The self-referential Cordis toolset: three model-facing tools over the live runtime in the current DSH process. Design home — sandbox semantics, temporary-plugin lifecycle and composition, the generated API catalog, standing decisions: the toolset Agent Note.

What it does

cordis_inspect — read-only report over the current process: services, all live plugin fibers, registered tools, the cordis_mount temporary-Plugin subset, and the catalog-backed api / events references. An exact name with what: "api" or what: "events" narrows the report and adds the original source JSDoc.
cordis_mount — evaluates model-written JavaScript now and saves it nowhere; the code must return an in-memory temporary Plugin tracked as dyn-<n>.
cordis_unmount — unmounts one dyn-<n> temporary Plugin and returns only after its owned effects reach quiescence. It cannot remove Loader, configured, or installed Plugins.

Exact model-facing schemas: the generated tool catalog.

Canonical successes are the inspection string, mount { id, pluginName, state, provides, waitingFor }, and unmount { id, pluginName }. Native rendering says whether the temporary Plugin is running or pending and that it remains available until unmounted or DSH restarts; unmount confirms that it was removed.

Temporary Plugins live only in the shared DSH process memory. They remain active across later turns and may affect other sessions in that process, but disappear after cordis_unmount, toolset unload, or DSH restart. They create no Plugin file, install no package, change no cordis.yml or personal/project configuration, do not survive restart, and cannot be promoted automatically. To keep an experiment, ask the Agent to implement an SDK Plugin or installable profile bundle through the regular development workflow.

Trust stance

The sandbox isolates globals but is not a security boundary. Node globals are absent or redirect to Cordis services such as ctx.fs, ctx.web, and ctx.bash, and writes to globalThis stay local, but host-realm helpers make escape possible. Mounted plugins receive a façade without framework internals, yet its allowed services affect the live runtime. Dynamic tool schemas and annotations cross the realm through iterative JSON cloning and schema normalization, so valid deep declarations are memory-bounded rather than call-stack-bounded; records with JSON-invisible keys and subclassed or decorated schema arrays reject before normalization. Treat this toolset like bash access; see the design and trust stance.

Config

Field	Default	Meaning
`vmTimeoutMs`	`5000`	Bound on the SYNCHRONOUS portion of temporary-Plugin code evaluation; an async body escapes it

The generated API catalog

src/api-catalog.ts is generated from the same Typert FaceModel projection as the subsystem pages' generated regions and freshness-gated by pnpm run verify-cordis-api (in doc-sync) — never edit it by hand. scripts/gen-cordis-api.ts is a compatibility entry point for that unified projection, not a second collector. cordis_inspect intersects the committed catalog with the live service store at call time; it has no runtime Typert dependency. Broad api / events reports render summaries and signatures only; an exact name opts into the retained method/event JSDoc, and unknown or non-running service targets fail loud.

Rendering

All three tools render generic cards (read / execute / delete); cordis_mount carries the temporary-Plugin code as rawInput. Presenters are pure functions of the args; results keep the default text rendering.

Export shape

Namespace plugin: named exports name / inject / Config / apply, no default export (docs/postmortem/0001).

Model Experience

Tool schemas

What the model sees

The conversation model sees the generated cordis_inspect, cordis_mount, and cordis_unmount schemas whenever this plugin is visible.

Token effect

Fixed schema cost on every request in that tool view.

KV Cache effect

Prefix-stable while this tool view is unchanged. Scoping or plugin lifecycle changes that hide these definitions may invalidate reuse from the first changed schema token.

Tool-call history and results

What the model sees

Inspect joins selected sections exactly as ## <section> then a newline and the data-dependent body, with one blank line between sections; what: "temporary" uses the ## Temporary Plugins heading. Each temporary-Plugin row reports running/pending state, provided and awaited services, and its lifetime until unmounted or DSH restart. The empty state explains that cordis_mount Plugins disappear on restart. Broad API/event reports omit JSDoc; name with what: "api" or what: "events" returns one exact target with its original JSDoc. Mount returns Temporary Plugin <id> is running (...) or Temporary Plugin <id> is pending (...); unmount returns Temporary Plugin <id> was unmounted and removed. The submitted program remains in assistant tool-call history.

Token effect

Inspect output and mount code are data-dependent and resent until compaction; lifecycle acknowledgements are small.

KV Cache effect

Append-only; newly visible content follows the reusable request prefix and does not invalidate existing KV-cache entries.

Later requests after cordis_mount

What the model sees

A temporary Plugin may register tools, prompt contributions, or listeners that change later requests for the scopes it targets; cordis_unmount removes those contributions after quiescence.

Token effect

Indirect token impact equals the temporary Plugin's contributions and lasts only for its process-local lifetime.

KV Cache effect

Mounting or unmounting a prompt or tool contribution changes later request prefixes and may invalidate reuse from the first changed contribution; an unchanged temporary-Plugin set remains prefix-stable.

Known Limitations and Deferred Work

The sandbox is containment for honest code, not a security boundary — host-realm helpers on the sandbox global are reachable, so mount code can reach Node; load this plugin as deliberately as you would grant a bash tool (see § Trust stance).
The ctx façade exposes no effect() — mount code cannot register a bespoke disposer; on/provide/tools.register are the supported cleanup paths.
vmTimeoutMs bounds only synchronous evaluation — an async mount body escapes it; there is no async budget on mount code.
Temporary Plugins belong to the composition, not to the session that mounted one — the group fiber and the dyn-N table are this row's own, so every agent the row covers shares them: registered inside an agent preset's standing mount, one session's mount is visible in another session's tool catalog and cordis_inspect what:"temporary", and the second mount of an id replaces the first. Several sessions running one preset concurrently is where that becomes observable. Per-session temporary plugins would need the group and table keyed by the calling agent.