On novox on 2026-10-29 de-spiegel, held for an unset config value, held mailu, route-proxy and nftables ("it reads
what de-spiegel contributes or listens on"), and mailu held postgres. mesh-sdk #128 (issue 1126) stopped the hold
spreading to consumers and collectors but kept dependents(): the provider of what a held module contributes to, and
the filter where it listens, were held behind it, transitively.
- Quick fix: drop dependents() alone. The filter and the proxy would then read a held module's new manifest, which
may not be what runs (review of the apply, round 2).
- Thorough fix, chosen: no module is held behind another, in the apply and in the answer (dependents, heldBehind and
the held-behind path of heldAsToday removed). A held module offers what it last offered: its contributions and
listens from its manifest at the build its own composition runs at (ranOf), else the manifest it is composed from.
Only the part of its offer that does not compose is left out, by provision (culprit): de-spiegel's routes leave
route-proxy without them, while mailu keeps its smtp account; the hold names it.
Tests: rows changed in the existing answer test (de-spiegel held, mailu and proxy composed; site held, the filter
composed with what runs; leave-out by provision). No new test function.
mesh/check pass c2999a4e13cc on d4c61ee8ffd0 | unit 3054 run, 234 kept, 36 skipped | integration 3075 run, 266 kept, 29 skipped | over bound: unit (sl…
novox's seed p-20261028t231141-ec84b4 refused 11 modules "what it composes of ..., held, is not what runs of them":
de-spiegel's hold spread through mailu to postgres, nftables and route-proxy, and from postgres to every consumer, and
gitea, held so, refused the node: "its credential of postgres-database is handed to the provisioner and the module is
not: nothing would fill it". Three rounds each moved the error. The kind: a held module still took part in the
composition as a dependence, so its hold spread.
- The quick fix: let heldAsToday also follow dependsOnHeld's words, and skip the handed refusal for gitea. It moves the
error once more and leaves every node's applying path holding consumers.
- The thorough fix, chosen: a held module composes only as what runs of it. composeEach no longer compares the
composition with each held module as its stub (dependsOnHeld removed): a consumer or collector composes against what
runs of the held module like any other module, and a real difference is still a named difference in the answer, a
module's own refusal still its refusal. A stub (compose.Stub, catalogue.Manifest.Stubbed) leaves the credentials and
own secrets it would hand the provisioner out of its plan as they run, never refused for want of a plan. Only what a
held module's new manifest says to others in their own files is still held behind it (dependents: the provider of
what it contributes to, the filter where it listens), which heldAsToday already follows.
Tests: rows added to existing tests (a held provider with a binding consumer, which the old code held in the seed's
words; a held feeder of a collector; a held module with a handed credential and own secret). No new test function.
The applying path (frombus.Compose) composed with no culprit, so one module's
refusal came back as the whole node's: novox's apply would have refused all its
modules for de-spiegel's unset route names. composeEach is now the one rule
Compose and Answer both follow:
- a module whose stub changes the refusal is held (compose.Node.Held); in the
applying path a stand-in for a module placed here holds that module; only a
refusal of no single module refuses the node;
- a held module is composed from what runs of it (compose.Carried of its own
composition in Running) and carried in the node's own wherever that runs it,
folded or leaving the fold, so the node's own apply never removes it (issue
1945 by a new path) and what the others read of it is what runs;
- none of a held module's own composition is in what is applied;
- a module whose composition differs when the held ones are composed as stubs
is held too; the node's own differing refuses the node;
- since a held module is composed from its new manifest, what reads that
manifest is held with it: the providers of what it contributes to (the
proxy its routes) and, when it listens, the filter's holder.
Quick fix weighed: a culprit loop in Compose alone. Thorough, chosen: one
shared function, since the kind met twice (seed-8 shadow, now the apply), and
review rounds 1 and 2 found its leaks.
ace and g14 answered 'nothing in this mesh provides artifact-store … assign
distribution to a node' while novox runs it: a module another node cannot run
in this composition (catalogue Resolution.Unhostable) offers nothing, silently.
The refusal now names each such module and what it lacks, and each node left
out. And the culprit search composed the whole mesh once per placed module for a
refusal no stub changes (ace's answer took 7m46s): only the modules the refusal
names are tried, at most 8.
novox's answer to seed #531 named 15 resources by id alone, so why each differed
was guessed. ModuleDiffers.Bodies keeps every differing resource with both
bodies, each value under a key a secret could be in masked (the same, another
seal of the same value, another value). The five old-form modules read
'removed' because the agent also lists them by module from the declaration kept
before the switch; they are judged inside the node's own. And the node's own
lacked bus-membership, which only the controller composes from its store: the
membership the node runs is carried, until the grants part hands it sealed.
The seed's shadow answers named the first refusal only (ace: baserow's archive,
novox: de-spiegel), so each round showed one more. A build that cannot be read or
taken in, and a module the composition refuses, are now each composed as a stub
and named. A module folded into the node's own composition whose manifest names a
build (de-spiegel, nats, photos, systemd-resolved: haves naming a build-... id)
runs a build only the controller holds: it is composed as a stub and its
resources are carried as the node runs them.
jschoubben