internal/catalogue/declaration.go

@@ -456,6 +456,11 @@ func (r Resolution) Declaration(with Rendering) ([]map[string]any, error) {
 			if err := pinned(copied, m.Module); err != nil {
 				return nil, err
 			}
+			// And the other half of the same question: an image nobody has published yet is named
+			// by an artifact rather than by a placeholder digest, and is just as unrunnable.
+			if err := built(copied, m.Module); err != nil {
+				return nil, err
+			}
 			publishedOn(copied, m.Module, with)
 			copied["id"] = m.Module + "." + fmt.Sprint(resource["id"])
 			// A service saying what it reflects names resources within its own module, so those
@@ -887,6 +892,30 @@ func pinned(resource map[string]any, module string) error {
 		module, resource["id"])
 }
 
+// built refuses a container that still names an artifact nobody has made.
+//
+// **Said here, by the thing that knows what "artifact" means.** A container naming an artifact is
+// a module saying "the mesh builds this"; the field is resolved into an image when a build
+// publishes one, and until then there is nothing to run. A host receiving it refuses the whole
+// declaration — correctly, since its language has no such field — but what it can say is that a
+// container does not use "artifact", which tells a reader the manifest is malformed. It is not:
+// it is unbuilt, which is a different problem with a different fix, and only the mesh is in a
+// position to tell them apart (novox/hq ADR 0073).
+func built(resource map[string]any, module string) error {
+	if fmt.Sprint(resource["type"]) != "container" {
+		return nil
+	}
+	artifact, ok := resource["artifact"].(string)
+	if !ok || artifact == "" {
+		return nil
+	}
+	return fmt.Errorf(
+		"%s has not been built for this mesh: %v is its %q artifact, and no build has published "+
+			"one. Build it — `build <repository> --path <path>` — and the module will name what "+
+			"came out instead",
+		module, resource["id"], artifact)
+}
+
 // publishedOn puts the machine's own port on the outside of a container's mapping.
 //
 // **A module writes the port the software uses; the mesh says where the machine puts it**