# swarmctl Swarm-level operator CLI. Runs as **root on the host running `swarm-controller`**, and acts on that host directly. Distinct from `hivectl`, which drives one hive's `hive-c0re` over its admin socket. This crate does not link `swarm-controller`, for the same reason `hivectl` does not link `hive-c0re`. ## Why root, and why no socket The first verb writes authelia's users database. Making that write rootless was examined and rejected — **relocating the file only turns a write problem into a read problem.** Move `users.yml` into a directory the controller owns and the controller can write it, but authelia then has to read it across the same boundary in the other direction. Making _that_ work needs either a hand-pinned gid (the container's uids are allocated inside it, at activation — see the uid-assignment issue) or world-readable password hashes. Both are worse than root. So this binary **serves** no socket, publishes no HTTP route and has no privileged helper. When a verb has to run as a non-root user or from another host, the answer is a **group-gated admin socket**, separate from the controller's `0666` gateway-facing one — not a widening of what root does here. That rules out a way in, not a way out: `agent create` is a _client_ of the controller's socket, because the work it asks for is a job graph only the controller can queue (see below). Nothing here becomes reachable by that. ## One file, two writers `swarmctl` reads and writes `users.yml` — authelia's own users database — directly, with no second store. `swarm-authelia-bridge` writes agent subjects into the same file. ⚠️ The file is round-tripped, so **comments and hand-formatting do not survive a write**. Values do, and so do keys this binary does not model. See `swarm-authelia-bridge/README.md` for what both writers must uphold. ## Configuration Every path comes from the nix module that installs the binary, because every one is derived from an option that module owns. They are required rather than defaulted — a default would be an address we _hope_ points at something, and one that resolves cleanly to the wrong place is worse than an error. | variable | what | | ------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------- | | `SWARMCTL_AUTHELIA_BIN` | the **configured** authelia; argon2 params must match the verifier's | | `SWARMCTL_AUTHELIA_USERS_FILE` | host-side path of the users database | | `SWARMCTL_AUTHELIA_MACHINE` | container name, for `systemctl -M` | | `SWARMCTL_AUTHELIA_UNIT` | authelia's unit inside that container | | `SWARM_CONTROLLER_SOCKET` | the controller's unix socket, for `agent` and `forge` verbs | Every verb and flag: [`docs/tools/swarmctl-cli.md`](../docs/tools/swarmctl-cli.md). The sections below cover why each verb behaves as it does. ## `user add` ```console # swarmctl user add mara --display-name "Mara" --email mara@example.com --group admins ``` Keep both flags: - **`--group admins`** — the swarm UI and other operator surfaces gate on it. - **`--email`** — the forge won't create an account without one. `user add` refuses a username that already exists; fix an existing account with `swarmctl user update mara --add-group admins --email …`. The password is **generated by authelia** (`crypto hash generate argon2 --random`) and printed once. It is never passed on a command line: `/proc//cmdline` is world-readable, so a password in argv is readable by any local process for the lifetime of the call. `user reset-password` generates a new one the same way. ## `agent create` ```console # swarmctl agent create scribe --hive alpha queued: job node 42 agent "scribe" will be deployed to hive "alpha" once the job graph runs; `swarmctl` does not wait for it ``` `POST /api/agents` on the swarm-controller, over its unix socket (`--controller-socket`, else `SWARM_CONTROLLER_SOCKET`, which the nix module sets from the daemon's own `socketPath`). It prints the queued job's node id **and stops there**. It deliberately does not wait. The endpoint queues a DAG — SSO identity, forge user, forge repo, repo membership, config-repo seed, store identity, forge token, matrix account, a `paused` wanted state, then a deploy message — and the last of those _publishes_: the hive's `hive-c0re` picks it up and converges on its own clock, out of the controller's sight. So even a fully settled graph would not mean the agent is up, and there is nothing this CLI could wait for that would let it say so honestly. Watch the swarm UI's job view for the rest. The new agent starts `paused`: it doesn't drive turns until you set it `up` in the swarm UI. No approval gate, for the same reason nothing else here has one: running this binary already means being root on the controller's host. `--hive` is required. It is an _address_ — where the deploy message goes — not an attribute of the agent, so there is no sensible default. The controller checks it against the swarm's hive roster and names the hives that would have worked when it misses. The request and response shapes are mirrored in `src/agent.rs` rather than shared: the controller's own types are private to its binary, this crate does not link it, and there is no wire-type crate between them. Two fields out, two in, both ends validating — a drift shows up as a 400 naming the field. ## `agent mint-identity` ```console # swarmctl agent mint-identity ruth ``` `POST /api/agents/{name}/identity` on the swarm-controller. Re-runs the store-identity mint for one agent that already exists — the backfill for an agent the swarm never created, such as the manager agent `hive-c0re` makes at startup. It re-mints the agent's store certificate, which the agent picks up the next time its container boots, and leaves an existing queue secret alone. Queues and returns, like `agent create`. ## `agent mint-forge-token` ```console # swarmctl agent mint-forge-token ruth ``` `POST /api/agents/{name}/forge-token` on the swarm-controller. Checks one agent's forge token and mints it if it's missing or stale. The controller already does this for every agent with a store identity at start and every five minutes; this verb skips the wait. Queues and returns. ## `forge make-admin` ```console # swarmctl forge make-admin mara forge: "mara" is now a site admin ``` `POST /api/forge/users/{name}/admin` on the swarm-controller, over the same socket as `agent create`. It never creates an account: the forge makes a person's on their first login through authelia, and until then this fails saying so. Running it on a site admin changes nothing, and an agent's name is refused. The response shape is mirrored in `src/forge.rs`, for the same reason as `agent create`'s.