omnigraph/docs/user/cluster-config.md

Cluster Config

Status: Stage 4A graph-create apply preview.

Cluster config is the future control-plane configuration surface for a whole OmniGraph deployment. In this stage, OmniGraph can validate a local cluster.yaml folder, produce a deterministic read-only plan, inspect the local JSON state ledger, explicitly refresh/import graph observations into that ledger, manually remove a held local state lock by exact lock id, and apply the executable subset of the plan — stored-query and policy-bundle catalog writes, and graph creation: a declared graph that does not exist yet is initialized by apply itself at the derived root. It does not change existing schemas (deferred to a later stage), move existing graph manifests, start servers, or serve anything it applies: the server still boots from omnigraph.yaml.

Commands

omnigraph cluster validate --config ./company-brain
omnigraph cluster plan     --config ./company-brain --json
omnigraph cluster apply    --config ./company-brain --json
omnigraph cluster status   --config ./company-brain --json
omnigraph cluster refresh  --config ./company-brain --json
omnigraph cluster import   --config ./company-brain --json
omnigraph cluster force-unlock <LOCK_ID> --config ./company-brain --json

--config points at a directory, not a file. The directory must contain cluster.yaml. When omitted, it defaults to the current directory.

Relationship to omnigraph.yaml

cluster.yaml does not replace omnigraph.yaml, and the two never describe the same fact. omnigraph.yaml remains how the CLI and server are configured today (graph targets, server bind, CLI defaults, credential env references) and is its long-term home for per-operator settings. cluster.yaml is the shared desired state of a whole deployment, read only by the cluster commands via --config. In the current stage, nothing recorded in the cluster state ledger affects what a server serves or what other CLI commands target — the cluster catalog is inspectable, not live. When server boot from cluster state ships in a later stage, it will be an explicit per-deployment mode switch, not a merge of the two files.

Supported cluster.yaml

Stage 3A accepts only this resource subset:

version: 1
metadata:
  name: company-brain

state:
  backend: cluster
  lock: true

graphs:
  knowledge:
    schema: ./knowledge.pg
    queries:
      find_experts:
        file: ./knowledge.gq

policies:
  base:
    file: ./base.policy.yaml
    applies_to: [knowledge]

metadata.name is a display label. state.backend may be omitted or set to cluster; external state backends are reserved for a later stage. state.lock defaults to true. When enabled, cluster plan, cluster apply, cluster refresh, and cluster import briefly acquire <config-dir>/__cluster/lock.json, then remove it before returning. cluster status never acquires the lock; it only reports whether one is present. cluster force-unlock is the only lock-removal command; it requires the exact lock id and should be run only after confirming no cluster operation is active.

Validation

cluster validate checks:

• cluster.yaml syntax and supported fields
• duplicate YAML keys
• schema, query, and policy file existence
• schema parsing and catalog construction
• stored-query parsing and query-name matching
• stored-query type-checking against the desired schema
• policy applies_to graph references

Fields reserved for later phases, such as pipelines, embeddings, ui, aliases, and bindings, fail with a typed diagnostic instead of being silently ignored.

Planning

cluster plan first performs validation, then reads local JSON state from:

<config-dir>/__cluster/state.json

If the file is missing, the state is treated as empty and every desired resource is planned as a create. If present, the file must use this shape:

{
  "version": 1,
  "state_revision": 0,
  "applied_revision": {
    "config_digest": "...",
    "resources": {
      "graph.knowledge": { "digest": "..." },
      "schema.knowledge": { "digest": "..." },
      "query.knowledge.find_experts": { "digest": "..." },
      "policy.base": { "digest": "..." }
    }
  },
  "resource_statuses": {
    "graph.knowledge": {
      "status": "applied",
      "conditions": [],
      "message": "optional status detail"
    }
  },
  "approval_records": {},
  "recovery_records": {},
  "observations": {}
}

state_revision, resource_statuses, approval_records, recovery_records, and observations are optional so older Stage 1 state fixtures keep working. Missing state_revision is treated as 0. Resource status values are pending, planned, applying, applied, drifted, blocked, or error.

Plan output compares desired resource digests against state resource digests and reports create, update, and delete changes. It also reports the state CAS (sha256:<digest>) and state revision. state_observations.locked means an existing lock file was observed, along with its metadata (lock_id, lock_operation, lock_created_at, lock_pid, lock_age_seconds); a successful plan instead reports lock_acquired: true and an acquired_lock_id, then releases the lock before returning. The command never writes state.json and does not scan live graphs. Use explicit cluster refresh / cluster import when the state ledger should be updated from live observations. Live drift scans during plan are later-stage work.

Each plan change carries a disposition field — an honest preview of what cluster apply will do with it in this stage: applied (executes), derived (a graph.<id> composite-digest update that converges automatically once its query digests land), deferred (graph/schema change, later phase), or blocked (query/policy gated by an unapplied or missing dependency, with the condition in reason).

Apply

cluster apply executes the executable subset of the plan — stored-query and policy-bundle changes, and graph creates. There is no confirm flag: cluster plan is the preview, and apply recomputes the same diff under the state lock before executing, so a stale preview can never be applied. Apply requires an existing state.json (state_missing directs you to cluster import first).

For each applied create/update, the resource payload is written content-addressed into the local catalog:

<config-dir>/__cluster/resources/query/<graph>/<name>/<digest>.gq
<config-dir>/__cluster/resources/policy/<name>/<digest>.yaml

Extensions are fixed per kind regardless of the source file's name. Payloads are written before the state update because state.json is the publish point: if the final CAS-checked state write fails, no success is reported and the digest-named blobs already written are inert — re-running apply is the repair. Deletes remove the resource from state; their old payload blobs stay on disk (garbage collection is a later stage). Re-running a converged apply is a no-op: no state write, no revision change (state_written: false).

Applied means recorded in the cluster catalog — nothing more. The server still boots from omnigraph.yaml; no query or policy applied here serves traffic until the server-boot stage ships, as an explicit per-deployment mode switch.

Graph creation

A graph.<id> create (the graph is declared but no root exists) is executed by apply: the graph is initialized at the derived root

<config-dir>/graphs/<graph-id>.omni

with the declared schema, before any catalog writes, so queries and policies that depend on the new graph apply in the same run. Each create is fenced by a recovery sidecar under __cluster/recoveries/{ulid}.json, written before the init and removed only after the state update lands. If apply crashes in between, the next state-mutating command (apply, refresh, import) runs a recovery sweep that classifies the survivor by observation: an absent root removes the stale intent; a completed create rolls the cluster state forward (recorded in the state's recovery_records); a partial root reports graph_create_incomplete (status error — remove the root and re-run apply; nothing is auto-deleted); unexpected graph content reports actual_applied_state_pending (status drifted — run cluster refresh and re-plan). While a kept sidecar is pending, that graph's create and its dependents are blocked with cluster_recovery_pending. Read-only commands (status, plan) warn about pending sidecars without acting on them.

Re-creation is convergence. If a graph root disappears out-of-band, refresh records the drift and the next plan proposes a create — and apply will execute it, producing an empty graph at the root. The data was already lost when the root vanished; the create is visible in the plan (disposition applied) before anything runs.

Schema changes to existing graphs are never executed by this stage. They are reported as deferred (warning apply_unsupported_change), and query/policy changes that depend on them are blocked (warning apply_dependency_blocked, status blocked in state). A partially-applicable plan still exits 0 with warnings; the JSON converged field is the automation signal for "state now matches the desired revision". The applied config_digest is only recorded when apply fully converges. The graph.<id> composite digest is recomputed from state's own schema/query digests after each apply, so applied query changes converge without graph movement.

Status

cluster status reads the same local JSON state ledger and prints what the ledger says is deployed. It does not validate referenced schema/query/policy files and does not inspect live graphs. Missing state.json succeeds with a warning; invalid state JSON or an unsupported state version fails. If a lock is present, status reports its id, operation, creation time, pid, and age.

Status also verifies the catalog payloads read-only: every query/policy digest recorded in state is checked against its content-addressed blob under __cluster/resources/ (existence and full digest re-hash). A missing or mismatched blob is reported as a warning (catalog_payload_missing / catalog_payload_mismatch); an unreadable blob is an error (catalog_payload_read_error) because an unverifiable catalog must not report healthy. Status never writes state — persisting the drifted condition is refresh's job. The check runs without the state lock, so it is a point-in-time report.

Refresh And Import

cluster refresh updates an existing state.json from actual observations. cluster import creates the first state.json when the ledger is missing. Both commands open declared graphs read-only at:

<config-dir>/graphs/<graph-id>.omni

They observe only branch main, recording graph existence, manifest version, live schema digest, desired schema digest, and schema-match status under observations["graph.<id>"]. Missing graph roots are recorded as drift and remove the graph/schema digests from state so a later plan proposes creates. Invalid graph roots are recorded as errors; refresh persists the error observation and exits non-zero, while import exits non-zero without creating initial state.

Refresh also verifies the catalog payloads of every query/policy digest recorded in state (the same check cluster status reports read-only), and closes the loop:

• a missing or digest-mismatched blob marks the resource drifted (condition payload_missing / payload_mismatch) and removes its digest from state — so the next cluster plan proposes a create and the next cluster apply republishes the blob (the self-heal loop, mirroring how a missing graph root is handled);
• an unreadable blob (IO error other than not-found) keeps the digest, marks the resource error (condition payload_read_error), and exits non-zero — transient IO must not trigger a spurious republish.

Upgrade note: a state ledger written before catalog publish existed records query/policy digests with no blobs on disk; the first refresh after upgrading flags them all payload_missing, and a single cluster apply republishes everything and converges.

Refresh/import do not observe query or policy resources beyond their catalog payloads yet. Existing query and policy state digests are preserved on refresh (unless their payload drifted, above) and are not invented on import.

Force Unlock

cluster force-unlock <LOCK_ID> removes <config-dir>/__cluster/lock.json only when the file exists, is valid version-1 lock JSON, and its lock_id exactly matches the argument. A wrong id, missing lock, invalid lock JSON, or unsupported lock version exits non-zero and leaves the file untouched.

This is manual recovery for abandoned local locks. OmniGraph does not perform PID-liveness checks, TTL expiry, stale-lock breaking, or automatic unlock in Stage 2C.