Skills, subagents, commands and hooks had no machine-wide place, so they were
copied into homes by hand and drifted. Each is now registered once through the
module's tools, kept in its config state, and written per node: the plugin in
the managed directory, settings and instructions in the managed files, or the
account's own directory, touching only what the module placed. hq ADR 0216.
managed-settings.json carried only the mesh's fixed keys, so permissions and
auto-mode rules could only be set by hand per machine, outside the mesh.
A managed_settings setting is laid under the mesh's keys, which still win.
The manager binds the node a login was adopted from to that login's licence,
switching it if it was bound to another; serves public_key; adopt takes a
key sealed to it. claude-code gains claude_code_add_api_key: read a file on
this node, seal, hand to adopt, remove the file, optionally switch here.
The module is one Go binary the runtime launches: the renderer (its
instruction file held byte for byte to the TypeScript one it replaces),
the credentials and identity files, the licence flow of ADR 0206 and the
MCP servers in state. Keeps the TypeScript module's key files, so a node
moving to it keeps its key. The npm package, its tests and its build go.
Both binaries were run together under the real runtime on a test bus with
postgres and a stub vendor: a login was adopted by one exchange, the node
bound and handed an access token, its file left with no refresh token, and
no token in either state.
claude-licence-manager holds the anthropic-licence-manager seat: it reads
every node's holdings state, adopts a login it does not hold by refreshing
it (newest first, once per account), keeps each grant alive under a lease,
publishes what each consumer should hold as its bindings state with a
generation, and answers current sealed to the consumer's key. Postgres
store prepared by a run-once step; grants encrypted with the vault's key.
claude-code reports what its node holds (fingerprints and account, never a
token), hands its grant over only when the manager asks, watches its
binding and fetches the token on a newer generation, and writes
access-token-only. Its ask now reads the runtime's answer as a value and
addresses seats as seats.
One key per registration in the module's servers bucket — all.<server> or
<node>.<server> — watched by every node, so a node assigned after a
registration takes it at start, which the mcp.registered event could not do.
Also narrows apply()'s refusal by hand: the builder compiles without strict,
where the discriminated union does not narrow and the build failed.
Events carry what happened and no secret; tokens travel on requests (design 32 §10). The manager's
licence.rotated/switched events make the module ask anthropic-licence-manager.current; at start it
asks once to catch up. A refresh token appearing in the credentials file is a login: it is pushed to
the manager's adopt at once, sealed to the manager's key — the one time a refresh token travels. A
switch replaces the old licence's grant whole, removes the API key and its helper, and rewrites
oauthAccount in ~/.claude.json. New tools register and unregister MCP servers on this node, or with
nodes: all / a list via an mcp.registered event every node consumes; called for one node, the
answer names the other nodes running claude-code. 26 tests.
So the controller's ownership check refuses a second module owning either. ~/.claude is the
operator's at 0700 (it was 0755 on the workstations); of what is inside, the module owns only what it
writes, and the host keeps a directory that is not empty when the module goes (hq ADR 0182).
The module owns /etc/claude-code: managed-mcp.json lists the console as `mesh` over HTTP on
loopback plus the servers in its mcp_servers setting (exclusive, by the operator's choice — the
https rule of managedMcpServers refuses a loopback console); managed-settings.json carries the
attribution convention, keeps claude.ai connectors, and adds the key-helper only for an API-key
licence; CLAUDE.md says how a session here works. Rendered whenever the runtime collects the
tools, written only on change, through the operator account's sudo. Under the home, only the
credentials file, only on a hand-over. Nothing declared under a home or /etc; the console's
port comes from node-tools' mcp-endpoint (mesh-tools #34).
jochen