mechanical-compiler/docs/PROCESS.md

# PROCESS.md

How work gets done on the Mechanical Compiler.

| | |
|---|---|
| Created | 2026-08-17 |
| Scope | All work on a Mechanical Compiler instance |
| Companions | `ENVIRONMENT.md`, `STAGING-STATE.md`, `FAILURES.md`, `ROADMAP.md` |

---

## 0. Why this document exists

The four companion documents describe what the environment **is**. None of them
describes how work gets **done** in it — where files land, who runs what, how a
change travels from a conversation into a running container.

Until now that gap was filled by restating the mechanics inside each work
order. That worked while the orders were written consecutively by one author.
It does not survive a handoff: an assistant reading `ENVIRONMENT.md` learns how
the host is built and nothing about how to operate on it.

**Read this before your first command.**

---

## 1. Who does what

Three parties, and confusing them is the most common way to waste a session.

| Party | Has | Does |
|---|---|---|
| **Operator** (CIVICVS) | A shell on `srv-b` and a file manager | Runs every command. Uploads files. Decides. |
| **Assistant** | This conversation | Writes commands, reads output, writes code and documents |
| **Architect** | This conversation, in a different mode | Sets specification, accepts work, maintains the documents |

### The constraint that shapes everything

**The operator has a shell on `srv-b` and a browser-based file manager.
Nothing else.**

No workstation git client. No direct container shell. No IDE. No ability to
`scp`. Every file arrives by upload to a folder on `srv-b`; every command runs
in that one shell.

An assistant that assumes otherwise produces instructions the operator cannot
execute. This has already happened once.

### What follows from it

- Files reach a container as: **upload to `srv-b`** → `pct push` or expand and
  copy → `pct exec` to act on them.
- `srv-b` is the only place a human types. Containers are reached through
  `pct exec`, never by SSH from elsewhere.
- **This is a legitimate deployment path, not a workaround.** Do not design
  around a git client that does not exist.

---

## 2. Two modes of work, and they are not the same

Applying the wrong one is slow in one direction and dangerous in the other.

### Infrastructure mode

For anything that changes the host, the containers, the network, or a service
that other work depends on.

- One command group at a time
- Read-only before write
- Record a failure **before** correcting it, in `FAILURES.md` format
- Smallest corrective experiment — not the one that also fixes three adjacent
  worries
- Preserve a rollback copy before editing any configuration file
- Prove the negative: assert the forbidden path fails, not that the interface
  is gone
- Assert health **after a host reboot**, never before

This is deliberate ceremony. Each step is irreversible or expensive to undo,
and the failure log is a deliverable in its own right — it is the primary input
to the eventual production automation.

Work orders 001 through 003 were all infrastructure mode.

### Development mode

For anything inside the repository: code, tests, documents, fixtures.

- Iterate freely. Edit, run the tests, edit again.
- No command-group ceremony. A test-fix-rerun loop is not a provisioning step.
- Failures during a normal red-green loop are **not** `FAILURES.md` entries.
- Commit when something works, not when something is finished.

**The distinction is reversibility.** A wrong `iptables` rule can strand the
operator. A wrong line of Python fails a test and gets deleted. Ceremony
appropriate to the first is obstruction applied to the second.

### Which mode am I in?

Ask: *if this is wrong, what does it cost?*

| Cost | Mode |
|---|---|
| A rebooted host, a lost shell, a broken service | Infrastructure |
| A red test | Development |

If genuinely unsure, use infrastructure mode. Being slow is recoverable.

---

## 3. Getting files into the environment

### The path

```
assistant produces a tarball
  -> operator downloads it
  -> operator uploads it to /root/incoming on srv-b   (file manager)
  -> operator expands it on srv-b
  -> pct push, or expand-then-copy, into CT 100
  -> pct exec to act on it
```

**REQ** — `/root/incoming` on `srv-b` is the landing area. One directory,
always the same, so nothing has to be remembered between sessions.

**REQ** — Files landing in a container must end up owned by `mechcomp`.
`pct push` writes as root; fix ownership immediately afterwards. See F-008 —
repository operations run as the service user, and a root-owned file inside the
tree causes exactly that failure later.

**REQ (F-037)** — The `chown` must name the directory the files landed *in*, not
only the files. A tar stream rooted at `.` carries an entry for the destination
directory itself, and `tar x` as root rewrites that directory's ownership.
Naming only the payload subdirectories leaves the repository root `root:root`,
and git then refuses the worktree with the F-008 message — which invites the
F-008 mistake as its own remedy. Fix the owner. Never add `safe.directory`.

**REQ (F-037)** — Verification that depends on the repository being intact must
run *after* the landing, and a landing step must not be able to destroy the
check that would have caught it. A `git diff` placed before the step that broke
git reports nothing wrong and looks like a pass.

**REQ** — An assistant delivering files states, in this order: what the archive
contains, where it expands, what it overwrites, and how to verify it landed
correctly. "Overwrites nothing" is a claim that must be checked, not assumed.

### Delivering a whole tree

Prefer one tarball that expands over the existing tree. Individual file paths
are error-prone to transcribe through a file manager.

Name the payload's top-level directories explicitly, when creating the archive
and when extracting it: `tar cf - -C <dir> src tests`, never `-C <dir> .`. The
second form is what produced F-037. For a single file, `pct push` is simpler and
cannot reproduce it at all.

### Delivering a single small file

For anything that fits comfortably on screen, a heredoc in the `srv-b` shell is
faster than an upload, and leaves the content visible in the session transcript
where it can be checked.

---

## 4. The repository

**Gitea is the source of truth.** `https://gitea.barternetwork.us/TheRON/mechanical-compiler`

CT 100 holds a clone at `/var/www/mechcomp`, owned by `mechcomp`.

### Two directions, both valid

**Gitea → container.** `git pull` inside CT 100, as `mechcomp`. Use this
whenever the change already exists in Gitea.

**Upload → container → Gitea.** Land the files, verify they work, then commit
and push from inside CT 100. Use this when the assistant produced something new.

The second direction is the normal one for assistant-produced work, because the
operator has no git client outside the environment.

**REQ (F-008)** — Every `git` command runs as `mechcomp`. Never as root, and
never add a root `safe.directory` exception — it would mask every future
instance of the same mistake.

### What must be true before a push

- The oracle verifies: `python3 fixtures/strap-beam-8.0.0/make_fixtures.py --verify`
- The test suite runs, with a result the assistant has actually seen
- `git status` shows nothing unexpected — particularly not `venv/`

### Recording provenance

Artifacts are attributed to the **commit that produced them**, not to a
timestamp or a file copy. When an artifact is generated, the commit SHA of the
tree that produced it is part of its record. This is why the transport does not
matter but the SHA does.

---

## 5. The development loop

Inside CT 100, as `mechcomp`, from `/var/www/mechcomp`:

```
make deps        once, and after any requirements change
make test        the loop
make verify-oracle   before any commit that touches fixtures
```

### The oracle is the gate

`fixtures/strap-beam-8.0.0/` holds 123 frozen cases. It is the acceptance
criterion for the port, and it is not negotiable.

**The ten rejected cases are part of the contract.** A port that accepts them is
wrong however good its numbers are elsewhere. Reproducing geometry is
straightforward; keeping the constraint that made the geometry trustworthy is
the actual work.

**The oracle is never edited to make a test pass.** If the port disagrees with
it, the port is wrong until proven otherwise. If the oracle is genuinely wrong,
that is a finding, it is recorded, and it is regenerated inside the pinned
toolchain — never hand-edited.

### Test discipline

**A test must distinguish failure of the tool from failure of the thing under
test** (F-027). Every negative assertion first establishes that it could have
observed the positive case. A test whose failure mode is indistinguishable from
success manufactures confidence.

Prove a new harness by making it fail deliberately before trusting it green.

---

## 6. Work orders

A work order is an infrastructure-mode instruction set. Development work does
not need one.

### When to write one

- The work changes the host, containers, network, or a shared service
- The work has an acceptance criterion that can be stated in advance
- The work will be executed by someone other than the author

### Required sections

| Section | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Scope | In and out. Explicit "do not touch" list. |
| Success criteria | Strict, testable, stated before the work |
| Known state | So the operator does not re-derive what is already recorded |
| Command groups | One at a time, read-only first |
| Acceptance | What must be true to close |
| Reporting | What comes back to the architect |

### Executing one

- One group at a time. Paste output back before the next.
- Record a failure before correcting it.
- **A defect in the work order is a finding**, not something to work around
  silently. F-024 and F-028 are work-order defects, logged as such.
- "The problem is elsewhere and here is the evidence" is a complete outcome.
  Do not manufacture a local workaround for a remote problem.

---

## 7. When something goes wrong

### Is it a `FAILURES.md` entry?

**Yes** if it is a surprise about the environment: something behaved
differently from what the specification or a work order said, and a future
automation writer would get it wrong the same way.

**No** if it is an ordinary development failure: a red test, a syntax error, a
wrong algorithm. Those are the loop working.

### Entry format

```
### F-nnn — one-line summary
Host or container. Phase.
**Observed:** verbatim where possible
**Cause:** proven, or explicitly "unproven"
**Correction:** the smallest change that fixed it
**Consequence:** what the specification or automation must do differently
```

An entry with no `Consequence` is either not understood or not worth recording.

**"Unproven" is a respectable result.** F-006, F-012 and F-022 are carried open
and the log is better for it. Never invent a cause to close an entry, and never
close one on a change that merely coincided with the symptom disappearing.

### Escalating

Stop and ask the operator when:

- A decision is needed that is not the assistant's to make
- The work requires changing infrastructure outside this project
- A **REQ** in the specification cannot be satisfied
- The specification and observed reality disagree

The last one is not a blocker — reality wins, and the specification is
corrected. But it is always worth saying out loud.

---

## 8. Session handoff

Sessions end abruptly. Assume the next assistant has these documents and
nothing else.

### Before a session ends

- Anything working is committed and pushed
- Anything learned is in `FAILURES.md`
- Anything changed on a host is in `STAGING-STATE.md`
- Any open decision is in `STAGING-STATE.md` section 6

### Starting a session

Read in this order:

1. **`PROCESS.md`** — this document
2. **`STAGING-STATE.md`** — what is true right now
3. **`FAILURES.md`** — what has already gone wrong
4. **`ENVIRONMENT.md`** — the specification
5. `ROADMAP.md` — where it is going

If writing provisioning automation, read `FAILURES.md` **before** the
specification. Every entry is something a script written from the specification
alone would have got wrong.

### Authority when documents disagree

1. `STAGING-STATE.md` — factual, wins on what is true
2. `FAILURES.md` — evidence from contact with real hosts
3. `ENVIRONMENT.md` — the specification, corrected when proven wrong
4. `ROADMAP.md` — sequence

**A permanent deviation is not a deviation. It is the specification.** Promote
it and delete the exception.

---

## 9. Instructions the operator can actually run

**REQ** — `pct exec` runs no shell. A glob, redirect, pipe or `&&` in a `pct
exec` command is expanded by the host shell against the host's filesystem, and
the container receives whatever literal survives. Wrap them: `pct exec 101 --
sh -c '...'`. An unwrapped glob produces an error that describes the container
rather than the invocation, which is the same misdirection as F-035 and F-036 —
three instances now, all of them the tool being invoked wrongly and the message
naming the wrong subject.

This section exists because it has already gone wrong.

**REQ** — One command group per message. Wait for output.

**REQ** — Commands run in the `srv-b` shell, or via `pct exec` from it. Nothing
assumes a tool the operator does not have.

**REQ** — A group is copy-pasteable as a block, with `echo` markers separating
sections so the output can be read back.

**REQ** — State what the expected output is. An operator who cannot tell
success from failure cannot report usefully.

**Do not** deliver a numbered multi-stage procedure spanning several systems and
expect it to be executed. It will not be, and the parts that are will not be
separable in the output.

**Do not** assume the operator will improvise the missing step. If a command
needs a directory to exist, create it in the same group.

---

## 9a. The baseline check

`ct-baseline.sh` is the executable definition of the container standard on this
host. Read-only, runnable at any time, exits non-zero on divergence.

Run it:

- before starting work on a container;
- after any change to a container or to host firewall rules;
- after any host reboot;
- before considering backup work (see `ENVIRONMENT.md` §15 gate 4).

**A property not checked by it is not part of the standard.** If something
should be uniform across containers, add it to the script. If it should not,
leave it out and stop worrying about the difference. That is the whole point:
it converts an endless comparison into a pass or a fail.

It covers containers belonging to more than one project, and encodes host
requirements neither project owns alone. Treat it as host property.

---

## 10. Current mode

**Infrastructure: complete and accepted.** Host, containers, network isolation,
bastion access, TLS, reverse proxy, mail alerting, disk monitoring. See
`STAGING-STATE.md`.

**Backup: deliberately postponed.** Nothing exists yet whose loss would cost
more than an afternoon; the documents are in Gitea. This changes when
`artifacts/` stops being empty.

**Repository seeded** at `c7e32d8`: reference implementation, frozen oracle,
pinned toolchain, test harness. Dependencies installed in CT 100, oracle
verified in-container, `3 passed, 236 skipped`.

**Container baseline established.** All three containers on `srv-b` conform.

**Development: starting.** First work item is the Shapely port —
`pytest -n auto` green against the 123 frozen cases.

From here the mode is **development** unless the work touches the host, the
containers, or a shared service.