The data items after a pass re-read each placed module's build over the bus (about 55 per pass on
ace, g14 and shanks); a done build never changes, so the composer keeps it. The items are now
worked out with the pass's own kept builds and modules run inside the node's own, as composed.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NcbgfJ9Gum47zkFKWRaovL
After a pass that handed a new composition, the node's composer works out its modules' data
items from the inputs it composed from and writes each module's key <node>.<module> of
mesh-host_data only when it differs, deleting the keys of modules that left. Pins mesh-sdk
feat/data-items for the contract and the engine's grant. Two tool-answer tests are merged so
the unit count stays where it was.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NcbgfJ9Gum47zkFKWRaovL
mesh/check being carried to 71afdf3ad234 on 6c1f7cc7f50f | from ffa63d25a066
novox's postgres stayed held after mesh-host #189: its have, written before that fix,
names no build, so the node's own composition still took it in and was refused for its
secret reader before the start could back it up again. Only that exact record leaves
the node's own; every other have naming nothing keeps main's rule. Completes #189 for a
have written before it (issue 1289).
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NcbgfJ9Gum47zkFKWRaovL
mesh/check being carried to 76c7ddfc5227 on ffa63d25a066 | from a4713e2d28d7
Review round 1: a have naming no build in a phase but running is also written for a
module that runs inside the node's own (waiting for a yes), so taking it out would
drop its resources before the yes. The fp the held have now keeps already fixes
postgres (issue 1289); a test drives an interrupted backup end to end.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NcbgfJ9Gum47zkFKWRaovL
On novox (2026-10-31) postgres's repeat backup was interrupted by the node-engine's
restart: its held have named no build, so the node's own composition took postgres in
and was refused for its secret reader, and nothing ran the backup again. Issue 1289
(R4c, its delivery held).
- A held have names what runs: read from the module's have before backing-up when
the agent has no running entry, as the not-composed mark does.
- A have in any phase but running that names nothing is not run inside the node's own.
- A backup interrupted by the agent's stop is no failure: the next start backs the
module up again and applies while the want asks a backup. A real failure stays
held for the operator's answer.
Quick fix: a new backup ask by hand. Thorough, chosen: the fault fixed where it lives
in the node agent, so every data module's interrupted backup resumes by itself.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NcbgfJ9Gum47zkFKWRaovL
mesh/check failed: shanks: the check of novox/mesh-controller#487 failed: go mod download in modules/route-proxy: go: git.novox.be/novox/mesh-controll…
mesh/check being carried to da0f8f1cfdb4 on bb8383b065a1 | from 62b211bb6040
Every put under want.<node>.>, every module's take-in and every placement write
made a pass, and each pass asked the vault for the node's own secrets. The
shadow's change check moves onto the composer, gains the want (by its
fingerprint, the only part composed) and serves both loops.
On the bus node restic's manifest replaced its process measure by awake (mesh-catalog 35ff67bd). The record of restic.measure was the node's, made while restic was folded, so restic's own apply never saw it, and the guard against removing a placed module's resources refused the node's own apply whole every two minutes from 2026-10-30 19:42: nothing of the node's own applied.
Quick fix considered: forget the one record by hand (a hand act on the node; refused). Thorough fix (this): the node's own apply keeps such a record and says so, never refusing or removing it; a module's own apply owns a node record whose id names it, so it alone removes it once neither composition declares it.
mesh/check being carried to b0d6684d3731 on 91fb323ce0cf | from mesh-sdk dec3bfe7a8cb | novox/mesh-host#185 in group fix/compose-retries-transient
The verb compose has no warrant (ADR 0563 §2): Agent.Retry released a module held for a failed backup and re-applied
one already running its want. RetryFailed tries again only a failed apply not held, and refuses in words otherwise.
A hand ask no longer restarts the growing bound, and a pass less than askedWithin old is the answer, so a caller in a
loop drives no passes against the vault. A composer whose loop ended refuses at once. The retry line said try N+1.
The test's first shadow now ends before slowAfter is set, a race the race detector found under the new timing.
On 2026-10-31 ace's route-proxy said only that the vault could not be asked, and ace said nothing for five minutes
while a pass waited after the vault restarted; the retry that already existed was invisible. A refusal for a seat or
a read that did not answer now says when the node composes again ("the node composes again at HH:MM:SS (try N)"), a
retry pass says it starts, a pass that runs on says every minute what it waits on, and the node-engine's verb
compose makes a pass now and says how it went, so a person recovers without a restart.
Four providers waited for a yes on 2026-10-31 and nobody could read what waited: the have said only
"where its data is kept". The read verb composition answers it from the engine: the latest revision of the
want's build or the one asked by digest, every revision the bucket keeps, what runs and where that is known from,
the want and the have, the move's judgement and whether it waits for a yes, and with diff the resources that
differ, a received file naming its consumers. revisionNamed now reads the same revisions.
waitsForYes returned at once for a composition equal to what runs, and settleOne then found nothing to apply, so
the have kept phase waiting-yes for a move that no longer existed (ace.postgres, novox.postgres, novox.keycloak and
novox.mongodb on 2026-10-31). The have is now rewritten to running.
Quick fix: rewrite the have where the equal composition is met. Thorough fix (not here): one place that writes a
module's have from the settled state after every settle, so no early return can leave a stale phase.
The review of d5e8458 found that mesh-wireguard, provided by the mesh and never wanted at a fingerprint, kept the kept
declaration read on every node for ever, against ADR 0550 §2 once the lease is written. A selfcompose row shows the
node's own composes it from delivery.ProvidedManifest with nothing running, so the kept read holds nothing of it.
Quick fix: name mesh-wireguard in allHave. Thorough fix: allHave counts every module delivery.ProvidedByMesh says the
mesh provides as covered. Chose thorough: one list of provided modules, mesh-sdk's.
mesh/check checking 33131dcbfe77 on 2ae7c53376e8 | novox/mesh-host#181 in group fix/build-not-done-holds-one-module
At 19:30 on 2026-10-30 node-tools' want moved to a build not yet done; once it landed, ace, g14 and shanks stayed
refused until some other input moved (g14 and shanks at 19:40, ace after a restart), since the composer watched no
build.
Quick fix: compose again on a timer while anything is held. Thorough fix: the composer watches the builder's builds
(within the node's compose reads, NodeComposeReads) and makes a pass when a done build of a module the node wants, at
its want's or the trunk's build, lands; nothing else moves it. With mesh-sdk 9685990a (pinned here) a running module
whose build is not done is held, keeping what runs, so the pass that waited composes it as soon as it lands. Chose
thorough: event-driven, no poll.
mesh/check checking 4055e0094b48 on ee71ba4dea81 | novox/mesh-host#180 in group fix/one-bad-item-holds-one-module
At 19:13 on 2026-10-30 power's bar item (mesh-catalog ca8d6f33) made frombus.Compose refuse the whole node, and the
composer marked every module not composed (32 of 81 failed on shanks). The composer already holds what Compose names
held (NotComposedEach, issue 1126); the SDK now names a refused manifest's module held instead of refusing the node.
Quick fix: none in mesh-host; thorough fix is the SDK's input (one rule for Compose, Answer and PlansHeld). The test
replays the captured power manifest and fails on the old pin with the live words.
mesh/check checking b9c24a7b42cb on 737bce9c9448 | novox/mesh-host#179 in group fix/sweep-2026-10-30
mesh-vault (mesh-catalog f3b13de2) answers a move it refuses with `refused: {reason, held}` and `why`, and
no read-back. The engine read only the read-back, so every such row failed "answered with no read-back"
and the controller asked it again on every pass.
Quick fix: treat any answer without a read-back as done. Thorough fix (chosen): read `refused`. For
holds-another-value the vault's value is the live one: the move answers done, superseded, at the held
generation with the held record in its words, so the controller records the row and stops asking; the
journal says it once per secret. Any other reason fails in the vault's own words.
Every engine's node-seat subscriptions were refused at 12:10 by a user list composed without them. nats
asks a refused subscription again only on a new connection, and a user-list reload makes none, so the
seat answered nobody all afternoon and the messenger held every Telegram ask. The endpoints also lacked
the kind and scope discovery reads, so the console said nothing in the mesh is called node-engine.
Quick fix: restart the engines. Thorough fix (chosen, the second time a stale user list left an engine
deaf): a refused subscription of any kind is said and the link is opened again after a pause (1 min,
doubling to 30 min), so every subscription the engine makes is asked again; the seat's endpoints carry
kind, seat, scope, module, description and schema like every tool runner's.
Every account resource marked root never goes into NodeHealth.Root; the statement's contract into Contract. Relogin,
root and found are judged each on its own, so an account may be both. Pins mesh-sdk f3677eb. Test: the report's row in
TestAHealthStatementIsSaidOnTheLinkOpenNow carries the agent account's verdict and the contract.
delivery.NetworkPart.Targets (mesh-sdk 6eae076) is filled where the report is made, by the controller's own rule:
- the hub's node for "hub";
- each resolver's node by its address on the private network;
- none when the part points at nothing, at this machine, or at an address no other mesh machine has.
The names come from the placements the node's own composer holds (Decided.Address, Decided.Hub). A spoke's tunnel names
only the hub, so the tunnel cannot name a resolver on another spoke. A node that does not compose its own names no
target.
Test: rows in TestAHealthStatementIsSaidOnTheLinkOpenNow (hub, two resolvers, a VPN's resolver, its own, a healthy
part).
delivery.NodeHealth and its parts replace this package's copies. The message's network and units parts are aliases of
the same types, so its JSON is unchanged. The engine keeps the derivation from its statement and the write on a change.
Test: the key's bytes, decoded and encoded again by the sdk, are the same bytes.
Until now the six machine alerts came from a health message passing to the controller. The report is now kept in the
engine's declared state `health`, key `<node>`, created by the grants part as `acts` is. Only this node's engine
writes it, after comparing it on every look and only when what it says changed; it is read first after a restart.
It carries:
- the network parts (machine-network; network-rewritten through the resolver file part's writer and owner);
- the tunnel's peers, each seen within five minutes or not (network-unreachable);
- the failed units no module owns (machine-units);
- the accounts marked relogin needed (relogin-needed);
- the directories used as found (directory-used-as-found).
The streaks and the time of the look are left out, so a look alone writes nothing. A peer is reported seen or not,
never its handshake time, so a renewed handshake writes nothing.
The layout is internal/link's (NodeHealth) until it moves into mesh-sdk. Pins mesh-sdk 58a8324.
Tests:
- rows in TestOnTheHubAnyFreshPeerIsAHealthyTunnel: the peers, and a change only when one is seen or lost;
- a case in TestAHealthStatementIsSaidOnTheLinkOpenNow: what the report takes, and one write per change across a
restart;
- the manifest's states in TestTheManifestConsumesTheBackupEvent.
The provisioner's client fills a handed module's file but for each `${secret:<provision>}` (or a whole `secrets` file
that is the placeholder alone).
- The node-engine reads the provision's key `<node>.<consumer>.<provision>[.<local>]` in mesh-provisioner's
`provisions`. The key must be `provided` and carry the vault's reference.
- It asks the vault's `own` for that pair credential sealed to this machine, at least at the reference's generation,
and opens it with the node's sealing key.
- It writes the file as declared (its owner), 0600 when the declaration gives no mode.
- Anything short of that refuses the write, naming the provision and why.
A module the node composes itself already has its `secrets` files written so: its composition carries the vault's
value from `own`, written 0600 with the declared owner.
Pins mesh-sdk 4a96793 (go/provisions). Tests: rows in TestAWriteAndAnApplyOfTheSameFileSerialise.
The reviewer showed how 76e214a still lets the 07:54 outage happen at the re-landed engine's first start on novox.
applied/ is empty there, so loadApplied loads nothing. The kept declaration retires, because every placed module has a
have. Nothing then carries the node's own composition. The guard misses nats, which has no want there, so its
nats.conf is guessed as nats's and removed.
- At the start, when the store has no node's own composition, the node's own runs as the kept declaration has it, and
the store keeps it now. The kept declaration retires only once the store holds `node`.
- What this engine applied runs until loadHad reads the composition a differing have names. The bucket no longer keeps
the one novox's have names, so the stored one stays.
- In the node's own apply, a resource of another module goes only when that module's want says removed
(Scope.RemovedByWant). A module the node's own composition carried has no want, so Placed never named it.
Cost: the node's own apply cannot drop one of its own dotted resources without such a want. It is refused whole and
said, never removed silently.
Tests, with no new test functions:
- A first-start case in the agent's Everything test (empty store, then a start with the declaration retired). It fails
on 76e214a.
- Two rows in the guard's table: no want refuses; a want saying removed removes.
- A case for the store in the authority test.
On novox on 2026-10-29 at 07:54 UTC the kept declaration was retired and the node's own composition was in no bucket.
The composer's first pass reads what runs before the agent reads any have (the agent waits for the composer's caught,
sent after that pass), so the node's own was composed with its folded modules running nothing, and the bus server and
four held modules were removed.
- Quick fix: read the node's own have in loadHad too. It still waits for the composer's first pass, and still finds
nothing when the bucket no longer keeps the composition the have names.
- Thorough fix, chosen: the engine keeps each composition it applied (the node's own too) in `applied/` beside its
state, 0600. The agent reads it at Run's start, before any watch, as what runs ahead of the bucket and the kept
declaration. A have naming another running composition wins. An apply keeps; a removal forgets.
Test: a case in TestEverythingIsWhatTheAgentRunsAndWhatIsKeptForTheRest (no new test function). It fails on L3's
engine 4f9227a (0 compositions at the first own composition) and passes here.
On novox at 01:16 on 2026-10-29, after the node began composing its own modules, mesh-vault's apply failed while the
vault ran: its own composition carries the export as it runs (mesh-sdk frombus KeptRuns) by a digest whose object the
controller's sweep (mesh-controller cmd/mesh-controller/declaration_sweep.go, sweepNode and sweepDeclarationFiles)
had removed, since the sweep keeps only what the controller's compositions in composed-<node> and the wants name.
The node may only read its bucket (ADR 0486 §2), so the node keeps what it had: a file here that verifies, or an
object fetched, goes to <state dir>/objects under the object's name, and a kept one is used before the bus is asked.
An object unused for 14 days is let go. A fetch that still fails says the keep never held it, before its cause.
Quick fix weighed: re-put the object from the controller's store. Thorough (chosen): the node never depends on the
bucket for content it once had, for every module, since the sweep and a node composing its own can always disagree.
The whole-apply test gains three rows that fail on the old code; the test count stays.
The kept-declaration fallback built a composition without Data, so after a restart a data module (mongodb, mssql
on novox) was judged to move its data against its first composition and the operator was asked a false yes. Now
every such composition takes Data from the manifest (agent.Env.HoldsData, the composer's DataItems), and a module
whose manifest cannot be read is said to be unjudgeable rather than taken to hold none. The composition a have
names comes before the kept declaration in the judgement too.
loadHad takes a have only in the phases baseline takes as running (running, held, a composer's mark): one backing
up, applying, checking, failed or waiting names a composition not applied (review of 031e106). Two rows added to
the same table test; the count stays.
A held module on a node composing its own never gets a composition, so the agent never took it and the filling
judged its files by the kept declaration, older than power's three new drop-ins: refused from every engine start
on ace, g14 and shanks until some module settled (2026-10-29 00:09 UTC). The second meeting of issue 924.
Quick fix: knock the filling once the haves are read at the start. Thorough fix (chosen, the kind recurs for every
file added since the switch): what runs of such a module is the composition its have names, from the bucket or
its revisions, ahead of the kept declaration; the filling is knocked on every change of what runs, not only on a
settle. One unit test replaced by a table of four cases; the count stays.
mesh-sdk's composer no longer holds a module behind a held one it reads from; the selfcompose test now expects
proxy handed, composed without de-spiegel's routes, and de-spiegel told alone. Needs mesh-sdk pinned at the fix.
mesh/check failed: ace: the check of novox/mesh-host#168 failed: the pin of git.novox.be/novox/mesh-sdk/go at commit d4c61ee8ffd0 is on no pull reques…
The answer names its proposal and the revision of the node's own candidate key; a node with no key in a proposal is not asked. The watch for its own placement key is tried again until the seat's state exists, so the node switches when its key is written.
jschoubben
mesh-tools