The background-task change repeated its lifecycle design across implemented RFCs, package READMEs, JSDoc, test commentary, and model-visible schemas. That repetition obscured the contracts that maintainers must preserve and added avoidable prompt tokens.
Rewrite the implemented RFCs around the current design, keep authorization, exact-owner cleanup, wait/abort ordering, producer quiescence, and teardown-failure guarantees at their owning surfaces, and remove peer surveys, review history, control-flow narration, and emphatic restatement.
Shorten the task and subagent schema wording, synchronize the bilingual tool cookbook, and regenerate the config, service, RFC, tool, and replay snapshot derivatives. Runtime behavior is unchanged; test edits update prose-only assertions and descriptions.
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 three-entry cordis.yml (dsh-sandbox-local + dsh-bash-sandbox at a
read-only default + dsh-approval) served over ACP: the first live approval
composition. Recorded snapshot scenarios pin the wire end to end —
config-options advertisement, the mode-switching arc as the suite pinned
header (both switches, the prompt-section delta, one changed-by-the-user
notice per knob, a confined write landing under the switched mode), and
both escalation branches over scripted permissionAnswers (a grant runs
confined under workspace-write; a rejection executes nothing and pins the
fail-closed text). The with-key escalation e2e drives a real model +
real runner + the real bridge answerer, world-verified; ci.yml snapshot
lane and e2e.yml install bubblewrap so the confined replays actually
execute.
Both RFCs move to implemented/ (Decision/Consequences form, deferred
phases tracked in their own sections), with every cross-reference flipped.
effective(session) = findLast(the session own knob events)?.value ?? the
composition-config default. One log-only event per knob, owned by its
domain (bash/sandbox-mode in dsh-bash, approval/policy in dsh-approval),
each exporting the same three-piece kit: the event declaration, a pure
fold, and THE write path — a switch IS its event; no owner service, no
facts map. Restart immunity and multi-session isolation fall out of the
log replay by construction.
Execution follows the fold on both sides: the bash tool stamps
escalation grant > session override > executor default, and the approval
seam prepends the never-gate that auto-rejects before any interactive
answerer. Visibility is two layers per knob: a per-agent prompt section
states the effective value on every request (logged through
request/header*, so what-the-model-was-told replays from the log), and an
agent/pre-step narrator injects at most one coalesced delta notice with
positional attribution (user switch vs operator/config drift). The ACP
bridge advertises one capability-gated select per composable knob with
currentValue folded per session, validates set_config_option against the
closed vocabularies, and anchors idle switches at the next turn
prompt-submit under the turn-enclosure contract.
The ACP bridge registers the first real approval answerer: an ask for an
agent it owns becomes session/request_permission attached to the already-
streamed tool call (one-shot allow_once/reject_once only), outcomes map
conservatively (unknown optionId never grants, client cancel → cancelled),
and foreign or call-less requests delegate down the waterfall. The snapshot
harness accepts scripted permissionAnswers (FIFO; an unscripted prompt
answers cancelled, fail closed) so recorded scenarios can drive the wire
keylessly.
Adopts #185 (dsh-timeout: clampTimeout/deadline/timeoutOf drive bash
run() timeout classification; runBash loses its own timer) and #108
(ask_user_question) across the task-runtime rework: bash-local keeps
the BashProcess handle shape with master's deadline mechanics, tool
catalogs/expectations carry both the task_* and ask-user tools, and
generated docs are regenerated on the union.
One shared ctx.tasks registry (branded <kind>-N ids, owner-fenced
read/kill/wait/list, attachSurface misconfiguration fence, reported-flag
notice dedup, atomic register) + dsh-tool-tasks (task_output/task_list/
task_kill, completion-notice injection, background prompt habit).
Producers opt in via their own enableRunInBackground config: bash
(stream kind; seam slimmed to resolve/run/start returning a BashProcess
handle, bash_output/bash_kill deleted) and subagent (final-output kind;
done settles after run.dispose()). Owner disposal drains tasks through
the new awaited ctx.agents.onCleanup seam in the loop's disposal chain.
Both RFCs moved to implemented/; docs, catalogs, snapshots re-pinned.
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).
Reconciliations beyond textual conflicts:
- product rename (DeepSeek Code -> DeepSeek Harness SDK) applied to the
PR-added assertion in system-prompt.spec.ts that master's rename
commit could not reach
- architecture.md: master's rewrite kept; this PR's prompt-assembly
semantics re-added in the new doc's voice (Turn Flow footnote +
service-spine row), within the 1630-word ceiling
- cordis catalog regenerated into master's split events.md/services.md
(events-and-services.md deleted); module graph and doc graphs
regenerated to pick up this PR's new events and dependency edges
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
Two pieces of dsh-acp surface were unreachable from any shipped config:
- AcpConfig.agentName/agentVersion: the app package hands the bridge only
{ model, systemPrompt }, so no leaf cordis.yml could set them; they were
settable only by direct-mounting the bridge (a unit test). Hardcode
agentInfo at the initialize site and delete the fields, their schema
defaults, the ?? fallbacks, and the TODO(double-default) whose subject
vanishes. The handshake wire value is unchanged (all snapshot initialize
lines byte-identical).
- The toolKindFor name heuristic special-cased bash*/read*/write/edit*
names in the generic-fallback path, violating the bridge's own design
rule ("the bridge never special-cases tool names"). Every first-party
tool ships its kind via presentCall; the fallback now renders the
neutral kind 'other'. The fallback is reachable when a presentCall
throws OR when model args fail the tool schema (defineTool's presentCall
wrapper returns undefined on violations) — the latter shows up in one
committed golden (hook-codex-posttool-block: three bash calls missing
the required description), whose kind cells flip execute->other. That
3-line golden refresh is the whole transcript delta.
The empty-arguments branch of parseToolArguments lost its only exercise
with the deleted heuristic test; it is live behavior (JSON.parse('')
throws, so the guard is what renders a zero-arg call as rawInput {}), so
it gets a dedicated pin instead of deletion.
RFC moved to docs/rfc/implemented/simplification/ and amended to shipped
reality: fallback reachability includes schema-invalid args, and the
golden churn is exactly the three kind cells (the original zero-churn
claim held only for the branding half).
The acp README's presentResult card list still described the `diff` result
as always "the APPLIED hunks computed from before/after". Qualify it like
the other surfaces: typically the applied hunks, or a whole-file diff for a
create, and a successful mutation always returns it so the result text
can't clobber the diff.
The callId→args map note said the tool/result event "carries only
{ callId, content, isError }" — an exhaustive field list that drifts as
the event grows (it also carries error, and now meta). State the load-
bearing fact instead: the event omits the tool name/args, which is why
the bridge remembers them per callId.
