# fs/ - filesystem capability family

The filesystem stack: a provider seam (text IO + atomic mutation with an optional version guard), a local implementation, a policy gate plugin (observed-state + read-before-edit + version-guarded write/edit), the model-facing file tools + executor, and the bash-backed discovery tools. All **product** packages.

| Package | Role | ctx key |
|---|---|---|
| `fs/` | Provider seam: text IO + atomic mutation primitives (optional version guard); owns the `fs/*` policy events | `ctx.fs` |
| `fs-local/` | Local-filesystem `FileSystem` implementation | (registers `ctx.fs`) |
| `fs-sandbox/` | Sandbox-enforcing `FileSystem`: extends `fs-local` and fences write/edit by the per-call sandbox mode (read-only denies, workspace-write contains to the workspace + temp roots), reads pass through | (registers `ctx.fs`) |
| `fs-policy/` | Policy gate plugin: observed-state + read-before-edit + version-guarded write/edit, via the `fs/*` event gate | (no service — `fs/*` listeners) |
| `tool-fs/` | Model-facing `read`/`write`/`edit` tools AND the executor (reads via `ctx.fs`, owns read windowing, dispatches `fs/*`); advertises the sandbox escalation fields when the mounted `ctx.fs` confines | (registers on `ctx.tools`) |
| `tool-fs-search/` | Model-facing `glob`/`grep` discovery tools when `rg` is available on the bash executor `PATH`, backed by fixed ripgrep commands through `ctx.bash`, NOT by `ctx.fs` provider methods | (registers on `ctx.tools`) |

The interface lives at `fs/fs/`. A sandboxed, remote, or project-scoped filesystem backend can replace `fs-local` without touching the seam, the policy gate, or the model-facing tool schemas — `fs-sandbox` is the first such replacement (an in-process path fence over the shared sandbox mode; see [the cross-family fs sandbox Agent Note](../../.agents/notes/implemented/feature/2026-07-14-cross-family-fs-sandbox.md)). The policy (`fs-policy/`) is a plugin that participates only through the `fs/*` event gate, not a service the tool injects — so dropping it gracefully loses the policy and leaves the unconstrained bare provider rather than breaking the tool. A deployment that loads `tool-fs/` is expected to also load it. The mode fence and the read-before-edit gate are orthogonal and compose. Discovery (`tool-fs-search/`) deliberately does NOT extend the provider seam: search is a process-backed `rg` workflow on the bash executor, so filesystem backends stay free of a universal search contract; its tools register only when that executor can find `rg`, and its results are follow-up-readable when the bash workdir and the `read` root are the same workspace (the co-located deployment its README documents).

## No timeouts on file IO

`read`/`write`/`edit` take **no** `timeoutMs`, and the provider seam arms no deadline — unlike bash and web (which consume [`@deepseek-ai/dsh-timeout`](../util/timeout/README.md)) and the bash-backed `glob`/`grep` (whose declared `timeoutMs` is enforced by `@deepseek-ai/dsh-timeout-policy`): those are process-backed, where a deadline can really kill the work. A local syscall is best-effort-abortable at most: a timeout could not force an in-progress `fsync`/`rename` to stop, so a deadline here would be a knob that cannot deliver on its promise. Adding one would also be an implicit default in the exact place explicit-over-implicit forbids. Both reference agents (Claude Code, Codex) leave file IO untimed for the same reason; cancellation still propagates through the tool-execution signal for best-effort abort at syscall boundaries.
