jschoubben
ee67f69ef4
A seeded file is created once (0087); the foundation filters before anything listens (0088); a machine becomes the last thing it was told (design 05). Each says how it is checked.
2.2 KiB
status: resolved opened: 2026-09-02 located-in: [mesh-host] fixed-by: mesh-host feat/migration-blockers (internal/link/run.go: the host prefetches a window of declarations, applies the newest and sets the rest aside, each reported as superseded); mesh-controller (the link records a superseded report as a word that the node is there) amended-design: 03-DESIGN/01-to-be/05-the-node-host.md
031 — A machine becomes each thing it was told, in turn
Symptom
A machine that was pushed several declarations in quick succession applies every one of them, oldest first, at the better part of a minute each. Under the lab's suite — twenty-odd pushes in fifteen minutes — the anchor machine ran minutes behind the newest declaration, and a test that waited for it honestly timed out while the machine was busy becoming things nobody wanted any more.
Only visible since caught-up became an equality: each report now names the declaration it applied, and the reports arriving were about ever-older ones. Before that, the same backlog hid inside timestamp comparisons that happened to pass.
Why it is wrong, and why it is also right
Each declaration is complete — the whole machine, not a delta — so applying an old one is never incorrect, only wasted: the machine converges to a state the mesh has already moved past, then does it again. The queue keeps a disconnected machine's instructions safe, which is right. What is wrong is only the order of consumption: a machine asked to be five successive things should become the last one.
The shape of a fix
On waking with a queue, drain it and apply only the newest declaration; acknowledge the superseded ones without applying them. Whether a superseded declaration deserves a report — and what its outcome should be called — is the real question for the link's vocabulary: silence reads as a machine that ignored an instruction, and "applied" would be a lie.
What it costs today
Nothing on a real mesh at rest: pushes are far apart. It costs the lab about a doubling of one test's wait, and it will cost a real mesh exactly when things are busiest — a flurry of changes is when a machine can least afford to replay history.