Reconcile: adopt initialization's consolidated HQ as canonical, re-home this session's new work #24
@@ -1,8 +1,10 @@
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---
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layer: to-be
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status: designed
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code: []
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updated: 2026-08-29
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code:
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- mesh-control internal/catalogue/filtering.go
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- mesh-host internal/apply (the service that reflects it)
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updated: 2026-08-31
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decisions:
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- 02-DECISIONS/0005-the-node-host.md
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- 02-DECISIONS/0004-a-node-and-how-it-joins.md
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@@ -275,6 +277,50 @@ from a wrong one, and costs more, because people believe it.*
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([ADR 0005](../../02-DECISIONS/0005-the-node-host.md)), and
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the one manifests lack. `scope:` survived because nothing rejected it.
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### What was built
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*2026-08-31. Everything above was the intention; this is what exists, and how each part is
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checked. [04-ISSUES/003](../../04-ISSUES/003-firewall-scope-is-read-by-no-code/00-report.md) is
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resolved by it.*
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**A module says what it listens on**, as a port, a protocol and a source — `mesh`, `anywhere`, or
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`machine`. The source is required and there is no default, which is the whole of *a rule names its
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source*: a manifest that omitted it would read as a restriction and be none. *Checked by a manifest
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with a port and no source being refused, and by one naming a source the mesh cannot render being
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refused as well — the second is what stops a source becoming a comment.*
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**The set is derived per node**, from every module assigned to it, not from the module asking for
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it. Where two modules want the same port, the wider source wins and both are still named, because
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removing one of them must not read as a reason to close a port the other needs. *Checked by
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rendering a node whose firewall module has no ports of its own and asserting another module's port
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is in the result; and by giving one port two modules and one source each, and asserting the
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narrower rule disappears while both names survive.*
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**What is not declared is closed.** The rule set drops by default. *Checked by naming the input
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chain in the assertion rather than the policy alone — the first version of that test passed while
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input accepted everything, because another chain in the same file also said `policy drop`.*
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**From the mesh means the machines the mesh has**, as their addresses on the private network, not
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as a subnet. A subnet is a guess that stays wrong quietly; the address set shrinks when a node
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leaves and nobody edits anything. A machine that asks for `mesh` where the mesh knows no addresses
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is **closed and told so in the file** — widening it would open a port nobody asked to open, and
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dropping it silently would close one somebody did.
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**Three things it deliberately does not do**, each of which looked right and would have broken
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something:
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| | why not |
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|---|---|
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| decide what the machine **forwards** | the container runtime writes its own forwarding rules and a second policy is consulted alongside them, so a drop here stops every container on the node — the control plane included. Nothing in a manifest says what a machine routes, so there is nothing to derive it from either |
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| **flush the ruleset** when loading | that empties every table on the machine, the runtime's among them. Only the mesh's own table is replaced, and it is declared empty first so the replacement works on a machine loading one for the first time |
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| carry a **command to load itself** | the link may not carry an action ([ADR 0005](../../02-DECISIONS/0005-the-node-host.md)). A service is declared to reflect the file instead, so replacing it restarts what loads it — the shape that rule leaves, used here for the first time for its real purpose |
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**And it is enforced, which is what separates this from `scope:`.** Proven on two real machines:
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two ports opened, one declared, and from the other machine the declared one answers and the
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undeclared one does not — then the module is removed and the port closes with nobody editing a
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rule. *A rule set that is written but never loaded passes every check that reads the file, which
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is why the check reads packets.*
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## 5 — Certificates
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**Two authorities, kept separate on purpose.**
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@@ -4,7 +4,9 @@ status: designed
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code:
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- mesh-control internal/builder
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- mesh-control internal/catalogue/build.go
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updated: 2026-08-30
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- mesh-control internal/inventory/secrets.go
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- mesh-control cmd/mesh-builder
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updated: 2026-08-31
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decisions:
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- 02-DECISIONS/0009-modules-and-the-graph.md
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- 02-DECISIONS/0010-delivery.md
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@@ -108,6 +110,34 @@ Three properties of the builder that are decisions:
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is not running, and those want completely different responses — the same rule the host follows
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about a service that does not exist
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### And it is a module the mesh assigns
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*2026-08-31. Written after `builder issue --node`, which is the part that makes the sentence
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"holding its own credential" true rather than aspirational.*
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A build machine is a machine that runs the builder, and there is exactly one honest way to say
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which machines those are: **assign it**. So the builder is a module like any other — an image, a
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container, a working directory, and a claim so a machine does not end up running two.
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The one thing that could not be a module in the ordinary way is the credential. It is not
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generated, because the broker has to have been told about it, and it is not written in a manifest,
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because a manifest is public and the same file goes to every machine that ever runs it. So the
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mesh **creates the account, seals the URL to the machine that will use it, and discards the
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plaintext** — the "given, not generated" case above, and its first user.
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Nothing is printed. A credential shown on a terminal is a credential in a scrollback buffer, and
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the copy that matters would then exist in two places, one of which nobody is guarding.
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**What this replaces:** a builder started by hand with whatever credential was to hand, which in
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practice meant the broker's administrative account. *A program documented as holding its own
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credential and given somebody else's is worse than one with no story at all* — the documentation
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is what stops anybody checking.
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*Checked in the lab by assigning it and then asking the mesh to build a module: the credential
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file arrives readable only by that machine, names the scoped account rather than the broker's own,
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and the build completes — which is the only proof the credential authenticates, because a
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container that is up holding a credential it cannot use looks identical from outside.*
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## What is kept
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**Every result, including the failures.** A failed build that leaves no trace is indistinguishable
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@@ -167,6 +197,35 @@ Remade when the machine's sealing key changes. **Declared and not made is refuse
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module whose own credential is silently absent starts, fails to authenticate, and the reason is
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three layers from the machine reporting it.
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### Some of them the mesh cannot make
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*2026-08-31, from making the builder a module — the first thing to hold one.*
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A generated secret is the mesh's, and remaking it costs nothing: **nothing else ever knew the old
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one.** That is the assumption the paragraph above rests on, and it is not true of every secret a
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module needs.
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A broker account's password exists because **the broker was told about it**. A licence key exists
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because somebody bought it. The mesh's job with these is to carry the value to the machine that
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will use it and then be unable to read it — the same sealing, from the other direction: **given,
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not generated.**
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Treating the two alike is wrong in exactly one place, and it is the place nobody looks. When a
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machine rejoins it has a new sealing key, and everything sealed to the old one is remade. Remaking
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a *given* secret puts thirty-two random bytes where a working credential was, and every visible
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signal says it worked: the mesh sealed a secret, the machine applied it, the file is there with
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the right permissions. What fails is a program authenticating to something else, hours later,
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with an error that names neither the mesh nor the secret.
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So **where the value came from is recorded, and a given secret is never regenerated.** A rejoined
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machine asking for one is refused, naming the remedy — issue it again — because the remedy is a
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command somebody runs and no amount of pushing will produce a password the broker has never heard
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of.
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*Checked by taking a given secret, changing the machine's sealing key, and asserting the mesh
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refuses rather than answers; and by asserting that two ordinary pushes hand back the same value,
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without which the refusal would be a secret that never survives at all.*
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## What one assignment gets you
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A database module, written to see whether it could be:
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@@ -203,3 +262,22 @@ access, or are not build output. None of that describes a digest-pinned archive,
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second service for one kind of immutable blob is two things to run, two to back up, and two ways
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for an artifact to be missing. **Overturnable without touching anything else**: a manifest carries
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a URL and a digest, and neither says what served it.
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### And the mesh runs it
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*2026-08-31.* Which registry is a **provision**, mesh-scoped: a build machine requires
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`artifact-store` and is told where it is, the same way an application is told where its database
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is. Nothing is configured with an address.
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This closes the last thing the mesh depended on and did not run. The registry a bootstrap pulls
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from belongs to whoever raised the machine; from the moment the mesh has one of its own, an
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artifact's home is somewhere the mesh can move, replace and back up.
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**The chicken and egg is the bootstrap's, resolved the same way.** A registry module is an
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`upstream` artifact — mirrored from a registry that already exists into the one being started. The
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first copy comes from outside, exactly once, and every copy after it is the mesh's.
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*Checked in the lab by assigning it and then asking for `/v2/` — on the machine, and from a second
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machine across the private network, because a mesh-scoped provision that only answers locally is
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not one. A container that is running is not a registry that replies, and this project has paid for
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that distinction once already.*
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@@ -1,9 +1,9 @@
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---
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status: open
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status: resolved
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opened: 2026-08-22
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located-in: []
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fixed-by:
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amended-design:
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located-in: [mesh-control]
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fixed-by: mesh-control — a machine's filtering is computed from what it was assigned
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amended-design: 03-DESIGN/01-to-be/08-connectivity.md
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---
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# 003 — A firewall rule's `scope:` is read by no code
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@@ -38,3 +38,29 @@ any check.
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- Were the five declarations intended to restrict something that is currently open? Each needs
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checking against what the node actually exposes — the declaration cannot be trusted either
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way.
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## How it is answered
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*2026-08-31.* Both halves, in Novox Mesh. HAL keeps the fault until its provisioning is switched
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off, which is what this issue is now waiting on rather than a fix of its own — patching `scope:`
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into something that works would mean implementing it twice, in the system being replaced.
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**The unknown key.** A manifest is parsed strictly: an unknown key is refused with the key named,
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the discipline the host's declaration parser has always had. `scope:` would not survive being
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written today, and neither would a misspelling of anything else. This is the general fix — the
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issue's own observation was that *any* invented key behaved this way, and that the one instance
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was found by reading rather than by any check.
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**The rule that restricts nothing.** `scope:` is not reimplemented. A module says what it listens
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on and **who may reach it**, and saying from where is required rather than defaulted: a rule with
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no source is open, and must say so rather than appear to restrict something. A machine's whole
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rule set is then derived from every module assigned to it — so there is no second list to keep in
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step, which is the condition that let the first one drift out of use unnoticed.
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**And it is enforced, which is the part that makes this different from before.** The mesh renders
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the rule set; a service on the node is declared to reflect that file, so replacing it restarts
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what loads it. Proven in the lab against two real ports on a real machine: the declared one
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answers from another machine, the undeclared one does not, and removing the module that wanted the
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port closes it with nobody editing a rule.
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The design is [`03-DESIGN/01-to-be/08-connectivity.md`](../../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/08-connectivity.md) §4.
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@@ -0,0 +1,56 @@
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---
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status: resolved
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opened: 2026-08-31
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located-in: [mesh-control]
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fixed-by: mesh-control — what the mesh computes is applied before what the module declared
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amended-design:
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---
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# 013 — A file the mesh computes arrives after the service that needs it
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## Symptom
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Everything the control plane computes for a module — a certificate, a sealed credential, a bound
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file, a rule set — was placed **after** that module's own resources in the declaration. The host
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applies resources in the order it is given and
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[does not sort](../../02-DECISIONS/0005-the-node-host.md), so a service or container declared in a
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manifest was applied **before** the file it depends on existed.
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On the first apply the service starts against a missing file and fails. The next reconcile finds
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the file there and starts it.
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## Why this matters
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**It repairs itself, which is why nothing caught it.** A fault that is gone by the second attempt
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is worse than one that persists: what gets remembered is that the thing works, and the failed
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first apply is read as a machine that was briefly slow. The mesh reports a failure, then reports
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success, and nobody looks again.
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It was also invisible to every test that existed, because none of them combined the two halves.
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Modules with computed files declared no service; modules with a service needed no computed file.
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The fault lived exactly in the gap between two repositories' assumptions — the control plane
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deciding an order, the host promising not to change it — which is the shape this folder exists for.
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Found by reading, while writing the first module that has both: a firewall whose service must
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reflect a rule set the mesh computes.
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## Evidence
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`internal/catalogue/declaration.go` built each module's resource list as
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`append(module's own, computed...)` in six places — certificate, authority, needs, secrets, grants,
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bindings. `internal/apply/apply.go` iterates `d.Resources` in order, and
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`internal/declaration/declaration_test.go` states the rule directly: *order is stated, not derived.
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The host must not sort.*
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## What was done
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The computed resources are assembled first and the module's own resources follow. Nothing the mesh
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computes is derived from a module's resources, so the order is unconditionally right rather than a
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heuristic — there is no case where a module's resource must precede a file the mesh made for it.
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Merged after the computed-resources branch, which replaces a module's resources wholesale and
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would otherwise discard everything the mesh had made for it.
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*Checked by a module declaring a service that reflects a rule set, asserting the rule set is first;
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and by a module whose resources are computed elsewhere, asserting its credential survives and is
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still first — the case the merge point exists for.*
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Reference in New Issue
Block a user