jschoubben
b4607dfc03
Decided after measuring what renumbering actually costs: 96 references in code comments across two repositories, none of which would have failed to compile. They would have pointed at the wrong reasoning, which is worse than a broken link because nothing reports it. So a number identifies a record and never changes. It cannot also be a position -- a position moves when the set changes, and an identity that moves is not one. The reading order moves into an index generated from each record's `topic:`. Six topics, in the order somebody learns the system. The index is WRITTEN rather than only generated on demand, which reverses what this repository previously said. The reason it said otherwise is that a hand-written index drifts -- but a reader looking at the folder on a forge sees the folder, not a command, and the drift objection is answered by checking rather than by refusing to write one. That is §5's own rule: a rule states how it is checked. Two checks, both confirmed to bite. index.py fails when the written order no longer matches the records. records.py fails when a record has no topic or one nobody defined -- the quiet failure being a record that vanishes from the order rather than appearing in the wrong place.
3.1 KiB
topic, status, date, deciders, reconstructed
| topic | status | date | deciders | reconstructed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| building it | accepted | 2026-06-04 | jochen | true |
14. No workspace — each module is a standalone package consuming published dependencies
Reconstructed after the fact from the evidence cited below.
Context
Modules depend on each other, above all on the shared library every module builds against. A workspace was the obvious way to express that: sibling packages, resolved locally, one install at the root.
It produced a divergence that is worth stating precisely, because it is not obvious. In development, a workspace member importing a sibling resolves to that sibling's local source. In the pipeline, each module is built alone, from a clone, without its siblings present — so the same import resolves to the published version. The two environments were therefore building different code from identical source, and the failure appeared only in the pipeline, in a module that had not been touched.
Considered options
- Keep the workspace and make the pipeline replicate it — clone every module, build the graph. Rejected: it makes every build a whole-repository build, which is the cost the per-module pipeline exists to avoid, and it does not extend to modules in their own repositories.
- Keep the workspace and pin siblings to published versions. Rejected as the worst of both: the workspace's local resolution silently overrides the pin, so the divergence remains while looking solved.
- No workspace. Every module is standalone and consumes published dependencies. Chosen.
Decision
There is no workspace. Each module is an independent package that declares its dependencies and consumes them from the private registry, including the mesh's own shared library.
A cross-package change is therefore two steps: publish the producer, then consume it. The pipeline does the first on push and resolves the levels so that a module always builds against its dependencies' freshly published versions.
Consequences
- Development and the pipeline resolve imports identically. The divergence is gone by construction rather than by discipline.
- A module in its own repository is not a special case. It builds exactly as a module in the monorepo does — which is what makes ADR 0015 cheap.
- A cross-package change costs a publish-and-consume round trip. This is the real price, paid on every shared-library change.
- There is no repository-wide install and no repository-wide build. Anything that assumed one
broke, and one thing that assumed one has stayed broken: the end-to-end pipeline harness has
not built since this decision landed. See
04-ISSUES/005.
References
fix(noxflow): kill npm workspace, restore encryption inside PgAdminRepo(#240), 2026-06-04. The reason is recorded in the root package manifest, which still carries the note explaining why no workspace exists.- The divergence it fixed is named there: workspace members importing each other resolved to local unbuilt source in the pipeline.