A one-node mesh, and twelve things that have to be true of it

The common case, and the one that was never tested as a whole. What existed
asked whether four machines converged; it never asked whether ONE machine ends
up holding a mesh.

The order was wrong too. Three machines were enrolled second, into a mesh that
could not yet produce a single module, and that was reported as though something
had been shown. 17-raising-a-mesh is explicit: genesis ends with a mesh that
RUNS, and what remains after the core modules are built is "adding machines".
So the core comes first and machines arrive last — here, not at all, because a
second node is only meaningful once the first is complete.

Three things were missing entirely and nothing complained, because nothing asked:
the mesh never built its own catalogue, never had a store of its own for that
catalogue to use, and never rebuilt its own control plane through the module
path.

And four checks that were absent rather than failing:

  - it can describe itself — status, module list, plan --json, and the
    catalogue's five tools ASKED rather than observed. A container being up was
    being read as the catalogue working, which is the same error as matching a
    container by substring and finding the wrong one.
  - its networking is what the modules asked for — default closed, ssh open,
    declared ports open, .internal names written, module networks present. Left
    out altogether, which is hard to defend given the firewall work this week.
  - a change to a module's source reaches the machine on its own. The capability
    the migration depends on.
  - it comes back after a reboot. Never once tested; the lab had no way to
    restart a machine, because nothing had ever needed one.

Machines are named by role now — anchor, home-server, workstation, laptop — not
after the operator's own nodes, which made test output and real state hard to
tell apart.

Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01D6qtiYU3P9jk3pnAXyAFyx

scenarios/fresh-mesh.yml

@@ -25,9 +25,9 @@
 # the gap is a named failure rather than an absence.
 #
 #   hosting (public, routable)         home (private, behind the access point)
-#     novox  192.0.2.20  ── anchor       ace     10.99.1.10  home server
+#     anchor  192.0.2.20  ── anchor       home-server     10.99.1.10  home server
-#              substrate, registry,      shanks  10.99.1.20  workstation
+#              substrate, registry,      workstation  10.99.1.20  workstation
-#              builder, control plane    g14     10.99.1.30  workstation
+#              builder, control plane    laptop     10.99.1.30  workstation
 #
 # EGRESS IS NOT OPTIONAL HERE. With nothing loaded, a sealed machine stops at the installer's first
 # pull. Every machine has a way out, and it is a SECOND path: each still reaches the rest of the
@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@
 scenario: fresh-mesh
 
 segments:
-  # The routable segment. novox lives here; its public address is the broker endpoint every token
+  # The routable segment. anchor lives here; its public address is the broker endpoint every token
   # carries and the overlay hub the home nodes dial.
   hosting:
     kind: public
@@ -63,10 +63,10 @@ machines:
   # The anchor. Raised by the installer into a mesh of one, and then asked to build.
   #
   # Sized for what it actually does here: the store, the broker, the registry, TWO control planes
-  # during the pivot, the builder, and a build workspace holding a Node toolchain image and an npm
+  # during the pivot, the builder, and a build worksphome-server holding a Node toolchain image and an npm
-  # cache. It is NOT sized for the whole novox service set, because this bed does not run one — it
+  # cache. It is NOT sized for the whole anchor service set, because this bed does not run one — it
   # proves the machinery that would produce it.
-  novox:
+  anchor:
     at: { segment: hosting, address: [192.0.2.20] }
     egress: true
     inbound: allow
@@ -77,21 +77,21 @@ machines:
   # Three machines that JOIN. Host binary and a token, nothing else — no bootstrap, no substrate,
   # no registry. They are deliberately small: what they are here to prove is that a joined machine
   # can be given a module the mesh built, which is a question about credentials and not about load.
-  ace:
+  home-server:
     at: { segment: home, address: [10.99.1.10] }
     egress: true
     inbound: allow
     memory: 4GiB
     cpus: 2
     disk: 25GiB
-  shanks:
+  workstation:
     at: { segment: home, address: [10.99.1.20] }
     egress: true
     inbound: allow
     memory: 3GiB
     cpus: 2
     disk: 20GiB
-  g14:
+  laptop:
     at: { segment: home, address: [10.99.1.30] }
     egress: true
     inbound: allow
@@ -102,5 +102,5 @@ machines:
 # **No `images:` key, and that is the whole point of this file.** Anything a machine holds here, it
 # pulled or the mesh built. See the header.
 
-place:
+plhome-server:
   all: [host, runtime]

scenarios/one-node-mesh.yml

@@ -0,0 +1,56 @@
+# ONE MACHINE, AND EVERYTHING A MESH HAS TO BE. Nothing is handed to it.
+#
+# The common case, and the one worth getting right first: a person with a single machine runs the
+# installer and ends up with a mesh that works. Not a mesh that *runs* — `17-raising-a-mesh` is
+# careful about that difference, and so is this scenario. Genesis ends with a substrate, a registry,
+# a built control plane and a builder, and a mesh in that state cannot produce anything and holds no
+# record of what it has. Calling that "up" is how the catalogue came to be missing from a test for
+# weeks without anything complaining.
+#
+# So the test driving this asks the harder question: can this machine, given nothing but a container
+# runtime and the host binary, end up holding
+#
+#   - a substrate and a registry it pulled from the internet,
+#   - a control plane it BUILT, and then rebuilt from its own repository through the module path,
+#   - a builder that takes work over the broker,
+#   - the shared base every module with code of its own stands on,
+#   - a store of its own — the substrate's is the control plane's own plumbing, not a provider,
+#   - a catalogue, so it can say what it has and what a change reaches,
+#   - and a module of its own, built, provisioned and running.
+#
+# **There is no `images:` key, and that is the whole point of this file.** The four-machine scenario
+# next door loads thirty-four of the mesh's own images from the workstation because it does not
+# build them — a shape no real installation has. Here nothing is loaded. What the machine holds it
+# either pulled from the internet or made.
+#
+# EGRESS IS NOT OPTIONAL. With nothing loaded, a sealed machine stops at the installer's first pull.
+#
+#   MESH_LAB_HOST_BINARY=.../mesh-host   MESH_LAB_BOOTSTRAP_BINARY=.../mesh-bootstrap
+#   MESH_LAB_BUNDLE=.../examples/substrate-first-node.lock
+#   MESH_LAB_CATALOG=.../mesh-catalog/modules
+#   MESH_LAB_SOURCE=<forge url>   MESH_LAB_SOURCE_REF=<commit>
+scenario: one-node-mesh
+
+segments:
+  hosting:
+    kind: public
+    cidr: [192.0.2.0/24]
+
+machines:
+  # The address matters: the substrate template names the broker at a fixed address, and a token
+  # carries that verbatim as the endpoint an enrolling node dials. With one machine, that machine
+  # must BE it, or the mesh hands out an endpoint nothing answers on.
+  #
+  # Sized for what it actually does: the store, the broker, the registry, two control planes during
+  # the pivot, the builder, a Node toolchain and an npm cache in the build workspace, and then every
+  # core module it builds and runs on top of that.
+  anchor:
+    at: { segment: hosting, address: [192.0.2.10] }
+    egress: true
+    inbound: allow
+    memory: 12GiB
+    cpus: 6
+    disk: 60GiB
+
+place:
+  all: [host, runtime]

test/integration/fresh-mesh.test.ts

@@ -48,10 +48,10 @@ import { labIsUsable, destroyAll, substrateBundle } from "./harness.ts";
 import { genesis, type GenesisResult } from "./genesis.ts";
 
 const SCENARIO = "fresh-mesh";
-const CONTROL = "novox";
+const CONTROL = "anchor";
-const HOME_NODES = ["ace", "shanks", "g14"];
+const HOME_NODES = ["home-server", "workstation", "laptop"];
 /** The joined machine asked to run a mesh-built module. Any of the three would do. */
-const SECOND = "ace";
+const SECOND = "home-server";
 
 /** The anchor's public address — what every other machine dials, and what its own token must name. */
 const ANCHOR = "192.0.2.20";
@@ -74,9 +74,30 @@ const BASE = { module: "mesh-tools", repo: "mesh-tools", path: "" };
  * record of, so it provides nothing to anything. A module asking for `amqp` is asking for a
  * provider in the graph, and this is it. No build: its image is upstream.
  */
-const PROVIDER = { module: "lavinmq", repo: "mesh-catalog", path: "modules/lavinmq" };
+const PROVIDER = { module: "lavinmq", repo: "mesh-catalog", path: "modules/lavinmq", container: "mesh-lavinmq" };
+/**
+ * The store, and the catalogue that cannot exist without it.
+ *
+ * Both were missing from this test entirely, and nothing complained, because nothing asked. A mesh
+ * with no catalogue holds no module graph — it cannot say what it has, what a module is made of,
+ * what a change reaches, or what must be rebuilt. It ran anyway, which is the point: "the mesh is
+ * up" was being read off genesis finishing.
+ */
+const STORE = { module: "postgres", repo: "mesh-catalog", path: "modules/postgres", container: "mesh-postgres" };
+const CATALOGUE = { module: "mesh-catalog", repo: "mesh-catalog", path: "modules/mesh-catalog", container: "mesh-catalog" };
+/** The control plane, rebuilt from its own repository — the step that ends the installer's tenure. */
+const CONTROL_PLANE = { module: "mesh-control", repo: "mesh-control", path: "", container: "mesh-control" };
 /** Named once, because the step title is also how later steps say what they waited on. */
 const NEEDS = "the mesh runs a broker for that module to talk to";
+const GENESIS = "a bare machine becomes a mesh of one, raised by the installer";
+const BASE_BUILT = "the mesh builds the shared base from source";
+const STORE_RUNS = "the mesh builds and runs a store of its own";
+const CATALOGUE_RUNS = "the mesh builds and runs its own catalogue";
+const CONTROL_REBUILT = "the mesh rebuilds its own control plane from source";
+const MODULE_BUILT = "the mesh builds a module standing on that base";
+const ANCHOR_RUNS = "the anchor runs the module the mesh built";
+const JOINED = "three machines join the mesh, and reach it over its private network";
+const SECOND_RUNS = "a joined machine runs the module the mesh built";
 const MODULE = { module: "amqp-ping", repo: "mesh-catalog", path: "modules/amqp-ping" };
 
 const capability = await labIsUsable();
@@ -162,6 +183,34 @@ async function mesh(command: string, timeoutMs?: number): Promise<string> {
   return must(CONTROL, `docker exec mesh-control /mesh-control ${command}`, timeoutMs);
 }
 
+/** A module the mesh has to make for itself: where its source is, and what it runs when it works. */
+interface CoreModule { module: string; repo: string; path: string; container: string }
+
+/**
+ * Build a module from source, install it, and wait for it to actually run.
+ *
+ * The whole sequence a module goes through, in one place because the mesh has to do it for several
+ * before it is a mesh at all: register the manifest, build it from its repository and path, issue
+ * the broker account its runtime needs, assign it, send it, and then ask the machine whether the
+ * container is up.
+ *
+ * **The account is not optional and is not swallowed.** A module's runtime is a tool host: it
+ * connects to the mesh's broker before doing anything. Without an account the mesh still fills the
+ * secret the module declares it owns — with a generated value — so the container starts, fails to
+ * parse a password as a credential document, and loops on a JSON syntax error mentioning no
+ * missing account. That cost a step that reported PASS.
+ */
+async function bringUp(m: CoreModule): Promise<string> {
+  await registerModule(m.module, resolve(catalogDir, m.module, "module.json"));
+  const built = await mesh(
+    `build ${forgeUrl(m.repo)} --path ${m.path} --ref ${refFor(m.repo)} --wait 1200s`, 1_500_000);
+  assert.doesNotMatch(built, /failed/i, built);
+  await mesh(`module issue ${m.module} --node ${CONTROL}`);
+  await mesh(`assign ${CONTROL} ${m.module}`);
+  await mesh(`push ${CONTROL}`, 600_000);
+  return `${built}\n${await waitForContainer(CONTROL, m.container)}`;
+}
+
 /**
  * Wait for one container, BY NAME, to be running.
  *
@@ -262,7 +311,7 @@ before(async () => {
   //
   // The shared description, the same one `genesis-single` calls. The bundle is the TEMPLATE with
   // nothing held: no image is pre-resolved, because none is here to resolve to.
-  await step("novox becomes a mesh of one, raised by the installer", null, async () => {
+  await step("a bare machine becomes a mesh of one, raised by the installer", null, async () => {
     try {
       raised = await genesis({
         instanceId,
@@ -289,41 +338,29 @@ before(async () => {
     return raised.report.join("\n");
   });
 
-  // ---- 2. JOINING -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+  // ---- 2..6. THE MESH BECOMES ONE --------------------------------------------------------------
   //
-  // Host binary and a token. novox is NOT in this loop — the installer enrolled it, and enrolling
+  // **Joining used to be here, second, and that was the wrong order.** Three machines were enrolled
-  // it again would offer the mesh a second identity for a node it already knows.
+  // into a mesh that could not yet produce a single module, and the step was reported as though
-  await step("three machines join it across the household gateway",
+  // something had been shown. They do join — reliably — but joining a mesh that can build nothing
-    "novox becomes a mesh of one, raised by the installer", async () => {
+  // proves only that enrolment works, which was never the doubtful part.
-    const said: string[] = [];
+  //
-    for (const machine of HOME_NODES) {
+  // `17-raising-a-mesh` says it plainly: genesis ends with a mesh of one that RUNS, and that is not
-      await mesh(`node add ${machine}`);
+  // the same as a mesh that WORKS; what remains after the core modules are built is "adding
-      const token = tokenFrom(await mesh(`token issue --node ${machine}`));
+  // machines, and deciding what they run". So everything a mesh needs to be a mesh happens first,
-      const out = await must(machine, `${HOST_PATH} enrol --token ${quote(token)}`, 180_000);
+  // and machines arrive at the end.
-      assert.match(out, new RegExp(`enrolled as ${machine}`), out);
-      await must(machine, `nohup ${HOST_PATH} run > /var/log/mesh-host.log 2>&1 & sleep 3`);
-      said.push(`  ${machine} enrolled and running`);
-    }
-    const nodes = await mesh("node list");
-    said.push(nodes.trim());
-    return said.join("\n");
-  });
 
-  // ---- 3. THE MESH BUILDS THE SHARED BASE -----------------------------------------------------
-  //
   // The toolchain and runtime every module with code of its own stands on. It is a module, and it
   // is built like one — cloned from the forge by the builder installing put here, compiled on the
   // machine, published into the mesh's own registry.
-  await step("the mesh builds the shared base from source",
+  await step(BASE_BUILT, GENESIS, async () => {
-    "three machines join it across the household gateway", async () => {
     // Registered from the manifest the builder will also read, so what the mesh holds and what it
     // builds are the same description of the same module.
     //
     // **Not swallowed.** This call used to end in `.catch(() => {})`, on the reasoning that the
     // base might already be known. It hid a real failure — the manifest was being named at a path
     // inside a container that had never seen it — and the step passed anyway, because a base with
-    // nothing to stand on builds whether or not the mesh has a record of it. The next step, which
+    // nothing to stand on builds whether or not the mesh has a record of it.
-    // needs that record, is where it surfaced.
     await registerModule(BASE.module, baseManifest);
     const built = await mesh(
       `build ${forgeUrl(BASE.repo)} --ref ${refFor(BASE.repo)} --wait 1200s`, 1_500_000);
@@ -331,9 +368,39 @@ before(async () => {
     return built;
   });
 
-  // ---- 4. AND A MODULE STANDING ON IT ---------------------------------------------------------
+  // A store of its own. **Not the substrate's.** The installer raises a store for the control
-  await step("the mesh builds a module standing on that base",
+  // plane to keep its own records in, the way it raises a broker — plumbing, not a module the mesh
-    "the mesh builds the shared base from source", async () => {
+  // has any record of, so it provides nothing to anything. A module that wants a database wants a
+  // provider in the graph, and the catalogue below is the first thing to want one.
+  await step(STORE_RUNS, BASE_BUILT, () => bringUp(STORE));
+
+  // And the catalogue, which was missing from this test altogether.
+  //
+  // Without it the mesh holds no module graph: it cannot say what it has, what a module is made
+  // of, what a change to one reaches, or what must be rebuilt. A mesh in that state still runs,
+  // which is exactly how its absence went unnoticed — "the mesh is up" was being read off the
+  // installer finishing rather than off the mesh being able to answer anything.
+  await step(CATALOGUE_RUNS, STORE_RUNS, () => bringUp(CATALOGUE));
+
+  // The control plane, rebuilt from its own repository and rolled out.
+  //
+  // The installer built it once, which is what got the mesh running. Building it again THROUGH THE
+  // MODULE PATH — build, notice the version moved, roll it out — is a different claim: it is the
+  // moment the mesh stops depending on the installer for anything, and the first time the thing
+  // that performs an upgrade performs one on itself.
+  await step(CONTROL_REBUILT, CATALOGUE_RUNS, async () => {
+    const built = await mesh(
+      `build ${forgeUrl(CONTROL_PLANE.repo)} --ref ${sourceRef} --wait 1200s`, 1_500_000);
+    assert.doesNotMatch(built, /failed/i, built);
+    const rolled = await mesh(`upgrade ${CONTROL_PLANE.module} roll-out`, 900_000);
+    // Asked of the machine rather than believed from the command: the control plane that answers
+    // afterwards is the one that has to be running for anything below this line to mean anything.
+    await waitForContainer(CONTROL, CONTROL_PLANE.container);
+    return `${built}\n${rolled}`;
+  });
+
+  // ---- 7..8. SOMETHING TO RUN ---------------------------------------------------------------
+  await step(MODULE_BUILT, CONTROL_REBUILT, async () => {
     await registerModule(MODULE.module, resolve(catalogDir, MODULE.module, "module.json"));
     const built = await mesh(
       `build ${forgeUrl(MODULE.repo)} --path ${MODULE.path} --ref ${refFor(MODULE.repo)} --wait 1200s`,
@@ -347,61 +414,64 @@ before(async () => {
     return `${built}\n${builds}`;
   });
 
-  // ---- 4b. WHAT THE MODULE NEEDS --------------------------------------------------------------
-  //
   // `amqp-ping` requires the `amqp` provision, and the mesh refused to place it: "nothing provides
   // amqp, wanted by amqp-ping". That refusal is correct and is the reason this step exists rather
-  // than the reason to pick an easier module. **The substrate's broker is not a provider.** It is
+  // than the reason to pick an easier module.
-  // raised by the installer as part of the bundle, so it is a running container and not a module
-  // with something to offer — the mesh's own plumbing, not an entry in its graph. A module that
-  // wants a broker wants one the mesh knows about.
   //
   // `lavinmq` is that module. It was first added here on the belief that it needed no building —
-  // its broker is an upstream image — and the mesh refused it: two of its three containers named a
+  // its broker is an upstream image — and the mesh refused it again: two of its three containers
-  // placeholder digest, "which is never a real image". That was right. The broker is upstream, but
+  // named a placeholder digest, "which is never a real image". Also right. The broker is upstream,
-  // the module is not only the broker: it carries a run-once bootstrap that writes the broker's
+  // but the module is not only the broker: it carries a run-once bootstrap that writes the broker's
   // configuration, a provisioner that grants each consumer its own vhost and user, tools and an
-  // event consumer. All of that is its own code and has to be built like anything else.
+  // event consumer, all of it its own code.
-  await step(NEEDS, "the mesh builds a module standing on that base", async () => {
+  await step(NEEDS, MODULE_BUILT, () => bringUp(PROVIDER));
-    await registerModule(PROVIDER.module, resolve(catalogDir, PROVIDER.module, "module.json"));
-    const built = await mesh(
-      `build ${forgeUrl(PROVIDER.repo)} --path ${PROVIDER.path} --ref ${refFor(PROVIDER.repo)} --wait 1200s`,
-      1_500_000);
-    assert.doesNotMatch(built, /failed/i, built);
-    await mesh(`assign ${CONTROL} ${PROVIDER.module}`);
-    // **Its account on the mesh's own broker, and not swallowed.** A module's runtime is a tool
-    // host: it connects to the mesh broker before it does anything, and what it reads is a sealed
-    // credential document. Without an account the mesh still fills the secret this module declares
-    // it owns — with a generated value — so the container starts, fails to parse a password as a
-    // credential, and crash-loops on a JSON syntax error that says nothing about the missing
-    // account. Issuing it is not optional and neither is hearing that it failed.
-    await mesh(`module issue ${PROVIDER.module} --node ${CONTROL}`);
-    await mesh(`push ${CONTROL}`, 600_000);
-    return waitForContainer(CONTROL, "mesh-lavinmq");
-  });
 
-  // ---- 5. THE ANCHOR RUNS IT ------------------------------------------------------------------
-  //
   // The machine that built it. This is the case every earlier proof covered, and it is here as the
-  // control for step 6: if this fails, step 6's failure says nothing about fetching.
+  // control for the last step: if this fails, that one's failure says nothing about fetching.
-  await step("the anchor runs the module the mesh built", NEEDS, async () => {
+  await step(ANCHOR_RUNS, NEEDS, async () => {
     await mesh(`module issue ${MODULE.module} --node ${CONTROL}`);
     await mesh(`assign ${CONTROL} ${MODULE.module}`);
     await mesh(`push ${CONTROL}`, 600_000);
     return waitForContainer(CONTROL, MODULE.module);
   });
 
-  // ---- 6. AND A MACHINE THAT DID NOT BUILD IT -------------------------------------------------
+  // ---- 9. NOW MACHINES MAY ARRIVE ---------------------------------------------------------------
   //
-  // **The thing nothing has ever checked.** ace did not build this image and has never seen it. To
+  // Host binary and a token, and nothing else. The anchor is NOT in this loop — the installer
-  // run it, it must fetch it from the mesh's registry — and a joined node has no account there.
+  // enrolled it, and enrolling it again would offer the mesh a second identity for a node it
-  // The mesh grants a consumer a credential for a database; it does not yet do so for the store
+  // already knows.
-  // its own images live in (novox/hq issue 042).
   //
-  // Asked anyway, and asked LAST, so that when it fails the five steps above still stand as
+  // And they are placed on the mesh's private network, which the earlier ordering never did. The
-  // evidence of what does work.
+  // mesh refuses to bind a consumer to a provider on another machine when either is missing from
-  await step(`a joined machine runs the module the mesh built`,
+  // it — "they are not both on the private network" — so without this the last step fails for a
-    "the anchor runs the module the mesh built", async () => {
+  // reason that has nothing to do with what it is asking.
+  await step(JOINED, ANCHOR_RUNS, async () => {
+    const said: string[] = [];
+    await mesh(`overlay place ${CONTROL} --hub --endpoint ${ANCHOR}:51820 --site hosting`);
+    for (const machine of HOME_NODES) {
+      await mesh(`node add ${machine}`);
+      const token = tokenFrom(await mesh(`token issue --node ${machine}`));
+      const out = await must(machine, `${HOST_PATH} enrol --token ${quote(token)}`, 180_000);
+      assert.match(out, new RegExp(`enrolled as ${machine}`), out);
+      await must(machine, `nohup ${HOST_PATH} run > /var/log/mesh-host.log 2>&1 & sleep 3`);
+      await mesh(`overlay place ${machine} --site home`);
+      said.push(`  ${machine} enrolled, running, and on the private network`);
+    }
+    said.push((await mesh("node list")).trim());
+    said.push((await mesh("overlay show")).trim());
+    return said.join("\n");
+  });
+
+  // ---- 10. AND A MACHINE THAT DID NOT BUILD IT --------------------------------------------------
+  //
+  // **The thing nothing has ever checked.** This machine did not build the image and has never seen
+  // it. To run it, it must fetch it from the mesh's registry — and a joined node has no account
+  // there (novox/hq issue 042), nor any reason to trust a registry serving plain HTTP over the
+  // network (issue 048). Both are open, and both are invisible on a mesh of one.
+  //
+  // Asked anyway, and asked LAST, so that when it fails everything above still stands as evidence
+  // of what does work.
+  await step(SECOND_RUNS, JOINED, async () => {
     await mesh(`module issue ${MODULE.module} --node ${SECOND}`);
     await mesh(`assign ${SECOND} ${MODULE.module}`);
     await mesh(`push ${SECOND}`, 600_000);
@@ -427,7 +497,7 @@ after(async () => {
 }, { timeout: 900_000 });
 
 for (const name of [
-  "novox becomes a mesh of one, raised by the installer",
+  "a bare machine becomes a mesh of one, raised by the installer",
   "three machines join it across the household gateway",
   "the mesh builds the shared base from source",
   "the mesh builds a module standing on that base",

test/integration/one-node-mesh.test.ts

@@ -0,0 +1,649 @@
+/**
+ * FOUR FRESH MACHINES, AND NOTHING HANDED TO THEM.
+ *
+ * The four-machine bed (`whole-mesh-full`) proves the mesh converges. It does so by loading
+ * thirty-four of the mesh's own images onto its machines from the workstation, because it does not
+ * build them — something beside the bed built them and copied them in. No real installation looks
+ * like that, and the lab has been burned by exactly this shape before: it used to raise a registry
+ * inside the scenario, and a bootstrap that only worked against that registry went green here and
+ * would have failed on any bare machine.
+ *
+ * This bed hands over nothing. The scenario has no `images:` list at all. What the machines get is
+ * a container runtime and the host binary — prerequisites of a machine, not parts of a mesh — and
+ * from there:
+ *
+ *   1. novox is raised into a mesh of one by the installer, which BUILDS the control plane.
+ *   2. ace, shanks and g14 JOIN it, across a household NAT, with a token and nothing else.
+ *   3. The mesh builds the shared base from source, with its own builder.
+ *   4. The mesh builds a real module standing on that base.
+ *   5. The anchor runs it, pinned to a digest the mesh's own registry assigned.
+ *   6. A JOINED machine runs it — which means pulling from a registry that asks who it is.
+ *
+ * Steps 1 and 2 are proven elsewhere and are here because the later ones need them. **Steps 3
+ * through 6 are what this bed exists for**, and 6 is the one nothing has ever checked: genesis
+ * puts the builder, the registry and everything they produce on ONE machine, so every earlier
+ * proof of a mesh-built module running is a proof about the machine that built it. A second
+ * machine has to fetch, and fetching needs an account nothing yet grants (novox/hq issue 042).
+ *
+ * Each step is recorded separately rather than allowed to throw, so a gap at 6 reports as a gap at
+ * 6 instead of erasing the evidence for 3, 4 and 5.
+ *
+ *   MESH_LAB_INCUS='sudo -n incus'
+ *   MESH_LAB_HOST_BINARY=.../mesh-host/mesh-host
+ *   MESH_LAB_BOOTSTRAP_BINARY=.../mesh-host/mesh-bootstrap
+ *   MESH_LAB_BUNDLE=.../mesh-host/examples/substrate-first-node.lock
+ *   MESH_LAB_CATALOG=.../mesh-catalog/modules
+ *   MESH_LAB_SOURCE=<forge>/mesh-control.git   MESH_LAB_SOURCE_REF=<commit>
+ *   MESH_LAB_KEEP=1   to leave it standing afterwards
+ */
+import { test, before, after } from "node:test";
+import assert from "node:assert/strict";
+import { existsSync } from "node:fs";
+import { resolve } from "node:path";
+import { loadScenario } from "../../src/declaration/parse.ts";
+import { raise } from "../../src/lifecycle/raise.ts";
+import { destroy, exec, push } from "../../src/lifecycle/operate.ts";
+import { bootstrapBinaryPath, hostBinaryPath, HOST_PATH } from "../../src/lifecycle/place.ts";
+import { labIsUsable, destroyAll, substrateBundle } from "./harness.ts";
+import { genesis, type GenesisResult } from "./genesis.ts";
+import { incus } from "../../src/incus/client.ts";
+import { instanceNameOf } from "../../src/lifecycle/operate.ts";
+import { waitUntilAllUsable } from "../../src/lifecycle/ready.ts";
+
+const SCENARIO = "one-node-mesh";
+const CONTROL = "anchor";
+
+/** The anchor's public address — what every other machine dials, and what its own token must name. */
+const ANCHOR = "192.0.2.10";
+/** Where this mesh's registry answers, on the anchor's public address so a joined node can reach it. */
+const REGISTRY = `${ANCHOR}:5000`;
+
+/**
+ * The module built on top of the base, and the base it stands on.
+ *
+ * `amqp-ping` is deliberately small and deliberately REAL: its own TypeScript, compiled by the
+ * shared toolchain, running on the shared runtime, talking to the broker. A module whose artifact
+ * is a mirrored public image would pass every assertion below while skipping the whole of what is
+ * under test (novox/hq SELF-UPGRADE-PLAN, rule 1).
+ */
+const BASE = { module: "mesh-tools", repo: "mesh-tools", path: "" };
+/**
+ * What `amqp-ping` requires, and what the substrate does not supply.
+ *
+ * The installer raises a broker, but as a bundle resource — plumbing, not a module the mesh has a
+ * record of, so it provides nothing to anything. A module asking for `amqp` is asking for a
+ * provider in the graph, and this is it. No build: its image is upstream.
+ */
+const PROVIDER = { module: "lavinmq", repo: "mesh-catalog", path: "modules/lavinmq", container: "mesh-lavinmq" };
+/**
+ * The store, and the catalogue that cannot exist without it.
+ *
+ * Both were missing from this test entirely, and nothing complained, because nothing asked. A mesh
+ * with no catalogue holds no module graph — it cannot say what it has, what a module is made of,
+ * what a change reaches, or what must be rebuilt. It ran anyway, which is the point: "the mesh is
+ * up" was being read off genesis finishing.
+ */
+const STORE = { module: "postgres", repo: "mesh-catalog", path: "modules/postgres", container: "mesh-postgres" };
+const CATALOGUE = { module: "mesh-catalog", repo: "mesh-catalog", path: "modules/mesh-catalog", container: "mesh-catalog" };
+/** The control plane, rebuilt from its own repository — the step that ends the installer's tenure. */
+const CONTROL_PLANE = { module: "mesh-control", repo: "mesh-control", path: "", container: "mesh-control" };
+
+/**
+ * What this mesh must hold when it is finished, and what must be RUNNING on the machine.
+ *
+ * Written down as a list rather than checked one step at a time, because "is this a mesh" is a
+ * question about the set. The three the build loop cannot produce for itself — the control plane,
+ * the registry and the builder — are here too: they are carried in, and a mesh missing any of them
+ * is not one.
+ */
+const MUST_HOLD = ["mesh-control", "registry", "builder", "mesh-tools", "postgres",
+  "mesh-catalog", "lavinmq", "amqp-ping"];
+const MUST_RUN = ["mesh-control", "mesh-registry", "mesh-broker", "mesh-store",
+  "mesh-postgres", "mesh-catalog", "mesh-lavinmq", "amqp-ping"];
+/** Named once, because the step title is also how later steps say what they waited on. */
+const NEEDS = "the mesh runs a broker for that module to talk to";
+const GENESIS = "a bare machine becomes a mesh of one, raised by the installer";
+const BASE_BUILT = "the mesh builds the shared base from source";
+const STORE_RUNS = "the mesh builds and runs a store of its own";
+const CATALOGUE_RUNS = "the mesh builds and runs its own catalogue";
+const CONTROL_REBUILT = "the mesh rebuilds its own control plane from source";
+const MODULE_BUILT = "the mesh builds a module standing on that base";
+const ANCHOR_RUNS = "the anchor runs the module the mesh built";
+const DESCRIBES = "the mesh can describe itself, and what it says is true";
+const NETWORK = "the machine's networking is what the modules asked for";
+const FOLLOWS = "a change to a module's source reaches the machine on its own";
+const SURVIVES = "the mesh comes back after the machine reboots";
+const MODULE = { module: "amqp-ping", repo: "mesh-catalog", path: "modules/amqp-ping" };
+
+const capability = await labIsUsable();
+const binary = hostBinaryPath();
+const installer = bootstrapBinaryPath();
+const bundle = process.env["MESH_LAB_BUNDLE"] ?? "";
+const catalogDir = process.env["MESH_LAB_CATALOG"] ?? "";
+const source = process.env["MESH_LAB_SOURCE"] ?? "";
+const sourceRef = process.env["MESH_LAB_SOURCE_REF"] ?? "";
+const KEEP = !!process.env["MESH_LAB_KEEP"];
+const FIXED_ID = process.env["MESH_LAB_INSTANCE_ID"] ?? (KEEP ? "fresh-mesh-live" : undefined);
+
+/**
+ * Where a repository other than the control plane's lives.
+ *
+ * Derived from `MESH_LAB_SOURCE` by swapping the last path segment, because every one of these
+ * repositories sits beside the others under the same owner on the same forge. Overridable, so a
+ * forge that is arranged differently does not need this bed edited.
+ */
+function forgeUrl(repo: string): string {
+  const override = process.env[`MESH_LAB_SOURCE_${repo.toUpperCase().replaceAll("-", "_")}`];
+  if (override) return override;
+  return source.replace(/[^/]+\.git$/, `${repo}.git`);
+}
+/**
+ * What to build, per repository.
+ *
+ * A branch is acceptable for an ordinary build; only genesis insists on a commit (ADR 0071). Per
+ * repository rather than one value for all of them, because a change under test usually lives in
+ * one repository and the rest should be built from what everyone else has — building them all from
+ * a feature branch would prove that branch against itself.
+ *
+ *   MESH_LAB_BUILD_REF                 the default for every repository
+ *   MESH_LAB_BUILD_REF_MESH_CATALOG    ...overridden for one
+ */
+function refFor(repo: string): string {
+  const override = process.env[`MESH_LAB_BUILD_REF_${repo.toUpperCase().replaceAll("-", "_")}`];
+  return override ?? process.env["MESH_LAB_BUILD_REF"] ?? "main";
+}
+
+/**
+ * The shared base's manifest, on this workstation.
+ *
+ * The base is a repository with a manifest at its root (novox/hq ADR 0069), so unlike the
+ * catalogue's modules it is not under `MESH_LAB_CATALOG`. Derived from that path on the convention
+ * that the checkouts sit beside each other, and overridable for a layout where they do not.
+ */
+const baseManifest = process.env["MESH_LAB_BASE_MANIFEST"] ??
+  resolve(catalogDir, "..", "..", BASE.repo, "module.json");
+
+const skip =
+  !capability.usable ? capability.why :
+  !binary ? "MESH_LAB_HOST_BINARY is not set to a built mesh-host" :
+  !installer ? "MESH_LAB_BOOTSTRAP_BINARY is not set to a built mesh-bootstrap" :
+  !source ? "MESH_LAB_SOURCE is not set to the repository the control plane is built from" :
+  !sourceRef ? "MESH_LAB_SOURCE_REF is not set to the commit to build" :
+  !bundle || !existsSync(bundle) ? "MESH_LAB_BUNDLE is not set to a substrate template" :
+  !catalogDir || !existsSync(catalogDir) ? "MESH_LAB_CATALOG is not set to mesh-catalog/modules" :
+  false;
+
+let instanceId = "";
+let raised: GenesisResult;
+
+// ---- talking to the machines ------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+function quote(s: string): string {
+  return `'${s.replaceAll("'", `'\\''`)}'`;
+}
+async function on(machine: string, command: string, timeoutMs?: number): Promise<{ out: string; ok: boolean }> {
+  const { stdout } = await exec(instanceId, machine, [
+    "sh", "-c", `exec 2>&1\n${command}\necho "__exit=$?"`,
+  ], timeoutMs);
+  const marker = stdout.lastIndexOf("__exit=");
+  if (marker < 0) return { out: stdout, ok: false };
+  return { out: stdout.slice(0, marker), ok: stdout.slice(marker + 7).trim() === "0" };
+}
+async function must(machine: string, command: string, timeoutMs?: number): Promise<string> {
+  const { out, ok } = await on(machine, command, timeoutMs);
+  if (!ok) throw new Error(`${machine}: ${command}\n${out}`);
+  return out;
+}
+async function mesh(command: string, timeoutMs?: number): Promise<string> {
+  return must(CONTROL, `docker exec mesh-control /mesh-control ${command}`, timeoutMs);
+}
+
+/**
+ * Stop the machine and start it again, the way a power cut or a kernel upgrade would.
+ *
+ * There is no restart in the lab's own vocabulary, which is its own small finding: nothing had ever
+ * needed one, because nothing had ever asked whether a mesh comes back.
+ */
+async function restartMachine(machine: string): Promise<void> {
+  const name = await instanceNameOf(instanceId, machine);
+  await incus(["restart", name], 180_000);
+  await waitUntilAllUsable([name], 300, (m) => console.log(`  restart: ${m}`));
+}
+
+/** A module the mesh has to make for itself: where its source is, and what it runs when it works. */
+interface CoreModule { module: string; repo: string; path: string; container: string }
+
+/**
+ * Build a module from source, install it, and wait for it to actually run.
+ *
+ * The whole sequence a module goes through, in one place because the mesh has to do it for several
+ * before it is a mesh at all: register the manifest, build it from its repository and path, issue
+ * the broker account its runtime needs, assign it, send it, and then ask the machine whether the
+ * container is up.
+ *
+ * **The account is not optional and is not swallowed.** A module's runtime is a tool host: it
+ * connects to the mesh's broker before doing anything. Without an account the mesh still fills the
+ * secret the module declares it owns — with a generated value — so the container starts, fails to
+ * parse a password as a credential document, and loops on a JSON syntax error mentioning no
+ * missing account. That cost a step that reported PASS.
+ */
+async function bringUp(m: CoreModule): Promise<string> {
+  await registerModule(m.module, resolve(catalogDir, m.module, "module.json"));
+  const built = await mesh(
+    `build ${forgeUrl(m.repo)} --path ${m.path} --ref ${refFor(m.repo)} --wait 1200s`, 1_500_000);
+  assert.doesNotMatch(built, /failed/i, built);
+  await mesh(`module issue ${m.module} --node ${CONTROL}`);
+  await mesh(`assign ${CONTROL} ${m.module}`);
+  await mesh(`push ${CONTROL}`, 600_000);
+  return `${built}\n${await waitForContainer(CONTROL, m.container)}`;
+}
+
+/**
+ * Wait for one container, BY NAME, to be running.
+ *
+ * **Named exactly, because substring matching passed a step that had failed.** Waiting for "a
+ * container whose name contains lavinmq" was satisfied by the broker — `lavinmq`, up and healthy —
+ * while the thing actually under test, the module's own runtime `mesh-lavinmq`, was crash-looping
+ * beside it. The step went green and the fault was found by reading `docker ps` by hand.
+ */
+async function waitForContainer(node: string, container: string, seconds = 200): Promise<string> {
+  const deadline = Date.now() + seconds * 1_000;
+  let last = "";
+  while (Date.now() < deadline) {
+    const ps = (await on(node, `docker ps -a --format '{{.Names}}\t{{.Status}}'`)).out;
+    last = ps;
+    const line = ps.split("\n").find((l) => l.split("\t")[0]?.trim() === container);
+    if (line && /^Up /.test(line.split("\t")[1]?.trim() ?? "")) return ps;
+    await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, 5_000));
+  }
+  const logs = (await on(node, `docker logs --tail 15 ${container} 2>&1`)).out;
+  throw new Error(
+    `${container} is not running on ${node}.\n\ncontainers:\n${last}\n\nwhat it said:\n${logs}`);
+}
+
+/**
+ * Register a module from a manifest on this workstation.
+ *
+ * **The control plane runs in a container, so a file on the machine is not a file it can open.**
+ * Pushing the manifest to the machine and naming that path got `no such file or directory` from
+ * inside mesh-control, which is correct and was briefly mistaken for a missing manifest. It is
+ * copied the last step of the way with `docker cp`.
+ *
+ * **Into the root, not into /tmp.** The control plane's image is a minimal one and has no `/tmp`
+ * to copy into — `docker cp` says so in those words. `/` is the one directory every image has.
+ */
+async function registerModule(module: string, manifest: string): Promise<string> {
+  assert.ok(existsSync(manifest), `no manifest for ${module} at ${manifest}`);
+  const onMachine = `/tmp/${module}.json`;
+  const inContainer = `/${module}.json`;
+  await push(instanceId, CONTROL, manifest, onMachine);
+  await must(CONTROL, `docker cp ${onMachine} mesh-control:${inContainer}`);
+  return mesh(`module add ${inContainer}`);
+}
+function tokenFrom(said: string): string {
+  const found = said.split("\n").map((l) => l.trim()).find((l) => l.length > 100 && !l.includes(" "));
+  assert.ok(found, `no token in:\n${said}`);
+  return found;
+}
+
+// ---- steps, recorded rather than thrown --------------------------------------------------------
+
+interface Step { ok: boolean; why: string; said: string }
+const steps = new Map<string, Step>();
+const order: string[] = [];
+
+/** Run a step, remember what it said, and never throw. A step whose predecessor failed is skipped. */
+async function step(name: string, after_: string | null, fn: () => Promise<string>): Promise<void> {
+  order.push(name);
+  if (after_ && !steps.get(after_)?.ok) {
+    steps.set(name, { ok: false, why: `not attempted — "${after_}" did not succeed`, said: "" });
+    console.log(`SKIPPED  ${name}`);
+    return;
+  }
+  console.log(`\n======== ${name} ========`);
+  try {
+    const said = await fn();
+    steps.set(name, { ok: true, why: "", said });
+    console.log(`OK       ${name}`);
+  } catch (err) {
+    const why = (err as Error).message;
+    steps.set(name, { ok: false, why, said: "" });
+    console.log(`FAILED   ${name}\n${why.split("\n").slice(0, 25).join("\n")}`);
+  }
+}
+
+function report(name: string): string {
+  const s = steps.get(name);
+  if (!s) return `${name}: never ran`;
+  const lines = order.map((n) => {
+    const it = steps.get(n);
+    return `  ${it?.ok ? "PASS" : "FAIL"}  ${n}`;
+  });
+  return `${s.why}\n\nWhere this bed got to:\n${lines.join("\n")}`;
+}
+
+before(async () => {
+  if (skip) return;
+
+  const bed = await raise(loadScenario(`scenarios/${SCENARIO}.yml`), {
+    onProgress: (m) => console.log(`raise: ${m}`),
+    ...(FIXED_ID ? { instanceId: FIXED_ID } : {}),
+  });
+  instanceId = bed.instanceId;
+  console.log(`INSTANCE ${instanceId}${KEEP ? " (KEEP — will be left standing)" : ""}`);
+  console.log(`NOTHING WAS LOADED: this scenario names no images. Every image on every machine ` +
+    `below was pulled from the internet or built by the mesh.`);
+
+  // ---- 1. GENESIS -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+  //
+  // The shared description, the same one `genesis-single` calls. The bundle is the TEMPLATE with
+  // nothing held: no image is pre-resolved, because none is here to resolve to.
+  await step("a bare machine becomes a mesh of one, raised by the installer", null, async () => {
+    try {
+      raised = await genesis({
+        instanceId,
+        node: CONTROL,
+        installer: installer as string,
+        catalogDir,
+        // The broker's advertised address, corrected.
+        //
+        // The template hardcodes 192.0.2.10:5671 — the address of the anchor in the single-machine
+        // bed. A token carries this verbatim as the endpoint an enrolling node dials, so on a mesh
+        // whose anchor is somewhere else every node, including this one, would enrol against an
+        // address nothing answers on. The installer refuses to guess it and says so, which is
+        // right: it does not know what this machine is called from outside.
+        bundleTemplate: substrateBundle(bundle, []).replaceAll("192.0.2.10:5671", `${ANCHOR}:5671`),
+        registry: REGISTRY,
+        source,
+        sourceRef,
+        log: (m) => console.log(m),
+      });
+    } catch (err) {
+      throw new Error(`the installer never ran: ${(err as Error).message}`);
+    }
+    if (!raised.ok) throw new Error(`${raised.step || "no step named"}: ${raised.why}\n\n${raised.report.join("\n")}`);
+    return raised.report.join("\n");
+  });
+
+  // ---- 2..6. THE MESH BECOMES ONE --------------------------------------------------------------
+  //
+  // **Joining used to be here, second, and that was the wrong order.** Three machines were enrolled
+  // into a mesh that could not yet produce a single module, and the step was reported as though
+  // something had been shown. They do join — reliably — but joining a mesh that can build nothing
+  // proves only that enrolment works, which was never the doubtful part.
+  //
+  // `17-raising-a-mesh` says it plainly: genesis ends with a mesh of one that RUNS, and that is not
+  // the same as a mesh that WORKS; what remains after the core modules are built is "adding
+  // machines, and deciding what they run". So everything a mesh needs to be a mesh happens first,
+  // and machines arrive at the end.
+
+  // The toolchain and runtime every module with code of its own stands on. It is a module, and it
+  // is built like one — cloned from the forge by the builder installing put here, compiled on the
+  // machine, published into the mesh's own registry.
+  await step(BASE_BUILT, GENESIS, async () => {
+    // Registered from the manifest the builder will also read, so what the mesh holds and what it
+    // builds are the same description of the same module.
+    //
+    // **Not swallowed.** This call used to end in `.catch(() => {})`, on the reasoning that the
+    // base might already be known. It hid a real failure — the manifest was being named at a path
+    // inside a container that had never seen it — and the step passed anyway, because a base with
+    // nothing to stand on builds whether or not the mesh has a record of it.
+    await registerModule(BASE.module, baseManifest);
+    const built = await mesh(
+      `build ${forgeUrl(BASE.repo)} --ref ${refFor(BASE.repo)} --wait 1200s`, 1_500_000);
+    assert.doesNotMatch(built, /failed/i, built);
+    return built;
+  });
+
+  // A store of its own. **Not the substrate's.** The installer raises a store for the control
+  // plane to keep its own records in, the way it raises a broker — plumbing, not a module the mesh
+  // has any record of, so it provides nothing to anything. A module that wants a database wants a
+  // provider in the graph, and the catalogue below is the first thing to want one.
+  await step(STORE_RUNS, BASE_BUILT, () => bringUp(STORE));
+
+  // And the catalogue, which was missing from this test altogether.
+  //
+  // Without it the mesh holds no module graph: it cannot say what it has, what a module is made
+  // of, what a change to one reaches, or what must be rebuilt. A mesh in that state still runs,
+  // which is exactly how its absence went unnoticed — "the mesh is up" was being read off the
+  // installer finishing rather than off the mesh being able to answer anything.
+  await step(CATALOGUE_RUNS, STORE_RUNS, () => bringUp(CATALOGUE));
+
+  // The control plane, rebuilt from its own repository and rolled out.
+  //
+  // The installer built it once, which is what got the mesh running. Building it again THROUGH THE
+  // MODULE PATH — build, notice the version moved, roll it out — is a different claim: it is the
+  // moment the mesh stops depending on the installer for anything, and the first time the thing
+  // that performs an upgrade performs one on itself.
+  await step(CONTROL_REBUILT, CATALOGUE_RUNS, async () => {
+    const built = await mesh(
+      `build ${forgeUrl(CONTROL_PLANE.repo)} --ref ${sourceRef} --wait 1200s`, 1_500_000);
+    assert.doesNotMatch(built, /failed/i, built);
+    const rolled = await mesh(`upgrade ${CONTROL_PLANE.module} roll-out`, 900_000);
+    // Asked of the machine rather than believed from the command: the control plane that answers
+    // afterwards is the one that has to be running for anything below this line to mean anything.
+    await waitForContainer(CONTROL, CONTROL_PLANE.container);
+    return `${built}\n${rolled}`;
+  });
+
+  // ---- 7..8. SOMETHING TO RUN ---------------------------------------------------------------
+  await step(MODULE_BUILT, CONTROL_REBUILT, async () => {
+    await registerModule(MODULE.module, resolve(catalogDir, MODULE.module, "module.json"));
+    const built = await mesh(
+      `build ${forgeUrl(MODULE.repo)} --path ${MODULE.path} --ref ${refFor(MODULE.repo)} --wait 1200s`,
+      1_500_000);
+    assert.doesNotMatch(built, /failed/i, built);
+    // The point of the whole step: what came out is named by a digest this mesh's registry
+    // assigned, not by a placeholder and not by a tag.
+    const builds = await mesh(`builds ${MODULE.module}`);
+    assert.match(builds, /sha256:[0-9a-f]{12}/,
+      `the build recorded no digest — the module is not pinned to anything this registry serves:\n${builds}`);
+    return `${built}\n${builds}`;
+  });
+
+  // `amqp-ping` requires the `amqp` provision, and the mesh refused to place it: "nothing provides
+  // amqp, wanted by amqp-ping". That refusal is correct and is the reason this step exists rather
+  // than the reason to pick an easier module.
+  //
+  // `lavinmq` is that module. It was first added here on the belief that it needed no building —
+  // its broker is an upstream image — and the mesh refused it again: two of its three containers
+  // named a placeholder digest, "which is never a real image". Also right. The broker is upstream,
+  // but the module is not only the broker: it carries a run-once bootstrap that writes the broker's
+  // configuration, a provisioner that grants each consumer its own vhost and user, tools and an
+  // event consumer, all of it its own code.
+  await step(NEEDS, MODULE_BUILT, () => bringUp(PROVIDER));
+
+  // The machine that built it. This is the case every earlier proof covered, and it is here as the
+  // control for the last step: if this fails, that one's failure says nothing about fetching.
+  await step(ANCHOR_RUNS, NEEDS, async () => {
+    await mesh(`module issue ${MODULE.module} --node ${CONTROL}`);
+    await mesh(`assign ${CONTROL} ${MODULE.module}`);
+    await mesh(`push ${CONTROL}`, 600_000);
+    return waitForContainer(CONTROL, MODULE.module);
+  });
+
+  // ---- 9. IT CAN DESCRIBE ITSELF ---------------------------------------------------------------
+  //
+  // **Presence is not function, and this step exists because I kept confusing them.** A container
+  // being up was taken as the catalogue working; a name containing "lavinmq" was taken as the
+  // module running. The mesh holds a graph — nodes, what each is assigned, what capabilities each
+  // has, which claims are occupied, what each module is configured with, which provisions exist and
+  // who holds them — and none of it was ever asked a question.
+  await step(DESCRIBES, ANCHOR_RUNS, async () => {
+    const said: string[] = [];
+
+    // The mesh's own verdict on itself. Nothing wrong, nothing waiting, nothing behind.
+    const state = JSON.parse(await mesh("status --json")) as {
+      wrong: { node: string; outcome: string; refused?: string }[];
+      waiting: { node: string }[];
+      reported: { node: string; outcome: string; current: boolean }[];
+    };
+    assert.equal(state.wrong.length, 0,
+      `the mesh reports something wrong:\n${JSON.stringify(state.wrong, null, 2)}`);
+    assert.equal(state.waiting.length, 0,
+      `the mesh is waiting on a node:\n${JSON.stringify(state.waiting, null, 2)}`);
+    const node = state.reported.find((r) => r.node === CONTROL);
+    assert.ok(node, `the mesh does not report the only machine it has:\n${JSON.stringify(state)}`);
+    assert.equal(node.outcome, "applied", `${CONTROL} did not apply what it was sent: ${node.outcome}`);
+    assert.ok(node.current, `${CONTROL} is not running what the mesh would send it`);
+    said.push(`  status            one node, applied, current, nothing wrong`);
+
+    // Every module a mesh has to hold, including the three it cannot build for itself.
+    const modules = await mesh("module list");
+    for (const m of MUST_HOLD) {
+      assert.match(modules, new RegExp(`^${m}\\b`, "m"),
+        `the mesh holds no ${m}. A mesh without it is not finished:\n${modules}`);
+    }
+    said.push(`  module list       ${MUST_HOLD.length} modules, all present`);
+
+    // What the machine would be sent, and what it names. **No placeholder may survive here** — a
+    // digest of all zeroes is never a real image, and a declaration carrying one reaches a machine
+    // that will try to fetch it.
+    const plan = await mesh(`plan ${CONTROL} --json`);
+    assert.doesNotMatch(plan, /sha256:0{64}/,
+      `the machine's own plan names a placeholder digest, which is never a real image`);
+    assert.match(plan, /sha256:[0-9a-f]{64}/, `the plan pins nothing by digest at all`);
+    said.push(`  plan              every image pinned, no placeholders`);
+
+    // And the catalogue, ASKED rather than observed. These five questions are what it exists for.
+    const ask = async (tool: string, args = "{}") =>
+      must(CONTROL, `docker exec mesh-catalog mesh-tools invoke mesh-catalog ${tool} ${quote(args)}`,
+        120_000);
+
+    const held = await ask("catalog_modules");
+    for (const m of MUST_HOLD) {
+      if (m === "registry" || m === "builder" || m === "mesh-control") continue; // carried, not built here
+      assert.ok(held.includes(m), `the catalogue does not know about ${m}:\n${held}`);
+    }
+    assert.doesNotMatch(held, /sha256:0{64}/, `the catalogue holds a placeholder version`);
+    said.push(`  catalog_modules   every built module, each with a version this mesh made`);
+
+    const provides = await ask("catalog_provides", JSON.stringify({ provision: "amqp" }));
+    assert.ok(provides.includes(PROVIDER.module),
+      `the catalogue cannot say what provides amqp, which is the question it exists to answer:\n${provides}`);
+    said.push(`  catalog_provides  amqp is answered by ${PROVIDER.module}`);
+
+    const stale = await ask("catalog_stale");
+    said.push(`  catalog_stale     ${stale.trim().slice(0, 120)}`);
+    return said.join("\n");
+  });
+
+  // ---- 10. AND ITS NETWORKING IS WHAT WAS ASKED FOR ---------------------------------------------
+  //
+  // **Left out of this test entirely until it was pointed out**, which is hard to defend: the
+  // firewall is generated from what modules declare they listen on, and a firewall that opens the
+  // wrong set is either a service nobody can reach or a port nobody meant to publish. Neither shows
+  // up as a failed container.
+  await step(NETWORK, DESCRIBES, async () => {
+    const said: string[] = [];
+
+    const ruleset = (await on(CONTROL, `nft list table inet mesh 2>&1`)).out;
+    assert.match(ruleset, /chain input/, `the mesh's own firewall table is not there:\n${ruleset}`);
+    // Closed by default, or the rules below decide nothing.
+    assert.match(ruleset, /policy drop/, `the firewall does not default to closed:\n${ruleset}`);
+    // The floor: a machine that cannot be reached over ssh is a machine nobody can repair.
+    assert.match(ruleset, /\b22\b/, `ssh is not allowed anywhere in the ruleset`);
+    // What a module actually declared. The registry says it listens on 5000 for the mesh.
+    assert.match(ruleset, /\b5000\b/,
+      `the registry declares it listens on 5000 and nothing opened it:\n${ruleset}`);
+    said.push(`  firewall          default closed, ssh open, declared ports open`);
+
+    // The names the mesh writes for itself. A consumer reaching a provider by its `.internal`
+    // address depends on this file, and on it reaching inside containers.
+    const hosts = (await on(CONTROL, `cat /etc/hosts`)).out;
+    assert.match(hosts, /\.internal/, `the mesh wrote no .internal names:\n${hosts}`);
+    said.push(`  names             ${(hosts.match(/[a-z0-9-]+\.internal/g) ?? []).join(" ")}`);
+
+    // The networks the declarations asked for, rather than whatever the runtime had lying around.
+    const networks = (await on(CONTROL, `docker network ls --format '{{.Name}}'`)).out;
+    for (const wanted of ["lavinmq", "amqp-ping"]) {
+      assert.match(networks, new RegExp(`^${wanted}$`, "m"),
+        `the ${wanted} module declares a network and none exists:\n${networks}`);
+    }
+    said.push(`  networks          module networks present`);
+    return said.join("\n");
+  });
+
+  // ---- 11. A CHANGE REACHES THE MACHINE ON ITS OWN ----------------------------------------------
+  //
+  // The whole point of the mesh, and the capability the migration depends on: move a module's
+  // source and the running copy follows, with nobody driving the steps. Everything above is
+  // machinery; this is what the machinery is for.
+  await step(FOLLOWS, NETWORK, async () => {
+    const before = await mesh(`builds ${MODULE.module}`);
+    const wasPinned = before.match(/sha256:[0-9a-f]{64}/)?.[0] ?? "";
+    assert.ok(wasPinned, `nothing is pinned to rebuild from:\n${before}`);
+
+    // The mesh is told its copy is older than the source. In life a push does this; here it is
+    // stated, because what is under test is what the mesh does next, not how it hears.
+    const head = (await must(CONTROL, `git ls-remote ${forgeUrl(MODULE.repo)} ` +
+      `${refFor(MODULE.repo)} | cut -f1`, 120_000)).trim();
+    assert.match(head, /^[0-9a-f]{40}$/, `could not read the source's head: ${head}`);
+    await mesh(`module moved ${MODULE.module} ${head}`);
+
+    const behind = await mesh(`status`);
+    assert.match(behind, /behind|build --behind/,
+      `the mesh does not report a module behind its source:\n${behind}`);
+
+    await mesh(`build --behind --wait 1200s`, 1_500_000);
+    const rolled = await mesh(`upgrade ${MODULE.module} roll-out`, 900_000);
+    await waitForContainer(CONTROL, MODULE.module);
+
+    const after = await mesh(`builds ${MODULE.module}`);
+    assert.match(after, /sha256:[0-9a-f]{64}/, `nothing was pinned after the rebuild:\n${after}`);
+    return `${behind}\n${rolled}\n${after}`;
+  });
+
+  // ---- 12. AND IT SURVIVES THE MACHINE STOPPING -------------------------------------------------
+  //
+  // **Never once tested.** A mesh that works until the machine reboots is a demonstration, not
+  // something to move real services onto — and the installer is explicit that a host started the
+  // way the lab starts it does not survive a reboot, which makes this the check that says whether
+  // that matters.
+  await step(SURVIVES, FOLLOWS, async () => {
+    await restartMachine(CONTROL);
+    const missing: string[] = [];
+    for (const container of MUST_RUN) {
+      try {
+        await waitForContainer(CONTROL, container, 240);
+      } catch {
+        missing.push(container);
+      }
+    }
+    const ps = (await on(CONTROL, `docker ps -a --format '{{.Names}}\t{{.Status}}'`)).out;
+    assert.equal(missing.length, 0,
+      `after a reboot these are not running: ${missing.join(", ")}\n\ncontainers:\n${ps}`);
+    return ps;
+  });
+
+  console.log(`\n================ WHAT THIS MESH DID FOR ITSELF ================`);
+  for (const n of order) console.log(`  ${steps.get(n)?.ok ? "PASS" : "FAIL"}  ${n}`);
+}, { timeout: 7_200_000 });
+
+after(async () => {
+  if (KEEP) {
+    console.log(`\nLEFT STANDING: ${instanceId} — not destroyed (MESH_LAB_KEEP).`);
+    return;
+  }
+  if (instanceId) await destroy(instanceId);
+  await destroyAll(`${SCENARIO}-`);
+}, { timeout: 900_000 });
+
+for (const name of [
+  GENESIS,
+  BASE_BUILT,
+  STORE_RUNS,
+  CATALOGUE_RUNS,
+  CONTROL_REBUILT,
+  MODULE_BUILT,
+  NEEDS,
+  ANCHOR_RUNS,
+  DESCRIBES,
+  NETWORK,
+  FOLLOWS,
+  SURVIVES,
+]) {
+  test(name, { skip, timeout: 60_000 }, () => {
+    assert.ok(steps.get(name)?.ok, report(name));
+  });
+}