Build Server — guide

Build Server is an operator package. It is for the people who run a MeshWeaver installation's own build and deployment pipeline, not for everyday users of the mesh. If you do not operate a build instance, you do not need it.

What it is for

A MeshWeaver installation can run its builds on its own infrastructure instead of only on hosted CI. In that setup, every build of a repository is a node on the mesh: it is queued, admitted in order, run, and given a verdict. Build Server is the package that gathers this build-server functionality in one place and connects it to Governance, so that a build verdict can lead to a governed follow-up rather than to someone acting by hand.

The package defines the build server's part in governed activities as two roles, and never a third:

• Proposer. A build verdict is to raise a proposal — for example a deployment after a green trunk build, a dependency update merge after its pull request passes, or triage after the trunk turns red. The proposal is reviewed and signed like any other.
• Executor. An activity that has been reviewed, gated and signed is to be carried out as a job from the build queue.

The build server never reviews and never signs; those remain with the roles and people the standard names. These two roles are the package's documented design: today the build queue does not yet raise proposals or run governed jobs on its own, and the pieces that will do so are still to be built.

What ships today

The package is at an early version (0.3), and this page describes only what it contains now:

• The documentation of the build server's part in governed activities: which verdict is to raise which standard, how a newer build is to supersede a pending proposal, and how an executed activity is to report back.
• The /build-activities skill, which an AI agent follows to read, review or triage an activity raised by a build — so it finds the build's own proposal instead of raising a duplicate.
• The dependencies it declares: the Hosting package, where the build queue type and its scheduler currently live, and Governance, which provides the standards, activities and signatures.

The build queue type and its scheduler are planned to move into this package from Hosting; until then, installing Build Server adds the documentation and the skill on top of what Hosting provides.

Who can use it

Build Server is an enterprise-tier package and is hosted in the installation's administration area. It is meant to be installed by the operators of an installation, who also need the Hosting and Governance packages.