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vole
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https://rodent.software/git/vole.git

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git clone ssh://git@0.0.0.0:2222/vole.git

A free and open-source forge that lives in your Git repo.

Accounts with stable ids; the roster moves into the system repository

31df8baea9c9e8acf74b71bdda26d27907b30f2a · Keenan Nemetz · 17d ago · parent 36293228

Accounts with stable ids; the roster moves into the system repository

Names were the primary key everywhere — the keys file name, the ACL entry, the
approval file — so renaming someone broke their access, orphaned their approvals,
and left a retired name able to hand a newcomer the old holder's rights. This
splits identity into an account (stable id, anchored by its SSH keys) and a name
(mutable, never reissued).

  data/system.git  refs/heads/main
    users/<ulid>/meta.json   name, status, keys, former_names

Everything that grants authority now holds the id: ACL entries, approval files,
and the identity resolved at the SSH handshake (VOLE_ACTOR_ID). A rename is a
one-file change that disturbs nothing else, and both the old and new names stay
reserved forever.

The roster moved from a trusted-keys directory back into git, which reverses an
earlier simplification — deliberately, and in a smaller shape (one file per
account, one writer, no CAS plumbing for unused fields). Git buys what a directory
could not: `git log` answers who renamed whom and when a key appeared, and the
roster is now readable by anyone who can clone, since it is served read-only at
ssh://host/system.git. `vole request new` and `approve` use exactly that to turn a
name typed on the command line into the account id they store.

Two latent bugs surfaced, both caught by tests added here:

- gitx inherited git's repository-scoped environment. pre-receive runs with
  GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY and GIT_QUARANTINE_PATH pointing at the pushed repository's
  quarantine, so every git call a hook made for a *different* repository silently
  read the pushed one: the hook saw an empty roster. gitx now scrubs those
  variables and the hook restores them for the pushed repository only.
- The hook built the repository name with filepath.Base on receive-pack's path,
  which carries a trailing separator, so refusals read "does not have write access
  to .". Cleaned first.

Verified end to end on a live instance: two accounts file, approve and land a
change; `vole user rename wilbur robert` keeps the same key's write access and the
approval still reads as current, now credited to robert; the roster history shows
"user: rename wilbur to robert"; retiring an account rejects its key within five
seconds and refuses to reissue the name.

docs/roadmap.md +18

@@ -221,6 +221,21 @@ prior approval, an approval for `main` cannot be repointed at another branch, a
221 221 self-approval or impersonated approval is refused, an admin bypass works, and each merge
222 222 is written to the audit log with the request id and approvers.
223 223
224 ### Phase 3.5 — the system repository
225
226 ✅ **Done.** `data/system.git` is the instance repository. Its `main` branch holds
227 the user roster (`users/<ulid>/meta.json`: name, status, keys, former names).
228
229 - Accounts have a stable id; names are mutable, and a name is never issued twice, so
230 a new account cannot inherit a retired one's ACL entries or approvals.
231 - ACL entries and approval files are keyed by account id, so `vole user rename` is a
232 one-file change that disturbs nothing else.
233 - The roster is polled every five seconds, so `add-key` and `retire` take effect
234 without a restart.
235 - Planned, not built: the instance landing page served from the same repository
236 (`pages/` on `main`), and exposing the roster read-only over SSH/web so a reader
237 can verify it without server access.
238
224 239 ### Phase 4 — CI/CD
225 240
226 241 - `.vole/workflows/*.yaml` parsed and validated at push time; invalid workflows fail loudly
@@ -361,6 +376,9 @@ Filled in as phases land. Append; don't rewrite.
361 376 | 2026-10-22 | Approvals name a commit and a branch; the merge is a push | A branch-moving head makes "approve once" meaningless, and a push needs no new write surface |
362 377 | 2026-10-22 | Only the named principal may write their own approval file | A filename is not authentication; the hook compares it to the SSH identity resolved at handshake |
363 378 | 2026-10-22 | Approval ownership checks cover modify/rename, not just add | A file that already exists can be edited to name a different commit; `--diff-filter=A` alone is bypassable |
379 | 2026-10-22 | Accounts have a stable id; names are mutable and never reissued | A name is not an identity: renaming broke ACLs and orphaned approvals, and reusing a name would hand over someone's access |
380 | 2026-10-22 | The roster lives in `data/system.git` on `refs/heads/main` | One authoritative copy, portable and auditable with plain git; per-repository copies would make revocation non-atomic |
381 | 2026-10-22 | `gitx` scrubs git's repository-scoped environment | pre-receive sets `GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY`/quarantine for the pushed repo, which silently redirected a hook's git calls for other repositories |
364 382 | 2026-10-22 | CLI accepts options after arguments, as git does | Refusing them is a local dialect; `git commit -m x path` is the shape people type |
365 383
366 384 ## Open questions