The 2026-09-12 incident response blocked /api/internal by hand in the
predecessor's dynamic directory, with a note that its durable home is the
mesh's routing. A route carries the policy applied to a request (ADR
0108), so the refusal now travels with the grant: route-proxy enforces
it on both the public name and the internal alias the moment it serves
this route, and the adapter skips it aloud (no port, nothing to write)
while the predecessor's own file still stands. The hand-authored file
retires with the proxy it configures.
Implements novox/hq ADR 0109, 0110 and 0111 in the catalogue.
package-registry becomes npm-package-registry throughout (ADR 0109): gitea provides and serves it,
verdaccio provides it, the builder requires, binds and receives its secret under it. gitea's
contributions file is grants/npm.json, so a second ecosystem's file has an obvious name beside it.
gitea claims two mesh seats (ADR 0110): npm-package-registry, which it delivers, and git, which it
now provides with what a clone URL is composed from — http on the forge's web port (ADR 0111).
verdaccio provides npm-package-registry and claims nothing: it is the second provider the seat
exists to make harmless, since a consumer now resolves to the seat's holder without a pin.
No cargo or PyPI provision is added; ADR 0109 defers that. git mints no credential, so gitea's
provisioner registers nothing for it — the mesh's own repositories are public, and a clone
credential is undecided (ADR 0111).
The provisioner still reads where its contributions land from $MESH_RECEIVES, and names no path
itself. One variable carries one path, so a second registration in this module would need the mesh
to say where each provision's file is; that is not possible yet and is not faked here.
Verified: the controller's tests read this catalogue — every claim is a seat in the set, the forge
holds both seats and serves what a clone URL needs, the builder requires what the npm seat delivers
— and pass. Not verified here: a TypeScript build of gitea, whose dependencies resolve from the
private registry.
2222 never meant anything — no container of gitea's publishes it, the
software never listens on it, and nobody could say where it came from.
The container's real internal sshd is 22 (gitea's own default, unmodified
— every other module's listens.port already means the container's real
internal port, this one didn't). ports now declares 222:22 directly: 222
is the real, fixed, always-known public git-ssh port, so it needs no
per-node setting to reach — unlike an arbitrary auto-assigned port, this
one has external consumers who already know the number.
hq issue 091, measured 2026-09-22: 14 of 46 modules with containers fix the
machine side of a published port in their own manifest -- a fact about one
machine (which port HAL happened to publish it on) written into a
definition meant for any node. ADR 0038 already says the mesh assigns the
machine side and a module says only what it needs; the machinery already
does it (internal/inventory/ports.go's PortFor, declaration.go's
publishedOn rewrites a bare port automatically). These 14 just never
complied.
Fixed 11 of them -- stripped to the bare software port, letting assignment
take over: de-spiegel, gitea, hello-web (the demo module), mailu, mssql,
n8n, novox.be, only-office, photos, photos-eef, photos-filip.
Left alone, the two defensible kinds the issue names: postgres/lavinmq/
distribution (foundation, genesis-rewritten per ADR 0100 -- the number in
the manifest is a default, not a claim) and unifi (protocol/
device-discovery fixes the number; nothing else can find the controller).
gitea was a live one, not just a tidiness fix: its manifest said 2222:22,
but the actual adopted, running container is on 222. Harmless while held,
but the next 'take' would have recreated it on the wrong port and broken
SSH git access. Recorded 222 as novox's own setting for it (settings set
gitea -node novox) so that doesn't happen.
The runtime beside the forge served 0 tools: GiteaClient.fromEnv required a token
(settings or MESH_GITEA_TOKEN), nobody had one to give — the mesh raised the forge —
and putting one in settings would store a secret in plaintext in the inventory. So
the fifteen tools registered nothing and the watcher logged "not watching".
What the mesh does deliver is the admin account: a login the manifest names and a
password the vault minted and the host unsealed into a file (ADR 0086). That is
enough to mint a token, so the module does (hq issue 100, the forge's tools):
POST /users/{admin}/tokens over basic auth, scoped to write:repository and
write:issue — the least the tools and the repo watcher need — kept at 0600 in the
module's own state (/var/lib/mesh/gitea/state, a new directory resource the runtime
mounts writable), read back on the next start, and minted afresh when the forge
answers 401 to it or the kept file is gone. A forge whose data came from the
predecessor has no mesh-admin: that is reported in plain words on every poll until
it clears, once per reason, not crash-looped. A configured token still wins and is
never minted over.
The mint happens on the first call, not at registration: a contributor is
synchronous, and a forge not yet answering must not keep the runtime from serving.
One source per kept file in a process, or the watcher and the tools would each
renew on a 401 and drop the other's token by name.
MESH_GITEA_URL named 3000 outright. The forge's container publishes 3000 without
fixing the machine side, so the mesh assigns it — and on a node given that port
as a setting it is the operator's number. The mapping that lets the forge go on
binding 3000 does nothing for a caller dialling the machine's loopback, so the
sidecar dialled a port nothing was listening on wherever the two differed.
${port:3000} is the mesh's answer to exactly that question, and it now resolves
in a container's environment as it always has in a file. The forge declares it
listens on 3000, so it may ask.
Still names 3000: the route contribution (hq issue 089) and the `listens` and
`ports` entries, which are the software's own number and belong there.
gitea, umami, influxdb, icecast and mailu require a secret and keep each of theirs
under a local name (novox/hq ADR 0094); the broker account stays their own. The
route proxy's recipe starts FROM the bases its manifest declares (ADR 0097).
From the survey of every env-file secret (ADR 0086, issue 041): amqp-ping,
minio, mongodb and grafana use the _FILE twin their software honours;
mesh-catalog and model-usage read DATABASE_URL_FILE (a file the mesh
templates, mounted where only the runtime reads it); grafana's secret files
belong to its own account. Two dead deliveries removed: a line nothing read
in amqp-email-forwarder, and mailu's secret.env on four containers that
never read it. The 25 exceptions that remain carry the surveyed reason —
convertible and awaiting a bed, convertible through a generated config file,
the application's own code, or not convertible.
ADR 0086. mesh-controller mounts its six own secrets and names them with
_FILE twins, so no credential of its own reaches its environment. The 35
containers that still read a secret through an env-file carry
secrets-in-environment with the reason; converting each where its software
accepts a path is the per-module work of issue 041.
keycloak, mailu, minio, mongodb, mssql, nextcloud, portainer, redis,
umami and verdaccio get the Dockerfile + build section the eight
buildable modules already had; their runtime containers name the
artifact instead of a placeholder digest.
One convention, settled (060's open question, informed by 061): the
runtime container runs serve mode with every serve-time entrypoint in
MESH_TOOL_MODULES — tools serve, events flow, and a provider's
provisioner reconciles in the same process with the broker connected.
postgres, gitea and lavinmq are retrofitted from args-run provisioners,
which served no tools and emitted lifecycle events nowhere.
route-proxy is deferred: its build context is the mesh-controller
repository, a cross-repo shape the build section cannot yet express.
gitea gains the package-registry provision: serves/receives/grants, an admin
own-secret, a postgres-shaped build, and a provisioner that creates a gitea user
per consumer with the mesh-minted password and seals nothing (hq ADR 0048). The
builder takes its registry credential as an own-secret rather than a resolved
provision, because gitea-as-module needs the base to build its provisioner and so
cannot resolve before the base — a cycle the own-secret avoids.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01D6qtiYU3P9jk3pnAXyAFyx
dnsmasq still required resolver-data, a provision that died with the
mesh-resolver module — assigning it would refuse with "nothing provides
resolver-data". It asks for the node-zones fact now, at the same path its
config already reads, restarting on the fact's own id.
gitea and verdaccio both provide package-registry now — ADR 0075's provision,
which neither declared, so ADR 0014's "consumes from the private registry" had
no provider anywhere in the catalogue. Two providers, mesh-scoped: the resolver
refuses until one is assigned, and choosing is assigning, which is the designed
shape.
audit-logger runs a container and declared no capability, alone among the
containerised modules. A machine without a runtime would have been assigned it
and failed at apply rather than at assignment.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01D6qtiYU3P9jk3pnAXyAFyx
Piece A + B of ADR 0056, completing the internal-CA work in ff01ada.
Selectable issuer. acme-ca is now a role two providers can satisfy: step-ca
(internal CA) or the new public-acme (a fact-only module, no container/listen)
that serves Let's Encrypt production. A mesh assigns one or the other to satisfy
route-proxy's `requires: acme-ca`.
One directory shape for both. A provider serves the ACME directory's parts the
way the mesh already models any reachable service -- an address (`at`), a `port`
and a `path` -- and route-proxy composes `https://<at>:<port><path>`. step-ca
lets the mesh fill `at` (its node) and `port` (its single listen) and serves only
`path`; public-acme, not being a mesh service, serves all three (overriding `at`
with the public host). Same composition either way.
Empty root means the system trust store. Both providers serve `root`: step-ca
the operator root PEM (settled per mesh), public-acme an empty string. route-proxy
writes it to the CA bundle file unconditionally; the binary now reads an empty
bundle as "the root is already trusted by the OS" and falls back to system roots
(examples/route-proxy/main.go, committed on the mesh-control ADR-0056 branch).
step-ca inits from the operator's root. The operator's root cert, root key and
root-key password are mounted at the smallstep entrypoint's default init paths
(/run/secrets/root_ca.crt, root_ca_key, root_ca_key_password) with the matching
DOCKER_STEPCA_INIT_*_FILE vars, so `step ca init` adopts the operator's root
instead of self-generating one -- the CA that signs is the CA route-proxy trusts.
Route names are labels, not FQDNs. Every routed module now contributes a `label`
(the leftmost subdomain) instead of a full public hostname; the node's public
domain composes the name. Apex (novox.be) is left as a full name -- composeName
has no empty-label/apex convention yet (mesh-control follow-up).
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01LrgweAeERJYBg88c5cKDzF
Add a `route` contribution (requires/contributes/binds) to every web app so
each gets a Host-routed public name via route-proxy, mirroring the
de-spiegel/only-office pattern:
- novox: gitea, keycloak, nextcloud, umami, invoicing, verdaccio, registry,
and mailu (single mail.novox.be -> 7080; admin/webmail/api ride that port).
- ace: grafana, sonarr, radarr, lidarr, bazarr, ombi, tautulli, jackett,
nodered, searxng, home-assistant, bookshelf, baserow.
Split photos so its three sites each get a name: photos keeps server +
admin-client (photos.novox.be), and new photos-eef (eef.novox.be) and
photos-filip (filip.novox.be) modules carry the client sites.
The production FQDN stays the literal default; a per-node .incus name is a
settings override applied where the mesh runs, not a manifest hardcoding.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01LrgweAeERJYBg88c5cKDzF
The postgres provisioner creates each consumer a database named after the login the mesh
minted (mesh_<node>_<module>), per ADR 0048 -- 'a same-named database under exactly that
login'. But baserow, letta, umami, gitea, keycloak and nextcloud each hardcoded their app db
name (DATABASE_NAME=baserow, /letta, /umami, NAME=gitea, /keycloak, POSTGRES_DB=nextcloud),
so the service connected to a database that does not exist ('database letta does not exist').
Each now uses ${bound:postgres-database:as} as the db name -- the login, which is also the db
name -- matching the working meshboard pattern and the provisioner's actual behaviour.
Found by the two-node DB-consumer lab install (mesh-lab assigned-two-node-db); baserow is
proven connecting and running there. The S3 bucket name is the same class of assumption and is
a separate follow-up (s3 identity has its own length bound).
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01LrgweAeERJYBg88c5cKDzF
Give each settings-config runtime a mergeable config file with its own id
(runtime-config) — the previous "config" collided with modules that already own a
config directory, so ten runtimes mounted a config file no resource declared. Point
each runtime's restart-on at it, so a settings change recreates the runtime and it
re-reads the new value (needs the mesh-host container restart-on fix on
issue/009-container-restart-on). Proven: runtime-restart-on-config e2e green.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01LrgweAeERJYBg88c5cKDzF
Nineteen modules gain a broker-bound runtime container that serves the module's
tools under its own scoped account: bazarr, gitea, grafana, home-assistant,
icecast, influxdb, jackett, keycloak, mailu, nextcloud, nodered, nzbget, ombi,
photos, portainer, qbittorrent, searxng, tautulli, verdaccio.
Config is the assignment's, not the manifest's (ADR 0051): each client's fromEnv
overlays a settings-merged config file (MESH_<M>_CONFIG_FILE) over its env
fallbacks, so URL and credentials come from `settings set`, with the URL defaulting
to the server on the node. nextcloud and mailu also mount the docker socket for
their exec-based tools.
Proven in the mesh-lab: assigned-grafana green — settings deliver the URL and token,
the runtime reads the merged config and serves grafana's tools under the scoped
account, with nothing in the manifest. Two gaps this surfaced are filed as hq
issues 008 (a provider runtime's seal key) and 009 (a settings change does not
restart a container runtime).
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01LrgweAeERJYBg88c5cKDzF
The review found broker own-secret paths drifting: mostly /var/lib/<module>/
broker, but grafana/redis/icecast/nextcloud carried a '-module' suffix to dodge
a collision with the service's own /var/lib/<name> data, and photos sat under
/etc. Normalized to one collision-free namespace a service never owns:
/var/lib/mesh/<module>/broker, with a mesh-state directory resource for the
parent, across 24 modules. audit-logger is grandfathered (lab-proven, referenced
by the assigned test, and it has no service to collide with). All 33 manifests
parse; no client hardcoded a path, so nothing in code moved.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01LrgweAeERJYBg88c5cKDzF
Git hosting. 15 tools (repos, issues, PRs, labels, api passthrough) moved out
of the shared sdk. Emits repo.created (from a light poll, catching repos born
of git push or the web UI), issue.opened and pull.merged (from the tools at the
moment of the action) — the poll owns repo.created alone so it is never
announced twice. Typechecks; manifest parses.
Each module becomes modules/<name>/ holding module.json, with room for
the rest of what a module is — its tools, health checks, provisioning,
lifecycle — which the conversion from hal still has to bring across.
The flat <name>.json was only the resource-declaration half.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01LrgweAeERJYBg88c5cKDzF
jschoubben
jochen