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# rig
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A CLI that turns a **pristine Debian server into a hardened, tailnet-joined
node** — one curl, one command. A second command installs a version-pinned
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Coolify on a control-plane box. And inside a [box ](https://github.com/heavy-duty/box )-minted
guest, the same verb converges the **box tenants** — claude, codex, grok,
staging — from thin, creds-free seeds (see *the box tenants* below).
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Philosophy (shared with [box ](https://github.com/heavy-duty/box )):
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**public tool, private state**. rig carries plumbing logic only — no
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hostnames, no bindings, no secrets, nothing about *your* infrastructure. It
takes arguments, does its work, and stores no credential, ever.
## Install
```sh
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curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/heavy-duty/rig/main/install.sh | bash
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```
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That installs the **latest release** : the installer resolves the newest tag
by following GitHub's `releases/latest` redirect (no API, no token) and
downloads that tag's source tarball — which, for a pure-bash tree, *is* the
package. Three channels from the same script; `RIG_REF` picks:
```sh
curl -fsSL .../install.sh | bash # the latest release
curl -fsSL .../install.sh | RIG_REF=0.1.0 bash # pinned to a release
curl -fsSL .../install.sh | RIG_REF=main bash # the development tree
```
A tag outranks a branch of the same name (the pin must win); anything that
is not a tag falls back to `refs/heads/<ref>` .
> **Transitional, until 0.1.0 is cut** (right after rig#32 lands): rig has
> no GitHub release yet, so the default channel has nothing to resolve —
> it **fails loudly** naming `RIG_REF=main` as the way to install today,
> and never silently falls back to main. Once 0.1.0 exists, the plain
> `curl | bash` above is the normal path.
feat(install): versioned installs and a real uninstall — box#79's layout, ported
install.sh now lands every version at <root>/versions/<v> (each tree
carrying its own VERSION + INSTALLED_FROM), tracks the default through an
atomically-flipped 'current' symlink, and converges instead of clobbering:
a same-version re-run is a no-op that says so, RIG_REINSTALL=1 replaces
that version's tree by two renames (delete last), and a new version
installs side by side. A pre-versioning flat tree is migrated in place —
two renames, preserved bit for bit, VERSION-less trees as 0.0.0-unknown.
bin/rig grows the table verbs: 'rig versions' (current + running marked),
'rig use <v>' (atomic flip, asserted effective through the PATH chain),
'rig uninstall [<v>|--all]' — which ENDS with an absence assert: every
removed path re-checked, survivors exit 1 as 'uninstall INCOMPLETE' by
name. One strict valid_version gate guards every place a version string
becomes a path (byte-identical copies in bin/rig and install.sh, diffed by
the suite so they cannot drift). Plus the VERSION file and 'rig --version'
(rig#32's first item, folded in minimally — rig main had neither).
The flip gate is rig's own shape, deliberately: box refuses flips under
existing boxes; rig's stake is the converged host, so a flip (upgrade,
'rig use', full uninstall) on a host where /etc/rig/role exists WARNS and
proceeds — no user state to strand, and upgrading a bootstrapped host is
the normal case.
The suite drives REAL installer runs (RIG_INSTALL_SOURCE against throwaway
RIG_HOME/RIG_BIN roots): fresh install, converge, reinstall, side-by-side
upgrade, use/rollback, both migrations, hostile flat VERSION, wedged-
symlink healing, the marker warn gate (RIG_ROLE_MARKER fixtures), both
uninstalls and the INCOMPLETE scream — driven, not grepped.
Closes #35.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-18 19:33:17 +00:00
The layout, under the install root (`~/.local/share/rig`):
```
versions/< version > / one full tree per installed version
current -> versions/< v > the tracked default
$BINDIR/rig -> current/bin/rig the PATH entry, riding the chain
```
`rig` lands on your PATH via `~/.local/bin` (`/usr/local/bin` when root).
**Re-running is a safe converge.** Installing a version you already have
changes nothing and says so (`RIG_REINSTALL=1` replaces that version's
tree); a **new** version installs side by side and becomes the default — so
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"re-run any time to upgrade" stays true, and now means *upgrade to the
latest release*; every version you had stays installed as the way back:
feat(install): versioned installs and a real uninstall — box#79's layout, ported
install.sh now lands every version at <root>/versions/<v> (each tree
carrying its own VERSION + INSTALLED_FROM), tracks the default through an
atomically-flipped 'current' symlink, and converges instead of clobbering:
a same-version re-run is a no-op that says so, RIG_REINSTALL=1 replaces
that version's tree by two renames (delete last), and a new version
installs side by side. A pre-versioning flat tree is migrated in place —
two renames, preserved bit for bit, VERSION-less trees as 0.0.0-unknown.
bin/rig grows the table verbs: 'rig versions' (current + running marked),
'rig use <v>' (atomic flip, asserted effective through the PATH chain),
'rig uninstall [<v>|--all]' — which ENDS with an absence assert: every
removed path re-checked, survivors exit 1 as 'uninstall INCOMPLETE' by
name. One strict valid_version gate guards every place a version string
becomes a path (byte-identical copies in bin/rig and install.sh, diffed by
the suite so they cannot drift). Plus the VERSION file and 'rig --version'
(rig#32's first item, folded in minimally — rig main had neither).
The flip gate is rig's own shape, deliberately: box refuses flips under
existing boxes; rig's stake is the converged host, so a flip (upgrade,
'rig use', full uninstall) on a host where /etc/rig/role exists WARNS and
proceeds — no user state to strand, and upgrading a bootstrapped host is
the normal case.
The suite drives REAL installer runs (RIG_INSTALL_SOURCE against throwaway
RIG_HOME/RIG_BIN roots): fresh install, converge, reinstall, side-by-side
upgrade, use/rollback, both migrations, hostile flat VERSION, wedged-
symlink healing, the marker warn gate (RIG_ROLE_MARKER fixtures), both
uninstalls and the INCOMPLETE scream — driven, not grepped.
Closes #35.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-18 19:33:17 +00:00
```sh
rig versions # what is installed, which is current, which is running
rig use < version > # flip the default (atomic; asserts the flip took)
```
On a **bootstrapped host** (one where `/etc/rig/role` exists) switching the
default — by upgrade or by `rig use` — prints a WARNING, because a
different rig under a converged host changes what a re-converge
(`rig bootstrap`, `rig users apply` ) would do. It warns rather than
refuses: unlike box (which protects live boxes), rig holds no user state a
flip can strand, and upgrading a bootstrapped host is the normal case.
A pre-versioning flat install is migrated into `versions/` automatically on
the next installer run — the tree is moved, not re-downloaded, and
preserved bit for bit. For scripting: `RIG_HOME` /`RIG_BIN` override the
install root and bin dir, `RIG_INSTALL_SOURCE=<dir-or-tarball>` installs
from a local tree instead of downloading (how the test suite proves the
installer under review), and `RIG_YES=1` answers `rig uninstall` 's prompt
in automation.
### Uninstall
`rig uninstall` is the real uninstall — no more "rm -rf two paths" prose —
and it **ends with an absence assert** : every path it removed is
re-checked, and any survivor makes it exit 1 naming the leftovers instead
of reporting a clean uninstall that wasn't.
```sh
rig uninstall < version > # one non-current version (side-by-side cleanup)
rig uninstall --all # everything: every version, current, the PATH symlinks
```
Asks before removing; `--force` or `RIG_YES=1` skips the prompt. The host
itself is untouched — what bootstrap converged stays converged.
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## Commands
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### `rig bootstrap <control-plane|workload|runner|dev|workstation|custom>`
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Run as root on the fresh box (over SSH). Convergent — safe to re-run; a
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second run changes nothing. (The box TENANT roles — `claude` , `codex` ,
`grok` , `staging` — share the verb but are their own family; see *the box
tenants* below.)
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```sh
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rig bootstrap control-plane --hostname my-coolify-box
rig bootstrap workload --hostname my-prod-box
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rig bootstrap runner --hostname my-ci-box
docs: README identity model — traits, presets, fleet users, root's two fates
The bootstrap section now documents what shipped: roles as presets over the
three orthogonal traits (class/host/join, every one overridable, custom
states all of them), the derived tag:server policy, the /etc/rig/role marker
that records effective traits so an overridden role never lies, and the
join=login path where the tag assertion inverts — untagged is asserted, a
tag is the refusal. A new identity-model section carries the hybrid access
model: named operators on every class, humans never entering as root, class
deciding root SSH's fate after `rig users apply` — closed on human, kept as
the control plane's automation door on server — with the detection benefit
and the honest attribution-not-privilege caveat stated plainly. Per-command
sections cover apply/status/close-root, including the first-wins drop-in
mechanism and the README-only from= guidance for Coolify's key on servers.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 19:32:23 +00:00
rig bootstrap dev --hostname my-dev-box
rig bootstrap workstation --hostname my-laptop
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rig bootstrap custom --hostname my-vm-host --class server --host yes --join authkey
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```
docs: README identity model — traits, presets, fleet users, root's two fates
The bootstrap section now documents what shipped: roles as presets over the
three orthogonal traits (class/host/join, every one overridable, custom
states all of them), the derived tag:server policy, the /etc/rig/role marker
that records effective traits so an overridden role never lies, and the
join=login path where the tag assertion inverts — untagged is asserted, a
tag is the refusal. A new identity-model section carries the hybrid access
model: named operators on every class, humans never entering as root, class
deciding root SSH's fate after `rig users apply` — closed on human, kept as
the control plane's automation door on server — with the detection benefit
and the honest attribution-not-privilege caveat stated plainly. Per-command
sections cover apply/status/close-root, including the first-wins drop-in
mechanism and the README-only from= guidance for Coolify's key on servers.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 19:32:23 +00:00
- `--hostname <name>` — system + tailnet hostname (default: the role name;
`custom` has no default and requires it)
- `--class <human|server>` — who lives here; decides root SSH's fate after
`rig users apply` (see *The identity model* below)
- `--host <yes|no>` — does this box host VMs (box/Incus)
- `--join <authkey|login>` — how it enters the tailnet
**Roles are presets over three orthogonal traits**, nothing more — every
per-role behavior keys off a trait, so any flag overrides its trait without
needing a new role (`rig bootstrap workstation --host no` for a laptop that
will never run VMs), and `custom` exists for the shape nobody foresaw: it
presets nothing and requires `--hostname` plus all three traits.
| trait | values | what it drives |
|---------|--------------------|----------------|
| `class` | `human` , `server` | root SSH's fate once operators exist — human closes it, server keeps it as the control plane's automation door |
feat(bootstrap): host-class installs box + runs setup-host
A host=yes box exists to run guest boxes, so bootstrap finishes the job
instead of printing "next: install the box CLI and run 'box setup-host'".
After the role marker is written, on host=yes it installs the box CLI
globally and lets box's OWN setup-host build the Incus stack.
rig DELEGATES to box; it never touches Incus itself — the same design law
`rig users apply` enforces ("rig NEVER installs Incus: box's setup-host
owns the daemon and its group"). rig does not apt-install incus, does not
configure the daemon, does not create the incus group. It runs box's global
installer as root with BOX_YES=1 (non-interactive AND keeps setup-host);
box installs Incus. Two tools converging one daemon is drift by construction.
- Convergent: box's installer is a no-op once box is installed, so re-running
bootstrap changes nothing.
- Opt-out: RIG_SKIP_BOX_INSTALL=1 skips; also skips gracefully (with a manual
pointer) when curl or the network is missing — box is the host EXTRA, so a
failed box install never aborts a bootstrap that otherwise succeeded.
- Pinnable: BOX_REPO / BOX_REF (default heavy-duty/box@main).
- Runs only AFTER the role marker write, so a box that failed to become what
it claims never installs box on a half-built host.
The world-readable global install path (box under /opt/box, readable by every
non-root user) depends on box PR #71; until it merges box's root install lands
in /root. Noted in a comment and the plan doc.
Completes rig#12 (the dev role — the Incus claudebox host) and rig#25
(machine classes: host-class installs box + rig users).
Tests: 8 new bootstrap checks (guard on host=yes, BOX_YES install, pin
defaults, RIG_SKIP_BOX_INSTALL opt-out, negative-grep that rig never
apt-installs incus, box-after-marker ordering, manual-pointer on skip).
154 passed, 0 failed; shellcheck -x clean.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 22:45:40 +00:00
| `host` | `yes` , `no` | whether the box exists to run VMs — the `/dev/kvm` advisory and, on `yes` , installing the `box` CLI + running box's `setup-host` |
docs: README identity model — traits, presets, fleet users, root's two fates
The bootstrap section now documents what shipped: roles as presets over the
three orthogonal traits (class/host/join, every one overridable, custom
states all of them), the derived tag:server policy, the /etc/rig/role marker
that records effective traits so an overridden role never lies, and the
join=login path where the tag assertion inverts — untagged is asserted, a
tag is the refusal. A new identity-model section carries the hybrid access
model: named operators on every class, humans never entering as root, class
deciding root SSH's fate after `rig users apply` — closed on human, kept as
the control plane's automation door on server — with the detection benefit
and the honest attribution-not-privilege caveat stated plainly. Per-command
sections cover apply/status/close-root, including the first-wins drop-in
mechanism and the README-only from= guidance for Coolify's key on servers.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 19:32:23 +00:00
| `join` | `authkey` , `login` | tagged pre-auth key (fleet identity) vs interactive browser login (user-owned device) |
| role | class | host | join | tailnet tag |
|-----------------|--------|------|---------|-------------|
| `control-plane` | server | no | authkey | `tag:server` |
| `workload` | server | no | authkey | `tag:server` |
| `runner` | server | no | authkey | `tag:ci` — refuses `tag:server` |
| `dev` | human | yes | authkey | `tag:local` — refuses `tag:server` |
| `workstation` | human | yes | login | untagged — any tag refused |
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> **Where the `staging` preset went.** Before #31, `staging` was the VM-host
> preset (`class=server host=yes join=authkey`). The name now belongs to the
> box TENANT family — the *guest*, not the host under it — because that is
> what "staging" mostly names in practice (the box the control plane will
> manage), and two meanings on one word was the worse bug. The host shape
> lost nothing: it is one flag away — `rig bootstrap dev --class server
> --hostname my-vm-host` — or fully spelled as `custom --class server --host
> yes --join authkey`. Tag policy is unchanged: mint the host's key with
> `tag:local`; an effective `tag:server` is refused on every role but
> `control-plane` and `workload`.
docs: README identity model — traits, presets, fleet users, root's two fates
The bootstrap section now documents what shipped: roles as presets over the
three orthogonal traits (class/host/join, every one overridable, custom
states all of them), the derived tag:server policy, the /etc/rig/role marker
that records effective traits so an overridden role never lies, and the
join=login path where the tag assertion inverts — untagged is asserted, a
tag is the refusal. A new identity-model section carries the hybrid access
model: named operators on every class, humans never entering as root, class
deciding root SSH's fate after `rig users apply` — closed on human, kept as
the control plane's automation door on server — with the detection benefit
and the honest attribution-not-privilege caveat stated plainly. Per-command
sections cover apply/status/close-root, including the first-wins drop-in
mechanism and the README-only from= guidance for Coolify's key on servers.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 19:32:23 +00:00
The tag column is **derived policy, not a fourth trait** : `tag:server` means
"the control plane manages this box", and `control-plane` and `workload` are
the only shapes it manages — every other role refuses an effective
`tag:server` after join, one rule instead of per-role exceptions.
After the tag verification passes, bootstrap writes `/etc/rig/role` — one
line, `role=… class=… host=… join=…` — recording the **effective** traits,
overrides and all, so an overridden role never lies to the commands that read
the marker later (`rig users` keys root policy off `class=` ). Written
post-join and cmp-guarded, so a marker never describes a box that failed to
become what it claims.
**`join=login` inverts the tag assertion.** A workstation joins as a
user-owned device: there is no pre-auth key — a set `TS_AUTHKEY` is a loud
usage error (exit 2; unset it, or pass `--join authkey` ) — `tailscale up`
prints a login URL, and the human at the keyboard is the credential. After
join the assertion flips: **untagged** is what rig asserts, and any effective
tag is the refusal — a tag here means control granted this device fleet
identity, and on a first join the half-joined node is backed out with
`tailscale logout` (a box that was already joined is refused without backout;
rig never unwinds state it did not create). Same principle as the authkey
path, mirrored: verify what control **granted** , never what was requested.
bootstrap: infer the tailnet tag from the pre-auth key, verify the granted tag
rig used to pass --ts-tag to `tailscale up --advertise-tags`, stating the
tailnet tag a second time with no way to know whether its request and the
key's own tags agreed. It asserted the tag it REQUESTED, never the tag control
GRANTED — the sshd first-wins bug in a different hat, and the same scar (both
M900s joined tag:server, retagged by hand, unnoticed).
Collapse the two sources of truth onto one: the key.
- `tailscale up` drops --advertise-tags; the key's tags apply.
- After join, poll `tailscale status --json` for `.Self.Tags` (netmap ground
truth, not `debug prefs`) until tags appear or BackendState=Running, on BOTH
the fresh-join and already-joined paths.
- UNTAGGED -> hard refusal: `tailscale logout` to back the user-owned node out,
then die naming the fix (mint a tagged key).
- Role policy moves onto the effective tag: a runner must not have tag:server
among the tags the key actually granted. Strictly stronger than before.
- --ts-tag is removed, and dies exit 2 with a message pointing at the key
(consuming its value), not an "unknown flag".
- New array-aware reader json_string_array in lib/runner-config.sh (jq-free,
never fails under set -e), with its own unit tests; bootstrap sources the lib.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 15:27:09 +00:00
There is **no `--ts-tag` flag** . A pre-auth key is minted *with* its tags, so
the key is the single source of truth for the tailnet tag — rig no longer states
a second one it might disagree with. It **verifies** the tag control actually
granted after join instead (see below). Passing `--ts-tag` now exits 2 with a
message pointing you at the key.
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What it does: installs `curl ca-certificates unattended-upgrades` (and
enables periodic unattended upgrades); writes an sshd hardening drop-in
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(`PermitRootLogin prohibit-password`, `PasswordAuthentication no` ) and
**verifies it took effect** via `sshd -T` ; sets the system hostname; installs
bootstrap: infer the tailnet tag from the pre-auth key, verify the granted tag
rig used to pass --ts-tag to `tailscale up --advertise-tags`, stating the
tailnet tag a second time with no way to know whether its request and the
key's own tags agreed. It asserted the tag it REQUESTED, never the tag control
GRANTED — the sshd first-wins bug in a different hat, and the same scar (both
M900s joined tag:server, retagged by hand, unnoticed).
Collapse the two sources of truth onto one: the key.
- `tailscale up` drops --advertise-tags; the key's tags apply.
- After join, poll `tailscale status --json` for `.Self.Tags` (netmap ground
truth, not `debug prefs`) until tags appear or BackendState=Running, on BOTH
the fresh-join and already-joined paths.
- UNTAGGED -> hard refusal: `tailscale logout` to back the user-owned node out,
then die naming the fix (mint a tagged key).
- Role policy moves onto the effective tag: a runner must not have tag:server
among the tags the key actually granted. Strictly stronger than before.
- --ts-tag is removed, and dies exit 2 with a message pointing at the key
(consuming its value), not an "unknown flag".
- New array-aware reader json_string_array in lib/runner-config.sh (jq-free,
never fails under set -e), with its own unit tests; bootstrap sources the lib.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 15:27:09 +00:00
tailscale and joins your tailnet — then **verifies the tag the key granted**
(see *The tag comes from the key* below).
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2026-07-12 15:47:38 +00:00
**`--hostname` converges both names.** On a box that has already joined,
`bootstrap` skips `tailscale up` (so a re-run needs no pre-auth key) — but it
still reconciles the **tailnet** hostname via `tailscale set --hostname` . Without
that, a box which joined under the wrong name — say `--hostname` was omitted, so
it defaulted to the *role* — stayed misnamed forever, and re-running rig, the
documented repair, could not fix it. A machine you deliberately renamed in the
admin console keeps that name; rig will not fight it.
2026-07-12 15:26:34 +00:00
> **Why the drop-in is `00-rig.conf` and not `99-`.** `sshd_config` is
> **first-wins** — *"for each keyword, the first obtained value will be used"*
> (`sshd_config(5)`) — and `Include` expands its glob in lexical order. Cloud
> images ship `/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/50-cloud-init.conf` carrying
> `PasswordAuthentication yes`, so a `99-` drop-in is read **second** and every
> keyword in it is silently discarded. This is the opposite of the
> last-wins convention most config systems use, and it shipped green here for
> a month: rig asserted the *file existed* rather than what `sshd` actually
> resolved, and the Incus rehearsal container has no cloud-init drop-in to
> lose to. Every Hetzner box rig had bootstrapped was still serving
> `passwordauthentication yes`. `bootstrap` now sweeps a stale `99-rig.conf`
> on re-run, and refuses to claim success unless `sshd -T` agrees.
docs: README identity model — traits, presets, fleet users, root's two fates
The bootstrap section now documents what shipped: roles as presets over the
three orthogonal traits (class/host/join, every one overridable, custom
states all of them), the derived tag:server policy, the /etc/rig/role marker
that records effective traits so an overridden role never lies, and the
join=login path where the tag assertion inverts — untagged is asserted, a
tag is the refusal. A new identity-model section carries the hybrid access
model: named operators on every class, humans never entering as root, class
deciding root SSH's fate after `rig users apply` — closed on human, kept as
the control plane's automation door on server — with the detection benefit
and the honest attribution-not-privilege caveat stated plainly. Per-command
sections cover apply/status/close-root, including the first-wins drop-in
mechanism and the README-only from= guidance for Coolify's key on servers.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 19:32:23 +00:00
**The pre-auth key** (`join=authkey` roles — everything but `workstation` ):
provide it via the `TS_AUTHKEY` env var or type it at
bootstrap: infer the tailnet tag from the pre-auth key, verify the granted tag
rig used to pass --ts-tag to `tailscale up --advertise-tags`, stating the
tailnet tag a second time with no way to know whether its request and the
key's own tags agreed. It asserted the tag it REQUESTED, never the tag control
GRANTED — the sshd first-wins bug in a different hat, and the same scar (both
M900s joined tag:server, retagged by hand, unnoticed).
Collapse the two sources of truth onto one: the key.
- `tailscale up` drops --advertise-tags; the key's tags apply.
- After join, poll `tailscale status --json` for `.Self.Tags` (netmap ground
truth, not `debug prefs`) until tags appear or BackendState=Running, on BOTH
the fresh-join and already-joined paths.
- UNTAGGED -> hard refusal: `tailscale logout` to back the user-owned node out,
then die naming the fix (mint a tagged key).
- Role policy moves onto the effective tag: a runner must not have tag:server
among the tags the key actually granted. Strictly stronger than before.
- --ts-tag is removed, and dies exit 2 with a message pointing at the key
(consuming its value), not an "unknown flag".
- New array-aware reader json_string_array in lib/runner-config.sh (jq-free,
never fails under set -e), with its own unit tests; bootstrap sources the lib.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 15:27:09 +00:00
the interactive prompt. Use a **single-use, tagged, short-expiry** key — the
**tagged** part is now load-bearing, not advice (see below). It lives in process
memory only — rig never writes a credential to disk.
**The tag comes from the key, and rig verifies the one control granted.** rig
used to pass `--ts-tag` to `tailscale up --advertise-tags` , stating the tag a
*second* time — with no way to know whether its request and the key's own tags
agreed. It asserted the tag it **requested** , never the tag control **granted** ;
this is the same shape as the sshd first-wins bug above, and it left the same
scar (both M900s joined carrying `tag:server` and had to be retagged by hand,
because nothing in rig ever read the effective tag back). So rig stops
overriding the key: `tailscale up` carries no `--advertise-tags` , the key's tags
apply, and after join rig polls `tailscale status --json` for `.Self.Tags` — the
netmap's ground truth, not `tailscale debug prefs` , which prints what was
*requested* — and asserts on that, on **first join and on every re-run** (which
catches a box bootstrapped before this change, or retagged behind rig's back).
> **An untagged key is a hard refusal.** Drop `--advertise-tags` and you also
> drop the accidental net that used to tag an untagged key's node anyway. An
> untagged node joins owned by the *key creator's user identity* — it inherits
> that human's ACL grants, expires with the key, and vanishes if the account is
> deleted. That is a fleet-shaped mistake, not a warning: rig runs `tailscale
> logout` to back the half-joined node out and dies telling you to mint a tagged
> key. A wrong tag **cannot** be fixed in place either — `tailscale set` has no
> tag flag, re-tagging needs a fresh key via `up --force-reauth` — so rig detects
> and refuses, and never claims a convergence it cannot perform.
2026-07-10 20:56:05 +00:00
2026-07-11 18:25:47 +00:00
`control-plane` and `workload` are identical today except the default
hostname; they exist because the boxes diverge over time, and because each
bootstrap: infer the tailnet tag from the pre-auth key, verify the granted tag
rig used to pass --ts-tag to `tailscale up --advertise-tags`, stating the
tailnet tag a second time with no way to know whether its request and the
key's own tags agreed. It asserted the tag it REQUESTED, never the tag control
GRANTED — the sshd first-wins bug in a different hat, and the same scar (both
M900s joined tag:server, retagged by hand, unnoticed).
Collapse the two sources of truth onto one: the key.
- `tailscale up` drops --advertise-tags; the key's tags apply.
- After join, poll `tailscale status --json` for `.Self.Tags` (netmap ground
truth, not `debug prefs`) until tags appear or BackendState=Running, on BOTH
the fresh-join and already-joined paths.
- UNTAGGED -> hard refusal: `tailscale logout` to back the user-owned node out,
then die naming the fix (mint a tagged key).
- Role policy moves onto the effective tag: a runner must not have tag:server
among the tags the key actually granted. Strictly stronger than before.
- --ts-tag is removed, and dies exit 2 with a message pointing at the key
(consuming its value), not an "unknown flag".
- New array-aware reader json_string_array in lib/runner-config.sh (jq-free,
never fails under set -e), with its own unit tests; bootstrap sources the lib.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 15:27:09 +00:00
follow-up command applies to exactly one role. `runner` is the box a CI agent
will live on, and it differs behaviorally: it **refuses `tag:server`** . That
refusal moved onto the *effective* tag and is strictly stronger for it — it is
no longer "don't advertise `tag:server` " but "the key you actually used must not
grant `tag:server` to repo-controlled code." A runner executes that code, and
`tag:server` 's grants (SSH between your servers, say) must never extend to it;
the check turns the worst misconfiguration from a documentation warning into a
hard, post-join error.
2026-07-10 20:56:05 +00:00
2026-07-18 19:49:27 +00:00
The VM-host shape — the box that *hosts* staging boxes: Incus VMs minted by
the [`box` ](https://github.com/heavy-duty/box ) CLI, each converged from inside
with the tenant roles and (for staging guests) `rig bootstrap workload` —
rides the traits since #31 (`--class server --host yes --join authkey`; see
the note above). It is `class=server` : an unattended VM appliance — operators
converge it and leave; nobody lives there. Mint its key with `tag:local` : the
host and its guests sit on opposite sides of a trust boundary, and the *host*
is never managed by the control plane — so an effective ** `tag:server` is
refused**, same mechanism as `runner` .
feat(bootstrap): host-class installs box + runs setup-host
A host=yes box exists to run guest boxes, so bootstrap finishes the job
instead of printing "next: install the box CLI and run 'box setup-host'".
After the role marker is written, on host=yes it installs the box CLI
globally and lets box's OWN setup-host build the Incus stack.
rig DELEGATES to box; it never touches Incus itself — the same design law
`rig users apply` enforces ("rig NEVER installs Incus: box's setup-host
owns the daemon and its group"). rig does not apt-install incus, does not
configure the daemon, does not create the incus group. It runs box's global
installer as root with BOX_YES=1 (non-interactive AND keeps setup-host);
box installs Incus. Two tools converging one daemon is drift by construction.
- Convergent: box's installer is a no-op once box is installed, so re-running
bootstrap changes nothing.
- Opt-out: RIG_SKIP_BOX_INSTALL=1 skips; also skips gracefully (with a manual
pointer) when curl or the network is missing — box is the host EXTRA, so a
failed box install never aborts a bootstrap that otherwise succeeded.
- Pinnable: BOX_REPO / BOX_REF (default heavy-duty/box@main).
- Runs only AFTER the role marker write, so a box that failed to become what
it claims never installs box on a half-built host.
The world-readable global install path (box under /opt/box, readable by every
non-root user) depends on box PR #71; until it merges box's root install lands
in /root. Noted in a comment and the plan doc.
Completes rig#12 (the dev role — the Incus claudebox host) and rig#25
(machine classes: host-class installs box + rig users).
Tests: 8 new bootstrap checks (guard on host=yes, BOX_YES install, pin
defaults, RIG_SKIP_BOX_INSTALL opt-out, negative-grep that rig never
apt-installs incus, box-after-marker ordering, manual-pointer on skip).
154 passed, 0 failed; shellcheck -x clean.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 22:45:40 +00:00
On a host-class box (`host=yes`), bootstrap finishes the job instead of leaving
a to-do: after the role marker is written it **installs the `box` CLI globally
and runs box's own `setup-host` **, so the Incus stack is ready for
2026-07-18 19:49:27 +00:00
`box new` when bootstrap returns. rig **delegates to box; it
feat(bootstrap): host-class installs box + runs setup-host
A host=yes box exists to run guest boxes, so bootstrap finishes the job
instead of printing "next: install the box CLI and run 'box setup-host'".
After the role marker is written, on host=yes it installs the box CLI
globally and lets box's OWN setup-host build the Incus stack.
rig DELEGATES to box; it never touches Incus itself — the same design law
`rig users apply` enforces ("rig NEVER installs Incus: box's setup-host
owns the daemon and its group"). rig does not apt-install incus, does not
configure the daemon, does not create the incus group. It runs box's global
installer as root with BOX_YES=1 (non-interactive AND keeps setup-host);
box installs Incus. Two tools converging one daemon is drift by construction.
- Convergent: box's installer is a no-op once box is installed, so re-running
bootstrap changes nothing.
- Opt-out: RIG_SKIP_BOX_INSTALL=1 skips; also skips gracefully (with a manual
pointer) when curl or the network is missing — box is the host EXTRA, so a
failed box install never aborts a bootstrap that otherwise succeeded.
- Pinnable: BOX_REPO / BOX_REF (default heavy-duty/box@main).
- Runs only AFTER the role marker write, so a box that failed to become what
it claims never installs box on a half-built host.
The world-readable global install path (box under /opt/box, readable by every
non-root user) depends on box PR #71; until it merges box's root install lands
in /root. Noted in a comment and the plan doc.
Completes rig#12 (the dev role — the Incus claudebox host) and rig#25
(machine classes: host-class installs box + rig users).
Tests: 8 new bootstrap checks (guard on host=yes, BOX_YES install, pin
defaults, RIG_SKIP_BOX_INSTALL opt-out, negative-grep that rig never
apt-installs incus, box-after-marker ordering, manual-pointer on skip).
154 passed, 0 failed; shellcheck -x clean.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 22:45:40 +00:00
never touches Incus itself** — it does not `apt-get install incus` , does not
configure the daemon, does not create the `incus` group. It runs box's global
installer (`curl … | BOX_YES=1 bash`) as root, and box installs Incus via its
`setup-host` ; two tools converging one daemon is drift by construction, and box
is the single owner. The step is **convergent** (box's installer is a no-op once
box is present) and **opt-out** (`RIG_SKIP_BOX_INSTALL=1`, plus a graceful skip
with a manual-command pointer when curl or the network is missing — box is the
host *extra* , so a failed box install never aborts a bootstrap that otherwise
succeeded). Source is pinnable with `BOX_REPO` / `BOX_REF` (default
`heavy-duty/box@main` ). If `/dev/kvm` is absent, rig warns (a host that exists to
run VMs should have it) but does not fail — the shape is rehearsed in containers,
which legitimately lack it. (The world-readable global install path — box under
`/opt/box` readable by every non-root user — depends on box PR #71 ; until that
merges box's root install lands in `/root` .)
docs: README identity model — traits, presets, fleet users, root's two fates
The bootstrap section now documents what shipped: roles as presets over the
three orthogonal traits (class/host/join, every one overridable, custom
states all of them), the derived tag:server policy, the /etc/rig/role marker
that records effective traits so an overridden role never lies, and the
join=login path where the tag assertion inverts — untagged is asserted, a
tag is the refusal. A new identity-model section carries the hybrid access
model: named operators on every class, humans never entering as root, class
deciding root SSH's fate after `rig users apply` — closed on human, kept as
the control plane's automation door on server — with the detection benefit
and the honest attribution-not-privilege caveat stated plainly. Per-command
sections cover apply/status/close-root, including the first-wins drop-in
mechanism and the README-only from= guidance for Coolify's key on servers.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 19:32:23 +00:00
2026-07-18 14:50:16 +00:00
> **The box install is unpinned — on purpose, and out loud.** `coolify install`
> demands a version pin; the box step tracks a moving `heavy-duty/box@main`.
> Not because box self-updates (it doesn't — it has Coolify's shape, not the
> runner's) but because there is nothing to pin *to*: box cuts no tags and no
> releases, and its installer resolves `refs/heads/<ref>` — branches only — so
> a `BOX_REF=v0.5.0` would 404 even if the tag existed. Issue #12's call was
> that silently tracking `main` on the box that runs the agents is the option
> not to pick — hence this paragraph. `BOX_REPO` / `BOX_REF` are the pin
> points the day box cuts a tag (or you point at a frozen branch of your own
> fork); `RIG_SKIP_BOX_INSTALL=1` opts out entirely for a host whose box you
> manage by hand.
2026-07-18 19:49:27 +00:00
`dev` is the human-class VM-hosting shape — `tag:local` , box CLI installed as
above, a person living on it (`--class server` turns it into the unattended
VM-host appliance) — and `workstation` is the machine at the keyboard end of
all the SSH connections: human-class, `join=login` , entering the tailnet as
*your* device rather than the fleet's.
### `rig bootstrap <claude|codex|grok|staging>` — the box tenants
Run as root, **inside** a [box ](https://github.com/heavy-duty/box )-minted
guest. Convergent — safe to re-run; a second run changes nothing.
```sh
rig bootstrap claude # or codex, grok — the agent tenants
rig bootstrap staging # the server tenant (docker + sshd hardening)
rig bootstrap claude --user dev # when the seed's BOX_USER differs
```
**The layering** (rig#31 ↔ box#81): a box template stops being where tenant
content lives. box mints a **thin, creds-free seed** — base image, the
`BOX_USER` , rig (+ tmux) preinstalled, and nothing that joins or admits — and
everything the guest *becomes* is a rig tenant role. cloud-init is a first-boot
one-shot: not convergent, not re-runnable, and only parse-and-grep testable.
rig roles are idempotent scripts with effective-state asserts, driven by the
same harness as everything else — and re-runnable on an *existing* box to
converge it to a new spec instead of re-minting it. One convergence engine;
the guests were the hole.
It is **one mechanism, parameterized per tenant** (`lib/tenant-config.sh`
holds the whole per-tenant table), not four hand-maintained scripts:
| tenant | user | what lands |
|-----------|----------|------------|
| `claude` | `claude` | the agent toolbelt (git, gh, tmux, ripgrep, jq, age, unzip, build-essential), docker, node 22, the Claude Code CLI on the system PATH, zsh + oh-my-zsh, and `~/.claude/CLAUDE.md` |
| `codex` | `codex` | the toolbelt, docker, node 22, `@openai/codex` on the system PATH, and `~/.codex/AGENTS.md` |
| `grok` | `grok` | the toolbelt, docker, the grok CLI on the system PATH, and `~/.grok/AGENTS.md` |
| `staging` | `ops` | box#69's server posture: docker + the same sshd hardening the machine roles get (shared `lib/sshd.sh` , `class=server` acceptance) |
Every install is **asserted on effective state** , not exit codes: the CLI must
*answer* (`--version`, run as the tenant user — a CLI that exists but cannot
run has already cost a drill), docker must answer, `sshd -T` must resolve the
hardening. The CLI also lands on the **system** PATH (`/usr/local/bin`):
`box exec <box> -- claude …` runs a non-interactive shell that reads no rc
files, so a PATH export alone is invisible to it.
**Creds-free and non-interactive, by contract.** box auto-runs these at mint
(`box exec … rig bootstrap claude`), so nothing here prompts, joins, or admits
— no tailnet, no keys (the harness pins this by *absence* : no `tailscale` , no
prompt, in the shipped script). The one creds-holding step a staging guest
eventually needs — the tailnet workload join — stays **operator-run** , exactly
as box#69 designed it: `box shell` → `sudo rig bootstrap workload --hostname
< name > ` with a single-use tagged pre-auth key. After that join, re-running
`rig bootstrap staging` still converges docker + hardening and leaves the
workload marker alone — the machine role is the truer statement of what the
box became.
**The agent-context file carries the box#80 guard, once.** Every agent tenant
writes its agent's instructions file (`CLAUDE.md` / `AGENTS.md` ), rendered
from one shared template: the creds-free contract, the isolation and
disposability facts, and the guard note — **never run `box setup-host` ,
`box teardown-host` , or the drill inside a box; the box you are in is not a
host you own**. A nested box stack claims the guest's own uplink subnet and
silently breaks its networking (box#80). The note lives in
`lib/tenant-config.sh` exactly once, not copy-pasted per template — that was
the point of moving it here.
**Tenants and the role marker.** A tenant run writes `role=< tenant > tenant=yes
host=no` — no `class=` , because a guest has no root-door policy of its own
(`rig users close-root` fails closed on it, by design). The guard runs the
other way too: a box already carrying a **machine** role refuses the agent
tenants outright, and *any* tenant refuses a `host=yes` box — a VM host is
the opposite of a guest, and a pre-#31 staging *host* re-running its old
command is exactly who that refusal catches (it names the new spelling).
> **The rig install in the seed is unpinned — same honesty as the box note
> above.** The seed preinstalls rig via its curl installer, which resolves
2026-07-18 20:57:13 +00:00
> `RIG_REPO`/`RIG_REF` — and since rig#32 the installer defaults to the
> **latest release**, with `RIG_REF=<tag>` the pin and `RIG_REF=main` the
> dev channel. Until rig cuts 0.1.0 there is no release to resolve, so the
> seed must set `RIG_REF=main` explicitly (the default channel fails loudly
> rather than falling back). That inverts the install edge on this page:
> rig installs box on host-class machines, and box guests now install rig.
> `RIG_REPO`/`RIG_REF` are the pin points, or point them at a frozen branch
> of your own fork. The seed side of this edge is box#81's to document.
docs: README identity model — traits, presets, fleet users, root's two fates
The bootstrap section now documents what shipped: roles as presets over the
three orthogonal traits (class/host/join, every one overridable, custom
states all of them), the derived tag:server policy, the /etc/rig/role marker
that records effective traits so an overridden role never lies, and the
join=login path where the tag assertion inverts — untagged is asserted, a
tag is the refusal. A new identity-model section carries the hybrid access
model: named operators on every class, humans never entering as root, class
deciding root SSH's fate after `rig users apply` — closed on human, kept as
the control plane's automation door on server — with the detection benefit
and the honest attribution-not-privilege caveat stated plainly. Per-command
sections cover apply/status/close-root, including the first-wins drop-in
mechanism and the README-only from= guidance for Coolify's key on servers.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 19:32:23 +00:00
### The identity model
**Named operators exist on every class, and humans never enter as root.** The
tailnet is network-only — no Tailscale SSH — so there is no identity broker at
the door: whoever holds a key to an account *is* that account, and a shared
root login is unattributable by construction. `rig users apply` puts named
operators on every box, server-class included; a human always enters as
themself and elevates via sudo.
2026-07-18 14:50:16 +00:00
Per role, the whole identity picture at a glance — issue #25 's class
comparison, translated onto the traits that replaced the class binary:
| role | class | host | join | who lives here | root SSH after `rig users apply` |
|-----------------|--------|------|---------|--------------------------------------|----------------------------------|
| `control-plane` | server | no | authkey | nobody — Coolify runs here | open — the automation door |
| `workload` | server | no | authkey | nobody — deployed services run here | open — the automation door |
| `runner` | server | no | authkey | nobody — CI jobs as `github-runner` | open — the automation door |
| `dev` | human | yes | authkey | operators, minting boxes | closed by `rig users close-root` |
| `workstation` | human | yes | login | its owner | closed by `rig users close-root` |
2026-07-18 19:49:27 +00:00
(The unattended VM-host appliance — formerly the `staging` preset — is the
`class=server host=yes join=authkey` shape: nobody lives there, root SSH stays
open as the automation door. The box TENANT roles sit outside this table on
purpose: a guest is not a tailnet machine, and its marker carries no `class=` ,
so `rig users close-root` fails closed on it.)
2026-07-18 14:50:16 +00:00
Who installs what, and who runs as what: **bootstrap is always root** and
installs everything a role needs — on `host=yes` that includes the box CLI
(globally) and box's own `setup-host` . **Humans always run as themselves** :
operators land via `rig users apply` on every class and elevate through sudo
(roles `admin` /`rig`) or the `incus` group (role `box` ) — never by logging in
as root. **Machine identities stay machine-shaped** : Coolify's automation
SSHes in as root (that is what server-class root *is* ), CI jobs run as the
unprivileged `github-runner` , and guest VMs are their own server-class boxes,
converged from inside by `rig bootstrap workload` .
docs: README identity model — traits, presets, fleet users, root's two fates
The bootstrap section now documents what shipped: roles as presets over the
three orthogonal traits (class/host/join, every one overridable, custom
states all of them), the derived tag:server policy, the /etc/rig/role marker
that records effective traits so an overridden role never lies, and the
join=login path where the tag assertion inverts — untagged is asserted, a
tag is the refusal. A new identity-model section carries the hybrid access
model: named operators on every class, humans never entering as root, class
deciding root SSH's fate after `rig users apply` — closed on human, kept as
the control plane's automation door on server — with the detection benefit
and the honest attribution-not-privilege caveat stated plainly. Per-command
sections cover apply/status/close-root, including the first-wins drop-in
mechanism and the README-only from= guidance for Coolify's key on servers.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 19:32:23 +00:00
**`class` decides root SSH's fate — after `rig users apply` , never before.**
On `class=human` , root SSH closes entirely (`rig users close-root`, below).
On `class=server` it stays open — key-only, as bootstrap left it — because
root there is the **automation** identity the control plane (Coolify) SSHes
in as. It is a machine door, never a human one.
2026-07-18 14:54:03 +00:00
**Where this diverges from #17 's original table:** that table let the
`runner` role close root ("no Coolify involved"). The class model supersedes
the per-role call: runner is `class=server` — an automation identity, not a
person's box — and on every server-class machine root SSH is the management
plane rig itself converges through, so `close-root` refuses there
deliberately, runner included. A CI box you mean to administer like a human
machine is `--class human` at bootstrap, not an exception carved out of the
gate.
docs: README identity model — traits, presets, fleet users, root's two fates
The bootstrap section now documents what shipped: roles as presets over the
three orthogonal traits (class/host/join, every one overridable, custom
states all of them), the derived tag:server policy, the /etc/rig/role marker
that records effective traits so an overridden role never lies, and the
join=login path where the tag assertion inverts — untagged is asserted, a
tag is the refusal. A new identity-model section carries the hybrid access
model: named operators on every class, humans never entering as root, class
deciding root SSH's fate after `rig users apply` — closed on human, kept as
the control plane's automation door on server — with the detection benefit
and the honest attribution-not-privilege caveat stated plainly. Per-command
sections cover apply/status/close-root, including the first-wins drop-in
mechanism and the README-only from= guidance for Coolify's key on servers.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 19:32:23 +00:00
**The detection side benefit:** once humans never use root, any root login
that is not the control plane is anomalous *by definition* — a cheap,
high-signal alert that a shared root identity makes impossible to write.
**The honest caveat:** on a Docker-running box this buys attribution, not
privilege reduction — an operator with sudo is root-equivalent anyway.
Attribution is the goal: *who did what* survives, even where *what they could
do* is everything.
2026-07-17 15:51:58 +00:00
2026-07-11 08:25:48 +00:00
### `rig coolify install --version <pin>`
2026-07-10 20:56:05 +00:00
Control-plane box only. Installs Coolify at exactly the pinned version with
`AUTOUPDATE=false` — your deploy tooling is verified against an API surface;
the platform must never move underneath it on its own. Upgrading is an
explicit re-run with a new pin. The pin is required; there is no default.
feat(coolify): install the control-plane dump as a systemd timer
The Coolify control-plane database holds the GitHub App private key, every
registered server's SSH key, and every environment value for every environment
it manages. Backing it up was a manual runbook step, and the dump script lived
in cast — the off-box tool, whose src never references it. It runs on the box,
as root, under a scheduler: that is rig's job description.
It matters beyond tidiness. The dump is forensics, not a restore path — a lost
control plane is rebuilt fresh and reconciled from the manifest. So there will
be a next control-plane box, and as a runbook step it was born un-backed-up,
depending on someone remembering mid-incident. Now it is backed up from birth.
rig installs the machinery and templates /etc/coolify-dump.env empty at 0600,
never reading it back — no credential passes through rig. The script's own
guards make an unfilled file fail the unit loudly rather than ship plaintext.
systemd timer over cron: EnvironmentFile is the right idiom for 0600 secrets,
failures surface in systemctl status instead of being mailed into the void, and
Persistent=true catches a run missed while the box was down.
Two hazards the cast script missed, carried into the unit:
- aws-cli >= 2.23 enables default upload checksums that S3-compatible backends
reject; Debian 13 ships 2.23.6, so the unit defaults both checksum knobs to
when_required.
- A failed pg_dump piped into age still yields a valid, tiny, encrypted file
that uploads cleanly every night and looks exactly like a working backup. The
script now refuses to upload an empty artifact.
Closes #8
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-12 19:14:07 +00:00
### `rig coolify backup install`
Control-plane box only. Installs a **nightly age-encrypted dump of Coolify's own
database** as a systemd timer.
```sh
rig coolify backup install
rig coolify backup install --schedule '*-*-* 02:30:00 UTC' --pg-container coolify-db
```
- `--schedule <OnCalendar>` — systemd calendar expression (default: `*-*-* 04:00:00 UTC` )
- `--pg-container` / `--pg-user` / `--pg-db` — Coolify's postgres (defaults: `coolify-db` ,
`coolify` , `coolify` )
That database holds the GitHub App private key, every registered server's SSH key,
and every environment value for every environment the control plane manages. It is
`pg_dump` ed straight into `age` — encrypted **client-side, on the box** — and only
then shipped to S3. The bucket is never trusted with plaintext.
It is **forensics, not a restore path.** A lost control plane is rebuilt fresh and
reconciled from your manifest, never restored from this artifact. Which is exactly
why the plumbing belongs in rig: there *will* be a next control-plane box, and it
should be backed up from birth rather than depending on someone remembering a
runbook step mid-incident.
**rig installs the machinery; you supply the bindings.** rig writes
`/etc/coolify-dump.env` **empty** , `0600` , and never reads it back — no credential
ever passes through rig. You fill in the age recipient (a *public* key), the S3
bucket + endpoint, and the S3 credentials. Until you do, the unit **fails loudly on
every run**: a silent backup is worse than a missing one.
rig cannot verify that the upload works — that needs your credentials. So prove it
by hand once, rather than letting the timer discover it at 04:00:
```sh
systemctl start coolify-dump.service
journalctl -u coolify-dump.service -n 20 --no-pager
```
A backup you have never read back is not yet a backup.
feat(db): bring ad-hoc dump/restore on-box as `rig db`
Add `rig db dump <container> [outfile]` and
`rig db restore <artifact> <container> [db] [--yes]` — imperative on-box
PostgreSQL tooling, the interactive counterpart to the scheduled,
declarative `coolify backup install`.
Key decisions:
- Dumps carry `--clean --if-exists --no-owner --no-acl`. `--no-owner
--no-acl` is mandatory for cross-instance restores: the target's
superuser differs (Coolify randomizes it), so a plain dump aborts under
ON_ERROR_STOP=1 on the first GRANT/ALTER OWNER for a missing role.
- $POSTGRES_USER/$POSTGRES_DB are read INSIDE the container (single-quoted
`sh -c`), never hardcoded to `postgres` on the host.
- restore connects as the container's own superuser and runs with
ON_ERROR_STOP=1; the optional [db] arg targets a NAMED database in a
shared container, passed in via a container env var rather than string
splicing.
- restore overwrites the target, so it prompts y/N; --yes/--force is the
automation bypass. Artifact existence/non-emptiness is checked before
the confirm gate and before anything touches the DB.
- dump uses pipefail + a sibling temp promoted only on success, and
refuses to keep an empty artifact — a failed pg_dump must never leave a
plausible-looking .gz behind.
Args are validated before the root check (testable without root); guards
are root, Debian-family warn, docker, and gzip/gunzip. Adds CLI tests and
a `### rig db` README section.
Closes #15
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 15:16:35 +00:00
### `rig db <dump|restore>`
Ad-hoc PostgreSQL dump/restore for a container running on this box. Run as
root.
```sh
rig db dump coolify-db # -> coolify-db-20260717T041500Z.sql.gz
rig db dump my-app-db /srv/snapshots/pre-migrate.sql.gz
rig db restore pre-migrate.sql.gz my-app-db # prompts before overwriting
rig db restore umami.sql.gz shared-pg umami --yes
```
This is **imperative on-box tooling** — the "give me a copy of that database
right now", "put this artifact back" verbs you reach for by hand. It is the
counterpart to [`rig coolify backup install` ](#rig-coolify-backup-install ),
which is the *scheduled, declarative, forensics-only* path; `db` is
interactive, targets any container, and (on restore) overwrites live data
behind a confirm gate. Declarative convergence lives elsewhere by design — this
verb exists precisely for the moments that are not convergent.
**`dump`** pipes `pg_dump` straight into `gzip` :
```sh
docker exec < container > sh -c \
'pg_dump -U "$POSTGRES_USER" --clean --if-exists --no-owner --no-acl "$POSTGRES_DB"' | gzip
```
- **`--no-owner --no-acl` is mandatory, not cosmetic.** A cross-instance restore
runs as the *target's* superuser, and Coolify randomizes that role per
database — so the source's `ALTER OWNER` /`GRANT` statements name a role that
does not exist on the target and, under `ON_ERROR_STOP=1` , abort the whole
restore on the first one. Stripping ownership and ACLs makes the dump describe
*data and schema* , portable onto any instance.
- **`$POSTGRES_USER` / `$POSTGRES_DB` are read inside the container** — that is
why the command is a *single-quoted* `sh -c` : it evaluates the container's own
environment, never the host's. The host never hardcodes `postgres` ; on the
next container that role name is simply wrong.
- With no `[outfile]` , it writes `<container>-<UTC-timestamp>.sql.gz` in the
current directory (same timestamp shape as the nightly dump). `pipefail` is
load-bearing: without it a failing `pg_dump` still exits 0 through the pipe and
`gzip` compresses the truncated output into a valid `.gz` that looks exactly
like a good backup. rig dumps to a sibling temp, promotes it only on success,
and refuses to keep an empty artifact.
**`restore < artifact > < container > [db]`** streams the artifact back in:
```sh
gunzip -c < artifact > | docker exec -i < container > sh -c \
'psql -U "$POSTGRES_USER" -d "${db:-$POSTGRES_DB}" -v ON_ERROR_STOP=1'
```
- It connects as the container's **own superuser** (`$POSTGRES_USER`), again
never a hardcoded role, and runs with `ON_ERROR_STOP=1` so a bad restore fails
loudly instead of limping to a half-applied state and reporting success.
- **`[db]` targets a named database in a shared container** — e.g. a `umami`
database living in a Postgres that also hosts other apps. Omit it to restore
into the container's default `$POSTGRES_DB` . rig passes the name *into* the
container as an env var rather than splicing it into the command string.
- **Restore overwrites the target**, so it prompts `y/N` first. `--yes` (or
`--force` ) is the automation bypass. The artifact is checked for existence and
non-emptiness *before* the prompt and before anything touches the database, so
a fat-fingered path fails cheaply.
2026-07-17 15:48:51 +00:00
#### Verifying a dump/restore actually works
A `.gz` that opens without error is not proof of a good backup: a `pg_dump`
truncated mid-stream still compresses into a perfectly valid gzip file that
*looks* exactly like a complete one. The same ethos as the nightly dump applies
here — **a backup you have never read back is not yet a backup.** The only
fully-trustworthy proof is to restore the artifact and read the rows back out.
On a real Coolify box you can do that **without touching prod data** by
restoring into a fresh *scratch* database rather than over the live one:
```sh
# 1. dump the live database (read-only; harmless)
rig db dump coolify-db /srv/snapshots/verify.sql.gz
# 2. create a throwaway database as the container's OWN superuser
docker exec coolify-db sh -c 'createdb -U "$POSTGRES_USER" rig_verify'
# 3. restore the artifact INTO the scratch db (not the live one)
rig db restore /srv/snapshots/verify.sql.gz coolify-db rig_verify --yes
# 4. spot-check a table you expect to see
docker exec coolify-db sh -c \
'psql -U "$POSTGRES_USER" -d rig_verify -c "\dt"'
docker exec coolify-db sh -c \
'psql -U "$POSTGRES_USER" -d rig_verify -c "SELECT count(*) FROM < some-table > "'
# 5. drop the scratch db — live data was never touched
docker exec coolify-db sh -c 'dropdb -U "$POSTGRES_USER" rig_verify'
```
If the counts and tables are there, the artifact is real. This is exactly the
round-trip `test/db-integration.sh` automates in CI (the `db-integration` job):
it seeds a known table in a source container whose superuser is *not* the
default, dumps it, restores into a second container whose superuser differs, and
asserts the rows and an ordered checksum survived — the same proof, done against
throwaway containers on every push.
2026-07-11 18:44:43 +00:00
### `rig runner install --repo <owner/repo>`
2026-07-11 17:45:38 +00:00
2026-07-11 18:25:47 +00:00
Runner box only, run after `rig bootstrap runner` (the same two-step rhythm
as `bootstrap control-plane` → `coolify install` ):
2026-07-11 17:45:38 +00:00
```sh
2026-07-11 18:25:47 +00:00
rig bootstrap runner --hostname my-ci-box
2026-07-11 18:44:43 +00:00
rig runner install --repo acme/widgets
2026-07-11 17:45:38 +00:00
```
Installs GitHub's official `actions/runner` as a systemd service under an
unprivileged user (default `github-runner` , created if absent, never root, no
supplementary groups). The runner is an agent, not a server: it long-polls
GitHub outbound and receives jobs down that already-established connection,
so it needs **zero inbound ports** and works fine behind a deny-all
firewall — it can even trigger deploys on hosts only it can reach, like a
tailnet-only control plane.
No Docker, deliberately: the Docker socket is a root API and `docker` group
membership is root-equivalent, which is a gratuitous path to root on a box
whose whole point is a narrow blast radius. Add Docker only once a job
genuinely needs it, and rethink the isolation model then.
2026-07-11 18:44:43 +00:00
- `--version <pin>` — actions/runner release to install (default: the
latest release, resolved at install time; e.g. `--version 2.335.1` —
the latest as of this writing). Pin it when you need a deterministic,
auditable install.
2026-07-11 17:45:38 +00:00
- `--name <name>` — runner name (default: this host's hostname)
2026-07-11 17:51:08 +00:00
- `--labels <csv>` — runner labels, replacing the `ci-runner` default — keep
any label your workflows' `runs-on` needs (GitHub adds `self-hosted` itself)
2026-07-11 17:45:38 +00:00
- `--user <name>` — the unprivileged service user (default: `github-runner` )
**The registration token:** provide it via the `RUNNER_TOKEN` env var or type
it at the interactive prompt. It's short-lived, consumed at registration, and
never written to disk by rig.
2026-07-11 18:44:43 +00:00
Why latest-by-default here when `coolify install` demands a pin: the two
tools age differently. Coolify never self-updates (`AUTOUPDATE=false`), so
its version is a contract your deploy tooling is verified against — stating
it is the point. The runner **self-updates regardless** : GitHub refuses jobs
from stale runners, so freezing it would just make it silently stop taking
work. The install-time version is a starting point either way; `--version`
exists for when you want that starting point deterministic and auditable.
2026-07-11 17:45:38 +00:00
fix(runner): install refuses a box registered to another repo
`rig runner install --repo <B>` on a box already registered to repo A
treated the mere existence of .runner as "already registered", skipped
configure, restarted the service still pointed at A, and reported success.
--repo was accepted, validated, and then ignored — leaving B with zero
runners and its `runs-on` jobs queued against one that will never come.
This is the natural next command after a partial `repoint`, and the failure
is worse than a no-op: moving a runner between repos is a trust-boundary
act, so quietly putting it back on the old one defeats the point of the move.
Gate install on the repo .runner actually names. Convergence — the property
worth keeping — is untouched: re-running against the repo the box is already
on still skips registration, never prompts for a token, and exits 0.
Skipping when the repo *differs* was never convergence, only a silently
ignored argument, so it now fails and names both repos, pointing at
`runner repoint` (move) or `runner remove` (start over). An unreadable
.runner is refused too — it is no licence to assume a match.
The .runner reader that `status` and `repoint` each carried is lifted into
commands/lib/runner-config.sh, which now also holds the guard. Its json_field
no longer dies bare under `set -o pipefail` when a key is missing, which is
what `status`'s own ${REPO_URL:-unknown} fallback always assumed.
Tests: the guard is exercised against a fixture .runner (refuses another repo
naming both, points at repoint, no-ops on the same repo, passes an
unregistered box, refuses an unreadable one) plus an ordering assertion that
it precedes svc.sh start — reaching it through the CLI would need root and a
really-registered runner, which the dependency-free harness cannot fabricate.
All three mutants (guard deleted, guard comparing nothing, guard moved below
the service start) go red.
Closes #13
2026-07-13 14:57:28 +00:00
Convergent **toward `--repo`** — re-running against the repo this box is
already on re-uses the binary, skips registration, and never asks for a token.
Pointed at a *different* repo it **refuses** , and names both: skipping there
would not be convergence, it would be ignoring the argument — restarting the
runner on the **old** repo while reporting success, leaving the repo you asked
for with no runner and its `runs-on` jobs queued forever. Moving a runner
between repos is a trust-boundary act; that verb is
[`rig runner repoint` ](#rig-runner-repoint---repo-ownerrepo ).
2026-07-11 17:45:38 +00:00
2026-07-13 13:25:27 +00:00
### `rig runner status`
```sh
rig runner status
```
What this box's runner is registered to — repo, runner name, labels,
install dir, systemd unit and its state. Reads the runner's own on-disk
config; no token, no network call. Exits 1 when no runner is installed.
The answer to "wait, which repo is this box wired to?" should not require
knowing that the config lives in a dotfile under an unprivileged user's home.
### `rig runner remove`
```sh
rig runner remove
rig runner remove --local # no token; leaves a stale entry to delete by hand
```
Stops and uninstalls the systemd service, then deregisters the runner from
GitHub. The binary and its user stay put, so a later `rig runner install`
re-registers without downloading anything.
**The token here is a *removal* token, not a registration token** — a
different endpoint, and mixing them up is the easy mistake:
```sh
gh api -X POST repos/< owner / repo > /actions/runners/remove-token
```
Supply it via `RUNNER_REMOVE_TOKEN` or the prompt; it never touches disk.
`--local` is the escape hatch for when the registration is already gone
server-side (or you can't mint a token): the box is cleaned, but a stale
offline runner stays listed in the repo, for you to delete from
Settings → Actions → Runners.
The service always comes down *first* , in both paths. GitHub's own removal
refuses to run while the service is installed ("Uninstall service first"),
and `--local` skips that check entirely — which would otherwise leave a
running service pointed at config that no longer exists.
Convergent — a box with no runner installed exits 0.
### `rig runner repoint --repo <owner/repo>`
```sh
rig runner repoint --repo acme/widgets
```
Moves an installed runner from one repository to another: deregister,
re-register, reusing the binary already on the box. It keeps the runner's
existing name unless you pass `--name` .
fix(runner): install refuses a box registered to another repo
`rig runner install --repo <B>` on a box already registered to repo A
treated the mere existence of .runner as "already registered", skipped
configure, restarted the service still pointed at A, and reported success.
--repo was accepted, validated, and then ignored — leaving B with zero
runners and its `runs-on` jobs queued against one that will never come.
This is the natural next command after a partial `repoint`, and the failure
is worse than a no-op: moving a runner between repos is a trust-boundary
act, so quietly putting it back on the old one defeats the point of the move.
Gate install on the repo .runner actually names. Convergence — the property
worth keeping — is untouched: re-running against the repo the box is already
on still skips registration, never prompts for a token, and exits 0.
Skipping when the repo *differs* was never convergence, only a silently
ignored argument, so it now fails and names both repos, pointing at
`runner repoint` (move) or `runner remove` (start over). An unreadable
.runner is refused too — it is no licence to assume a match.
The .runner reader that `status` and `repoint` each carried is lifted into
commands/lib/runner-config.sh, which now also holds the guard. Its json_field
no longer dies bare under `set -o pipefail` when a key is missing, which is
what `status`'s own ${REPO_URL:-unknown} fallback always assumed.
Tests: the guard is exercised against a fixture .runner (refuses another repo
naming both, points at repoint, no-ops on the same repo, passes an
unregistered box, refuses an unreadable one) plus an ordering assertion that
it precedes svc.sh start — reaching it through the CLI would need root and a
really-registered runner, which the dependency-free harness cannot fabricate.
All three mutants (guard deleted, guard comparing nothing, guard moved below
the service start) go red.
Closes #13
2026-07-13 14:57:28 +00:00
This is the verb that was missing. `runner install` can create a runner but
never move one — pointed at a repo the box is not on, it fails and sends you
here — and re-pointing a box otherwise meant hand-rolled `config.sh` /`svc.sh`
incantations against an install path only rig knew.
2026-07-13 13:25:27 +00:00
Two short-lived tokens, each minted from **its own** repo — `RUNNER_REMOVE_TOKEN`
for the one it's leaving, `RUNNER_TOKEN` for the one it's joining. Both are
collected **before** anything is torn down: a token you turn out not to have
should fail while the runner is still registered and working, not halfway
through the move. If re-registration fails anyway, rig says so plainly and
prints the exact `runner install` line that finishes the job.
> **Labels do not survive a move on their own.** GitHub holds them; the runner
> does not persist them locally. rig now records what it registered with, so
> `repoint` and `status` can read it back — but a runner installed before rig
> did that has nothing to read, and `repoint` falls back to the `ci-runner`
> default and warns loudly before it touches anything. Labels are what
> `runs-on` matches, so a silent change there is a workflow that simply stops
> finding its runner. Pass `--labels` if yours differ.
Convergent — repointing to the repo it is already on changes nothing, exits 0,
and never asks for a token.
docs: README identity model — traits, presets, fleet users, root's two fates
The bootstrap section now documents what shipped: roles as presets over the
three orthogonal traits (class/host/join, every one overridable, custom
states all of them), the derived tag:server policy, the /etc/rig/role marker
that records effective traits so an overridden role never lies, and the
join=login path where the tag assertion inverts — untagged is asserted, a
tag is the refusal. A new identity-model section carries the hybrid access
model: named operators on every class, humans never entering as root, class
deciding root SSH's fate after `rig users apply` — closed on human, kept as
the control plane's automation door on server — with the detection benefit
and the honest attribution-not-privilege caveat stated plainly. Per-command
sections cover apply/status/close-root, including the first-wins drop-in
mechanism and the README-only from= guidance for Coolify's key on servers.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 19:32:23 +00:00
### `rig users apply --file <path>`
Converges named operator accounts from a declarative users file — on **every**
class (see *The identity model* ). Run as root. Convergent: a second identical
run says "already converged; no changes".
```
# user roles ssh public key
dan admin,box ssh-ed25519 AAAA... dan@laptop
dan admin,box ssh-ed25519 AAAA... dan@desktop
maria rig,box ssh-ed25519 AAAA... maria@mac
```
One line per key — user, comma-joined roles, then the SSH public key (the rest
of the line). The format is bash-parseable on purpose: a rig box has no YAML
parser and no jq, and gets neither for this. Repeated username lines add
authorized keys, and the roles must be identical on each — a repeated line
always means "another key", never a quiet role edit hiding mid-file. `root` is
refused as a username: this file names operators; root's fate is class policy.
`--file -` reads stdin. A bad file exits 2 with **every** error listed at
once, before anything changes — one fix cycle, not one round-trip per line.
2026-07-18 14:54:03 +00:00
**`@root` — seed keys from the door you came in through (#17).** A key field
of exactly `@root` means "this user's `authorized_keys` becomes root's
CURRENT `/root/.ssh/authorized_keys` ". The point is lockout-avoidance: you
provably hold a root private key — you SSHed in with it to run apply at all —
so the seeded key is the one key rig can *know* opens for you; any pasted
literal can be a key you do not hold. `@root` mixes with literal lines
(seeded keys land first, literals append after), re-runs re-seed from root's
then-current file — convergent to it, so a seeded key you hand-remove from
the admin returns until you switch the line to literal keys — and apply dies
if root has no `authorized_keys` to seed. Root's key lines are copied
verbatim, options included: a `from=` /`command=` restriction follows the key,
and on a Coolify-managed box root's file also carries *Coolify's* key — on
`class=server` , prefer literal keys.
docs: README identity model — traits, presets, fleet users, root's two fates
The bootstrap section now documents what shipped: roles as presets over the
three orthogonal traits (class/host/join, every one overridable, custom
states all of them), the derived tag:server policy, the /etc/rig/role marker
that records effective traits so an overridden role never lies, and the
join=login path where the tag assertion inverts — untagged is asserted, a
tag is the refusal. A new identity-model section carries the hybrid access
model: named operators on every class, humans never entering as root, class
deciding root SSH's fate after `rig users apply` — closed on human, kept as
the control plane's automation door on server — with the detection benefit
and the honest attribution-not-privilege caveat stated plainly. Per-command
sections cover apply/status/close-root, including the first-wins drop-in
mechanism and the README-only from= guidance for Coolify's key on servers.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 19:32:23 +00:00
**Public tool, private state, here too.** The users file lives in *your*
private infra repo and is passed per invocation — rig never persists it. It
holds nothing secret anyway: usernames, roles, and *public* keys.
| role | grants | via group |
|---------|----------------------------------------------|-------------|
| `admin` | full NOPASSWD sudo | `rig-admin` |
| `rig` | NOPASSWD sudo for `/usr/local/bin/rig` only | `rig` |
| `box` | Incus **restricted** tier, no sudo | `incus` |
fix(users): review findings — invoker gate, real SSH revocation, StrictModes-shaped close-root gate, trait-aware box role
Seven review findings on the users family, each with the harness check that
would have caught it:
- Invoker gate (apply + close-root): %rig's sudoers rule is binary-scoped but
not argument-scoped, so `sudo rig users apply --file <me-as-admin>` made
role rig silently root-equivalent through the very command that granted it.
Identity management now refuses any sudo invoker outside rig-admin; direct
root (bring-up, a root shell) proceeds.
- Offboarding revokes SSH, not just the password: a '!'-locked password is
not a closed door under UsePAM — Debian sshd still honors the pubkey. A
dropped user's account is now expired (usermod -L -e 1, the switch PAM
actually enforces) and authorized_keys is renamed to
authorized_keys.revoked-by-rig — access revoked, data kept, convergence
never destroys. Present users get their expiry cleared idempotently, so a
re-added user comes back to life.
- The ledger remembers: two-field lines ('name active' / 'name revoked',
legacy bare names read as active), so dropped users no longer vanish from
rig's memory on the next rewrite. status now reports the ledger state
corroborated by the account's real expiry — passwd -S read L for everyone
(apply locks all passwords always), so its locked/active was meaningless —
and flags a mismatch loudly as drift.
- Perms are part of the converged state: ~/.ssh and authorized_keys ownership
and mode converge on every run, not only when content changes — StrictModes
treats them as load-bearing, so drifted perms were a broken login that
"already converged" lied about. Only the content write stays cmp-guarded.
- close-root's admin-door gate checks the StrictModes shape per candidate —
ownership, group/world-writability of home/.ssh/authorized_keys, a real
login shell, an unexpired account — and names which check failed. It proves
the door SHOULD open, not that it does; the separate-session advisory stays
load-bearing.
- Usernames are validated in the parser's one-pass refusal matrix
(^[a-z_][a-z0-9_-]{0,31}$): 'fo|o' corrupted the parser's own '|'-delimited
stream, and a leading '-' read as a useradd flag mid-convergence.
- The box role is trait-aware: on a host=no box an absent incus group skips
the role with a warning and converges everything else — one box-role user
in a fleet-wide file must not abort apply everywhere VMs don't live.
host=yes still dies pointing at box setup-host; a classless marker warns
toward a bootstrap re-run.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 20:01:19 +00:00
**The honest limit of the `rig` role:** its sudo grant is binary-scoped, not
argument-scoped — it trusts its holder with every rig verb *except* identity
management. The `rig users` commands gate their **invoker** : run under sudo
by anyone outside `rig-admin` , they refuse. Without that gate, `sudo rig
users apply` against a file naming yourself admin would make the scoped grant
silently root-equivalent through the very tool it scopes. Direct root — a
bring-up shell, before any admin exists — proceeds.
`box` binds where VMs live, and a users file is fleet-wide — its box grants
2026-07-19 17:50:24 +00:00
are not. **The `host=` trait decides whether the box role applies here, and
the `incus` group never overrides it.** On `host=no` — or a marker that names
no `host=` at all, or no marker — the role is **skipped with a warning** and
everything else, admins included, still converges: one box-role user
somewhere in the fleet must not stop apply everywhere VMs don't live. The
verdict is the same whether or not the group happens to exist.
That last part is the point. rig never installs Incus — box's `setup-host`
owns the daemon — so a `host=no` box can still carry a leftover `incus`
group from a previous life. Adding someone to it there would hand out the
socket with no tier behind it, and incus-user would lazily build them an
**unhardened** project on first contact: `incusbr-<uid>` , NAT on v4 *and*
v6, no ACL, no `dns.mode=none` , no port isolation. So on that mismatch apply
warns — naming the contradiction and `rig bootstrap --host yes` as the
repair — and **strips** box-role users out of `incus` , because an inherited
half-grant is the same defect as a fresh one.
The group's presence matters only once the trait already said yes: on
`host=yes` an absent `incus` group means the daemon was never set up, so
apply dies pointing at `box setup-host` rather than conjure a group nothing
would consult. `incus-admin` is deliberately **not** a role: that group is
fix(users): review findings — invoker gate, real SSH revocation, StrictModes-shaped close-root gate, trait-aware box role
Seven review findings on the users family, each with the harness check that
would have caught it:
- Invoker gate (apply + close-root): %rig's sudoers rule is binary-scoped but
not argument-scoped, so `sudo rig users apply --file <me-as-admin>` made
role rig silently root-equivalent through the very command that granted it.
Identity management now refuses any sudo invoker outside rig-admin; direct
root (bring-up, a root shell) proceeds.
- Offboarding revokes SSH, not just the password: a '!'-locked password is
not a closed door under UsePAM — Debian sshd still honors the pubkey. A
dropped user's account is now expired (usermod -L -e 1, the switch PAM
actually enforces) and authorized_keys is renamed to
authorized_keys.revoked-by-rig — access revoked, data kept, convergence
never destroys. Present users get their expiry cleared idempotently, so a
re-added user comes back to life.
- The ledger remembers: two-field lines ('name active' / 'name revoked',
legacy bare names read as active), so dropped users no longer vanish from
rig's memory on the next rewrite. status now reports the ledger state
corroborated by the account's real expiry — passwd -S read L for everyone
(apply locks all passwords always), so its locked/active was meaningless —
and flags a mismatch loudly as drift.
- Perms are part of the converged state: ~/.ssh and authorized_keys ownership
and mode converge on every run, not only when content changes — StrictModes
treats them as load-bearing, so drifted perms were a broken login that
"already converged" lied about. Only the content write stays cmp-guarded.
- close-root's admin-door gate checks the StrictModes shape per candidate —
ownership, group/world-writability of home/.ssh/authorized_keys, a real
login shell, an unexpired account — and names which check failed. It proves
the door SHOULD open, not that it does; the separate-session advisory stays
load-bearing.
- Usernames are validated in the parser's one-pass refusal matrix
(^[a-z_][a-z0-9_-]{0,31}$): 'fo|o' corrupted the parser's own '|'-delimited
stream, and a leading '-' read as a useradd flag mid-convergence.
- The box role is trait-aware: on a host=no box an absent incus group skips
the role with a warning and converges everything else — one box-role user
in a fleet-wide file must not abort apply everywhere VMs don't live.
host=yes still dies pointing at box setup-host; a classless marker warns
toward a bootstrap re-run.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 20:01:19 +00:00
host-root-equivalent, break-glass by hand only.
docs: README identity model — traits, presets, fleet users, root's two fates
The bootstrap section now documents what shipped: roles as presets over the
three orthogonal traits (class/host/join, every one overridable, custom
states all of them), the derived tag:server policy, the /etc/rig/role marker
that records effective traits so an overridden role never lies, and the
join=login path where the tag assertion inverts — untagged is asserted, a
tag is the refusal. A new identity-model section carries the hybrid access
model: named operators on every class, humans never entering as root, class
deciding root SSH's fate after `rig users apply` — closed on human, kept as
the control plane's automation door on server — with the detection benefit
and the honest attribution-not-privilege caveat stated plainly. Per-command
sections cover apply/status/close-root, including the first-wins drop-in
mechanism and the README-only from= guidance for Coolify's key on servers.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 19:32:23 +00:00
**All passwords stay locked, always** — created or found. The SSH key at the
door is the authentication, and NOPASSWD sudo does not weaken it: there was
never a password to guess or rotate.
Convergence is exact. Membership in the three rig-managed groups is made to
match the file — added *and* removed — while every other group is left alone:
fix(users): review findings — invoker gate, real SSH revocation, StrictModes-shaped close-root gate, trait-aware box role
Seven review findings on the users family, each with the harness check that
would have caught it:
- Invoker gate (apply + close-root): %rig's sudoers rule is binary-scoped but
not argument-scoped, so `sudo rig users apply --file <me-as-admin>` made
role rig silently root-equivalent through the very command that granted it.
Identity management now refuses any sudo invoker outside rig-admin; direct
root (bring-up, a root shell) proceeds.
- Offboarding revokes SSH, not just the password: a '!'-locked password is
not a closed door under UsePAM — Debian sshd still honors the pubkey. A
dropped user's account is now expired (usermod -L -e 1, the switch PAM
actually enforces) and authorized_keys is renamed to
authorized_keys.revoked-by-rig — access revoked, data kept, convergence
never destroys. Present users get their expiry cleared idempotently, so a
re-added user comes back to life.
- The ledger remembers: two-field lines ('name active' / 'name revoked',
legacy bare names read as active), so dropped users no longer vanish from
rig's memory on the next rewrite. status now reports the ledger state
corroborated by the account's real expiry — passwd -S read L for everyone
(apply locks all passwords always), so its locked/active was meaningless —
and flags a mismatch loudly as drift.
- Perms are part of the converged state: ~/.ssh and authorized_keys ownership
and mode converge on every run, not only when content changes — StrictModes
treats them as load-bearing, so drifted perms were a broken login that
"already converged" lied about. Only the content write stays cmp-guarded.
- close-root's admin-door gate checks the StrictModes shape per candidate —
ownership, group/world-writability of home/.ssh/authorized_keys, a real
login shell, an unexpired account — and names which check failed. It proves
the door SHOULD open, not that it does; the separate-session advisory stays
load-bearing.
- Usernames are validated in the parser's one-pass refusal matrix
(^[a-z_][a-z0-9_-]{0,31}$): 'fo|o' corrupted the parser's own '|'-delimited
stream, and a leading '-' read as a useradd flag mid-convergence.
- The box role is trait-aware: on a host=no box an absent incus group skips
the role with a warning and converges everything else — one box-role user
in a fleet-wide file must not abort apply everywhere VMs don't live.
host=yes still dies pointing at box setup-host; a classless marker warns
toward a bootstrap re-run.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 20:01:19 +00:00
not rig's to converge. `authorized_keys` becomes exactly the file's keys, and
its ownership and mode (and `.ssh` 's) are converged on **every** run, not
just when content changes — sshd's `StrictModes` treats them as
load-bearing, so drifted perms are a broken login that "already converged"
would lie about. A user dropped from the file is found via the
`/etc/rig/users` ledger and **revoked, never deleted** : the account is
expired — the switch PAM actually enforces; a locked password alone still
lets a pubkey in under Debian's `UsePAM` — and `authorized_keys` is renamed
to `authorized_keys.revoked-by-rig` . Access revoked, data kept: deletion
frees the uid for reuse and orphans file ownership, so attribution would rot;
home stays for the same reason, and re-adding the user to the file brings
them back, fresh keys and all. And the sudoers rules land in
`/etc/sudoers.d/rig-roles` only after `visudo -c` passes on the candidate — a
bad file under `/etc/sudoers.d` can take down *all* of sudo, locking every
admin out of the very escalation path apply just granted.
docs: README identity model — traits, presets, fleet users, root's two fates
The bootstrap section now documents what shipped: roles as presets over the
three orthogonal traits (class/host/join, every one overridable, custom
states all of them), the derived tag:server policy, the /etc/rig/role marker
that records effective traits so an overridden role never lies, and the
join=login path where the tag assertion inverts — untagged is asserted, a
tag is the refusal. A new identity-model section carries the hybrid access
model: named operators on every class, humans never entering as root, class
deciding root SSH's fate after `rig users apply` — closed on human, kept as
the control plane's automation door on server — with the detection benefit
and the honest attribution-not-privilege caveat stated plainly. Per-command
sections cover apply/status/close-root, including the first-wins drop-in
mechanism and the README-only from= guidance for Coolify's key on servers.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 19:32:23 +00:00
### `rig users status`
```sh
rig users status
```
Read-only truth: per rig-managed user, the roles derived from the groups the
user is **actually** in — not the ledger's memory of an apply — plus the
fix(users): review findings — invoker gate, real SSH revocation, StrictModes-shaped close-root gate, trait-aware box role
Seven review findings on the users family, each with the harness check that
would have caught it:
- Invoker gate (apply + close-root): %rig's sudoers rule is binary-scoped but
not argument-scoped, so `sudo rig users apply --file <me-as-admin>` made
role rig silently root-equivalent through the very command that granted it.
Identity management now refuses any sudo invoker outside rig-admin; direct
root (bring-up, a root shell) proceeds.
- Offboarding revokes SSH, not just the password: a '!'-locked password is
not a closed door under UsePAM — Debian sshd still honors the pubkey. A
dropped user's account is now expired (usermod -L -e 1, the switch PAM
actually enforces) and authorized_keys is renamed to
authorized_keys.revoked-by-rig — access revoked, data kept, convergence
never destroys. Present users get their expiry cleared idempotently, so a
re-added user comes back to life.
- The ledger remembers: two-field lines ('name active' / 'name revoked',
legacy bare names read as active), so dropped users no longer vanish from
rig's memory on the next rewrite. status now reports the ledger state
corroborated by the account's real expiry — passwd -S read L for everyone
(apply locks all passwords always), so its locked/active was meaningless —
and flags a mismatch loudly as drift.
- Perms are part of the converged state: ~/.ssh and authorized_keys ownership
and mode converge on every run, not only when content changes — StrictModes
treats them as load-bearing, so drifted perms were a broken login that
"already converged" lied about. Only the content write stays cmp-guarded.
- close-root's admin-door gate checks the StrictModes shape per candidate —
ownership, group/world-writability of home/.ssh/authorized_keys, a real
login shell, an unexpired account — and names which check failed. It proves
the door SHOULD open, not that it does; the separate-session advisory stays
load-bearing.
- Usernames are validated in the parser's one-pass refusal matrix
(^[a-z_][a-z0-9_-]{0,31}$): 'fo|o' corrupted the parser's own '|'-delimited
stream, and a leading '-' read as a useradd flag mid-convergence.
- The box role is trait-aware: on a host=no box an absent incus group skips
the role with a warning and converges everything else — one box-role user
in a fleet-wide file must not abort apply everywhere VMs don't live.
host=yes still dies pointing at box setup-host; a classless marker warns
toward a bootstrap re-run.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 20:01:19 +00:00
`authorized_keys` count (`revoked` when only the `.revoked-by-rig` rename
remains) and the user's state, **active** or **revoked** . The state is the
ledger's word corroborated by the account's real expiry — the switch that
actually revokes — and a mismatch is flagged loudly as drift: a box someone
changed behind rig's back must never read as healthy. Reads the box only; no
network, no writes. Run as root (shadow is read).
docs: README identity model — traits, presets, fleet users, root's two fates
The bootstrap section now documents what shipped: roles as presets over the
three orthogonal traits (class/host/join, every one overridable, custom
states all of them), the derived tag:server policy, the /etc/rig/role marker
that records effective traits so an overridden role never lies, and the
join=login path where the tag assertion inverts — untagged is asserted, a
tag is the refusal. A new identity-model section carries the hybrid access
model: named operators on every class, humans never entering as root, class
deciding root SSH's fate after `rig users apply` — closed on human, kept as
the control plane's automation door on server — with the detection benefit
and the honest attribution-not-privilege caveat stated plainly. Per-command
sections cover apply/status/close-root, including the first-wins drop-in
mechanism and the README-only from= guidance for Coolify's key on servers.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 19:32:23 +00:00
### `rig users close-root`
```sh
rig users close-root
```
Shuts the root SSH door — `class=human` boxes only, and only once a named
admin can already get in. The gates run in order: the `/etc/rig/role` marker
must say `class=human` — an absent marker refuses (never shut the root door
blind; re-run bootstrap so the box knows what it is), and `class=server`
refuses with no `--force` , because root there is the control plane's
automation identity and closing it severs fleet management. Then at least one
fix(users): review findings — invoker gate, real SSH revocation, StrictModes-shaped close-root gate, trait-aware box role
Seven review findings on the users family, each with the harness check that
would have caught it:
- Invoker gate (apply + close-root): %rig's sudoers rule is binary-scoped but
not argument-scoped, so `sudo rig users apply --file <me-as-admin>` made
role rig silently root-equivalent through the very command that granted it.
Identity management now refuses any sudo invoker outside rig-admin; direct
root (bring-up, a root shell) proceeds.
- Offboarding revokes SSH, not just the password: a '!'-locked password is
not a closed door under UsePAM — Debian sshd still honors the pubkey. A
dropped user's account is now expired (usermod -L -e 1, the switch PAM
actually enforces) and authorized_keys is renamed to
authorized_keys.revoked-by-rig — access revoked, data kept, convergence
never destroys. Present users get their expiry cleared idempotently, so a
re-added user comes back to life.
- The ledger remembers: two-field lines ('name active' / 'name revoked',
legacy bare names read as active), so dropped users no longer vanish from
rig's memory on the next rewrite. status now reports the ledger state
corroborated by the account's real expiry — passwd -S read L for everyone
(apply locks all passwords always), so its locked/active was meaningless —
and flags a mismatch loudly as drift.
- Perms are part of the converged state: ~/.ssh and authorized_keys ownership
and mode converge on every run, not only when content changes — StrictModes
treats them as load-bearing, so drifted perms were a broken login that
"already converged" lied about. Only the content write stays cmp-guarded.
- close-root's admin-door gate checks the StrictModes shape per candidate —
ownership, group/world-writability of home/.ssh/authorized_keys, a real
login shell, an unexpired account — and names which check failed. It proves
the door SHOULD open, not that it does; the separate-session advisory stays
load-bearing.
- Usernames are validated in the parser's one-pass refusal matrix
(^[a-z_][a-z0-9_-]{0,31}$): 'fo|o' corrupted the parser's own '|'-delimited
stream, and a leading '-' read as a useradd flag mid-convergence.
- The box role is trait-aware: on a host=no box an absent incus group skips
the role with a warning and converges everything else — one box-role user
in a fleet-wide file must not abort apply everywhere VMs don't live.
host=yes still dies pointing at box setup-host; a classless marker warns
toward a bootstrap re-run.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 20:01:19 +00:00
`rig-admin` member must hold a login sshd would plausibly **accept** — a
non-empty `authorized_keys` alone proves a file, not a door: the gate checks
the `StrictModes` shape (home, `.ssh` , and `authorized_keys` owned by the
user and not group/world-writable), a real login shell, and an unexpired
2026-07-18 14:54:03 +00:00
account — and then two **reachability** proofs (#17): `sudo -n true` under
`runuser` must answer, so NOPASSWD sudo is effective rather than merely
written, and `sshd -T -C user=<admin>` must resolve a per-user effective
config that accepts the login (`pubkeyauthentication yes`, no `DenyUsers`
fix(close-root): DenyUsers judged fail-closed — patterns and USER@HOST flag
All three reviewers, same substance, and they were right that it was
lockout-adjacent: the literal grep passed a candidate whom a DenyUsers
PATTERN really denies ('DenyUsers dan*' vs admin 'dan'), and the door
closed on a false proof. The judgment now lives in the lib as a pure
deny_verdict: a literal hit flags, and so does ANY pattern or
host-qualified token — a token the check cannot prove irrelevant counts
as a hit, never as a pass. The asymmetry with AllowUsers is now the
same direction on both sides: every error closes toward repair, never
toward a welded-shut door.
Also (claude-bot): the -C probe resolves Match blocks against a
synthetic addr=127.0.0.1, so Match Address is out of the local proof's
scope — named in --help, the README, and the gate's comment, so the
separate-session advisory reads as load-bearing, not ceremony.
Regressions ride the sourced lib: wildcard (the review's dan* case),
'?', USER@HOST, literal hit, irrelevant-literals pass, plus a grep
guard that the shipped gate consults deny_verdict.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-18 17:02:48 +00:00
hit — where any pattern or `USER@HOST` entry counts as a hit, fail closed,
since `DenyUsers dan*` really denies admin `dan` and rig will not re-implement
2026-07-18 17:17:39 +00:00
sshd's pattern engine to prove a miss — `AllowUsers` , if set, names them
literally, and the same fail-closed pair for `DenyGroups` /`AllowGroups`
judged against the admin's actual groups), so a `Match` block elsewhere
cannot quietly exclude the admin
fix(close-root): DenyUsers judged fail-closed — patterns and USER@HOST flag
All three reviewers, same substance, and they were right that it was
lockout-adjacent: the literal grep passed a candidate whom a DenyUsers
PATTERN really denies ('DenyUsers dan*' vs admin 'dan'), and the door
closed on a false proof. The judgment now lives in the lib as a pure
deny_verdict: a literal hit flags, and so does ANY pattern or
host-qualified token — a token the check cannot prove irrelevant counts
as a hit, never as a pass. The asymmetry with AllowUsers is now the
same direction on both sides: every error closes toward repair, never
toward a welded-shut door.
Also (claude-bot): the -C probe resolves Match blocks against a
synthetic addr=127.0.0.1, so Match Address is out of the local proof's
scope — named in --help, the README, and the gate's comment, so the
separate-session advisory reads as load-bearing, not ceremony.
Regressions ride the sourced lib: wildcard (the review's dan* case),
'?', USER@HOST, literal hit, irrelevant-literals pass, plus a grep
guard that the shipped gate consults deny_verdict.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-18 17:02:48 +00:00
while every file looks right. The refusal names which check failed, per
candidate. What no local check can prove: that you *hold* the private key,
and how a `Match Address` rule treats your real client address (the probe
resolves against a synthetic `addr=127.0.0.1` ) — which is why the
separate-session verification below stays load-bearing. Never close the only
door.
docs: README identity model — traits, presets, fleet users, root's two fates
The bootstrap section now documents what shipped: roles as presets over the
three orthogonal traits (class/host/join, every one overridable, custom
states all of them), the derived tag:server policy, the /etc/rig/role marker
that records effective traits so an overridden role never lies, and the
join=login path where the tag assertion inverts — untagged is asserted, a
tag is the refusal. A new identity-model section carries the hybrid access
model: named operators on every class, humans never entering as root, class
deciding root SSH's fate after `rig users apply` — closed on human, kept as
the control plane's automation door on server — with the detection benefit
and the honest attribution-not-privilege caveat stated plainly. Per-command
sections cover apply/status/close-root, including the first-wins drop-in
mechanism and the README-only from= guidance for Coolify's key on servers.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 19:32:23 +00:00
Before running it, prove the admin door in a **separate** session — `ssh
< admin > @< box > ` while this one stays open. Root SSH is being welded shut; the
admin login must be proven, not presumed.
> **The drop-in's name is the entire mechanism.** close-root installs
> `/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/00-rig-users.conf` carrying exactly
> `PermitRootLogin no`. sshd_config is first-wins, `Include` expands its glob
> lexically, and `-` (0x2D) sorts before `.` (0x2E) — so `00-rig-users.conf`
> is read *before* bootstrap's `00-rig.conf` and beats its
> `prohibit-password`. Bootstrap's effective-config assertion accepts the
> closed state (`no` is strictly harder than what it installs), and by the
> same first-wins order its own drop-in can never reopen it — a bootstrap
> re-run on a closed box leaves it closed. Validate-then-apply as everywhere:
> `sshd -t` before the restart, rollback on failure, and success is only
> claimed once `sshd -T` resolves `permitrootlogin no`.
Convergent — once root is closed, a re-run says "root already closed; nothing
to do" and exits 0.
> **On `class=server`, root stays — so lock its key instead.** This is README
> guidance, deliberately not automation: prefix Coolify's line in root's
> `authorized_keys` with a `from="<control-plane-addr>"` clause, so the
> automation identity only opens from the one address supposed to use it. rig
> will not write that file — Coolify owns its key material on the servers it
> registers, and two tools converging one file is drift by construction (the
> same argument that keeps rig's hands off Incus).
2026-07-11 08:25:48 +00:00
## What rig deliberately does NOT do
2026-07-10 20:56:05 +00:00
- **Provider firewalls** — Docker publishes ports past host firewalls, so
the real boundary is your cloud provider's firewall, configured outside
this tool.
- **Fetch your config** — boxes never receive repo credentials. Everything
2026-07-11 08:25:48 +00:00
rig needs arrives as arguments or an interactive prompt.
2026-07-10 20:56:05 +00:00
- **Manage deployments** — deploy manifests/executors are separate concerns.
2026-07-11 08:25:48 +00:00
(Planned: the `apply` /`diff` executor half joins rig as commands that
2026-07-10 20:56:05 +00:00
run on operator machines, never on boxes.)
## Testing
`bash test/cli.sh` (dependency-free assertions) + shellcheck run in CI. The
feat(install): versioned installs and a real uninstall — box#79's layout, ported
install.sh now lands every version at <root>/versions/<v> (each tree
carrying its own VERSION + INSTALLED_FROM), tracks the default through an
atomically-flipped 'current' symlink, and converges instead of clobbering:
a same-version re-run is a no-op that says so, RIG_REINSTALL=1 replaces
that version's tree by two renames (delete last), and a new version
installs side by side. A pre-versioning flat tree is migrated in place —
two renames, preserved bit for bit, VERSION-less trees as 0.0.0-unknown.
bin/rig grows the table verbs: 'rig versions' (current + running marked),
'rig use <v>' (atomic flip, asserted effective through the PATH chain),
'rig uninstall [<v>|--all]' — which ENDS with an absence assert: every
removed path re-checked, survivors exit 1 as 'uninstall INCOMPLETE' by
name. One strict valid_version gate guards every place a version string
becomes a path (byte-identical copies in bin/rig and install.sh, diffed by
the suite so they cannot drift). Plus the VERSION file and 'rig --version'
(rig#32's first item, folded in minimally — rig main had neither).
The flip gate is rig's own shape, deliberately: box refuses flips under
existing boxes; rig's stake is the converged host, so a flip (upgrade,
'rig use', full uninstall) on a host where /etc/rig/role exists WARNS and
proceeds — no user state to strand, and upgrading a bootstrapped host is
the normal case.
The suite drives REAL installer runs (RIG_INSTALL_SOURCE against throwaway
RIG_HOME/RIG_BIN roots): fresh install, converge, reinstall, side-by-side
upgrade, use/rollback, both migrations, hostile flat VERSION, wedged-
symlink healing, the marker warn gate (RIG_ROLE_MARKER fixtures), both
uninstalls and the INCOMPLETE scream — driven, not grepped.
Closes #35.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-18 19:33:17 +00:00
versioned install is proven by REAL installer runs: `RIG_INSTALL_SOURCE`
points install.sh at the tree under review and the harness drives it against
throwaway `RIG_HOME` /`RIG_BIN` roots — fresh install, converge, reinstall,
side-by-side upgrade, `use` /rollback, flat-tree migration, symlink healing,
the bootstrapped-host warning (via `RIG_ROLE_MARKER` fixtures), and both
uninstalls with their absence asserts. The
docs: README identity model — traits, presets, fleet users, root's two fates
The bootstrap section now documents what shipped: roles as presets over the
three orthogonal traits (class/host/join, every one overridable, custom
states all of them), the derived tag:server policy, the /etc/rig/role marker
that records effective traits so an overridden role never lies, and the
join=login path where the tag assertion inverts — untagged is asserted, a
tag is the refusal. A new identity-model section carries the hybrid access
model: named operators on every class, humans never entering as root, class
deciding root SSH's fate after `rig users apply` — closed on human, kept as
the control plane's automation door on server — with the detection benefit
and the honest attribution-not-privilege caveat stated plainly. Per-command
sections cover apply/status/close-root, including the first-wins drop-in
mechanism and the README-only from= guidance for Coolify's key on servers.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-17 19:32:23 +00:00
`rig users` family is covered the same way: the harness drives its refusal
matrix — users-file parsing, the marker gates, the lexical drop-in-name
assertion, the validate-then-apply ordering — through the sourced lib
2026-07-18 19:49:27 +00:00
functions, non-root and network-free. The tenant family follows the same
split: the harness proves the arg/refusal surface, the marker guards (off
fixture markers), the pure parameter table, and the rendered agent-context
file — guard note included — plus absence-greps for the creds-free contract;
the real converge belongs to the rehearsal. The end-to-end rehearsal is a
throwaway VM/container: pristine Debian → install → `bootstrap workload` with
a real single-use key → assert the sshd drop-in, tailnet join, and a no-op
second run → destroy, remove the node from the tailnet. The tenant rehearsal
is the same shape, creds-free: container + seed user → `rig bootstrap claude`
/ `staging` → assert the CLI answers, docker answers, `sshd -T` , the context
file — then re-run and watch it no-op.