Make Cordis construction and teardown ownership reentrancy-safe, then carry caller and provider ownership through reservation, setup, publication, quiescence, and sentinel retirement.
Stabilize registry carriers and factory/workflow boundaries, add adversarial lifecycle regressions, and align the rewritten RFC plus generated contracts with the enforced behavior.
Every packages/*/* README now carries a canonical '## Known Limitations and
Deferred Work' section: condensed, evidence-backed bullets for consumer-visible
gaps (unimplemented features, platform caveats, MVP cuts) and consciously
postponed work (TODO/FIXME/XXX markers, RFC deferrals still open). The ten
pre-existing ad-hoc variants ('What is NOT here (TODO)', 'Deferred',
'Limitations (MVP)', 'Known limitations (tracked TODOs)', ...) are normalized
into the canonical heading.
A new doc-sync gate, scripts/verify-readme-limitations.ts, enforces the shape:
exactly one limitations-like heading per package README, byte-equal to the
canonical h2, with at least one bullet; near-miss headings fail so variants
cannot creep back. Packages with genuinely nothing to declare (dsh-brand,
dsh-timeout, dsh-subagent-mock, dsh-app-boot) are whitelisted in the script and
must NOT carry the section; whitelist entries are validated against the scanned
package set so a rename fails loud.
Wired into the doc-sync chain (package.json) and the run-gates doc-sync leaf
set; the standing rule lands in packages/AGENTS.md and the adding-a-package
cookbook; decision record in
docs/rfc/implemented/process/2026-07-10-readme-known-limitations-gate.md
(RFC index regenerated).
Also fixes two stale '(deferred)' markers claiming dsh-compact-basic is
unimplemented (the dsh-compact seam README's package table and the seam's
module doc comment).
Drain idle injection flushes before agent teardown, snapshot approval and subagent provider inputs, and gate subagent lifecycle events on real child readiness. Align the RFCs and generated contracts with the hardened behavior.
Master brought 50 commits (the tool-cordis group, dsh-code-runtime + worker,
the tools/execute around-dispatch seam + timeout-policy, repeat-tool-guard,
agent/session-prefix, the ui reorganization). Beyond the ten textual
conflicts, the merge reconciles master's new seams with this branch's
scoped-registration world:
- tools/execute (new waterfall around core dispatch): dispatched with the
SAME exec.agent carrier as the pre/post waterfalls — an agent.ctx wrapper
times/retries only its own agent's calls — and its base thunk resolves the
tool through the caller's visible view (get(exec.name, exec.agent)), so a
scoped/shadowed tool dispatches and a restricted-away global stays
UNKNOWN_TOOL. Declared this: Scoped<ToolRegistry> with the scope-filtered
doc sentence; invariants table + verify-scoped-dispatch pin it (21 events).
- agent/session-prefix (new waterfall, once per loop instance): composed via
the fused agentEvents dispatcher (scope-filtered like every agent-subject
event), declared this: Scoped<Agent>, table-pinned. agent/pre-step keeps
master's new sessionPrefix parameter with this branch's Scoped this.
- timeout-policy reads the budget through the caller's visible view
(get(exec.name, exec.agent)): a scoped tool's own timeoutMs governs its
calls; a global name-twin's budget is never misapplied to a shadowing
per-agent variant.
- tool-cordis: cordis_inspect's tools section lists the CALLING agent's view
(its description promises "what you can call"); the sandbox tool façade's
reads resolve through the mount's own scope, mirroring where its register
lands writes; sandboxRegisterTool's return type carries the exact-disposer
union honestly. dsh-scope declared as peer+dev with the project reference.
- doc-sync chain unions master's verify-cordis-api with this branch's
verify-scoped-dispatch; the generated catalogs, event matrix (the
zero-dispatcher guard passes over master's new events), module graph, and
the cordis api-catalog are regenerated on the merged surface.
Full gate sequence green on the merged tree: typecheck, lint, per-file 100%
coverage (2668 tests), snapshots (38), doc-sync, module graph, build,
hygiene, demo smoke.
The agent-scope-contexts RFC (implemented) records the decision tree:
the dsh-scope primitive over cordis extend/Context.filter/no-op fibers,
two-level flat scope with shadowing, restriction/grant semantics, the
scoped-dispatch rule with fused helpers, the setup window, and the
alternatives (explicit scope params, isolate, event-filtering-only,
vendored support) with why each lost. CONTEXT.md pins the glossary.
architecture.md gains the Agent Scope section, the dsh-scope spine row,
the scoped turn-flow line, and an extension-table row (ceiling 1640→1790:
the two-layer registration model is a new architectural axis; additions
are condensed to pointers). READMEs of every touched package re-state
their scoped facts; the stale structured-runtime README section is
replaced by the scoped-registration description.
ds-review-bot critical (follow-up): on the first step of a resumed or
seeded/forked instance, auto-compaction ran before runStep composed
this instance's prefix, so the gate read the PREVIOUS instance's logged
prefix from the header fold — a contributor that grew across
resume/fork (skills added, AGENTS.md grown: exactly the
environment-dependent case) could under-gate and ship an over-window
first request.
The loop now composes agent/session-prefix before the instance's first
agent/pre-step (still once per instance; runStep just reads the cache),
and agent/pre-step carries the composed prefix to its listeners.
CompactService.compactIfNeeded gains the sessionPrefix parameter;
BasicCompactService.estimatePressure gates on the handed value — the
header-fold read is gone, so the estimate is exact at every step
including a resumed/forked instance's first. Composition moving before
the boundary snapshot also means a composing listener's session append
now joins the CURRENT request (documented on the seam).
New coverage: composition precedes pre-step and the seam receives the
composed prefix; cancel and disposal landing inside the composition
window drop the step cleanly; the compact gate test hands the prefix
directly.
Review discussion converged on the industry shape (Claude Code caches
user context per conversation; Codex separates initial context from
diffs; Kimi appends at continuation boundaries to protect prompt
caching): stable openers belong in a compose-once prefix, mid-session
changes belong in append-only history — not in a per-request slot.
agent/session-prefix fires ONCE per loop instance, lazily on its first
request-building step: the composed Message[] is deep-frozen, cached on
the transmission bookkeeping, recorded as EpochHeader.messagePrefix on
the anchoring 'initial'/'resume' snapshot, and reused verbatim for
every request the instance sends — prefix stability is structural, not
a producer discipline, and a resume recomposes with attributable drift.
The request is messagePrefix + boundary snapshot.
The per-step RequestAdvice/RequestAdviceContext surface and the
messageSuffix header field are dropped: the tail slot had no consumer,
and every current update pattern (new AGENTS.md discovered, memory
update, skills change) routes through the existing append-only history
channels — inject(), tools/post-execute additionalContext,
prompt-submit additionalContext — each paid once and prefix-cached
thereafter. The messagePrefix delta arm stays for codec totality; the
loop never produces one in practice.
tianyicui's review: the seam name did not say what the event or its
types do. 'advice' reads both ways — advisory content for the model,
and AOP before/after advice woven around a join point (here the
derived history) without modifying it — so RequestAdvice.before/after
are self-describing. Types follow: RequestAdvice / RequestAdviceContext;
the logged EpochHeader fields keep their positional names
(messagePrefix/messageSuffix).
Also sharpens the core.md wording the review flagged as ambiguous:
before-advice sits in front of the ENTIRE derived history, directly
after the system slot (the conventional home for session-stable openers
— an AGENTS.md digest, a skills catalog), after-advice follows the
history's last message. Catalogs and doc graphs regenerated.
A new waterfall near request construction lets plugins contribute
request-ONLY messages framing the derived history: RequestMessages
{ before, after } with a frozen empty seed, fired inside the open step
after the agent/request config waterfall, so the step/start boundary
snapshot and its same-sync-frame invariant are untouched. The request
becomes messagePrefix + boundary snapshot + messageSuffix.
Contributions never enter session history — deriveMessages() is
unchanged — so the request header is their durable record:
EpochHeader gains messagePrefix/messageSuffix (canonical absence for
empty arrays), request/header-delta replaces either array whole with
an empty array encoding the transition back to absence, and the
dev-mode reconstruction cross-check now expects the folded header's
framing around the boundary derivation.
This is the seam for per-request advisory context that must be
model-visible now without becoming durable history (a skills catalog,
an environment reminder), keeping the base system prompt
workspace-independent and provider prefix caches stable. The docs
carry the channel cost model: session-frozen content belongs in
before, low-frequency change notices belong in durable history via
inject() (paid once, prefix-cached thereafter), and after is reserved
for small frequently-refreshed state snapshots re-paid on every
request they ride. No shipped producer yet, so ACP snapshot fixtures
are byte-identical.
The loop is now transmission-stateless; a request is a pure function of
(session log, this step's rendered assembly, current AgentOptions):
- The reconstruction boundary is step/start: the messages snapshot is
taken in the same synchronous frame immediately before the step/start
append, so the request's messages are exactly the derivation over
events[0..stepStartSeq) — an inject() from an agent/request listener
(or any concurrent task) lands after the boundary and joins the NEXT
request. This changes behavior for a synchronous step/start
session/event listener that appends content (master derived after the
append, so such a listener could reach the current request):
agent/pre-step is the sanctioned seam for current-request content.
- agent/request is re-typed to config-only: (agent, turn, step,
config: LlmCallConfig, next) → LlmCallConfig. The frozen seed comes
from AgentOptions on a loop instance's first request (explicit options
beat the logged baseline — fork overrides and resume reconfiguration
stay correct) and from the log's folded header afterwards; listeners
return a replacement to switch. Content shaping through the request is
no longer expressible — model-visible content flows through the log
channels.
- recordRequestHeader appends whatever header event the request owes the
log before dispatch: an 'initial'/'resume' snapshot anchoring each
loop instance, a round-trip-verified delta on change, a 'fallback'
snapshot when the encoding cannot express it. Session.requestHeader()
is the log's incrementally-folded baseline.
- Requests are deep-frozen before dispatch (deepFreeze exempts the
AbortSignal — freezing one breaks AbortController.abort() outright);
frozen + sessionId is the loop-built marker the dev invariant keys on.
Ported from #162 and re-anchored on the log: the append-extension /
frozen-end-to-end / compaction-resend / prompt-change property tests,
plus new specs for the boundary semantics, resume anchoring, and the
end-to-end theorem (every recorded request rebuilds byte-equal from the
log alone). Live cache-hit e2e (request-cache.e2e.ts) verified against
the real DeepSeek API. Snapshot goldens intentionally stale until the
single re-record after the compact/summary envelope lands.
Review round 2 (tianyicui inline comments):
- dsh-system-prompt itself registers the harness:identity (-100) and
deployment:persona (0) sections — they must survive a swapped loop
plugin, so they leave dsh-agent-loop; the persona text is the plugin's
own validated 'persona' config. The model/cwd variables STAY on the
loop: runtime facts of the agents it drives.
- AgentOptions.systemPrompt is deleted with all its forwarding plumbing:
the app configs' systemPrompt keys become 'persona' routed through
dsh-agent-core (schema = z.intersect of the owners'), the ACP bridge
and tool-subagent stop carrying persona configuration, and subagent
children now render the deployment persona like every other agent.
- Example personas drop transport/interface trivia (ACP, CLI) — facts
irrelevant to the model.
- Root CONTEXT.md removed (not idiomatic); its persona definition was
wrong under the new ownership anyway.
- Docs, READMEs, the prompt-variables RFC, and generated catalogs
updated; new loop test pins the assemble-waterfall escape valve
(an emptied assembly sends NO system field).
A static harness:identity section at order -100 — the first occupant of
the documented negative band — states that the agent is powered by the
DeepSeek Harness SDK before the deployment's persona renders. Harness
attribution is a harness fact: it lives on the loop plugin, not in each
deployment's persona, so every agent (subagents included) carries it and
no YAML can forget it. A deployment that must drop it can remove the
section in the system-prompt/assemble waterfall.
Order-band docs updated in all five homes (PromptSection JSDoc, the
system-prompt and agent-loop READMEs, architecture.md, the RFC).
Tianyi Cui
Yichen Jiang
Dudu-0223