A manifest word has to reach every parser before a manifest carries it. The builder refused
mesh-controller's manifest with `unknown field "prepares"` until it was rebuilt; then the running
control plane could not read the manifest in the build result either, so the build was recorded with
no module and the version never moved. Strict parsing is deliberate (novox/hq 04-ISSUES/003), so the
word ships first and a manifest uses it next: this takes `prepares` back out of the control plane's
own manifest, leaving the code that understands it, and the manifest says it again once this is
running everywhere.
The mesh derives the preparation from the module's own resource instead of each module hand-writing
a step beside it (novox/hq ADR 0135). A manifest says one word — `prepares` — and the mesh runs that
module's own program in its preparation mode, in the module's own context: the same image, the same
environment, the same mounts, because it is the same code. A published port and a fixed address are
taken away rather than copied, since the version being replaced still holds them.
One word for every kind of module: a Go binary receives `prepare` as its argument, a bundle receives
it through the runtime whose entry takes the same word. The control plane answers it like anything
else — its own schema stops being a special case, and its hand-written step is gone.
The mesh replaced its own control plane with a build carrying a migration, applied none of it, and
then refused every build it recorded for three quarters of an hour while reporting itself healthy
(novox/hq 04-ISSUES/133). The module now declares the step ADR 0052 prescribes: a run-once
`migrate` before the server, re-run whenever the image moves because the image is part of a step's
digest, and gating — a migration that fails stops the new server from starting rather than letting
it serve against a schema it does not have.
Three faults the mesh's own logs showed this morning. A handler that outlives the acknowledgement
window was handed its message again while it was still working: acting on a merge builds modules,
minutes against a thirty-second window, so one merge ran the whole catalogue five times over. The
transport now says the work is in progress while it runs, which is where the window belongs.
Everything the mesh hands out — a token, a membership, a person's credential — took its address
from the enrolment setting, which on a mesh that has moved still names the broker it moved from:
the first person issued after the move was handed the retired broker's port. There is one bus, and
its address is the one the control plane is connected to.
And `operator issue` documented an argument order its parser refused.
Three faults in one path. A merge rebuilt every module built from the repository, so one change in
a repository holding twenty-six of them meant twenty-six builds. A merge into a repository a module
only *packages* source from rebuilt nothing — two modules are built from the control plane's own
repository and neither had ever been rebuilt when it moved — because the manifest the mesh keeps
carries no build section, so a build now says which repositories it read and the mesh keeps that
beside what it stood on. And a module handed over by hand could record a repository with no
directory inside it, which is a module nothing can ever rebuild (novox/hq 04-ISSUES/131, /132).
A change inside no module's own directory is a change to what they share, and everything built from
that repository is rebuilt: rebuilding too much is the safe direction, because the fault this whole
path exists for is a mesh that believes it is current and is not.
The forge announces what it finds merged, and an old merge surfacing late moved the recorded head
backwards and rebuilt everything built from that repository, once per old merge. A merge made
before the source was last seen is history; one that says nothing about when is taken as news.
The catalogue now carries when each source was last seen. The bus-records test follows #116:
a module's tools are every one under its own name.
A base is named by digest, and a digest the mesh's registry holds under the module's repository
is the same bytes whatever upstream would say. Asked on every build, the public hub's anonymous
pull limit was reached on the first merge that rebuilt a whole catalogue, and every module whose
base lives there failed on a copy it did not need.
Every module moved onto the bus by the rollout was issued on the old one, so none had a consumer
waiting; and the grant named a push delivery a runtime's client never binds, while the pull it
does make — asking about its consumer, asking it for messages — was refused. The consumers a
module's declarations imply are now raised whenever the bus is, and the grant is the pull.
The control plane is the way in for tool calls (novox/hq ADR 0095): a person or an agent asks
through it, so it alone may publish to every module's tool subject. The first ask on the new bus
was refused the publish.
Every module that served a tool was refused the subscription on the new bus: the grant listed
tools from a manifest field no module fills, because the tools a module serves are what its code
answers and a second copy of that list would be a second source of truth. The grant is now the
module's own tool namespace; nothing else may subscribe it, a caller is still granted per tool by
name, and a module may answer what it was asked.
The probe connected bare, and a bus that requires TLS and a user refused it at the handshake —
so the check reported the standing server as absent. It now dials with the controller's own
credential and pin, which is the one fact the check is there to report.
The test pinned what a build stood on to the address the builder pulled from; the edge names
another module's artifact and is kept the way that artifact is (novox/hq 04-ISSUES/102).
Bases reach a recipe as build arguments, so the digest was never in the file the builder read
edges from: no build on the mesh recorded what it stood on, and 'build --on', the bases-first
order and the merge follow-up all walked a graph with no edges (novox/hq 04-ISSUES/131). The
builder now reports every base it resolved; the controller records them by artifact path and
reads the newest build's edges from the store, since a recorded manifest carries no build.on.
The mesh runs on the seat's bus alone (novox/hq ADR 0131, design 28 task 5.5). The old
transport's consume loop, build request, tool ask, management API and account scoping are
deleted, and the bus switch with them; the controller connects to the broker seat and to
nothing else. The store-window tests keep their assertions on a bus-less fake, and the tests
that only made sense for the old transport's in-memory holding go with it.
The decoder named the forge's merge subject as the fourth thing followed and the
list was three long: every message that fell through to that switch panicked the
control plane (2026-09-28). The entry was written and lost between two attempts
at the same edit. A test now walks the list; the composed grants and the genesis
template carry the subject.
The controller follows the forge's merges (novox/hq 04-ISSUES/131). For each
module recorded as built from that repository and branch it records the move to
the merge commit and builds it — bases first, because a module built before the
module it stands on is built against the old one and reports success, and a base
that fails stops what stands on it. Nothing is pushed here: what a finished build
does to the machines running the module stays the upgrade's decision.
Two more things the same ordering gives: `build --behind` builds bases first, and
`build --on <module>` rebuilds everything that stands on a module — the rebuild a
changed base needs, which "behind" does not see because their sources did not
move.
The seat table has name, scope, delivers and decision, and the protocol ADR 0129
gave a seat lives only in the compiled defaults; loading the rows dropped it, so
no role's work queue was ever raised and the first build submitted over the new
bus met "no response from stream". Until the table gains the columns, a row with
no protocol keeps the compiled one of its name. And the holder of a seat is
granted what taking work from its queue needs — asking about the worker consumer
it binds, and acknowledging on it — which the first machine to try was refused.
The control plane's own seat placeholders no longer include the old bus's port,
which the switch removed with the variable.
Two halves of one gap the first build over the new bus met. The machine decided
its bus from a variable its container never received, so the credential the mesh
sealed to it went unread; a credential for the new bus names the bus by scheme and
carries user, password and fingerprint beside the address, and that is enough to
dial it, pinned. And the roles' work queues were raised with no holders, so the
consumer a machine binds to take work was never created: the holders are read
from the catalogue and the handover record, as the resolver reads them.
A push consumer delivers on _DELIVER.<its name>, and a client bound to it
subscribes exactly that. No principal was granted it, and the server refused
every one the first time it bound a consumer: the control plane, each machine,
and a module would have been next. Each kind is granted its own consumers'
delivery subjects and no other's. The line announcing the raised bus printed the
URL with the credential in it; the address alone now.
Two refusals the first live connections met. A user in the MESH account was told
"JetStream not enabled for account" the first time it bound a consumer: with
accounts defined, JetStream is enabled per account, not only globally — the
account's setting, which the mesh owns, not the server's block, which it does not.
And the control plane's client used a random inbox prefix where it is granted
exactly _INBOX.<its user>.>, so the server's first answer could not reach it. The
prefix now follows from the user in the URL, for every principal that dials so.
The bus presents the mesh's own certificate, which names nothing a public verifier
accepts; the client verified by name and failed against a bus that was answering
("certificate is not valid for any names", 2026-09-28). It now pins the leaf's
fingerprint from MESH_BROKER_CERTIFICATE, as every host does. And a connection
error named the whole URL, password included — the address alone now.
The seams were there and nothing chose a side: serve, push, ask and build all
opened the old bus's connection and declared over its channel, whatever
MESH_BUS_NATS said. So the switch moved every host and left the control plane
unable to follow — "this control plane has no MESH_BROKER_AMQP" with the new bus
named and standing (2026-09-28). That was task 4.3 of design 28, still open.
One place now decides: connectLink reads the switch, refuses both buses named at
once, raises the new bus's streams and this controller's consumers when it is
handed the inventory, and opens the link over whichever bus it is on. Every
caller that sent a declaration or asked a tool through the old channel goes
through the server's bus instead, which the new transport has and the channel is
not. OverNats is that outbound: a declaration is a JetStream publish into the
node's own subject, an event is announced on the subject its name derives to, a
tool is request and reply on the module's tool subject.
Binding to a consumer asks the server about it and hears the answer on the
client's inbox; hearing a declaration acknowledges it. A machine's user was granted
none of that and was refused the first time one dialled a permissioned server:
"this node cannot read its declarations". Its inbox is its own prefix, which the
host now sets.
mesh-admin
jschoubben