docs: the CA travels in the enrol link, and why not the two alternatives

DECISIONS.md gets the decision with both rejected options and what the
longer link measures (89 -> 652 bytes, a 45x23 QR -> 93x47), RUST.md ticks
the enrolment queue item and marks the log-upload route superseded rather
than editing it, and IRIS.md says what changed for anyone building the
Android app.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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irisandClaude Fable 5.1 committed 2026-09-07 16:47:48 -04:00
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@@ -534,3 +534,55 @@ marked **DEFERRED** are ones the agent chose not to decide alone.
pass," and "The three remaining I5 verifications, closed 2026-09-05,"
have the full account. The iris-vs-Masonry choice itself is still
Iris's to make.
## 2026-09-07: the enrolment link carries the CA, so an APK need not be built where its server runs
**Problem.** Every phone build pinned the CA of the machine that compiled
it -- the Compose app from `GeneratePinnedCert`, the iris app from
`build.rs` reading `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/ai-app/certs/ca.pem`. That is fine
while the two are the same machine and impossible when they are not, which
is exactly the iris client's situation: cross-compiled in this VM,
delivered to a phone, run against `ai-server` on the host. Baking the
host/port/token as well made it worse -- a token in a built artifact.
**Decided: the CA rides in the enrolment link**, as `&ca=<base64url of the
DER>` (`wg_app_link::enroll::ca_param`), optional and per mint. The app
that opens the link pins what the link said, and an APK built anywhere
works against whatever server it is pointed at.
Two alternatives were worked out and rejected.
- **A CA *fingerprint* in the link, pinned at the TLS handshake.** The
smallest link (43 more characters) and the strongest shape, but `ureq`
3.4 exposes no hook for a custom `rustls` `ServerCertVerifier`: its
`TlsConfig` builds the `ClientConfig` itself, so this needs a hand-written
`Connector` on the `unversioned` API and `rustls` as a direct dependency
of `client-core`. A lot of machinery in the one crate that must stay
light.
- **A fingerprint in the link plus an unauthenticated `GET /ca.pem`.**
Small code, but it needs a first connection with verification disabled,
and it breaks a documented, tested posture -- `auth.rs`'s "gates every
route with zero unauthenticated endpoints", which is a load-bearing
decision rather than an implementation detail. Not something to change
silently for this.
**What it costs**, measured rather than guessed: on this project's P-256
CA the link goes from 89 bytes to 652, and `print_enrollment`'s terminal
QR from 45x23 to 93x47 characters. That is why the parameter is the
minter's choice per call: `ai-server` passes it (its iris client needs it),
`dev-updater` passes `None` (its app is built on the machine it talks to,
and its QR stays scannable in an 80-column terminal). The URI printed under
the QR is the fallback either way, and is the path Dev Updater's Enroll
button already uses -- it opens the link with `ACTION_VIEW`, so Android
offers whichever apps registered the scheme, which needed no change here.
The CA is a public certificate, so putting it in the QR leaks nothing the
token did not already: photographing the terminal still costs exactly the
token, which is rotatable.
**The log upload's destination is moot**, so it is not wired to this. On
the same day Iris decided Dev Updater will read an APK's runtime log from
an on-device ContentProvider instead, which removes `log_upload`,
`POST /client-log` and the `AI_APP_LOG_*` baking altogether -- so the
enrolment landed without touching any of them, for that change to delete
whole.