Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/master' into codex/truncated-design
# Conflicts: # docs/capability-seams.md # docs/config-catalog.md # docs/cordis-catalog/services.md # docs/core-data-structures/core.md # docs/event-producer-consumer.md # docs/module-graph.md # docs/rfc/INDEX.md # docs/tool-catalog.md # examples/acp-agent/README.md # packages/README.md # packages/bash/bash/README.md # packages/core/tools/tests/gen-tool-catalog.spec.ts # packages/support/acp-snapshot/src/harness.ts # pnpm-lock.yaml # scripts/gen-doc-graphs.ts # scripts/gen-tool-catalog.ts # scripts/type-equiv.manifest.json
This commit is contained in:
@@ -8,9 +8,6 @@ Generated by `pnpm run gen-rfc-index` from the RFC tree — never edit by hand;
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| Title | First proposed |
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|---|---|
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| [Agent Client Protocol (ACP) support — drive the coding agent from external editors](proposed/feature/2026-06-14-acp-agent-client-protocol.md) | 2026-06-14 |
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| [Multiplex concurrent ACP sessions over one connection](proposed/feature/2026-06-14-acp-multi-session.md) | 2026-06-14 |
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| [Code Mode — the model writes TypeScript against the tool registry](proposed/feature/2026-06-15-code-mode.md) | 2026-06-15 |
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| [Pre-tool input rewrite — a consistent design](proposed/feature/2026-06-30-pre-tool-input-rewrite.md) | 2026-06-30 |
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| [Claude Code and Codex subagent backends (out-of-process delegation to external coding agents)](proposed/feature/2026-07-07-claude-code-and-codex-subagent-backends.md) | 2026-07-07 |
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@@ -50,19 +47,29 @@ Generated by `pnpm run gen-rfc-index` from the RFC tree — never edit by hand;
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| Title | First proposed |
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|---|---|
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| [Agent Client Protocol (ACP) support — drive the coding agent from external editors](implemented/feature/2026-06-14-acp-agent-client-protocol.md) | 2026-06-14 |
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| [Multiplex concurrent ACP sessions over one connection](implemented/feature/2026-06-14-acp-multi-session.md) | 2026-06-14 |
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| [Code Mode — the model writes TypeScript against the tool registry](implemented/feature/2026-06-15-code-mode.md) | 2026-06-15 |
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| [Filesystem tool schemas — model-facing read/write/edit shapes](implemented/feature/2026-06-17-filesystem-tool-schemas.md) | 2026-06-17 |
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| [Rich ACP bash rendering — the terminal card via the `_meta` convention](implemented/feature/2026-06-18-acp-terminal-and-tool-rendering.md) | 2026-06-18 |
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| [Compaction as a capability seam (abstract contract + basic backend)](implemented/feature/2026-06-18-compaction-capability-seam.md) | 2026-06-18 |
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| [Subagent capability seam](implemented/feature/2026-06-21-subagent-capability-seam.md) | 2026-06-21 |
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| [ACP subagent backend (out-of-process delegation)](implemented/feature/2026-06-22-acp-subagent-backend.md) | 2026-06-22 |
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| [Ask-user question capability](implemented/feature/2026-06-25-ask-user-question.md) | 2026-06-25 |
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| [The `todo_write` tool — model task list as event-sourced session state](implemented/feature/2026-06-29-todo-write-tool.md) | 2026-06-29 |
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| [dsh-hooks-claude + dsh-hooks-codex — the Claude Code / Codex hook bridges](implemented/feature/2026-06-30-hook-bridges.md) | 2026-06-30 |
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| [dsh-hook-protocol — the shared Claude Code / Codex hook wire-protocol core](implemented/feature/2026-06-30-hook-protocol-lib.md) | 2026-06-30 |
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| [Interception seams — the typed-Decision surface a hook programs against](implemented/feature/2026-06-30-interception-seams.md) | 2026-06-30 |
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| [SessionStore fork API](implemented/feature/2026-06-30-session-store-fork-api.md) | 2026-06-30 |
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| [Subagent lifecycle enrichment — lastAssistantMessage (observe-only)](implemented/feature/2026-06-30-subagent-observe-enrich.md) | 2026-06-30 |
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| [Dynamic workflows — a script-driven multi-agent orchestration seam](implemented/feature/2026-07-05-dynamic-workflows.md) | 2026-07-05 |
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| [Skill system — progressive disclosure instructions for agents](implemented/feature/2026-07-05-skill-system.md) | 2026-07-05 |
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| [The approval seam — one-shot permission decisions over a waterfall of answerers](implemented/feature/2026-07-06-approval-seam.md) | 2026-07-06 |
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| [Explicit model-facing tool order](implemented/feature/2026-07-06-explicit-tool-order.md) | 2026-07-06 |
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| [The subprocess sandbox — confinement seam, native runners, escalation, and per-session modes](implemented/feature/2026-07-06-sandbox.md) | 2026-07-06 |
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| [The session prefix — request-only messages in front of the derived history](implemented/feature/2026-07-07-session-prefix.md) | 2026-07-07 |
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| [Repeat-tool-call guard plugin](implemented/feature/2026-07-08-repeat-tool-guard.md) | 2026-07-08 |
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| [The self-referential cordis toolset](implemented/feature/2026-07-08-self-referential-cordis-toolset.md) | 2026-07-08 |
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| [Bash-backed grep and glob discovery tools](implemented/feature/2026-07-09-bash-backed-grep-glob-discovery.md) | 2026-07-09 |
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### Simplification
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@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ Status: implemented
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## Problem
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Sessions lived only in memory. The example `session-jsonl.ts` plugin (duplicated byte-for-byte in both examples) was write-only telemetry: it buffered `session/event` and appended JSON lines, with no read/replay path, no crash-safety (no fsync, no atomic write, a fire-and-forget dispose drain), no listing, and no format versioning. Nothing could rehydrate a past session from disk into a live agent, so durable resume ("continue yesterday's task"), durable forking, and the ACP `session/load` method ([ACP support](../../proposed/feature/2026-06-14-acp-agent-client-protocol.md)) were all impossible.
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Sessions lived only in memory. The example `session-jsonl.ts` plugin (duplicated byte-for-byte in both examples) was write-only telemetry: it buffered `session/event` and appended JSON lines, with no read/replay path, no crash-safety (no fsync, no atomic write, a fire-and-forget dispose drain), no listing, and no format versioning. Nothing could rehydrate a past session from disk into a live agent, so durable resume ("continue yesterday's task"), durable forking, and the ACP `session/load` method ([ACP support](../../implemented/feature/2026-06-14-acp-agent-client-protocol.md)) were all impossible.
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The [event-sourced model](2026-06-11-event-sourced-sessions.md) makes the append-only log the single source of truth and derives LLM history from it. Persistence had to stay faithful to that: persist the existing `SessionEvent` directly, with no parallel "persisted message" type that the log is converted to and from. The backend also had to be swappable — a file store now, a database store later — behind one interface.
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@@ -33,4 +33,4 @@ Format versioning: the header carries a `version`; `load` rejects any non-curren
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## Consequences
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Two new packages and the metadata seam in `dsh-session` (`session.header`, the `create(id?, options?)` signature). Bought: durable resume/fork, a read/replay path, crash tolerance, and the foundation the ACP `session/load` ([ACP support](../../proposed/feature/2026-06-14-acp-agent-client-protocol.md)) needs — all over the existing event-sourced log, with the backend swappable behind one interface. The reusable `runPersistenceContract` suite holds every backend to the same append-only / contiguous-seq / lazy-materialization / serializability semantics. This completes [event-sourced sessions](2026-06-11-event-sourced-sessions.md)'s deferred "real persistence backend" and resolves its `TODO(review)` on the event vocabulary: persisting the log freezes its shape, and the `assistant/chunk` fidelity question is answered above (persist verbatim).
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Two new packages and the metadata seam in `dsh-session` (`session.header`, the `create(id?, options?)` signature). Bought: durable resume/fork, a read/replay path, crash tolerance, and the foundation the ACP `session/load` ([ACP support](../../implemented/feature/2026-06-14-acp-agent-client-protocol.md)) needs — all over the existing event-sourced log, with the backend swappable behind one interface. The reusable `runPersistenceContract` suite holds every backend to the same append-only / contiguous-seq / lazy-materialization / serializability semantics. This completes [event-sourced sessions](2026-06-11-event-sourced-sessions.md)'s deferred "real persistence backend" and resolves its `TODO(review)` on the event vocabulary: persisting the log freezes its shape, and the `assistant/chunk` fidelity question is answered above (persist verbatim).
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@@ -20,13 +20,13 @@ Prefix-cache stability is corollary #1, not the headline: an append-only log pro
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**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.
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**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.
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**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.
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**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.
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**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.
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**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.
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**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.
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**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.
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### The MiniCode shape: adopted, with the provenance arrow inverted
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@@ -44,6 +44,7 @@ What survives from `LLMClient`: the conversation is maintained, not rebuilt —
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## Consequences
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- 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.
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- 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).
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- 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.
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- The `step/start`-listener behavior change (above) is the one observable semantics change for plugins; `agent/pre-step` is the current-request seam.
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- 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.
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@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
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# RFC: Agent Client Protocol (ACP) support — drive the coding agent from external editors
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Status: implemented
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## Problem
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The harness originally exposed agents only through a readline loop. That surface could carry text, but it gave an editor no structured way to create or resume sessions, correlate prompt completion, stream reasoning and tool activity, render tool-specific UI, ask for permission, or cancel one conversation without disturbing another. ACP defines those interactions as JSON-RPC over stdio, and Zed is the target client used to make concrete compatibility decisions.
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The bridge must preserve the harness's existing ownership boundaries. It cannot depend on the concrete agent loop, bypass the tool registry, execute shell commands in the editor, or invent a second source of session truth. stdout is also the protocol transport, so any accidental log output corrupts the connection.
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## Decision
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`@deepseek-ai/dsh-acp` is a UI/client-driver plugin under `packages/ui/acp`. It uses `@agentclientprotocol/sdk`'s `AgentSideConnection` over stdin/stdout and programs only interface services: the agent create/resume factory, session persistence, tool registry, user interaction, and optional approval/bash capabilities. It does not change the agent loop and is not a capability-seam implementation.
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The bridge implements the following stable session path:
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- `initialize` negotiates the protocol version, advertises text plus `resource_link` prompts, and advertises `loadSession`.
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- `session/new` validates an absolute `cwd`, stores it in `SessionHeader`, creates an agent through `ctx.agents`, and returns any composition-backed config options.
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- `session/load` validates the requested cwd against persisted metadata before constructing an agent, reserves the id across the asynchronous resume, replays user/assistant/tool events as ACP updates, and reports the resumed config-option fold.
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- `session/prompt` accepts text and resource links, rejects unsupported or empty content, allows one in-flight prompt per session, and settles against that prompt's owning `turn/end`. An error turn rejects the RPC; other closed turn reasons map through a total ACP stop-reason codec.
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- `session/cancel` calls the queue-aware agent cancel path and settles only the addressed session's prompt.
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Tool-call presentation remains tool-owned. A tool's `presentCall` and `presentResult` return the `generic`, `terminal`, or `diff` render-intent variants; the bridge switches on that union and maps it to ACP. Presenter-less tools receive a generic fallback. Bash terminal cards use Zed's capability-gated `_meta.terminal_info`, `_meta.terminal_output`, and `_meta.terminal_exit` convention; the harness still executes the command through `ctx.bash`, preserving sandbox, environment scrub, ownership, and cwd. Clients without that extension receive ordinary text content. Filesystem tools provide diff cards and file locations without hard-coded tool-name branches in the bridge.
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Permission handling is an answerer on the [user-approval seam](2026-07-06-approval-seam.md), not an ask-every-tool policy in ACP. An `approval/request` for a bridge-owned agent with a call id becomes `session/request_permission` on that agent's editor session, with one-shot allow/reject choices. Foreign or call-less requests delegate; a missing or failed answerer remains fail-closed. The plugin that asks—such as a pre-execute policy or bash escalation—owns the decision to ask.
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The bridge advertises ACP config options instead of session modes. `sandbox-mode` exists only when the mounted bash executor reports sandbox capability, and `approval-policy` exists only when `ctx.approval` is composed. Each option is an independent select whose current value is the session event fold over the composition default. `session/set_config_option` validates against the owning domain vocabulary and writes through `setSandboxMode` or `setApprovalPolicy`. An open-turn switch appends immediately; an idle switch is overlaid in the response and anchored at the next turn start. Until that anchor it is memory-only and a crash reverts to the durable fold. ACP session modes are deliberately not modeled because one mode list cannot represent these orthogonal knobs and config options are the forward protocol surface. Runtime model selection remains outside this decision; `AcpConfig.model` is connection-wide.
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The bridge also provides the ACP-backed `UserInteractionProvider`: `ask_user_question` requests become form elicitations on the owning session. Select, multi-select, option descriptions, and custom-answer override semantics are preserved.
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Lifecycle ownership is explicit. The bridge holds an `AgentHandle` per live session. Disconnect and Cordis disposal cancel pending prompts, dispose every handle in parallel, await loop quiescence and persistence flush, and then remove the records. Stream notification failures are contained so a vanished client cannot corrupt an agent turn. The ACP app composition loads no stdout logger; a test guards stdout as framed JSON-RPC only.
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The precise supported and deferred protocol rows live in [`packages/ui/acp/acp-feature-support.md`](../../../../packages/ui/acp/acp-feature-support.md); the package README is the operational contract.
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## Alternatives considered
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**A prepended `tools/execute` listener that asks on every ACP-owned call** — rejected. It would hard-code permission policy into the UI bridge, ask even when no policy requires it, and could not serve approval requests that arise after execution begins. The shared user-approval seam keeps mechanism, asking policy, and UI answerer separate.
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**Inject the concrete `agentLoop`** — rejected. Agent creation, resume, idle observation, and disposal are interface-level ownership operations on `dsh-agent`; a UI plugin does not need a dependency-rule exception.
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**Execute bash through ACP `terminal/*`** — rejected. That would move execution outside the harness and bypass its sandbox, credential scrub, task ownership, cwd resolution, and session log. Terminal metadata is presentation only.
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**Represent sandbox and approval as ACP session modes** — rejected. They are independent composable settings, while a single current mode is mutually exclusive. ACP config options represent both without a cross-product and match the protocol's forward direction.
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**Hijack stdout defensively** — rejected. Process-wide monkey-patching is outside Cordis effect ownership and races the protocol transport. The app composition owns stdout purity.
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## Consequences
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Editors can create, load, prompt, cancel, render, ask, and reconfigure multiple harness sessions over one ACP connection without a loop-specific dependency. The session event log remains the durable source for replay, prompt settlement, cwd, and per-session configuration. Tool presentation and human-answer channels remain extensible plugin contracts instead of ACP-specific behavior.
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The bridge deliberately does not implement session list/delete/resume/close capabilities, MCP passthrough, additional directories, image/audio/embedded-resource prompts, runtime model selection, plans, slash commands, usage updates, editor filesystem delegation, or the ACP terminal execution sub-protocol. The feature checklist records these as unsupported rather than silently accepting them.
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|
||||
An idle config selection is truthful in the live response but not durable until the next turn anchors it. Crashing before that boundary loses the pending selection; this is the cost of keeping session events turn-enclosed and replay-safe.
|
||||
|
||||
## Verification
|
||||
|
||||
The ACP suites cover the in-memory protocol codec, create/load replay, exact prompt settlement, cancellation races, unsupported content, tool presentation, terminal capability fallback, permission outcome mapping, config-option validation and persistence, multi-session isolation, disconnect/disposal quiescence, and HMR cleanup. Snapshot and built-bin tests exercise the app composition, while the real-API e2e self-skips without a key.
|
||||
37
docs/rfc/implemented/feature/2026-06-14-acp-multi-session.md
Normal file
37
docs/rfc/implemented/feature/2026-06-14-acp-multi-session.md
Normal file
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
|
||||
# RFC: Multiplex concurrent ACP sessions over one connection
|
||||
|
||||
Status: implemented
|
||||
|
||||
## Problem
|
||||
|
||||
An ACP editor can keep several conversations alive over one agent subprocess. A single-active-session bridge would force extra processes and would not match Zed's client model, which tracks multiple session ids and concurrent loads. Multiplexing introduces isolation risks: events, prompt completion, cancellation, permission prompts, config selections, and predictable background-task ids must never cross session boundaries.
|
||||
|
||||
## Decision
|
||||
|
||||
The ACP bridge stores live sessions in `Map<SessionId, SessionRecord>` and keeps a `WeakMap<Agent, SessionId>` reverse index for agent-scoped callbacks. A record owns its agent handle, in-flight prompt, live tool-call presentation state, pending idle config switches, session cwd, and client capability snapshot. A separate loading-id set reserves each id before asynchronous resume so two pipelined loads cannot construct duplicate agents; distinct ids may load concurrently.
|
||||
|
||||
Every `session/event` and `agent/status` callback resolves the owning record before sending or settling anything. Each session permits one in-flight prompt independently. The prompt records a log watermark, captures its own `turn/start`, and settles only on the matching `turn/end`; a late end from a cancelled prior turn cannot resolve a newer prompt. `session/cancel` addresses one record and calls only that agent's queue-aware cancel path.
|
||||
|
||||
Permission ownership uses the same reverse index. The ACP `approval/request` answerer prompts only the editor session that owns the requesting agent and delegates foreign requests. User-interaction elicitations likewise route by agent ownership. Per-session sandbox and approval config values fold only that session's events, with pending idle switches stored on that record until the next turn anchors them.
|
||||
|
||||
Background bash tasks carry an opaque owner token equal to the owning session id. `bash_output` and `bash_kill` compare the caller's token with the executor's task ownership before reading or killing; a predictable task id alone grants no access. Ownership is stored with the executor task, so a tool plugin reload does not erase it.
|
||||
|
||||
Connection teardown clears the live map, settles each pending prompt as cancelled, and disposes all `AgentHandle`s in parallel. Each handle stops and awaits its loop, flushes the session while attached, unregisters the agent, and removes the session. Teardown is memoized and shared by client disconnect and plugin disposal.
|
||||
|
||||
## Alternatives considered
|
||||
|
||||
**One live session per connection** — rejected. It adds process overhead and contradicts the target client's multi-session shape without removing multiplexing needs from the editor.
|
||||
|
||||
**A per-session `ctx.extend()`** — rejected. A child context does not by itself create a child plugin fiber, so listeners would still belong to the bridge fiber. The implemented bridge instead uses global listeners with explicit O(1) demultiplexing and per-session owned records; agent lifecycle is owned by `AgentHandle`.
|
||||
|
||||
**Agent object identity as bash-task ownership** — rejected. A resumed or replaced agent object may legitimately represent the same durable session. The opaque session token is the cross-boundary identity that should survive plugin reloads.
|
||||
|
||||
## Consequences
|
||||
|
||||
N sessions can stream, prompt, request permission, switch config, and run background tasks concurrently without interleaving or cross-settling. A cancel or dispose in one session does not affect its neighbors. The bridge pays for explicit maps and isolation tests, but it does not add one listener set per session and therefore avoids listener fan-out during long-lived connections.
|
||||
|
||||
The bridge still exposes no protocol method to close one live session independently. Today records leave together on connection teardown; session close/resume lifecycle capabilities remain deferred in the ACP feature checklist.
|
||||
|
||||
## Verification
|
||||
|
||||
The multi-session suite drives concurrent sessions through interleaved updates, independent in-flight prompts, targeted cancellation, same-id and distinct-id load races, permission routing, config isolation, and teardown. Tool-bash tests prove one session cannot read or kill another session's background task.
|
||||
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
|
||||
# RFC: Code Mode — the model writes TypeScript against the tool registry
|
||||
|
||||
Status: proposed
|
||||
Status: implemented
|
||||
|
||||
## Problem
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ Cloudflare's [Code Mode](https://blog.cloudflare.com/code-mode/) proposes an alt
|
||||
|
||||
An earlier draft of this RFC designed Code Mode as an add-on consumer plugin with zero core changes, deferring the execution substrate to a follow-up. Both constraints are dropped here, deliberately. First, the harness is pre-release and optimizes for the correct foundation over blast radius: tool presentation is the registry's own concern, and bolting a second presentation onto it from outside means transforming the registry's contribution after the fact — a waterfall listener whose correctness depends on listener ordering, which fights the [reconstructable-requests](../../implemented/architecture/2026-07-05-reconstructable-requests.md) design instead of riding it (that refactor removed request mutation from `agent/request`, the seam the old draft relied on). Second, the substrate question is answerable now: a Node `worker_threads` runtime gives real containment — separate isolate, empty environment, heap caps, and a `terminate()` that reliably stops a hot synchronous loop — where the old draft's `node:vm` stub had none of those, and it fits the harness's existing trust model (§Trust posture) without a hardening follow-up.
|
||||
|
||||
## Proposal
|
||||
## Decision
|
||||
|
||||
Three decisions, each elaborated in its own section below:
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -82,16 +82,25 @@ The worker runtime is **containment, not a security boundary**, and the RFC says
|
||||
|
||||
The `tools:sdk` section carries the `.d.ts` plus fixed instructions: the program is the body of an async TypeScript function (erasable syntax only — no `enum`/namespaces; type annotations are advisory); call tools as `await tools.name(args)` (quoted access for exotic names); a failed tool call **rejects** with an `Error` carrying the tool's error text — catch it to handle and continue; calls run **sequentially** even under `Promise.all`; emit results via `return` and/or `console.log`, and only that curated output returns to the context — intermediate tool results never do. That last line is the payoff the whole design serves: output-side context cost becomes the model's own editorial decision. On the input side the `.d.ts` is not free — for a large tool surface it can rival the native JSON schemas it replaces (and `'both'` pays for the two side by side) — but it is prefix-stable, so provider prefix caching amortizes it; the win is workload-dependent and the RFC claims no more.
|
||||
|
||||
## Plan
|
||||
## Consequences
|
||||
|
||||
Four stacked PRs, each gates-green (`typecheck`, `lint`, `test:coverage`, `test:snapshot`, `doc-sync`, `verify-module-graph`, `build`, `hygiene`) with docs updated in the same change:
|
||||
The design shipped as four stacked changes — this RFC, the `dsh-code-runtime` interface package, the `dsh-code-runtime-worker` backend, and the `dsh-tools` integration — each gates-green with docs in the same change; review fixes landed on the change that introduced them and merged down.
|
||||
|
||||
1. **This RFC revision** (docs-only): the file rewritten as above (renamed `2026-06-15-code-mode.md`, same first-proposed date), regenerated RFC index.
|
||||
2. **`dsh-code-runtime`** (interface package): the group `packages/code-runtime/`, abstract `CodeRuntime`, vocabulary types, ctx-key declaration; docs in the same change — group README + package README, the `packages/README.md` group table row, the `ctx.codeRuntime` row in [docs/architecture.md](../../../architecture.md)'s service map, and the regenerated cordis catalog (the new service class). Unit tier: HMR safety (dispose removes `ctx.codeRuntime`), contract docs. This package has no behavior to snapshot or e2e; its coverage story is unit-only by design.
|
||||
3. **`dsh-code-runtime-worker`**: the implementation above, plus the regenerated config catalog (its `Config`). Unit tier (real workers, no mocks — they are cheap and local): output/value capture, log source attribution, error kinds (exception incl. non-erasable syntax, abort, worker-exit under OOM), the two budgets from both sides (a hot loop with an un-awaited pending dispatch still dies at `computeMs` busy time; a program idling on a slow binding outlives `computeMs` and dies only at `maxWallMs`), binding bridge hostility cases (unknown name, duplicate id, post-settlement message, `__proto__`/`constructor`/`toString` binding names), structured-clone fallback, cap truncation, `env` emptiness verified from inside the program, dispose-awaits-exit. A real-load-path test runs the built package (`lib/`) so the worker entry resolves both unbuilt (tsx) and built — the published-bin guard from [docs/testing.md](../../../testing.md).
|
||||
4. **Native code mode in `dsh-tools`** + the end-to-end surface: mode config, provider switch, `tools:sdk` section, `jsonSchemaToTs`, `run_code` + dispatch bridge + serialization queue, `tool/code-dispatch` event; regenerated tool, config, and persistence catalogs; [docs/architecture.md](../../../architecture.md) (tool-pipeline prose) and the [adding-a-tool cookbook](../../../cookbook/adding-a-tool.md) cross-reference updated in the same change; an `examples/` leaf + `demo:code` script wiring the worker runtime with `mode: 'code'`; move this RFC to `implemented/`. Coverage named per tier now, per the plan-time rule: **unit** — codegen table (DSL subset, quoted names, `unknown` degradation, determinism), provider contribution per mode, `toolOrder × mode` rejection, missing-runtime/wrong-language loud failures, serialization non-overlap (a probe tool records enter/exit under `Promise.all`), abort stops the queue, binding rejection on `isError`, `CodeRunFailedError` → structured `isError`, event payloads, `deriveMessages()` ignores the event, HMR safety (mode flip via config reload removes tool + section); **e2e (with-key, self-skips)** — a real model, `mode: 'code'`, a task requiring two tool calls and curation, asserting the wire tool list was exactly `run_code` and the transcript's dispatch events; **snapshot (keyless replay)** — goldens for a `run_code` turn in `'code'` and `'both'`, pinning the SDK section text, the collapsed header tools, dispatch events, and the result card.
|
||||
What exists now:
|
||||
|
||||
The four PRs land in order (each on the previous); per stacked-review practice, review fixes land on the PR that introduced them and merge down.
|
||||
- **The seam**: `packages/code-runtime/` — `@deepseek-ai/dsh-code-runtime` (abstract `CodeRuntime`, the vocabulary above, `ctx.codeRuntime`) and `@deepseek-ai/dsh-code-runtime-worker` (the worker-thread backend, every cap a validated config field). Rows in the service map, capability-seams graph, config catalog, and cordis catalog.
|
||||
- **The registry surface**: `ToolRegistry`'s first config (`mode`), the mode-aware wire contribution, the `tools:sdk` section, `jsonSchemaToTs`/`renderToolsSdk` (exported), `run_code` + the dispatch bridge + `CodeRunFailedError`, and the `tool/code-dispatch` log event (declaration-merged into `SessionEventMap`, regenerated into the persistence catalog; `run_code` in the tool catalog).
|
||||
- **The composed surface**: the `tools` config forwards through `agent-core` and both app packages (`stdio-agent`, `acp-agent`); `demo:code-mode` boots each UI example's `code-mode.cordis.yml` overlay (the worker runtime + `mode: 'code'` over the base tree); the adding-a-tool cookbook states that a registered tool is reachable from programs for free, and the tool-pipeline doc shows sub-dispatches re-entering both waterfalls.
|
||||
- **Interactions inherited by deployments**: a `toolOrder` naming native tools rejects every assembly under `'code'` (update or drop the order config when switching modes); sub-call `additionalContext` is dropped by the bridge (a plural context channel is deferred until a real hook needs it through Code Mode); sub-dispatch stays serialized until tools can declare concurrency safety — the same metadata the native parallel-dispatch TODO waits on.
|
||||
|
||||
## Testing
|
||||
|
||||
What the suites pin, per tier:
|
||||
|
||||
- **Unit — worker runtime** (real workers, no mocks): output/value capture and log-source attribution; error kinds (exception incl. non-erasable syntax, abort, worker-exit under OOM); the two budgets from both sides (a hot loop behind an un-awaited pending dispatch dies at `computeMs` busy time; a program idling on a slow binding outlives `computeMs` and dies only at `maxWallMs`); binding-bridge hostility (junk/forged port traffic incl. non-object messages and forged `log`/`done` cap bypass attempts, unknown names, duplicate ids, post-settlement replies, `__proto__`/`constructor`/`toString` binding names); structured-clone fallback and cap truncation; `env` emptiness verified from inside a program; dispose-awaits-exit. A real-load-path e2e runs the BUILT package under plain `node` so the worker entry resolves both unbuilt (tsx) and built — the published-artifact guard from [docs/testing.md](../../../testing.md).
|
||||
- **Unit — registry integration**: the codegen table (DSL subset, quoted names, `unknown` degradation, byte-identical determinism); provider contribution per mode (`'native'` unchanged, `'code'` exactly `[run_code]`, `'both'` all + `run_code`); `toolOrder × mode` rejection; missing-runtime / wrong-language loud failures; serialization non-overlap (a probe tool records enter/exit under `Promise.all`); abort aborting the in-flight sub-dispatch and abandoning queued ones; binding rejection on `isError` and on JSON-unrepresentable arguments; `CodeRunFailedError` → structured `isError` carrying kind + logs; `tool/code-dispatch` payloads (JSON-normalized arguments identical to what dispatched); `deriveMessages()` ignoring the event; sub-call `additionalContext` suppression; HMR safety (disposing the registry removes the tool and the section).
|
||||
- **e2e (with-key, self-skips)**: a real model under `mode: 'code'` composes two bash calls in one program (`examples/coding-agent/tests/code-mode.e2e.ts`) — every logged `request/header` carries exactly `[run_code]`, the dispatch events land under the parent call, the file the program wrote exists, and the final answer is the curated output.
|
||||
- **Snapshot (keyless replay)**: goldens for a `run_code` turn under `'code'` and `'both'` (`code-mode-turn`, `both-mode-turn`), each its own header-pinning class — the SDK section text, the collapsed header tool list, the dispatch events, and the result card are committed and replayed.
|
||||
|
||||
## Alternatives considered
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -111,17 +120,6 @@ The four PRs land in order (each on the previous); per stacked-review practice,
|
||||
|
||||
**A REPL-style persistent kernel** (state survives across `run_code` calls). Rejected for the MVP: cross-call state would be invisible to the session log, breaking the reconstructability guarantee that every request is a pure function of the log; fresh-per-run keeps it. A kernel-style backend remains expressible behind the seam later, with its own logging story.
|
||||
|
||||
## Acceptance criteria
|
||||
|
||||
- `mode: 'native'` (and unset) is byte-for-byte today's behavior: same assemblies, same headers, same snapshots.
|
||||
- Under `mode: 'code'`, the assembled tool list (and thus the logged `request/header`) is exactly `[run_code]`; under `'both'`, every native schema plus `run_code`; the `tools:sdk` section is present in both, absent under `'native'`, and its text is deterministic for a fixed tool set (byte-identical across consecutive assemblies).
|
||||
- The generated `.d.ts` covers every registered tool except `run_code`, non-identifier names via quoted keys, unsupported schema constructs as `unknown`, without codegen ever throwing.
|
||||
- A program calling two tools returns only its curated output; each sub-call appears as a `tool/code-dispatch` event ordered by log `seq`, flows through `tools/pre-execute`/`post-execute` (a deny reaches the program as a binding rejection), and never enters derived messages; a binding argument that does not survive JSON normalization (`BigInt`, a circular structure) rejects before dispatch — nothing executes unlogged.
|
||||
- `Promise.all` over three bindings produces non-overlapping `ctx.tools.execute()` intervals (probe-tool assertion); aborting mid-program stops the worker and dispatches nothing further; a budget expiry during a slow sub-dispatch aborts that dispatch (the probe tool observes its signal fire), `run_code` returns only after the queue drains, and no `tool/code-dispatch` event lands after `run_code`'s own `tool/result` in the log.
|
||||
- Worker runtime: a hot `for(;;){}` run ends at the `computeMs` busy-time budget with `error.kind: 'timeout'` — including when the program fired an un-awaited binding call first (the pending-RPC decoy); a program idling on a slow binding does not consume `computeMs` and is bounded only by `maxWallMs`; OOM under `resourceLimits` yields `kind: 'worker-exit'` with the host process healthy; `process.env` inside a program is empty; non-erasable syntax yields `kind: 'exception'` without a worker spawn; disposal awaits worker exit.
|
||||
- Misconfiguration is loud before any model request: non-native mode with no `ctx.codeRuntime`, a runtime whose `language ≠ 'typescript'`, and `toolOrder` naming a non-contributed tool all reject the assembly with actionable messages.
|
||||
- The demo runs against the real API via `demo:code`; the snapshot goldens replay keylessly; all repo gates pass on every PR of the stack.
|
||||
|
||||
## Risks
|
||||
|
||||
**The worker is not a hard security boundary.** Deliberate and documented (§Trust posture): posture equals the existing bash tool, containment exceeds it, gating uses the same seams. Deployments needing more need a future `isolation: 'container'` backend — tracked as the seam's designed extension, not a TODO on this design.
|
||||
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ Status: implemented
|
||||
|
||||
## Problem
|
||||
|
||||
The ACP bridge lets each tool own its call rendering via `presentCall`/`presentResult` (see [tool-call UI presentation](../../proposed/feature/2026-06-14-acp-agent-client-protocol.md) and `packages/core/tools`). For `bash` we surface the exact command as the `tool_call` title, the model's `description` as a content text block, `kind: 'execute'`, and the completed output wrapped in a fenced ` ```console ` text block.
|
||||
The ACP bridge lets each tool own its call rendering via `presentCall`/`presentResult` (see [tool-call UI presentation](../../implemented/feature/2026-06-14-acp-agent-client-protocol.md) and `packages/core/tools`). For `bash` we surface the exact command as the `tool_call` title, the model's `description` as a content text block, `kind: 'execute'`, and the completed output wrapped in a fenced ` ```console ` text block.
|
||||
|
||||
That is a correct, capability-free baseline, but not how the reference editors render a *terminal* tool at its best. An editor like Zed has a dedicated terminal tool-call card — a header showing the working directory, the command as the label, the command output rendered as a terminal, and an exit-status pill — but it only builds that card when the `tool_call` carries terminal metadata (below). With a plain text block the output appears as static markdown and there is no cwd header. (Zed also HIDES `rawInput` for `kind: 'execute'`, which is why the command IS the title — both reference adapters do the same. The human-readable description rides as a separate content block above the card; note this is a DELIBERATE divergence — claude-agent-acp DROPS the description in terminal mode and renders only the card — we keep the summary visible alongside.)
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
49
docs/rfc/implemented/feature/2026-06-25-ask-user-question.md
Normal file
49
docs/rfc/implemented/feature/2026-06-25-ask-user-question.md
Normal file
@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
|
||||
# RFC: Ask-user question capability
|
||||
|
||||
Status: implemented
|
||||
|
||||
## Problem
|
||||
|
||||
The agent sometimes cannot proceed safely from model inference alone: it needs the human to choose a path, confirm a risky/default action, or provide missing information. Before this change, the only way to get that answer was for the model to ask in assistant text and then stop, which broke the normal tool-call loop: the agent had no structured way to pause, no option metadata for UIs, no abort/error taxonomy, and no way for non-stdio front doors to present the question consistently.
|
||||
|
||||
This is a user-facing capability, but it also crosses package boundaries. A model-facing tool needs a provider-neutral request vocabulary; each UI surface needs to decide how to show and collect the answer; the agent loop should remain unchanged because a tool call already has the right async shape.
|
||||
|
||||
## Decision
|
||||
|
||||
Introduce `dsh-user-interaction` as the provider-neutral interface package for `ctx.userInteraction`, colocated with the model-facing consumer `dsh-tool-ask-user` under `packages/ui`. The grouping is intentional: asking a human is a UI-backed product affordance, not part of the providerless core spine. The seam still owns the stable request/answer/error vocabulary, while UI product surfaces provide the concrete provider that collects the answer. The tool registers `ask_user_question`, forwards `{ questions, agent, signal }`, and returns the provider-computed structured answers as the tool result.
|
||||
|
||||
The model-facing request vocabulary is deliberately aligned with the product-research schema: `ask_user_question({ questions: [{ id, question, header?, options?: [{ label, description? }], multi_select? }] })`. `id` is supplied per question and echoed in the result so a batch can be routed without relying on question text. `label` is both user-facing display text and the selected value returned to the model; there is no separate `value`, no `recommended`, no `allow_custom`, and no `desc` alias.
|
||||
|
||||
Providers return `{ answers: [{ id, selected, custom? }] }`. `selected` is always an array of selected option labels, so single-select and `multi_select` answers share one result shape. `custom` carries a free-text "Other" answer; optionless questions collect `custom` directly. When `custom` is present, it overrides any selected choices and `selected` is empty.
|
||||
|
||||
`UserInteractionError` extends `HarnessError`, so failures such as `NO_PROVIDER`, `ASK_ABORTED`, ACP cancellation, or missing session routing survive `ctx.tools.execute()` as machine-routable `{ name, code }` tool errors. This matches the structured-error taxonomy and lets the model or a wrapping plugin distinguish "user cancelled" from a generic thrown exception.
|
||||
|
||||
## UI mappings
|
||||
|
||||
`dsh-stdio-agent`'s in-package readline module renders each question, shows each option's `description` on the next line, supports comma/space-separated numeric choices for `multi_select`, accepts free-form custom answers, and rejects pending questions on abort, provider disposal, or stdin EOF. A batched request is asked in order and resolved as one answer object. The stdio provider serializes simultaneous requests with an internal queue so only one prompt owns stdin at a time.
|
||||
|
||||
`dsh-acp` provides the same seam for ACP sessions. It routes an ask request from the calling `Agent` through the bridge's `agent→sessionId` reverse map and calls ACP `unstable_createElicitation` with a session-scoped form for each question. Single-select options become a `choice` string enum; `multi_select` options become a `choice` array enum; optionless questions use a required `custom` text field. If the client returns both `choice` and non-empty `custom`, the custom answer wins. ACP `decline`/`cancel`, a missing answer, a missing session, and a client without elicitation support all become structured `UserInteractionError`s.
|
||||
|
||||
The ACP mapping deliberately uses elicitation, not `session/request_permission`. `request_permission` is still reserved for the separate permission gate: it is a yes/no-or-policy authorization protocol around tool execution. `ask_user_question` is a general information-gathering tool with optional free-form answers, so ACP form elicitation is the closer protocol fit. The bridge's session routing is shared with the future permission gate, but the user intent is different.
|
||||
|
||||
## Alternatives considered
|
||||
|
||||
**Assistant text followed by a stopped turn.** The model could ask the user in plain assistant text and then stop. That loses the structured option metadata, gives UIs no provider-neutral way to render a choice, and forces the next human answer to arrive as a new user prompt rather than as the result of the operation that needed the answer.
|
||||
|
||||
**Core-owned ask-user packages.** The first implementation split the seam and the model-facing tool across `packages/core` and `packages/ui`, but both names describe one UI-backed human-interaction affordance. The seam remains provider-neutral, but it is not providerless core infrastructure like sessions, tools, or the agent registry. Keeping `dsh-user-interaction` and `dsh-tool-ask-user` together under `packages/ui` makes the package map match the product boundary: apps and bridges provide the human-answer provider, and the stdio app opts into the model-facing tool.
|
||||
|
||||
**ACP `session/request_permission`.** Permission requests are authorization around tool execution; `ask_user_question` is information gathering with optional free-form answers. Using permission for general questions would collapse two different product concepts and make the future permission gate harder to reason about.
|
||||
|
||||
**A loop-level pause primitive.** The agent loop already knows how to await a tool call and resume from a tool result. Adding a new loop special case would duplicate that async shape and make every loop implementation learn about a UI concern.
|
||||
|
||||
## Consequences
|
||||
|
||||
ACP elicitation is currently marked unstable in the SDK. The fallback is still structured: if a client does not implement it, the tool returns `ASK_FAILED` rather than hanging. A later ACP stabilization may rename or reshape the method; that migration should stay inside `dsh-acp` because the core `ctx.userInteraction` vocabulary is provider-neutral.
|
||||
|
||||
The feature gives the model a powerful pause primitive, so prompt guidance matters. The tool description tells the model to ask concise questions and use options when possible. Product policy can later wrap `tools/execute` to restrict when the tool is allowed, but the loop should not special-case it.
|
||||
|
||||
`dsh-user-interaction` and `dsh-tool-ask-user` both live in `packages/ui` because they form one product-facing human-interaction capability. `agent-core` does not load either the tool or a provider. `stdio-agent` opts into the seam, its readline provider, and the model-facing tool. `acp-agent` keeps only the `userInteraction` seam/provider by default: ACP elicitation support is still client-dependent, so an ACP leaf must opt into the model-facing tool deliberately once its client can complete elicitation requests.
|
||||
|
||||
## Testing
|
||||
|
||||
Unit coverage pins provider registration/disposal, duplicate-provider rejection, abort-before-provider, empty-question rejection, structured tool errors through `ctx.tools.execute()`, batched answers, multi-select answers, custom answers, and the model schema including the removal of `value`, `recommended`, `allow_custom`, and `desc`. `dsh-stdio-agent` tests cover option descriptions, queued requests, EOF/abort cleanup, optionless free-form input, invalid option reprompts, duplicate multi-select numbers, and batched question flows. ACP bridge tests drive a real in-memory ACP connection with the real `ask_user_question` tool and verify selected-option, custom-overrides-choice, multi-select, and optionless free-form elicitation paths continue the agent loop.
|
||||
@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@ Two different cwds, kept distinct on purpose. The hooks **themselves** run in th
|
||||
|
||||
- **Tool-input rewrite.** A CC/Codex `updatedInput` is logged + warned, not honored — input rewrite is a deferred consistency-design problem ([the pre-tool-input-rewrite RFC](../../proposed/feature/2026-06-30-pre-tool-input-rewrite.md)), because the pre-execution args are read by `tool/call` audit + `assistant/message` history + ACP/tool-bash presentation, so an honest rewrite is a design unit, not a field.
|
||||
- **Stop loop-guard** (`TODO(stop-loop-guard)`). CC/Codex break an infinite force-continue with `stop_hook_active` (true once a Stop hook fired this run) plus a max-consecutive cap; both are deferred. Today `stop_hook_active` is always `false`, so a Stop hook that unconditionally blocks would force-continue every step — a hook author must self-limit until the guard lands.
|
||||
- **Permission `ask`** degrades to `deny` at the `tools/pre-execute` seam (`FIXME(permissions)` in the interception-seams RFC) — there is no interactive permission prompt yet.
|
||||
- **Permission `ask`** — deferred at landing, since serviced: the [approval seam](2026-07-06-approval-seam.md) resolves `ask` through `ctx.approval` (ACP prompts over `session/request_permission`), degrading to `deny` only where no approval service is composed.
|
||||
- **Hook `continue:false` (hard halt).** A hook can ask to halt the whole run (CC/Codex `continue:false`); the shared merge folds it into `MergedHookOutcome.stop`/`stopReason`, but no bridge acts on it (`TODO(hook-continue-false)`) — the interception seams have no "hard-halt the agent" primitive yet (a Decision blocks/steers a single point, not the run). Deferred with the loop-guard work; the halt request is recorded in the `hook/result` log, and the hook keeps its per-point effect (decision/context) meanwhile.
|
||||
- **Config discovery.** The path is explicit in `cordis.yml` and process-level (see above); the full multi-layer CC/Codex precedence walk, per-session project-local discovery, and the trust/hash model are not reimplemented (`TODO(per-session-hook-config)`).
|
||||
- **Session-start / subagent-start context is best-effort, not gated (`TODO(session-start-gating)`).** `agent/session-start` is a synchronous emit and the bridge runs its hook on a detached `.then`, so the injected `additionalContext` is not guaranteed to land before the first turn reaches the model — a slow hook can miss the first request (the context then arrives as a later injection). `subagent/start` is sharper: an in-process provider may have already queued the child's prompt before the listener runs, and a short-lived child can finish before the detached inject fires. Making startup context a gated/awaited primitive is a loop-level change deferred to the interception seams; today the contract is "injected as soon as the hook resolves", not "before the first request". The bridge tests do NOT wait on the injection where they assert the guaranteed-timing behavior, so they document the real (best-effort) timing rather than masking it.
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ Add/reshape the interception seams so every one returns a small, seam-specifi
|
||||
|
||||
### What this PR does NOT do
|
||||
|
||||
It does **not** declare `hook/*` SessionEvents (the durable hook-invocation log) — those belong to the `dsh-hook-protocol` library, because a native plugin can already use the typed Decisions without a durable hook log. A worked native-plugin example/test in this PR (`packages/core/agent-loop/tests/interception.spec.ts`) proves all the seams compose end-to-end through the REAL loop with NO `hook/*` involved — the concrete proof that "native hooks are just a plugin". Compaction (`PreCompact`/`PostCompact`), the Notification hook, Codex `PermissionRequest`, the permission/`ask` system, and the Stop loop-guard remain deferred (`FIXME(permissions)` marks the `ask`→deny degrade).
|
||||
It does **not** declare `hook/*` SessionEvents (the durable hook-invocation log) — those belong to the `dsh-hook-protocol` library, because a native plugin can already use the typed Decisions without a durable hook log. A worked native-plugin example/test in this PR (`packages/core/agent-loop/tests/interception.spec.ts`) proves all the seams compose end-to-end through the REAL loop with NO `hook/*` involved — the concrete proof that "native hooks are just a plugin". Compaction (`PreCompact`/`PostCompact`), the Notification hook, Codex `PermissionRequest`, and the Stop loop-guard remain deferred; the permission/`ask` system has since landed as the [approval seam](2026-07-06-approval-seam.md), whose `ctx.approval` services the `ask` this PR shipped degraded to deny.
|
||||
|
||||
## Alternatives considered
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
66
docs/rfc/implemented/feature/2026-07-05-dynamic-workflows.md
Normal file
66
docs/rfc/implemented/feature/2026-07-05-dynamic-workflows.md
Normal file
@@ -0,0 +1,66 @@
|
||||
# RFC: Dynamic workflows — a script-driven multi-agent orchestration seam
|
||||
|
||||
Status: implemented
|
||||
|
||||
## Problem
|
||||
|
||||
The harness can delegate ONE task to ONE child (`dsh-tool-subagent`), but work that fans out across many independent pieces — an audit over many files, a migration, multi-angle research, adversarial verification of findings — forces the model to orchestrate turn by turn: every intermediate result lands in the parent context, the plan lives nowhere durable, and coordination costs a model round-trip per step. Claude Code ships this capability as [dynamic workflows](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/workflows): the model writes a JavaScript orchestration script, a runtime executes it, and the script — not the conversation — holds the loop, the branching, and the intermediate results.
|
||||
|
||||
## Decision
|
||||
|
||||
A workflow capability family at `packages/workflow/` in the bash seam shape (interface / implementation / consumer), plus the structured-output foundation it needs on the subagent seam.
|
||||
|
||||
### The script contract (Claude Code-compatible)
|
||||
|
||||
A workflow call is two parts: a `meta` JSON parameter (the identity block — `name`, `description`, optional `whenToUse`/`phases`; the field vocabulary matches Claude Code's meta block) and a `script` — a plain-JS body with top-level `await`, ending in `return <json-value>`. Meta is DATA, never code: the engine shape-validates it and evaluates no script text to obtain it (a body still opening with a CC-style `export const meta` statement is rejected with a pointed message). The body sees exactly: `agent(prompt, {label, phase, schema, model})`, `parallel(thunks)`, `pipeline(items, ...stages)` (NO cross-stage barrier; `(prev, item, index)` callbacks), `phase(title)`, `log(message)`, and `args`. CC semantics are preserved where they matter to script authors: a failed child resolves `null` (scripts `.filter(Boolean)`); an ordinary stage throw nulls the ITEM and skips its remaining stages. CC's determinism bans (`Date.now()`/`Math.random()`/argless `new Date()` throwing) are NOT enforced — they exist for CC's journaling/resume, which this cut defers — so a CC-authored BODY runs unchanged (its meta header moves into the parameter) while scripts written here may freely read the clock.
|
||||
|
||||
One deliberate strictness DIVERGENCE from CC: hook misuse — unknown or deferred options (`effort`/`isolation`/`agentType`), malformed arguments, schemas outside the supported subset, tripped caps, seam start failures — throws a `WorkflowError` with `fatal: true`, and the combinators RE-THROW fatal errors instead of nulling the item. Without this, a typo'd option dissolves into a `null` indistinguishable from a child failure — the accepted-then-ignored failure mode this repo bans. One addition: the tool's `args` parameter is a JSON OBJECT (a bare list is wrapped as a field) so the wire schema stays honest.
|
||||
|
||||
### The seam (dsh-workflow)
|
||||
|
||||
`ctx.workflows` is an abstract `WorkflowService` in the bash shape — one engine per context, no named-provider registry (engines are deployment swaps, not co-residents). `start(request)` throws synchronously for a script that cannot begin; a returned `WorkflowRun`'s `result` NEVER rejects (failures resolve as `stopReason: 'error' | 'cancelled'`). The `workflow/*` events are observe-only emits carrying DATA SNAPSHOTS (id + meta; `workflow/end` omits the result value), per-listener contained, mirroring `subagent/start`/`subagent/end` — control stays with the run's holder. Vocabulary details: [core-data-structures/workflow.md](../../../core-data-structures/workflow.md).
|
||||
|
||||
### The engine (dsh-workflow-workerthread): one worker thread per run
|
||||
|
||||
**Trust premise (governs every engine decision below)**: workflow scripts are MODEL-WRITTEN — the same trust level as the model's existing bash access — so the engine defends against BUGGY scripts, never hostile ones. In scope: `result` never rejects, no unhandled rejections from dropped hook promises, loud rejection of values JSON cannot carry, fatal-vs-null hook discipline, cancellation that always frees the caller. Out of scope, deliberately: adversarial values (throwing/spinning accessors, proxies with hostile traps, prototype forgery, `prepareStackTrace` hijack) AND Node-API escape from the script's context — the vm context shares object machinery with its surrounding realm, so a script can reach the `Function` constructor (`globalThis.constructor.constructor`) and from it `process` and every Node builtin; the absent globals are API surface, not containment, and a worker thread is NOT a security boundary (an escapee holds process-wide privileges — Node's permission model is per-process). Worker-side code MAY run script code while reading script values, and that is accepted: a synchronous spin costs the script its OWN thread (terminated at the post-cancel grace), never the host loop, so containing error VALUES would be cost without a threat model. Genuine sandboxing (isolated-vm, a separate process) remains an engine swap behind the seam, not incremental defenses here.
|
||||
|
||||
**Why node:worker_threads**: one run = one worker thread, no pooling — a run is heavyweight (many children), so thread spin-up (~tens of ms) is noise. The script runs in a vm context INSIDE the worker, keeping the script-visible surface exactly the hook contract above (a bare worker realm would leak `setTimeout`/`fetch`/`process` as accidental API), and every `agent()` bridges to `ctx.subagents` by message-port RPC — children are I/O-bound LLM loops and stay on the host loop; the thread isolates the SCRIPT, the only part that can spin. What the thread buys: `start()` never blocks the host (an in-process engine runs the initial synchronous slice inline and cannot kill a spin past the first await — it could only ABANDON such a script, leaving the spin on the host loop), the post-cancel grace ends in a REAL `worker.terminate()`, and the value boundary is serialization by construction. isolated-vm was rejected for actual sandboxing: maintenance mode, `--no-node-snapshot` on EVERY consumer process (including published bins) on Node ≥ 20, node-gyp source-build fallback. Key mechanics (details in the package README): meta shape-validation and a body pre-parse stay HOST-side (preserving the seam's synchronous throws), a ready→go handshake keeps a run cancelled before start from ever executing the body, `cancel()` drives both child-cancel channels host-side (the shared request signal AND each child's explicit `cancel()` — a wedged worker cannot relay its own cancel RPCs), a host-side child registry backs worker-death reaping and `dispose()` quiescence, the wire protocol is enum-keyed payload maps private to the package, and on a termination path `agentsStarted` degrades to the host-observed count. Coverage puts the worker-side session on an in-process `MessageChannel` (real-Worker code is invisible to main-process v8) and proves the built `lib/worker.js` — a second tsdown entry, sanctioned in the workspace-constraints gate by the `"./worker"` subpath export — under plain node in the built-bin smoke gate.
|
||||
|
||||
**Meta as data, never evaluated**: the meta block reaches the seam as a plain JSON request field (the tool's schema-validated `meta` parameter) and the engine only shape-validates it, every violation named. This is a host-isolation invariant, not a convenience: evaluating a meta literal host-side — even one contractually "pure", in an empty timed vm context — hands script-controlled getters a host stack with no timeout the moment the result is READ, defeating the exact spin isolation the worker thread buys.
|
||||
|
||||
**Value boundary**: values leaving the script (meta, hook options, schemas, the return value) go through `materializeFromRealm` — a plain recursive walk that rejects loud everything JSON cannot carry (exotic prototypes, functions, symbols, cycles, sparse arrays, non-finite numbers, nested `undefined`), copying via `Object.defineProperty` so a `"__proto__"` key becomes a data property, never a prototype mutation; getters are read ordinarily and their RESULT crosses (a throwing read fails loud) — which is also what makes every later postMessage hop total. Values entering the realm (`args`, `agent()` results, hook promises and failures, combinator arrays) are handed over directly as worker-realm values — the script is trusted, so outer prototypes are not a leak; `args` rides the `workerData` structured clone (the caller-isolation copy) and is cloned once more so a script scribbling on it cannot mutate the session's init object. Hook failures are `WorkflowError`s built OUTSIDE the script's context: the combinators recognize fatality by `instanceof` against the engine's own class (unforgeable from the script), and the script-visible consequence — in-script `instanceof Error` is `false` for hook errors; branch on `e.name`/`e.code` — is documented in the engine README. Realm functions (stages, thunks) are called, never materialized. Thrown script values are rendered by a total renderer (stack → message → `String()`, fixed label if rendering throws), so `result` cannot reject. Caps (`maxConcurrentAgents` auto = `min(16, max(1, availableParallelism() - 2))`, `maxTotalAgents` 1000, `maxItemsPerCall` 4096) and timeouts are validated Config, not literals.
|
||||
|
||||
### The consumer (dsh-tool-workflow)
|
||||
|
||||
A `workflow` tool mirroring `dsh-tool-subagent`'s synchronous shape: start, await, `try/finally` dispose, abort-bridge `exec.signal`, non-`completed` → `isError`. Render intent: a `generic` card titled by the call's `meta.name` parameter (presentation is a pure function of args). The tool description IS the model-facing authoring spec. The usage policy ships with the tool as its own `tool:<toolName>` prompt section (explicit-ask-only guidance — tool guidance lives in tool plugins, never in the deployment persona); the harness has no ultracode-style effort gate.
|
||||
|
||||
### The foundation: structured output on the subagent seam
|
||||
|
||||
`agent({schema})` needs `SubagentStartRequest.outputSchema` to actually work; it was vocabulary without an implementation (`outputSchema: false` everywhere). Implemented in `dsh-subagent-inprocess` for both in-process backends: a globally registered `structured_output` capture tool whose per-child schema is enforced by a `prepend: true` `system-prompt/assemble` listener doing FINAL-ASSEMBLY enforcement (post-processing `await next()` — cooperative mutation would not survive a downstream listener returning a replacement assembly; the calling instruction rides as a trailing prompt section, since `AgentOptions` carries no per-agent prompt field, and the loop logs the result as the step's `request/header`, keeping the injection reconstructable), a `prepend: true` `agent/turn-continuation` veto after capture (no wasted extra model step) plus a `tools/pre-execute` deny for calls arriving after the capture (terminal within the step, not only at its end), and validation-retry in-turn via `ToolArgsError`. The schema is `structuredClone`d at `start()` (caller mutation cannot drift enforcement). Deliberately NO re-prompt: a child that finishes cleanly without calling the tool settles `error` to the parent. Lifetime is refcounted by backends (plugin lifetime) AND live runs (start → settle). The seam's `outputSchema` type became the raw JSON-Schema SUBSET (`StructuredOutputSchema` in dsh-tools: single-string `type`, `properties`/`required`/`additionalProperties`, `items`, scalar `enum`/`const`; anything unenforced is rejected loud) — the schema travels verbatim to the model as the forced tool's parameters, so the wire format, not the author DSL, is the right vocabulary.
|
||||
|
||||
## Deferred (documented non-goals of this cut)
|
||||
|
||||
- **Background collection** (start tool → run id → completion notice → collect), designed alongside bash/subagent background unification.
|
||||
- **Journaling + resume** (`resumeFromRunId`, cached agent() prefixes) — implementing it reintroduces CC's determinism bans as a script-contract tightening (scripts may read the clock today).
|
||||
- **Saved/bundled workflows** (a `.deepseek/workflows/` registry, slash-command surface) and **script persistence to a run directory** (the tool-call event already records the script durably).
|
||||
- **Nested `workflow()`**, **token `budget`**, and the `effort`/`isolation`/`agentType` agent options (each rejects loud with a message naming it deferred).
|
||||
- **An overall run wall-clock timeout** — cancellation always frees the caller (result settles within the grace), so a cap on total run time is a policy knob for the background redesign, not a correctness need here.
|
||||
- **Engine hardening beyond worker threads**: an isolated-vm or separate-process engine behind the same seam (actual sandboxing; memory limits).
|
||||
- **ACP progress UI** over the `workflow/*` events (a `/workflows`-style view); the events exist for it.
|
||||
- **ACP-backend structured output** and **`toolFilter`** (both still capability-gated `false`).
|
||||
|
||||
## Alternatives considered
|
||||
|
||||
- **Hostile-value containment in the host** (trap-free proxy rejection, accessor-never-invoked descriptor walks, realm-side pre-rendering of thrown values, realm-built promises/arrays/error clones with structural fatal recognition): an earlier revision built all of it, and review showed the cost was real while the threat model was not — every one of those defenses guards against an author the premise already trusts. Removed in favor of the plain boundary above; the thread boundary makes such machinery redundant anyway (serialization by construction).
|
||||
- **In-process `node:vm` execution** (the first cut of this RFC shipped it): mechanically simplest — no RPC, no thread — but `start()` blocks the caller for the script's initial synchronous slice, a synchronous spin past the first await cannot be killed in-process (the vm `timeout` covers only that first slice), and `dispose()` could only ABANDON an unsettling script, leaving the spin on the host loop. Superseded by the worker-thread engine, which keeps the same vm-context script surface while unblocking the host and making termination real.
|
||||
- **Background execution as the default** (CC's shape): deferred; foreground-synchronous matches `dsh-tool-subagent`'s cut, and background semantics should be designed ONCE across bash/subagent/workflow rather than per-tool.
|
||||
- **Workflow-layer JSON parsing for `agent({schema})`**: duplicating a seam concern at one consumer while the seam's capability flag stayed dishonestly `false`.
|
||||
- **Meta embedded in the script as `export const meta = {...}`** (CC's exact format; the first cut shipped it): keeps scripts self-contained and CC scripts drop-in, but obtaining meta means evaluating model-written text on the HOST — the shipped extractor ran the literal in an empty timed vm context, yet reading the RESULT still executed script-controlled getters on the host stack outside any timeout, re-opening the host-spin hole the worker thread exists to close. A JSON parameter deletes the scanner, the evaluation, and the hole outright; the cost is that a CC script's meta header must move into the parameter (the body stays drop-in).
|
||||
- **`SchemaSpec` as the outputSchema type**: the author-facing DSL cannot express what arrives as data and cannot be validated against without conversion loss.
|
||||
- **A schema-object library (zod, or the repo's schemastery) for the structured-output subset**: the schema is wire data — plain JSON that crosses the vm realm boundary in `agent({schema})` and lands verbatim in the forced tool's parameters — exactly where live schema objects cannot sit; consuming raw JSON Schema at runtime would need a third-party converter on top (zod core only emits JSON Schema, not the reverse), and it would put a second schema language beside schemastery's config role.
|
||||
- **ajv for value validation**: it validates FULL JSON Schema, so the subset gate — the module's actual point, since every accepted keyword must be one the harness enforces — would remain hand-written regardless; it compiles validators through `new Function`; and it would be dsh-tools' first runtime dependency, all to replace the ~70-line value walker while the path-qualified, every-violation error reporting stays custom either way.
|
||||
- **Provider JSON mode (`response_format: {type: json_object}`) instead of the forced capture tool**: the official API guarantees valid JSON, not schema-conforming JSON (no `json_schema` type; the docs' own guidance is to validate client-side, with the schema riding in the prompt), so both walkers survive untouched and only the capture-tool mechanics could go — at the cost of tools during a structured child's run (whether `response_format` composes with tool calling is undocumented), the in-turn validation retry (`ToolArgsError` keeps recovery inside the turn; a JSON-mode empty body — a documented failure mode — ends the turn, and the only recovery is the re-prompt loop this design rejects), and a new per-adapter `LlmCallConfig` surface. The accepted upgrade path is strict TOOL schemas (provider-side constrained decoding on tool parameters) when available: the same forced tool and subset gate, with the gate narrowed to the provider's strict subset.
|
||||
|
||||
## Consequences
|
||||
|
||||
The harness gains CC-compatible script orchestration: fan-out plans live in a rerunnable artifact instead of the parent context, and the structured-output half of the subagent seam is now real (the vocabulary stopped lying about `outputSchema`). What it cost, all bounded by the trust premise: a worker thread per run (~tens-of-ms spin-up), every hook crossing a message port as RPC, and a termination-path `agentsStarted` that degrades to the host-observed count; in exchange `start()` never blocks the host, a post-cancel grace ends in a real `worker.terminate()`, and the value boundary is serialization by construction. A worker thread is still NOT a security boundary — scripts share the model's trust level, and actual sandboxing names its exit (the isolated-vm/separate-process engine swap behind the seam). The fatal-vs-null strictness divergence from CC means a CC-authored script that RELIES on option typos dissolving to `null` behaves differently here — judged worth it to keep the repo's no-accepted-then-ignored rule. Consumers must hold the run handle for control (`cancel`/`dispose`); observers get data snapshots only, so no listener can extend a run's lifetime or corrupt another's view.
|
||||
53
docs/rfc/implemented/feature/2026-07-05-skill-system.md
Normal file
53
docs/rfc/implemented/feature/2026-07-05-skill-system.md
Normal file
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
|
||||
# RFC: Skill system — progressive disclosure instructions for agents
|
||||
|
||||
Status: implemented
|
||||
|
||||
## Problem
|
||||
|
||||
Agent products have converged on a skill pattern: keep the request prompt small by listing only available instruction bundles, then load the full body when the model decides a task matches. Codex, Claude Code, OpenCode, and Kimi Code differ in details, but all separate discovery metadata from complete instructions so a workspace can carry reusable behavior without paying the full prompt cost on every turn.
|
||||
|
||||
DeepSeek Harness uses the same primitive so project-specific review, plugin-authoring, and tool-usage guidance lives next to the workspace or the user's agent configuration instead of being hard-coded into the loop.
|
||||
|
||||
## Decision
|
||||
|
||||
`@deepseek-ai/dsh-skill` is the pure provider registry (`ctx.skills`), `@deepseek-ai/dsh-skill-local` is the shipped local filesystem provider, and `@deepseek-ai/dsh-tool-skill` owns the session-prefix catalog and model-facing loader tool. `dsh-agent-core` loads the registry, local provider, and consumer by default so stdio and ACP apps get the same behavior while embedded or remote providers contribute skills without changing the registry or consumer. Its `skills` config forwards `registry`, `local`, and `tool` branches to those owners.
|
||||
|
||||
Provider plugins register synchronously during `apply()`. Provider catalogs return ranked candidates from awaited `list()` calls, where remote providers perform initialization, authentication, and discovery while honoring the lookup abort signal. The registry validates each candidate, resolves same-name skills first-wins by rank, provider registration order, and provider-local order, then sorts summaries by skill name for deterministic consumers. It caches only completed catalog snapshots and retries when a provider/runtime revision changes during discovery, so an unload cannot freeze a stale, unresolvable skill into a session prefix. Runtime `ctx.skills.register(...)` remains a convenience for embedded in-process skills and uses project-over-user priority; `runtime` is reserved as the registry-owned provider name.
|
||||
|
||||
The local provider scans cwd-sensitive project roots, custom roots, and user roots in first-wins rank order: project `.dsh`, project `.agents`, `customSkillDirs`, user `.dsh`, then user `.agents`. The user `.dsh/skills` scan skips `.system` so a system-owned directory is not treated as normal user content. DeepSeek Harness does not ship built-in system skills; embedded or remote providers supply additional skills when configured.
|
||||
|
||||
Each skill is either `<name>/SKILL.md` or `<name>.md` with YAML frontmatter. `name` and `description` are required; `whenToUse`, `disableModelInvocation`, and `metadata` are optional. Names are kebab-case. YAML frontmatter is parsed with the `yaml` package instead of `js-yaml` or a hand-written parser: `yaml` is the already-declared modern parser for this package's limited frontmatter needs, and a narrow parser would either reject valid YAML users expect to work or grow into an unreviewed YAML subset.
|
||||
|
||||
Local skill filesystem I/O goes through `ctx.fs` when a filesystem service is loaded: project-root lookup probes `.git` with `resolve` and `stat`, root discovery uses `listDir`, and skill reads use `readText`. The Node filesystem remains a fallback for minimal contexts that mount `dsh-skill-local` without the fs seam. Missing roots, unreadable or malformed skill files, and transient provider `list()` failures degrade to warn-and-skip so one bad source does not make every agent request fail; malformed candidates still fail fast because they are provider contract violations.
|
||||
|
||||
`dsh-tool-skill` contributes one user-role `<system-reminder>` catalog through [`agent/session-prefix`](2026-07-07-session-prefix.md). The catalog contains sorted skill name and description only; it excludes bodies, paths, sources, providers, and routing hints. Descriptions are whitespace-normalized, XML-escaped, and capped by `catalogDescriptionMaxLength`, whose default is `500` and minimum is `3`. The session-prefix seam freezes the request-only catalog per loop instance and records it in the request header, preserving reconstructability without adding it to durable history. Full skill bodies are never included in the catalog.
|
||||
|
||||
The `skill({ name })` tool loads one full skill for the current agent cwd and returns a tool result containing `<skill_content name="...">`, `<skill_resources>`, and `<skill_instructions>`. `resourceBase` supplies a directory, URL, or opaque provider-managed base for explicitly referenced scripts, references, and assets; resources load only as needed, without directory enumeration. An unresolved name reports that the skill is unknown or no longer available; invalid names and skills marked `disableModelInvocation` retain distinct tool errors. The tool result is the model-visible disclosure path.
|
||||
|
||||
The data structures and catalog/tool contract are documented in [skills.md](../../../core-data-structures/skills.md), with service signatures in the generated [services catalog](../../../cordis-catalog/services.md).
|
||||
|
||||
## Alternatives considered
|
||||
|
||||
**Inject full skill bodies into every system prompt.** Rejected because it destroys progressive disclosure and makes every request pay for instructions that may not apply.
|
||||
|
||||
**Expose skills only as slash commands.** Rejected because model-initiated loading is the core capability; slash/ACP command advertisement does not change discovery.
|
||||
|
||||
**Put local filesystem scanning directly inside `ctx.skills`.** Rejected because coding agents, web agents, and future plugin ecosystems need different skill sources. A provider registry mirrors the subagent seam: the registry owns conflict resolution and consumers, while implementations own loading.
|
||||
|
||||
**Use a system-prompt section.** Rejected because the rendered system prompt is a single string, while the catalog is a user-role `<system-reminder>` message with request-only lifecycle requirements. [`agent/session-prefix`](2026-07-07-session-prefix.md) is the selected mechanism: it places the catalog ahead of derived history and records the composed message in the request header.
|
||||
|
||||
**Materialize built-in DSH authoring skills under `~/.dsh/skills/.system`.** Rejected because bundled skills do not write user home on startup, and embedded or remote providers supply configured skills.
|
||||
|
||||
**Recursively discover nested `**/SKILL.md`.** Rejected. Flat files and one-level directory bundles cover the configured roots while keeping duplicate handling and catalog order easy to reason about.
|
||||
|
||||
**Hand-parse frontmatter.** Rejected because the accepted schema includes an open `metadata` object. A narrow parser would either reject valid YAML users expect to work or grow into an unreviewed YAML subset.
|
||||
|
||||
## Consequences
|
||||
|
||||
The agent-core spine includes one session-prefix contributor, one local provider, and one model-facing tool. Skill discovery is cwd-sensitive, so callers that create agents with different session cwd values can observe different project skill overrides by design.
|
||||
|
||||
The catalog is deterministic for a fixed root set and runtime registration revision, but disk changes are not watched; discovery is memoized until runtime registration invalidates the cache or the process restarts.
|
||||
|
||||
## Deferred
|
||||
|
||||
Forked skill contexts (`context: fork`), direct user/slash invocation (`user-invocable`), parameter declarations and hints (`arguments` and `argument-hint`), and per-skill tool constraints (`allowed-tools` and `disallowed-tools`) are outside the shipped contract. The registry, local provider, and model-facing tool do not parse, advertise, or enforce these fields.
|
||||
141
docs/rfc/implemented/feature/2026-07-06-approval-seam.md
Normal file
141
docs/rfc/implemented/feature/2026-07-06-approval-seam.md
Normal file
@@ -0,0 +1,141 @@
|
||||
# RFC: The approval seam — one-shot permission decisions over a waterfall of answerers
|
||||
|
||||
Status: implemented
|
||||
|
||||
## Problem
|
||||
|
||||
Two callers need to put one question — "may this specific action proceed?" — to a human, and neither has a channel. `tools/pre-execute`'s `ask` decision (produced today by the Claude-Code hook bridge's `permissionDecision: ask`) degrades to deny because nothing services it. The [sandbox RFC](2026-07-06-sandbox.md)'s escalation phase needs the same channel for its post-denial one-shot retry. Without a shared seam, each would invent its own outcome vocabulary, UI routing, cancellation, and audit trail — and a deployment with no UI at all needs a guarantee that an unanswerable question can never grant anything.
|
||||
|
||||
The routing problem is ownership: an approval prompt must reach the editor session that owns the asking agent (the ACP bridge multiplexes N sessions over one connection), fail closed for agents nobody owns (in-process subagents, tests), and stay out of deployments that compose no UI (headless, CI).
|
||||
|
||||
## Decision
|
||||
|
||||
One package, `dsh-user-approval` (`packages/ui/user-approval`), owning the vocabulary and the `ctx.approval` service — the MECHANISM. The POLICY — who answers, and whether a session is asked at all — lives outside it: answerers are `approval/request` waterfall listeners registered by the plugins that own the channel (the ACP bridge; future terminal UIs; test scripts), and a per-session policy tier can decide before any human is involved. Consumers (`dsh-tools`' ask routing, the sandbox escalation gate) resolve a question to a closed outcome and derive their own tool results from it. Deliberately ONE package, not the capability-seam three (see Alternatives).
|
||||
|
||||
### How a deployment uses it
|
||||
|
||||
One `cordis.yml` entry mounts the seam; not loading it is the opt-out — consumers degrade to their historical fail-closed behavior with zero approval code registered:
|
||||
|
||||
```yaml
|
||||
- id: approval
|
||||
name: '@deepseek-ai/dsh-user-approval'
|
||||
# config:
|
||||
# policy: never # deployment default for sessions without an override; 'ask' when omitted
|
||||
```
|
||||
|
||||
The entry alone provides mechanism, not a channel: with no answerer composed, every ask resolves `unavailable` and the asking tool call denies — fail-closed needs no configuration. Composing the ACP app (`@deepseek-ai/dsh-acp-agent`, as in [the sandbox example](../../../../examples/sandbox-acp-agent/README.md)) completes the loop: its bridge registers an answerer that prompts the owning editor session via `session/request_permission`, so a hook's `ask` or an escalation request surfaces as a one-shot Allow/Reject prompt attached to the already-streamed tool call. `policy: never` is the unattended stance — every ask auto-rejects deterministically, stated in the system prompt, no human in the loop. `policy` is validated against the closed list at plugin load; anything else throws.
|
||||
|
||||
What a composed deployment observes: `allowed-once` lets exactly that call proceed; rejection, dismissal, and channel absence deny with three distinct reasons the model can tell apart; every ask lands a durable `approval/asked`/`approval/decided` pair on the asking agent's session log; nothing about a grant persists past the call that asked.
|
||||
|
||||
One ask under this composition, verbatim from the sandbox example's recorded `escalation-approved` scenario — the model requests a sandbox escalation, the gate asks, the bridge prompts the owning editor, the user clicks Allow once:
|
||||
|
||||
```
|
||||
tool/call bash {"command": "printf 'escalated\n' > escalated.txt && cat escalated.txt",
|
||||
"sandbox_permissions": "workspace-write",
|
||||
"justification": "the user asked to write escalated.txt in the workspace"}
|
||||
approval/asked {"toolName": "bash", "callId": "call_00_…",
|
||||
"reason": "escalate sandbox to workspace-write: the user asked to write escalated.txt in the workspace"}
|
||||
→ session/request_permission {"toolCall": {"toolCallId": "call_00_…"},
|
||||
"options": [{"optionId": "allow-once", "name": "Allow once", "kind": "allow_once"},
|
||||
{"optionId": "reject-once", "name": "Reject", "kind": "reject_once"}]}
|
||||
← the user picks "Allow once" on the prompt the editor attaches to the streamed bash call
|
||||
approval/decided {"outcome": "allowed-once"}
|
||||
tool/result "escalated" — this one call ran under the wider mode; the grant died with it
|
||||
```
|
||||
|
||||
The `escalation-rejected` twin ends in `{"outcome": "rejected"}` instead: nothing executes, and the model's result carries the asker's verbatim fail-closed text (`the user rejected escalating this command to "workspace-write"`). A hook's `permissionDecision: ask` rides the identical wire; only the asker and its deny texts differ (§ Ask routing in dsh-tools). Headless, the same request skips the prompt entirely and settles `unavailable`.
|
||||
|
||||
### Design detail
|
||||
|
||||
#### The seam: mechanism and policy split
|
||||
|
||||
`ApprovalService.request(req)` always resolves to a closed `ApprovalOutcome` — `allowed-once` / `rejected` / `cancelled` / `unavailable` — and never rejects. The service is the mechanism: it dispatches the `approval/request` waterfall, races the request's `AbortSignal` (abort settles `cancelled`; a late answer is discarded, never double-audited), contains a throwing answerer as `unavailable`, normalizes a rogue non-vocabulary return to `unavailable`, and lands the log-only audit pair `approval/asked`/`approval/decided` (paired by the branded `ApprovalRequestId`) on the requesting agent's session log. Grants are one-shot by definition: `allowed-once` authorizes the single asked-about action, never a class of future ones, and the service stores nothing between requests. The one precondition: `request()` throws (before appending anything) when the agent's session has no open turn — the audit pair must be turn-enclosed, the turn being the durable log's commit/replay boundary (a bare event between turns is dropped as crash tail on reload); every shipped ask path runs mid-turn already, and idle asks are a deferred design.
|
||||
|
||||
Answerers are the policy, and they are `approval/request` waterfall listeners. The waterfall buys exactly what the seam needs: with zero listeners the dispatch falls through to the caller-supplied default — `unavailable`, so fail-closed needs no configuration and no code in any deployment; a listener that recognizes the request's agent answers by returning an outcome without calling `next()` (the decision slot is single-occupancy, first answer wins — the same documented semantics as the `fs/write-intent` gate); a listener that does not recognize the agent MUST delegate via `next()` so another answerer or the default gets the question; and listeners dispose with their owning fiber, so an unloaded UI plugin degrades the next ask to `unavailable` instead of leaving a dangling channel. Registration order across sibling plugins is not load-order deterministic (the loader starts siblings concurrently), so a deployment composes ONE terminal answerer and reserves `prepend` listeners for decide-or-delegate gates.
|
||||
|
||||
`ApprovalRequest` carries the asking `agent` (routes the question; receives the audit events), the `toolName`, the optional exact `callId`, the asker's human-readable `reason`, and the optional `signal`. The vocabulary is deliberately self-contained — it names the tool-call by the `CallId` brand from `dsh-llm` and never imports `dsh-tools` — because `dsh-tools` depends on `dsh-user-approval` (the ask routing) and a `ToolCallView` import would close a package cycle. It deliberately does NOT carry tool arguments: a UI answerer attaches the prompt to the already-streamed tool call via `callId` instead of re-rendering the call.
|
||||
|
||||
#### Ask routing in dsh-tools
|
||||
|
||||
`ToolRegistry.execute()` resolves an `ask` decision through the seam before the shared deny path: `allowed-once` proceeds to dispatch, and the three non-grants deny with distinct reasons — "the user rejected…", "…was cancelled", "…no approval channel is available" — so the model can tell a human "no" from an absent channel. The seam is consumed opportunistically (`ctx.get('approval')`, the `tool-bash`/`agent-loop` pattern), not statically injected: a deployment that composes no ApprovalService keeps the historical ask→deny degrade verbatim, an unmount mid-session degrades the same way on the next ask, and the registry's fiber never gates on the seam's presence. An agent-less execution also degrades — without an agent there is no session to audit to and no UI to route to.
|
||||
|
||||
#### The per-session policy tier
|
||||
|
||||
The seam also owns the session-scoped approval policy — the approval knob of the two-knob per-session switching design ([the sandbox RFC](2026-07-06-sandbox.md) § Per-session modes is the pattern's home: one log-only event per knob, a pure fold, THE write path, ACP config-option advertisement, and turn-anchoring). `ApprovalPolicy` is `'ask' | 'never'`, and `effectiveApprovalPolicy(events) ?? Config.policy` (default `'ask'`) decides every request BEFORE any interactive answerer: the service resolves a `'never'` session to `'rejected'` INSIDE `request()`, before dispatching the waterfall at all — no listener registration, including a later `prepend`, can sit ahead of it — while `'ask'` dispatches unchanged (fail-closed `'unavailable'` with nobody composed, exactly the prior behavior). Visibility follows the switching design's two layers with one asymmetry: the prompt section states ONLY `'never'` (deterministic, availability-independent — "you will be prompted" would overclaim in a composition with no answerer, and absence under a logged header is exactly how the narrator reads `'ask'` back), the narrator injects at most one coalesced notice per switch, and the audit pair still lands on every ask, including the policy's auto-rejections.
|
||||
|
||||
#### The ACP answerer
|
||||
|
||||
The bridge registers the first real answerer: it resolves the owning session through its existing `WeakMap<Agent, sessionId>` reverse map, issues `session/request_permission` with the request's `callId` as the `toolCall` reference and the one-shot options `allow_once`/`reject_once`, and maps the response — selected `allow-once` → `allowed-once`, any other selection → `rejected` (an unknown optionId from a non-conforming client never grants), client `cancelled` → `cancelled`. A request for a foreign agent — or one without a `callId`, since the protocol prompt must attach to a tool call — delegates via `next()`. A rejected RPC (client gone mid-prompt) propagates to the service, which contains it as `unavailable`. Whether a call ASKS at all is policy — a hook or `tools/pre-execute` plugin returning `ask` — never the bridge's own judgment.
|
||||
|
||||
The reverse-map ownership seam [the ACP support RFC](../../implemented/feature/2026-06-14-acp-agent-client-protocol.md) laid down is exactly what the answerer routes through, and per-session permission ownership (the blocker recorded in [the multi-session RFC](../../implemented/feature/2026-06-14-acp-multi-session.md)) is what it implements.
|
||||
|
||||
#### Audit, and what the model sees
|
||||
|
||||
`approval/asked` / `approval/decided` are log-only session events (the `hook/invoked`/`hook/result` precedent): durable, replayable, never in the model transcript. The model's entire view of an approval is the tool result the asker derives from the outcome — reconstructability holds because that result is an ordinary logged `tool/result`. One `decided` per `asked`, whatever the outcome, including an already-aborted signal (settled `cancelled` without dispatching) and a contained answerer failure.
|
||||
|
||||
#### Entities and dependencies
|
||||
|
||||
One package, no cycles: `dsh-user-approval` peers on `cordis`, `dsh-session` (event-map merge + append), `dsh-agent` (the `Agent` type), `dsh-llm` (`CallId`, via `dsh-brand`). `dsh-tools` and `dsh-acp` each peer on it; the escalation phase's asker lives in `dsh-tool-bash` (see [the sandbox RFC](2026-07-06-sandbox.md) § Escalation), so the sandbox family keeps its ZERO-edge relation (the executor contributes the per-call override mechanism, and transport seams never ask humans questions). The seam is one package, not the capability-seam three: the service body (dispatch + audit) has no replaceable implementation — the replaceable part is the answerer listeners, and those live with their owners (the bridge; future terminal UIs; test scripts). `@cordisjs/plugin-capability` stays orthogonal (a static grant registry answers "is this already authorized", not "ask the user now"), and `subagent-acp`'s child-side `permission` auto-answer is untouched — routing a child's approvals to the parent session is deferred (§ Deferred).
|
||||
|
||||
### Testing
|
||||
|
||||
Unit tier: the service's outcome branches (fail-closed default, first-wins slot, delegation, containment, rogue-value normalization, abort-before and abort-during with late-answer discard, fresh ids, fiber-disposal degradation) and the policy tier (both values × dispatch/decide, a `'never'` decision unbypassable even by an answerer prepended AFTER the service, audit pair intact) in `dsh-user-approval`; the ask routing matrix (grant dispatches; three non-grant reasons pinned verbatim; unmounted and agent-less degrades; the registry's own exhaustiveness backstop against a non-conforming stand-in) in `dsh-tools`; the answerer (wire shape of the prompt, outcome mapping, unknown-option conservatism, foreign-agent and call-less delegation) driven through a real bridge + scripted client in `dsh-acp`.
|
||||
|
||||
Snapshot tier: the harness accepts scripted permission answers (`permissionAnswers` in a scenario's `input.json`, consumed FIFO; an unscripted prompt answers `cancelled`, fail closed). The seam's wire is recorded end to end in the sandbox example's suite: both escalation branches drive `session/request_permission` through this seam over scripted answers (grant and rejection), and the recorded `mode-switching` scenario pins the `'never'` prompt sentence and the policy-switch notice ([the sandbox RFC](2026-07-06-sandbox.md) § Testing).
|
||||
|
||||
## Deferred
|
||||
|
||||
- **`allow_always` grant storage** — honoring a persistent grant means designing storage, scope identity (call? path? prefix? session? time window?), and revocation; until designed, only the one-shot options are advertised ([the sandbox RFC](2026-07-06-sandbox.md) § Escalation records the open scope question).
|
||||
- **A recorded hook-driven `ask` scenario** — the wire is recorded via the sandbox example's escalation branches; the hook-producer variant stays on the unit tier and the hook matrix's `hook-cc-pretool-ask`, with its deny texts pinned verbatim there.
|
||||
- **Routing a child agent's approvals to the parent session** — `subagent-acp`'s child today auto-answers its own `permission` requests; surfacing them to the parent's editor is its own design.
|
||||
|
||||
## Alternatives considered
|
||||
|
||||
- **A single registered provider instead of waterfall listeners** — rejected: a `registerProvider()` surface forces every composition question — allowlist pre-filters, external hook deciders, scripted test answers, a policy gate in front of a human — inside one provider implementation. The waterfall gets composition, fail-closed absence, and HMR disposal from machinery the runtime already has; the seam's JSDoc pins the single-decision-slot convention instead of inventing a provider registry.
|
||||
- **[The ACP support RFC](../../implemented/feature/2026-06-14-acp-agent-client-protocol.md)'s inline `tools/pre-execute` permission gate** — rejected, and superseded by this seam: prompting for every bridge-owned call hardwires the asking POLICY into the UI plugin, cannot serve a second asker (sandbox escalation happens after execution starts, with no pre-execute moment), and leaves hooks' `ask` — the vocabulary the interception seams already ship — unserviced.
|
||||
- **A generic user-interaction seam (`ctx.userInteraction`) instead** — rejected: the two share a skeleton (route by agent, block for a human, handle absence), but approval's contract is narrower in every dimension that matters: a closed outcome vocabulary instead of free text, a protocol-native prompt attached to a tool call instead of a generic form, mandatory fail-closed absence, and audit events. The generic seam has since shipped (`packages/ui/user-interaction`, the `ask_user_question` tool over ACP elicitation) and approval deliberately still does not ride it — an elicitation form is not a permission prompt, and a free-text answer is not a closed outcome; sharing provider plumbing stays open if the two ever converge.
|
||||
- **Static optional injection in `dsh-tools`** — rejected: the vendored cordis `Inject` type has no optional flag — the object form maps service names to intercept config, and a declared inject gates the fiber. `ctx.get('approval')` is the documented opportunistic-consumption pattern (the `tool-bash` owner-token lookup, the loop's persistence probe), reads presence per call, and degrades correctly across HMR without extra machinery.
|
||||
- **The capability-seam three-package split** — rejected: interface/implementation/consumer fits a seam whose implementation is swappable (bash-local vs bash-sandbox). Here the service body is fixed mechanism and the variable part is listeners that live with their owners — splitting would manufacture an implementation package with nothing in it ("don't split preemptively").
|
||||
- **Offering `allow_always` now** — rejected: the protocol can express it, but honoring it means designing grant storage, scope identity, and revocation (§ Deferred). Advertising an option the harness cannot honor manufactures doomed grants.
|
||||
|
||||
## Consequences
|
||||
|
||||
What shipped pins — the suites in Testing hold each:
|
||||
|
||||
- With an ApprovalService and an answerer composed, a hook's `ask` reaches a human and `allowed-once` dispatches the tool; every other outcome denies with its distinct reason.
|
||||
- A `'never'` session auto-rejects every ask without prompting anyone, states the policy in its prompt, and narrates switches (the shared switching mechanics are pinned in [the sandbox RFC](2026-07-06-sandbox.md)).
|
||||
- Every unanswerable path fails closed to `unavailable`: no service (degrade, verbatim historical text), no listener, a foreign or agent-less request, a throwing answerer, a rogue return value, a dead client connection.
|
||||
- Every `request()` lands exactly one `approval/asked`/`approval/decided` pair on the asking agent's log, replayable, invisible to the model transcript.
|
||||
- Prompts route per-session through the bridge's ownership map; one session's prompt can never reach another session's editor.
|
||||
- A deployment that composes nothing new behaves byte-identically (the snapshot suite's goldens are unchanged).
|
||||
|
||||
Costs and accepted limits:
|
||||
|
||||
- **Two decide-eager answerers race for the slot.** Sibling-plugin listener order is not deterministic, so the seam cannot referee competing terminal answerers — mitigated by convention (one terminal answerer per deployment; `prepend` only for decide-or-delegate gates) rather than a priority mechanism the event bus does not have.
|
||||
- **Production exercise rests on one composition.** `ask` has two producer families — the hook bridges through `tools/pre-execute`, and sandbox escalation through its own gate — with the wire recorded in the sandbox example's snapshot suite, so the seam's real-world coverage is that one composition until more deployments compose it.
|
||||
- **Ownership keys on `Agent` object identity.** The answerer resolves sessions through the bridge's existing WeakMap; every current path hands the same object through the loop and the seams, but a future boundary that clones or proxies agents would make the bridge delegate and fail closed — safe, but silently UI-less — and would need session-id matching instead.
|
||||
|
||||
## FAQ
|
||||
|
||||
Behavioral and usage questions only — every "why not X?" design question lives in [Alternatives considered](#alternatives-considered), whose job is exactly that.
|
||||
|
||||
- **What happens in a deployment with no answerer at all (headless, CI)?** Every ask falls through the empty waterfall to `unavailable` and the tool call denies with the "no approval channel is available" reason. Fail-closed is the zero-listener default, not a configuration.
|
||||
- **Can a grant persist — "always allow this"?** No. `allowed-once` authorizes the single asked-about action and the service stores nothing between requests; `allow_always` is deliberately not advertised until grant storage is designed (§ Deferred).
|
||||
- **What does the model see of an approval?** Only the tool result the asker derives from the outcome — the audit pair never enters the transcript. The three non-grant reasons are distinct, so the model can tell a human "no" from a dismissed prompt from a missing channel.
|
||||
- **Who decides whether a call asks in the first place?** Policy producers: a hook returning `permissionDecision: ask`, any `tools/pre-execute` listener, or the sandbox escalation gate. The seam and the bridge only route and answer; neither injects its own judgment about what deserves a prompt.
|
||||
- **What happens when the user dismisses the prompt, or the turn aborts mid-ask?** Dismissal maps to `cancelled` with its own deny text. An already-aborted signal settles `cancelled` without dispatching; an abort during the ask discards the late answer — one audit pair either way, never two.
|
||||
- **What if the client answers with an option the harness never offered?** Any selection other than the offered `allow_once` maps to `rejected` — an unknown optionId from a non-conforming client can never grant.
|
||||
- **How do subagents' approvals route?** An agent no answerer owns delegates through the whole waterfall and fails closed — in-process subagents are unanswerable today by design. `subagent-acp`'s child-side auto-answer is untouched; routing a child's asks to the parent's editor is deferred (§ Deferred).
|
||||
- **What does `policy: 'never'` actually change at runtime?** The service resolves every ask for that session to `rejected` before dispatching any answerer (in-service, so no registration order can bypass it); the system prompt states the policy; switches are narrated at boundaries; the audit pair still lands for every auto-rejection.
|
||||
- **What happens across a hot reload, or when the UI plugin unloads mid-session?** Answerers dispose with their owning fiber, so the next ask degrades to `unavailable` instead of hanging on a dead channel; remounting re-registers the answerer with no catch-up state.
|
||||
- **Where does the user see what they are approving?** On the tool call itself: the prompt attaches to the already-streamed call via `callId` — arguments included — and adds the asker's human-readable `reason`; the request carries no argument copy of its own.
|
||||
|
||||
## Prior art
|
||||
|
||||
In-repo precedents this design copies or contrasts with:
|
||||
|
||||
- The `fs/write-intent` gate (`packages/fs/fs/`) — the documented single-occupancy decision-slot waterfall semantics (first answer wins, delegate via `next()`) the answerer contract reuses.
|
||||
- `hook/invoked`/`hook/result` — the log-only audit-pair precedent `approval/asked`/`approval/decided` follows; [the hook-bridges RFC](2026-06-30-hook-bridges.md) ships `permissionDecision: ask`, the first producer.
|
||||
- [The interception-seams RFC](2026-06-30-interception-seams.md) — the `tools/pre-execute` `allow`/`deny`/`ask` vocabulary whose `ask` this seam services.
|
||||
- [The ACP support RFC](../../implemented/feature/2026-06-14-acp-agent-client-protocol.md) — the `WeakMap<Agent, sessionId>` ownership seam the answerer routes through; [the multi-session RFC](../../implemented/feature/2026-06-14-acp-multi-session.md) — the per-session permission-ownership blocker this implements.
|
||||
- The opportunistic `ctx.get()` consumption pattern (`tool-bash`'s owner-token lookup, the loop's persistence probe) — how `dsh-tools` consumes the seam without gating its fiber on it.
|
||||
225
docs/rfc/implemented/feature/2026-07-06-sandbox.md
Normal file
225
docs/rfc/implemented/feature/2026-07-06-sandbox.md
Normal file
@@ -0,0 +1,225 @@
|
||||
# RFC: The subprocess sandbox — confinement seam, native runners, escalation, and per-session modes
|
||||
|
||||
Status: implemented
|
||||
|
||||
## Problem
|
||||
|
||||
A coding agent needs this product path: bash subprocesses — and the hook commands that ride them — execute under a restricted file sandbox by default; if and only if the sandbox actually denies an operation, the model may request one user approval for that same operation and, once granted, retry it once with wider permissions. An every-tool boundary is deliberately NOT the claim: fs/web/todo execute in-process where an `execve` wrapper is meaningless (§ In-process tools), and the cross-family boundary is staged follow-up work (§ Deferred phases). Without a shared vocabulary, every tool reinvents approval fields, denial parsing, retry matching, and permission-state hints.
|
||||
|
||||
The harness is an SDK, so confinement must be a capability developers COMPOSE: whether to sandbox, and which backend per platform, belongs in the leaf `cordis.yml` as a first-class entry — not inside one executor's private machinery. And the first-choice runner, `bwrap`, is unusable on exactly the hosts a sandbox matters most (minimal containers, disabled unprivileged userns, LSMs that deny `mount`), so a fallback runner has to ship with the SDK rather than be assumed on the host.
|
||||
|
||||
Confinement alone leaves two gaps. A denial with no escalation path is terminal — the model can only give up, which pressure-cooks operators into configuring `workspace-write` or `danger-full-access` globally and defeats the sandbox. And the model-visible knobs (the sandbox mode, the approval policy) change over an agent's lifetime — an ACP user flips a per-session setting, an operator edits `cordis.yml` while the process is down — while the model must never act on a stale belief about them: what IS the state on every request, what changed while the agent lives, and what changed while nobody was watching all need answers.
|
||||
|
||||
## Decision
|
||||
|
||||
One seam, one per-platform chain of local backends, one consumer, and two levers on top: a per-call escalation path and per-session runtime modes. Everything below composes from the leaf `cordis.yml`; nothing touches `agent-loop`. The scope is deliberately bounded: the phases this RFC names but does not design — per-session workspace root, cross-family fs enforcement, the `subagent-acp` consumer, more environments, a Windows chain — are listed under § Deferred phases, each a follow-up design, not a config knob.
|
||||
|
||||
### How a deployment uses it
|
||||
|
||||
Three `cordis.yml` entries turn an unconfined coding agent into the sandboxed product path; [`examples/sandbox-acp-agent`](../../../../examples/sandbox-acp-agent/README.md) is this composition, live:
|
||||
|
||||
```yaml
|
||||
- id: sandbox
|
||||
name: '@deepseek-ai/dsh-sandbox-local' # the per-platform runner provider (ctx.sandbox)
|
||||
- id: bash
|
||||
name: '@deepseek-ai/dsh-bash-sandbox' # the confined executor, replacing dsh-bash-local behind ctx.bash
|
||||
config:
|
||||
mode: read-only # the deployment default every session starts from
|
||||
workspaceRoot: !!js process.cwd() # the boundary workspace-write may write under
|
||||
- id: approval
|
||||
name: '@deepseek-ai/dsh-user-approval' # the escalation gate's channel (the approval RFC)
|
||||
```
|
||||
|
||||
The swap is invisible to every consumer of `ctx.bash`: the bash tools, hook commands, and background tasks run exactly as before, spawned through the wrapped argv the provider returns. Deleting the `sandbox` and `bash` entries and loading `@deepseek-ai/dsh-bash-local` instead is the opt-out — execution is unconfined again and the escalation fields vanish from the tool schema, because they are capability-gated on the mounted executor, not on configuration. Omitting only `approval` keeps confinement but fails every escalation closed with its own error text.
|
||||
|
||||
Misconfiguration fails loud: `mode` outside the closed vocabulary is rejected at plugin load, and a host with no usable backend throws the structured `SANDBOX_UNAVAILABLE` — at `confine()` before the command ever spawns — rather than degrading to unconfined execution. `runnerCommand` on `dsh-sandbox-local` is the operator's explicit assertion of a bwrap-compatible runner (chain and probes skipped); it doubles as the deterministic fake-runner seam for keyless tests.
|
||||
|
||||
What the model then experiences: denied file effects come back as result facts with a `[sandbox: file access denied under <mode> mode]` marker plus standing instructions not to retry around them; under a confining executor the schema offers `sandbox_permissions` + `justification` for the one-approval escalated retry (validated strictly wider than the session's effective mode at execution); the system prompt deliberately does NOT state the sandbox mode — the model learns the boundary from the marker (which names the mode) when it hits it, instead of preemptively refusing work a standing declaration discourages. What an ACP editor experiences: a `sandbox-mode` and an `approval-policy` config-option select per session (each advertised only when its knob is composable), switchable at runtime; a sandbox switch simply changes what subsequent commands may do, while an approval-policy switch to `'never'` is stated in the prompt and narrated.
|
||||
|
||||
The product path, concretely (the escalation arc is verbatim from the recorded `escalation-approved` scenario; the denial leg is pinned on the real-kernel e2e tier):
|
||||
|
||||
```
|
||||
tool/result … [sandbox: file access denied under read-only mode] ← the write RAN; the kernel refused it
|
||||
tool/call bash {"command": "printf 'escalated\n' > escalated.txt && cat escalated.txt",
|
||||
"sandbox_permissions": "workspace-write",
|
||||
"justification": "the user asked to write escalated.txt in the workspace"}
|
||||
→ the editor is prompted on this very call (session/request_permission through the approval seam); Allow once
|
||||
tool/result "escalated" — THIS call ran under workspace-write and its result facts say so; the session stays read-only
|
||||
```
|
||||
|
||||
Reject instead and nothing executes: the result is the verbatim `the user rejected escalating this command to "workspace-write"`, and the teaching makes that final — no re-ask.
|
||||
|
||||
### Design detail
|
||||
|
||||
#### Grounding — verified against the code
|
||||
|
||||
- Runtime OS subprocesses exist at exactly two sites: the `ctx.bash` seam's single spawn (`packages/bash/bash-local/src/run.ts`; hook commands flow through `ctx.bash`, so bash confinement covers them transitively) and `subagent-acp`'s child agents (`packages/subagent/subagent-acp/src/run.ts`) — the second consumer that makes a shared seam due rather than preemptive under the [capability seams RFC](../architecture/2026-06-13-capability-seams.md)'s "don't split preemptively" rule.
|
||||
- Everything else executes inside the harness process (fs is in-process `node:fs`, web is in-process `fetch`, every `ToolDefinition.execute()` closes over `ctx`): an OS sandbox wraps `execve` and cannot wrap an in-process function call, so "sandbox any tool" is policy at each tool's seam, never a mechanical transport change.
|
||||
- `tools/pre-execute` (`allow`/`deny`/`ask`) exists, with `ask` serviced by [the approval seam](2026-07-06-approval-seam.md); the fs intent gates are version guards with no mode input yet.
|
||||
- `dsh-bash`'s request/spec split (`BashExecRequest` → `resolve()` → `BashExecSpec`) carries per-call fields the way escalation needs — `owner` is the template: request-optional, spec required-but-nullable, carried verbatim — and the result types already speak `SandboxMode`, so a per-call policy field adds no dependency edge.
|
||||
- The pinned-header snapshot design means a schema/description change churns at most one pinning fixture per suite, and the escalation fields are advertised only under a sandboxing executor — so they live in exactly one pinned header, the sandbox example suite's `mode-switching` fixture.
|
||||
|
||||
#### The seam: `ctx.sandbox`
|
||||
|
||||
`dsh-sandbox` owns the vocabulary and the `SandboxProvider` contract: `confine(argv, policy)` returns the argv to spawn INSTEAD of the caller's own — wrapped so the process and everything it spawns run confined — plus the `enforcement` completeness the selected backend achieves, its denial dialect (`denialSignatures`, the stderr substrings that backend's kernel prints on a denied file effect), and its runner-failure dialect (`runnerFailureSignatures`, how the runner ITSELF failing — and therefore the command never running — identifies itself); with no usable backend it throws the fail-closed `SANDBOX_UNAVAILABLE` error, never a silent unconfined passthrough. The vocabulary: `SandboxMode` (`read-only` / `workspace-write` / `danger-full-access`, FILE effects only — network and process visibility are not claimed), `SandboxEnforcement` (`full` / `partial`), `SandboxPolicy` (mode + workspace root).
|
||||
|
||||
Policy rides each CALL, not the provider: two consumers may confine under different policies at the same instant (bash under `read-only` while a confined child agent keeps its state directory writable), and an approved escalated retry is a new call with a wider policy — inexpressible under a config-fixed provider mode.
|
||||
|
||||
The seam confines SAME-WORLD subprocesses only: a backend shares the host's filesystem and kernel. Containers, microVMs, and remote executors are NOT backends of this seam — they replace whole capability implementations (`ctx.bash`, `ctx.fs`) as environment-coherent groups, because an agent whose bash runs in a container while its fs tools write the host lives in two split worlds.
|
||||
|
||||
Left open, for the phase that needs them: whether network restriction arrives as a separate `network_mode` or merges into `sandbox_mode` once a runner enforces both, and whether `SandboxPolicy` grows extra writable-root grants now (the launcher already speaks `--rw <path>`) or only when escalation needs them.
|
||||
|
||||
#### Local backends and the shipped launcher
|
||||
|
||||
`dsh-sandbox-local` selects BY PLATFORM, once per lifetime, and caches the verdict: each platform names its runner chain, a chain of one is selected directly — probing arbitrates between candidates, and a sole candidate leaves nothing to arbitrate — and a chain of several is probed FUNCTIONALLY in preference order (build and enforce a real profile, never `--version` — a present-but-unusable `bwrap` must fail its probe). Linux: `bwrap` first (its mount profile is closest to the mode vocabulary: whole tree read-only, fresh `/dev`+`/proc`, `workspace-write` adds an ephemeral `/tmp` and rebinds the workspace root; deliberately no `--unshare-pid` and no network claim), else the npm-distributed `landlock-run` Landlock launcher. darwin: `sandbox-exec` speaking a Seatbelt (SBPL) profile — allow-default with `(deny file-write*)` plus write allow-lists, every granted root canonicalized because Seatbelt matches resolved paths (`/tmp` IS `/private/tmp`) — unprobed, the sole candidate. A platform with no chain fails closed at `confine()`; an unprobed runner that turns out unusable fails closed at EXECUTION instead — it refuses to run the command, and every wrap carries `runnerFailureSignatures` (the runner's own error prefix, which also matches the shell's runner-not-found message) so the consumer classifies that as a SANDBOX failure, never a task failure: on either path the command neither runs unconfined nor slips through as a plain failure. A non-empty `runnerCommand` config is the operator's assertion of a runner that fully enforces the bwrap-shaped profile — chain and probes skipped; it doubles as the deterministic fake-runner seam for keyless tests. It is not exempt from fail-closed execution: its wrap carries argv0-scoped outer-shell failure shapes (`exec: <argv0>: not found`, `<argv0>: No such file or directory`, `<argv0>: Permission denied`) as its runner-failure dialect, so a missing or unexecutable configured runner classifies as a sandbox failure like every other rung — never as a failing command, and never as a denial.
|
||||
|
||||
The launcher is a ~300-line C program (plain C11 over the raw Landlock UAPI — no libraries beyond a statically linked musl, so the audit surface is that one file plus the kernel's stable syscall contract): `--ro <path>` / `--rw <path>` grants, `--`, the wrapped argv; it installs the ruleset on itself and `exec`s (rulesets are inherited across `execve`, and it sets `no_new_privs` before restricting); `--probe` enforces a maximal ruleset in a short-lived child and exits 0 only when the kernel actually enforces; launcher failures exit 125 without exec'ing.
|
||||
|
||||
The launcher lives in its own repository and reaches the harness as the npm package family [`node-addon-landlock-run`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/node-addon-landlock-run) (the per-platform-package pattern of `node-addon-require-builtin` and esbuild): an entry package — `dsh-sandbox-local`'s one runtime dependency — plus per-platform binary packages selected at install time by npm's `os`/`cpu` fields. The entry package owns the launcher's CLI contract end to end (`launcherPath()` resolution with a never-existing fallback, the functional `probe()`, `grantArgs()` flag spelling), versioned together with the binary so probe-report parsing can never drift against it; the harness keeps only the policy side, `landlockProfileArgs()` mapping the mode vocabulary to grants. Native-only per-architecture builds, pack gates (binary presence, executability, ELF architecture), and the byte-pinned publish rehearsal are that repository's release pipeline; this repo's Landlock CI legs install the published family from the registry — the true consumer path — and prove real-kernel confinement through it.
|
||||
|
||||
FIXME: Revisit the separate-repository boundary and try to maintain the launcher source and its platform package family inside this monorepo, so the native release surface and harness contract evolve together.
|
||||
|
||||
Profile parity is honest rather than identical: under Landlock, `read-only` grants `--ro /` plus `--rw /dev/null` (the node, not `/dev` — the host's `/dev/shm` is a persistent shared tmpfs), and `workspace-write` grants the HOST `/tmp` where bwrap's is ephemeral; under Seatbelt, `read-only` likewise grants only the `/dev/null` literal, and `workspace-write` grants the host `/tmp` plus the per-user darwin temp dir (`os.tmpdir()` — the platform's real temp area for mkstemp-family tools; omitting it would deny what the mode promises). Every wrap carries the rung's denial dialect (`denialSignatures`: EROFS text under bwrap, EACCES under Landlock, EPERM under Seatbelt) so consumers match the active backend rather than a cross-runner union. Enforcement is honest per ABI level: an older kernel enforces the subset its ABI governs (path truncate is ungoverned before ABI v3), the probe's report line distinguishes the cases, and every confined result carries the structured `enforcement: 'full' | 'partial'` fact — refusing partial enforcement would deny the fallback to precisely the older-kernel hosts that need it. The bwrap and Seatbelt profiles govern every promised file effect by construction, so their passing probes always report `full`.
|
||||
|
||||
#### The bash consumer
|
||||
|
||||
`dsh-bash-sandbox` extends `LocalBashExecutor` (spawn mechanics, process-group kills, spill files, background tasks, credential scrub inherited verbatim) and hands `ctx.sandbox` the exact `['bash', '-c', command]` argv it is about to spawn. A sandbox denial is a RESULT FACT, not an error: the command RAN and the kernel refused a file operation, so `result.sandbox.denied` is orthogonal to `exitCode`/`signal`. Classification is conservative text inference over the collected stderr tail against the WRAP's own dialect, so a backend is never credited with a denial text its kernel does not speak (bare EPERM under a Linux runner names non-file boundaries the mode vocabulary does not govern); the known residual false positive is non-sandbox text in the active dialect (an ssh auth failure under Landlock, a refused `kill` under Seatbelt), and a structured runner signal wins once one exists. A RUNNER failure is the opposite of a denial and outranks it in classification (a runner's error text can itself contain denial words): the wrap's `runnerFailureSignatures` matching a failed run means the sandbox broke and the command NEVER RAN — the foreground path re-throws it as the structured `SANDBOX_UNAVAILABLE` error (the late twin of the confine-time throw, carrying the runner's first stderr line), a settled background task stamps `sandbox.runnerFailed` and `bash_output` renders its own marker — so a broken sandbox can never read as a failing command.
|
||||
|
||||
The model's view is result facts only: the static tool description explains the denial marker (`[sandbox: file access denied under <mode> mode]`), encourages attempting commands that may be denied, and forbids retrying around a denial; when the escalation fields are advertised, a denied result additionally carries the escalation hint itself, so the sanctioned same-turn retry is prompted at the decision point rather than depending on the model recalling the description (§ Escalation). No prompt section states the sandbox mode (§ Per-session modes).
|
||||
|
||||
#### Escalation: one approved wider retry after a denial
|
||||
|
||||
The seam level is mechanism only. `BashExecRequest` carries `sandboxMode?: SandboxMode`, an explicit per-call policy input; `BashExecSpec` carries it required-but-nullable (the `owner` pattern: a forgotten field is a visible `undefined`, and `resolve()` is the one explicit defaulting step); `BashExecutor` exposes the capability fact `get sandboxMode(): SandboxMode | undefined` — `undefined` in the base class, the configured mode in `SandboxBashExecutor` — so the tool layer can advertise only what the mounted executor honors: composition truth, not configuration. The seam honors ANY explicit mode, including a narrower one; the wider-only ladder is escalation policy and lives in the tool. A non-sandboxing executor (`dsh-bash-local`) carries the field verbatim and confines nothing — the field reaching it means the caller bypassed the tool's gate, and its honest behavior stays unconfined execution, not a guess at enforcement it does not have.
|
||||
|
||||
`SandboxBashExecutor.resolve()` stamps the effective mode — escalation grant > session override > configured default — so `run()`/`start()` read the spec, never the config. The `danger-full-access` branch, the confine call, and the result facts all key off the spec's mode, and the per-task facts map carries each task's mode alongside its wrap facts (`notifyTaskDone()` stamps from the map entry): one escalated call — foreground or background — reports the mode it ACTUALLY ran under while every neighbor keeps its own.
|
||||
|
||||
The tool gate advertises two extra parameters exactly when `ctx.bash.sandboxMode` reports a confining mode at registration: `sandbox_permissions`, an enum of the closed escalation-target vocabulary — `workspace-write`/`danger-full-access`, every mode a session could ever escalate TO — and `justification`, required together with it. The enum is deliberately NOT cut down to the modes wider than the executor's DEFAULT: schemas are registry-global while the effective mode is per-session and switchable, so a default-relative ladder strands a session overridden NARROWER than the default (with a `danger-full-access` default and a `read-only` override it would advertise nothing at all — confined, but with no lever). Strict widening is instead enforced at EXECUTION against the call's effective mode (session override ?? executor default): a request that is not strictly wider fails closed with its own text and prompts no one. An escalating call resolves approval BEFORE anything executes — no `ctx.approval` composed, or no agent on the execution, fails closed with its own text; otherwise `ctx.approval.request({ agent, toolName: 'bash', callId, reason, signal })` with the audit-self-contained reason `escalate sandbox to ${mode}: ${justification}`, while the UI attaches the prompt to the already-streamed call (the command is visible there; the approval RFC's no-arguments rule holds). The four outcomes map to distinct results: `allowed-once` stamps `sandboxMode` onto the bash request and proceeds; `rejected`, `cancelled`, and `unavailable` each produce their own error text, so the model can tell a human "no" from a dismissed prompt from a missing channel. The grant is consumed by the very call that asked; nothing is stored.
|
||||
|
||||
The tool description teaches — and a denied result itself prompts — the SAME-TURN flow when the fields exist: on a denial a wider mode would cure, escalate immediately in that turn by retrying the exact command once with `sandbox_permissions` (the narrowest mode that suffices) + `justification`, without detouring through chat to ask first — the approval prompt raised by the retry IS how the user consents. Never speculatively: an escalation is grounded in a real denial — normally the one the command just hit, up front only when the session already denied the same access — and a prompt stating approvals are disabled turns the exception off entirely; a rejected escalation is final for that command. Denial-grounding is deliberately model discipline plus human judgment, not harness bookkeeping — the human sees the exact command and justification on the prompt (see Alternatives for why hard-matching is rejected). No new session events anywhere: the attempt is an ordinary `tool/call` whose logged arguments carry the two fields, the decision is the approval seam's `approval/asked`/`approval/decided` pair, the outcome is an ordinary `tool/result` whose sandbox facts name the mode it ran under. The asker lives in `dsh-tool-bash`, NOT the executor: a transport seam has no `agent`, no `callId`, and no business asking humans questions.
|
||||
|
||||
Left open, recorded for the phase that picks them up: what a grant's scope identity is beyond the sandbox mode — the exact call, a path, a command prefix, the session, a time window — the question `allow_always` grant storage must answer before that option can be advertised; how cancellation behaves while an approval prompt is pending; and how escalation is defined for `run_in_background` denials that arrive via `bash_output`.
|
||||
|
||||
#### Per-session modes: the session log as the store
|
||||
|
||||
```
|
||||
effective(session) = findLast(the session's own knob events)?.value ?? the composition-config default
|
||||
```
|
||||
|
||||
The default is composition config (`cordis.yml`) — operator-owned, process-wide. A runtime switch is a SESSION-SCOPED override recorded as one log-only event in that session's own log. Restart immunity (resuming a session replays its log, so overrides come back with zero catch-up machinery) and multi-session isolation (one editor tab's `workspace-write` cannot disturb another's `read-only`) both fall out by construction, and no external config store exists anywhere.
|
||||
|
||||
**One event per knob, owned by its domain** — the merge-extensible `SessionEventMap` idiom every existing event family already follows (`approval/*` in `dsh-user-approval`, `hook/*` in the hooks packages):
|
||||
|
||||
```ts
|
||||
interface SessionEventMap {
|
||||
'bash/sandbox-mode': { mode: 'read-only' | 'workspace-write' | 'danger-full-access' }
|
||||
'approval/policy': { policy: 'ask' | 'never' }
|
||||
}
|
||||
```
|
||||
|
||||
Each owner exports the same three-piece kit: the event declaration, a pure fold (`effectiveSandboxMode(events)` / `effectiveApprovalPolicy(events)` — a `findLast`, typed to the domain's closed union), and THE write path (`setSandboxMode(session, mode)` / `setApprovalPolicy(session, policy)` — a switch IS its event; nothing mutates state out of band). No shared owner service, no generic facts map, no registry: a third knob copies the ~40-line pattern into its own package. Execution follows the fold on both sides — the bash tool's per-call stamp reads it as the middle rung of the § Escalation precedence chain, and the approval seam's `'never'` gate is [the approval RFC](2026-07-06-approval-seam.md)'s side of the same pattern.
|
||||
|
||||
**Visibility is deliberately asymmetric between the knobs.** The SANDBOX mode is stated nowhere and its switches are not narrated: a standing "you are read-only" declaration teaches the model to refuse preemptively (observed live: sessions where the model would not even attempt a write it could have escalated), while the denial marker already names the mode the command ran under at exactly the moment the boundary matters — behavior, not belief, carries the state, and a switch simply changes what the next command does. The APPROVAL policy keeps both layers, because its failure mode is the opposite: an auto-rejected ask under `'never'` returns "the user rejected …" wording no behavior can disambiguate, so the prompt states `'never'` (and ONLY `'never'` — an `'ask'` promise is unknowable without asking, and absence under a logged header is how the narrator reads `'ask'` back), and an `agent/pre-step` narrator injects at most one coalesced notice per policy switch: idle flip-flops collapse to one notice at the next turn's first step, a net-zero round trip to none, and a mid-turn change is narrated no later than the next step. Its "last told" is in-memory with a log-derived fallback (the folded header's system text parsed against the closed candidate sentence; LAST occurrence wins, so a persona quoting it cannot shadow the real section), so restarts lose nothing; attribution is positional (a knob event after the log's last `request/header*` reads `changed by the user`, a drift with no such event reads `changed by the operator/config`).
|
||||
|
||||
**The editor surface** is protocol-native [Session Config Options](https://agentclientprotocol.com/protocol/session-config-options) — the spec's replacement for session modes (slated for removal in ACP v2), already SDK-typed. The bridge advertises one independent `select` per composable knob — `sandbox-mode` (category `mode`) iff the mounted executor confines, `approval-policy` iff the approval seam is composed — with `currentValue` folded from each session's own log, in `session/new` and `session/load` responses. `session/set_config_option` validates against the same closed lists, routes to the domain setter, and returns the complete refreshed state (the spec contract).
|
||||
|
||||
**Anchoring: turn-enclosure is the commit boundary.** The turn-enclosure contract makes a bare between-turns append invalid (the JSONL backend treats a post-`turn/end` tail as crash garbage; dev invariants throw). A switch while a turn is open appends immediately — openness read from the LOG (last boundary event is `turn/start`), not `agent.status`, which stays `running` between queued turns. An idle switch is held on the bridge's session record and anchored at the next turn's `agent/prompt-submit` — inside the turn, before anything in it assembles or executes, last write per knob, and OUTSIDE any `session/event` emit (appending from inside that feed reorders events for later-registered listeners — a bug the dev invariants caught live). Until anchored, the switch exists only in bridge memory: responses overlay it truthfully, and a crash before the next turn reverts it — `session/load` then reports the fold's truth, so the editor UI self-corrects rather than lies.
|
||||
|
||||
#### In-process tools
|
||||
|
||||
fs/web/todo execute in-process, so their sandbox semantics are policy at their seams: the fs intent gates deciding by the shared mode vocabulary (§ Deferred phases, cross-family) make `read-only` a real boundary instead of a bash-only approximation — until then the contract says so honestly. No generic per-tool sandbox runtime: a host-mediated tool leaves the process only by returning declarative effects the host validates, which is a rewrite, not a wrapper.
|
||||
|
||||
FIXME: Revisit this tool-local boundary. The follow-up design needs to determine whether sandboxing becomes a global harness capability that applies uniformly to every tool, instead of expressing in-process enforcement independently at each tool seam.
|
||||
|
||||
### Testing
|
||||
|
||||
- Unit tier (no real runner anywhere): profile dialects, per-platform chain selection (sole candidate unprobed, no chain fails closed, multi-candidate probe order), verdict caching, the fail-closed end, probe-report parsing, and the launcher/`sandbox-exec` CLI contracts via fake runner scripts in `dsh-sandbox-local`; wrapping, policy hand-off, fact stamping, and runner-failure-outranks-denial classification (foreground throw, background `runnerFailed` fact) against a fake provider in `dsh-bash-sandbox`; the error's structured identity in `dsh-sandbox`. The escalation matrix spans the three bash packages: verbatim carry-through in `dsh-bash-local`, stamp/branch/per-task-facts in `dsh-bash-sandbox`, and the capability gate, `justification` pairing, fail-closed texts (pinned verbatim), and grant stamping in `dsh-tool-bash`. The switching surface pins the folds, the stamping precedence, the `'never'` gate, per-session section rendering, the full narrator matrix (cold start, coalescing, net-zero, resume drift with operator wording, positional attribution, persona-shadow hardening), and the bridge's advertisement gating, validation rejections, idle-vs-mid-turn anchoring (dev invariants mounted), and `session/load` reporting over a real two-process JSONL round trip.
|
||||
- Keyless real-runner e2e, split along the seam and per rung: CI's `sandbox-e2e` matrix runs bwrap and Landlock on Linux (the Landlock leg once per architecture, each confining through the registry-installed launcher) and Seatbelt on macOS against real kernels, failing on a silent all-skip. World-proofs live in `dsh-sandbox-local` (denied writes absent on disk, workspace writes landing, temp-area grants pinned, kernel denial text matching the advertised dialect) and `dsh-bash-sandbox` (the through-`ctx.bash` consumer proofs, including denied-then-overridden-write-lands). This package's own publish path is rehearsed without publishing (`packed-install.e2e.ts`): `pnpm pack`, tarballs installed into a throwaway consumer with the launcher family resolving from the registry, plain `node` confining through the INSTALLED launcher — asserted executable apart, so a mode-stripped binary can never masquerade as a non-enforcing kernel. The switching surface has its own keyless e2e (`examples/sandbox-acp-agent`): the real `cordis.yml` tree advertises both options, honors switches end to end, and rejects out-of-vocabulary values.
|
||||
- With-key e2e (`examples/sandbox-acp-agent/tests/escalation.e2e.ts`): real model + real runner + the REAL bridge answerer, world-verified — denied under `read-only`, escalates with justification, the scripted editor grants and the retried write lands on disk, while a rejected escalation leaves no write. Self-skips without `DEEPSEEK_API_KEY` or a usable runner (e2e.yml installs bubblewrap so it actually executes in CI).
|
||||
- Snapshot tier (`examples/sandbox-acp-agent/tests/acp.snapshot.ts`): the keyless config-option wire; the recorded mode-switching arc as the suite's pinned header — necessarily, since mid-session switches emit the `request/header-delta`s the uniformity guard licenses only in the pin — committing both switches, the prompt-section delta and one "changed by the user" notice per knob, and a confined write landing under the switched mode; and both recorded escalation branches over scripted `permissionAnswers` (grant runs confined under `workspace-write`; rejection executes nothing and pins the fail-closed text). Replay re-executes every fixture's bash calls under the host's real runner (ci.yml's snapshot lane installs bubblewrap). Deliberately absent: a fixture carrying a real DENIAL — denial stderr is the backend's dialect and would pin a fixture to its recording platform; the escalation prompts assert the prior denial instead, and the denial→marker path stays on the tiers above.
|
||||
|
||||
## Deferred phases
|
||||
|
||||
Each phase gets its full design when picked up, validated against the code at that time, and lands with unit, real-API e2e, and snapshot coverage at the tiers it touches.
|
||||
|
||||
- **Per-session workspace root** — the executor's write boundary stays config-fixed for its lifetime while each ACP session has its own cwd; a per-session root rides the same per-call policy carrier once designed.
|
||||
- **Cross-family boundary** — the fs intent gates decide by the shared mode, making `read-only`/`workspace-write` real boundaries beyond bash.
|
||||
- **Second consumer** — `subagent-acp` optionally confines child agents (per-call policy; unconfined default — a child agent must write its own persistence).
|
||||
- **More environments** — an environment-coherent capability group example (e.g. bash+fs against one container).
|
||||
- **Windows chain** — `PLATFORM_CHAINS.win32` is reserved and empty (fail-closed); filling it means a confinement runner from the AppContainer/restricted-token family, shipped from its own repository on the `node-addon-landlock-run` template, plus its profile dialect and denial/runner-failure signatures.
|
||||
|
||||
## Alternatives considered
|
||||
|
||||
- **Command-string heuristic preflight** — rejected: cannot understand expansion/subprocesses/symlinks; the strict attempt (run it, let the kernel decide) is the only trustworthy denial signal.
|
||||
- **Functionally probe even a platform's sole backend** — rejected: probing arbitrates between candidates; with one there is nothing to decide, and probe cost taxes the first confined command of every session (prohibitive for heavy future backends). The runner's own exec-time fail-closed refusal plus `runnerFailureSignatures` classification carries the safety property instead.
|
||||
- **Commit the built launcher binaries** — rejected: a binary in a diff is unreviewable and churns history; reviewed source + native CI builds + the launcher repo's byte-pinned publish rehearsal keep bytes out of every tree.
|
||||
- **Compile the launcher on install** — rejected: pushes a C toolchain onto every consumer; a fallback that exists only where a compiler happens to be is not a fallback.
|
||||
- **Cross-compile both architectures from one builder** — rejected: requires carrying a pinned cross toolchain (rustup targets, zig, or a container image) solely to rebuild two ~70 KB binaries; per-architecture native runners already exist and each builds its own platform package (the `node-addon-require-builtin` model, the launcher repo's own pipeline).
|
||||
- **No fallback (bwrap or fail closed)** — rejected: concentrates failure on the hosts a sandbox matters most, degrading to `danger-full-access` by resignation.
|
||||
- **Keep the mechanism inside `dsh-bash-sandbox`** — rejected: blocks the existing second consumer, makes future phases read mode out of a bash plugin's config, and cannot express escalation.
|
||||
- **Config-fixed mode on the provider** — rejected: one mode per process; cannot serve concurrent consumers with different policies nor the one-shot widened retry.
|
||||
- **One interface spanning containers/VMs too** — rejected: `confine(argv)` presupposes a shared filesystem; environment isolation is capability-sibling backends deployed as coherent groups.
|
||||
- **Generic ToolRuntime wrapping any tool** — rejected: mechanically false for in-process tools (closures over `ctx`); the declarative-effects rewrite is unjustified for fs/web/todo.
|
||||
- **Ask inside the executor (`dsh-bash-sandbox`)** — rejected: no `agent` to route through, no `callId` to attach the prompt to; adding them teaches a transport seam about sessions and UIs — the tool layer holds both and owns the model-facing vocabulary.
|
||||
- **Auto-retry inside the same tool call** — rejected: a hidden re-entry the log cannot reconstruct: one `tool/call` would have produced two executions with different policies — the retry is a NEW logged call with its own arguments and result facts.
|
||||
- **Advertise the escalation fields unconditionally** — rejected: under `dsh-bash-local` they are a dead lever — advertising an option the harness cannot honor manufactures doomed grants; capability-gating costs one registration-time read.
|
||||
- **A default-relative escalation ladder (advertise only the modes wider than the executor's registration-time default)** — rejected: per-session overrides make the default the wrong baseline — a session switched narrower than the default loses exactly the lever it needs, and under a `danger-full-access` default the fields vanish entirely while a `read-only`-overridden session stays confined with no escalation path. The enum pins the closed target vocabulary; strict widening is a per-call execution check against the session's effective mode.
|
||||
- **Per-session dynamic tool schemas** — rejected: schemas are registry-global by design (one assembly vocabulary, the pinned-header snapshot contract), and re-registering per session would buy only what the execution-time strict-wider check already guarantees, at the cost of a per-session schema surface and header churn on every switch.
|
||||
- **Hard-match the retry to a prior denial** — rejected: command-string identity is fragile (quoting, `workdir`, env prefixes, a pipeline retried as its failing stage) — false-rejects honest retries or is trivially satisfied; the real boundary is the human seeing command + justification. Revisit only if `allow_always` grant storage ever needs machine-checkable scopes.
|
||||
- **A generic `env/state` facts map with an owner service** — rejected: approval and sandbox compose independently, so neither's state may drag in a third package; single-key folds are one `findLast` each, dissolving the owner service; no invariant spans the knobs, so atomic multi-key patches bought nothing.
|
||||
- **Narrate via `agent/user-message` + a bus event** — rejected: it presupposes a turn-entry seam that does not exist (the real seam is `agent/prompt-submit`), and pre-step's position serves both the coalesced turn-entry notice and the mid-turn immediacy bound with one listener.
|
||||
- **A standing prompt statement of the sandbox mode (+ a switch narrator)** — shipped first, then removed on live evidence: with `Bash commands run under the "read-only" file sandbox.` in every request, the model refused to ATTEMPT denied-then-escalatable work (five of twelve turns in the first manual session ended with zero tool calls), turning the sandbox into a soft lockout. The denial marker names the mode at the moment it matters and the escalation fields carry the recovery; the approval knob keeps its statement because an auto-rejection is behaviorally indistinguishable from a human "no".
|
||||
- **Track "last told" with its own bookkeeping events** — rejected: the `request/header*` fold already records the exact prompt the model saw; parsing the closed candidate sentences back replaces a second bookkeeping stream — events are needed only where they ARE the store.
|
||||
- **ACP session modes instead of config options** — rejected: one mode list cannot carry two orthogonal knobs; config options are the spec's designed surface and modes are slated for removal in ACP v2.
|
||||
|
||||
## Consequences
|
||||
|
||||
What shipped pins — the tiers in Testing hold each:
|
||||
|
||||
- A denied command retried with `sandbox_permissions` + `justification` prompts the user through the composed answerer chain; a grant runs THAT call under the wider mode (result facts say so) while every other call keeps its own effective mode; every non-grant outcome produces its distinct error text and executes nothing.
|
||||
- The escalation fields exist exactly when the mounted executor confines; a request that is not strictly wider than the call's effective mode fails closed with its own text and prompts no one; a deployment with no ApprovalService fails escalating calls closed and leaves plain calls untouched.
|
||||
- The system prompt never states the sandbox mode (an approval `'never'` policy is the one stated knob), and the whole exchange — headers, knob events, notices, approvals, results — reconstructs from the session log alone, with no event types beyond the two knob events.
|
||||
- N idle-time flips produce at most one anchored event per knob (a net-zero sequence anchors none — a no-op push from a client echoing current selections records nothing); an approval-policy switch is narrated in at most one coalesced notice; a mid-turn sandbox switch is honored by the next call's stamp.
|
||||
- A resumed session's overrides apply and are reported to the editor with no special-casing; a default changed while the process was down is narrated before the session's first new request, attributed to the operator.
|
||||
- Two concurrent sessions never see each other's state, notices, or config options.
|
||||
- `agent-loop` is untouched — everything rides `systemPrompt.section`, `SessionEventMap` merging, `agent.inject()`, `agent/pre-step`, `agent/prompt-submit`, and the ACP handler surface.
|
||||
|
||||
Costs and accepted limits:
|
||||
|
||||
- **The one-wrapper illusion is given up knowingly.** A `tools/pre-execute` wrapper plus prompt conventions does not solve sandbox approval — the correct design costs structured denials, native runner probes, per-call policy carriage, and consistent cross-family enforcement, and this design pays it.
|
||||
- **`read-only` is not yet a cross-family boundary.** Until the fs intent gates decide by the shared mode, the claim holds for bash only; the contract says so honestly (§ In-process tools).
|
||||
- **Windows has no backend.** Its chain slot is reserved empty — fail-closed, never a fallthrough; filling it is a deferred phase.
|
||||
- **The Seatbelt rung leans on Apple's deprecated-but-shipped `sandbox-exec` CLI.** As darwin's sole candidate it is selected without probing, so a future removal surfaces at execution as the runner-failure classification — re-thrown `SANDBOX_UNAVAILABLE`, the command never runs; fail closed, never open.
|
||||
- **Landlock confinement is only as complete as the running kernel's ABI.** Reported as `enforcement: 'partial'` rather than refused — the deliberate trade that keeps the fallback available on older-kernel hosts.
|
||||
- **The launcher arrives as a registry dependency.** Trusted through its own repository's release pipeline (reviewed C source, native CI builders, byte-pinned publish rehearsal) plus this repo's version pin — the real-kernel e2e legs are what vouch for behavior through the installed bytes.
|
||||
- **The model may over-ask.** Escalating without denial grounding, or picking `danger-full-access` where `workspace-write` suffices: the description steers and the enum forces the ladder, but the human prompt is the actual gate; the `approval/asked` reasons make over-asking auditable, and a `prepend` policy answerer can auto-reject patterns a deployment never wants.
|
||||
- **The advertised target set is static while the effective mode is per-session** (schemas are registry-global) — a session already at the widest mode is still offered the fields. Harmless by construction: the strict-wider check at execution, not the enum, is the safety boundary — a non-widening request fails with its own text and never prompts anyone.
|
||||
- **A granted escalation is not a working sandbox.** An unavailable backend still fails closed even for a granted escalation to a confining mode — at `confine()` when the platform has no chain or every probe fails, at execution when an unprobed sole runner refuses (classified as a sandbox failure, not a command failure) — while a granted `danger-full-access` run never touches the provider at all: there the grant, not the probe, is the authority.
|
||||
- **An idle switch lives in bridge memory until the next turn anchors it.** A crash in that window reverts it (reported honestly on `session/load`), and a session that never runs another turn never persists it — accepted, with the loop-owned idle commit turn named as future work if durability becomes a requirement.
|
||||
- **The approval narrator's restart baseline parses prompt prose.** The closed candidate sentence is owned by the writing module itself, so a wording change is a coordinated writer+parser edit in one file; a session whose headers predate the section silently adopts the current policy without a notice.
|
||||
- **The approval section is still a dynamic prompt surface** (a `'never'` switch breaks provider prompt-prefix caching for that session). Accepted: policy switches are rare, and a model acting on a stale `'never'` is worse. The sandbox knob no longer touches the prompt at all.
|
||||
- **The model may hold a stale belief about the sandbox mode** (nothing announces a switch). Accepted deliberately: the next attempt's marker or success corrects it, and the observed failure mode of announcing — preemptive refusal — is worse than one wasted retry.
|
||||
|
||||
## FAQ
|
||||
|
||||
Behavioral and usage questions only — every "why not X?" design question lives in [Alternatives considered](#alternatives-considered), whose job is exactly that.
|
||||
|
||||
- **A command came back with `[sandbox: file access denied under read-only mode]` — did it fail?** It RAN, and the kernel refused a file effect: the denial is a result fact orthogonal to exit code. The teaching forbids retrying around it; the one sanctioned move is the same command retried once with an escalation request.
|
||||
- **How is a BROKEN sandbox told apart from a failing command?** Runner failure outranks denial in classification: a failed run matching the wrap's `runnerFailureSignatures` means the command NEVER ran — foreground re-throws the structured `SANDBOX_UNAVAILABLE` with the runner's stderr line, a background task stamps `sandbox.runnerFailed` and renders its own marker. A broken sandbox can never read as a failing command, and the command never runs unconfined.
|
||||
- **What happens on a platform with no backend — Windows today?** `confine()` throws the fail-closed `SANDBOX_UNAVAILABLE` and the command never spawns; `win32` is a reserved EMPTY chain, pinned by test to fail closed identically until a Windows runner fills it (§ Deferred phases).
|
||||
- **`bwrap` is installed on my host but unusable (disabled unprivileged userns, an LSM denying `mount`) — what happens?** The chain probe is functional — it builds and enforces a real profile rather than checking `--version` — so a present-but-unusable `bwrap` fails its probe, selection falls to the registry-installed Landlock launcher, and the verdict is cached for the provider's lifetime.
|
||||
- **Does the sandbox restrict network or process visibility?** No — `SandboxMode` claims FILE effects only; the bwrap profile deliberately does not unshare pid, and no backend claims network. Whether network restriction becomes its own knob is left open in § The seam.
|
||||
- **Which tools actually run confined?** OS subprocesses through `ctx.bash` — the bash tools, and hook commands transitively. fs/web/todo execute in-process, where an `execve` wrapper is mechanically meaningless; their `read-only` semantics arrive with the cross-family deferred phase, and until then the contract says bash-only honestly.
|
||||
- **Does a granted escalation persist, or cover background tasks?** Neither: the grant is consumed by the very call that asked (foreground or background), that one call reports the mode it actually ran under, and every neighbor keeps its own. How escalation should be DEFINED for a background denial that only surfaces later via `bash_output` is left open in § Escalation.
|
||||
- **When does an editor's mode switch take effect?** Mid-turn: appended immediately, honored by the very next call's stamp. Idle: held on the bridge's session record, anchored at the next turn's `agent/prompt-submit`, with N flips coalescing to at most one event (none if net-zero); a crash before anchoring reverts it and `session/load` reports the truth. The model is not told — its next command simply behaves under the new mode.
|
||||
- **What survives a restart — and what if the operator changed the config default while the process was down?** Overrides replay from the session log (`effective = fold ?? config`), so a resumed session keeps its modes with zero catch-up machinery; a default that drifted offline changes behavior the same way a switch does (the approval policy, being stated, is additionally narrated with operator/config attribution).
|
||||
- **What does `enforcement: 'partial'` on a result mean?** The selected backend enforces the subset its kernel ABI governs — e.g. Landlock before ABI v3 does not govern path truncate — and says so structurally instead of refusing the host; the probe's report line distinguishes the cases. The bwrap and Seatbelt profiles govern every promised file effect by construction, so they always report `full`.
|
||||
|
||||
## Prior art
|
||||
|
||||
In-repo precedents this design copies or contrasts with:
|
||||
|
||||
- [The capability-seams RFC](../architecture/2026-06-13-capability-seams.md) — the interface/implementation/consumer split and the "don't split preemptively" timing rule the second consumer satisfied.
|
||||
- The `dsh-bash` request/spec split and its `owner` field ([the bash vocabulary catalog](../../../core-data-structures/bash.md)) — the per-call carrier template `sandboxMode` rides, and the explicit-`resolve()` defaulting convention.
|
||||
- [The approval seam RFC](2026-07-06-approval-seam.md) — the channel escalation asks through; its answerer waterfall, audit pair, and one-package rationale are recorded there.
|
||||
- [Event-sourced sessions](../architecture/2026-06-11-event-sourced-sessions.md) and [the turn-enclosure invariant](../architecture/2026-06-15-turn-enclosure-invariant.md) — the log-as-store foundation the per-session modes fold over, and the commit boundary the anchoring design obeys.
|
||||
- [The interception-seams RFC](2026-06-30-interception-seams.md) — the `tools/pre-execute` vocabulary the escalation gate deliberately does not reuse (an escalating call has no pre-execute moment of its own).
|
||||
42
docs/rfc/implemented/feature/2026-07-07-session-prefix.md
Normal file
42
docs/rfc/implemented/feature/2026-07-07-session-prefix.md
Normal file
@@ -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.
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,84 @@
|
||||
# RFC: The self-referential cordis toolset
|
||||
|
||||
Status: implemented
|
||||
|
||||
## Problem
|
||||
|
||||
Everything in this harness is a cordis plugin, but the agent running inside that plugin runtime cannot see or touch it: it cannot enumerate the services and events around it, cannot extend itself with a new tool mid-session, and cannot compose capabilities it invents. Handing the model that power is worth exploring — a self-referential agent that inspects and modifies its own runtime — but it raises three correctness problems at once, and the design is about answering them rather than the raw "let the model run code" mechanic.
|
||||
|
||||
First, model-written registration must be validated where it happens: a malformed tool schema has to fail at registration, not when a later request tries to assemble it into a prompt. Second, model-written code has to call service APIs whose source it has never seen — guessed method signatures and, worse, guessed return-value shapes cost many steps of blind probing. Third, everything the model mounts must be fully disposable, by the model on demand and by the ordinary plugin lifecycle when the host plugin reloads, or a long session accretes orphaned listeners and tools.
|
||||
|
||||
## Decision
|
||||
|
||||
The toolset ships as [`@deepseek-ai/dsh-tool-cordis`](../../../../packages/cordis/tool-cordis/README.md) — a new top-level `packages/cordis/` group — and is demoed by [`examples/cordis-agent`](../../../../examples/cordis-agent/README.md). It gives the model three tools over the live cordis runtime it is running inside: inspect it, mount model-written plugins into it, dispose them again.
|
||||
|
||||
The trust stance, stated once and threaded through the rest: the `node:vm` sandbox isolates the global context only — it prevents accidental global pollution, not malice — and the `ctx` a mounted plugin's `apply` receives is a whitelist façade that narrows the *surface* (framework internals withheld) but not the *privilege* of what it exposes. The verbs the façade does expose reach the real runtime: a mounted tool can shell out through `ctx.bash`, read the filesystem through `ctx.fs`, reach the network through `ctx.web`. Neither the sandbox nor the façade is a security boundary; handing the model this power is the point of the toolset. A deployment loads this plugin exactly as deliberately as it grants a bash tool — an opt-in capability in the app's `cordis.yml`, never a product default.
|
||||
|
||||
### The three tools
|
||||
|
||||
| Tool | Contract |
|
||||
|---|---|
|
||||
| `cordis_inspect` | Read-only report over the live runtime, one Markdown section per `what` value (omit `what` for all sections). Never mutates. |
|
||||
| `cordis_mount` | Evaluates `code` (the body of an async JavaScript function) in a `node:vm` sandbox; the code must `return` a cordis plugin, which is mounted as a child of the `cordis-dynamic` group fiber and tracked under a fresh id (`dyn-1`, `dyn-2`, …). |
|
||||
| `cordis_unmount` | Disposes one dynamic mount by id and returns only after disposal reaches quiescence — every registration the plugin made is unwound, not merely requested to stop. |
|
||||
|
||||
`cordis_inspect` sections: `services` (every provided ctx service and the owning fiber, non-active owners flagged), `plugins` (a flat list of every loaded plugin with its lifecycle state, from `ctx.registry` — what capabilities are loaded, deliberately not the tree shape), `tools` (what the model can call), `dynamic` (the mount table: id, name, state, provided services, awaited services), `api` (live service signatures + the type shapes they reference, from the generated catalog), and `events` (harness events with dispatch mode and signature). The model-facing tool descriptions carry the operational rules the model needs at call time; [the generated tool catalog](../../../tool-catalog.md) is their exhaustive rendering.
|
||||
|
||||
### Sandbox semantics
|
||||
|
||||
Mount code runs via `vm.createContext` + `runInContext`, wrapped as the body of an async function under a per-mount filename (`cordis-mount-<id>.js`). The vm gives the code a fresh realm: writes to `globalThis` stay inside the sandbox, and no Node API is handed in — capability access is *steered* toward the cordis services (`ctx.fs` for files, `ctx.web` for HTTP, `ctx.bash` for processes, the `ctx.timer` helpers for timing) rather than Node built-ins, so a well-behaved mount stays inspectable through `cordis_inspect` and disposable with its fiber. This is steering, not containment: consistent with the trust stance above, the small global surface keeps *honest* code on the cordis services but is not a security boundary — the host-realm helpers it exposes (`harness`, `console`, `btoa`) are reachable functions, so mount code that goes looking (through such a helper's `.constructor`, say) can still reach the host realm and Node itself, which is accepted because the `ctx` a mount ultimately receives is fully privileged anyway. The `vmTimeoutMs` config bounds only the synchronous portion of evaluation; an async body escapes the bound (also acceptable under the trust stance).
|
||||
|
||||
Sandbox globals are deliberately small: a tagged write-through `console` (`[cordis:<id>] …` on the host stdout/stderr, so a listener that fires long after the mount call still lands somewhere the user sees), the `harness.defineTool` / `harness.registerTool` registration pair, the encoding primitives fresh vm contexts lack (`btoa`/`atob` as host closures over `Buffer` — a sanctioned exception, `Buffer` itself is never exposed — plus `TextEncoder`/`TextDecoder`), and callable traps over the withheld Node APIs (`require`, `setTimeout`/`setInterval`/`setImmediate`/`clearTimeout`/`clearInterval`, `fetch`) that throw a redirect naming the cordis alternative. Only function-shaped globals are trapped; `process` and `Buffer` stay `undefined` so a `typeof` feature probe stays inert rather than detonating a throwing accessor.
|
||||
|
||||
Three boundary mechanisms make model-written code behave correctly across the realm seam. **Dual-realm `instanceof`**: most objects sandbox code touches are host-realm (tool `args`, event payloads, service returns), so a plain `x instanceof Array` in the vm would silently be false — a per-sandbox prelude gives the vm realm's own constructors a `Symbol.hasInstance` that checks both the vm constructor and its host counterpart, patching only vm-realm globals. **Realm normalization of tool results**: objects built inside the vm carry the vm realm's `Object.prototype`, which the session log's append-time plainness check (`isJsonValue` in `dsh-session`, a prototype-identity comparison) rejects, so the sandbox's `harness.defineTool` JSON round-trips every `execute` return into the host realm — which also projects it onto exactly what the log durably stores — and then shape-checks it against the two `ToolExecuteReturn` forms, so a JSON-valid but wrong-shape return (a bare string, `{ content: 'ok' }`) fails that one call with a teaching error instead of entering the log as corrupt tool-result content. **A whitelist context façade**: the `ctx` a mounted plugin's `apply` receives is NOT the real context nor a pass-through proxy over it — it is a façade exposing only what a mount legitimately needs (`tools.register` marker-guarded, a read-only `tools.get`/`schemas`, `on`/`once`, `provide`, the timer helpers, and the services the plugin DECLARED in `inject`), with every framework-plumbing member (`root`, `parent`, `fiber`, `reflect`, `registry`, `extend`, `isolate`, `intercept`, `plugin`, `set`, `mixin`, …) denied with a teaching error. This closes an escape *class* rather than a single hole: a proxy that merely special-cased `ctx.tools` still handed back the raw context through `ctx.root`, `ctx.extend()`, or a service instance's `.ctx`, and mount code could then `ctx.root.tools.register({…})` to bypass the marker check and realm normalization — a raw vm-realm result then errors a real agent turn at the plainness check. The façade has no context-valued member to reach, and the one indirect leak (an injected-service method returning a `Context`) is rejected on the way back to sandbox code. Two narrower rules complete the surface. First, **service access requires an `inject` declaration**: reaching a service the mount did not declare is refused even when a global provider is live — otherwise a mount could depend on a provider cordis never sees, and unmounting that provider would neither park the consumer nor unwind the tools it registered, leaving a model-visible tool that fails only at execution time. Because the read is gated on the declaration, cross-mount `provide`/`inject` keeps its lifecycle guarantees (the plugin's own `inject` and the fiber's pending/active gating drive activation and unload); only the `apply`-time `ctx` surface is narrowed. Second, **`ctx.tools.get` returns a read-only schema view** (name/description/parameters), never the live `ToolDefinition` — handing back the definition would expose its `execute`, letting mount code call another tool directly and bypass `ToolRegistry.execute` and its pre/post-execute hooks and accounting; a mount that wants to invoke a tool must go through the registry, and one that wants to introspect gets the same view `schemas()` returns.
|
||||
|
||||
Boundary errors are written around the mistakes models actually make (see [Consequences](#consequences) for how each was found), and the boundary normalizes rather than lectures wherever the input has exactly one meaning: schema `parameters` accept the JSON-Schema dialect models write by strong prior — the `{ type: 'object', properties, required: […] }` wrapper unwraps to the SchemaSpec DSL (the `required` array becoming per-property flags, at any nesting level), `type: 'integer'` maps to `number`, and `required: false` reads as optional — while genuinely meaningless input is rejected with the vocabulary enumerated (an unknown type lists the five valid ones; a non-boolean `required` names the rule). The remaining teaching errors: an unbalanced `});` closing gets the vm's offending source line plus a "code is a function body" reminder; TypeScript syntax gets the remove-annotations fix (detected on the failing line only, so an ` as ` inside a description string does not misfire); a forgotten `return` gets the two valid plugin forms; a Node built-in call gets the redirect to its cordis service; a tool-name collision on re-mount gets the unmount-first-then-remount recipe.
|
||||
|
||||
### The dynamic group and mount lifecycle
|
||||
|
||||
Every dynamic mount is a child of a single `cordis-dynamic` group fiber, itself a child of the `tool-cordis` plugin's fiber. The group exists so the mounts form one subtree: they are disposed as a unit, and disposing `tool-cordis` (HMR reload, config unload) cascades over every mount through the ordinary parent→child fiber lifecycle — no bespoke cleanup. Mounting settles before it reports: the returned fiber is `await()`ed, and a startup error (a throwing `apply`, a duplicate tool name, a duplicate service) disposes the fiber and surfaces as the tool error, so a failed mount never lingers. A settled fiber that is not active is a legal pending mount — cordis semantics for unsatisfied `inject` — kept mounted and reported with what it waits for. Everything the plugin registers is an effect on its fiber, so `cordis_unmount` is nothing but an awaited `fiber.dispose()`.
|
||||
|
||||
### Cross-mount composition via provide/inject
|
||||
|
||||
Mounts relate to each other through ordinary cordis service semantics, with their ids as the lifecycle handles: mount A calls `ctx.provide('foo', value)`, mount B declares `inject: ['foo']` and activates the moment `foo` exists; mounted first, B stays pending and names the missing service; unmounting A sends B back to pending (its registrations unwound) and a later re-provide re-runs B's `apply` through a fresh sandbox façade; a duplicate provide fails loud with the owning fiber named. One realm caveat: a service value provided by a mount is a vm-realm object — method calls on it work from anywhere, but consumers must not assume host prototypes on it.
|
||||
|
||||
### The generated API catalog
|
||||
|
||||
`cordis_inspect what:"api"` and `what:"events"` answer from a machine-readable catalog generated at build time, never a hand-maintained table that would drift from the JSDoc it paraphrases. [`scripts/gen-cordis-api.ts`](../../../../scripts/gen-cordis-api.ts) reuses `collectServices` / `collectEvents` from [`scripts/gen-cordis-catalog.ts`](../../../../scripts/gen-cordis-catalog.ts) — the same AST walk that generates [the cordis service catalog](../../../cordis-catalog/services.md) and [events catalog](../../../cordis-catalog/events.md) — and emits `packages/cordis/tool-cordis/src/api-catalog.ts`, a committed, banner-commented data module. The artifact carries, per service, its key + one-line summary + raw method signatures; per event, name + `@mode` + signature + summary; the comment-stripped declarations of every exported type the service signatures reference (transitive closure — so a consumer sees that a bash run's `stdout` is `{ text, truncated }`, not a string); plus the curated inherited `ctx` surface shared with the cordis catalog generator. A type name declared in more than one package (each plugin's `Config`) is dropped as ambiguous, and an oversized declaration is truncated with a marker.
|
||||
|
||||
Freshness is gated like every generated artifact: `pnpm run verify-cordis-api` (in `doc-sync`) regenerates in memory and fails on any diff, so a JSDoc edit that changes a public signature cannot ship without regenerating the catalog the model reads. At runtime the inspect tool intersects the catalog with the live runtime rather than dumping it: live catalogued services render summary + signatures, live services without a catalog entry (mount-provided ones) render name + owning fiber, catalogued services with no live provider are listed tersely, and the referenced type shapes follow.
|
||||
|
||||
### Configuration, rendering, and observability
|
||||
|
||||
The plugin exposes one config field, validated by schemastery and documented in [the config catalog](../../../config-catalog.md): `vmTimeoutMs` (default 5000), the millisecond bound on the synchronous portion of mount-code evaluation. Tool names, the `cordis-dynamic` group name, and the `dyn-` id prefix are structural vocabulary and stay fixed. All three tools render as `generic` cards per [the tool cookbook](../../../cookbook/adding-a-tool.md) (`cordis_inspect` a `read`, `cordis_mount` an `execute` carrying the code as `rawInput`, `cordis_unmount` a `delete`), with no `presentResult` overrides.
|
||||
|
||||
Model-visible ⟺ logged holds with no new session event type: a mount or unmount is visible only through its own `tool/call` / `tool/result` pair, which the loop logs, and the changed tool set a mount induces is logged by the request-header delta the loop already emits when schemas change between steps. There is deliberately no `cordis/mount` provenance event — it would duplicate what the tool-call pair records. Dynamic mounts are process-lifetime, not session state: resuming a persisted session rehydrates the conversation but does not re-mount plugins.
|
||||
|
||||
## Alternatives considered
|
||||
|
||||
**A structured per-capability registration tool instead of `cordis_mount`.** The most tempting alternative is a `cordis_register_tool` with explicit `name` / `description` / `parameters` / `code` fields (and siblings `cordis_register_listener`, `cordis_register_service`, …) rather than a single "mount a plugin" primitive. It was rejected because its one real win — no plugin boilerplate for the single commonest case — does not pay for its costs, while a single mount primitive answers every capability at once.
|
||||
|
||||
| Dimension | Structured per-capability tools | Single `cordis_mount` |
|
||||
|---|---|---|
|
||||
| Schema correctness | `parameters` is still a model-written JSON object needing SchemaSpec validation, merely one step earlier | The same validation runs at the sandbox boundary, with the same instructive errors |
|
||||
| The code field | An `execute` body is still model-written JS in a vm; the realm and service-call correctness problems are unchanged | One sandbox, one normalization path, one guarded registration |
|
||||
| Capability coverage | Tools only; listeners, services, `inject` relations each need another structured tool — a surface that grows without bound | One vocabulary (a cordis plugin) covers every effect, present and future |
|
||||
| Cross-mount composition | Not expressible in a tool-registration payload | Native `provide`/`inject`, ordinary cordis semantics |
|
||||
| Inspectability | Registers something the plugin list cannot show as a plugin | What the model mounts is exactly what `cordis_inspect` renders |
|
||||
| Model ergonomics | Wins for the single most common case (no plugin boilerplate) | Mitigated by the canonical recipe in the mount description plus boundary errors that teach the fix |
|
||||
|
||||
The correctness investment therefore goes where it pays for every capability at once: the generated API catalog surfaced through `cordis_inspect`, and sandbox-boundary validation whose error messages teach the correct call. A structured registration tool remains addable later as sugar that synthesizes mount code; nothing here forecloses it.
|
||||
|
||||
**A hand-maintained service/event reference in the tool.** The first cut of the inspect tool carried a hand-written table of service method signatures. It was replaced by the generated `api-catalog.ts` because a hand table drifts from the JSDoc the moment a signature changes and nothing gates the drift, whereas the generated artifact is freshness-checked against the same AST the docs use.
|
||||
|
||||
**A new `cordis/mount` session event.** A durable provenance event recording each mount (source, name) has clear precedent (`hook/invoked`, `compact/start`). It was declined for v1: mount and unmount are already visible as `tool/call` / `tool/result` pairs and the tool-set change is already logged as a request-header delta, so a dedicated event would only duplicate the record. It remains addable if an audit use case needs mount provenance separable from the tool call.
|
||||
|
||||
**A hardened / capability-restricted sandbox.** Trapping Node built-ins and handing mount code a whitelist façade rather than the raw context might suggest an intent to sandbox for safety. It is explicitly not that: the traps and the façade narrow the *surface* mount code sees — steering it onto cordis services and away from leak-prone Node built-ins and framework internals — for correctness and to close the unguarded-context escape, but the capabilities the façade exposes (`ctx.bash`, `ctx.fs`, `ctx.web`) reach the real runtime, so it is not a security boundary. A real one (separate process, permission prompts) was out of scope for a dev/opt-in toolset and would fight the entire point — handing the model the live runtime.
|
||||
|
||||
## Consequences
|
||||
|
||||
The toolset is a deliberate opt-in with a fully-privileged `ctx`, so a deployment adopts it as consciously as a bash tool. Several facts follow that the tool descriptions warn the model about directly: a waterfall listener (e.g. `tools/pre-execute`) that returns without calling `next()` vetoes the chain, so a mounted listener can lobotomize the agent's own tool dispatch ([waterfall semantics](../../../cordis-primer.md#cordis-waterfall-semantics)); mount code runs inside a tool call of the current turn, so awaiting anything that resolves only after the turn deadlocks; `vmTimeoutMs` bounds synchronous evaluation only; and mounts do not survive session resume.
|
||||
|
||||
The instructive boundary errors were not guessed — they were written against live self-design sessions in which a real model was asked to build itself coding tools. Those sessions surfaced the failure modes now mitigated: the model closed a returned plugin object with `});` and got only a bare `Unexpected token ')'` it retried blind; it hit a false-positive "this is TypeScript" hint because a description string contained the word "as"; it guessed a bash run's `stdout` was a string and burned six steps building throwaway debug tools to discover it is `{ text, truncated }`; and it wrote tool schemas in the JSON-Schema dialect (`type: 'integer'`, `required: false`, then the full wrapper) three rejections in a row — the rejection text itself pushing it from a nearly-correct DSL attempt back to raw JSON Schema. The fixes — source-line-plus-caret parse errors, line-scoped TypeScript detection, the type-shape closure in the API catalog, the redirect traps, and schema-dialect normalization in place of rejection — cut later sessions from dozens of tool calls with repeated errors to a first-try success on every capability, including a model that hit a Node-`setTimeout` trap and self-corrected to `inject: ['timer']` in one step.
|
||||
|
||||
Coverage is named per tier: package unit specs drive the three tools through a real `ToolRegistry` on a real fiber tree (the mount success/failure family, vm isolation, dual-realm `instanceof`, realm normalization against the real `isJsonValue`, the SchemaSpec and raw-registration rejections, the Node-API traps, the cross-mount provide/inject matrix, catalog-backed `api`/`events` rendering, config validation, presenters, quiescent unmount, and the HMR cascade), a `MockAdapter` loop test proves a tool mounted in one step is dispatchable in the next, and the example carries a keyless Loader smoke plus a with-key smoke that world-verifies a live model mounting a listener, building its own tool, and composing two mounts. No snapshot scenario is added: the toolset ships in no ACP-served app, so it changes no editor-facing transcript, and its presenters are unit-tested pure functions — adding it to the ACP example solely for a golden would rewrite the pinned request-header tool set of every recorded scenario.
|
||||
@@ -51,7 +51,7 @@ The ACP server app loads `@deepseek-ai/dsh-llm-deepseek`, whose `apply` throws w
|
||||
A snapshot run asserts **two** normalized surfaces, because the harness's external surfaces are distinct:
|
||||
|
||||
1. The **stdout transcript** — the framed `session/update` JSON-RPC the editor sees. Catches regressions in the ACP bridge's event→update translation (`streamSessionEventUpdate`). Compared against a committed `stdout.golden.jsonl`.
|
||||
2. The **re-persisted session JSONL** — the log the replay run itself persists, compared against the scenario's `session.jsonl`. Catches regressions in the loop, tool dispatch, and turn/step structure that never surface on stdout. There is no separate session golden: `session.jsonl` is BOTH the replay source (recorded scenarios) and the expected produced log. Both sides pass through `normalizeSessionLog` before comparing — the fixture is raw-harvested (its own real session id / cwd / timestamps) and the replay output has fresh ones, so each is scrubbed against ITS OWN volatile values (the fixture's read from its header line) and the comparison is on normalized form. Request-header CONTENT (the composed system prompt + tool schemas) is additionally scrubbed to `{{system}}`/`{{tools}}` tokens on both sides — in the stored fixtures too — for every scenario except the one that pins it ([pinned-header RFC](2026-07-06-pin-request-header-content-in-one-scenario.md)). For an authored override scenario the same `session.jsonl` holds the expected produced log; `replay.override.json` drives the model, and `llm-replay` ignores the fixture for model chunks when an override exists, so committing the expected log there does not affect replay.
|
||||
2. The **re-persisted session JSONL** — the log the replay run itself persists, compared against the scenario's `session.jsonl`. Catches regressions in the loop, tool dispatch, and turn/step structure that never surface on stdout. There is no separate session golden: `session.jsonl` is both the replay source (recorded scenarios) and the expected produced log. Both sides pass through `normalizeSessionLog` before comparing — the fixture is raw-harvested (its own real session id / cwd / timestamps) and the replay output has fresh ones, so each is scrubbed against its own volatile values (the fixture's read from its header line) and the comparison is on normalized form. Every stored JSONL additionally scrubs composed prompt text to `{{system}}`; each header class's pinning scenario stores that prompt readably in `system-prompt.golden.md` and keeps the complete tool schemas in its JSONL, while other scenarios scrub schemas to `{{tools}}` ([pinned-header RFC](2026-07-06-pin-request-header-content-in-one-scenario.md)). For an authored override scenario the same `session.jsonl` holds the expected produced log; `replay.override.json` drives the model, and `llm-replay` ignores the fixture for model chunks when an override exists, so committing the expected log there does not affect replay.
|
||||
|
||||
The two are genuinely additive: stdout is the bridge's *lossy projection* of the log (it drops `assistant/message.usage`, `step/*`, exact `seq`/`time`, and renders tool I/O differently), so a loop/tool/turn-structure regression can change the JSONL while leaving the stdout projection identical, and a bridge-translation regression can change stdout while the JSONL is untouched. Asserting the JSONL equality also echoes the proposed [universal replay fixture](../../proposed/testing/2026-06-11-deterministic-and-stress-testing.md) idea.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -4,29 +4,30 @@ Status: implemented
|
||||
|
||||
## Problem
|
||||
|
||||
Every model-driving ACP snapshot fixture (`session.jsonl`) embedded the full composed system prompt and the complete tool-schema list in its `request/header` event — roughly 8 KB on one line, per fixture. That content is identical across the suite (byte-identical tool list everywhere, including subagent children; identical prompt modulo each recording's temp cwd), so any change touching a tool description or a system-prompt line had to update every fixture: re-record everything against the live API (churning model responses and stdout goldens along the way) or hand-edit ~35 giant header lines. Introducing the dynamic-workflows feature — one new tool plus one prompt paragraph — rewrote every snapshot fixture in the repo, burying the behavioral diff a reviewer should be reading.
|
||||
An ACP snapshot suite needs to prove the exact composed system prompt and tool-schema list sent in each `request/header`, but duplicating that content inside every `session.jsonl` makes a prompt or schema edit rewrite dozens of giant one-line JSON records. Keeping one raw header avoids the duplication but still makes prompt review poor: prose is JSON-escaped onto one line and mixed with thousands of characters of tool schemas.
|
||||
|
||||
## Decision
|
||||
|
||||
Exactly one scenario — `text-turn`, flagged `pinsHeader` in the `acp.snapshot.ts` scenario table — commits and compares the full request-header content; the pin mechanics live in [`dsh-acp-snapshot`](../../../../packages/support/acp-snapshot/README.md), whose suite factory enforces one pin per consuming suite. Every other fixture stores and compares that content as stable tokens via the pure normalizer `scrubRequestHeaders` in that package's `normalize.ts`: a `request/header` event's `header.system` becomes `"{{system}}"` and `header.tools` becomes `"{{tools}}"`; a `request/header-delta` keeps its structural facts — the system delta's `keepStart`/`keepEnd` line positions with one `{{system}}` token per inserted line, the tools delta's added/removed/changed tool names — and tokenizes only the bulk (prompt text, schema bodies), so two different deltas still compare different. The scrub is composed in front of `normalizeSessionLog` on BOTH sides of a non-pinning scenario's log compare and applied to the harvested logs record mode writes, so a re-record cannot smuggle the content back. Absent fields stay absent — WHETHER a header carried a prompt or tools is behavior and stays visible — and `config`/`reason` stay verbatim: a model swap churns every fixture by design (it invalidates the recorded responses), while a prompt or schema edit churns none of them (replay derives model behavior exclusively from `assistant/chunk` events and never reads header content — see `dsh-llm-replay`).
|
||||
Exactly one scenario per header-composition class is flagged `pinsHeader`. Its directory splits the pin by review format: `system-prompt.golden.md` contains the normalized composed prompt as ordinary Markdown, while `session.jsonl` keeps the full tool-schema list, config, and reason but stores `header.system` as `"{{system}}"`. Every other JSONL stores both the system prompt and tool list as `"{{system}}"` / `"{{tools}}"`. The pin mechanics live in [`dsh-acp-snapshot`](../../../../packages/support/acp-snapshot/README.md), whose suite factory enforces one pin per class.
|
||||
|
||||
A system-prompt or tool-schema change therefore lands as exactly one committed-fixture diff — the pinned `text-turn` header line — updated by hand or by re-recording that one scenario (`pnpm run test:snapshot:record` with `-t text-turn`).
|
||||
The pure `scrubSystemPrompts` normalizer applies to every stored session fixture and tokenizes both an initial header's prompt and a header delta's inserted prompt lines. `scrubRequestHeaders` additionally tokenizes tool schemas and session-prefix content for non-pinning scenarios while retaining structural facts: system-delta positions and arity, added/removed/changed tool names, prefix message count, field presence, config, and reason. Record and refresh write-back apply the appropriate scrub before writing JSONL and regenerate the Markdown prompt from the normalized live header, so neither path can reintroduce prompt text into JSONL or leave the readable snapshot stale.
|
||||
|
||||
Guards make the split self-enforcing. On disk (fixture meta-tests): every non-pinning `session*.jsonl` must be a fixed point of `scrubRequestHeaders` (unscrubbed content crept in — apply the scrub), the pinning scenario's fixture must NOT be one (the pin lost its content), and exactly one scenario must pin. Live (every non-pinning scenario run): each `request/header` the run produces — parent, spawn child, fork child, initial or resume — must equal the pinned fixture's header after both sides normalize their own volatile values, and no `request/header-delta` may appear at all (a mid-run header change diverges from the pin by construction, and its content would be invisible under the scrub), so the single-pin premise is asserted rather than assumed.
|
||||
Guards make the split self-enforcing. On disk, every `session*.jsonl` is a fixed point of `scrubSystemPrompts`, only non-pinning fixtures are fixed points of the full header scrub, `system-prompt.golden.md` exists exactly beside pinning fixtures, and each class has one pin. Live, every `request/header` produced by a parent, spawn child, fork child, initial request, or resume must match both halves of its class's pin after volatile-value normalization. A header without a string prompt or any `request/header-delta` fails loud because the two static pin artifacts cannot represent it.
|
||||
|
||||
One pin covers the whole suite because every session — parent, spawn child, fork child — composes the identical tool list and the identical prompt modulo cwd, and the uniformity guard fails the suite the moment that stops holding. If header composition ever becomes session-dependent by design (a restricted subagent toolset, say), the divergent shape gets its own pinning scenario.
|
||||
|
||||
## Alternatives considered
|
||||
|
||||
- **Re-record or hand-edit every fixture per change** — the status quo; the churn this RFC removes.
|
||||
- **Scrub at compare time only, keeping fixtures raw** — the compares go green without fixture edits, but every committed fixture then carries a permanently stale copy of the prompt and schemas: dead weight that misleads readers and still rewrites wholesale on the next re-record. Storing the tokens keeps the fixture honest about what it does and does not pin.
|
||||
- **Re-record or hand-edit every fixture per change** — preserves exact headers but buries behavioral diffs under duplicated prompt and schema content.
|
||||
- **Scrub at compare time only, keeping fixtures raw** — lets compares pass while committed fixtures retain stale duplicate content and rewrite wholesale on the next recording. Stored tokens state honestly what each JSONL does not pin.
|
||||
- **Scrub everywhere, pin nowhere** — loses the only end-to-end record of the composed header as actually sent (prompt assembly, registered-tool order, full schemas). The generated tool catalog documents each tool in isolation; only a real fixture pins the composed set.
|
||||
- **Keep the one full pin entirely in JSONL** — removes suite-wide duplication but leaves system-prompt changes as an escaped one-line diff entangled with the tool list. Markdown gives prompt prose its natural review format without weakening the header assertion.
|
||||
- **Slim the session log itself (log a content digest, store the header elsewhere)** — violates the reconstructability contract: the product log must reproduce each request bit-for-bit ([reconstructable-requests RFC](../architecture/2026-07-05-reconstructable-requests.md)). Header bulk is a test-artifact concern, solved in test normalization; the live log is untouched.
|
||||
|
||||
## Verification
|
||||
|
||||
All 37 snapshot scenarios replay green with the scrubbed fixtures (the committed fixtures were rewritten once through `scrubRequestHeaders` itself; `text-turn` untouched). The fixed-point, pin-retains-content, exactly-one-pin, live header-uniformity, and no-unpinned-delta guards run inside the suite, and `scrubRequestHeaders` has unit coverage for both header event types, delta structure preservation (line positions, insert arity, tool names), absent-field preservation, config/reason retention, byte-for-byte pass-through of other lines, and idempotence.
|
||||
The suite replays every scenario against the split pins. Unit coverage exercises both scrub levels, Markdown formatting, record/refresh regeneration, normalized prompt extraction, fixed-point enforcement, required-file symmetry, header uniformity, and delta rejection.
|
||||
|
||||
## Consequences
|
||||
|
||||
A tool-description or system-prompt change churns one committed fixture line instead of every fixture in the suite, so snapshot diffs read as behavior again, and ~270 KB of duplicated header bytes leave the repo. The cost: non-pinning fixtures no longer display header content, so reading one shows tokens where the prompt and schemas were — the pinned `text-turn` fixture is the place to look, and the live uniformity guard guarantees it speaks for every session in the suite. A header change surfaces as a suite-wide test failure whose fix is the one pinned line, rather than as ~35 fixture rewrites.
|
||||
A system-prompt change produces a normal line-oriented Markdown diff in one file per affected composition class; a tool-description change produces one pinned JSONL line per class; ordinary behavioral fixtures remain untouched. Session fixtures display tokens for omitted content, and the live uniformity guard makes each split pin authoritative for every session in its class. The pinning scenario carries one extra generated artifact whose terminal newline is canonicalized for repository hygiene.
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ The machinery lives in [`packages/support/acp-snapshot`](../../../../packages/su
|
||||
|
||||
**`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-mode 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, non-pinning fixtures are `scrubRequestHeaders` fixed points). The pinned-header contract ([pinned-header RFC](2026-07-06-pin-request-header-content-in-one-scenario.md)) is per-suite: each suite flags exactly one `pinsHeader` scenario (the factory throws on zero, a meta-test rejects more than one; WHICH scenario pins is the table's reviewable choice), and the uniformity guard compares only that suite's sessions. The pure helpers (`childFixturePaths`, `fixtureContext`, `normalizedHeaders`, `headerDeltaCount`) are exported for direct unit coverage.
|
||||
**`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). 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. The pure helpers (`childFixturePaths`, `fixtureContext`, `normalizedHeaders`, `normalizedSystemPrompts`, `formatSystemPromptSnapshot`, `headerDeltaCount`) are exported from the module for direct unit coverage.
|
||||
|
||||
## Alternatives considered
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -1,84 +0,0 @@
|
||||
# RFC: Agent Client Protocol (ACP) support — drive the coding agent from external editors
|
||||
|
||||
Status: proposed
|
||||
|
||||
> **Implementation status (MVP landed):** steps 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 are implemented in `packages/ui/acp` + `examples/acp-agent`. **Step 5 (the `session/request_permission` permission gate) is deferred** — the bridge ships a pass-through (tools run with the executor's full authority) marked `TODO(rfc010-permission-gate)`, and lays down only the `WeakMap<Agent, sessionId>` ownership seam the gate will build on. Status stays `proposed` until the gate lands. `session/cancel` is the queue-aware `agent.cancel()`: it aborts a running step, clears queued + steering work, and drops a turn that is about to start, so a queued-but-not-yet-started prompt never runs and a later prompt cannot be batched into the cancelled turn. **Per-session `cwd` is now honored** (lifting the original "launch the server in the workspace root" restriction — see § Deferred): `session/new` accepts any absolute `cwd`, and `session/load` requires the request `cwd` to match the persisted session `cwd` so the editor and bash executor agree on the workspace.
|
||||
|
||||
## Problem
|
||||
|
||||
The coding agent is reachable only through the readline `stdio-chat` plugin: it reads lines from stdin, calls `agent.send()`, and prints the assistant token stream (`session/event` `assistant/chunk`) to stdout. There is no structured protocol, so the agent cannot be embedded in an editor — no streaming render, no tool-call display, no permission UI, no resumable sessions.
|
||||
|
||||
Editors are converging on the Agent Client Protocol (ACP), which Zed and others speak: JSON-RPC 2.0 over newline-delimited stdio, modeled on the Language Server Protocol. An editor boots the agent as a subprocess and exchanges `initialize` / `session/new` / `session/prompt`, rendering streamed `session/update` notifications and `session/request_permission` prompts. The goal is for the agent to be a drop-in ACP server — implement the protocol once and run in any ACP client, with no per-editor glue.
|
||||
|
||||
This RFC has a hard prerequisite on [session persistence](../../implemented/architecture/2026-06-14-session-persistence.md): it assumes durable session persistence (the `SessionPersistence` service and the async `AgentLoop.resume` seam) is implemented, so resuming a session via `session/load` is in scope. None of those APIs exist yet — `AgentLoop` currently exposes only the synchronous `create` — so ACP must land after, or in the same change as, [session persistence](../../implemented/architecture/2026-06-14-session-persistence.md), and pins to its `resume(agentId, resumeSessionId)` contract. Session persistence persists every `SessionEvent` verbatim (including `assistant/chunk`), so a loaded session has the stream chunks needed to replay turns to the client.
|
||||
|
||||
## Proposal
|
||||
|
||||
A new plugin package `@deepseek-ai/dsh-acp` — a client-driver / UI plugin, the structured analogue of `stdio-chat`. It is NOT a change to the loop and NOT an [capability seams](../../implemented/architecture/2026-06-13-capability-seams.md) interface/implementation/consumer capability split; it consumes the existing `agent/*` event taxonomy and the `tools/pre-execute`/`tools/post-execute` waterfalls.
|
||||
|
||||
It depends on the official `@agentclientprotocol/sdk` (the `AgentSideConnection` class) — Apache-2.0, actively versioned. The SDK declares a `zod` peer dependency and imports `zod/v4` at runtime, so `packages/ui/acp` must declare `zod` itself (per the workspace dependency constraints). This is the renamed successor to `@zed-industries/agent-client-protocol`, which is now deprecated on npm.
|
||||
|
||||
The mapping between ACP and existing harness seams — each row names the seam and any required extension:
|
||||
|
||||
| ACP (client ⇄ agent) | Harness seam | Notes |
|
||||
|---|---|---|
|
||||
| `initialize` | static handler | negotiate `protocolVersion` (echo the supported version, else error); advertise text-only `promptCapabilities` and `loadSession: true`; report agent name/version |
|
||||
| `session/new {cwd, mcpServers, additionalDirectories}` → `{sessionId}` | the `dsh-agent` create factory (see Dependency note + Plan) | the seam must accept `{ sessionId, meta }` so the ACP-generated `sessionId` becomes the live/persisted session id and the validated `cwd` is attached as the `SessionHeader` (today `AgentLoop.create(id)` hardcodes `${id}-session` and takes no metadata); reject a 2nd session (single-session MVP, see [ACP multi-session](2026-06-14-acp-multi-session.md)); `cwd` validated (require absolute) — any absolute cwd is honored: it becomes the session's `SessionHeader.cwd` and the default bash workdir (per-session cwd, see § Deferred → RESOLVED), so the server need not launch in the workspace; non-empty `mcpServers` and `additionalDirectories` are rejected for the MVP because silently ignoring requested servers/roots would desync the client's tool and filesystem-scope UI |
|
||||
| `session/load {sessionId, cwd, mcpServers, additionalDirectories}` | the `dsh-agent` resume factory ([session persistence](../../implemented/architecture/2026-06-14-session-persistence.md) + Dependency note) | load `{ meta, events }`, seed the session, re-derive history via `deriveMessages()`, replay prior turns to the client as `session/update` per the ACP load contract; `mcpServers` and `additionalDirectories` rejected as in `session/new` |
|
||||
| `session/prompt {prompt}` | `agent.send()` (idle) | text blocks → `TextBlock`; reject image/audio per advertised capabilities; one in-flight prompt per session |
|
||||
| resolve `session/prompt` → `{stopReason}` | the `turn/end` `session/event` (its `reason`) | map the harness kebab `TurnEndReason` to the ACP snake_case `StopReason` wire enum: `completed`→`end_turn`, `max-tokens`→`max_tokens`, `aborted`(cancel)→`cancelled`, plus `refusal`/`max_turn_requests` when applicable; honor the batch-into-one-turn and send-not-synchronously-running settle semantics |
|
||||
| `session/update: agent_message_chunk` | `session/event` `assistant/chunk` `text-delta` only | do NOT also emit on `block-end(TextBlock)` — it carries the fully-assembled block and would duplicate the streamed text |
|
||||
| `session/update: agent_thought_chunk` | `session/event` `assistant/chunk` `reasoning-delta` | |
|
||||
| `session/update: tool_call` (pending→in_progress) | `session/event` `tool/call` | demux via a Session→sessionId map; `kind` inferred from the tool name |
|
||||
| `session/update: tool_call_update` (completed/failed) | `session/event` `tool/result` | a throwing `tools/execute` yields NO `tool/result` → fail the pending tool UI from `agent/error`/turn-end |
|
||||
| `session/request_permission {sessionId, toolCall, options}` | prepended `tools/execute` listener | no-op unless `exec.agent` is ACP-owned; await the outcome; `selected/allow_*` → `next()`; `reject_*`/`cancelled` → veto `ToolExecutionResult{isError}` |
|
||||
| `session/cancel` (notification) | `agent.cancel(reason)` | the queue-aware cancel (abort running step, clear queued + steering, drop an about-to-start turn); settle the in-flight prompt as `cancelled`; resolve any pending permission as `cancelled` exactly once |
|
||||
|
||||
The permission gate is the first real consumer of the `tools/execute` veto seam (the documented "single veto/sandbox/permission seam" plus the deferred "Permission system" TODO in [docs/architecture.md](../../../architecture.md)). It is a single global listener registered with `prepend: true` so it runs before any other tool wrapper. `ToolExecution.agent` is optional and the `Agent` interface carries no origin marker, so the bridge tracks ownership itself: it records each agent it creates in a `WeakMap<Agent, sessionId>` and the gate no-ops (calls `next()` immediately) for any `exec.agent` it does not own — non-ACP agents and the no-agent case pass straight through. For an owned agent it resolves the session, issues `session/request_permission`, and stores the pending resolver on that session's record so the outcome — or a `session/cancel`/connection-close — settles it exactly once.
|
||||
|
||||
Lifecycle and disposal: the connection, listeners, and in-flight permission promises register via `ctx.effect`/`ctx.on`; teardown is async and must *reach* quiescence, not just request it — close the connection, settle/reject pending permissions, and dispose each owned agent through its `AgentHandle.dispose()` (which stops the loop, `await`s its exit, and unregisters). Owner teardown goes through that handle seam, not the loop's concrete `agent.done` (which exists only on `ReactLoopAgent`); a non-owner that merely wants to *observe* the current work settling without tearing the agent down awaits the interface-level `agent.whenIdle()`. Every listener contains its `send()` exceptions (log, never reject the turn) because stream chunks are emitted inside the model step, so a throwing listener would corrupt the turn.
|
||||
|
||||
**Dependency note (architecture rule).** [docs/architecture.md](../../../architecture.md) states "plugins depend on interface packages, never on `dsh-agent-loop`." Creating and resuming agents is currently only on the concrete `AgentLoop` (`ctx.agentLoop`), so this RFC proposes adding an **abstract create/resume factory** to the `dsh-agent` interface (registry-level `create({ sessionId, meta })` / `resume(...)`), implemented by the loop, so `dsh-acp` injects only `agents` (the interface) and the dependency rule holds. The alternative — injecting the concrete `agentLoop` and recording a documented exception in the architecture doc — is explicitly the non-preferred fallback.
|
||||
|
||||
## Plan
|
||||
|
||||
1. Package scaffold `packages/ui/acp/` per [the cookbook](../../../cookbook/adding-a-package.md); add `@agentclientprotocol/sdk` and `zod`. Add the abstract create/resume factory to `dsh-agent` (the interface) so the bridge can `inject: ['agents', 'sessions', 'tools', 'sessionPersistence']` without depending on the concrete loop; `sessionPersistence` is required because `session/load` advertises `loadSession: true`. (Fallback only if the factory is judged not worth it: inject `agentLoop` directly and record the architecture-rule exception in `docs/architecture.md`.)
|
||||
2. Connection plus `initialize`/`session/new`: wire `AgentSideConnection` to stdin/stdout; protocolVersion negotiation; the single-session guard; create the live session through the new `{ sessionId, meta }` factory seam (so the ACP `sessionId` and validated `cwd` become the session's id and header); the `sessionId↔agent` and `Session↔sessionId` maps.
|
||||
3. Internal edit — turn-end reason fidelity (sanctioned: edit internals to fit ACP). Extend `TurnEndReasonMap` in the proper places: (a) declaration-merge a `max-tokens` variant in the owning package (`packages/core/session/src/types.ts`, alongside `completed|aborted|error|disposed`) — add `max-tokens` because `FinishReasonMap` produces it (DeepSeek maps `length` → `max-tokens`); do not add `refusal`, since no current adapter produces it (unknown DeepSeek finish reasons collapse to `error`), but leave a comment in `TurnEndReasonMap` noting `refusal` should be added when an adapter first emits it (`FinishReasonMap` is merge-extensible); (b) make `agent-loop`'s `loop.ts` populate the reason from the model `finish` chunk — `assembler.finish` lives inside `runStep`, so `runStep` must return it up to `runTurn`, and the rule is "the last step's finish reason wins, but any `max-tokens` in the turn surfaces as `max-tokens`"; (c) no consumer exhaustively switches over `TurnEndReason` today (the invariants plugin switches on `SessionEventType`, and `deriveMessages` ignores `turn/end`), so adding `max-tokens` is a non-breaking extension — but recheck before landing; (d) update [docs/architecture.md](../../../architecture.md) (the CI-verified loop-lifecycle/event-taxonomy doc) and the affected package READMEs/JSDoc (`dsh-session`, `dsh-agent`, `dsh-agent-loop`) per the repo doc-sync policy. This replaces a fragile "observe the finish chunk in the bridge" hack with a real, documented contract.
|
||||
4. Prompt-turn streaming plus load: translate `session/event` (the `assistant/chunk` token stream plus boundaries and tool activity) into `session/update`; resolve `session/prompt` on settle, mapping the harness `TurnEndReason` to the ACP `StopReason` wire enum (`completed`→`end_turn`, `max-tokens`→`max_tokens`, `aborted`→`cancelled`) — a small total function with a test asserting the exact wire strings, since the SDK rejects an unknown `stopReason`. Concrete correlation, since the loop batches queued messages into one turn and `send()` does not synchronously flip to running: install the `session/event` listener before `send()`; capture the prompt's owning turn from its `turn/start` record, then resolve on that turn's `turn/end` (with `agent/status` idle/disposed as a fallback); reject an empty/whitespace prompt up front rather than calling `send()` (no turn would ever start, so the RPC would hang). Implement `session/load` on the session-persistence resume seam.
|
||||
5. Permission gate: a single `tools/execute` listener registered with `prepend: true`, owning a `WeakMap<Agent, sessionId>` of bridge-created agents; no-op (`next()`) for unowned/no-agent calls; for owned calls → `session/request_permission` → allow (`next()`) / veto; settle the stored resolver exactly once on outcome, cancel, or connection close.
|
||||
6. Example wiring (extract a shared base). `@cordisjs/plugin-include` is itself a plugin entry that resets `ctx.baseUrl` and loads a path, so a child `cordis.yml` can nest-include a shared base; the extraction is safe because every dependent plugin declares `inject` (loader groups initialize via `Promise.all`, so YAML order is NOT the dependency mechanism — never rely on it). Extract the provider/tool core (`llm, sessions, system-prompt, tools, agents, invariants, llm-deepseek, bash-local, tool-bash`) into `examples/base.yml`; have both `coding-agent` and a new `examples/acp-agent/` include it and add their own UI plugin plus logger. Keep `agent-loop` per-example (NOT in the base): `AgentLoop` creates its configured agents in its constructor, and the two examples disagree — `coding-agent` needs a pre-created `main` (its `stdio-chat` calls `ctx.agents.get('main')`), while `acp-agent` must pre-create none (ACP `session/new` creates agents). So `coding-agent` declares `agent-loop` with `agents: [{ id: main, … }]` and `acp-agent` with `agents: []`. `acp-agent` loads `dsh-session-persistence-jsonl` (from [session persistence](../../implemented/architecture/2026-06-14-session-persistence.md) — required for `session/load`), omits the stdout logger (see Risks), and adds `pnpm run demo:acp` plus the Zed `agent_servers` snippet.
|
||||
7. Tests (the repo cares a lot here): a property-based test for the protocol shape (precedent: [property-based testing](../../implemented/testing/2026-06-11-property-based-testing.md)) — fuzz arbitrary harness event sequences and assert ACP-stream invariants (never a `tool_call_update` before its `tool_call`; exactly one `session/prompt` resolution per prompt; monotonic, well-formed ordering; `stopReason` in the legal set); codec unit tests over an in-memory `Duplex` pair (drive `AgentSideConnection` without a subprocess; assert exact frames for `initialize`, `session/new`, a full prompt turn); the mandatory HMR-safety test (dispose the fiber; assert the connection closed, all `ctx.on` listeners gone, any in-flight `request_permission` settled); failure-path tests (connection closes mid-stream; closes with a permission pending; a notification `send()` rejects but the turn survives; `finish{kind:'error'|'aborted'}`; a `tools/execute` throw with no `tool/result`; a second `session/new` rejected; a `session/prompt` while one is in flight; an empty prompt rejected without hanging; a `session/load` re-derives identical history and replays it); and an e2e (`*.e2e.ts`, self-skips without `DEEPSEEK_API_KEY`) that boots `examples/acp-agent`, connects a `ClientSideConnection`, sends a real prompt, owns and disposes the harness in `afterEach`, and verifies the world (files on disk), not the agent's self-report.
|
||||
8. Docs: module/JSDoc plus a package README; extend [the extension cookbook](../../../cookbook/extension-cookbook.md) with the client-driver pattern. Flip Status to `implemented` on landing; record a decision in this RFC only if it proves durable, contested, and surprising (candidates: the `tools/execute` permission-ownership rule, the npm-dependency choice) — not auto-required.
|
||||
|
||||
Deferred (each names its owning future work):
|
||||
|
||||
- Multiplexing concurrent sessions → [ACP multi-session](2026-06-14-acp-multi-session.md).
|
||||
- ~~`cwd` honoring.~~ **RESOLVED.** Originally there was no path from `session/new.cwd` to the bash workdir (`tool-bash` forwarded only an explicit `args.workdir`; `LocalBashExecutor.resolve` defaulted to its own config or `process.cwd()`), so the MVP validated `cwd` (require absolute) AND required the server to launch in the workspace root, erroring on a mismatch. This is now lifted: the validated `cwd` is stored as `SessionHeader.cwd`, and `dsh-tool-bash` defaults the bash workdir to the calling agent's `session.header.cwd` (an explicit model `workdir` still wins; a relative one resolves against it). Any absolute `cwd` is honored — the server need not launch in the workspace, and N sessions can each target a different directory. Widening scope beyond the single cwd (`additionalDirectories`) remains deferred.
|
||||
- Client `terminal/*` proxying (a live editor terminal) and `fs/*` (editor-rendered diffs) — a future `BashExecutor` over the [capability seams](../../implemented/architecture/2026-06-13-capability-seams.md) bash seam, gated on `clientCapabilities.terminal`.
|
||||
- Image/audio prompts (blocked on the DeepSeek adapter, which skips `image` blocks today), modes, auth, `available_commands`/slash-commands, `plan`, and `usage_update`.
|
||||
|
||||
## Alternatives considered
|
||||
|
||||
- **A process-wide stdout hijack inside `dsh-acp`** (defensively monkey-patching `console.log` / `process.stdout.write`) — rejected: it lives outside Cordis' effect-scoped, HMR-friendly plugin model, races the connection's own stdout handoff, and fights the logger. The stdout guarantee is config-only.
|
||||
- **Injecting `agentLoop` directly instead of the abstract create/resume factory** — the recorded fallback, taken only if the factory seam is judged not worth it, with the architecture-rule exception recorded in `docs/architecture.md`.
|
||||
|
||||
## Acceptance criteria
|
||||
|
||||
- The `acp-agent` example speaks ACP over stdio end-to-end: `initialize`, `session/new` with a validated absolute `cwd` honored as the session workspace, streamed `session/update` frames per prompt turn, `session/load` re-deriving identical history, and `session/prompt` resolving with the correct wire `stopReason`.
|
||||
- stdout carries only framed JSON-RPC (asserted by test); the permission gate settles every `session/request_permission` exactly once — on outcome, cancel, or connection close.
|
||||
- The plan's test set runs green: the property-based protocol invariants, the codec unit tests over an in-memory duplex pair, the HMR-safety test, the failure-path matrix, and the self-skipping real-API e2e that verifies the world.
|
||||
|
||||
## Risks
|
||||
|
||||
stdout is the protocol — guaranteed by config, not by monkey-patching. The console logger writes through `console.log` to stdout, so any stdout UI/logger plugin corrupts JSON-RPC. The guarantee is config-only: the `acp-agent` example loads no stdout plugin (no console logger, no `stdio-chat`) and, if logging is wanted, uses a stderr exporter. A defensive process-wide `process.stdout.write`/`console.log` hijack inside `dsh-acp` is explicitly rejected — it lives outside Cordis' effect-scoped, HMR-friendly plugin model, races the connection's own stdout handoff, and fights the logger. A test asserts the example emits only framed JSON-RPC on stdout.
|
||||
|
||||
New third-party runtime dependency plus protocol drift: `@agentclientprotocol/sdk` is young (0.25.x, recently renamed) and evolving. Pin the version and isolate churn to the one bridge package. This is not a vendoring-policy violation — [vendoring Cordis as source](../../implemented/process/2026-06-11-vendor-cordis-as-source.md) vendors the framework; genuine third-party deps already live on npm (`@earendil-works/pi-ai`).
|
||||
|
||||
Turn-settle and prompt-correlation hazards: honor "queued messages batch into one turn" and "`send()` does not synchronously flip to running" (see `stdio-chat.ts` and the defensive-patterns section of [docs/architecture.md](../../../architecture.md)); gate resolution on an observed running→idle transition and handle the empty-prompt / no-work branch so an RPC can't hang.
|
||||
|
||||
Permission-await and disposal hangs: a pending `request_permission` whose connection closes or whose turn aborts must settle exactly once; disposal must reach quiescence — tear each owned agent down through `AgentHandle.dispose()` (which stops the loop and awaits its exit), rather than orphaning awaits on a closed pipe.
|
||||
|
||||
The 100% per-file coverage gate (repo policy) makes a branch-heavy protocol bridge real work. Accepted deliberately, surfaced so it isn't a surprise at PR time.
|
||||
|
||||
ACP protocol-shape details (exact method names, `session/update` variants, permission option kinds, stop reasons) are taken from the ACP spec and the `@agentclientprotocol/sdk` types; they are not independently verifiable until the dependency is added, so the implementation pins the SDK version and conforms to its types rather than to this RFC's prose where they differ.
|
||||
@@ -1,48 +0,0 @@
|
||||
# RFC: Multiplex concurrent ACP sessions over one connection
|
||||
|
||||
Status: proposed
|
||||
|
||||
> **Implementation status:** the multi-session bridge (steps 1, 3, 4) and the bash task-ownership isolation are implemented in `packages/ui/acp` + `packages/bash/tool-bash`. **Per-session *permission* ownership is deferred** — it depends on [the ACP support permission gate](2026-06-14-acp-agent-client-protocol.md) (`TODO(rfc010-permission-gate)`), which is itself deferred; the `agent→sessionId` reverse map the gate will route through is in place. Step 2's per-session disposer scope is now implemented (see [agent lifecycle & ownership seams](../../implemented/architecture/2026-06-18-agent-lifecycle-and-ownership-seams.md)): the factory returns a per-agent `AgentHandle` whose `dispose()` stops the loop, awaits quiescence, unregisters the agent, and removes its session, so a bare client disconnect leaves no registered agent or session-store entry. Status stays `proposed` until per-session permission ownership lands.
|
||||
|
||||
> **Target-client note:** Zed is the current target ACP client, and its ACP client maintains a `HashMap<SessionId, AcpSession>` plus `pending_sessions` for concurrent `session/load` calls. The competing simplification to return to one live session per connection was rejected after checking that target-client shape; this RFC remains the path for finishing multiplexing and per-session permission ownership. See [the rejected simplification](../../rejected/simplification/2026-06-20-single-session-acp-bridge.md).
|
||||
|
||||
## Problem
|
||||
|
||||
[ACP support](2026-06-14-acp-agent-client-protocol.md) ships with a single active session per connection: a second `session/new` is rejected. Editors expect to run several conversations over one agent subprocess — a user opens multiple threads, or a client pre-warms sessions. The single-session guard is a deliberate MVP scope cut, not an architectural limit; this RFC lifts it.
|
||||
|
||||
This paragraph is historical: the multi-session bridge has landed. The remaining proposed work is per-session permission ownership plus the lifecycle seams now tracked in [agent lifecycle and ownership seams](../../implemented/architecture/2026-06-18-agent-lifecycle-and-ownership-seams.md).
|
||||
|
||||
## Proposal
|
||||
|
||||
The harness core already supports many agents (`AgentRegistry.list()` and `AgentLoop.create` impose no count limit), so multiplexing is a bridge-layer change in `@deepseek-ai/dsh-acp`, not a loop or core change.
|
||||
|
||||
- Lift the single-session guard in `session/new`; allow N live sessions, each mapped to its own `ReactLoopAgent`.
|
||||
- The bridge's `sessionId→agent` and `Session→sessionId` maps (introduced single-entry by [the ACP support RFC](2026-06-14-acp-agent-client-protocol.md)) become true multi-entry, plus a third `agent→sessionId` reverse map: the `tools/execute` permission gate receives only `exec.agent` (no sessionId), so it needs an O(1) reverse lookup to find the owning session. Every `agent/*` event and every `session/event` is demuxed strictly by id, so two sessions streaming at once never interleave their `session/update` notifications.
|
||||
- Per-session prompt queues: [the ACP support RFC](2026-06-14-acp-agent-client-protocol.md)'s single-entry in-flight-prompt state becomes multi-entry — one in-flight prompt *per session*, tracked per `sessionId`.
|
||||
- Per-session cancel routing: `session/cancel` cancels only its own session's agent (via the queue-aware `agent.cancel()`) and settles only that session's in-flight prompt. The cancel is scoped to that one agent — a per-agent `AbortController` for the running step plus the agent's own queued/steering FIFOs — so it never touches another session's stream or pending prompt.
|
||||
- Per-session permission ownership: a `session/request_permission` and its outcome are bound to the originating session via the reverse map, so a permission prompt or a cancel in one session can never resolve another session's pending permission.
|
||||
|
||||
## Plan
|
||||
|
||||
1. Generalize the two id maps to multi-entry and add the `agent→sessionId` reverse map; add a per-session record holding the agent, the in-flight-prompt state, the pending-permission registry, and the session's disposer scope (see step 2).
|
||||
2. Give each session a real per-session disposer scope, NOT `ctx.extend()` — in Cordis `ctx.extend()` only creates a child context/prototype, but `ctx.on()` registered on it is still owned by the current plugin fiber, so disposing it would not remove that session's listeners. Use a genuine child fiber (load a per-session sub-plugin, e.g. `ctx.plugin(...)` returning a fork, or collect each session's `ctx.on` disposers in its session record and call them on teardown). Demux every `agent/*` and `session/event` by id into the right session record. Note the single global `tools/execute` listener stays on the bridge root (it must see all agents) and routes via the reverse map.
|
||||
3. Lift the `session/new` guard; keep `session/load` ([from ACP support](2026-06-14-acp-agent-client-protocol.md)) working per session.
|
||||
4. Tests for cross-session isolation: two sessions streaming and permission-prompting concurrently never interleave; a cancel/abort in one session leaves the other's stream and pending permission untouched; per-session in-flight-prompt enforcement holds independently; disposing one session leaves the others running.
|
||||
|
||||
## Alternatives considered
|
||||
|
||||
**A per-session `ctx.extend()` scope** — rejected: in Cordis, `ctx.extend()` only creates a child context/prototype, and `ctx.on()` registered on it is still owned by the current plugin fiber, so disposing it would not remove that session's listeners. A genuine child fiber (or a per-session collection of disposers) is required.
|
||||
|
||||
## Acceptance criteria
|
||||
|
||||
- N concurrent sessions stream and permission-prompt without interleaving their `session/update` notifications; a cancel in one session leaves every other session's stream, queued prompts, and pending permissions untouched.
|
||||
- Disposing one session removes exactly its own listeners; connection teardown reaches quiescence across all sessions.
|
||||
- One session's agent cannot read or kill another session's background bash task.
|
||||
|
||||
## Risks
|
||||
|
||||
Listener fan-out cost: each session adds listeners; ensure disposal of one session removes exactly its own and the connection teardown ([from ACP support](2026-06-14-acp-agent-client-protocol.md)) still reaches quiescence across all sessions.
|
||||
|
||||
The subtle correctness trap is cross-session leakage — a cancel or abort on one session settling another session's pending permission. The per-session permission ownership rule (routed via the `agent→sessionId` reverse map) and its isolation test are the guard.
|
||||
|
||||
Shared background-task state: the bash executor's task ids are global and predictable (`bash-1`, `bash-2`, …), and `bash_output`/`bash_kill` look up by id without checking the caller. Under one session this is benign; under N sessions one session's agent could read or kill another's background task. This is a pre-existing `tool-bash` gap that multi-session turns into a real isolation hole — fixing it (validate the caller against the task owner) belongs with this RFC or a companion `tool-bash` change.
|
||||
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ Status: rejected — Zed is the current target ACP client and its ACP implementa
|
||||
|
||||
## Problem
|
||||
|
||||
The ACP bridge now supports multiple live sessions on one JSON-RPC connection. That capability brings multi-entry session maps, reverse session/agent lookups, per-session prompt state, loading ids, demux for every event, cross-session teardown, and isolation concerns for future permission prompts and background tasks. The older [multi-session ACP proposal](../../proposed/feature/2026-06-14-acp-multi-session.md) still tracks the unfinished permission-ownership piece; this RFC is the competing simplification path.
|
||||
The ACP bridge now supports multiple live sessions on one JSON-RPC connection. That capability brings multi-entry session maps, reverse session/agent lookups, per-session prompt state, loading ids, demux for every event, cross-session teardown, and isolation concerns for future permission prompts and background tasks. The older [multi-session ACP proposal](../../implemented/feature/2026-06-14-acp-multi-session.md) still tracks the unfinished permission-ownership piece; this RFC is the competing simplification path.
|
||||
|
||||
The product target has proven it needs concurrent editor conversations over one harness process: Zed's ACP connection owns multiple sessions and load states. The snapshot replay tier still avoids concurrent model streams because its replay entries are positional; that is a test-fixture limitation, not a reason to remove bridge multiplexing.
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ Remove the multi-session maps and demux where a single `SessionRecord | undefine
|
||||
- `session/new` and `session/load` reject while that record exists.
|
||||
- Event handlers no longer demux across a `Map<sessionId, record>`.
|
||||
- Multi-session tests are removed or moved under the proposal that continues to defend multiplexing.
|
||||
- The existing [multi-session ACP proposal](../../proposed/feature/2026-06-14-acp-multi-session.md) is updated to link this RFC and remains the live direction.
|
||||
- The existing [multi-session ACP proposal](../../implemented/feature/2026-06-14-acp-multi-session.md) is updated to link this RFC and remains the live direction.
|
||||
|
||||
## What we give up
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
Reference in New Issue
Block a user