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The identity provider is settled as not-substrate: the mesh does not require one, tier 2 authenticates natively, and it is a hosted service like any other. Four substrate services, not five. The tier test's second step gains the verb that matters — can the control plane START without it, not function fully without it. That verb answers the forge and the registries. They are not substrate and they are not duplicated: the control plane starts and manages nodes without a forge, it just cannot change itself. One gitea module, tier 4, and the mesh's own instance is distinguished by what it is bound to rather than by being a different module — the same answer as postgres, from the same test. It also buys a property worth having: if the forge dies the mesh keeps running. Delivery needing them is not an upward dependency, resolved the way the constitution already says to: tier 2 declares requirements, tier 4 provides implementations, the binding is data. The mechanism is provisioning, and the new idea is that the control plane is itself a consumer. Self-hosting therefore becomes a state the mesh REACHES, not a precondition. A first node comes up from pinned external artifacts and re-binds to internal providers once they exist. Today's mesh assumes the second state from the first moment, which is why the first-node path needs a script that papers over an impossibility and is the least-exercised code in the system. Made explicit, the transition is also reversible. Research 007 and 008 opened for the two areas flagged as important and complex, scoped from the weaknesses the as-is layer already documents rather than started blank. And the origin: this began as a dotfiles repository. The first two days adopt dotfiles, add per-node overrides, and introduce service symlinking with an ignore file. The flat one-directory-per-tool catalogue, linking over copying, adoption of already-configured machines, per-node overrides and the desktop modules are all inherited rather than chosen for a mesh. That is the single most useful fact for anyone changing the catalogue, it strengthens ADR 0018 — the case for links was never made for a mesh — and it explains research 005's silent fifty: dotfiles-era entries for one tool never shared a domain because they never had one.
03-DESIGN / 00-as-is
The mesh as it stands. These documents describe what runs, including the parts nobody would choose again — an as-is layer that only records the good decisions is a brochure.
They are written from the implementation and from the operational record, not from intent. Where the two disagree, the implementation wins and the disagreement is stated.
| Document | Covers |
|---|---|
00-overview.md |
The whole in one pass — what a node is, what a module is, how work reaches it |
01-mesh-and-transport.md |
The mesh database, the broker, discovery, and how a call reaches another node |
02-modules-and-manifests.md |
The module, the manifest, and features as the unit of work |
03-provisioning.md |
Declared requirements, provisioners, credentials, and cross-node grants |
04-delivery.md |
Push to running: the three silos, levels, and what a green pipeline proves |
05-runtime-and-installation.md |
The node runtime, its modes, and how a node comes into being |
06-configuration-and-secrets.md |
Managed files, value resolution, and where secrets live |
07-knowledge.md |
The two knowledge stores, and what each is for |
08-agents-and-work.md |
Agents as employees, tasks, workflows, and the meeting model |
09-interfaces-and-observability.md |
How the mesh is reached and watched — tools, board, proxy, health, thoughts |
10-module-catalogue.md |
The catalogue's shape, and what its shape says |
What these documents are not
They are not a runbook. Operational procedure — how to fix one occurrence of something — lives in the knowledge base, which is indexed on symptoms and is the right place to search when something is broken.
They are not exhaustive. A subsystem is described to the depth at which its design is visible; below that is code.