jschoubben
e1febe8e0f
The consolidation left a sparse sequence -- 1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 15, 16, 18, 19, 25, 34, 35, 36, 37, 40, 42, 44, 45, 48, 49, 58 -- where the gaps were only the archaeology of what used to be there. Renumbered contiguously. Renames run in ascending order, so every target number is already free and no two files ever collide. The reference rewrite is one simultaneous pass rather than a sequence of replacements. Numbers moved into slots other numbers were vacating -- the node host went 37 to 16 while the lab went 16 to 9 -- so replacing one at a time would have cascaded and silently pointed things at the wrong record. Seven plain-text references survived the merges as prose rather than links, naming records that no longer existed: the enrolment token, the link boundary, what a declaration is, reachability, the repository structure. Each mapped to the consolidated record that now holds it. Verified rather than assumed: every [ADR NNNN](path) link now has matching text and target, checked across the whole repository, and the checker passes. Frontmatter `consolidates:` lists dropped -- they named records that are gone, and each consolidated record already says in prose what it absorbed.
108 lines
5.0 KiB
Markdown
108 lines
5.0 KiB
Markdown
---
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layer: as-is
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status: implemented
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code: [hal]
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updated: 2026-08-23
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decisions:
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- 02-DECISIONS/0019-modules-and-the-graph.md
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- 02-DECISIONS/0010-the-mesh-creates-no-symlinks.md
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---
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# The node runtime, and how a node comes into being
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Every node runs the same runtime. What differs is its assignment.
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## Two modes, coexisting
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The runtime runs in two modes at once on any node that needs both.
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**Daemon** mode is a headless consumer: it connects to the broker, consumes the node's request
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queue, routes each request to a local capability, and emits the node's lifecycle events. This
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is what makes a node a participant — it is reachable whether or not anyone is logged in.
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**Interactive** mode exposes the node's capabilities to a session on that machine over a local
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protocol. Its capability surface is larger, because it includes stand-ins for every capability
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discovered on peers.
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The two are the same code with the same catalogue. A capability is written once and is
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available to both.
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## Anatomy naming, and what it obscures
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The runtime's components are named after brain anatomy: an entry point that bootstraps, a
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headless listener, an interactive surface, an installer daemon, and a provisioner daemon.
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This is the mesh's most-cited naming problem and it belongs in the as-is layer because it is
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what a reader will actually encounter. The names are evocative and describe nothing: the most
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suggestive word in the system names the node runtime, and the component whose manifest says
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"mesh messaging" is documented elsewhere as the interactive runtime. Anatomy makes attractive
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names and poor boundaries.
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[ADR 0008](../../02-DECISIONS/0008-mesh-brokers-nodes-host-agents-think.md) replaces this with names
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taken from what each part owns. Until then, this is the vocabulary in the code.
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## Starting a module
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For each assigned module the runtime, at startup:
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1. Reads the manifest, if there is one — a flag module has nothing to read.
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2. Skips a module's capabilities if a variable they require is unset. This is quiet by design
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and hard to distinguish from a module that has no capabilities.
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3. Loads the capabilities the module carries.
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4. For a service module, ensures it is installed and running.
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Installation is idempotent and does the unglamorous work: ensure the runtime directory,
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reconcile the link from the catalogue's definition into it, generate the environment, run any
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outstanding local migrations, create data directories with the right ownership, then start the
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service under supervision.
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**The installer is the only thing that creates a link** ([ADR
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0011](../../02-DECISIONS/0010-the-mesh-creates-no-symlinks.md)). It reconciles rather than assumes: a
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missing link is created, a stale one repointed, and a real file found where a link belongs is
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adopted into the node's override area and replaced. Nothing else — not a hook, not a fix, not a
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person debugging — creates one.
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That is the as-is. The intent is to remove linking altogether and derive a real file instead,
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which the reconciliation machinery already makes possible
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([ADR 0010](../../02-DECISIONS/0010-the-mesh-creates-no-symlinks.md), proposed). What is described above
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is what runs today.
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## Supervision
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Services run under the host's init system via a templated unit, one instance per module. It is
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a thin layer: the unit starts and stops a container group.
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Whether the mesh keeps this, drops the per-module layer, containerises the daemons, or writes
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its own supervisor is **open** — costed in research effort 003 and deliberately undecided. It
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no longer gates anything.
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Two failures worth knowing about, both in the shape of "the change did not apply". A
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per-instance copy of the unit template shadows the template, so edits to the template do
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nothing. And a session-scoped one-shot job loses the environment it was given, because the
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import is one-time and not persisted.
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## How a node comes into being
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Three bootstrap scripts, and which one runs depends on the situation:
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- **First node.** Nothing exists yet, so the script stands up the database the rest of the
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mesh reads from, publishes the catalogue, and starts the mesh. This resolves the
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circularity of a mesh whose source of truth is itself a provisioned module.
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- **Joining.** The node registers, takes its assignment from the database, and syncs.
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- **Rescue.** A node that cannot reach the mesh is brought back far enough to.
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Bringing a node into being is therefore a **database operation with a script attached**, not a
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checkout. There is no per-node content in the repository to copy.
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Adoption of a pre-existing machine's configuration was the original path and is now a legacy
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one, explicitly out of scope for the lab
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([`01-to-be/01-end-to-end-testing.md`](../01-to-be/01-end-to-end-testing.md)).
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## Node identity
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Each node carries an identity text in its own record, which the daemon writes onto the node at
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startup so that a session on that machine knows which node it is on and how that node
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presents itself. It carries identity only; shared rules live separately.
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Like everything else derived onto a node, it is generated and not edited there.
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