary mechanism and is ADR 0119 being paid off rather than revised. What
+also goes with it is the tooling that reaches this installation's machines remotely, because the
+predecessor's own mesh talks over that broker — so the rollout is driven from the node, or before the
+broker stops.
+
 What is deprecated is AMQP as **the mesh's transport**, which is this whole document. The rule
 that remains is about direction rather than software: *inter-module communication goes over the
 bus.* A module may hold a broker, a database or a cache for itself; it may not use one as a

03-DESIGN/01-to-be/28-building-the-bus.md

@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@ decisions:
   - 02-DECISIONS/0079-the-foundation-seats-are-named-after-their-servers.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0100-a-node-in-use-is-adopted-before-it-is-converged.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0039-what-the-sdk-holds-and-refuses.md
+  - 02-DECISIONS/0122-the-predecessor-is-ending-and-its-broker-goes-with-it.md
 ---
 
 # 28. Building the bus
@@ -657,8 +658,20 @@ reserves them for after the move, and a flow built ahead of its design would be
       > *change* anything — pushes, tool calls, new provisioning — until it is finished or undone. That
       > is worth knowing before rather than after, and it is why the operator's "as long as my services
       > keep running" is a reasonable position rather than a gamble.
-- [ ] 5.3 the mesh's own accounts removed from the deprecated broker: after the rollout nothing
-      of the mesh speaks to it, and an account nothing uses is one nobody rotates
+- [ ] 5.3 the mesh's own accounts removed from the deprecated broker, and then the broker itself:
+      after the rollout nothing of the mesh speaks to it, and an account nothing uses is one nobody
+      rotates. **It finishes now** ([ADR 0122](../../02-DECISIONS/0122-the-predecessor-is-ending-and-its-broker-goes-with-it.md)):
+      the predecessor is deprecated rather than kept, so once its remnants have stopped the module is
+      unassigned and the port is free. No retirement machinery — a provision with no consumers has its
+      provider unassigned, which is ADR 0119 being paid off rather than revised.
+
+      Retiring with it: the build outcome's second announcement under the module's own name, which
+      exists only so a catalogue deployed before the rename and one deployed after both hear it.
+
+      > **The remote tooling goes with it too.** The predecessor's own mesh talks over that broker, so
+      > shutting it down ends the path that reaches this installation's machines from a workstation.
+      > The rollout has to be driven from the node, or driven before the broker stops — which is a
+      > sequencing constraint on 5.2 and not an afterthought.
 
 > **5.4 is gone, and was wrong from ADR 0119 onward.** It read "the deprecated broker retires
 > when its condition holds — no client connected for the period the operator sets", which is
@@ -685,8 +698,10 @@ itself moves once, at the end, on one day.
 - **Observation** — research 017's, after the move, by its own design.
 - **Leaf nodes** — design 25 §11 keeps this out of scope and says so; a leaf per machine is a later
   question, noted so it is not forgotten.
-- **The predecessor's world.** It is AMQP, it cannot move, and it does not need to: its broker is
-  the compatibility module until its last client is gone.
+- **The predecessor's world.** It is AMQP and it is not moving —
+  [ADR 0122](../../02-DECISIONS/0122-the-predecessor-is-ending-and-its-broker-goes-with-it.md): it is
+  deprecated, some of it is still running, and it is being left to stop rather than migrated. Its
+  broker goes with it, unassigned like any provider whose provision nothing requires.
 
 ## How this list is kept true