The review of 2026-10-09 (M4):
- give refuses broker (the bus account issue mints) and any own secret the mesh may make itself;
- the desk's prompt is asked by module, secret and machine, never with words of the caller's, and the
bus denies the prompt's subjects to every principal but the controller, however wide its grant, so the
prompt's 'the controller asks' is the bus's word (Permissions.PublishDeny, broker.ControllerOnly);
- secret accept with a value is refused through a verb: a value comes from the terminal or the desk;
- every value given for an own secret, at the terminal or the desk, raises the urgent condition
secret-given on every channel, until the operator silences it.
The test reads the catalogue beside it, which the build seat checks out at
main; mesh-catalog PR 161 changes the binding, so the two land in either
order.
A private kind is where the router shows a link's code, and the code makes an account the operator's.
Registration refused a verified-sender holder on the machine's runtime and let a private one stand;
it now refuses both (the confirmation review of 2026-10-09, low).
The router's contract names the machines as a JSON array. A verb's argument declared a list now takes
an array of names (or one text separated by commas), and refuses anything else in it.
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.
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…
node agent-account <node> <account> [home] stored a home that nothing used: the
account was created at /home/<account> while its files went to the named home
(hq ADR 0266). The engine reads a user's home only when it creates the account,
so an existing one is never moved.
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…
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 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 ${setting:} placeholders, so any caller of the settings verb,
an agent included, could plant a hook in the operator's sessions on every
node (hq issue 340).
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
Third review of mesh-catalog #147. A setting anywhere else in a unit's name could make the unit another
unit or another kind; it is now refused where the manifest is read. A value beginning with '-' would be
read by systemctl as an option, and a long one is no pool's name.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
The fourth review (hq issue 339): the safe reading of a file that asks for a
setting and does not say is that root or a consumer trusts it, so its
settings are the terminal's; `"trusted": false` is the opt-out. With that,
nothing unsafe is left to refuse: `module check` lists and counts the
unmarked files and never refuses them.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds build-agent, mesh-controller, route-proxy → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it…
A module that holds the distribution's scrub timer for the pool the operator names
(zfs-scrub-weekly@<pool>.timer) cannot write the pool into its definition (hq ADR 0112). Settings were
substituted only into file content, so the unit reached the machine as
"zfs-scrub-weekly@${setting:scrub-pool}.timer", a unit no machine has, and the apply failed far from its
cause (second review of mesh-catalog #147).
A service's unit now takes ${setting:} from the same layers a file does, and is refused by key when
nothing sets it. A value is also refused unless it is only letters, digits, ':', '_', '.' and '-': the
name ends up in unit files and systemctl arguments, and a space, a slash or a newline must never reach
them. A key a unit asks for is not called stray.
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…
The review of hq issue 339 found the PEM exception too wide (any module, any
key, any label, anything base64), \v, \f, NEL and the Unicode separators
still let a value end a line in some readers, and the spool, /opt, the
container runtimes' data and an account's .ssh still placeable. Lines are now
taken only in step-ca's root setting, as certificates encoding/pem decodes and
x509 parses; every line end is refused; and those paths are the machine's own.
The test certificate is a real one, made for the tests with its key thrown away.
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…
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…
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 machine sharing folders and a machine mounting them each need one holder
per machine, with verbs an agent calls instead of exportfs, fstab edits or
zfs set. Both seats deliver nothing: nfs-share is provided at the mesh's
scope. The two adopt verbs are dry runs unless confirmed.
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…
disable cannot remove an enable link whose unit file is gone, so a
leftover unit stays wanted at every login with no verb to end it. Optional
until the systemd module serves it (ADR 0246 step 1).
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…
A failed unit whose file is gone stays raised until its record is reset,
and nothing could say which unit or enable link still asks for it. Both
verbs are optional until the systemd module serves them (ADR 0246 step 1).
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.
A merge asks for a new module's build, and assign answered "no module of that
name" until the build registered it, which read as a module nobody registered
(hq issue 325). Keep every build request, tell a build in flight, a module
known and not built, and an unknown name apart, and make an assignment made
while the build runs when the build registers the module.
jschoubben
jochen
mesh-admin