jschoubben
80b02740ab
The runtime serves a tools verb per module with names, descriptions and schemas (design 34 §3), and refuses a module naming its own tool tools. Discovery asks catalog_modules then each module, naming what did not answer. One MCP handler over two transports: stdio (mesh mcp) and loopback HTTP (mesh serve, the mesh-console module, novox/hq ADR 0152); serve refuses any bind but loopback. tools/call may go through a running console with --console and no credential.
mesh-tools
The Novox Mesh tool runtime — the per-node process that makes a module's tools actually serve.
A module ships its tools (built on @novox/mesh-sdk); this
runtime is what loads them and puts them on the mesh. It:
- connects the mesh broker (novox/hq ADR 0001) — a concrete AMQP implementation of the sdk's
Brokercontract; - imports the assigned modules' compiled tool entrypoints, each of which registers its tools as it loads;
- serves them through the sdk's
serveToolsharness, answeringtools.invokeover the broker.
Everything hard — dispatch, collection, duplicate-name safety — is the sdk's. This is the thin wrapper that binds the broker and loads the modules. Keeping the AMQP client here, out of the sdk, is deliberate: a broker-client change never rebuilds a module (ADR 0039).
Running it
MESH_BROKER_URL amqp://… the mesh broker
MESH_TOOL_MODULES /a/tools/index.js,… the assigned modules' compiled tool entrypoints
node dist/main.js, or the container (Dockerfile). On a node the host resolves both variables
and starts it like any other supervised workload.
mesh — the tools for whoever is on a machine
The same package carries the client (novox/hq design 25 §7, design 34): mesh tools, mesh call <module>.<tool> [json], mesh mcp (an MCP server over stdio for a program a person starts) and
mesh serve (the console: MCP over HTTP on a machine's loopback, started by the mesh as the
mesh-console module on the credential in MESH_BROKER_FILE — novox/hq ADR 0152). mesh serve
refuses to bind anything but loopback. With --console <url>, tools and call go through a console
already on the machine and need no credential.
Discovery asks the modules: every runtime answers a tools verb for each module it serves, with names,
descriptions and schemas from the code that answers them, and the console asks the catalogue which
modules the mesh holds and each module what it serves. A module that does not answer is named, never
dropped. A module may not name a tool of its own tools; the runtime refuses it at load.
Verified
npm test stands up LavinMQ (the mesh's broker) and proves the whole path over real AMQP: the
runtime serves a registered tool, a separate connection invokes it by name and gets the result, and
an unknown tool is refused over the wire.