Files
hq/03-DESIGN
jschoubben 1111bd84d7 Establish the repo for the completed Phase 0-3 build
Settles the design repository now that the self-upgrade build is on main:
- Records the two decisions that shipped without a record — ADR 0077 (the
  controller/foundation/node vocabulary) and ADR 0078 (the store and broker are
  ordinary modules); accepts ADR 0075 and 0076, which shipped work rests on.
- Fills issue 051's amended-design and wires ADR 0078 into 07-the-foundation.
- Sweeps the repo rename (mesh-control -> mesh-controller) into the mutable docs
  now that the forge repo is renamed; updates the glossary note and repos.md.
- Fixes the six broken links from the design-doc renames, indexes the glossary,
  regenerates the decisions reading order.

Both checks (records.py, index.py) are green. Statuses stay honest: the build is
on main and lab-proven but not deployed as the production mesh, so the to-be docs
remain in-progress and the as-is layer (the hal mesh) is unchanged — graduation
to implemented + as-is belongs to deployment, not merge.

https://claude.ai/code/session_01D6qtiYU3P9jk3pnAXyAFyx
2026-09-17 00:04:58 +02:00
..

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 record in 02-DECISIONS/.

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: []            # 02-DECISIONS/ records this document rests on
---

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 02-DECISIONS/ and the research that produced it is closed.

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