06 — Shared database daemon (`wo db serve`)

Context sources: ./00-overview.md §§ "Goal" (L23), "Design decisions" 3 (L32), "Non-scope" (L201–203), ./03-client-runtime.md (the wire frames this daemon emits), ./05-per-app-binaries.md (the apps that connect), .dev/reference/crates/wo-sub/src/lib.rs (the v1 subscription registry, 470 LOC, that needs generalising past ByTitle/ByTag/All), ../../runtime/database/04-client-api.md (the wire-protocol owner).

Goal

Stand up a headless daemon — wo db serve — that runs the engine + WAL + subscription registry behind the Phase-4 native wire protocol on 127.0.0.1:5555, with no HTTP and no template rendering. Each connection presents an API key from a static table, binds a Principal { app, roles } for downstream policy evaluation, and can register Subscription::ByPredicate against any type — a generalisation of v1's article-only subscription model that this phase ports and broadens.

Design decisions (locked)

Daemon = crates/db thin entrypoint + crates/engine + the wire acceptor. No HTTP, no .htmlx, no ##ui. The shared DB process knows nothing about the UI layer.
API-key table is in-memory, env-seeded. On startup the daemon reads WO_DB_KEY_<APP>=<hex> for each app declared in the workspace and builds an AuthTable: HashMap<ApiKey, Principal>. A --keys <file> flag is accepted but treated as a future hook.
Generalise wo-sub from Subscription::ByTitle/ByTag/All to Subscription::ByPredicate(TypeRef, Expr, SortKey). The v1 variants stay as legacy aliases (ByTitle(t) ⇒ ByPredicate(Article, sys_title == t, _)) for the blog regression test. Anchored in .dev/reference/crates/wo-sub/src/lib.rs L8–17.
Connection scope = Principal { app, roles } stored on the connection. Every query evaluator reads it; phase 07 wires it into policy AND-composition.
One data dir, one engine, many connections. Snapshot isolation by default (per [database].isolation = "snapshot" in the workspace wo.toml).
Foreground-only this phase. No daemonisation, no PID file, no signal handling beyond SIGTERM graceful shutdown. A future ops doc can add wo db daemonize.

Scope

New files

File	Responsibility	Port source
`crates/db/src/main.rs`	Entrypoint, arg parsing, env-key loading	new (~100 LOC)
`crates/db/src/server.rs`	Wire-protocol acceptor (TCP listener + per-conn handler)	new (~250 LOC)
`crates/db/src/auth.rs`	`AuthTable`, `Principal`, key handshake	new (~120 LOC)
`crates/sub/src/lib.rs`	Generalised subscription manager	port `.dev/reference/crates/wo-sub/src/lib.rs` (470 LOC) + ~150 new
`crates/sub/src/predicate.rs`	Predicate evaluation against a row (uses `crates/ql` if available, else minimal subset)	new (~150 LOC)

Total: ~1240 LOC (470 ported + ~770 new).

`Cargo.toml` change

crates/db becomes a binary target:

[[bin]]
name = "wo-db"
path = "src/main.rs"

Plus deps already in the workspace: serde, serde_json, optionally libc for the listener (matching crates/rt's direction).

Wire handshake (added to Phase 4 protocol)

client → server:  HELLO  app="storefront"  api_key="<hex>"
server → client:  WELCOME principal={ app, roles }   |   ERROR "unauthorised"

After WELCOME, frames follow the Phase-4 native protocol. Subscription-registration frames carry ByPredicate(TypeRef, Expr, SortKey).

API shape (target)

use db::{DbServer, AuthTable, Principal};
use sub::{SubscriptionManager, Subscription};

let mut auth = AuthTable::new();
auth.insert(ApiKey::from_env("WO_DB_KEY_STOREFRONT")?,
            Principal { app: "storefront".into(), roles: roles!("Customer") });
auth.insert(ApiKey::from_env("WO_DB_KEY_ADMIN")?,
            Principal { app: "admin".into(), roles: roles!("Admin", "Ops") });

let server = DbServer::bind("127.0.0.1:5555", Path::new("./data"), auth)?;
server.run()?;          // foreground; SIGTERM exits cleanly

// inside a connection handler:
let sub = Subscription::ByPredicate(
    TypeRef::new("Order"),
    parse_expr("status != Cancelled")?,
    SortKey::new("placed_at", SortDir::Desc),
);
let id = subs.register(conn_fd, sub)?;

Exit criteria

cargo build -p db -p sub green; wo-db binary produced under target/release/.
Daemon starts. WO_DB_KEY_STOREFRONT=aaaa WO_DB_KEY_ADMIN=bbbb cargo run --bin wo-db -- --listen 127.0.0.1:5555 --data-dir /tmp/wo-test runs foreground and accepts SIGTERM.
Two principals. Two clients connect, one with each API key; each receives a distinct Principal in the WELCOME frame.
Predicate subscription. Client registers Subscription::ByPredicate(Order, "status != Cancelled", "placed_at desc"); the manager returns a fresh subscription_id; on a stub Order insert, the matching client receives an insert frame.
v1 regression. A connection running the legacy Subscription::ByTitle("hello-world") against the blog corpus still produces notifications via the legacy alias.
cd .dev/reference/crates && cargo build && cargo test.

Non-scope

TLS. wo:// is plaintext this phase. TLS is its own phase later.
API-key rotation, revocation, expiry. Static map only. JWT, mTLS, etc. — out of scope.
Multi-data-dir, replication, sharding. One process, one data dir.
WAL changes. Engine + WAL semantics inherit from the Stage-2 in-memory engine; persistent storage and crash recovery belong to the database series, not this phase.
Daemonisation, PID file, systemd integration. Foreground-only.
Metric / structured-log emission. Plain eprintln! traces only.

Risk to flag in the doc

If crates/ql is too thin to evaluate status != Cancelled end-to-end at the time this phase lands, lock a minimal predicate subset — ==, !=, >, <, &&, || against scalar fields — and document the gap explicitly. Phases that need richer predicates (graph traversals, computed fields) wait for ql to mature.

Verification

cargo build -p db -p sub

# foreground daemon + two connections
WO_DB_KEY_STOREFRONT=aaaa WO_DB_KEY_ADMIN=bbbb \
  cargo run --bin wo-db -- --listen 127.0.0.1:5555 --data-dir /tmp/wo-test &
DB_PID=$!
cargo test -p db --test multi_app_principals
cargo test -p sub --test predicate_subscription
kill $DB_PID

# legacy v1 path
cargo test -p sub --test legacy_by_title

cd .dev/reference/crates && cargo build && cargo test

After this phase

The wire URL contract is now stable, which unblocks phase 05 (per-app binaries) connecting to wo://127.0.0.1:5555. Phase 07 (07-per-app-policies.md) hooks its EffectivePolicy resolver into the query path inside this daemon — every query the daemon executes carries the connection's Principal, which is exactly what 07's AND-composition needs.

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06 — Shared database daemon (wo db serve)