diff --git a/modules/nats/Dockerfile b/modules/nats/Dockerfile
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b362d7c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/modules/nats/Dockerfile
@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+# nats's server image: the upstream server, plus an entrypoint that reloads it in place when the
+# mesh rewrites its configuration. See entrypoint.sh for why that belongs here and not in the host.
+#
+# **Pinned to the multi-architecture index digest, not a platform's.** `docker manifest inspect`
+# reports a platform manifest per architecture and the index that lists them; pinning a platform's
+# digest builds on this workstation and fails on any node of another architecture, with an error
+# that names a manifest rather than the mistake. This is the index — `docker pull` reports the same
+# one, and `RepoDigests` confirms it.
+#
+# Unlike every other module's Dockerfile, this builds no TypeScript and uses no mesh base image:
+# the module's code is the server, which upstream already built. There is no BUILD_BASE here on
+# purpose — nothing is compiled.
+FROM nats@sha256:b83efabe3e7def1e0a4a31ec6e078999bb17c80363f881df35edc70fcb6bb927
+
+COPY entrypoint.sh /usr/local/bin/mesh-nats-entrypoint
+RUN chmod 0755 /usr/local/bin/mesh-nats-entrypoint
+
+ENTRYPOINT ["/usr/local/bin/mesh-nats-entrypoint"]
diff --git a/modules/nats/entrypoint.sh b/modules/nats/entrypoint.sh
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f117cc1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/modules/nats/entrypoint.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+# nats's entrypoint: run the server, and reload it in place when the mesh rewrites its
+# configuration.
+#
+# **Why this exists inside the module** (novox/hq design 25 §5). The controller composes every
+# account and permission into one configuration file, and that file changes whenever a module is
+# added, reassigned, or a person's access is granted or revoked — which is often, and on the one
+# server everything else depends on. The host has no way to say "reload this container": a
+# container resource has `restart-on` and nothing else, and a container's `restart-on` means
+# *recreate* — every connection dropped and every in-flight JetStream ack lost, mid-flight, for a
+# permission change. `reload-on` is real but it is a *service* field, not a container's.
+#
+# nats-server already reloads its own configuration on SIGHUP — accounts, permissions, everything
+# the mesh composes — without dropping a connection. That is the server's own documented
+# capability, not something built for the mesh. So the configuration is mounted as a directory
+# (a directory's contents are not digest-tracked the way a directly-mounted file's are, novox/hq
+# issue 103), and this watches the one file inside it and signals the server itself. The host's
+# only job is what it already does for any directory: keep the file's content current. Nothing
+# here is declared `restart-on` or `reload-on`.
+set -eu
+
+CONF="${MESH_NATS_CONF:-/etc/nats/nats.conf}"
+POLL="${MESH_NATS_CONF_POLL_SECONDS:-5}"
+
+# The controller writes the configuration as part of the same declaration that creates this
+# container, but the two are not ordered against each other. Waiting is correct and starting
+# without one is not: nats-server would come up with its compiled-in defaults — no TLS, no
+# accounts, every subject open to anyone who can reach the port — and then be reloaded into
+# correctness a moment later. A bus that is briefly open to everything is not a bus that is
+# briefly wrong; it is an open bus.
+while [ ! -s "$CONF" ]; do
+  echo "[nats] waiting for the mesh to compose $CONF"
+  sleep 1
+done
+
+digest() { sha256sum "$CONF" 2>/dev/null | cut -d' ' -f1; }
+
+nats-server --config "$CONF" "$@" &
+server=$!
+
+# Forward a stop to the server and let it drain, rather than dying and leaving it orphaned as
+# PID 1's child.
+stop() { kill -TERM "$server" 2>/dev/null || true; }
+trap stop TERM INT
+
+last=$(digest)
+while kill -0 "$server" 2>/dev/null; do
+  sleep "$POLL"
+  now=$(digest)
+  # An empty digest means the file is mid-write or briefly gone. Reloading on that would hand the
+  # server a truncated configuration; the next tick sees the finished one.
+  [ -n "$now" ] || continue
+  if [ "$now" != "$last" ]; then
+    last=$now
+    echo "[nats] configuration changed; reloading in place"
+    kill -HUP "$server" || true
+  fi
+done
+
+# `wait` on an already-exited child still yields its status, which becomes this container's.
+wait "$server"
diff --git a/modules/nats/module.json b/modules/nats/module.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ed34306
--- /dev/null
+++ b/modules/nats/module.json
@@ -0,0 +1,71 @@
+{
+  "module": "nats",
+  "version": "1",
+  "provides": [],
+  "claims": [
+    {
+      "name": "mesh-broker",
+      "scope": "mesh"
+    }
+  ],
+  "capabilities": [
+    "container-runtime"
+  ],
+  "emits": [],
+  "consumes": [],
+  "listens": [
+    {
+      "port": 4222,
+      "protocol": "tcp",
+      "from": "mesh",
+      "why": "the mesh bus \u2014 every link the mesh has, over TLS, reached across the overlay"
+    }
+  ],
+  "guards": [
+    8222
+  ],
+  "resources": [
+    {
+      "id": "jetstream-data",
+      "type": "directory",
+      "path": "/var/lib/mesh-broker-nats",
+      "mode": "0700"
+    },
+    {
+      "id": "conf-dir",
+      "type": "directory",
+      "path": "/var/lib/nats-module/conf",
+      "mode": "0700"
+    },
+    {
+      "id": "server",
+      "type": "container",
+      "name": "mesh-broker-nats",
+      "ports": [
+        "4222:4222",
+        "127.0.0.1:8222:8222"
+      ],
+      "volumes": [
+        "/var/lib/mesh-broker-nats:/data",
+        "/var/lib/nats-module/conf:/etc/nats:ro",
+        "/var/lib/mesh-broker-nats-tls:/tls:ro"
+      ],
+      "artifact": "server"
+    }
+  ],
+  "accesses": [
+    {
+      "path": "/var/lib/mesh-broker-nats-tls",
+      "mode": "read"
+    }
+  ],
+  "build": {
+    "artifacts": [
+      {
+        "name": "server",
+        "kind": "image",
+        "from": "Dockerfile"
+      }
+    ]
+  }
+}