The point of the new inventory tool is this commit: packages/blankpad.pkgs declared one package
while the machine had 24 more that no rebuild would reproduce. Declaring them changes nothing on
the running box (install.sh installs only what is missing — its delta is now empty) and makes a
fresh install faithful to this one.
nirimod-git is left undeclared on purpose: it is AUR-only and aur.pkgs is fleet-wide, so declaring
it there would make the headless servers build a niri module.
Refs #51
install.sh installs desired − installed from packages/*.pkgs, which guarantees a fresh box reaches
the declared state — and nothing anywhere checked that the declared state still describes the
machines. Measured against the Calamares install day, blankpad carries 41 hand-installed packages
and packages/blankpad.pkgs declared one line.
pkg-inventory.sh walks the other direction: installed − declared, with the pacman log as the
baseline so installer furniture is never reported as a hand install. It splits additions by
whether a sync db can serve them (Chaotic-AUR counts, so only true AUR routes to aur.pkgs),
excludes orphans from --emit, reports flatpak apps without pretending install.sh installs them,
and exits 3 rather than guessing when the sync databases are unreadable.
16 black-box tests over fixtures and a stubbed pacman. Two of them exist because the first
implementation was wrong in ways a small fixture cannot show: sort|head under pipefail dies of
SIGPIPE on a real 1000-line install-day log (awk-exit closes the pipe exactly as head does), and
tr without a trailing echo glues the next report label onto the last folded name.
Docs: omp-docs/tools/packages.md now owns the package tier — install.sh was never documented.
Refs #51
Two statements in the law added by #48 need measurement rather than inference, and one of them was
wrong.
**Attributed.** `niri` and `noctalia` both started `Mon Oct 12 16:22:31 2026` (`ps -o lstart=`);
swayidle's last state change was `16:22:23`. The compositor session restarted and the watcher died
with it — eight seconds of agreement, which is what `PartOf=graphical-session.target` is for. The
fix that #48 justified by reasoning is now justified by the event itself. The user journal holds no
entries for that window, so the evidence is process ages, not logs.
**Corrected.** #48 said closing the lid suspended blankpad unlocked, because `before-sleep` lived in
the dead unit. `systemd-inhibit --list` says otherwise: `noctalia … sleep "Lock before sleep" delay`
— the shell holds its own sleep inhibitor and locks on suspend independently of swayidle, so the
suspend path held all along. What was dead for eight days is the **idle** lock and `after-resume`.
The method error is worth keeping: `pgrep` for lockers came back empty and I read that as "no lock
path", when a locker can be a hook inside a running shell. The inhibitor table is the instrument.
Added with them, because it answers a question people will ask: while an `omp` session runs, swayidle
logs `Not enabling timeouts: idle inhibitor found` and arms no idle timeout (`omp … idle "omp agent
session" block`). A box with an agent working does not lock on inactivity, by harness design.
Docs only; the unit file from #48 is unchanged and the live watcher is `active` with `NRestarts=1`
after the SIGTERM proof. `kb-lint.sh omp-docs` 0 violations, `kb-coverage.py` 0 issues, `bats tests/`
71/71. Refs #47.
`swayidle-lock.service` was `enabled`, in `default.target.wants/`, and **dead for eight days**:
Active: inactive (dead) since Mon 2026-10-12 16:22:23 PDT; 1 week 1 day ago
Duration: 2d 21h 57min Main PID: 3181 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Result=success NRestarts=0
`Restart=on-failure` cannot see a clean exit, and `swayidle -w` exits 0 on SIGTERM. So the
watcher that owns both the 5-minute idle lock and the `before-sleep` lock stopped existing, and
nothing on the box noticed. The consequence is not cosmetic: with `HandleLidSwitch=suspend` and
`HandleLidSwitchExternalPower=""` (which falls back to it), **closing the lid suspended the
machine unlocked**, because the hook that locks on sleep lived inside the unit that had died. No
alternative was running: `pgrep -c -u blankpad 'swayidle|swaylock|hyprlock|gtklock'` = 0, and
neither `autostart.kdl` launches a locker.
Three settings, each with a job:
- `Restart=always` — a supervisor must not assume it can only die badly.
- `StartLimitIntervalSec=0` — with `always`, a fast loop must never wedge the unit into `failed`;
a lock that keeps trying beats a lock that stopped trying.
- `PartOf=graphical-session.target` — it is wanted by `default.target`, so a session restart
brought the target back without it; now the watcher is restarted with the session.
What triggered the 16:22 exit is **unattributed**: the user journal has no entries in that window,
so all that can be said is that swayidle exited with status 0 — precisely what the old policy was
blind to. The fix does not depend on knowing the trigger, which is the point.
Verification is behavioural, per the law recorded with it: start the unit, `kill -TERM` the main
PID, and watch `NRestarts` increment with a new `MainPID` — the October event, survived. Not
performed here: starting it arms a 5-minute idle lock on a machine that has gone a week without
one, and that is Frank's call. `systemd-analyze --user verify` clean, `bats tests/` 71/71,
`kb-lint.sh omp-docs` 0, `kb-coverage.py` 0.
Refs #47
The first real `deploy.sh` run on blankpad printed:
SKIP live-sync.service (ExecStart '%h/.omp/scripts/live-sync.sh' absent on this host)
while `/home/blank/.omp/scripts/live-sync.sh` sits right there. `%h` is expanded by systemd,
never by the shell, so the literal string was handed to `command -v`, failed, and the unit was
declared to belong to another machine — through the same code path whose whole purpose is to
keep a *foreign* unit inert, and silently. The victim was this repo's own heartbeat, and the
verdict was the same on every box that ever deployed it, because `%h` is exactly where the
checkout lives.
Nothing broke tonight only by luck of install state: `live-sync.service` is `linked`, driven
by its timer, so the heartbeat kept running while the deploy lied about it. A unit whose only
install route was this loop would simply never have been enabled anywhere.
`%h`, `%u` and `%U` are now expanded before resolution; an unrecognised specifier is left
alone so it fails loudly rather than being guessed at. Pinned by a test that writes a
`%h/.local/bin/helper` unit into the scratch home — red before (`SKIP`), green after
(`already linked; not started`), which also keeps the #45 rule intact: resolving a unit is not
licence to start it. Refs #44.
Verification: `bats tests/` 71/71, `kb-lint.sh omp-docs` 0 violations, `kb-coverage.py` 0
issues, `bash -n` clean.
`sync` on a box with a live session on it was unsafe in two independent ways, found by
preflighting the run rather than performing it. Refs #44.
**`enable --now` would have armed a screen lock mid-session.** The unit loop started every
`systemd-user/` unit whose `ExecStart` resolves. `swayidle-lock.service` on blankpad is
`enabled`/`inactive` — nothing started it, no swayidle process exists, `autostart.kdl` does
not launch one — so one `deploy.sh` would have begun blanking and locking the monitors while
the operator was mid-sentence. `live-sync.service` is `linked`, driven by its timer, and
`--now` forces a heartbeat commit at an arbitrary moment. A unit is now started only when
systemd reports it as nothing-yet (`""`/`disabled`), which is precisely a fresh box; anything
already installed is merely `enable`d. The state has to come from the **printed state**:
`is-enabled` exits 1 for `linked` exactly as for `disabled`, so exit status cannot
distinguish "installed, timer-driven" from "never installed" — the first version of this fix
got that wrong and the test caught it.
**`--check` output was being read as more than it can mean.** It prints `RELINK` for every
path the `zz` tier carries, even when the live link already points at the override
(`rules.kdl`, `keybinds.kdl`, `misc.kdl`, `autostart.kdl`, `.zshrc` all did on blankpad),
because the walk visits the base package first and reports the intermediate owner change.
The sentence committed in #43 — RELINK noise is "the sound of a stale override waiting" — is
too strong and is corrected: the line proves a pending change only when `readlink` shows the
live target is not already the `zz-$HOST` file, and `actions=0` is the honest summary. The
stale-override hazard #43 removed was and is real; the signal for it is the target, not the line.
**The dconf dump carried six of its 24 keys from another box**, none of them preferences:
a Firefox file-chooser `last-folder-path` of `/home/dank/Downloads`, a nautilus
`window-state` section, and `picture-uri`/`picture-uri-dark` pointing at
`file:///home/dank/.config/background`. The last five showed no conflict because blankpad's
live tree *already* held those `/home/dank` values — an earlier deploy wrote them here — and
a foreign value that agrees with live is invisible to any diff while still being wrong. They
are dropped; `picture-options='zoom'` stays, because it is a preference. The live wallpaper
URIs are cleared on the box as part of landing this (niri draws the wallpaper, noctalia owns
it, nothing reads a dead path).
`tests/deploy.bats` grows by four, over a stub `systemctl` — the real one on this box is
exactly what must not be invoked from a test. Red before: an already-`enabled` unit and a
`linked` unit both get `--now`. Green after, including the two directions that keep the
change honest: a `disabled` unit is still `enable --now`'d so a fresh box comes up, and a
unit whose `ExecStart` is absent here is never touched at all.
Verification: `bats tests/` 70/70, `kb-lint.sh omp-docs` 0, `kb-coverage.py` 0. The dump now
reconciles against live state with **0 conflicts and no `/home/` values in 18 keys**, proven
by key-by-key comparison rather than `diff` — `dconf load` writes only the keys present, so a
diff overstates the damage one way and hides it the other.
Three findings from verifying the #41 merge against the live box with
`deploy.sh --check`. One commit because they share the deploy tier, its
documentation, and the first test file that tier ever had.
**1. Generated palette output was tracked, and sync would have restored it over a
live theme.** `dotfiles/zz-blankpad/niri/.config/niri/noctalia.kdl` (`b3d3df4`,
2026-10-18) sat byte-identical to the live file — harmless while the palette held, and
`--check` was already proposing `ADOPT … noctalia.kdl`. The moment the theme changed, the
next sync would have quarantined the live file and reinstated 2026-10-18's colours.
`deploy.sh` now refuses the class outright (`SKIP … (generated theme output)`), `.gitignore`
carries the matching patterns so it cannot be re-added, and the file is untracked.
**2. A `zz` override older than the file it overrides.** `dotfiles/zz-blankpad/niri/…/
layout.kdl` held focus ring `width 2` / `#e01b24` (`7b7dbf5`, 2026-10-17) while base
absorbed `b3d3df4` (2026-10-18): `width 4`, `#ff8c00`. Stow order makes `zz-*` win, and a
cross-package owner change relinks *silently* — no quarantine, no warning. Live was linked
to base, the newer intent, so `--check` printed `RELINK … layout.kdl` every run and one
unattended `deploy.sh` would have reverted the amber focus ring. The duplicate is deleted;
base owns the file.
**3. Two topologies I had asserted and not measured.** The media law and the `.gitignore`
comment both said `~/.local/share/noctalia/wallpapers` symlinks into the repo, so deleting
the tracked copies would blank the desktop. Measured: it is a real directory of real files
that Noctalia owns; the repo held a duplicate, and the #41 merge deleted that duplicate
without the desktop flickering. The correct general law replaces the false one — untracking
a path deletes the file in every other checkout, `git rm --cached` on the branch
notwithstanding — and the restore procedure now points at the app's directory, which
`deploy.sh` does not manage.
The guard is `tests/deploy.bats`, black-box over exit status, stdout, the symlink shape
under `$HOME`, and the quarantine directory. Before the change: test 1 and test 2 fail,
test 2 because the live palette really is quarantined and reverted. After: 4/4, including
the control that an ordinary identical config is still adopted — an exclusion nobody can
turn off is just a broken tool.
Verification: `bats tests/` 66/66, `kb-lint.sh omp-docs` 0 violations, `kb-coverage.py` 0
issues, and live `deploy.sh --check` on blankpad reports `SKIP … (generated theme output)`
with `actions=0` instead of `ADOPT … noctalia.kdl`. The real `deploy.sh` run that clears the
remaining `RELINK` lines is deliberately left until this is in main — running it from a
worktree would repoint live symlinks into a checkout the heartbeat reaps.
Refs #42
The repo still tracked `dotfiles/niri/.config/niri/cfg/.AGENTTRASH/display.kdl.superseded`
— a retired output config committed 2026-10-09, five days before `.gitignore` grew the
`.AGENTTRASH/` rule. Tracked-then-ignored: an ignore rule never reaches an already-tracked
path, so `git rm --cached` is the only repair. The working copy joins the rest of today's
tracked debt.
Found while answering "does this repo still track my noctalia and niri settings", which
also falsified two rows of the census committed yesterday: niri is 9 tracked files, not
12; noctalia is 3 authored files against 2672 files of app state and downloaded catalog,
not 2/0. The page's own classifier command reproduces the new numbers — it never
reproduced the old ones, which is the only reason they were wrong and not merely
different.
Two laws recorded alongside, both from the same probe: `config.kdl`'s
`include "noctalia.kdl"` is not `optional=true`, so a fresh box cannot start niri until
the theme pipeline has run once; and `cfg/display.kdl -> desk-1-home.kdl` is desk state a
fresh box does not receive — by design, but nowhere written down.
Refs #40
`inventory/home-config-census.md` was dated 2026-08-28, tagged `unverified`,
and every path in it was `/home/dank` — it described another box, yet
`inventory/index.md` still advertised it as the input for the pruning session,
so the pruning session would have pruned against fiction.
Rebuilt from this box, purpose stated in line one. Classification is per FILE
because the tracked unit is a symlink into `dotfiles/`: a directory can look
"real" while every file inside it is tracked (`niri` 12/1, `gtk-3.0` 3/0), and
a directory can be one whole symlink (`lazyvim`). The classifier command is in
the page so tomorrow's agent reruns it instead of trusting the table.
The generated/authored split is the load-bearing part: 24 `noctalia*` palette
files across 20 apps are one generator pass, proven by the
`2026-10-14 19:05:40.330…40.813` same-second cluster and later single re-stamps
(`bat` 10-18, `niri` 10-18, `mango` 10-17). A same-second mass write is
generation, never authorship — so the source palette stays tracked and the
expansion never is. Adoption candidates are limited to programs that pass
`command -v`, with authorship read from the file; the prune list extends the
expected 14 with `pywalfox`, `qt5ct`, `qt6ct`, `turborepo`, and notes that six
of the orphan dirs contain nothing but generated palette.
`fib-watchdog.{service,timer}` is recorded as owned by the bench repo, not
adopted here: its `ExecStart` and `WorkingDirectory` are that project's
internals. It is flagged as a reinstall risk instead, which is the honest
status. Deleted: the `/home/dank` rows, `~/.pi`, Steam library sizes, and the
old offender/summary tables — numbers for software that is not installed here
fail the purpose test.
Refs #40
Three things were in history that should not have been, all invisible to the
tool that deploys them:
- `home/dank/.omp/dotfiles/**` — 3 files re-hosting `niri/cfg/autostart.kdl`,
`niri/cfg/keybinds.kdl` and `systemd-user/…/swayidle-lock.service` under a
prefix `scripts/deploy.sh` never reads (it walks `dotfiles/<pkg>/`). The live
package is deployed and symlinked, so the copy asserted nothing; it only
misled. Moved to `.AGENTTRASH/20261020-tracked-debt/`.
- `.pre-pull-backup/**` — 2 managed-skill files, a local backup in history,
which `.gitignore` itself declares must stay on disk only. Same destination.
- `dotfiles/noctalia/.local/share/noctalia/wallpapers/` — 23 images, 80.4 MiB.
Untracked, files left in place: `~/.local/share/noctalia/wallpapers` symlinks
into this directory and the theme reads it, so deleting them would have gone
black. Every filename carries its wallhaven ID, so a fresh box restores the
set with one `curl` per file plus `deploy.sh`; losing the set is an acceptable
outcome, 80 MiB per clone forever is not.
New page `omp-docs/tools/dotfiles-deploy.md` owns the deploy contract (the
`--check`/sync/`--adopt` modes, `zz-$(hostname)` override semantics, the dconf
and systemd-user special cases) because nothing documented it, plus two laws:
media the pipeline consumes is content not config, and `systemctl --user
enable` snapshots an absolute path — so enabling from a worktree means the
seven-day reap silently kills the unit while `is-enabled` keeps answering
`enabled`. That second law is not theoretical:
`default.target.wants/blankpad-desk-autoswitch.service` pointed into the reaped
`wt/de-redesign-20261009` and desk auto-switching had been off since. It is
relinked to `dotfiles/zz-blankpad/` and left inactive rather than started mid-
session; starting it applies a desk profile.
Refs #40
The gate scanned only `*.md *.yml *.yaml *.json *.toml *.sh *.ts *.js`. A
`postgres.env`, a `.container` quadlet, an `.ini`, or an extension-less dotfile
— exactly the shapes the dotfiles tier is made of — was never read at all.
Discovered while deciding what else belongs in `dotfiles/`: `~/.config`
carries `containers/systemd/postgres.env` with a real `POSTGRES_PASSWORD`,
which the ignore list did not cover either (`git check-ignore` says so: `.env`
does not match `postgres.env`).
Token SHAPES now scan the entire staged diff, every file type; bcrypt hashes
and `Authorization: Basic` headers joined the shape list. Credential
ASSIGNMENTS are scanned in non-prose files only — the auto-learned memory tier
is prose *about* credentials (7 such hits measured on the tracked tree), and a
gate that fires there gets overridden until it means nothing. Markdown keeps
shape detection, which is what it had before.
Three invariants, each pinned by a test in tests/secret-gate.bats (13 tests,
black-box: the hook is copied into a scratch repo and git itself runs it):
- Fail closed. The first version of this rewrite passed `-I` to `git diff`,
which is not valid there; the empty file list made every secret commit sail
through, and a blind gate looks exactly like a clean tree. If the hook cannot
read the staged diff it now refuses the commit.
- Only ADDED lines can leak. The gate refused the redaction commit in this
branch because the diff still carried the removed password — a gate that
blocks the removal of a secret holds the leak hostage.
- Path-valued variables (`…_FILE=`, `…_PATH=`) and placeholder/indirected
values are not secrets, so the gate stays worth listening to.
`.gitignore` quarantines `*.env` at any name, and gains the theme-media rule
whose untracking lands in the next commit. `AGENTS.md` states the new contract.
Refs #40
The auto-learned memory tier for serverAppConfigs carried, in plaintext, the
Caddy basicauth bcrypt hash for dankuser, the password behind it, and the
Pi-hole internal password. The file is tracked, so all three are in git
history on every machine that has pulled this repo, and in every agent
context window that has read the bucket.
Operational knowledge preserved in full (which auth layer fails, how to
reset, that the CLI hash is what CivetWeb validates, hot-reload through the
file watcher); only the credential values removed.
Both credentials still need rotation: redaction does not un-leak history.
That is an operator action on Dankclaw, not something this commit can do.
Refs #40
The Matt Pocock engineering skills (triage, to-tickets, to-spec, research,
implement) assume per-repo config for three things: where work items live, what
the triage label vocabulary is, and where domain docs sit. Nothing here declared
any of them, so every skill run re-guessed.
Frank's decisions, 2026-10-20: Gitea on Dankclaw as the tracker (no gh, no tea on
any box, so it is recorded as prose — auth via a 600 curl config, the endpoint
table, the 404-on-empty-token / form-encoded-merge / empty-200-on-merge traps,
and the AGENTS.md laws a skill must not renegotiate); the canonical triage label
vocabulary kept as-is, with the five labels created on the tracker (the repo had
zero, so nothing collides); single-context domain docs.
The configuration moved out of the skill's default docs/agents/ and into the one
knowledge base this repo allows: three pages under omp-docs/skills/, an empty
omp-docs/decisions/ carrying the ADR format rule, an "## Agent skills" pointer
block in AGENTS.md, index entries, and a log entry. The glossary is deliberately
not created — every candidate term already has an owner in system/, core/ or
skills/, and a term list that paraphrases them is a second owner of facts already
written down. Known cost: re-running setup-matt-pocock-skills will not recognise
omp-docs/skills/* and will offer to recreate docs/agents/; the AGENTS.md pointer
is what stops that.
Also closes a verification gap found on the way: kb-lint.bats only ever points
the linter at fixtures, so a page with no frontmatter or an index that stops
listing a file passes the suite silently. Two tests now run the linter and the
coverage checker against the shipped omp-docs/ tree.
Refs #18
The Limits bullet still described the pre-fix behaviour ("thinking and the
final message only"), which dank/dankvoice#3 just retired: narration rides
`turn_end`, so the assistant's prose and thinking are spoken while the agent
works. Records the two rules an operator needs when audio seems missing —
arming is read at startup only, and a turn landing during playback is dropped
rather than queued — plus where the design rationale lives.
kb-lint 0 violations, index-coverage 0 issues.
dank
Frank