Files
hq/03-DESIGN
jschoubben 01d4f2781e
mesh/delivery closed: a newer head of the same pull request
mesh/check pass 01d4f2781ef0 on 6cd965b3cdf6 | unit 39 run, 0 kept, 1 skipped | integration 39 run, 0 kept, 1 skipped | composition passed in 33s on 4…
Design 51: keep the node-engine's own build readable by away nodes (ADR 0623)
Under ADR 0618 alone a node away with an old node-engine would be held
from the node-engine's own build in the new form and could never update
itself. ADR 0623 keeps every counted node-engine's form in those builds
and moves them to a node that reads any one of them.

Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01JG73KJNrH5EgFXMKKYSrig
2026-11-04 09:48:56 +01:00
..

03-DESIGN

The authoritative specification. Implementation is built against what is written here.

Two layers

Folder What it is
00-as-is/ The mesh that exists today. Shipped behaviour, described as it is — including behaviour nobody would choose again.
01-to-be/ The mesh being built toward. Every statement traceable to a decision record in the knowledge base (ADR 0290).

They are never mixed. A statement about the future does not belong in an as-is document, and an as-is document is never edited to describe an intention.

When a to-be design ships, it does not move. Its as-is counterpart is written or updated, the to-be document's status becomes implemented, and both stand — one describing what runs, the other recording what was intended. Deleting the intention loses the reasoning, which is the expensive half.

Frontmatter

Every design document (not the READMEs) carries:

---
layer: as-is | to-be
status: designed | in-progress | implemented | abandoned
code: []                 # owning code repo(s), from 00-META/repos.md
updated: YYYY-MM-DD      # date of the last status change, not of text edits
decisions: []            # the decision records this document rests on, each "ADR NNNN"
---

For an as-is document, status: implemented is the normal state — it describes something that runs — and code: names where that implementation lives.

Status changes when implementation state changes, never because design text was edited. An implemented claim must be defensible from the owning repository's main branch, not from intent. If it cannot be checked, it is in-progress.

Cross-cutting views are generated from this frontmatter by the hq-status skill and never written to disk.

What belongs here

Functional analysis, architectural description, and specification — prose and diagrams only, no code. A manifest field may be named; a manifest may not be pasted. A document enters the to-be layer only after the decision behind it is recorded in the knowledge base and the research that produced it is closed.

Subfolders are encouraged where a layer grows enough to need them.