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.
- A placeholder is `${secret:<name>}`, the name the module calls the credential (catalogue.SecretLocal): the local
name where it keeps several values of one provision, else the provision. The `<provision>.<local>` form goes.
- The engine finds the one key under `<node>.<module>.` of mesh-provisioner's `provisions` going by that name. That is
what node.<node> may read, by a watch to its caught-up mark; plans are not read.
- The reference's ID must be a credential name of that provision (provisions.VaultName). The vault's answer must carry
exactly that name and generation. Anything else refuses the write, naming both.
Pins mesh-sdk 66ff33d. Tests: rows in TestAWriteAndAnApplyOfTheSameFileSerialise (a local name, a name no provision
goes by, a reference to no credential of the provision, a mismatched answer).
The value written is the one the provision names: a1-47 makes Reference.ID the vault's credential name. A mismatch in
either refuses the write, naming both. Test: a row in TestAWriteAndAnApplyOfTheSameFileSerialise.
The provisioner's client fills a handed module's file but for each `${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.
novox's mesh-vault has failed since 01:16 on 2026-10-29: its have says failed, so loadHad (fbea777) takes no
composition from it, and what runs falls back to the kept declaration, whose export (mesh-vault.kept) names
f099eaa1, an object the controller's sweep removed. The node wrote a newer export since. The composer carries that
file as it runs (mesh-sdk frombus keptOf), so what runs now names the digest and size of what is on disk, but only
where the node's record says it wrote exactly that content at that path (Applied.Wrote, Target). The apply then
finds the file in place and needs no object.
Quick fix weighed: have the controller put the object back. Thorough (chosen, in the node): what runs is what the node
wrote, never a guess from an older declaration. The rows join the existing whole-apply test; the test count stays.
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.
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.
mesh/check being carried to bf667a602d21 on 58b4f8b6bc07 | from 9a8b3870bad0
A reboot left the have running, so a unit that failed to start at boot was never started again and nothing said so. Baseline now asks the machine; the judge's look calls Agent.Reconcile once per down edge, leaving held and unwanted modules alone.
mesh/check pass 24c23a1d066f on a548a61e86d7 | unit 2667 run, 590 kept, 36 skipped | integration 2676 run, 633 kept, 29 skipped | over bound: unit (sl…
frombus.Compose now holds a module refused alone (mesh-sdk 0de3006, the rule
its answer follows too): composed as what runs of it, with what depends on
how it is held held too. The composer hands every other module, keeps what it
handed of a held one, and tells the agent which modules it holds and why;
agent.NotComposedEach marks those alone and clears the rest. Only a refusal
of no single module still marks every module (NotComposed).
heldOut also holds out, of the node's own composition as it runs, the
resources of each module held alone, until a composition of its own is
handed: the node's own apply never removes a module leaving the fold with its
names unset (review of the apply, round 1; issue 1945 by a new path).
Pins mesh-sdk fix/1126-apply-culprit at 0de3006 (a group).
Met twice on 2026-10-28: shanks kept 'want.shanks.brother could not be read ... no
responders' as the own-secret step's last word, and ace kept 'the vault's own: not yet
... no responders' as its answer to seed-7, each until another input moved. Every bus
read of the composer (manifests, builds, archives, served values, the vault's own and
credentials, the have of what runs) is noted (BusFailed); an answer or a pass that met
one is made again after a growing bound (5 s to 5 min), and a pass is not handed when
the have of its sealed values did not answer. The own-secret step tells a read or an
ask that did not answer (Retry, taken again) from a key absent or the vault's word.
On shanks probe/1126-seed-7 was answered at revision 84 every 13-17 s: each look rewrote
the haves of its unhealthy modules with new words, and the shadow took any write of its
own module haves, placement, modules or config values as a change. Each answer loaded
the bus, the health tools timed out, the words moved again. Now only what an answer is
composed from wakes it (what runs, folded modules, a changed value), and each group is
answered again only when its keys' revisions or the node's inputs moved.
A new step, internal/ownresync, after each shadow answer: for each own secret masked as another value, while the node
applies the controller's compositions and runs the one its want names, it asks the vault's move-in with
replace_running: true and the running value sealed to the call's key, once per value, and says what it asked and what
the vault answered. The answer written to the node's have key carries values_differ. Pins the group's mesh-sdk head
1062b33 (go.sum is filled once that head is pushed).
A box is reused by slot (resource, field) after the composition, from what runs or the
have's slots; a have written before slots is reused within its module alone. Config
values are laid by mesh-sdk's one rule (never a default). The shadow answers the
newest candidate first and hands each answer as it lands, says when an answer starts,
every minute what it waits on, and when it ends, and fits an answer to the node's key.
Needs mesh-sdk fix/1126-seed-same (16b8d8a1).
Live 2026-10-28: the own run's last pass, failing on its run's end, marked
every module of the controller-mode agent that replaced it (ace 60, shanks 63),
and the marks dropped the build and digest because the have read failed in the
bus's reload pause. Now: the refusal hook is bound to the run's agent and ctx;
a pass whose context ended returns nothing; JetStream not enabled or no
responders are tried again after 1, 2 and 4 s before any mark; NotComposed reads
the have again while the bus does not answer and marks nothing it cannot read;
baseline takes a have a composer marked as what runs, so a mark it did not make
clears; each run's shadow lives with the run.
mesh/check checking 463626143567 on bb15aab50eda | novox/mesh-host#154 in group fix/1126-shadow-all
selfComposer took a KVHistory error for 'not placed': at any restart a timeout
or a bus not ready flipped a self-composing node to the controller's
compositions for a whole run. selfcompose.Placed chooses only on a read that
succeeds (a missing placement state is one), and tries again otherwise, said
once. The shadow's answer to a head deleting the placement reads the
controller's composition at each want in the node's bucket and compares it with
what runs; a want with none refuses, without returning.
The seed's revert (mesh-catalog #526) was refused on 'would stop running node',
while a self-composing node would have refused its placement's absence, kept
what runs and marked every have failed until a restart. endWhenUnplaced ends the
agent's run when the key goes, so it begins again on the controller's
compositions, as at a start without a key; the composer refuses nothing while
unplaced; the node's have says whose compositions it applies (Composes); the
shadow answers a deleted placement Returns, verdict same.
H8 found it: a module the node could not compose yet got a failed have naming
no fingerprint, which counted as run inside the node's own composition, so the
next composition took it from its manifest past its build.
The node read a behind module's source manifest digest and composed every module
from the indexer's raw manifest; frombus now takes the build itself (Scope.KeptAt,
a fingerprint). The reader gives frombus the builder's key, a templates archive
fetched as every archive is (apply.Fetch) once per digest and checked against it,
and another node's served keys one by one, as the node's grant allows them.
The fold's watch of every have key ('>') was refused (permissions violation on
CONSUMER.CREATE KV_node-engine_have), and every self-composing agent stopped
after the seed. The composer now watches '*.node' (records) and '<node>.>' (its
own haves), as buscompose grants a node; the shadow watches '<node>.>' too. The
selfcompose tests check every watch and get against PermissionsFor(KindNode),
and the agent's integration tests run the agent as the node under that grant.
mesh/check failed: unit: ..test: ✔ a transient empty list for four passes retires nothing; five stable passes retire, data kept (290.408814ms) | 58de6…
mesh/check failed: ace: novox/mesh-catalog#505: checks/placement/go.mod names mesh-sdk 91413de33516, which is neither on mesh-sdk's trunk nor the grou…
mesh/check failed: shanks: novox/mesh-catalog#505: checks/placement/go.mod names mesh-sdk 91413de33516, which is neither on mesh-sdk's trunk nor the g…
mesh/check failed: shanks: novox/mesh-catalog#505: checks/placement/go.mod names mesh-sdk f1d7c7377dc4, which is neither on mesh-sdk's trunk nor the g…
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