jschoubben
5e83ac2c22
Jochen: a normal application has 3-5 ADRs, maybe 10 for a large one, and we are at 65. Fair, and the cause is mine -- I recorded every FINDING as a decision rather than every fork in the road. Two merges, both cases where one decision had been split across many records because it was taken over several days rather than at once. 0019 absorbs ten records about how this repository works: what it is and that it is public, the folder flow, the two design layers, the issue front door, status in frontmatter, playbooks, the naming rule, the product name. Those were never ten decisions -- they were one, seen from ten angles as the repository took shape. 0016 absorbs the five about the lab: a node is a virtual machine, a router is scenery, a scenario declares the underlay, a scenario is a closed address space, and the two scenario classes. Same pattern -- one design, split by the order it was worked out in. The consolidated 0019 also raises the bar for what earns a record, since that is what produced 65: a record is warranted when there is a genuine fork -- a direction reversed, an alternative that will be proposed again, something contested. A finding is not a decision, and a bug is certainly not. Everything else belongs in the design document where the reasoning is actually read. The checker earned its place here. Deleting nine records left 13 dangling links across the repository and it named every one, including in AGENTS.md. Nothing was found by reading. Remaining clusters worth the same treatment: the host (8 records), delivery (5), modules (6), connectivity (4), substrate and control plane (4). That would be 52 down to roughly 30.
51 lines
3.0 KiB
Markdown
51 lines
3.0 KiB
Markdown
# Agent instructions — Novox HQ
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This repository is the source of truth for Novox's mission, research, design and decisions —
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today almost entirely those of **Novox Mesh**, its first product ([ADR 0019](02-DECISIONS/0019-how-this-repository-works.md)). Implementation lives in the code repositories (see
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[`00-META/repos.md`](00-META/repos.md)).
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Before changing anything here, read the playbooks in
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[`00-META/process/`](00-META/process/) — every workflow (research, graduation, design
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amendment, issues, build handoff, constitution sync) is documented there, and agents operate
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through them. Thin skills in `.claude/skills/` wrap these playbooks for invocation
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(`hq-new-research`, `hq-graduate`, `hq-new-issue`, `hq-diagnose`, `hq-amend-design`,
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`hq-handoff`, `hq-sync-constitution`, `hq-status`); each defers to its playbook as
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authoritative and adds only the mechanical scaffolding.
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## Ground rules
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- **Markdown only.** No new top-level folders without explicit confirmation.
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- **Status lives in YAML frontmatter** — on research overviews (`status`, `became`), design
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docs (`layer`, `status`, `code`, `updated`), issue reports (`status`, `located-in`,
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`fixed-by`, `amended-design`) and decision records (`status`, `date`, `deciders`).
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Never create a central status file; cross-cutting views are generated from frontmatter.
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- **`02-DECISIONS/` records are immutable.** Supersede with a new record; never edit meaning. Fixing a
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broken link or path is allowed.
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- **Design docs are prose and diagrams only** — no code. A manifest field may be named; a
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manifest may not be pasted.
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- **Two layers, never mixed.** [`03-DESIGN/00-as-is/`](03-DESIGN/00-as-is/) describes the mesh
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that exists; [`03-DESIGN/01-to-be/`](03-DESIGN/01-to-be/) describes the one being built
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toward. Every design doc says which it is in `layer:`. A statement about the future does not
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belong in an as-is document, and an as-is document is never edited to describe an intention.
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- **`00-META/how-we-build.md` is the source of the mesh constitution.** The knowledge-base
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constitution page is derived from it — see playbook
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[`05-constitution-sync.md`](00-META/process/05-constitution-sync.md). Never edit the
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derived page directly.
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## This repository is public
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Nothing here may contain routable addresses, real domain names, hosting providers, node
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names, absolute paths, usernames, credentials, or operational detail useful only to an
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attacker. Use documentation ranges (RFC 5737, RFC 1918) and role names — `anchor`,
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`home-server`, `workstation`, `laptop`, `the build node`, `the broker node`.
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The test: would this paragraph still teach a stranger running an entirely different mesh?
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If yes, it belongs. If it only makes sense to someone who knows this installation, it is
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either a note in the wrong place or a disclosure. The full rule is in
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[`README.md`](README.md).
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## A rule states how it is checked
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If a document states a rule about the mesh, it says how that rule is verified. An unenforced
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rule is indistinguishable from a wrong one, and costs more, because people believe it.
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