jochen
bf39baf104
Every configurable thing on a node is a module, the home included, and a module is whatever it declares (0173, extending 0040). A node varies a module only through a setting rendered into the file or a kept region, never an edit (0174, extending 0011; issue 168 first). One tool runtime per node serves every module's tools on the host side, never in a container; the console is its serving mode, renamed node-tools (0175, extending 0150; 0047/0150/0152 carry dated notes). The login shell is a node seat held by one shell module with `execute` as its contract (0176). A unit may be user-scoped and the service manager is a node seat held by systemd (0177). To-be 37 is handed off in-progress to mesh-host, mesh-controller, mesh-tools and mesh-catalog, with the build in order: the account on every node, the runtime, zsh, systemd, then the graphical stack. To-be 29 keeps ~/.ssh and points at 37; 33 §6 and 34 are amended; the glossary gains node tools, bundle, kept region, installed/holding, and retires flavor.
109 lines
6.8 KiB
Markdown
109 lines
6.8 KiB
Markdown
---
|
|
topic: what runs on it
|
|
status: accepted
|
|
date: 2026-10-02
|
|
deciders: jochen
|
|
reconstructed: false
|
|
extends: 02-DECISIONS/0040-what-a-module-is.md
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
# 173. The operator's machine is the mesh's, and a module is whatever it declares
|
|
|
|
## Context
|
|
|
|
[ADR 0040](0040-what-a-module-is.md) says a module is *one self-contained piece of software the
|
|
mesh installs and manages*, and every example it gives is a service: a database, an analytics
|
|
server, a forge. The catalogue followed the examples. Of the predecessor's 34 modules on one
|
|
workstation, 28 are the operator's environment — a login manager, a window manager with 88 files
|
|
and four flavors, a shell, a terminal, a launcher, an audio setup, scripts — and the migration
|
|
scoped all 28 out as *the workstation's own environment*, to be managed by nobody
|
|
([research 018](../01-RESEARCH/018-the-operators-machine-as-modules/02-what-exists-and-what-is-missing.md)).
|
|
Since the predecessor retired, nobody is exactly who manages them: a fix is a hand edit that
|
|
nothing records and nothing regenerates.
|
|
|
|
[To-be 29](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/29-a-node-has-operator-accounts.md) reached under the home for
|
|
one directory and drew a boundary inside it. The operator's statement is wider: *the mesh manages
|
|
my entire machine, all four of them, as far as it makes sense* — system folders and the home
|
|
alike, the servers and the workstations from the same catalogue. And the operator refused a
|
|
distinction this effort first drew between modules that ship code and modules that ship only
|
|
declarations: *a module can have some tools, a seat implementation, some containers, a unit, a
|
|
binary, some config files — one of these, or all, or two.*
|
|
|
|
## Considered Options
|
|
|
|
1. **Keep 0040's reading and manage the environment outside the catalogue** — dotfiles in a
|
|
repository, a script that places them. Rejected: that is the predecessor's first two days, the
|
|
origin of every inherited shape [as-is 10](../03-DESIGN/00-as-is/10-module-catalogue.md)
|
|
documents, and it puts the one thing a person looks at outside the one mechanism that is
|
|
checked.
|
|
2. **Add a second kind of module for configuration** — a "config module" with files and no
|
|
process. Rejected by the operator: a kind is a distinction the manifest already makes by what
|
|
it declares, and a second kind is a second set of rules to keep in step.
|
|
3. **One definition: a module is one managed thing, described by what it declares.** Chosen.
|
|
|
|
## Decision
|
|
|
|
**1. Everything configurable on a node is declared by a module.** Services, and equally the login
|
|
manager, the display server, the window manager, the shell, the terminal, the launcher, the
|
|
notifier, the audio setup, the boot images, the package manager's configuration, the agent at the
|
|
terminal, and a folder a person works in. The test is *can it be configured on a machine*; if it
|
|
can, some module owns it. What no module declares is found and left alone, as adoption already
|
|
says of a machine ([ADR 0100](0100-a-node-in-use-is-adopted-before-it-is-converged.md)).
|
|
|
|
**2. A module is whatever it declares, and there are no kinds of module.** A package, files, a
|
|
container, a unit, a binary, a seat claim, tools — any one, or all. 0040's *one self-contained piece
|
|
of software* stands; its examples were services, and that was the whole of the bias. A downloads
|
|
folder with a process that tidies it, backs it up and answers questions about it is a piece of
|
|
software by 0040's own test, and so is a shell that is a package, three files and a seat.
|
|
|
|
**3. The home has no boundary of its own.** A file under the operator's home is placed and owned
|
|
the way [to-be 29](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/29-a-node-has-operator-accounts.md) §2 built it: by a
|
|
module, resolved against the account's home, owned by the account. Which files are the mesh's is
|
|
decided by what modules declare, not by a line drawn through a directory. A person's documents,
|
|
projects and history are data under [ADR 0051](0051-shared-data-is-the-operators.md) and no module
|
|
declares them.
|
|
|
|
**4. One module ships one default configuration.** No flavors. What differed between the
|
|
predecessor's four flavors of one desktop module is what [ADR 0174](0174-a-node-varies-a-module-through-settings-and-kept-regions-never-an-edit.md)
|
|
is for.
|
|
|
|
**5. Servers and workstations take the same catalogue.** A module declares what it needs; a
|
|
machine reports what it has; assignment refuses by name
|
|
([ADR 0161](0161-what-deserves-a-seat.md) §3). The shell, the prompt, git and the agent are universal.
|
|
A display server needs a graphical session; a window manager needs the display server held. Nothing
|
|
in a manifest says *workstation*.
|
|
|
|
## Consequences
|
|
|
|
- The catalogue grows by a family of modules that run no service. Each is still built,
|
|
registered, assigned, pushed and reported like every other, and `status` says whether a
|
|
machine has applied them.
|
|
- The account fact becomes load-bearing for every node a person uses. Today it is empty on all
|
|
four node records of this mesh; stating it is the first step of the build.
|
|
- A module that *installs* a thing is distinct from a module that *holds its role*: zsh, fish and
|
|
bash may all be installed, and one holds the login shell
|
|
([ADR 0176](0176-the-login-shell-is-a-node-seat-and-execute-is-its-contract.md)).
|
|
- The host's `package` shape drives the distribution's package manager only. A module whose
|
|
package is outside the distribution's repositories — the login manager in use is one — needs
|
|
either an official package or a shape the host does not have. Recorded as a gap, not decided.
|
|
- The predecessor's hooks go. What they did becomes declared state the host applies, or a verb a
|
|
seat serves ([ADR 0177](0177-a-unit-may-be-user-scoped-and-the-service-manager-is-a-node-seat.md)).
|
|
|
|
## How it is checked
|
|
|
|
| Rule | Checked by |
|
|
|---|---|
|
|
| A manifest with no container, no unit and no binary registers and resolves like any other | the catalogue's registration tests, with a package-and-files manifest |
|
|
| A file resource under the home resolves against the account and is owned by it | the controller's composition tests (to-be 29 §2, built) |
|
|
| A home-scoped module is refused on a node with no account, naming the fact | the same tests |
|
|
| A module needing a capability the machine lacks is refused by name | the resolver's tests (ADR 0161 §3) |
|
|
|
|
## References
|
|
|
|
- [Research 018](../01-RESEARCH/018-the-operators-machine-as-modules/00-overview.md), documents
|
|
01 and 02 — the behaviour wanted and the inventory measured.
|
|
- [ADR 0040](0040-what-a-module-is.md), [ADR 0112](0112-a-module-definition-names-no-node-mesh-or-path.md),
|
|
[ADR 0051](0051-shared-data-is-the-operators.md), [ADR 0100](0100-a-node-in-use-is-adopted-before-it-is-converged.md)
|
|
- [To-be 29](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/29-a-node-has-operator-accounts.md) — the account and the home
|
|
as a placement root, built; the records for them are proposed in an open change.
|