Files
hq/03-DESIGN
jochen 2221be11a6
mesh/merge-gate the mesh is checking this head against every machine
mesh/delivery delivered
ADR 0238: a commit is the build at hand — one commit, one change plan, checked off the trunk and published only on it
Turning the merge check on for every repository showed it asked the wrong questions: a
repository chose whether it was checked, the gate mapped a change onto modules its own
way, the shared-code rule rebuilt 103 modules for a root script, and nothing kept a
commit off the trunk from becoming a module's version. Records the operator's decisions,
narrows ADR 0237 decision 4, revises to-be 45 §9 and Phase 5 and to-be 30, closes issue
280's left-open, and gives this repository its own merge-check.sh.
2026-10-06 22:54:09 +02:00
..

03-DESIGN

The authoritative specification. Implementation is built against what is written here.

Two layers

Folder What it is
00-as-is/ The mesh that exists today. Shipped behaviour, described as it is — including behaviour nobody would choose again.
01-to-be/ The mesh being built toward. Every statement traceable to a record in 02-DECISIONS/.

They are never mixed. A statement about the future does not belong in an as-is document, and an as-is document is never edited to describe an intention.

When a to-be design ships, it does not move. Its as-is counterpart is written or updated, the to-be document's status becomes implemented, and both stand — one describing what runs, the other recording what was intended. Deleting the intention loses the reasoning, which is the expensive half.

Frontmatter

Every design document (not the READMEs) carries:

---
layer: as-is | to-be
status: designed | in-progress | implemented | abandoned
code: []                 # owning code repo(s), from 00-META/repos.md
updated: YYYY-MM-DD      # date of the last status change, not of text edits
decisions: []            # 02-DECISIONS/ records this document rests on
---

For an as-is document, status: implemented is the normal state — it describes something that runs — and code: names where that implementation lives.

Status changes when implementation state changes, never because design text was edited. An implemented claim must be defensible from the owning repository's main branch, not from intent. If it cannot be checked, it is in-progress.

Cross-cutting views are generated from this frontmatter by the hq-status skill and never written to disk.

What belongs here

Functional analysis, architectural description, and specification — prose and diagrams only, no code. A manifest field may be named; a manifest may not be pasted. A document enters the to-be layer only after the decision behind it is recorded in 02-DECISIONS/ and the research that produced it is closed.

Subfolders are encouraged where a layer grows enough to need them.