---
topic: the mesh
status: proposed
date: 2026-09-18
deciders: jochen
reconstructed: false
extends: 0010-delivery.md
---

# 83. One push leaves the mesh consistent

## Context

A provision is minted while composing the *consumer's* node; the provider's grant list is a pure
read of secrets already issued from it. So assigning a cross-node consumer and pushing its node
produced a consumer that retried forever against a provider that had never heard of it, until the
provider's node was pushed a second time — an action with no signal to take, documented nowhere,
and invisible whenever consumer and provider share a machine
([issue 057](../04-ISSUES/057-a-cross-node-consumer-is-provisioned-only-when-the-provider-is-pushed-again/00-report.md)).

Two remedies were on the table: **cascade** — a push also delivers to the machines its compose
changed — or **report** — a push says "now push the provider" and leaves the act to the operator.

## Decision

A push finishes what it starts: after composing and sending the named node, the controller
recomputes what every machine should be, and any machine whose declaration changed *because of
this push* is sent its declaration too — by name, in the push's own output, converging over a
bounded number of rounds (a cascaded send may itself mint).

"Changed because of this push" is a comparison, not a guess: the digest of what each machine
should be is captured before the named compose and recomputed after. Machines that were already
behind for unrelated reasons are not swept in — that remains `push --behind`, the explicit
whole-mesh reconcile.

Reporting alone was rejected because it converts a derived fact the controller already holds into
an operator obligation, and an obligation enforced by nothing is issue 057 restated. The
declaration is computed from the whole mesh; delivering a mesh that is knowingly inconsistent and
merely saying so would make "push succeeded" mean less than it says.

## Consequences

- One push is sufficient for a cross-node consumer: the provider's grants arrive from the same
  act that minted the provision. The undocumented rule "push the provider node too" ceases to
  exist rather than becoming documentation.
- A named push may deliver to machines the operator did not name. This is bounded to machines
  whose declarations this push changed, and every one is named in the output — never silent.
- The blast radius question from the issue is answered by the comparison: nothing is recomposed
  into delivery except what the named compose provably changed.
- How this is checked: the built-store-cross-node bed registers a cross-node consumer, pushes
  only the consumer's node, and asserts the provider minted its vhost — the workaround push is
  removed, so a regression fails the bed.