railiance-hosts/INTENT.md
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Mark as superseded by railiance-infra
Verified 2026-08-11: railiance-hosts and railiance-infra are distinct remotes
with unrelated git histories but byte-identical INTENT.md and near-identical
content, and this repo has zero files that are not also in railiance-infra. It
has been quiet since 2026-07-30 while railiance-infra continued.

The INTENT asserted this repo IS the canonical S1 substrate home, which made it
the most actively misleading file in the family - the hub still carries an S1
goal against it. Adds a superseded banner rather than deleting anything, since
retirement is railiance-master's call and needs a git-history check plus a move
of the live goal to railiance-infra first.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-11 23:19:51 +02:00

145 lines
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Markdown

# INTENT
> This file captures **why this repository exists**,
> the **direction it is moving toward**, and
> the **kind of system it is meant to become**.
> It is intentionally **aspirational and stable**, not a description of current implementation.
---
> **⚠ SUPERSEDED — do not start new work here.**
>
> This repository is superseded by **`railiance-infra`**, which is the canonical
> S1 Infrastructure Substrate home. Verified 2026-08-11: the two are distinct
> remotes with **unrelated git histories** but byte-identical `INTENT.md` and
> near-identical content, and `railiance-hosts` has **zero files that are not
> also in `railiance-infra`**. This repo has been quiet since 2026-07-30 while
> `railiance-infra` continued.
>
> It was one of four repos (`bootstrap`, `cluster`, `hosts`, `infra`) created by
> copying working trees as the S1/S2 layering idea emerged — the INTENT was
> copied along with everything else, which is why this file reads as though this
> repo is the canonical substrate home. It is not.
>
> **Retirement is pending** in `railiance-master`. Before deletion, two things
> must happen: its git history must be checked for anything not carried into
> `railiance-infra`, and its live State Hub goal *"Secure Single-Server
> Bootstrap at HostEurope"* must be moved to `railiance-infra` or it will keep
> resurfacing as unstarted S1 work.
>
> Context: `railiance-platform/ArchitectureBlueprint.md` section 4.
---
## One-liner
**The infrastructure substrate — turning bare machines into hardened, verified, ready-to-build-on servers, declaratively and reproducibly.**
---
## Why This Exists
Everything else assumes servers that already exist, are hardened, and are
known-good. Without a disciplined foundation:
* server baselines drift,
* hardening is applied inconsistently,
* and higher layers inherit an unverified, untrustworthy substrate.
This layer exists to **provision and converge that substrate
reproducibly**, and to **prove it meets a security baseline** before
anything is built on top of it.
---
## The Mission
> *Where we are going.*
To become the **canonical, source-driven foundation** that provisions
servers, hardens and converges the operating system, manages bootstrap
secret material at rest, and validates the resulting baseline — so that
every higher layer can assume a **hardened, verified substrate**.
This means:
* The substrate is built **from source**, not hand-tuned on live hosts
* Security hardening is **part of provisioning**, not a later step
* The baseline is **tested and proven** before handoff
* The shape of the substrate is **recorded as the source of truth**
---
## Core Principles
### 1. Declarative and Reproducible
The substrate is derived from source and can be rebuilt the same way every
time. No irreproducible, hand-tuned hosts.
### 2. Hardened by Default
Security hardening is intrinsic to provisioning, not bolted on afterward.
### 3. Verified Before Handoff
The baseline is validated against an explicit specification and proven
good before any higher layer runs on it.
### 4. A Recorded Source of Truth
The inventory and shape of the substrate are recorded and authoritative,
not discovered after the fact.
### 5. Secure at Rest
Bootstrap secret material is encrypted at rest in source and never stored
in the clear.
### 6. Foundation, Not Tenant
This layer provides the ground. It does not run, orchestrate, or configure
the things built on top of it.
---
## What This Is (Conceptually)
This layer is:
* an **infrastructure substrate**
* a **provisioning and convergence** engine
* a **security hardening baseline**
* a **verification gate** before higher layers run
* a **recorded inventory** and source of truth for the substrate
---
## What This Is Not
This layer is not:
* the runtime or orchestrator built above it
* a provider of shared platform services
* an application or business-capability provider
* a place for higher-layer configuration
It is the **ground an entire landscape stands on**.
---
## Direction of Evolution
This layer is expected to evolve toward:
* Stronger **reproducibility** and drift detection
* Broader **provider** support without changing the model
* **Continuous** baseline verification
* Automated **rotation** of at-rest secret material
* Self-evidencing, **auditable** provisioning
---
## Guiding Question
> **How can the ground an entire landscape stands on be made reproducible, hardened, and provably good before anything is built on it?**