jschoubben
77f3a4cea7
Every remaining cluster merged. Each was one design that had been split across
several records because it was worked out over days rather than at once.
the node host 8 -> 1 applies not decides, depends on nothing,
per operating system, root service, the
launcher, episodic, what a declaration is,
actions from the bundle only
a node and how it joins 4 -> 1 what a node is, joining, the link as
security boundary, the enrolment token
modules and the graph 7 -> 1 everything is a module, no domain modules,
three edges, provisioning, the core library
substrate and control 6 -> 1 the test, seven contexts, one control plane,
plane the authority is not a database, the named
products, the pinned bundle
connectivity 3 -> 1 a route is a grant, reachability declared,
filter rules
delivery 5 -> 1 reconciliation not a pipeline, artifacts,
the three silos, a failed step, the verdict
the lab 5 -> 1 (earlier)
how this repository 10 -> 1 (earlier)
works
Nothing was dropped. Each consolidated record carries the reasoning of the ones
it absorbs -- the measurements, the incidents, the alternatives rejected --
because that reasoning is the only reason to keep a record at all. What is gone
is the fragmentation: eight files to read to understand tier 0, when tier 0 is
one component.
The four superseded records went too. They existed to point at their
successors, and the successors now contain what they said.
The checker made this safe. Each merge left dangling links -- 38 files after
the host merge alone -- and it named every one. Nothing was found by reading,
and a manual pass would certainly have missed some, including references inside
AGENTS.md which every session loads.
54 lines
3.2 KiB
Markdown
54 lines
3.2 KiB
Markdown
# 00-META
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The **northern star**. What the mesh is, the environment it runs in, and what changes when it
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works — plus the engineering practice that holds across everything Novox builds. Every research effort and design decision is checked against this folder.
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| File / folder | Purpose |
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|------|---------|
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| [`mission.md`](mission.md) | Vision, mission, and the values that decide arguments |
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| [`context.md`](context.md) | The environment — conditions, not aspirations |
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| [`effect.md`](effect.md) | What is different when the work is done |
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| [`how-we-build.md`](how-we-build.md) | The rules that hold across the mesh, each one earned. **The source of the mesh constitution** — the governed page the mesh injects into design sessions is derived from it. |
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| [`repos.md`](repos.md) | Where implementation lives, and what each repository owns |
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| [`process/`](process/) | The playbooks — how work moves through this repository, for engineers and agents alike |
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## Rules
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- Markdown only.
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- **Stable by nature.** Changes here reflect a genuine shift in intent, not iteration. The one
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exception is `how-we-build.md`, which changes whenever a rule is earned — and only through
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its amendment process.
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- Research and design must be traceable back to what is written here.
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- **Instance-agnostic.** These documents describe the mesh as a concept. No machine names, no
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counts, no topology.
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## On the architecture overview in the code repository
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The code repository carries an architecture overview predating this folder. It is a useful
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description of *how* the mesh works, and its content now lives — anonymised and checked against
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the implementation — in [`03-DESIGN/00-as-is/`](../03-DESIGN/00-as-is/). GENESIS answers *why*;
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that document answered *how*, which is the design layer's job.
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It had also drifted from the implementation in ways worth recording, since both were found by
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comparing it against the code rather than by anyone noticing:
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- It described the pipeline as having a separate builder process and a build stage that
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packages. Neither was true after 2026-08-04; the documents stayed stale until 2026-08-06
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([ADR 0058](../02-DECISIONS/0058-delivery.md)).
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- It listed the mesh as spanning a fixed number of named machines, which is exactly the
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content this repository cannot carry.
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It also lists **"symlinks, not copies" as a key design principle**, and that is a genuine
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contradiction rather than a stale detail. The mesh's stated intent is that it creates no
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symlinks at all — the rule is not merely "only the installer may link", and a founding document
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elevating linking to a principle points the opposite way from where this is going.
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What exists today is that the installer owns and reconciles every link
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([ADR 0018](../02-DECISIONS/0018-the-mesh-creates-no-symlinks.md)) — an as-is fact, recorded in
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[`03-DESIGN/00-as-is/05-runtime-and-installation.md`](../03-DESIGN/00-as-is/05-runtime-and-installation.md).
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Centralising who may link narrowed the incident class; it did not close it. The intent is to
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remove the mechanism, recorded as [ADR 0018](../02-DECISIONS/0018-the-mesh-creates-no-symlinks.md).
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A founding document contradicting the direction of travel is precisely the failure this folder
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exists to prevent.
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