02-DECISIONS/0157-a-build-says-what-it-does-on-the-bus-as-it-happens.md

@@ -0,0 +1,99 @@
+---
+topic: the mesh
+status: accepted
+date: 2026-10-01
+deciders: jochen
+reconstructed: false
+extends: 02-DECISIONS/0121-a-system-seat-is-named-for-its-scope-and-modules-define-their-own.md
+---
+
+# 157. A build says what it does on the bus, as it happens
+
+## Context
+
+[ADR 0121](0121-a-system-seat-is-named-for-its-scope-and-modules-define-their-own.md) made a build work submitted to a role: the
+build-machine seat accepts a build and emits its outcome, one publish that reaches whoever asked, the
+controller that records it and the catalogue that places it. Everything **between** the request and
+the outcome — which command is running, how long it has taken, where it hung, the compiler's error,
+the clone's refusal — lived in one container's standard error on one machine.
+
+The night of 2026-09-30 showed the cost three times over. A build that failed showed a person one
+line, the first of its failure, in the controller's `builds`; the rest was read with `docker logs` over
+ssh, which the mesh's own rule forbids. A build that ran for minutes could not be told from one that
+had hung. And the builder has no tools and emits nothing but the outcome, so the console
+([ADR 0152](0152-the-operators-surface-is-a-module-the-console.md)) had nothing to show while a
+build ran, and no viewer could be built on top of it. The operator's ask was plain: the builder is to
+be fully transparent, with its log on the bus, so that a log viewer can be built on the bus later.
+
+## Considered Options
+
+1. **Keep the log in the outcome.** The result carries the whole log when the build ends. Nothing new
+   on the bus; nothing while the build runs; a viewer sees a build only once it is over, which is
+   exactly when the log matters least.
+2. **A log store.** The builder writes its log to a file or a table and a tool reads it. A second
+   place to keep something the bus already carries, with its own retention, access and failure modes,
+   and no live reading without inventing a subscription over it.
+3. **The log is the role's own events.** Two more events on the build-machine seat beside `built`:
+   `started` when work is taken, and `log.<build id>` for every line, published as the build runs.
+   The events stream already retains every role's events for a week, so a reader follows a build
+   live by subscribing its subject, or reads it back afterwards from the stream, and a viewer is a
+   subscriber and nothing more.
+
+## Decision
+
+**Option 3.** A build machine says everything it does on the bus, as the role it holds, under the
+build's id, and the mesh keeps no other copy.
+
+- The build-machine seat's protocol gains `started` and `log.*`. A holder may therefore publish
+  `mesh.seat.mesh-build-machine.event.started` and `…event.log.<id>`, and no other subject, by the
+  same derivation every seat's grants follow ([ADR 0132](0132-a-seat-carries-the-tools-its-holder-must-serve.md)).
+  The event's tail token is the build's id, so one build is one subject: a reader filters by subject
+  alone, on the server, and a week of other builds does not travel to show one.
+- **Every line goes two ways**: to the machine's own standard error as before, and onto the bus. That
+  includes every command the builder runs, its duration and its failure, and on failure the command's
+  own output line by line — the compiler's words, the clone's refusal. A build machine with nobody
+  listening still prints; a listener reads the same lines.
+- A line is a core publish, unawaited. The stream that holds the role's events captures it on its way
+  through, and a build does not slow to the pace of an acknowledgement per line. Each line carries a
+  sequence number from one, so a reader who joined late, or reads two copies, sees order and gaps.
+  `started` and `built` are published into the stream and awaited, because they are the two facts a
+  later reader must never find missing.
+- **The mesh reads it back from the stream**, never from a record of its own: `builds --log <id>`, and
+  the same verb on the controller's seat ([ADR 0154](0154-the-meshs-own-verbs-are-the-controller-seats-tools.md)),
+  reads one build's subject with a consumer that is gone when the reading is done. `builds` lists
+  each build's id beside it, and `build` says the id it asked with, so a person can follow.
+- Nothing is declared by the builder module for this. The protocol is the seat's, seeded additively
+  into the store ([ADR 0132](0132-a-seat-carries-the-tools-its-holder-must-serve.md)), and the
+  holder's grant follows on the next composition of the broker node.
+
+## Consequences
+
+- A build is watchable while it runs, from anywhere on the mesh, with no access to the build machine.
+  The console's gap of 2026-10-01 — no live progress, no per-merge view — closes on the progress half;
+  the per-merge view is a reader over these subjects and the outcome, and is not built here.
+- A log viewer on the bus is now a plain subscriber: live on `mesh.seat.mesh-build-machine.event.>`,
+  historical from the events stream filtered by a build's subject. NATS carries and retains; it does
+  not view. The `nats` command-line client can tail or replay a subject today; a viewer of our own is
+  later work and needs nothing more from the builder.
+- The events stream grows by a build's log per build, for a week. A build is a few hundred lines; the
+  stream's limits are the bound, as for every other event, and a stream that fills drops the oldest.
+- A line the bus did not take is lost, deliberately, and visible as a gap in the sequence. The outcome
+  is not affected: a build's result never depended on its narration.
+
+## How this is checked
+
+| Rule | Checked by |
+|---|---|
+| The seat's holder may publish `started` and `log.<id>` and nothing wider | `TestTheBuildMachineMaySayWhatItDoesUnderTheBuildsId` (broker) |
+| A build's lines reach a reader of its subject in order, and the stream holds them afterwards | `TestNatsABuildIsTakenAndItsOutcomeReachesEverybody` against a real server (link) |
+| The seat verb `builds` with a build's id reads that build's log | `TestBuildsWithAnIdReadsThatBuildsLog` |
+| Every command the builder runs is said, with its output on failure | `Command` speaks through the hook every build sets; the builder's tests still see the lines on standard error when nothing listens |
+| Live: a build triggered after the roll-out is readable line by line through the console | done by hand after the merge of mesh-controller PR — see the design's note |
+
+## References
+
+- [ADR 0121](0121-a-system-seat-is-named-for-its-scope-and-modules-define-their-own.md) — extended: the role now narrates as well as answers
+- [ADR 0132](0132-a-seat-carries-the-tools-its-holder-must-serve.md), [ADR 0154](0154-the-meshs-own-verbs-are-the-controller-seats-tools.md) — the protocol and the verb
+- [ADR 0152](0152-the-operators-surface-is-a-module-the-console.md) — the console this feeds
+- [Design 25 — The bus on NATS](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/25-the-bus-on-nats.md) §3, [Design 18 — Building a module](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/18-building-a-module.md)
+- [Issue 176](../04-ISSUES/176-the-consoles-build-tool-neither-waits-nor-registers/00-report.md) — the tool that starts a build and hears nothing; this gives it something to hear

02-DECISIONS/README.md

@@ -170,6 +170,7 @@ python3 00-META/checks/index.py            fail if stale
 - **0142** — [The mesh delivers its own components as binaries, not as container images](0142-the-mesh-delivers-its-own-components-as-binaries.md)
 - **0154** — [The mesh's own verbs are the mesh-controller seat's tools, and which verbs those are](0154-the-meshs-own-verbs-are-the-controller-seats-tools.md)
 - **0156** — [An artifact is what a build produces, the artifact store serves every kind, and its seat is named for its scope](0156-an-artifact-is-what-a-build-produces-and-the-store-is-named-for-its-scope.md)
+- **0157** — [A build says what it does on the bus, as it happens](0157-a-build-says-what-it-does-on-the-bus-as-it-happens.md)
 
 ### Its tiers, from the bottom up
 

03-DESIGN/01-to-be/18-building-a-module.md

@@ -5,8 +5,9 @@ code:
   - mesh-controller cmd/mesh-builder
   - mesh-controller internal/builder
   - mesh-catalog modules/builder
-updated: 2026-09-30
+updated: 2026-10-01
 decisions:
+  - 02-DECISIONS/0157-a-build-says-what-it-does-on-the-bus-as-it-happens.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0150-a-modules-own-code-runs-as-supervised-processes-under-one-account.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0142-the-mesh-delivers-its-own-components-as-binaries.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0111-a-build-source-is-on-the-git-seat-or-external.md
@@ -267,6 +268,28 @@ ships one and wrong for code the mesh built, which has no unit until the mesh wr
 **Tools, hooks and consumers are not further modes**, which is the test of whether three is the
 right number: they are loaded by a tool host, and a tool host is a process that stays up.
 
+## A build says what it does, as it happens
+
+*2026-10-01 — [ADR 0157](../../02-DECISIONS/0157-a-build-says-what-it-does-on-the-bus-as-it-happens.md).*
+
+A build machine narrates every build on the bus as the role it holds: `started` when it takes the
+work, one `log.<build id>` event per line — every command it runs with its duration, every step of
+the recipe, and on failure the command's own output, line by line — and `built` for the outcome as
+before. The same lines still go to the machine's standard error, so a build machine with nobody
+listening is as readable as it was; a listener reads the same lines, live, from anywhere on the mesh.
+
+One build is one subject. A reader follows it by subscribing that subject and nothing else, and the
+events stream keeps it for a week, so `builds --log <id>` — on the command line and as the
+controller's seat verb through the console — reads it back afterwards. `builds` lists every build's
+id beside it, and `build` says the id it asked with. The mesh keeps no second copy: the stream is the
+log. A viewer of builds, when one is built, is a subscriber over these subjects and the outcome; the
+builder needs nothing more for it.
+
+*How it is checked:* the holder's grant is exactly `started`, `built` and `log.*` (broker test); a
+build's lines reach a reader of its subject in order and the stream holds them afterwards (link test
+against a real server); the seat verb with an id reads the log (controller test); and, live, a build
+after the roll-out read line by line through the console.
+
 ## The builder compiles the languages the mesh is written in
 
 *2026-09-29 —

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

@@ -7,8 +7,9 @@ code:
   - mesh-tools src/broker-amqp.ts (to be replaced)
   - mesh-catalog modules/nats (to be written)
   - mesh-sdk src (the protocol's NATS binding, step 3)
-updated: 2026-09-27
+updated: 2026-10-01
 decisions:
+  - 02-DECISIONS/0157-a-build-says-what-it-does-on-the-bus-as-it-happens.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0106-the-bus-is-nats.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0116-the-bus-is-built-in-five-steps.md
@@ -135,7 +136,7 @@ Core NATS is at-most-once. Everything the mesh must not lose lives in a JetStrea
 |---|---|---|---|
 | CONTROL | `mesh.control.>` except `alive` (a build's outcome moved to its seat, ADR 0121) | work queue, one consumer (the controller), explicit ack | the store-window guarantee ([ADR 0083](../../02-DECISIONS/0083-one-push-leaves-the-mesh-consistent.md)): the controller `nak`s with a delay while its store is away and the message is redelivered; nothing is dropped |
 | NODES | `mesh.node.>` | last per subject | one declaration per node, always the newest |
-| EVENTS | `mesh.mod.*.event.>` | limits (age, size), durable consumer per subscribing module | a subscriber that was down catches up; after `max-deliver` attempts the advisory feeds `mesh.events.dead` (its own small stream) |
+| EVENTS | `mesh.mod.*.event.>` and `mesh.seat.*.event.>` | limits (age, size), durable consumer per subscribing module | a subscriber that was down catches up; after `max-deliver` attempts the advisory feeds `mesh.events.dead` (its own small stream). *2026-10-01:* a build's whole log is here too, as the build-machine seat's `log.<build id>` events ([ADR 0157](../../02-DECISIONS/0157-a-build-says-what-it-does-on-the-bus-as-it-happens.md)) — one subject per build, a week of retention, read back by `builds --log <id>` with a consumer that is gone when the reading is done |
 
 Tool calls and heartbeats stay on core NATS: a lost heartbeat is the next heartbeat; a lost tool
 call is a timeout the caller already handles.