jochen
fa2c09a2c5
A secret comes into being seven ways today: provider credentials, own secrets (54 modules), broker accounts through a command that is easy to forget, a vault that only records what the controller mints (6 modules), operator values, licences, and root secrets. The vault was built to end own secrets and did not; the old path was never retired. 0113 is rewritten as a waterfall. The vault makes every secret and nothing else does. A provider that needs a secret for a consumer requires it from the vault, declared once in its provision's contract and expanded per consumer by resolution; the vault delivers it to both holders, each sealed to its own node, so a provider's code is unchanged. Own secrets, broker passwords, operator values and licence credentials take the same path. Genesis is not an exception: it raises the vault first and asks it, so there is one way a secret is made from the first one on. The vault can sit at the bottom because it requires nothing but a broker account. One shared mint function in the SDK was considered and rejected: generation becomes uniform but custody stays spread over every provider's machine, and each SDK language needs its own implementation. Rotation is asked of the vault and is provider-first: the value goes to the holder that accepts it, which confirms, before the holder that presents it gets it, so the lockout window shrinks to the consumer's own restart, and an unconfirmed provider holds the rotation rather than half-doing it. The host derives which processes to restart or recreate from the requirement a definition reads, so no definition declares restart-on for a secret. A rotation shows unconfirmed until each consumer restarted and passed its health check. Issue 103 becomes a prerequisite. The file is renamed to match what it now decides. 0112 follows.
02-DECISIONS
Architecture decision records — the "why" trail behind the rules in
00-META and the specifications in 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 A superseded record has its status: changed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). A "decision" small enough to be one line is
almost always a rule, and a rule belongs in
00-META/how-we-build.md, where it is enforced and keeps the
incident that earned it.
Frontmatter
---
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
What the mesh is
- 0001 — The mesh brokers capabilities; nodes host; agents think
- 0002 — Nodes communicate over a message broker, not over HTTP
- 0003 — An agent is a persistent employee, not an instance of a pool
- 0077 — The parts are named controller, foundation, node — not control plane, substrate, master
- 0083 — One push leaves the mesh consistent
- 0088 — The foundation filters before anything listens
- 0090 — A failure that repeats is said to be stuck
- 0100 — A node in use is adopted before it is converged
- 0101 — A machine's own resolver does not make it in use
- 0102 — The mesh writes into a shared file, never over it
- 0103 — What an adopted node holds, and what its guard refuses
- 0104 — A provision may be answered by an adapter to the predecessor
- 0105 — The mesh adopts the predecessor's tunnel in place
- 0106 — The bus is NATS
Its tiers, from the bottom up
- 0004 — A node, and how it joins
- 0005 — The node host
- 0006 — The substrate and the control plane
- 0007 — Connectivity
- 0008 — A context owns its store, exclusively
- 0028 — The substrate supplies the control plane and nothing else
- 0029 — A network is a shape, because an action cannot be undone
- 0030 — Data outlives the mesh that declared it
- 0031 — The control plane authenticates nobody, so identity is a module
- 0033 — The substrate is a store and a broker
- 0036 — Bootstrap ends at a usable mesh, and the first credential comes from a person
- 0066 — Public routing is name-agnostic, its names are resolved inside the mesh, and an internal authority can certify them
- 0067 — Genesis is a pivot: a temporary control plane installs the registry that makes it permanent
- 0070 — The catalogue owns the module graph, and genesis builds rather than carries
- 0071 — Genesis clones from a mesh, and checks what it got
- 0072 — Two graphs, and a build chain that orders itself
- 0073 — The installer carries a builder, and the registry stays where it is
- 0074 — The mesh defines a module protocol; an SDK is an implementation of it
- 0075 — An artifact store is a provision; a package registry is a different one
- 0078 — The store and the broker are ordinary modules
- 0079 — The foundation seats are named after their servers
- 0092 — An operator delivers a pair credential, and the mesh never replaces it
- 0094 — A module may hold several secrets from one provider, each a pair of its own
- 0095 — The control plane is the way to ask a module
- 0098 — A fact a provider makes at first start is fetched from it, not carried in its manifest
- 0108 — A route carries the policy applied to a request, and names a secret rather than holding one
- 0109 — A package registry seat is one per ecosystem, not one for all of them
What runs on them, and how it gets there
- 0009 — Modules and the graph
- 0010 — Delivery
- 0024 — Model access is a provision, and a licence is a thing with a name
- 0026 — The mesh has a session of its own, and it is the node session's mechanism
- 0027 — A provision names what the consumer is coupled to, not the role it plays
- 0035 — One implementation, several surfaces, and what that costs
- 0038 — The mesh assigns the port, and a module does not care
- 0040 — What a module is
- 0041 — Events are a relationship, the lighter sibling of provisioning
- 0042 — The shape of an event on the wire
- 0043 — A module's broker account is scoped by what it emits and consumes
- 0044 — A public name is provisioned, not registered by hand
- 0045 — A machine's firewall is the sum of what its modules listen on
- 0046 — A module's configuration is its assignment's, not its manifest's
- 0047 — A module runs its code as its own process, with its own account
- 0048 — A provider creates the credential the mesh minted, and seals nothing
- 0049 — A consumer's identity is bounded by the tightest backend that must accept it
- 0050 — Model access is vendor-agnostic, and a vendor is an adapter
- 0051 — Shared data is the operator's, and a module is granted access to it
- 0052 — An init step is a container run once to completion, gating what follows
- 0053 — A scheduled step is a container run on a recurring schedule
- 0054 — Model usage is a vendor-neutral record, produced by the adapter, at two grains
- 0055 — Model access is answered by a licence, or by a node that hosts the model
- 0084 — Which provider serves a consumer, when the mesh runs more than one
- 0085 — A secret is a provision, and the vault is the module that provides it
- 0087 — A seeded file is created once, and what grows in it is not the mesh's
- 0091 — A mount is declared, and there are three things it can be
- 0099 — A step that runs once names what it reads, and runs again when it changed
- 0110 — A seat is a module assignment from a closed set, and it may deliver a provision
- 0112 — A module definition names no node, no mesh and no path: everything it needs is a requirement the mesh resolves (proposed)
- 0113 — The vault makes every secret, a provider makes resources and data, and the mesh carries both (proposed)
How it is built
- 0011 — Managed files are generated onto nodes and never edited there
- 0012 — The mesh creates no symlinks — a derived file is a copy
- 0013 — Schema and state changes are numbered migrations, in the same language as the code
- 0014 — No workspace — each module is a standalone package consuming published dependencies
- 0015 — Applications live in their own repository; the monorepo is for the mesh
- 0016 — The lab
- 0037 — Where a module lives (proposed)
- 0039 — What the SDK holds, and what it refuses
- 0068 — The lab takes requests, one at a time, and runs each from its own copy (proposed)
- 0069 — A module is a repository and a path within it
- 0076 — The SDK is a published package, and the toolchain resolves it by version
- 0082 — The registry is reached by name, and the overlay is its security
- 0086 — A secret reaches a process as a file, and an exception is declared
- 0096 — An upstream image is copied between registries, never through a machine's image store
- 0097 — A vendor image is a declared build input, and a recipe fetches nothing undeclared
- 0107 — Persistent data is a directory bind, never a named volume
- 0111 — A build source is on the mesh's git seat, or it is an external repository
How it is checked
- 0017 — A test defends a decision
- 0018 — A picture of a system is read from the system, never from what asked for it
- 0089 — A bed reads the catalogue it proves
- 0093 — A fixture that runs a module's runtime carries the module's name
How we work
- 0019 — How this repository works
- 0020 — The mesh is governed by a constitution, injected where work is decided
- 0021 — HQ is the source of the mesh constitution
- 0022 — The constitution absorbs what is already enforced
- 0023 — The approval is the checkpoint, not the second pair of hands
- 0025 — The design record is read where it is written, never copied to be found
- 0032 — The local account owns the mesh; a surface delegates to a module (superseded)
- 0034 — The local account owns the mesh, and a web application's login is not that
- 0080 — The development cycle is checked, not trusted
- 0081 — A decision nothing cites is not yet in the chain