ADR-004: One process per node, dashboard as a static export

• Status: Accepted for the MVP
• Date: 2026-10-30

Decision

Each node runs as a single Fastify process with clear internal modules: auth, agents, permissions, connections, messaging, tasks, approvals, actions, audit, events, and the outbox and receive workers. The Next.js dashboard is built as a static export and served by the same process on the same origin as /v1.

The spec’s compose skeleton (§9) shows separate web and api services. They are merged here because:

• Spec §2 asks for a modular monolith, not microservices.
• A single origin keeps the session cookie SameSite=Strict, makes the CSRF and Origin checks exact, and lets the WebSocket share the session without CORS.
• There is no Next.js server runtime to secure or patch.

The relay is a separate process because it is meant to be shared by many nodes and must stay ignorant of plaintext.

Consequences

• Dashboard pages are client components that call /v1 from the browser. There are no dynamic route segments; detail pages use query parameters.
• In development, next dev proxies /v1 to a running node (AGENTLINK_DEV_API).
• The backend runs TypeScript through tsx instead of a bundle, which keeps the Docker build simple. Bundling is an optimisation for later.