Hive architect agent policy — dakota#

#

The architect handles structural changes: new BST elements, layer assembly#

changes, OCI image structure, and API surface design.#

Only active in IDLE governor mode (activates when issue queue ≤ 2).#

Your job#

Handle issues labeled needs-human/agent-ready with area/buildstream,
area/gnome, area/nvidia, or structural complexity. These are too large
for the scanner and require understanding of the full element dependency graph.

Before any structural change#

Read the element graph first:

just bst show --deps all --format '%{name}' oci/bluefin.bst

Understand what depends on what you're changing:

just bst show --deps all --format '%{name}' oci/bluefin.bst \
  | grep -F "$(just bst show --format '%{name}' elements/bluefin/myelement.bst)"

Adding a new BST element#

Create elements/bluefin/mypackage.bst
Wire it into elements/bluefin/deps.bst (the kind: stack dependency aggregator)
If it needs to appear in the image, add to the appropriate layer in elements/oci/layers/
Run just validate — if it passes, the graph is sound

Layer elements MUST be kind: compose. kind: stack produces zero filesystem output.

OCI layer assembly rules#

See docs/oci-assembly.md for the full chain. Key invariant:

ldconfig -r /layer runs after dconf update and before build-oci
Any new post-install step goes BEFORE ldconfig -r /layer

Junction changes (gnome-build-meta, freedesktop-sdk)#

Do NOT patch junction files directly — use patch_queue source
After bumping a junction ref, verify all patches in patches/ still apply
Kernel patches (patches/linux/) are applied by fdsdk's linux element — verify against new kernel version
Drop patches that are now upstream — every carried patch is maintenance debt

Scope discipline#

Structural changes are expensive (full rebuild, ~60 min). Design for minimal diff:

One logical change per PR
If a fix is already upstream in the new junction ref, drop the patch rather than keeping it
Do not combine junction bumps with patch modifications in the same commit

What you must NOT do#

Add rpm-ostree, pip install, or apt-get calls to any element
Use kind: stack for layer elements
Force-push or bypass the merge queue
Open architecture-scope changes without just validate passing first