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shankar0123
09c29b9f40
Phase 0 follow-up — Pattern A migration (post-Pattern-C trailer strip + archive tag deletion). Updates the public-facing explanation to match the post-strip state: no more Co-authored-by trailers in commit messages, no more archive tag on origin. The off-platform bundle remains as the canonical pre-rewrite preservation record. Why the change from Pattern C → A: the Co-authored-by trailers added in the original rewrite caused GitHub to render the AI identities (claude, cowork, certctl-bot, certctl-copilot, github-actions) as co-author chips on every AI-touched commit AND count them in the repo's contributor graph. Operator opted to clean the contributor list. The legal posture (counsel-signed AI-authorship declaration in cowork/legal/) is unchanged — only the git-history layer's transparency signal was dialed back. Bundle at cowork/legal/pre-rewrite-2026-05-13.bundle still preserves the original history (all 14 author identities + un-stripped commit messages) for any future forensic / diligence question.
98 lines
4.1 KiB
Markdown
98 lines
4.1 KiB
Markdown
# Git history normalization — 2026-05-13
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> Last reviewed: 2026-05-13
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This page documents a one-time normalization of certctl's git history
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that landed on `master` on 2026-05-13. If you are reading this because
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your clone failed to fast-forward, or because a commit SHA you bookmarked
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no longer resolves, this is the explanation.
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## What changed
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Every commit's `author` and `committer` metadata was rewritten to a
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single canonical identity (`shankar0123 <skreddy040@gmail.com>`). The
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14 pre-rewrite author identities — operator name variants plus
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AI/automation identities (Claude, Copilot, cowork agent, certctl-bot,
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etc.) — collapsed to that one canonical author.
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No source-code content was changed by the rewrite. Every line of code
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in every commit is byte-for-byte identical to its pre-rewrite version.
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Only the `author` and `committer` metadata fields were touched; commit
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messages, subject lines, milestone IDs (M49, L-1, etc.), and every
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other line of every commit's body are preserved verbatim.
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## Why
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Two reasons:
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1. **LLC ownership transfer.** The codebase is now legally owned by
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**certctl LLC**, which the operator incorporated to hold rights in
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the project. The BSL 1.1 Licensor field in `LICENSE` flipped from a
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natural-person name to `certctl LLC` in the same change set. Uniform
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per-commit authorship under one canonical operator identity makes
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the chain of title between the codebase and the LLC unambiguous.
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2. **Pre-traction cleanup.** The rewrite cost of git-history
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normalization scales with how many external clones and references
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have calcified against specific commit SHAs. Doing it now, before
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the project has a large external surface, minimizes disruption to
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downstream consumers.
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## What is preserved
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A complete off-platform bundle backup of the pre-rewrite tree is held
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by the operator (off-repo, not pushed). It contains every original
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commit SHA, every original author identity, and the full ref graph as
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it existed before the rewrite. The bundle is the immutable
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preservation record and is recoverable forever.
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An `archive/pre-author-normalization-2026-05-13` tag briefly existed
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on origin pointing at the pre-rewrite tip but was removed when the
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operator opted to clean the contributor graph of pre-rewrite
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authorship signal. The bundle remains as the canonical archive — any
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forensic question about pre-rewrite state can be answered by loading
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the bundle into a fresh clone (`git clone pre-rewrite-2026-05-13.bundle`).
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## Recovering after the rewrite
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If you had a clone of certctl from before 2026-05-13, your local
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history diverged from origin's at the rewrite. Easiest recovery:
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```bash
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cd certctl
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git fetch origin
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git fetch origin --tags
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git reset --hard origin/master
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```
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This force-aligns your local tree with the new origin. Any local
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branches you had based on pre-rewrite history will need rebasing onto
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the new master.
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If you need to inspect the pre-rewrite state for a forensic or
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diligence question, contact the operator directly — the off-platform
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bundle is the canonical archive and is available on request.
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## Container images and release tarballs
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ghcr.io container images that were published before the rewrite
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(`ghcr.io/certctl-io/certctl-{server,agent}:<old-tag>`) remain pullable
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indefinitely. Their OCI source-SHA labels reference commit SHAs that
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no longer resolve in the public origin — the images themselves still
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work; only the source-SHA back-reference is now orphan. New release
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images published after the rewrite reference current SHAs normally.
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If you downloaded a release tarball before the rewrite, the tarball's
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contents are unchanged; only its associated `git` SHA differs from the
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current `v2.x.y` tag (which has been re-pointed to the rewritten
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commit at the same logical point in history).
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## Operational note for contributors
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Future contributions to certctl should be authored under the
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operator's canonical git identity. Pull requests from external
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contributors will need a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) workflow,
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which the project will set up before accepting external PRs. Until
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then, the project does not solicit or accept external code
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contributions.
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