# dsh-agent

Agent interface, registry, and `agent/*` event vocabulary. Every plugin (UI, hooks, orchestrators) programs against the `Agent` handle defined here — it has zero loop dependency, so the loop is swappable.

## Service: `AgentRegistry` (ctx key: `agents`)

Tracks live agents so UI, hook, and orchestrator plugins can find them without importing the concrete loop package.

### Public API

- `ctx.agents.register(agent: Agent): () => void` — record an **already-constructed** agent. Disposed with the calling fiber.
- `ctx.agents.get(id: AgentId): Agent | undefined`
- `ctx.agents.list(): Agent[]`

#### Factory seam (creation)

Agent *creation* is provided by whichever plugin implements `AgentFactory` (phase 1: `dsh-agent-loop`), registered via `setFactory`. This keeps creation on the `dsh-agent` interface so consumers (UI, the ACP bridge) program against `ctx.agents` without depending on the concrete loop package.

- `ctx.agents.setFactory(factory: AgentFactory): () => void` — register the creation factory (the loop calls this on construction). Throws on a second factory; the slot clears on dispose.
- `ctx.agents.create(options: CreateAgentOptions): AgentHandle` — construct, start, AND register a new agent on a caller-supplied `sessionId` (with optional `meta.cwd`/`meta.parentSession`/`meta.seedLength` and optional `seed` events for forked children). Distinct from `register` (which only records). Throws if no factory is registered.
- `ctx.agents.resume(options: ResumeAgentOptions): Promise<AgentHandle>` — load a persisted session ([session persistence](../../../docs/rfc/implemented/architecture/2026-06-14-session-persistence.md)) and resume an agent on it. Async; rejects if no factory is registered, or if the factory finds session persistence unconfigured.

`AgentHandle = { agent: Agent; dispose(): Promise<void> }`. The disposer is a **capability** — only the holder can tear this agent down. `dispose()` stops the loop, `await`s its exit (quiescence — NOT just the `disposed` status flip), unregisters the agent, and removes its session from the store, in an order that captures the loop's final `session/flush` before the session is detached. `ctx.agents.get(id)` still returns a bare `Agent` — the handle is only for the OWNER that created it. The ACP bridge and in-process subagent backends are production consumers; config-created agents are owned by the loop fiber and never need a handle.

### Events

The full `agent/*` event taxonomy is declared via declaration merging in `dsh-agent` (not `dsh-agent-loop`), so plugins depend only on this package.

#### Lifecycle (emit)

- `agent/created`, `agent/disposed` — registration/deregistration
- `agent/status` — idle / running / disposed transition
- `agent/queued` — message entered inbox (source-resolved, steering flag)
- `agent/session-start` — the session lifecycle began (once, before turn 1), carrying a `SessionStartSource` (`startup` for a fresh or forked create, `resume` for a reloaded persisted session; `clear`/`compact` reserved). A pure notification — it cannot block startup; a listener seeds context via `agent.inject()` (a `context/message` the first request sees).

#### Boundaries are durable session events, not `agent/*` emits

Turn and step boundaries are NOT mirrored as `agent/*` emits: a consumer that needs them reads the durable `turn/start`/`turn/end`/`step/start`/`step/end` events off the `session/event` feed (the session log is the live boundary feed, carrying the `Session` — the turn/step numbers and reasons ride on the event data). See [the event-domain-semantics RFC](../../../docs/rfc/implemented/architecture/2026-06-30-event-domain-semantics.md) and [the remove-boundary-mirror-events RFC](../../../docs/rfc/implemented/simplification/2026-06-20-remove-agent-boundary-mirror-events.md).

#### Interception seams

`agent/pre-step` is a **serial** surface-mutation checkpoint; the rest are **waterfalls** that return a small, seam-specific typed **Decision** union (the unified idiom across the taxonomy — a CC/Codex bridge maps its `permissionDecision`/`decision`/`continue` fields onto these, a native plugin returns them directly):

- `agent/session-start` (emit) — fired once before the first turn; a listener seeds context via `agent.inject()` (it cannot veto startup).
- `agent/prompt-submit` — decide what happens to one drained queued message before it becomes a `user/message`: `PromptDecision` = `allow` (optionally rewriting the prompt `content` or attaching `additionalContext`) or `block` (drop it; a batch whose every prompt is blocked opens a zero-step turn that ends `rejected`). Maps onto Claude Code's `UserPromptSubmit`.
- `agent/pre-step` (serial) — mutate the session surface before the step opens and history is derived (compaction). Fires after `turn/start` and before `step/start`, so a listener's appended events land outside the step; carries the assembled system prompt and the instance's composed session prefix so a token-pressure gate counts everything the request will carry.
- `agent/request` — shape the call config before the model call: a frozen `LlmCallConfig` seed in, a replacement out (model switching, sampling overrides). Content is not shapeable here — every request is a pure function of the session log ([reconstructability RFC](../../../docs/rfc/implemented/architecture/2026-07-05-reconstructable-requests.md)); the loop logs whatever config the request actually uses as a `request/header*` event
- `agent/session-prefix` — compose the session prefix: request-only messages placed in front of the ENTIRE derived history on every request. Fired ONCE per loop instance, lazily before its first pre-step (so pressure gates see this instance's real prefix, never a previous instance's logged one); the composed result is deep-frozen, recorded as `EpochHeader.messagePrefix` on the anchoring `request/header` snapshot, and reused verbatim afterwards — the prefix cannot change mid-session, so the provider prefix cache holds by construction (resume = a new instance = a recompose, attributably anchored by its `'resume'` snapshot). The home for session-stable openers that must not become durable history (a skills catalog, an AGENTS.md digest); `deriveMessages()` never returns it. Content that CHANGES mid-session belongs in the append-only history channels instead — `agent.inject()`, `tools/post-execute` `additionalContext`, prompt-submit `additionalContext` — each a durable `context/message` paid once and prefix-cached thereafter
- `agent/step-result` — post-process the assembled assistant message before tool dispatch (validates what the log records)
- `agent/turn-continuation` — override the continue/stop decision via `ContinuationDecision` = `{action:'stop'}` or `{action:'continue', reason?}` (a `continue` `reason` is recorded as next-step steering in the same turn — the typed `/goal` pattern). Force-continue `/loop`, force-stop budget guard.

Tool interception is the `tools/pre-execute` / `tools/post-execute` pair in [`dsh-tools`](../tools/README.md) (`PreToolDecision` allow/deny/ask, `PostToolDecision` accept/block) — same typed-Decision idiom, owned there because it is the tool registry's seam.

#### Error notifications (emit)

- `agent/error` — step/turn error

The model's token stream is NOT an `agent/*` event: read it off the durable `session/event` feed as `assistant/chunk` (the same feed persistence and the ACP bridge use).

### Agent interface (`types.ts`)

The handle every plugin programs against:

- `agent.send(content, options?)` — queue a message; starts a turn when idle
- `agent.steer(content, options?)` — steer a running turn (inject between steps); behaves like `send` when idle
- `agent.inject(content, options?)` — inject in-session context (`context/message` event); the next request sees it. `options.envelope` defaults to the canonical `<context>` framing and may be `'raw'` when the caller owns a complete familiar frame; `options.meta` persists opaque JSON state without rendering it. Does not run the model. While a turn is open it joins that turn; while idle it is wrapped in a one-shot `injection` turn so every event stays turn-enclosed ([the turn-enclosure invariant](../../../docs/rfc/implemented/architecture/2026-06-15-turn-enclosure-invariant.md))
- `agent.cancel(reason?)` — cancel ALL pending work: clears the queued + steering FIFOs, aborts the in-flight step, and drops a turn about to start (the pre-step window) so a queued-but-not-started prompt never runs. A UI/ACP `session/cancel` maps to this. The single public stop primitive. Idle with nothing pending → a safe no-op.
- `agent.whenIdle()` — resolve once the agent reaches quiescence after settling out of `running` (idle → immediately; disposed → awaits the loop exit). A non-owner's quiescence-observation hook: it observes the work settling WITHOUT tearing the agent down. Teardown is separate — a lifecycle owner stops and unregisters via `AgentHandle.dispose()`, which awaits the loop exit directly.
- `agent.session`, `agent.status`, `agent.options`, `agent.id`

### Extension points

- Agent creation: `AgentLoop.create()` is the concrete config-path implementation (in `dsh-agent-loop`), while programmatic consumers create/resume owned agents through `ctx.agents.create()` / `ctx.agents.resume()`. Replace the loop by implementing `Agent` and registering via `ctx.agents.register()`.
- Event listeners: all `agent/*` events are declared here — no dependency on the loop package needed.
- Subagent delegation: implemented by `@deepseek-ai/dsh-subagent`, not by a method on `Agent`; providers create or drive ordinary `Agent` handles through the factory seam, so spawn/fork/ACP transports stay outside the core agent interface.

### What is NOT here (TODO)

- **Inter-agent channels beyond delegation** — shared state, streaming child output, and background/poll semantics remain outside the current synchronous `ctx.subagents` seam.