# RFC: Extract the ACP snapshot suite into a support package

Status: implemented

## Problem

The ACP snapshot tier ([snapshot RFC](2026-06-19-acp-snapshot-tests.md)) was built from three modules living inside one example's test directory: `snapshot-harness.ts` (boot the real bin subprocess, drive it over ACP JSON-RPC, harvest the persisted logs), `snapshot-normalize.ts` (the pure golden normalizers), and the ~150-line scenario body plus fixture guards in `acp.snapshot.ts` (record/replay modes, the stdout-golden and log compares, the pinned-header uniformity guard, the orphan/required-file/single-pin meta-tests).

A second ACP example wanting snapshot coverage — the sandbox/approval composition is the immediate consumer — could only copy those modules, forking exactly the logic that must not drift: record write-back, header scrubbing, child-session harvest ordering. The spawn/client glue was also triplicated across `acp.e2e.ts`, `hooks.e2e.ts`, and the harness. Location decided test rigor: the per-file 100% coverage gate measures `packages/*/*/src` only, so none of this machinery was measured — the same gap that had moved `dsh-llm-replay` out of `examples/` into [packages/support](../../../../packages/support/README.md). And the harness's ACP client hardcoded `requestPermission → cancelled`, so an approval round-trip — the headline behavior of the sandbox composition — could not be expressed at the snapshot tier at all.

## Decision

The machinery lives in [`packages/support/acp-snapshot`](../../../../packages/support/acp-snapshot/README.md) (`@deepseek-ai/dsh-acp-snapshot`); an example's `*.snapshot.ts` is its scenario table, its agent paths, and one factory call, over its own `snapshots/` fixtures and `cordis.snapshot.yml` overlay ([single-source replay config](2026-07-04-single-source-acp-replay-config.md)). Reading `DSH_SNAPSHOT` stays at that edge — the library takes a resolved `mode`.

**`src/launcher.ts`** — `launchAcpTestAgent` owns the common unbuilt-process boundary: absolute tsx loader resolution, `TSX_TSCONFIG_PATH`, isolated harness homes, stdio wiring, a raw-byte stdout tee, stderr and update capture, fail-closed permission fallback, update waiters, and graceful or signalled shutdown. Snapshot scenarios and ordinary e2e suites supply the same `AgentUnderTest` (`binScript`, `configPath`, `tsconfigPath`); a test that plays a user supplies only its permission handler. The ACP and hook e2e suites plus the sandbox/approval e2e suite use this launcher instead of rebuilding the SDK client boundary.

**`src/harness.ts`** — `runScenario` and the input-script/result types layer deterministic steps, temp workspaces, snapshot environment, and persisted-log harvest over the launcher. Its `session/request_permission` handler consumes an optional `InputScript.permissionAnswers` FIFO queue, each entry selecting by option **kind** (ids are agent-issued randoms a committed script cannot know; kinds are the ACP-stable vocabulary, mapped to the offered `optionId` at answer time); an absent or exhausted queue answers `cancelled`, and a kind the request never offered rejects the run — the agent itself is answered `cancelled`, so the scenario bug fails the harness rather than being absorbed as an agent-side denial. This is what lets an approval suite drive allow/reject round-trips deterministically from `input.json`.

**`src/normalize.ts`** — the pure normalizers, hook-free by policy: when a future event carries a new volatile field (an approval duration, say), the shared normalizer learns it in the same change, keeping one home for what "normalized" means rather than per-suite scrub extensions.

**`src/suite.ts`** — the `Scenario` type and `defineAcpSnapshotSuite(options)`, registering the per-scenario compares, record/refresh fixture write-back, the header pin with its live uniformity guard, and the fixture guard block (no orphan scenario dirs, required files present, exactly one pin per class, every JSONL a `scrubSystemPrompts` fixed point, non-pinning fixtures also `scrubRequestHeaders` fixed points). A scenario directory's `session.jsonl` plus contiguous `session.<n>.jsonl` siblings are its ordered primary/child inventory, so the scenario table declares policy without duplicating a child count. The pinned-header contract ([pinned-header RFC](2026-07-06-pin-request-header-content-in-one-scenario.md)) is per-suite: each header class flags exactly one `pinsHeader` scenario, whose `system-prompt.golden.md` and JSONL tool list split the composed header into reviewable artifacts; the uniformity guard compares both against every live header in that class. A pinning scenario declares any legitimate changed-header count, and its Markdown artifact records every full changed prompt. The pure helpers (`sessionFixtureNames`, `fixtureContext`, `normalizedHeaders`, `normalizedSystemPrompts`, `formatSystemPromptSnapshot`, `headerChangeCount`) are exported from the module for direct unit coverage.

## Alternatives considered

- **Copy the modules into each example** — the fork this RFC exists to prevent: the record/guard logic is exactly the code that must stay byte-identical across suites, and examples are outside the coverage gate, so each copy is also unmeasured.
- **A shared module directory under `examples/`** — keeps the code outside the coverage gate and forces relative imports across example boundaries, against the package-name import convention; `examples/` leaves stay thin by design.
- **A `/testing` subpath export of `dsh-acp-demo`** — couples test infrastructure into a product package's surface and dependency set; `packages/support/` exists precisely for real-but-lower-compatibility dev/test packages, with `dsh-llm-replay` as the precedent this package completes.
- **Export raw test-body functions instead of a suite factory** — each example would re-own the `describe`/`it` skeleton (~80 lines of registration boilerplate per suite) for no flexibility gain; the factory keeps consumers to a scenario table plus one call, and the exported pure helpers preserve unit-testability inside the factory design.
- **An injectable ACP `Client` factory instead of declarative `permissionAnswers`** — maximally flexible, but it leaks SDK client construction to every consumer and reopens per-example drift in exactly the layer being unified; a declarative queue keeps `input.json` the single scripting surface and stays golden-normalizable.
- **Generalize beyond ACP (a transport-agnostic snapshot harness)** — no second transport exists; the harness is ACP-shaped end to end (SDK client, JSON-RPC frames, `session/update` waiters), and a speculative abstraction would be a seam split ahead of any consumer.

## Testing

Extraction parity was proven mechanically: after the move, `pnpm run test:snapshot` matched the base commit's result with zero byte changes under `examples/acp-agent/tests/snapshots/`. The package's `src/` holds per-file 100% statements/branches/functions/lines under the gating unit run, driven through the real launcher by a scripted fake ACP bin (`tests/fixtures/fake-acp-agent.ts`, behavior scripted per scenario via a `behavior.json` beside the fixture): `harness.spec.ts` directly covers launcher defaults, captures, update waiting, shutdown, and environment/config variants, then covers every scenario step op, both expect-error arms, the permission queue (selection, fallback, impossible-click), workspace seeding, and the harvest ordering/noise/fallback branches; `suite.spec.ts` runs the factory for real at collection time — a replay suite over committed synthetic fixtures and a record suite over a temp copy (write-back never touches the committed tree; `ACP_SNAPSHOT_SPEC_BOOTSTRAP=1` re-bootstraps it) — plus direct cases for the pure helpers. The fake bin substitutes the `session/new` cwd, not `process.cwd()`, into scripted logs, matching what the real bin's header carries (darwin realpaths `/var/folders/…` to `/private/var/folders/…`).

## Consequences

A new example gets the whole snapshot tier from a scenario table plus fixtures, while an ordinary ACP e2e gets the same tested process/client boundary from one launcher call. The costs: `suite.ts` imports vitest, so the package entry is importable only inside a vitest run — a shape no other package has, stated in its README; and each suite pins its own ~8 KB header fixture (a genuinely distinct composition deserves its own pin; an identical one would be caught by that suite's uniformity guard).
