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).
The dsh-tools half of the Code Mode RFC (its fourth, final change): the
registry gains its first config — mode: native | code | both — and OWNS how
its tools reach the model. 'code' contributes exactly one wire tool,
run_code, plus a lazy tools:sdk prompt section declaring every other tool
as a generated TypeScript API (jsonSchemaToTs: total over the defineTool
subset, unknown degradation, lexicographic byte-identical rendering);
'both' ships both representations; 'native' is byte-for-byte the old
behavior. Non-native modes fail every assembly loudly without a
typescript-language ctx.codeRuntime.
run_code's dispatch bridge: JSON-normalizes each binding argument before
dispatch (what dispatches is what the tool/code-dispatch event logs — the
append can never fail on payload shape; BigInt/circulars reject that one
call), serializes all program tool calls through a per-run queue (even
Promise.all — no concurrency-safety metadata yet), routes every sub-call
through tools/pre-execute → tools/post-execute (a deny rejects the
program-side promise), drops sub-call additionalContext (no safe outlet
mid-run; pinned), owns a run-scoped abort that follows the outer signal in
and fires on settlement (in-flight sub-dispatch aborted, queued abandoned,
queue drained before returning), and converts a failed run into
CodeRunFailedError → a structured isError carrying kind + captured logs.
tool/code-dispatch joins SessionEventMap by declaration merging (log-only;
deriveMessages ignores it).
The composed surface: the tools config forwards through agent-core and
both app packages; examples/code-agent + demo:code run the worker runtime
under mode code (keyless boot smoke + a with-key e2e proving the collapsed
[run_code] header, the dispatch events, and the file the program wrote);
two new snapshot scenarios (code-mode-turn, both-mode-turn) record the SDK
section, collapsed header, dispatch events, and result card — each its own
header-pinning class (the harness gains per-scenario config overlays and
per-class pins). Catalogs, graphs, cookbook, hooks-bridge notes, and the
RFC (moved to implemented/, restructured to decision-era headings) updated
in the same change.
Review follow-up (#196): a listed name with no registered tool was silently
ignored; misconfiguration must block work instead. The check lives in the
assembly — the earliest moment the registered tool set exists (tool plugins
register after the service constructs) and the only universal one (cordis has
no "all plugins loaded" event; registrations change at any time). assemble()
is now async so the throw surfaces as a rejection rather than a synchronous
escape from a Promise-returning method.
Blast radius, pinned by a loop-level test: the rejection reaches the turn's
outer catch — the turn closes balanced with an `error` reason, agent/error
mirrors it, no step opens, no request/header is logged, no request reaches
the adapter, and the agent returns to idle; every turn fails identically
until the config is fixed. A boot-time validation pass was considered and
rejected (recorded in the RFC). The general principle — misconfiguration
fails loud, never a silent skip — is added to AGENTS.md.
A three-dot rest entry reads as elision in a cordis.yml; the spelled-out
sentinel says what lands there. The literal now appears once in code (the
constant) and once in the value-pinning test; every other reference — the
forwarding tests included — imports TOOL_ORDER_REST, which adds the
dsh-system-prompt devDependency to the two app packages.
Review follow-up on #196.
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).
One principle: every fact in the assembled prompt has exactly one owner.
- dsh-system-prompt: merge-extensible AssembleContext on assemble();
a variable(name, provider) registry; {{name}} interpolation in
renderPrompt, strict (unknown/valueless/malformed references throw);
duplicate section and variable names rejected; assembly carries
resolved section text + variables through the assemble waterfall.
- dsh-agent declares AssembleContext.agent; dsh-agent-loop registers
the agent:persona section (order 0 - identity renders before tool
guidance) and the model/cwd variables, and drops its string join:
renderPrompt(assembly) IS the full prompt.
- Tool guidance moves to its owners: descriptions carry per-tool
semantics; sections only cross-call habits (tool:bash exit-code
habit at order 105; read's not-shell nudge). todo/subagent need no
section - their descriptions already carry the contract.
- SubagentProvider.inheritsParentContext (spawn/acp false, fork true);
dsh-tool-subagent derives truthful per-provider wording and resolves
the provider at load (backend must be listed first).
- Example personas shrink to identity + behavior with {{model}} (and
{{cwd}} in the ACP tree); the welcome banner stops enumerating tools.
RFC: docs/rfc/implemented/architecture/2026-07-05-prompt-variables-and-tool-guidance-ownership.md
The four near-twin helpers the two published bins carried — loadEnv,
installFailLoud, assertEntriesLoaded, boot — live once in
packages/ui/app-boot, parameterized by the bin's diagnostic prefix and
injectable at their side-effect seams (warn sink, process slice), so
every branch sits under the per-file 100% coverage gate: the unit suite
drives boot() in-process against the real Loader (relative-specifier
configs) through both the settled-tree path and the fiber-less-entry
rejection, and exercises the ENOENT/unloadable .env split, the
Error/non-Error/stackless fail-loud arms, and the disabled-entry
exclusion. resolveConfigPath (snapshot-aware) becomes the single path
resolver for both bins.
Each bin.ts is now a thin self-executing composition plus its
app-specific lifecycle (acp: replay env-skip + stdin-EOF dispose;
stdio: nothing extra), exports nothing, and stays coverage-excluded;
the built-bin smokes still prove both artifacts under plain node in the
node_modules-shaped temp dir (now symlinking ui/app-boot), including
the missing-config non-zero exit.
Implements docs/rfc/implemented/simplification/2026-07-04-share-app-bin-boot-glue.md
(moved from proposed/ and amended); the extract-example-app-packages
RFC's bin-ownership facts are amended in the same change.
assertEntriesLoaded() flagged ANY fiber-less entry as a failed import, but a
`disabled: true` entry settles without a fiber by design (Entry.refresh() skips
init() when disabled) — a valid "plugin off" config, not a broken import. Both
app bins now filter `fiber === undefined && !entry.disabled`. The stdio built-bin
smoke gains a disabled-(unresolvable)-entry config that must still boot.
The verify-package-paths lib-skip was unconditional and ran before the
moved-package check, so a stale group-less `packages/acp-agent/lib/bin.js` (the
exact drift this gate catches) was silently ignored just for containing `lib`.
Scope the skip: only exempt `lib` when it is the segment after an EXISTING
`packages/<group>/<pkg>` root, so a real-but-unbuilt `lib/bin.js` is still exempt
while a stale package path flags.
verify-package-paths flagged the new built-bin smokes' `lib/bin.js` citations
as stale-source drift, failing CI: doc-sync runs BEFORE build, so the build
output is absent at lint time. The gate targets moved SOURCE paths, so skip any
reference whose target goes through a `lib/` segment — mirroring how the file
scan already excludes `lib/`.
The acp built-bin smoke resolved `zod`/`@agentclientprotocol/sdk` via
`import.meta.resolve` from the test file's own context, but `acp-agent` does not
declare them — `dsh-acp` does. Under pnpm's strict layout they are not exposed
where the test resolves, so the new CI built-bin step failed with
"Cannot find package 'zod'". Resolve each from the `ui/acp` package URL (the one
that declares it) instead.
BLOCKER — the published lib/bin.js (stdio + acp) was exercised only via tsx
(demo:* / the src/bin.ts smokes); the built artifact under plain `node` was
unguarded. Root-cause on the BUILT bin:
1. Settle race: boot() returned once loader.create() registered the include
ENTRY, but the include loads its child plugins asynchronously — so boot()
(and main()) resolved while the app plugins (stdin reader, agent loop, ACP
bridge) were still mounting. A CLI with no attached handles yet exits 0
silently, and a load error surfaces as an unhandled rejection AFTER boot.
Fix: `await ctx.loader.await()` after create() — settle the whole tree.
2. Config-path robustness: hand the include the config's ABSOLUTE file:// URL
so resolution never depends on ctx.baseUrl / can never fall back to cwd.
Both bins fixed identically. NOTE: the cordis Loader resolves a config's bare
plugin specifiers via its internal module loader, active only under
`node --expose-internals`; the bin cannot add a node flag itself, so this is
documented in the bin JSDoc + both package READMEs (the demos already comply).
The repo `examples/*/cordis.yml` are tsx-only artifacts (workspace plugins
resolve through the tsconfig paths map, not node_modules), so they are not a
valid plain-node bin target — the smokes use a real-install-shaped temp dir.
Fail loud on a load failure: boot() previously exited 0 SILENTLY when a config
path's directory does not exist — the include plugin fails to IMPORT, the cordis
Loader catches+LOGS it and leaves the entry with no fiber (no rejection), and
`loader.await()` does not rethrow (EntryTree.await uses Promise.allSettled). Fix:
boot() now calls assertEntriesLoaded(ctx) after the tree settles and throws on
any entry with no fiber, so a typo'd config dir exits non-zero with a clear
message. main() also installs an unhandledRejection guard (installFailLoud) that
replaces Node's stack dump with a single labelled stderr line for the
companion case (a missing config FILE in a real dir, whose include-init throw
surfaces as a rejection Node already exits non-zero on). Regression tests added
to both built-bin smokes (missing dir + missing file → non-zero exit + stderr);
verified the missing-dir test fails on the pre-fix bin.
Built-bin smokes (the reviewer's ask): packages/ui/{stdio,acp}-agent/tests/
built-bin.e2e.ts run the REAL lib/bin.js under `node` (NOT tsx) in a temp
consumer dir, asserting the stdio echo round-trip / the acp initialize response
+ stdout purity, plus the fail-loud cases above. They build-gate (skip if lib/
absent) and run in a new ci.yml step after the build.
Issue 2 — packages/README.md + docs/architecture.md said "plugins depend on
interfaces, never on the concrete loop", but dsh-agent-core imports the concrete
dsh-agent-loop. Scope the rule to EXTENSION plugins and carve out the sanctioned
COMPOSITION/bundle exception (dsh-agent-core composes the concrete spine); note
it in the implemented RFC too.
Issue 3 — examples/acp-agent/tests/acp.snapshot.ts fixture-guard claimed
no-model scenarios need no session.jsonl, but runScenario() always boots
llm-replay with the session.jsonl path and loadReplayScript() throws when it is
absent. Require session.jsonl for ALL scenarios (no-model ones ship a
header-only fixture) and rewrite the comment to match reality.
Tianyi Cui
Yichen Jiang
imccyu
imccyu