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2 Commits
Author SHA1 Message Date
jschoubben 337126603e Complete the host's vocabulary: package, container, action
The three shapes the substrate bootstrap needs and the host did not have. Until
now tier 1 could not be raised at all -- step 0 is a package, step 1 a
container, steps 2 and 3 actions -- so every line of the tier 1 and 2 designs
was unbuildable.

package -- present, never upgraded, never uninstalled. Removal is "forgotten",
not "removed": the host cannot know what else needs the package, uninstalling a
container runtime because a declaration changed would stop every container on
the node, and the machine may have had it before the mesh saw it. Reporting it
removed would claim an effect the host declined to have.

container -- identified by a label carrying a digest of the declaration that
made it. Comparing every field the runtime reports cannot be done reliably: a
runtime normalises, defaults and reorders what it is given, and that is
indistinguishable from real drift. There is no in-place update; a container's
configuration is fixed at creation, so any change is a replacement, and saying
so beats a partial update that leaves the running thing half-declared. This is
the one shape the host removes, because it is the one the host created.

action -- bundle-only, per ADR 0047. Verify is mandatory and does double duty:
it is the idempotency check as well as the read-back. The host does not know
what a database is, so "is it already there" is a question only the declaration
can ask. `in` runs the action inside a named container, which steps 2 and 3
need.

Parse now refuses actions; ParseTrusted permits them. The safe path is the
default and the permissive one has to be named. The bundle and a local file
handed to a root process use ParseTrusted; the link will use Parse.

Also replaced the per-type "fields this type ignores" check with a field-set
diff stated as what each type USES. The negative form needs every type revisited
whenever a field is added, and the one nobody revisits silently accepts a field
it will never read.

Images must be pinned by digest (ADR 0046). A bundle naming a tag pins nothing.

Verified against a real machine, not only fakes: an action ran and was
idempotent on the second apply; an action that exits zero and satisfies nothing
fails the apply; a real container was created, labelled, replaced when its
declaration changed, exec'd into, and removed; a real package query round-
tripped. Each new test was also confirmed to fail on an injected fault -- five
injections, each breaking exactly its own test.

One existing test changed: a vanished unit is now reported "forgotten" rather
than "removed", which is what actually happened.
2026-08-27 20:36:27 +02:00
jschoubben 08a1263a81 Stage 2 — the bundle a host carries
novox/hq ADR 0038: one behaviour, two sources of declaration. This is the source
that does not need a mesh — the first node's path.

The bundle is embedded in the binary rather than shipped beside it, because
"copy it onto a machine and run it is the whole installation" stops being true
the moment a second file has to arrive with it. `make host BUNDLE=...` builds a
host carrying one; `mesh-host reconcile` applies it; `mesh-host bundle` shows it.

A default build carries nothing and REFUSES to reconcile, saying why. A host
that applied nothing and reported success would look exactly like one that
raised a first node, and the difference would surface later as a mesh that never
came up with nothing to point at.

Proved on a sealed machine: no route out, no name resolution, one binary copied
on, and it configured itself from what it carried. Idempotent on the second run.

One bug found by running rather than reasoning, and it is a shape worth naming:
`mesh-host bundle` validated the carried bundle through a path that strips
comments, while `reconcile` handed the raw bytes to the parser. So the command
whose whole job is to check the bundle said yes, and the command that uses it
said no. Two paths to one artefact, disagreeing. There is one path now, and a
test asserts that what validates is what is applied.

What this does NOT prove is stated in the README rather than left implied: the
claim under stage 2 is that one host can raise the substrate alone, and the
substrate is four container services. There is no container type, because a
container needs an image and where images come from is open; what belongs in a
substrate is not known, because the closure for a one-node mesh is what research
011 and 012 exist to answer; and the machine used to test this cannot install a
container runtime through a sealed network.

The mechanism is finished. The claim is not, and shipping a host that claimed a
substrate it has never raised would be the fault this whole project is about.

65 tests.
2026-08-26 22:06:54 +02:00