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.
mesh-delivery now says a pull request on a base that requires the merge
check, with none on its head for ten minutes, as a stalled line in state
unannounced, which D14 raises as delivery.<id>.stalled. No delivery exists
for it, so the generic words — stop it, release it — named an act that
does not apply. It now says the pull request has had no merge check, why,
and that a new commit on its branch is announced and checked.
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/delivery covered: a later merge that contains it was delivered: novox/mesh-controller@14ab2ddd9b49 (merged as 63e85b25 into main, walk plan-17915459…
- The generic command verb only reads now (commandReads) and terminal-only
commands are refused through any verb (terminalOnly). mesh-cli's
ordinary line made neither check: `node account`, `token issue` and
`secret export` from another node would have run. It now meets both, in
the one function the command verb shares.
- The serving controller marks itself and its children never the terminal
(ADR 0266); a line mesh-cli runs as the terminal drops that mark and
carries MESH_CLI_TERMINAL, so it reads as the terminal it is.
- Two withholding tests searched the answer's text while JSON writes bytes
as base64, so they held nothing. They search both now, each proved by
disabling what it guards (Shown, the bus withholding, `calls` via Get).
- The control-node refusal is tested through the assign and unassign acts.
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 forge applies the rule named for a branch, else the first glob covering
it; the judge passed a branch whose applied rule let pushes when a later rule
happened to guard it. And a registration whose id the forge could not give
cleared the id already recorded (the confirmation review of 2026-10-09).
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 line ran past the bus's one-minute window for an answer and its answer
was refused; mesh-cli then said nothing ran of a line that had. Every
line is now a call (calls.go): answered within AnswerWithin that it is
running, with its call, and followed by the same account on the same
node until it ends. Its record keeps the command word only, and its
answer stays in the memory of the controller that ran it — never on the
bus, never in `calls`, which answers anyone who may call the seat. Each
line is said in the journal with its call, who asked where, and how.
- Lines running at once are bounded (8); one over is answered busy.
- An ordinary `settings` line is composed as the settings verb composes
its own and meets that verb's refusals, the terminal-only keys among
them, instead of the generic command's blanket refusal.
- The controller's module is assigned and unassigned at the terminal only:
where it runs is the control-node, whose operator is the terminal.
- mesh.control.*.cli is in the writers table as the machine's own.
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 node-engine's own since starts again at every restart, so an agent that
restarted the engine in a loop kept agent-can-become-root quiet for ever (the
review of 2026-10-09). The controller now keeps when it first saw the verdict
waiting for the setuid search (migration 0085), forgets it at the next
complete verdict, and raises once the engine's own bound has passed since;
the bound and the pending reason are read from mesh-host's rootsearch.
After every node-engine restart the account verdict says not judged yet until
the engine's first search for setuid programs ends, and DA raised the urgent
condition each time. The account stays unconfined and node show still says
not judged; the condition is raised once the search fails, runs out its bound,
finds a way to root, or the statement goes stale.
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/delivery covered: a later merge that contains it was delivered: novox/mesh-controller@eca6390d6fe4 (merged as 33dc85d8 into main, walk plan-17915444…
A source repository's name is not its identity, and a trunk anyone may push
to makes the trunk rule mean nothing (the review of 2026-10-09). Through any
verb a module now registers only from a repository on the mesh's forge whose
trunk refuses direct pushes, requires a status and lets no administrator
merge past one, asked of the forge's own tools; and only from the repository
by the forge's id, recorded at registration (migration 0084), so one deleted
and made again under the name is refused. The serving controller marks its
environment, so nothing it runs or starts reads as the terminal, and a
terminal request covers only the repository and path it asked.
A build refused for its repository is still recorded, and a fork carries the
commit the module was registered at: the rollback's search for the previous
build would have found it and registered it by the back door.
An agent could make a repository of its own, or fork one the mesh builds
from, commit a module.json naming sudo or mesh-host, and ask the build verb
for it: the outcome was registered under that name, and the next push made
whoever wrote it root on every node (novox/hq ADR 0266 §7, the review of
2026-10-09). The trunk rule checked the trunk of the repository built, which
was the agent's.
The take-in, which every outcome reaches whichever verb asked it, now
registers a module only from its registered repository, and a new module only
from a repository the catalogue already builds from (a merge adding one);
anything else only when the build request was kept as asked at the
controller's terminal (migration 0084). Through a verb, a build of a
repository the catalogue builds nothing from is not asked at all.
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 records send the operator to "the controller's terminal", and nothing
reached it (hq issue 343). The serving controller now answers each node's
mesh.control.<node>.cli, where only that node's engine may publish, with the
account the engine read from the kernel. A line from the control-node's
operator account runs as the terminal: a fresh process of this binary with
no MESH_VERB, whatever the serving process carries. The same account on any
other node, where agents may run as it, is an ordinary call: the generic
command verb's refusals (one function now, so the two routes cannot drift)
and MESH_VERB=mesh-cli, so a terminal-only change is refused with its
reason. Any other account, root included, runs nothing. Servers are never
run, and an answer over one bus message is cut and says so.
The terminal-only refusals and the usage now name mesh-cli on the
control-node as the way to the terminal.
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).
jschoubben
jochen
mesh-admin