# dsh-timeout

The **timing-and-classification** half of a timeout — a zero-dependency library of pure functions (no runtime harness deps) shared by every capability that clamps a caller's timeout hint, arms a deadline, and later has to tell "timed out" apart from "cancelled".

It owns **no termination**. The signal it hands out only *notifies*; actually stopping the work stays in each capability, because that mechanism differs — bash SIGKILLs an OS process group, web tears down a `fetch` socket — and no shared layer can own all of them. This is the boundary the [RFC](../../../docs/rfc/implemented/architecture/2026-07-06-timeout-deadline-library.md) draws: share the timing/classification, keep the hard kill local.

It is a **library, not a service or plugin**: no `ctx`, registers nothing, holds no state, emits no events. A "timeout service" would have to understand how to stop every capability's work — exactly the knowledge a microkernel keeps out of shared layers.

## Surface

```ts
import { clampTimeout, deadline, timeoutOf, TimeoutReason } from '@deepseek-ai/dsh-timeout'
```

| Export | Role |
|---|---|
| `clampTimeout(requested, def, max, name?)` | Validate the caller's optional positive-finite hint, fill from `def`, cap at `max`. Throws (with `name`) on a non-positive/non-finite hint. |
| `deadline(upstream, timeoutMs, code)` | Fuse `upstream` cancellation with a timeout into one `AbortSignal` (`AbortSignal.any`); the timeout carries a `TimeoutReason`. `[Symbol.dispose]` clears the timer. |
| `timeoutOf(signal \| { reason }, code?)` | Recover the `TimeoutReason` from an aborted signal/error, else `undefined` — the timeout-vs-cancel classifier. Pass `code` to match only THIS deadline's timer (see nesting below). |
| `TimeoutReason` | The internal reason (`code` + `timeoutMs`) stamped on a timeout abort. Not a public error — providers translate it into their own error/field. |

## The `timeoutMs <= 0` sentinel

`0` is the **internal** "no timeout" value for backend-owned background work (bash `start()`): `deadline()` arms no timer and forwards only `upstream`; with no upstream either, it returns a never-aborting signal plus a no-op disposer, so every caller keeps one call shape. External request hints validate as **positive finite** via `clampTimeout` before they reach `deadline`, so `0` is never a model-/plugin-facing "disable timeout" value.

## Usage shape

```ts
import { deadline, timeoutOf } from '@deepseek-ai/dsh-timeout'

declare function runWork(options: { signal: AbortSignal }): Promise<unknown>

// Scope-lifetime consumer (foreground bash, one fetch): `using` disposes the timer.
export async function runWithDeadline(upstream: AbortSignal | undefined, timeoutMs: number): Promise<unknown> {
  using d = deadline(upstream, timeoutMs, 'BASH_TIMEOUT')
  const outcome = await runWork({ signal: d.signal })               // work listens on d.signal and terminates itself
  const timedOut = timeoutOf(d.signal, 'BASH_TIMEOUT') !== undefined // classify the first abort, scoped to OUR code
  const aborted = d.signal.aborted && !timedOut                     // mutually exclusive: timeout won, or cancel did
  return { outcome, timedOut, aborted }
}
```

The signal only *notifies* — the caller MUST attach its own termination (`d.signal.addEventListener('abort', kill)`, or hand `d.signal` to `fetch`). Racing a promise against a timer would resolve the tool-call while the child process or socket leaks on; handing out a signal forces a real termination path to exist.

Pass your own `code` to `timeoutOf` so classification composes under nesting: when the `upstream` you were handed is *itself* a deadline signal (a future `tools/execute` middleware arming a per-call deadline), `AbortSignal.any` preserves the outer `TimeoutReason` if the outer timer fires first. Scoping to your `code` makes a foreign timeout read as an ordinary upstream cancel — the correct classification from your capability's view — instead of your own timeout firing when your local timer never expired.

## What does NOT get a timeout

Local file `read`/`write`/`edit` take no `timeoutMs`: a syscall is best-effort-abortable at most, a timeout could not force `fsync`/`rename` to stop, and adding one would be an implicit default that violates explicit-over-implicit. See [`fs/`](../../fs/README.md).

## Model Experience

Indirectly, through consumers such as `dsh-timeout-policy`, which may replace a provider result with a retained timeout error or suppress a late result.

## Known Limitations and Deferred Work

- **Notification only** — a deadline cannot stop work that ignores its signal; every capability still needs its own socket/process/task termination path.
- **`timeoutMs <= 0` is internal vocabulary** — it disables the local timer only after an owning backend has resolved policy, never as a public model/plugin knob.
- **The first abort reason wins classification** — when an upstream cancellation beats the local timer, this layer cannot later report that its own timeout would also have elapsed.