ADR 0010: Remove the Postgres backend
Status: accepted (2026-08-27). Supersedes ADR 0006.
Context
ADR 0006 made the Postgres backend an optional build behind the -tags pg
seam, explicitly so it could be removed later without unpicking the server.
Since then the knowledge server (ADR 0007, ADR 0008) became the deployment
for shared, multi-writer state: SNI-routed worlds over GCS with stateless
replicas. That covers the two things Postgres bought (multi-writer safety,
shared LOOKUP) without a database, and nobody deploys the pg flavor.
Keeping it costs real maintenance: a second binary, image, and chart in every
release, a Postgres service in CI, the parity suites' pg half, and pgx in
server/go.mod.
Decision
Delete the backend along the ADR 0006 seam. demarkus-server is file-store
only; a database-backed store, if ever needed, belongs in the knowledge
server, not here.
Removed: server/internal/pgstore (with pgtest), cmd/demarkus-migrate,
store_pg.go, Dockerfile.pg, the demarkus-server-pg chart and kind
values, the e2e backend-parity script, the pg Make/goreleaser/CI/release
entries, PostgresDSN and the -pg-dsn flag, and the pg halves of the test
suites. go mod tidy drops pgx; the default binary's no-database-symbols CI
check stays.
Kept: the backend registry in cmd/demarkus-server/store.go and the
storetest suites (conformance, LOOKUP, differential, migration round-trip).
They are the file store's contract, and bucketstore runs them too. The
demarkus-server-common library chart also stays: the backend seam in the
charts costs nothing and the knowledge-server chart may grow into it.
Consequences
- One server binary, one server image, one server chart.
server/go.modcarries no database driver at all; module purity, not just the binary purity ADR 0006 settled for.- An existing pg deployment has no upgrade path in-tree. History is
exportable through the protocol; the last release shipping
demarkus-server-pganddemarkus-migrateremains downloadable. protocol/store.Migratorstays: the file store implements it and the migration round-trip suite runs against it.