Surface Access Points and Routing

Every surface in the neurons.me mesh is reachable through multiple access points simultaneously. The same monad — the same namespace, the same kernel — can be reached from a local machine, a LAN device, or the public internet. The routing layer (NetGet + OpenResty) decides which surface handles each incoming request based on the hostname.

The Stack

Two components cooperate to route requests:

• NetGet — operates the OpenResty gateway, owns the nginx config, manages the routing table, serves the admin UI.
• Monad — registers itself with NetGet via heartbeat, provides the surface that handles routed requests.

NetGet routes. Monad serves. Neither can do the other’s job.

Access Points

local.netget — Gateway Admin

The management interface for the local gateway. This is where you register domains, inspect the monad mesh, view logs, and configure the gateway. Not a user-facing surface — it is the operator surface.

The frontend served here is the NetGet Dashboard app, built with this.gui.

hostname.local — Namespace Root Surface

The machine’s mDNS hostname becomes the root access point for its namespace. A request to suis-macbook-air.local is proxied to whichever monad registered most recently — the “winning” surface of that namespace.

This is the local-network entry point for the namespace. No DNS, no internet required.

{handle}.hostname.local — Handle Identity Surface

A subdomain of the machine hostname where the subdomain is a .me handle. The Lua handler resolves the handle to a monad and proxies accordingly.

This is the NRP topological resolution layer in action at the local level: a symbolic handle maps to a concrete surface.

localhost:PORT — Direct Monad Access

Connects directly to a specific monad instance by port, bypassing the gateway. Useful during development to test a monad in isolation. Not intended for production use — no mesh routing, no surface synthesis, no NRP resolution.

IP:80 / IP:443 — Public Gateway

The same OpenResty instance that handles local.netget also listens on the machine’s public IP. If no domain routing rule matches, falls back to the NetGet Dashboard.

When a domain is registered in the routing table and DNS points to this IP, the request is routed to the appropriate monad surface.

domain.com — Public Named Surface

Public domains are registered through the NetGet Dashboard (/domains). The routing table maps domain → target monad. When a request arrives with a matching Host header, OpenResty proxies it to the registered target.

Changes to the routing table hot-reload nginx — no restart required.

Resolution Order

Incoming HTTP request
  │
  ├─ Host: local.netget / localhost / 127.0.0.1
  │     └─→ NetGet Dashboard (admin UI)
  │
  ├─ Host: hostname.local
  │     └─→ surface_proxy.lua → monad with highest lastSeenMs
  │
  ├─ Host: handle.hostname.local
  │     └─→ nrp_handle.lua → handle lookup → monad
  │
  ├─ Host: registered-domain.com
  │     └─→ routing table → target monad
  │
  └─ Host: (no match)
        └─→ NetGet Dashboard (fallback)

Relation to NRP

The NRP specifies how a me:// URI resolves across the mesh — the protocol. Surface Access Points are where that resolution is triggered: the physical entry points through which a request enters the mesh and begins traversal.

Every access point above is a potential starting node for NRP topological resolution. The hostname determines which surface receives the request; NRP then determines what that surface returns.

See Also

• Namespace Resolution Protocol
• NRP v0.2.1 — Mesh Draft
• Initiating Monads
• Monad: Subtractive Synthesis