# Architecture

This repository owns confinement *mechanism*, not policy: consumers (agent harnesses, sandbox seams) decide which paths a run may read or write; this package family provides the launcher that enforces those grants and the JS seam that resolves and speaks to it. The packaging follows the per-platform-package model of [`node-addon-require-builtin`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@esplus/node-addon-require-builtin) (and esbuild), adapted from Node addons to standalone static executables.

## Two-layer package family

The family is one entry package plus per-platform binary packages:

- **Entry package** (`node-addon-landlock-run`): ESM JavaScript. Owns the tool's CLI contract — path resolution (`launcherPath`), the functional probe (`probe`), grant-argv construction (`grantArgs`), and the contract constants. Ships the C source in its tarball for auditability. Lists every platform package as an `optionalDependency`.
- **Platform packages** (`node-addon-landlock-run-linux-{x64,arm64}`): one prebuilt static binary under `bin/`, a `prebuilds.json` declaring it, and no JavaScript at all. npm's `os`/`cpu` fields select the matching one at install time; the entry package resolves it to a file path — there is nothing to import.

Because the contract parser and the binary version together in one family, probe-parsing drift against the binary is structurally impossible — the failure mode the split exists to prevent.

There is no shared loader package: platform packages have nothing to load. If a second tool ever needs shared JS, extract it then, not preemptively.

## Resolution and availability

`launcherPath()` resolves `node-addon-landlock-run-<platform>-<arch>` and returns `<package>/bin/landlock-run`. When the package is not resolvable it returns a deterministic fallback path inside the entry package's own `node_modules` that simply never exists. Existence is deliberately unchecked either way: `probe()` is the single availability signal, and a missing binary probes `unusable` exactly like an unenforcing kernel. Consumers get one degradation path, not two.

The probe is functional — the launcher builds and enforces a real maximal ruleset in a short-lived child — because version checks would miss a kernel that has the syscalls but refuses enforcement.

## Fail-closed everywhere

The launcher exits `125` without exec'ing the command on any launcher-level failure: usage error, unenforcing kernel, unopenable grant root, failed exec. Partial enforcement (an older Landlock ABI governing only a subset of accesses) is accepted, reported on stderr, and surfaced by the probe as `partial` — the consumer decides what its mode vocabulary promises at each level. Neither the binary nor the entry package reads environment variables: which binary confines a process is never decidable by the ambient environment.

## Build and release model

Builds are native-only. `scripts/build.ts` compiles the running architecture's binaries with the distro `musl-gcc` (static: no loader or libc expectations on consumers, one binary for glibc and musl distros); CI's per-architecture runners are the builders of record, and no cross toolchain exists in the repo. The audit surface of a tool is its reviewed C source plus CI provenance, enforced by three gates: platform prepack refuses missing/wrong-ELF binaries, entry prepack refuses unbuilt `lib/`, and the release pipeline byte-pins installed binaries against the workspace builds they were packed from.

The package matrix is checked-in metadata (`prebuilds.json` + `os`/`cpu` fields); `scripts/github-matrix.mjs` derives the CI and Release matrices from it, so adding a platform extends automation without editing workflows.

## Adding a platform

A new platform adds one `packages/<platform>/` package (`package.json` with `os`/`cpu`, `prebuilds.json`, README, LICENSE), a runner entry in `scripts/github-matrix.mjs`, and a row in [support-matrix.md](support-matrix.md) — added only together with a native GitHub runner that builds and proves it (the no-cross-toolchain rule). Sibling launchers for other confinement mechanisms belong in their own repositories on this same template, not as second tools here.
