Pelias was retired from the Mac mini on 2026-04-28; photon-self
(self-hosted Photon on mana-gpu) has been the live primary since then.
This removes the now-dead Pelias adapter, config, tests, and the
services/mana-geocoding/pelias/ stack — the entire compose file, the
geojsonify_place_details.js patch, the setup.sh import script.
Provider chain is now `photon-self → photon → nominatim`. The chain
keeps its `privacy: 'local' | 'public'` split, sensitive-query
blocking, coord quantization, and aggressive caching unchanged.
Three direct calls to nominatim.openstreetmap.org that bypassed
mana-geocoding now route through the wrapper:
- citycorners/add-city + citycorners/cities/[slug]/add use the shared
searchAddress() client (browser → same-origin proxy → mana-geocoding
→ photon-self).
- memoro mobile drops its OSM reverse-geocoding fallback entirely;
Expo's on-device reverse-geocoding stays as the sole path. Routing
through the wrapper would require a memoro-server proxy endpoint —
a follow-up if Expo's quality proves insufficient.
Other behavioral changes:
- CACHE_PUBLIC_TTL_MS dropped from 7d → 1h. The long TTL was a
privacy-amplification trick from the Pelias era; with photon-self
serving the bulk of traffic, a transient cross-LAN blip was pinning
cached fallback answers for days. 1h gives quick recovery.
- /health/pelias renamed to /health/photon-self; prometheus blackbox
config + status-page generator updated.
- mana-geocoding container no longer needs `extra_hosts:
host.docker.internal:host-gateway` (was only there for the
Pelias-on-host-network era).
113 tests passing. CLAUDE.md rewritten to reflect the post-Pelias
architecture.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
migration
The chain now distinguishes two Photon instances:
photon-self privacy: 'local' (self-hosted on mana-gpu)
photon privacy: 'public' (komoot.io, last-resort fallback)
Both wrap the same `PhotonProvider` class with different config — only
the URL, name, and privacy stance differ. The new ProviderName variant
'photon-self' lets the chain track per-provider health for them
independently (a single 'photon' slot would collide in the health
Map).
Opt-in registration: `photon-self` is only built when
PHOTON_SELF_API_URL is set in the env. When unset (current state),
the chain has the same shape as before — full backward compat. After
the GPU migration, flipping the env-var on is the only deploy step
needed:
PHOTON_SELF_API_URL=http://192.168.178.11:2322
Default chain order updated to:
photon-self,pelias,photon,nominatim
^^^^^^^^^^^ silently skipped if not registered (env unset)
The privacy guarantee is structural: photon-self carries privacy:
'local', so the existing sensitive-query block from the previous
hardening commit now has a real local backend post-migration —
medical/crisis-service queries get real results instead of the
"sensitive_local_unavailable" notice.
Tests: 148 (was 141). New coverage:
- src/__tests__/app.test.ts: createChain registration logic — verifies
photon-self appears iff PHOTON_SELF_API_URL is set, ordering
honored, GEOCODING_PROVIDERS env-var filter respected
- providers/__tests__/photon-normalizer.test.ts: provider field
carries 'photon' or 'photon-self' based on the call argument
Recon of mana-gpu (2026-04-28): Windows 11 Pro Build 26200, 64 GB
RAM (56 GB free), 739 GB disk free, no WSL2/Docker yet, no native
GPU services running. Setup plan documented in
docs/runbooks/photon-on-mana-gpu.md (3–4 h, ~1 h of which is
download/unpack waiting).
quantization + extended cache TTL for public answers
Three independent defenses limit what public geocoding APIs (Photon,
Nominatim) can learn from our outbound traffic:
1. **Sensitive-query block** (`lib/sensitive-query.ts`)
Queries matching the medical/mental-health/crisis-service keyword
list (Hausarzt, Psychiater, Klinikum, HIV, Frauenhaus, …) are
never forwarded to public APIs. The chain detects sensitivity at
the route layer and runs the search in localOnly mode — providers
with `privacy: 'public'` are filtered out before iteration begins.
When no local provider is available (Pelias stopped), a sensitive
query returns ok:true with results:[] and notice:
'sensitive_local_unavailable' so the UI can show a sensible
message instead of "no results".
The keyword list is documented inline. False negatives are the
risk; false positives just produce a 0-result UX hit (better
trade-off).
2. **Coordinate quantization** (`lib/privacy.ts`)
Forward-search focus.lat/lon: rounded to 2 decimals (~1.1km).
Enough for the bias to work, hides exact GPS.
Reverse-geocoding lat/lon: rounded to 3 decimals (~110m).
City-block resolution — sufficient for "what's near me?",
avoids reverse-geocoding the user's exact front door.
Pelias always gets full precision; quantization only on the way
out to public APIs. New `privacy: 'local' | 'public'` field on
the GeocodingProvider interface drives this.
3. **Extended cache TTL for public answers**
New `cache.publicTtlMs` config option, default 7 days (vs. 24h
for local-provider answers). LRU cache extended with optional
`ttlOverrideMs` per entry. Same query from N users → 1 outbound
request to Photon/Nominatim. Strongest privacy lever we have
over public providers (we can't change their logging, only the
rate at which we feed them queries).
Threat coverage:
✓ User IP / identity hidden (already true — wrapper is the proxy)
✓ Exact GPS hidden (quantization)
✓ Sensitive query content protected (block)
~ Non-sensitive query content visible (acceptable trade-off)
~ Aggregate profiling reduced ~10–100× (cache)
✗ TLS-level traffic analysis, compelled disclosure (out of scope)
Tests: 141 (was 115). New coverage:
- privacy.test.ts: quantization rules (locks the privacy claim)
- sensitive-query.test.ts: positive matches across categories +
documented false positives we accept
- chain.test.ts: localOnly mode end-to-end including the load-
bearing assertion that public providers' search() must NEVER be
called when the chain is in localOnly mode (no race window)
- cache.test.ts: per-entry ttlOverride longer + shorter than default
Live smoke verified end-to-end:
- "Hausarzt Konstanz" with Pelias down → no public API call,
notice: 'sensitive_local_unavailable'
- "Konstanz" → falls through to Photon, notice: 'fallback_used'
- Reverse with high-precision GPS → Photon receives quantized
coords, returns city-block-level result
mana-geocoding now tries Pelias first, falls back to public Photon
(komoot.io) and finally to public Nominatim (OSM) when Pelias is
unhealthy or unreachable. The Places module's address lookup keeps
working even when the Pelias container is stopped — which it currently
is on the Mac mini, freeing 3 GB of RAM until Pelias gets migrated to
the GPU server.
Architecture:
ProviderChain ─ tries providers in priority order, stops on first
success. A clean empty-results answer is definitive
(don't burn through public-API budget on a query that
legitimately has no match). Only network errors / 5xx
/ 429 trigger fallthrough.
HealthCache ─ per-provider, 30s TTL. A failed health probe or a
failed search marks the provider unhealthy and skips
it for the rest of the cache window. Lazy refresh —
no background pinger.
RateLimiter ─ single-token FIFO queue, 1100ms gap by default.
Used to enforce Nominatim's 1 req/sec policy. Handles
abort during inter-task wait by releasing the busy
flag so later tasks aren't blocked.
Provider details:
pelias — primary, self-hosted DACH index, full OSM taxonomy in
`peliasCategories`, no rate limit
photon — public komoot endpoint, GeoJSON shape, raw `osm_key:
osm_value` mapped via lib/osm-category-map.ts. Faster
than Nominatim, no advertised rate limit but be polite.
nominatim — public OSM endpoint, strict 1 req/sec via the limiter,
custom User-Agent required (otherwise 403). Last
resort — fallback for when Photon is also down.
Response shape changes (additive only — existing callers keep
working):
- results[].provider: 'pelias' | 'photon' | 'nominatim'
- results[].peliasCategories: only present when Pelias served the
request (was already absent on Pelias-API patch failures)
- top-level provider: <name> + tried: <name[]> on success/error
- new endpoint: GET /health/providers — per-provider snapshot
Configuration via env (defaults shipped):
GEOCODING_PROVIDERS=pelias,photon,nominatim # order matters
PROVIDER_TIMEOUT_MS=5000
PROVIDER_HEALTH_CACHE_MS=30000
PHOTON_API_URL=https://photon.komoot.io
NOMINATIM_API_URL=https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org
NOMINATIM_USER_AGENT=mana-geocoding/1.0 (+https://mana.how; ...)
NOMINATIM_INTERVAL_MS=1100
Testing: 115 tests green (was 42). New coverage:
- osm-category-map.test.ts (47 cases over food/transit/shopping/
leisure/work/other priority resolution)
- rate-limiter.test.ts (FIFO, abort-during-wait, abort-during-sleep)
- chain.test.ts (failover, empty-results-stops, health-cache,
snapshot)
- photon-normalizer.test.ts and nominatim-normalizer.test.ts (lock
the wire-format mapping for both fallback providers)
Live smoke against public Photon verified — both /search and /reverse
return correctly normalized results with provider="photon" when Pelias
is unreachable.
