Files
hq/03-DESIGN/01-to-be
jschoubben 3c6c16abdf The mesh has a session of its own, and it is the node session's mechanism
A session for the mesh itself, addressed as the mesh, differing from a
node's in exactly three things: the context it starts in, its engram,
and its licence binding. Not a new kind of agent — the same mechanism
pointed at a different root. Two implementations of one mechanism drift,
and the vocabulary collision 0001 exists to undo began exactly that way.

It runs on the control-plane node, and the reasoning is easy to get
backwards: not "the important agent on the important machine", but that
this node is already the one place excepted from "compromise of a node
is compromise of that node". Placed anywhere else it would create a
second such place.

It is an addition to per-node messaging and never a replacement. 0001
holds that losing the control plane costs change, not operation — and a
mesh whose only conversational surface lived there would lose the
ability to ask anything while every machine kept running perfectly.

Writing it up exposed that the node session's setup was never designed
at all. 0004 gives behaviour and stops: nothing said how a session
starts, where its context lives, or how a broker message becomes a
prompt. That gap was invisible until something had to be built *like* a
node session. 15-the-agent-session.md covers both as one mechanism.

It also makes "a consumer that is not a machine" undeferrable. The
control-plane node now hosts two sessions that must hold different
licences, and a per-machine binding cannot express that at all. Noted in
14-model-access.md against the gap it was already recorded as.

Also completes the to-be index, which stopped at 10 and omitted four
documents. Pre-existing broken ADR references in the older rows are left
alone rather than guessed at.
2026-08-31 16:32:59 +02:00
..

03-DESIGN / 01-to-be

The mesh being built toward. Every statement here traces to a record in 02-DECISIONS/; nothing arrives by drafting.

A document here describes an intention. What currently runs is in 00-as-is/, and the two are never merged — when something ships, the as-is document is written and this one's status becomes implemented.

Document Covers Rests on
00-work-breakdown.md How the decomposition gets built, in what order, and where a human must look ADR 0001
01-end-to-end-testing.md The lab: a real mesh a change can be run against before it reaches nodes ADR 0016, 0029
02-scenario-declaration.md What a scenario declares — the underlay, and what to place on it ADR 0016
03-scenario-lifecycle.md What happens to a scenario — raise, snapshot, restore, move, destroy ADR 0016
04-lab-installation.md Getting the lab onto a clean machine, and why it verifies capability rather than installation ADR 0010
05-the-node-host.md Tier 0 — the one thing installed by hand, and the only thing that changes a machine ADR 0005
06-the-control-plane.md Tier 2 — what the term means, and the test for what belongs in it ADR 0005
07-the-substrate.md Tier 1 — what the control plane consumes and cannot grant itself ADR 0004, 0048
08-connectivity.md One context in full — overlay, resolution, exposure, filtering, certificates ADR 0007, 0050, 0051, 0055
09-the-node-lifecycle.md How a machine becomes a node, stays one, and stops being one ADR 0004, 0051
10-delivery.md Modules, the three edges, and how a change becomes a running thing ADR 0010, 0064, 0065
11-a-board.md What a person sees of the mesh, and why it is read from what runs ADR 0008, ADR 0001
12-a-module-repository.md A module repository, and what builds it ADR 0009, ADR 0010, ADR 0005
13-credentials-and-their-rotation.md Credentials, and moving them without a consumer holding one the provider does not know about ADR 0001, ADR 0009
14-model-access.md Model access as a provision, and what a licence is bound to ADR 0024, ADR 0009
15-the-agent-session.md One mechanism started twice — a node's session and the mesh's ADR 0004, ADR 0026

Not yet written

  • The remaining six contexts. ADR 0006 settles the list at seven; connectivity is the first written in full (08) and the other six do not exist yet. The work breakdown says in what order they are needed.
  • Domain grouping outside the core. Not needed. ADR 0009 is superseded by ADR 0009: there is no domain module to group into, so there is no domain list to settle. Relationships are edges, and grouping is a tag and a query.