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hq/00-META/mission.md
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jochen a28da1734b Graduate research 034: the mesh in domains, one word per thing, checked
ADR 0244 sorts the mesh's concepts into ten domains (ADR 0006's contexts
carry over as domains), keeps machine and node as distinct words, and
makes the glossary the authority with every retired word on its
replacement's Not: line. To-be 49 draws the domains; the glossary is
reorganised by them, its two contradictions removed and the missing
words added. words.py now fails on a retired word in running prose and
on a word defined twice, so the rule is enforced rather than believed;
the 63 documents it failed on are reworded here, and research 034 is
kept as the record of the words it studied.
2026-10-07 19:58:39 +02:00

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3.2 KiB
Markdown

---
status: canonical
updated: 2026-08-22
---
# Mission
## Vision
**A mesh that controls itself.**
An agent states an intent — in words, from wherever they already are — and the mesh
carries it out. It takes the request in, works out what it means, does the work across
whichever nodes it needs, and returns a result. No terminal to open, no runbook to follow,
no remembering which node holds which thing.
Not automation, which does what it was told to do in advance. Self-control: the mesh
holds the context, decides how, and acts.
## Mission
Build the layer that turns a set of nodes into one self-controlling mesh.
- **Intake, process, deliver.** A request arrives, is understood, becomes work, and
returns an answer. That loop is the product; everything else exists to make it possible.
- **Agents inhabit the mesh.** They are not scripts that run and exit. They hold identity,
memory and skills, run on whichever node has room, and act continuously.
- **The mesh brokers everything the work needs.** Storage, credentials, compute,
knowledge, delivery — requested by capability, resolved by the mesh, never by the
requester knowing where things are.
## Agents, some of whom are human
There is one kind of participant: the **agent**. Some agents are human and some are not,
and the mesh does not treat that as a category difference. Both hold identity, both hold
credentials, both act, remember and coordinate. What differs is **modality** — how an
agent acts:
- a non-human agent acts through a spawned session and the record
- a human agent acts through a shell, a desktop, a message from a phone
That is why a desktop environment is as much a core concern as a knowledge store. One is
how some agents remember; the other is how some agents act. Neither is a courtesy
extended to a user outside the system.
### What belongs in the mesh's own domain
A **core** module supports an agent's *participation* — acting, remembering,
coordinating, or interfacing with the mesh.
A media server supports a human, but not their participation. It is therefore not a core
module. It is still a perfectly valid mesh module — the
mesh installs it, provisions for it, brokers its capabilities and ships it through the
same pipeline. Entirely legitimate as a module, and no part of the mesh's own domain.
The distinction is **core module** versus **module the mesh runs**, not module versus
not-a-module. Both use the same manifest, the same pipeline, the same provisioning —
which is exactly what makes the mesh's own components no more privileged than anything
else it carries.
## Core values
- **Evidence over assertion.** A claim that cannot be checked will quietly stop being
true. Say what was measured.
- **Failure must be loud.** The expensive faults are always the silent ones — work that
reported success and did nothing. Prefer failing to lying.
- **The mesh owns the truth.** State lives in the mesh and is derived onto nodes. A file
edited on a node is a bug with a delay on it.
- **Sovereignty.** The mesh runs on nodes it owns. External dependencies are
deliberate and few.
- **Dogfood everything.** The mesh's own components ship through the same machinery as
anything else it runs. If they need an exception, the machinery is not finished.