# @deepseek-ai/dsh-session-persistence

The abstract durable session-persistence seam (`ctx.sessionPersistence`). Defines WHAT a persistence backend does — durably store, reload, and list sessions — without saying HOW. Mirrors the `dsh-bash` capability-seam template ([capability seams](../../docs/rfc/implemented/2026-06-13-capability-seams.md)): an abstract service here, a concrete implementation in a sibling package, consumers that inject the interface.

The persisted unit IS the existing `SessionEvent` (event-sourced model — the log is the single source of truth), so there is no parallel "persisted message" type. Metadata that is NOT replayable conversation state (format version, cwd, lineage) travels separately as `SessionHeader`, owned by `dsh-session` and re-exported here.

## Service API (`ctx.sessionPersistence`)

| Method | Contract |
|---|---|
| `create(meta): Promise<void>` | Register a new session's metadata. MAY defer the physical write until the first `append` (lazy materialization). |
| `append(id, events): Promise<void>` | Durably persist a batch (from the `session/flush` drain). Append-only; first event `seq` == stored next-seq after any repair; rejects non-JSON-serializable data naming the offending type. |
| `load(id): Promise<{ meta; events }>` | Reload meta + log. Preserves an interrupted (unclosed) final turn and closes it with synthetic closers — an error `tool/result` per unanswered `tool-call`, then `step/end?`+`turn/end {interrupted}` (a turn can be huge — never truncated); only a torn tail fragment is dropped. Events contiguous (`events[i].seq === i`); rejects a committed-region gap/parse error or unknown `version`. |
| `list(): Promise<SessionHeader[]>` | Lightweight listing from metadata, no full-log parse. |
| `has(id)` / `delete(id)` | Existence / removal. A zero-event lazily-materialized session is absent from `has`/`list`. |

## Invariants every backend must honor

- **Append-only; a crashed turn is closed, not truncated.** Committed events (at or below a flushed `turn/end`) are never rewritten. A crash can leave an unclosed final turn whose events are real and possibly large; `load` preserves them and durably appends synthetic closers (an error `tool/result` per unanswered `tool-call`, then `step/end?`+`turn/end {interrupted}`) to balance the log and keep the rehydrated history a valid provider transcript. Only a never-fully-written torn tail fragment is discarded.
- **Contiguous seq.** `load` rejects a `seq` gap/parse error in the MIDDLE of the log; `append`'s first `seq` must equal the stored next-seq.
- **JSON-serializable data.** `append` rejects non-serializable `event.data`; backends snapshot each event when buffering (the live `session.events` object is mutable).
- **Durability.** `append` returns only once the batch is durable.

## The write coordinator

The two first-party backends were byte-identical (or same-algorithm) for ALL of their write-path orchestration — the in-memory bookkeeping (per-id state, write-behind buffers, per-id serialization chains, per-session init promises), the `session/event` → buffer → `session/flush` drain, lazy materialization, crash-tail repair on load, the four `session/created` adoption cases (new / HMR-adopt / collision / ownerless-claim), and dispose-time quiescence. Only the STORAGE primitives differed (write bytes vs. INSERT rows).

`PersistenceCoordinator` owns that orchestration once. A first-party backend composes one (`new PersistenceCoordinator(ctx, this)`), implements the small `PersistenceBackend` hook interface, and delegates its six public service methods to the coordinator. This keeps the duplicated, correctness-heavy orchestration in a single place (it used to receive the same fixes twice).

The `PersistenceBackend<TornMarker>` hooks (the only seam between the coordinator and storage):

| Hook | Role |
|---|---|
| `name` | Backend label for the dispose-failure `AggregateError`. |
| `loadStored(id)` | Read a stored prefix by id, scanning ANY storage scope. Used by resume/load and, via `!== undefined`, the create-collision probe. Returns an opaque `tornMarker` iff a torn tail must be truncated. |
| `loadLive(id, cwd)` | Read a stored prefix SCOPED to `cwd` (HMR live-adoption must only adopt a log at the SAME cwd; a same-id log elsewhere is a collision, not a resume). A globally-unique-id backend ignores `cwd`. |
| `appendBatch(meta, events, isMaterialized)` | Durably append a contiguous batch, lazily materializing ATOMICALLY when not yet materialized. |
| `commitRepair(meta, tornMarker, closers)` | Make a crash repair durable: truncate the torn tail (iff `tornMarker !== undefined` — a marker may be falsy, e.g. seq/offset `0`) and append `closers`. NOT required to be atomic. Used by load (truncate + closers) and live-adoption (truncate only). |
| `deleteStored(id)` / `list()` | Remove a stored artifact / list all stored metadata. |
| `close?()` | Optional lifecycle teardown (e.g. close a db handle), awaited after the dispose drain. |

The `tornMarker` is fully OPAQUE: the coordinator only tests `!== undefined` and round-trips it to `commitRepair`, never inspecting its value (the JSONL backend uses the byte offset to truncate to, the SQLite backend the seq to delete from). The public `SessionPersistence` service shape is unchanged, so a third-party backend MAY still implement the abstract service directly without the coordinator. See [the write-coordinator RFC](../../docs/rfc/implemented/2026-06-18-shared-persistence-write-coordinator.md).

## Testing backends

Import `runPersistenceContract` from `tests/contract.ts` (the public-API contract) and `runCoordinatorContract` from `tests/coordinator-contract.ts` (the shared write-path orchestration: adoption, HMR, collision, dispose-drain, crash-tail repair) and call each with a fixture for your backend. Every backend is held to the same append-only / contiguous-seq / lazy-materialization / serializability semantics AND the same orchestration, so a backend's own spec is left with only storage-mechanics tests (path sanitization, fsync rollback; schema version, transaction rollback) on top.

Three backends run these suites: an in-memory reference (in `tests/`), `dsh-session-persistence-jsonl` (append-only file log) and `dsh-session-persistence-sqlite` (`node:sqlite`, each `SessionEvent` one row `(session_id, seq, type, time, data)`). All passing the same contract + coordinator suite is the proof that the seam is genuinely backend-agnostic — lazy materialization, crash-tail-on-load, and contiguous-seq hold identically over file bytes and over a transactional store.

## Metadata types

Re-exported from `dsh-session`: `SessionHeader` (immutable session metadata: `version`, `id`, `createdAt`, `cwd?`, `parentSession?`).