---
topic: the mesh
status: accepted
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 flushes
every *other* machine that is now behind — whose declaration differs from what it was last sent —
by name, in the push's own output, converging over a bounded number of rounds (a flushed send may
itself mint).

Behind is measured against what a machine was last *sent*, not against a before/after snapshot of
this push. The mint that makes a provider behind happens when the consumer is assigned or its
account issued — before `push` runs at all — so by push time the provider already differs from
what it holds, with no in-command delta to detect. The only durable signal is "what it should be"
versus "what it last received", which is the same comparison `push --behind` already makes.

A machine behind for an unrelated reason is flushed by this too, and that is correct rather than a
cost: a named push that knew a machine was behind and left it so would be the very silence this
decision removes. The narrower reading — flush only what this push provably changed — was
rejected because it cannot see a mint that a prior command performed, which is precisely the 057
case.

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 delivers to every machine that is behind, not only the one named — each named in
  the output, never silent. `push --behind` remains the way to reconcile the mesh without naming
  a node; a named push now carries the same guarantee for the machines its work touched and any
  others already waiting.
- 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.