jschoubben
39631d6f87
A module's runtime image was assembled by a script copying the sdk and the tool runtime out of neighbouring checkouts, so it could only be built on a workstation that had them. That is why no module declared what it was made of and why forty-seven point at a placeholder. The tool runtime becomes an image a module's runtime is built FROM, published like any other artifact. The module then builds from its own directory and that base — one clone, which is what the builder can actually be asked for (novox/hq ADR 0069). The dependency stops being a property of somebody's machine and becomes a build edge, pinned to a digest the mesh's registry assigned. The compiler is invoked by its real path rather than through node_modules/.bin: those are symlinks to a launcher that requires its library relatively, and resolving them while building the base leaves a launcher pointing at nothing. Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01D6qtiYU3P9jk3pnAXyAFyx
mesh-catalog
The Novox Mesh catalogue. The modules the mesh builds, provisions and runs — as manifests, one
per module under modules/.
This is data, not a control-plane concern. The manifests describe what a module is: what it
provides, what it requires, the seats it claims, the resources the host applies for it. The
engine that reads them — parsing, eligibility resolution, sealing, declaration emission — lives
in the control plane (novox/mesh-control, internal/catalogue), which consumes this repository
as a build source. The host (novox/mesh-host) applies the declarations the control plane emits.
Neither is here.
What a module is, and is not
A module is one thing the mesh can run, named once, described completely by its manifest. A
manifest names its image (pinned by digest), the resources the host owns for it (directories,
files, the container, the private network it joins), what it requires from a provider and what
it provides to consumers, and the sealed secrets it needs filled on the machine.
- Core mesh components are not modules. The node host, the substrate, the control-plane
contexts and the surfaces are the mesh itself; they ship as their own repositories
(
mesh-host,mesh-substrate,mesh-control,mesh-surfaces,mesh-sdk), not from here. - Standalone applications are not here either. A larger application lives in its own repository with its manifest at the root, registered with the mesh as a build source (novox/hq ADR 0010). This repository holds the modules the mesh maintains as its shared catalogue; an application the mesh merely hosts keeps its manifest beside its own code.
So there is one home for the catalogue the mesh owns, and every application that runs on the mesh rather than being of it carries its own — both reach the pipeline the same way, as a registered source.
Layout
modules/<name>.json one manifest per module
Flat, because the catalogue's shape carries no meaning: a module is found by its name and described by its manifest, and what relates two modules — a shared seat, a claim, a provider/consumer edge — is data inside the manifests, not a directory the tree encodes (novox/hq, the domain-grouping question closed in favour of seats, claims and tags).
The manifest contract
The shape a manifest must satisfy is owned by the control plane's catalogue engine and is what
validates a manifest before a machine ever sees it — a stray key, a consumer contributing the
wrong provision field, an image that nothing builds. That validation belongs with this
repository and is being re-homed here from mesh-control; until it is, the pipeline is the
gate — it builds each module and refuses a manifest it cannot resolve.
Where the reasoning lives
Design and decisions are in novox/hq:
02-DECISIONS/0002-everything-is-a-module.md— one unit, no second mechanism02-DECISIONS/0010-applications-live-in-their-own-repository.md— why applications are not here02-DECISIONS/0030-the-repository-structure.md— the repositories, and the open tier-4 question this repository answers03-DESIGN/00-as-is/10-module-catalogue.md— the catalogue's shape, and what it records