---
status: located
opened: 2026-10-04
located-in:
  - mesh-host
fixed-by:
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.