Review follow-up: the blanket 10s default correctly targets worker-thread
cold-start races (starting, first-script-line, async child-registration
messages — genuinely CPU-bound under CI contention), but four waits assert
something different — that the HOST reacted PROMPTLY to an event that
already happened (a settled result, an observed worker death). Those had no
cold-start left to wait on, so the generous default just widened the window
a real regression could hide in.
Verified by injecting a 6s delay into the settle-reap's abort call: the
un-overridden helper's test still passed in ~6s. The same mutation now fails
in ~1s with the explicit 1000ms override restored on all four sites (the
abort-on-settle test's own assertion, the two worker-death cancel/dispose
reap checks, and the dispose-ack-race check). The other 12 waits keep the
10s default — they run BEFORE a result is awaited, waiting on the worker to
actually start rather than on a host reaction. Doc comment corrected to
describe the split instead of claiming every wait is a cold-start race.
The spec's 16 vi.waitFor sites used the 1s default timeout to wait for
worker-thread startup and child registration — CPU-bound work that blows
past 1s on a contended runner. The CI coverage lane (4 vitest workers plus
suites that spawn real subprocesses) hit this 3 times across 4 recent PR
runs, each a different subset of the cancellation/worker-death tests, each
green on rerun.
Every wait now goes through a shared helper with a 10s bound, and the file
sets a 30s test timeout to make room for it. The one deliberately tight
wait keeps its 800ms bound through the helper's override — it proves the
host (not the wedged worker's later loop turn) delivered the cancel, so a
generous bound would erase what it tests. No behavior under test changed.
The empty-env hardening wiped the one variable the UNBUILT worker's
loader depends on: tsx finds a tsconfig by searching up from the
worker's cwd, and a parent running outside the repo (the ACP snapshot
harness pins the repo tsconfig through TSX_TSCONFIG_PATH exactly
because its child cwd is a temp dir) lost the dsh-* paths map - the
worker then resolved workspace imports to unbuilt lib/ bundles and died
on CI with ERR_MODULE_NOT_FOUND (green locally only because stale built
lib/ masked the wrong resolution).
Forward exactly that variable when the parent carries it - loader
plumbing, not a secret; the built shape stays fully empty - and pin the
whole contract with an escape-based test: the worker env is exactly
{TSX_TSCONFIG_PATH}, the credential canary still never crosses.
The documented vm escape reaches process, and the worker inherited the
harness's env - so a buggy or prompt-injected script could read and
exfiltrate ambient credentials (DEEPSEEK_API_KEY et al.) without
touching a single file (ds-review-bot finding on #233).
Spawn with env: {} and a hermetic execArgv on both runtime shapes, the
same stance as dsh-code-runtime-worker and stronger than the scrubbed
env the defensive-patterns rule requires for spawned commands (a shell
needs PATH; this worker needs nothing). Ambient-channel hardening only:
an escapee keeps the process-wide privileges the trust premise already
admits - the genuine sandbox remains an engine swap.
agent-end was worker-authored only, so a start already forwarded to
observers lost its paired end whenever the worker could no longer speak
- the grace force-settle terminating a wedged script, or an unexpected
worker death - stranding progress consumers with agents that never
finish (ds-review-bot finding on #233).
The host now keeps a ledger of forwarded starts and funnels every
agent-end through one gate: worker-reported ends pair (and clear) their
entry, and both termination paths drain the remainder as synthesized
'cancelled' ends BEFORE the run settles, so ends always precede
workflow/end. A real settlement racing the force-settle loses to the
synthesized cancellation - the same first-wins override onResult applies
to the run's own result.
P1 review finding: extractMeta timed only the literal's vm evaluation;
materializing the RESULT then read properties ordinarily on the HOST
stack, so a meta literal smuggling a getter (get name() { while(true){} })
could wedge the host outside any timeout — defeating the exact spin
isolation the worker thread exists for.
Rather than harden the evaluator (descriptor walks, AST validation),
delete the mechanism: the workflow's identity now reaches the seam as a
plain JSON field (WorkflowStartRequest.meta), carried by the tool as a
schema-validated `meta` object parameter the model fills directly. The
engine only shape-validates data (validateMeta, every violation named)
and pre-parses the body; the scanner, the vm evaluation, and the
host-side materialization are gone, and with them the hole. A body
still opening with a Claude Code-style `export const meta` statement
gets a pointed SCRIPT_PARSE message (the likeliest authoring slip; a
CC script's body stays drop-in, only its meta header moves into the
parameter). syncTimeoutMs now governs exactly one thing: the initial
synchronous slice inside the worker.
The RFC's decision section is rewritten in place (implemented-RFC
rule); the embedded-meta format moves to alternatives-considered with
the hole as the reason. Tool description, presentation (title now reads
meta.name directly — the textual sniff is gone), seam vocabulary docs,
and catalogs follow.
The regression's script spun immediately after calling agent(), but the
agent() continuation (which posts the child-start RPC) only runs on a
microtask tick — the spin seized the worker's loop before the post, so
the host never saw a child inside the waitFor window. A few await-null
yields before the spin let the RPC out; the posted message needs no
further worker-loop turns to reach the host, so the wedge still holds
for the Cancel message the test is about.
Pure mechanical rename now that the package's internals are the
worker-thread engine: directory, package name, spec/e2e filenames,
module tags and logger prefixes, tsconfig/knip/run-gates/AGENTS.md
references, example cordis.yml plugin ids, doc links; catalogs
regenerated and the lockfile refreshed.
Tianyi Cui
Yichen Jiang
pku-xht
imccyu