MEL — MeshEdgeLayer

MEL is an evidence-first operator OS for mixed-channel mesh incidents and trusted control.

If MEL cannot prove a claim from persisted runtime evidence, it should render unknown/degraded, not confidence theatre.

Who MEL is for

Teams running field/edge operations that need:

• local-first operation with self-hosted defaults,
• explicit live vs stale vs historical truth boundaries,
• audited action lifecycle (submission → approval → execution → audit),
• incident memory that compounds over time.

What MEL is not

• Not a mesh routing stack.
• Not BLE ingest support (unsupported today).
• Not HTTP ingest support (unsupported today).
• Not proof of RF propagation/routing success without evidence.
• Not an “AI truth engine” (local inference is assistive, never canonical truth).

Why it matters

Most dashboards collapse uncertainty. MEL does the opposite: it keeps degraded/partial/unknown states explicit so operators can trust what they are seeing under stress.

Quick try (10 minutes)

make build
./bin/mel init --config .tmp/mel.json
chmod 600 .tmp/mel.json
./bin/mel doctor --config .tmp/mel.json
./bin/mel serve --config .tmp/mel.json

Open http://127.0.0.1:8080.

Operator orientation after first boot:

• /transports → confirm ingest links are connected vs stalled (no fake “live” by default).
• /status → inspect degraded/unknown conditions and heartbeat posture.
• /incidents → review open queue and evidence strength.

No-radio deterministic evaluation:

make demo-seed
./bin/mel serve --config demo_sandbox/mel.demo.json

Newcomer funnel

1. Start here: docs/README.md or public orientation at site/ (/, /quickstart, /docs, /guide).
2. Try MEL: docs/getting-started/QUICKSTART.md, docs/ops/evaluate-in-10-minutes.md
3. Understand boundaries: docs/ops/support-matrix.md, docs/ops/limitations.md, docs/community/claims-vs-reality.md
4. Contribute safely: CONTRIBUTING.md
5. Operate for real: docs/ops/OPERATIONS_RUNBOOK.md

Verification commands (real targets)

• make lint
• make test
• make build
• make smoke
• make verify
• make premerge-verify (release-grade local chain)

Contributing & support

• CONTRIBUTING.md
• CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
• SECURITY.md
• SUPPORT.md
• Current status

MEL is GPL-3.0 licensed; see LICENSE.

Repository Operations Standards

• Squash-only merges
• Auto-delete merged branches
• Weekly dependency update windows
• Security scanning in CI