Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/master' into codex/rfc-subagent-background-tasks

Adopts #201 (session-prefix composition before pre-step + the pressure
gate). Only the generated RFC index conflicted; regenerated.

docs/rfc/implemented/architecture/2026-07-05-reconstructable-requests.md

@@ -20,13 +20,13 @@ Prefix-cache stability is corollary #1, not the headline: an append-only log pro
 
 **Messages.** `Session.deriveMessages()` is cached: each surface node is projected exactly once, when first seen, through the public per-node function `deriveEventMessage(event)`; a surface rewrite (a compaction `replace` — `SurfaceManager.replaceGeneration`) rebuilds. Callers get a fresh array per call over shared, deep-frozen messages: mutating logged history through a projection is unrepresentable (it throws), replacing the old clone-per-call isolation. External reconstructors fold the same public function over a log prefix, so no two paths can disagree.
 
-**The header.** The request's non-content half — `EpochHeader`: call config (`LlmCallConfig`: model + sampling scalars), rendered system prompt, assembled tool schemas — is logged session state, in canonical form (empty system/tools ≡ absent). Two log-only, turn-enclosed events in dsh-session carry it: `request/header`, a full snapshot with reason `'initial' | 'resume' | 'fallback'`, and `request/header-delta`, an amendment (`SystemDelta`: a common-prefix/suffix line trim; `ToolsDelta`: name-keyed added/removed/changed; `config`: replaced whole). The pure trio `foldRequestHeader` / `diffHeader` / `applyHeaderDelta` reconstructs; the live session tracks the fold with the same lazy cursor as the message cache. Snapshots anchor the fold where a fold needs anchors — conversation birth and process boundaries — and each loop instance appends one on its first request (`'initial'` when the log has none, `'resume'` otherwise, even when nothing changed: the boundary itself is a recorded fact, and cross-restart drift becomes attributable while an unchanged header resumes byte-identical). Deltas are an encoding optimization with a safety valve, never a correctness dependency: the writer verifies `applyHeaderDelta(prev, delta)` reproduces the new header exactly and records a `'fallback'` snapshot when the encoding cannot express a change (a pure tool reordering), so a well-formed log always folds.
+**The header.** The request's non-history half — `EpochHeader`: call config (`LlmCallConfig`: model + sampling scalars), rendered system prompt, assembled tool schemas, and the session prefix (`messagePrefix`, below) — is logged session state, in canonical form (empty system/tools/prefix ≡ absent). Two log-only, turn-enclosed events in dsh-session carry it: `request/header`, a full snapshot with reason `'initial' | 'resume' | 'fallback'`, and `request/header-delta`, an amendment (`SystemDelta`: a common-prefix/suffix line trim; `ToolsDelta`: name-keyed added/removed/changed; `config`: replaced whole; `messagePrefix`: replaced whole, an empty array encoding the transition to absence — an arm the loop never exercises in practice, kept for codec totality). The pure trio `foldRequestHeader` / `diffHeader` / `applyHeaderDelta` reconstructs; the live session tracks the fold with the same lazy cursor as the message cache. Snapshots anchor the fold where a fold needs anchors — conversation birth and process boundaries — and each loop instance appends one on its first request (`'initial'` when the log has none, `'resume'` otherwise, even when nothing changed: the boundary itself is a recorded fact, and cross-restart drift becomes attributable while an unchanged header resumes byte-identical). Deltas are an encoding optimization with a safety valve, never a correctness dependency: the writer verifies `applyHeaderDelta(prev, delta)` reproduces the new header exactly and records a `'fallback'` snapshot when the encoding cannot express a change (a pure tool reordering), so a well-formed log always folds.
 
-**The loop, transmission-stateless.** Per step: render assembly (every step — value comparison needs no change-signal discipline, and a section that varies per step surfaces as a *logged* header event per step instead of a silent bust) → `agent/pre-step` (compaction's surface mutations land before derivation) → **messages snapshot, then `step/start` appended as the next operation in the same synchronous frame** → seed the call config (first request of the instance: from `AgentOptions`, so explicit options always beat the logged baseline — fork model-overrides and resume reconfiguration stay correct; afterwards: from the folded header) → the `agent/request` waterfall, re-typed `(agent, turn, step, config: LlmCallConfig, next) → LlmCallConfig` — a frozen seed and a returned replacement are ALL a listener shapes; content flows through the log channels (`inject()`, steering, prompt-submit `additionalContext`, sections via `system-prompt/assemble`) — → the header event the request owes the log → build `GenerateOptions` from the snapshot + header, deep-freeze (`deepFreeze` exempts the `AbortSignal`, the one live control channel — freezing one breaks `AbortController.abort()`), dispatch. The loop's only in-process bookkeeping is one boolean: whether this instance has logged its anchoring snapshot.
+**The loop, transmission-stateless.** Per step: render assembly (every step — value comparison needs no change-signal discipline, and a section that varies per step surfaces as a *logged* header event per step instead of a silent bust) → on the instance's FIRST step only, the `agent/session-prefix` waterfall — request-ONLY messages fronting the entire derived history (a frozen empty seed, contributions returned as an extension of `next()`; the home for session-stable openers that must NOT become history — a skills catalog, an AGENTS.md digest), deep-frozen and cached on the instance so reuse is structural and the prefix cannot drift mid-session — → `agent/pre-step`, carrying the composed prefix (compaction's surface mutations land before derivation, and its pressure gate counts the prefix this instance will actually send — never a previous instance's logged one, which could under-gate a resumed/forked instance whose contributor grew) → **messages snapshot, then `step/start` appended as the next operation in the same synchronous frame** → seed the call config (first request of the instance: from `AgentOptions`, so explicit options always beat the logged baseline — fork model-overrides and resume reconfiguration stay correct; afterwards: from the folded header) → the `agent/request` waterfall, re-typed `(agent, turn, step, config: LlmCallConfig, next) → LlmCallConfig` — a frozen seed and a returned replacement are ALL a listener shapes; durable content flows through the log channels (`inject()`, steering, prompt-submit `additionalContext`, sections via `system-prompt/assemble`) — → the header event the request owes the log, carrying the prefix as `messagePrefix` (no session event carries it, so the header is its only durable record; resume = a new instance = a recompose, anchored by its `'resume'` snapshot) → build `GenerateOptions` from `messagePrefix + snapshot` + header, deep-freeze (`deepFreeze` exempts the `AbortSignal`, the one live control channel — freezing one breaks `AbortController.abort()`), dispatch. The loop's per-instance bookkeeping is one boolean plus the cached prefix: whether this instance has logged its anchoring snapshot, and what it composed.
 
 **The reconstruction boundary is `step/start`, unconditionally.** A step's messages are the derivation over `events[0..stepStartSeq)`. Because the snapshot precedes the `step/start` append in the same synchronous frame, nothing can enter this request past the boundary: an `agent.inject()` from an `agent/request` listener (or any concurrent task, or a `session/event` listener firing on `step/start` itself) lands in the log after the boundary and joins the NEXT request. For waterfall-window appends this matches the prior loop (it also derived before its waterfall); for a synchronous `step/start` listener it is a deliberate change — such a listener could previously reach the current request — and `agent/pre-step` is the sanctioned seam for content that must affect the CURRENT request. A step's header for reconstruction is the fold after its own `request/header*` event (which sits between its `step/start` and first response event) or the fold carried forward.
 
-**Enforcement.** Dev-mode ([dsh-invariants](../../../../packages/support/invariants/src/index.ts)), on `llm/stream`: a frozen request with a live `sessionId` — the loop-built marker; hand-built one-shots are unfrozen and skipped — must carry messages deep-equal to the boundary derivation, rebuilt through a FRESH `Session` over `events[0..stepStartSeq)` so the live cache cannot vouch for itself, and header fields equal to `foldRequestHeader` over the log. There is no divergence allowance and nothing to allow: no seam can put unlogged content into a request. `prepend: true` only defends against the replay adapter's short-circuit (an append-registered listener); two prepended listeners have no defined mutual order in cordis, so correctness rests on the seq-bounded fold, never on listener timing. Measurement stays lean: the with-key e2e ([request-cache.e2e.ts](../../../../packages/core/agent-loop/tests/request-cache.e2e.ts)) proves `usage.cacheReadTokens > 0` on every request after the first against the live API, and per-step usage in the log is the production observable — a header event or compaction shows up as a cache-read collapse on the next step.
+**Enforcement.** Dev-mode ([dsh-invariants](../../../../packages/support/invariants/src/index.ts)), on `llm/stream`: a frozen request with a live `sessionId` — the loop-built marker; hand-built one-shots are unfrozen and skipped — must carry messages deep-equal to the folded header's `messagePrefix` followed by the boundary derivation — the derivation rebuilt through a FRESH `Session` over `events[0..stepStartSeq)` so the live cache cannot vouch for itself — and header fields equal to `foldRequestHeader` over the log. There is no divergence allowance and nothing to allow: no seam can put unlogged content into a request — the `agent/session-prefix` seam's product enters only because the header event records it first. `prepend: true` only defends against the replay adapter's short-circuit (an append-registered listener); two prepended listeners have no defined mutual order in cordis, so correctness rests on the seq-bounded fold, never on listener timing. Measurement stays lean: the with-key e2e ([request-cache.e2e.ts](../../../../packages/core/agent-loop/tests/request-cache.e2e.ts)) proves `usage.cacheReadTokens > 0` on every request after the first against the live API, and per-step usage in the log is the production observable — a header event or compaction shows up as a cache-read collapse on the next step.
 
 ### The MiniCode shape: adopted, with the provenance arrow inverted
 
@@ -44,6 +44,7 @@ What survives from `LLMClient`: the conversation is maintained, not rebuilt —
 ## Consequences
 
 - A request that is not explained by the log cannot be constructed by accident — not by the loop, not by a listener; mutating a built request throws; every header change is a durable, diffable log event.
+- Choosing between the advisory channels is a change-frequency decision, and the design makes the stable one structural: an `agent/session-prefix` contribution is composed once per loop instance and reused verbatim, so it extends the cacheable prefix at zero marginal cost and CANNOT bust the provider cache mid-session; content that changes mid-session flows through the append-only history channels — `agent.inject()`, a `tools/post-execute` decision's `additionalContext`, prompt-submit `additionalContext` — each a durable `context/message` paid once and prefix-cached thereafter, at the price of accumulating in history and the log. Route session-frozen openers to the prefix and change notices to the history channels; a per-step request-only tail slot was deliberately dropped (no consumer, and a durable append covers every current update pattern).
 - What still costs full price at the provider is inherent and logged: compaction (its `compact/*` events and replace node), a real prompt/tool change (`request/header-delta`), a config switch (ditto), a process boundary with drift (`'resume'` snapshot differing from its predecessor). The provider's own reasoning-content exclusion is managed server-side.
 - The `step/start`-listener behavior change (above) is the one observable semantics change for plugins; `agent/pre-step` is the current-request seam.
 - Tool-result trimming (planned) needs no new mechanism: a logged single-node surface replace (`start === end`) carrying a trimmed `tool/result` under the same `callId` — compaction-family, replay-correct, cache-bust batched by the same pressure logic.

docs/rfc/implemented/feature/2026-07-07-session-prefix.md

@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+# RFC: The session prefix — request-only messages in front of the derived history
+
+Status: implemented
+
+## Problem
+
+A plugin often owns a session-stable opener the model must always see — a skills catalog, an AGENTS.md digest, a workspace baseline. Before this seam the harness offered two homes, and both are wrong for that content. The system prompt is one rendered string: message-shaped content (a user-role `<system-reminder>` envelope, a multi-message primer) does not fit it, and providers weight conversation messages differently from system text. Durable history (`agent.inject()`, a `context/message` at session start) makes the opener permanent: every `deriveMessages()` consumer replays it, the compaction retention walk owns it, forks bake it in stale, and a resume cannot refresh it — a catalog captured at session birth outlives the world it described.
+
+The obvious third option — let a plugin edit the request's `messages` on the way out — is banned by [the reconstructable-requests RFC](../architecture/2026-07-05-reconstructable-requests.md): every loop-built request is a pure function of the session log, so whatever channel carries the opener must log exactly what it sends. What was missing was a request-only message channel with a durable record.
+
+## Decision
+
+`agent/session-prefix` is a waterfall on the agent event map ([`packages/core/agent/src/types.ts`](../../../../packages/core/agent/src/types.ts)): listeners receive a frozen empty seed and return an extension (the canonical contribution is a prepend, `[mine, ...await next()]`, which yields registration order on the wire). The loop ([`packages/core/agent-loop/src/loop.ts`](../../../../packages/core/agent-loop/src/loop.ts)) fires it once per loop instance, lazily before the instance's first `agent/pre-step`; the composed list is deep-cloned, deep-frozen, cached on the instance, and placed in front of the ENTIRE derived history — directly after the provider's system slot — on every request the instance sends ([wire order](../../../core-data-structures/core.md#the-request-envelope-llmcallconfig-and-the-logged-header)).
+
+Three properties carry the design:
+
+- **Request-only, header-logged.** `deriveMessages()` never returns the prefix; its one durable record is `EpochHeader.messagePrefix` on the instance's anchoring `request/header` snapshot — the channel the reconstructable-requests RFC already owns for the request's non-history half, so no new session event exists. The dev invariant ([dsh-invariants](../../../../packages/support/invariants/src/index.ts)) recomputes `messagePrefix + boundary derivation` against every loop-built request; an unlogged prefix cannot reach the wire.
+- **Frozen per instance.** Reuse is structural, not disciplined: the cached product cannot change mid-session, so the provider's prompt cache holds by construction and the prefix extends the cacheable region at zero marginal cost per step. A process restart or `ctx.agents.resume()` is a new instance: it recomposes, and any drift lands attributably on the `'resume'` header snapshot. This is the routing rule the seam creates: session-frozen openers ride the prefix; content that changes mid-session rides the append-only history channels (`agent.inject()`, a `tools/post-execute` decision's `additionalContext`, prompt-submit `additionalContext` — [the interception-seams RFC](2026-06-30-interception-seams.md)), each a durable `context/message` paid once and prefix-cached thereafter.
+- **Composed before the pressure gate.** Composition precedes the instance's first `agent/pre-step`, and the seam hands the composed value through: `agent/pre-step` carries a `sessionPrefix` parameter and `CompactService.compactIfNeeded(agent, fullSystemPrompt, sessionPrefix, signal)` counts it in its token-pressure estimate — a gate reading the previous instance's folded prefix instead would under-gate a resumed or forked instance whose contributor grew, skipping compaction and shipping an over-window first request. A composition interrupted by a cancel/dispose landing inside the waterfall is discarded, never cached: an abort-aware listener's degraded fallback cannot leak into later requests, and the next turn recomposes under a live signal.
+
+Because composition runs before the boundary snapshot, a composing listener's session append joins the CURRENT request's derived history. Compaction structurally cannot touch the prefix (or the system prompt): it rewrites surface nodes, and header state never enters the surface.
+
+## Testing
+
+**Unit** — [interception.spec.ts](../../../../packages/core/agent-loop/tests/interception.spec.ts) pins compose-once across turns and steps (one composition, zero `request/header-delta`s), canonical prepend ordering, empty-prefix omission from the header, the frozen seed (in-place push throws), held-reference mutation immunity, and composition-precedes-pre-step with the seam receiving the composed value; [cancel.spec.ts](../../../../packages/core/agent-loop/tests/cancel.spec.ts) pins cancel/dispose landing inside the composition window and the discard-and-recompose stale-cache guard; dsh-session codec tests cover the `messagePrefix` fold/diff/apply arms (empty ≡ absent); dsh-invariants tests pin the `messagePrefix + derivation` equation; dsh-compact-basic tests pin that the pressure estimate counts the handed prefix. **Snapshot** — the acp-snapshot normalizer scrubs header prefixes to count-preserving `{{messagePrefix}}` tokens (unit-covered in dsh-acp-snapshot); header content itself is pinned per [the pinned-header scenario RFC](../testing/2026-07-06-pin-request-header-content-in-one-scenario.md), and the example tree loads no prefix contributor, so live goldens stay prefix-free. **e2e** — none prefix-specific: the seam is provider-independent and deterministic; the with-key cache measurement in [request-cache.e2e.ts](../../../../packages/core/agent-loop/tests/request-cache.e2e.ts) already proves the cacheable-prefix economics the design rests on.
+
+## Alternatives considered
+
+- **Per-request `before`/`after` slots recomputed every step** (the shape first proposed: a waterfall firing on every request, contributing frozen `before` messages ahead of the history and fresh `after` messages behind it) — rejected. A per-step `before` recompose invites silent drift — nothing anchors it to the log short of logging a header delta per step — and an `after` slot sits behind the growing history, so its tokens re-pay on every request and everything after it is uncacheable. Measured against the alternatives, every current update pattern is served cheaper by a durable append (paid once, cache-read thereafter), and the only content with no home was the session-stable opener — which wants freezing, not recomputation.
+- **A system-prompt section** (`system-prompt/assemble`) — rejected for this content: the assembly renders to the single `system` string, so message-shaped openers do not fit, and the system prompt is deliberately re-assembled per step (with header deltas when it changes) while the opener wants instance-frozen semantics.
+- **A durable history opener** (`inject()` at session start) — rejected: permanent history is the failure mode in the problem statement — replayed everywhere, compactable, stale across resumes.
+- **Compose per turn instead of per instance** — rejected: a turn-boundary recompose either desyncs silently from the log or forces a header delta per change, and it busts the provider cache exactly as often as it fires; the legitimate refresh point is the instance boundary, where the `'resume'` snapshot already records drift attributably.
+- **Compose lazily at the first request and let compaction read the folded header** (the shape as first merged) — superseded in review: the fold matches the live prefix only from the instance's second request on, so on a resumed/forked instance's first step the pressure gate read the PREVIOUS instance's prefix and could under-gate. Composing before the first pre-step and handing the live value through the seam makes the estimate exact at every step.
+- **A dedicated session event carrying the prefix** — rejected: the header events are the request's non-history record by design; a second event would be a second home for the same fact and another codec to keep total.
+
+## Consequences
+
+- `agent/pre-step` and `CompactService.compactIfNeeded` carry a `sessionPrefix` parameter: every pre-step listener and compaction backend sees the real per-instance value (all in-repo implementations updated in the same change, per the pre-release stance).
+- A contributor whose content changes mid-session is not re-read until the next instance — by design. A deployment needing mid-session catalog updates routes the change notice through the append-only history channels and pays one durable `context/message`.
+- The dropped `after` slot leaves no request-only channel near the request tail; nothing in the repo needs one, and adding it back would re-open the every-step re-pay cost the design exists to avoid.
+- The `request/header-delta` `messagePrefix` arm (whole-array replacement, empty array encoding transition to absence) exists for codec totality; the loop never exercises it, because the cached prefix cannot change within an instance.
+- An empty composition is canonical absence: no-contributor deployments log no extra header bytes and their requests are the bare derivation.