The agent-root probe read the sudo module's answer, given in the machine's runtime as the very account
an agent could become, and took a missing account, a missing answer or no accounts as a pass. One
judgement now decides: the machine names an agent account its node-engine judged unable to become
root within 15 minutes (agentConfined, mesh-controller #164), and the login shell's execute is not
served there; anything not read is not free. The probe raises agent-root on it, the new root-free
verb answers it live for the router, and a push composes verified-sender for a kind only while its
machine and the router's pass it.
A machine where the router or a verified channel runs and the sudo module is absent or does not answer
made the probe fail to run, which raises nothing the router reads, so it went on approving there. Each
such machine now raises the same urgent condition, saying it was not measured.
The control-node withholds execute through its holder's setting since ADR 0268, so probe D-root read a
closed path as open. It now counts the verb as served while the holder's setting for that machine is
serve, or the bus hears execute answered there, or the bus could not be asked: a withheld value not yet
pushed, or a holder answering against its setting, is never taken for closed.
A flag before the subcommand (plans --json go <id>) still acts, so the
generic command verb judges every word of a plans line, retry included
(hq ADR 0266). The rest of this change, places and accesses at the
terminal and one line per setting, is issue 339's on main (#168, #170,
#172), which now does it for every process a verb runs; this branch's
--through-verb flag and its copy of those rules go.
Review found a chain through the command verb: set the operator's key to one
the caller holds, rotate secrets so they are sealed to it too, read the sealed
copies, open them. Whoever may call a verb includes agents (hq ADR 0266), so
command now runs an allow list of reading forms, and operator, identity,
token, broker, api, licence and every secret command but rotate are refused
through any verb.
The generic command verb ran node account and node agent-account, so an agent
could name itself the operator account and have the next send grant it root
(hq ADR 0266 review). Refuse every node subcommand but list and show through
any verb; refuse the operator account as the agent account in both
directions and well-known service accounts as an agent account; and count a
verdict heard more than 15 minutes ago as not judged, so stopping the
node-engine cannot freeze a healthy one. Re-pin mesh-host to its review head.
On the control node every agent ran as the operator's account, which has
passwordless sudo, so an agent could become root without a person (hq ADR
0266). A node now names an agent account at the controller's terminal only;
the agent's module declares it never to become root, the node-engine judges
that, and the self-check (DA) raises agent-can-become-root while it does not
hold, so ADR 0259's router can rest on it.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
The comment and the signals table's bound said it cleared once the bus's machine runs the new build; it
clears once that machine has been sent it, when no send is refused for the bus any more.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
The previous commit named the upgrade as a mesh call, and the replay still looked for the command-line
words; it now asserts the seat and the upgrade, as any wording of the call says them.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
A mergeable file takes any key, not only those its content names, so an
empty runtime configuration a provider reads took a url of the caller's
through the settings verb (hq issue 340 review).
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
The condition and the plan named the verb in command-line form; the operator reaches it through the mesh
MCP server, so it is written as that call. A rebuild of the same source moves nothing (issue 280), which
the plan cannot know before the build, so its line says so.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
For 28 minutes on 2026-10-08 every send to the control-node was refused for a new bus build that only a
person's bus upgrade moves, and no condition said so: the refusal lived only in each walk's note, and S3
would have called it lateness after half an hour, in words that named neither the bus nor the verb.
- Row S17, bus.<module>.step-waiting: raised on the first watchdog tick after a walk's send is refused for
the bus, for the operator, naming the machines, what waits, the bus build from and to, since when and
mesh-controller.bus upgrade. It clears once the bus's machine runs the build the mesh holds.
- S3 leaves out a walk held only by the bus's step.
- A change that builds the bus says in its delivery plan and summary (which mesh/merge-gate carries) that
merging it needs a person's bus upgrade, and that nothing else reaches its machine until then.
- TestReplay336 fails on the commit before and passes on this one.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
The claude-code module keeps the managed settings and tool servers every
Claude Code session on a node runs in a mergeable file, and TerminalKeys
only counted ${setting:} placeholders, so any caller of the settings verb,
an agent included, could plant a hook in the operator's sessions on every
node (hq issue 340).
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
The fourth review (hq issue 339): the safe reading of a file that asks for a
setting and does not say is that root or a consumer trusts it, so its
settings are the terminal's; `"trusted": false` is the opt-out. With that,
nothing unsafe is left to refuse: `module check` lists and counts the
unmarked files and never refuses them.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
The keeper keeps each transition from its own goroutine, which reads the memory
store's Fail field under the store's lock; tests assigned the exported field
bare, so TestAnUnreadableStoreClearsNothing failed under -race whenever the
goroutine appended in that window. The field is now set only through SetFail
(and Told's likewise), and a test makes the race certain rather than rare.
Test-only: the controller runs the bus store, never InMemory.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
The third review of #170 (hq issue 339): a setting overrides any key a
provider serves, so any caller of the settings verb could move a database's
port, a registry's port or an issuer to a listener of its own and collect
what consumers present. TerminalKeys now derives from the manifest: places,
accesses, every served key and every setting a served value asks for, and
every setting a file marked `trusted` asks for. `trusted` is the catalogue's
word, taken out before the declaration; `module check` warns of a file that
asks for a setting without saying, and refuses it from 2026-10-30. The hand
list is gone. A directory used as found is now its own condition kind, the
operator's, never urgent, and the gate exempts it where it exempts a relogin.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
The review of #170: step-ca's root, roots and path and the identity
provider's issuer are what every consumer trusts, and any caller of the
settings verb could replace them; they are now terminal keys like places and
accesses (hq issue 339). /var/lib/containerd joins the runtimes' data. And a
directory the node-engine uses as found failed its module's gate and rolled
its builds back; found before the send, it is now a wait for a person the
gate passes with, as a relogin is (ADR 0254), and only one the send itself
found holds the module.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
TestAnUnreadableStoreClearsNothing wrote InMemory.Fail and its values unguarded
while the keeper's teller appended to the same store, and the race detector
failed mesh/repo-check on #170 (a test race on main, not the change).
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
execute runs any command as the operator account, which can become root
without a person. The operator withholds it on the control-node until a
call needs a person's approval (hq ADR 0268); the holder withholds it per
machine through its own setting. With execute required, that holder could
not hold the seat there and would be judged silent. ADR 0246's optional
mark lets it hold the seat without serving the verb.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
Through the settings verb, or a settings line run by the generic command
verb, any caller of the mesh's console could place a module's directory at
/etc with an owner of its own and have the node-engine, as root, hand it
over at the next push, or mount any of the machine's paths into a container
(hq issue 339). A change to either key is now refused in every process a
verb runs, the generic verb refuses settings writes outright, and neither key
may name the machine's own trees from anywhere, the terminal included. A
line break, carriage return or NUL in any setting, which a file it is
written into reads as a line of the caller's own, is refused where a layer
is kept and where it is composed; PEM blocks alone may hold lines.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
The test's fixture had no worker-of edge and expected the builder first,
then the controller and the proxy together: the order before hq issue 206.
Since then the build seat's holder follows the controller that defines its
worker, and every controller merge plans controller, builder, proxy in
three tiers. The fixture now carries the edge and the test that order.
A packages edge orders nothing, so a module and what packages its source
share a tier by rule; hasCycle counted the edge and the merge handler said
"the last tier depends on itself" of plans with no cycle. Skip the kind as
tiersOf does. The planner tests' cycle rows and property now pass.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
A table of merges (two repositories, every edge kind, a diamond, a cycle,
files no build reads) and a seeded property over 500 random catalogues pin
what a merge moves and in which tiers, per ADR 0162 and ADR 0238 §3. The
shared-repository rows document today's behaviour that issue 338 would
change, once with hand edges and once with edges derived from the store.
The cycle check fails on main: hasCycle reads a packages edge between two
modules of the last tier as a cycle, so a plan with none is said to have
one. Left failing, marked BUG, for the planner's fix.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
Each verb ran as a process that dialled the bus, so hundreds of short
connections an hour, all named mesh-controller, hid any client reconnecting
in a loop (hq issue 327). D15 now says a user whose connections keep dropping.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
A build that passed on its first machine was judged again from that
machine's next reports while its send to the rest waited; another walk's
unreported send there then failed the passed build at the wait's bound
and put it back.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
A dead letter was let go as delivered even when its consumer did not filter
its again subject; seat asks needed a grant over every seat's queue and left
the original stuck; a notices bind failure stopped the controller (review).
Design 25 promised a dead-letter stream that did not exist: a message a
consumer gave up on stayed only in its source, which drops it after a week,
and its condition cleared when the advisories stopped (hq issue 330, ADR 0264).
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
An unplaceable line of a left-out module, such as an access nobody placed, failed the whole machine's
declaration. Say it among what could not be placed instead, never copy the definition's path past a
placement that does not read, and accept a removal only when the decoder is past it.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
A module left out for an unknown key inside an entry lost its whole manifest, so every consumer of what
it provides was refused and its data stopped being copied. Read past only the unknown key, keep its
backup lines, and say in the condition what stops.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
A key dropped silently ran a module without what its manifest says, and a key inside a block still
failed the whole catalogue. Judge a key by what it is about, and narrow the listing to one machine.
One verb is the interface to every preference, so no module builds a settings tool of its own: each
key, its default and why, and every assigned machine's value with its source.
A strict read of the stored catalogue fails every plan and send once a manifest uses a field an older
controller lacks; registration stays strict. A node named default lost its layer to the name check.
Judge the operator's keys by whole words, and scan a default under any key.
Without a default, a running module could never gain a setting: the file asking for it
failed to compose until set, and the key was refused as stray until a file asked for it.
Defaults sit under the mesh's and the node's settings, never merge into a JSON file, are
refused for the operator's own values, and settings shows each value's source.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
The backlog is held after any failed walk, not only a release, and a check is a pull
request's status; the words said the last release failed its check.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
Second review of #150: one key per machine and module let a newer failure
be cleared in the tick that raised it, pruning could orphan an open
condition, and a build no longer waited for read as never asked although it
may still run.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
The release-held words said "release them, or leave them held" without the modules,
the machines or the mesh MCP server, so the operator could neither tell what waited
nor where to act (ADR 0258). The controller's restart needs missed the same suffix.
A test now holds every need that opens with a verb only the mesh MCP server performs
to name it, so a new kind cannot miss it.
Review of #150: a withdrawal could land between the look and the act, a
failed ask read as a build in flight, a request kept the wrong asker, a
build being registered read as not built, build "true" could ask a build
nothing waited on, and a status read changed state. Claim a row under the
machine's hold before making it, keep a request only once asked, settle on
the controller's own tick, raise an assignment not made as a condition
until it is answered, and tie each row to its machine.
jschoubben
jochen
mesh-admin