Files
hq/02-DECISIONS/README.md
T
jschoubben cb1954e7b5 Accept 0024, and rewrite the work breakdown around what is actually being done
**0024 accepted.** Model access was decided, built, and proven in the
lab, and two design documents rest on it; only the status had never
moved. The gate is green again.

**The work breakdown rewritten.** It planned a decomposition of the
existing system in place — extract contexts, declared features, shrink
the shared library. That is not the work. A replacement is being built
beside it, and only the old Phase 0 survived contact with reality, so
the one document meant to say what happens next was describing a system
being retired.

Now ordered by what "modules move across one at a time until the old
registry is off" actually requires:

- Phase 0 is marked done against the twenty-two lab assertions, **and
  carries its own limitation**: every module exercised was written to
  test the mechanism, so the vocabulary was shaped by its own fixtures.
- Phase 1 is the vocabulary gaps found by asking what real modules
  need — an object-store provision, a session as a licence consumer, a
  network shape with ordering, public certificate issuance.
- Phase 2 is one module, then a week of running it, because the point of
  going first is to find what Phase 1 missed.
- Phase 3 picks modules that each prove something the first did not; the
  mail system is last because it is the one that may send work back into
  the declaration language.
- Phase 4 is switching the registry off, named as a phase so it is not
  mistaken for the goal.

Keeps the rules of engagement unchanged — they were about how work is
done, not what it is — with one addition: stop and ask before anything
that touches a machine outside the lab.

Adds a section on keeping the list true, since the document it replaces
was wrong for weeks and nothing said so. A claim here is counted, not
reasoned, and a phase is done when the lab says so.
2026-08-31 17:25:27 +02:00

129 lines
6.6 KiB
Markdown
Raw Blame History

This file contains ambiguous Unicode characters
This file contains Unicode characters that might be confused with other characters. If you think that this is intentional, you can safely ignore this warning. Use the Escape button to reveal them.
# 02-DECISIONS
Architecture decision records — the "why" trail behind the rules in
[`00-META`](../00-META/) and the specifications in [`03-DESIGN`](../03-DESIGN/).
**Numbered `02` because a decision precedes the design it authorises.** Research concludes,
the decision is recorded here, and only then is the design written. Following the folder
numbers walks the process in the order it happens.
One file per decision, numbered, never deleted. A superseded record has its `status:` changed
and gains a pointer to what replaced it — **its text is never edited**. The reasoning that was
rejected is the expensive half to rediscover.
The records run in the order the decisions were taken, oldest first.
**Every decision is a record.** There is no ledger and no index file — if a decision is worth
recording it is worth a record, and if it is not worth a record it is not recorded
([ADR 0019](0019-how-this-repository-works.md)). A "decision" small enough to be one line is
almost always a **rule**, and a rule belongs in
[`00-META/how-we-build.md`](../00-META/how-we-build.md), where it is enforced and keeps the
incident that earned it.
## Frontmatter
```yaml
---
status: proposed | accepted | superseded
date: YYYY-MM-DD # when the decision was taken, not when it was written down
deciders: name
reconstructed: true|false # true when the record was written after the fact from evidence
superseded-by: # 02-DECISIONS/NNNN-....md, when status is superseded
extends: # 02-DECISIONS/NNNN-....md, when this record widens an earlier one
---
```
## Body
```
# N. Title in plain language
## Context what was true, with evidence
## Considered Options numbered, each with why it was rejected
## Decision what was decided
## Consequences what follows, including what got harder
## References commits, pull requests, knowledge-base entries, prior art
```
State evidence, not assertion. *"Zero of 124 modules declare `brain` as a dependency"*
outranks *"the dependency rule is not followed"*.
## Reconstructed records
Records 0001–0014 were written on 2026-08-23, after the decisions they describe. Records 0015 onward were taken as records. Those
decisions were taken in implementation rather than in a document; the records state what was
decided and the evidence it was decided from, and each carries `reconstructed: true` and says
so in its first lines.
A reconstructed record is not a transcript. Where the deliberation is not recoverable, the
options section states what the alternatives were and why the chosen one won on the evidence
available — not a discussion that did not happen. Where a date is not establishable it says so
rather than guessing.
## Index
**A number identifies a record and never changes.** Records are referenced from outside this
repository — code comments, commit messages — so a number that moves invalidates them silently.
Renumbering once cost 96 references across two code repositories, and that is why the numbers
are now fixed.
So the folder is in creation order, and **the reading order lives here.** It is generated from
each record's `topic:` and written, because a reader looking at the folder on a forge sees the
folder rather than a command. The objection to a written index is that it drifts — which is
answered by checking it rather than by refusing to write one:
```
python3 00-META/checks/index.py --write regenerate
python3 00-META/checks/index.py fail if stale
```
<!-- index:start -->
### What the mesh is
- **0001** — [The mesh brokers capabilities; nodes host; agents think](0001-mesh-brokers-nodes-host-agents-think.md)
- **0002** — [Nodes communicate over a message broker, not over HTTP](0002-nodes-communicate-over-a-broker.md)
- **0003** — [An agent is a persistent employee, not an instance of a pool](0003-agents-are-persistent-employees.md)
### Its tiers, from the bottom up
- **0004** — [A node, and how it joins](0004-a-node-and-how-it-joins.md)
- **0005** — [The node host](0005-the-node-host.md)
- **0006** — [The substrate and the control plane](0006-the-substrate-and-the-control-plane.md)
- **0007** — [Connectivity](0007-connectivity.md)
- **0008** — [A context owns its store, exclusively](0008-a-context-owns-its-store.md)
- **0028** — [The substrate supplies the control plane and nothing else](0028-the-substrate-supplies-the-control-plane-and-nothing-else.md)
### What runs on them, and how it gets there
- **0009** — [Modules and the graph](0009-modules-and-the-graph.md)
- **0010** — [Delivery](0010-delivery.md)
- **0024** — [Model access is a provision, and a licence is a thing with a name](0024-model-access-is-a-provision.md)
- **0026** — [The mesh has a session of its own, and it is the node session's mechanism](0026-the-mesh-has-a-session-of-its-own.md)
- **0027** — [A provision names what the consumer is coupled to, not the role it plays](0027-a-provision-names-what-the-consumer-is-coupled-to.md)
### How it is built
- **0011** — [Managed files are generated onto nodes and never edited there](0011-managed-files-are-generated-never-edited.md)
- **0012** — [The mesh creates no symlinks — a derived file is a copy](0012-the-mesh-creates-no-symlinks.md)
- **0013** — [Schema and state changes are numbered migrations, in the same language as the code](0013-schema-changes-are-numbered-migrations.md)
- **0014** — [No workspace — each module is a standalone package consuming published dependencies](0014-no-npm-workspace.md)
- **0015** — [Applications live in their own repository; the monorepo is for the mesh](0015-applications-live-in-their-own-repository.md)
- **0016** — [The lab](0016-the-lab.md)
### How it is checked
- **0017** — [A test defends a decision](0017-a-test-defends-a-decision.md)
- **0018** — [A picture of a system is read from the system, never from what asked for it](0018-a-picture-is-read-from-what-runs.md)
### How we work
- **0019** — [How this repository works](0019-how-this-repository-works.md)
- **0020** — [The mesh is governed by a constitution, injected where work is decided](0020-the-mesh-is-governed-by-a-constitution.md)
- **0021** — [HQ is the source of the mesh constitution](0021-hq-is-the-source-of-the-constitution.md)
- **0022** — [The constitution absorbs what is already enforced](0022-the-constitution-absorbs-what-is-enforced.md)
- **0023** — [The approval is the checkpoint, not the second pair of hands](0023-approval-is-the-checkpoint.md)
- **0025** — [The design record is read where it is written, never copied to be found](0025-the-design-record-is-read-not-copied.md)
<!-- index:end -->