The bus module on the bus node runs from what its agent holds (its own composition, or the declaration kept before the
switch: every novox have read 2026-11-02 names its own composition or none, and nats names a build alone), while
composed-<node> was written by the controller, which ended (issue 1126). The follower now looks at the agent's record
of what runs whenever it changed, writes again only when the file it names moved, and trusts no composition signer.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NcbgfJ9Gum47zkFKWRaovL
Every node composes its own since group A (issue 1126), so the resync that handed the vault an own secret's value
while a node applied the controller's compositions never runs, the shadow's answers read no want, and nothing follows
the heard vault key any more.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NcbgfJ9Gum47zkFKWRaovL
nox now calls the seats' verbs through the console itself (mesh-catalog #593), and the controller the engine forwarded
its lines to ended (issue 1126), so the socket, its forward and the subject it asked on go. The kernel's word on a
peer moves into the filled-file socket, its one remaining reader.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NcbgfJ9Gum47zkFKWRaovL
The CONTROL stream the facts, the enrolment and the overlay rekey were published into was the controller's, which ended
by its unassignment (issue 1126) and whose stream is removed after group B's delivery: a publish there would fail every
facts event before its haves are written. The facts go into the haves as they did after the report, the enrolment goes
through mesh-enrolment alone, and overlay take is refused because no seat takes a rekey now.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NcbgfJ9Gum47zkFKWRaovL
The controller that signed the hand-over, search, judgement, access and move asks ended (issue 1126), so a link
believes none of them by having no signer, and the per-ask key it was told to follow goes with the lease.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NcbgfJ9Gum47zkFKWRaovL
The controller's declared-packages mirror ended with the controller (issue 1126) and is deleted after group B's
delivery, so the verb no longer reads or compares it.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NcbgfJ9Gum47zkFKWRaovL
The controller ended by its unassignment (issue 1126, ADR 0590), so no build is judged by the lease: the lease
witness, its contract and the direct get the witness asked it with are removed, and its tests now prove each rollback
path on the node tools' PING.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NcbgfJ9Gum47zkFKWRaovL
mesh/check being carried to 38d666f22390 on 84737f4cb26d | from 14a12cc7b6f9
The controller ended by its unassignment, so a node that falls back to the
compositions in its bucket follows what nobody writes (issue 1126, A7). The
node agent now always runs its own composer: without a placement key it
composes nothing and keeps what runs, a placement it cannot watch stops the
agent and is said, and a candidate taking its placement away is refused
instead of answered as a return to the controller. The start-time placement
read, the end-when-placed watchers and the returning answer go, with their
tests and the three integration tests of the controller-composed path.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NcbgfJ9Gum47zkFKWRaovL
The controller ended by its unassignment and its lease is never handed, so
the engine's lease gate kept trusting the controller's key and the bus node
kept the controller's list as a fallback nobody writes (issue 1126, A6).
The engine now trusts no controller signature, its hand-over line names the
node seat's hand-over, and the user-list follower writes only the grants
part's list: a key unreadable or deleted keeps the list loaded, and with no
key heard nothing is written. Compositions in the node's bucket name the
file's place alone. The guard no longer asks for the controller's user.
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NcbgfJ9Gum47zkFKWRaovL
A fall back to the old login during a rotation is now delivery.NodeHealth's Fallback (the node, the login fallen back from,
why, when), written with the node's health report, from which the watchman raises node-account-fallback; it is said no more
once the vault's key of the node moves on (blocker 7, ADR 0583 §6). mesh-host enrol's fall back to the controller's
enrolment subject says it is the path before the lease write, which the bus refuses once the lease is written. Tests: rows
in the existing rotation test; none added.
(issue 774)
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NcbgfJ9Gum47zkFKWRaovL
The engine dials as enrol.<node> on the pinned certificate, calls redeem with the public halves of its keys and a proof over
them (the SDK's RedeemProof, which binds the node and the keys and never the token's secret), asks again while the holder
says to, and verifies the vault's answer against the key its token carries before it keeps anything: an answer signed by
another key, naming another signer or node, or altered is refused and nothing is kept. A signed one is kept (membership,
login, keys), then the node dials as the login it was given, reads its key of node-logins, and calls confirm; nothing is
applied until its placement names a module. When the bus does not serve the seat to the token (the controller still holds its
lease) the controller's enrolment subject is used as before. The token's shape is mesh-sdk's now: identity keeps its names as
aliases. Tests: one added, paid by merging three identity token tests into one (net two fewer).
(issue 774, 774/S64)
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NcbgfJ9Gum47zkFKWRaovL
On node-logins' ready the engine fetches the new value through the vault's own hand-out (own/<node>/mesh-host/<login>, opened
with its sealing key), dials a second connection as the new login on the pinned certificate, and switches only if that
authenticates, then calls mesh-vault.node-account-confirm over the link as the new login (the vault is asked in the name of
the login the open link authenticated as, and only once that link is open). It keeps the old value until the key says the
rotation is done and drops it then, never before; an abandon, after the switch before or after the confirmation, switches
back before the new value is dropped; repeated refusals of the new login's credentials before rotation-done bring it back
to the old one, said as the finding node-account-fallback (in the journal: no route for an engine's finding to the watchman
is decided), and the same rotation is not tried again. Tests: two added, paid by merging two identity sealing tests into one;
more to be paid by deleting the identity token tests that move to mesh-sdk with the token (774/S64).
(issue 774, 774/S62, 774/S63)
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NcbgfJ9Gum47zkFKWRaovL
A membership may name its Logins (ADR 0583 §1): the login in use and the password of each login held, kept beside the
identity, so a restart dials as the login in use. The engine follows its own key of node-logins as a watch on every link
and dials as the login it names when it holds its value, with the node's one inbox; with no key, or a key naming the first
login, it dials node.<n> with the membership's password as before. A change of the login in use drops the link so it is
opened again as the new one, and the vault is asked in the name of the login dialled (the subject names the caller).
Tests: one added, paid by merging the pinned-broker test with the malformed-pin test (two into one).
(issue 774, 774/S61)
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NcbgfJ9Gum47zkFKWRaovL
pacman still reads the controller's mirror because no engine wrote its key: the engine
now keeps each handed composition's package resources and, after a pass that handed
something new, writes mesh-host_packages.<node> only when the value differs, owed after
the growing bound when refused. The manifest declares the state so the grants part
creates it. The verb packages answers the key beside the mirror's key for the node and
their difference, and with write writes the key again from what was composed. H8's
integration test proves the write under the grant the grants part composes.
Needs mesh-sdk feat/node-packages (0ef7c0c) for DeclaredPackagesOf and the engine's read of the
mirror (go.mod pin left for the lead: the SDK commit is not pushed).
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
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 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.
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.
At 19:43:01 on 2026-10-30 shanks' new engine said "the kept declaration is no longer read: each of the 77 modules
placed here has a have of its own", and from 19:43:57 every apply of the node's own was refused: it would remove
systemd-resolved's resources (novox the same for nats and restic). systemd-resolved's have names only a controller
build (build-1791404191702719760), no fingerprint, so the assigner wants it nowhere and it runs folded in the node's
own, of which the kept declaration is the one record; retired, the folded module was composed as nothing.
Quick fix: never retire the kept declaration. Thorough fix: allHave counts only a have naming a fingerprint of the new
form (or removed); a module at a build of the old form keeps the read, named with why, until it has one. Chose
thorough: the read retires by itself once every placed module is wanted.
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.
restic's composition dropped its process restic.measure on g14 and shanks at 16:14; the engine removed it
and said it down on every look after. The judges were set only when facts were said, and the facts said
inside an apply read the module's composition from before it (the agent records the new one only after
the apply returns), so the removed resource was put back. Judge.Set itself prunes what is not declared.
Quick fix: set the judges after the restic apply. Thorough fix (chosen): one function hands every judge
(liveness, resolver, units, accounts, libraries) what is declared; it runs from the facts as before and
now also whenever a module settles (applied or removed) or is taken as running, so every removed health
entry of every module is pruned at recompose.
On 2026-10-30 ace's redis, postgres and restic (14:03), step-ca (13:55) and mesh-vault on novox (15:22)
were held on a single backup ask that met no responder while the tool runner restarted.
Quick fix: ask node-backup.now twice. Thorough fix (chosen): every node-backup ask (backed-up and now)
is asked again with the engine's backoff while it is known never to have been delivered (ErrNotAsked),
bounded at three minutes; an ask that may have been delivered (a timeout, a refusal) is never asked
twice, so no backup starts twice. Past the bound the backup fails saying how often and how long it was
asked, the module is held and its have carries those words for the assigner's ask and condition. This
was the engine's only one-shot seat ask.
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).
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.
jschoubben