Three issues found in the http crate spec sanity check that would have
caused problems during task decomposition, now fixed:
C1 — /subscribe GET→POST: the gateway's /subscribe is an invoke endpoint
carrying { operation, input } in the body, but was listed as GET (which
has no body). Flipped to POST with Accept: text/event-stream negotiating
the SSE response, consistent with /call's flat-JSON-body invariant.
Browsers using EventSource can't POST but use WebSocket for the
bidirectional path; the HTTP gateway's /subscribe is for non-browser
HTTP clients (fetch + ReadableStream). Touches ADR-042, ADR-047,
ADR-048, http-adapters.md, http-server.md.
C2 — stale direct-call references: three spots contradicted ADR-047
(which removed the POST /{service}/{op} direct-call surface) and
ADR-046 §3 (which states /{service}/{op} is no longer reserved).
Cleaned up in http-server.md (custom-routes intro + collision list) and
ADR-046 §6 (default-surface list).
W2 — from_mcp output handling: the spec's fallback for tools without
outputSchema was Type.Unknown(), but the correct fallback is the MCP
ContentBlock union (text|image|audio|resource|resource_link) — a
well-defined MCP type, not Unknown. Fixed http-mcp.md with the full
structuredContent-preferred-over-content-blocks logic (matching the TS
adapter and rmcp SDK), enriched references with specific rmcp source
files. Also added shared-dispatch-spine notes to http-mcp.md and
http-adapters.md cross-referencing the new research findings.
Research (docs/research/alknet-http-gateway-factoring/findings.md):
to_mcp and to_openapi share a dispatch spine (resolve → invoke → map).
Recommendation: extract a thin shared struct now, not a GatewayDispatch
trait — the server-integration layers (axum routes vs rmcp
StreamableHttpService) and wire-framing stay per-gateway. A third
gateway is not on the horizon; if one appears its server-integration
needs its own shape anyway.
Minor: WS route precedence note (websocket.md), OpenAPISpec
shared-type-not-shape clarification (http-adapters.md), date bumps.
Promote the WebSocket browser path from a section in http-server.md to a
first-class spec (websocket.md) and commit the contract-pattern decision
(ADR-048): a WS connection carries the native EventEnvelope call-protocol
session, not the HTTP gateway shape. The gateway endpoints are HTTP-only;
discovery on WS is via services/list/services/schema as ordinary call-protocol
ops; subscriptions project as native call.responded events (no SSE).
ADR-044 already decided WS as the v1 browser bidirectional path; ADR-048
clarifies the shape of what ADR-044 committed (§1 implies native session;
the ADR makes it an explicit implementer-visible rule). The from_wss adapter
(importing a remote node's ops over WS) is recorded as out-of-scope with a
concrete reversal trigger so it is not re-derived later.
Spec cleanup: http-server.md WS section collapsed to a stub pointer;
websocket.md Why section references ADRs rather than re-arguing them;
length-prefix decision made canonical (no prefix on WS — message boundary
is the delimiter); default upgrade path pinned (/alknet/call) with HTTP/2
extended CONNECT noted; indexes (README, http/README, overview) updated.
OQ-39 (to_openapi published-spec versioning) resolved by ADR-045:
info.version semver tracks the gateway endpoint contract, not the
operation set — per-caller operations discovered via /search do not
bump the version. The gateway pattern (ADR-042) dissolved most of the
original churn concern.
ADR-046: assembly-layer custom HTTP routes on HttpAdapter. The HTTP
router had no documented extension point for deployment-specific
endpoints (e.g., an OAI-compatible proxy at /v1/chat/completions). Adds
extra_routes: Option<Router> at construction; raw HTTP, not operations;
default surface takes precedence on collision. The mechanism is the
one-way door; specific routes are two-way.
ADR-047: remove the direct-call POST /{service}/{op} HTTP surface. The
gateway /call is the sole invoke path — the simplified contract is a
few fixed endpoints, not a per-operation REST tree. The direct-call
surface re-introduced the 'dump the full API regardless of privs'
failure mode at the HTTP level that the gateway /search was built to
escape. ADR-036's routing decision is superseded; its non-routing
clauses (SSE, Bearer auth, /healthz, stealth, error mapping) survive.
A deployment wanting a REST-like per-operation surface builds it as a
custom route projection (ADR-046).
ADR-044 updated with the tradeoff framing (WSS is the right tool for
the call-protocol-from-browser case; WebTransport is the right tool for
the generalized ALPN-stream-proxy case we don't have yet — coexist, not
migrate) and the @alkdev/pubsub concrete prior art (the EventEnvelope
{type,id,payload} the call protocol was derived from already has a
working WebSocket client/server; the sync is a small adjustment, not a
from-scratch build).
call-protocol.md references the pubsub lineage for the
transport-agnosticism claim.
Working through the WebTransport implementation path surfaced a scope
question distinct from the hedging-as-deferral anti-pattern ADR-038 was
written to correct. Three findings drove the re-evaluation:
1. The browser bidirectional call-protocol path doesn't require
WebTransport — WebSocket is full-duplex, EventEnvelope fits a WS
binary message boundary cleanly, and the Dispatcher is stream-
agnostic (ADR-012). What WebTransport gives over WebSocket (native
multi-stream multiplexing, the ALPN-as-stream substrate) benefits the
proxy use case, not the call protocol.
2. WebTransport is a draft standard (-07, not RFC) on an experimental
Rust dependency stack (wtransport/h3 both self-describe as not
production-ready). Either choice puts a draft protocol on the
security surface of the first release.
3. The ALPN-stream-proxy (ADR-040) is speculative — its WASM parser
consumers (browser SSH/SFTP/git clients) don't exist yet, and the
downstream crates WebTransport deferral blocks (SSH, git, SFTP)
expose their ALPNs natively over QUIC regardless.
This is a scope decision (per ADR-009: a decision that 'genuinely
doesn't need to be made yet because the use case isn't concrete'), not
hedging. The reversal trigger is concrete: a real deployment needing
the ALPN-stream-proxy.
ADR-038 is superseded (its anti-pattern correction stands; its specific
'h3 in scope now' decision is reversed). ADR-040 and ADR-043 are
parked, not superseded — their designs revive unchanged when WebTransport
revives, with §2 (bidirectionality) and §3 (no-PeerId overlay) of ADR-043
transferring to WebSocket for v1.
ADR-044 §5 also states the 'browser is not a peer' rationale that
ADR-034 §4 closed without arguing: peer = addressable node in the
call-protocol peer graph (stable PeerId, PeerRef::Specific-reachable,
identity stable across reconnects), not 'any endpoint that exchanges
calls during a live session.' A browser is the second but not the first
(no stable crypto identity of its own, ephemeral, not addressable from
other nodes). ADR-034 §4 and Assumption 2 are amended by reference.
The wtransport-vs-hyperium dependency question is recorded (not
resolved — WebTransport is deferred) in ADR-044 §'Research note' and
webtransport.md so the revival doesn't re-derive it: wtransport probably
isn't the right choice (axum-bridge friction — it owns its own HTTP
serving path); the hyperium stack (h3 + h3-quinn + h3-webtransport) fits
the axum integration better but its server-side WebTransport API needs
verification before commitment.
Reviewed by architecture-review subagent; all critical cross-reference
issues (ADR-034 §5 stale 'in scope' assertion, ADR-036 Context listing
h3 as implemented, webtransport.md Design Decisions table) resolved.
The to_openapi spec was describing one OpenAPI path per alknet operation
— the inverse of from_openapi. That inverse is genuinely messy: the call
protocol's input is a flat JSON object, and generating a traditional
OpenAPI path entry (POST /fs/{path} with path param, body, query params)
requires reverse-engineering which fields are path/query/body — metadata
the call protocol doesn't carry. The three options (leaky HTTP metadata
on OperationSpec, fragile heuristics, manual annotation) are all messy.
ADR-042 replaces this with the gateway pattern (same as ADR-041 for
to_mcp): to_openapi generates 5 fixed endpoints (search, schema, call,
batch, subscribe) that gate access to the full operation registry. The
input is always a flat JSON body — no path/query/body split to
reverse-engineer. JSON Schema is already in the OperationSpec.
The per-caller API surface is the key advantage: /search is
AccessControl-filtered, so the client sees only what it can call. The
Gitea failure mode (dumping admin ops to every caller in a static
OpenAPI doc) is structurally impossible — the per-caller surface is the
default, not an afterthought. OpenAPI has no per-caller filtering
concept; the gateway pattern provides it through /search.
Gateway endpoint set:
- /search -> services/list (AccessControl-filtered, names + descriptions)
- /schema -> services/schema (full OperationSpec)
- /call -> call.requested (Query/Mutation, flat JSON body)
- /batch -> multiple call.requested (correlated IDs)
- /subscribe -> call.requested (Subscription, SSE) — the one endpoint
the MCP gateway excludes (MCP is request/response; OpenAPI/SSE
supports streaming)
A traditional per-operation-paths projection is additive (a deployment
that wants the nice Swagger UI builds it with HTTP-specific metadata),
not a replacement. The gateway is the default.
http-adapters.md to_openapi section rewritten: the gateway endpoint
set, per-caller filtering, error fidelity on the /call endpoint, and
the additive traditional projection. The 'Why' section adds the
flat->structured and per-caller-surface rationale.
README/overview ADR tables and the top-level README current-state note
updated for ADR-042.
