jochen
7fb59bde98
The predecessor is retired on every node and what it still owned on the two workstations — some thirty modules of dotfiles, user units and /etc files — is owned by nothing. To-be 29 covers one directory under the home; the operator wants the whole machine, system folders and home alike, as modules: one default configuration each, varied per node by settings or a kept region, never an edit; roles the machine has once as node-scoped seats with tool contracts; the graphical stack gated by a capability so the same catalogue serves the servers. Four documents: the intended behaviour in the mesh's words; the predecessor's desktop measured (34 modules, one with 88 files, 4 flavors and ~90 theme variables) against what the records already give and what is missing (the account is empty on every node, no user-scoped units, settings leak, tools run in a container per module per node); the direction the operator set for where tools run — one executor per node, host-side, module-agnostic, the console renamed and moved out of its container, superseding 0047/0150 for tools; and the candidate seats of the environment with first verbs, the shell first.
92 lines
6.9 KiB
Markdown
92 lines
6.9 KiB
Markdown
# 02 — What exists, and what is missing
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*Measured 2026-10-02 on one installation: two workstations, two servers, all four converged to
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the mesh; the predecessor retired on the last workstation the day before. Numbers are from the
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machines and the repositories, not from memory.*
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## 1. What the predecessor's desktop looks like
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The predecessor's catalogue on the laptop held **34 modules**, of which **28** are the operator's
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environment rather than services. By what they declare:
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| shape | count | examples |
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|---|---|---|
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| package only | 9 | browser, mail client, process monitor, media player, file manager, chat |
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| package + `/etc` files + system service | 5 | login manager, display server, power and thermal daemons, package manager configuration |
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| package + files under the home | 6 | shell and prompt, the agent at the terminal, scripts, the sync client, a music player |
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| files under the home + user units + hooks | 2 | the desktop environment, audio |
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| third-party organisation tooling | 6 | out of scope here |
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**The desktop module alone** declares **88 files**, **4 flavors** (the window-manager stack, and
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one per class of machine), **2 user units** with a hook to enable them, 8 files under `/etc`, a
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wallpaper shipped as an asset, and reads **about 90 environment variables** as theme knobs,
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substituted into its templates at sync time and set through a theming tool. Its hook exists
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because *shipping a unit file does not run it*: one unit had been deployed for months and ran on
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one machine only, because somebody had enabled it there by hand.
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**The shell module** ships `~/.zshrc`, the prompt configuration, an `~/.ssh/config` that the
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predecessor generated from its registry, and a `LOGIN_SHELL` variable applied with `chsh` by a
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hook. Two flavors: the prompt theme, and autocompletion.
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**Other modules write into the desktop module's files.** The chat client places i3 and notifier
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snippets into `config.d` directories the desktop module owns, and its launch flags, window
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placement and notification colours are each a variable with a default.
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**One-off steps live in hooks** across the set: enable user units, `chsh`, create a swap file,
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`mkinitcpio`, enable a vendor VPN service the package ships disabled. Every one is state the
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host could declare or a verb a seat could serve; none is today.
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## 2. What the migration did with them
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The migration's module to-do scoped the whole set out as *desktop / workstation ricing — the
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workstation's own environment* and *node/OS tooling — managed on the node, never catalogue*. The
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last workstation's runbook then split the same set three ways: **A**, system scope, which the
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host's vocabulary can express today (the login manager, the display server, the power daemons,
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the package manager, the container runtime); **B**, under a home or a user unit, waiting on
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to-be 29; **C**, package only, the operator's call. The migration log closes the workstation with
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*the operator's desktop awaiting its design*.
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Two things followed from scoping them out. Nothing regenerates those files now, so a fix is a hand
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edit — the login manager's session script was fixed this way on the day of writing, and recorded
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in a repository nothing deploys from. And the one piece of this family written as a mesh module,
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the ssh client, was closed on hold in the catalogue until the controller carried the account fact.
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## 3. What the records already give
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| wanted | record | state |
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|---|---|---|
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| one module per managed thing; every module may have tools | [ADR 0040](../../02-DECISIONS/0040-what-a-module-is.md) | accepted; examples are services, and the shell is named as a *shared* seat |
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| a module declares its own node-scoped seat | [ADR 0121](../../02-DECISIONS/0121-a-system-seat-is-named-for-its-scope-and-modules-define-their-own.md), [ADR 0126](../../02-DECISIONS/0126-a-module-declares-its-own-seats.md) | accepted |
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| a seat's contract is its tools; a holder may add its own | [ADR 0132](../../02-DECISIONS/0132-a-seat-carries-the-tools-its-holder-must-serve.md), [ADR 0170](../../02-DECISIONS/0170-the-firewall-seat-serves-its-verbs.md) | accepted; one node seat serves verbs live |
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| a capability the machine reports gates a holder | [ADR 0161](../../02-DECISIONS/0161-what-deserves-a-seat.md) §3 | accepted; the profile already reports `graphical-session` |
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| the account as a node fact; a file under the home owned by it | [to-be 29](../../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/29-a-node-has-operator-accounts.md) §1–2 | built in the controller; its record proposed in an open change |
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| inside a home: owned, written into, written by the module, found | proposed in the same change | proposed |
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| a setting declared with type, meaning, default and cost | proposed with the container-runtime records | proposed |
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| a managed file is derived; an edit is overwritten | [ADR 0011](../../02-DECISIONS/0011-managed-files-are-generated-never-edited.md) | accepted |
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| the mesh writes into a shared file, never over it | [ADR 0102](../../02-DECISIONS/0102-the-mesh-writes-into-a-shared-file-never-over-it.md) | accepted |
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| a module names no path; the host resolves the home | [ADR 0112](../../02-DECISIONS/0112-a-module-definition-names-no-node-mesh-or-path.md) | accepted |
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| the `user` shape: a login shell is declared state | [to-be 05](../../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/05-the-node-host.md) | designed; used by no module |
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## 4. What is missing
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1. **The account is recorded nowhere.** The node record has the column; on all four nodes it
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is empty. Every home-scoped module is unassignable until the operator states it.
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2. **User-scoped units.** The host's `service` shape has no user scope. To-be 29 says it
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plainly: *a workstation's per-user daemons have no form the mesh can send.* The desktop
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module's two units, the audio masks, the power module's memory guard and the thermal
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daemon's profile switcher all need it.
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3. **One-off steps.** `mkinitcpio`, `chsh`, creating a swap file. Each is either declared
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state the host lacks a shape for, or a verb a seat should serve. An action in a declaration
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is refused over the link, and rightly.
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4. **Settings leak** ([issue 168](../../04-ISSUES/168-a-setting-reaches-every-file-and-contribution/00-report.md)):
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a setting reaches every mergeable file and every contribution of its module. Ninety theme
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knobs on that mechanism would reach ninety files. The proposed settings record says a setting
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names the file it lands in; that has to ship first.
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5. **Where tools run.** Every module that serves a tool today does so from its own container
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per node. See [03](03-one-tool-executor-per-node.md).
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6. **A seat's verbs are undecided for every seat but three.** To-be 33 leaves which verbs each
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seat serves as *a decision per seat, slowly*. The environment adds a dozen seats.
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7. **Catalogue placement.** The media chain left this catalogue for its own; whether the
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environment does the same, and whether a third-party organisation's tooling belongs in a
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public catalogue, are unasked.
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