deepseek-harness/packages/host/apiproxy/README.md

# @deepseek-ai/dsh-host-apiproxy

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The API gateway every client shape shares: the TS contract (`src/api/`, zero Node dependencies, importable from the browser), the fetch carrier pair (`src/fetch/`: `toFetchHandler` on the host side, `AbstractApiClient` plus platform subclasses on the client side), and the host-side implementation (`src/api-proxy.ts`: `createApiProxy` plus the default-exported `ApiProxyService` gateway plugin — config `{provider, model, workspaceRoot?}`, provides `ctx.apiProxy`). Transport-agnostic by design: this package registers no routes; carriers (HTTP today, IPC later) wrap `ctx.apiProxy` themselves. The shipped core composition lives in [`apps/cli/config/base.cordis.yml`](../../../apps/cli/config/base.cordis.yml).

## Contract layer (`/api`)

Wire messages form a four-quadrant discriminated union — who initiates × request/response — decoupled from the physical channel: `ClientRequest` (POST `/api/<method>` body), `ServerResponse` (that POST's response body), `ServerRequest` (SSE frame), `ClientResponse` (POST `/api/respond` body). Responses always echo the matching request's `rpcId` and never mint a new one. Method parameter/return structures live only in the domain interface signatures (`SessionsApi`, `HostApi`, `EventsApi`); `RpcMethodMap` registers the methods and every other position derives via `RequestPayload<K>`/`ResponseValue<K>`. Zod schemas anchor `satisfies z.ZodType<Wire<T>>` and parse at two levels: envelope first, business payload second, dispatched per method. Business errors ride `RpcResult`'s error branch (`RpcErrorDetailsMap` closes the code set); HTTP status expresses only the carrier. Every `/api` POST must declare the `application/json` media type — anything else is refused with 415 before dispatch, so cross-site "simple" requests (which browsers send without a CORS preflight) can never execute a side-effectful method blind.

The layering/protocol decisions are recorded in the [GUI layering and RPC protocol RFC](../../../.agents/notes/implemented/architecture/2026-07-19-gui-layering-and-rpc-protocol.md); the browser-side consumption architecture in the [web client architecture RFC](../../../.agents/notes/implemented/architecture/2026-07-19-gui-web-client-architecture.md).

`session.history` pages on append-origin message boundaries: `maxMessages` counts `user/message`, `assistant/message`, and `steering/message` events that entered the surface by appending, so a model-only replacement copy consumes no quota. Each page stays one contiguous raw event range, which keeps a compaction's log-only provenance on the same page as the replacement that cites it.

`session.history`'s tail page (`beforeSeq` absent) additionally carries an optional `projections` block — the watermark snapshot of every unit registered on `ctx.sessionProjections` (`@deepseek-ai/dsh-session-projection`), with `asOfSeq` = the last event seq the values reflect (`-1` on an empty log). The gateway also subscribes to the registry's change feed and mints a `session/projection` mux frame per changed unit (`{sessionId, key, value, seq}` — live push state, never logged; clients hold one generic per-session value store under higher-seq-wins). The carrier holds zero domain knowledge (each value passed its unit's own schema inside the registry; the wire schemas keep `values`/`value` wide); loadOlder pages never carry the block, and a composition without the registry serves histories without either surface.

Session titles ride the generic projection pair like every other domain — the history-tail `projections` block plus `session/projection` frames under the `title` key (the bespoke `session/title` frame is retired). Titles do not join `session.list`; cold sessions remain metadata-only there until opening or resuming attaches their logs. `session.rename` accepts an explicit user title (resuming a cold session first), delegating to `ctx.sessionTitle.rename` — the accepted `session/title` event pins the title against automatic regeneration — and returns the normalized title plus its event seq so a client settles its `title` projection cell ahead of the push frame; a title that normalizes to empty returns `title-invalid`.

`session.fork` maps an optional event anchor to the first `turn/end` at or after it, letting a message action include that message's whole turn. An omitted or past-end anchor selects the last completed turn; an in-log anchor whose turn remains open returns `fork-unavailable` rather than clipping backward. The published child inherits the source's seeded history, cwd, latest logged provider/model/reasoning target, and lineage before joining the source Workspace. If Workspace attachment fails, `workspace-attach-failed` carries the already-published child id so clients can reconcile it. The [SessionStore fork decision](../../../.agents/notes/implemented/feature/2026-06-30-session-store-fork-api.md) owns the boundary rationale.

Session model routing is a session-domain contract. `session.models` returns the selected provider/model/reasoning target with provider-grouped advisory models, exact-route reasoning metadata, and provider-local lookup failures. `session.selectModel` validates the optional adapter-owned reasoning effort and replaces the complete target selected for the next prompt-assembly boundary. Catalog membership is not validation: an adapter may resolve an unlisted model, while an unavailable route or unsupported effort returns `model-unavailable`.

Pending queued input is a live control-plane contract, not session history. The gateway mirrors queued `InboxItem` occurrences from `agent/inbox/*` and broadcasts authoritative `session/queue` snapshots on every queued change and reconnect; pending steering stays outside this Web projection. `session.updateQueue` addresses one `InboxItemId`: edit replaces pending content and remove discards it. A driver claim wins races by retiring the address before admission; a later operation returns `queue-item-not-found`. The operation queries only an attached Agent and never resumes a cold session because process-local inbox identities do not survive restart or disposal. The client never infers retirement from turn or status events.

Workspace and Session lists are separate reconnect baselines. `workspace.create` creates a unique name or adopts an existing directory, `workspace.delete` removes only the Workspace registration, `session.create` accepts an optional preallocated Session id, and `host/workspace-changed`, `host/workspace-removed`, plus `host/session-added` carry committed increments in either arrival order. Registration deletion preserves the directory and session logs; its Sessions remain in `session.list` and become Ungrouped. `SessionSummary.blank` and the `host/session-added` frame carry the derived zero-events bit: clients hide blank sessions and reuse them per workspace, flip blank on the first `host/session-status(running:true)`, and treat `session.list` as the reconnect authority; cold summaries are never blank because lazy persistence keeps never-appended sessions out of `list()`.

Directory picking delegates to the composed `ctx.directoryPicker` backend ([the directory-picker seam](../directory-picker/README.md)); a method called outside the composed capability's kind fails with `directory-picker-unavailable` (the client needs no advertisement — the composed picker package's own client half renders the matching interaction). Under `native`, `host.pickDirectory` opens one native chooser and returns its selected path (`null` on cancel); this user-paced method is the sole unary call exempt from the default 30-second timeout, and caller/connection aborts still propagate to the native process. Under `browse`, `host.listDirectory` returns one name-sorted directory level with breadcrumb ancestry, a `home` anchor, and host-owned `hidden` flags (absent path = home directory), and `host.createDirectory` creates one validated child segment; the backend's typed failures map 1:1 onto the `directory-unreadable`/`directory-exists`/`directory-create-failed` codes. The browser carrier's prefix-wide trust fence (dsh-client-connection) covers all of these like every other `/api` request.

`host.openPath` opens a filesystem path with the operating system's default application (`open` on macOS, `Invoke-Item` on Windows, `xdg-open` on Linux). The opener is injectable for tests. The browser carrier applies the same loopback, same-origin restriction as `host.pickDirectory`.

The `command.*` and `skill.*` domains expose the host command registry and skill catalog to clients. Every method addresses one session's agent by `sessionId` (a served session always has an Agent; `command.*` resumes cold sessions through the same path as `session.*`, while `skill.list` resolves the project root from the session header without touching the Agent registry). `skill.list` serves the browser's user-selected model-reference path, so it returns only skills that are both model-invocable and user-invocable; this domain has no direct skill-loading RPC. `command.execute` runs a slash-command line host-side with pure admission semantics: the response reports whether the line resolved to a handler plus the minted lifecycle `commandId` when it did (correlating the acknowledgment with the flow node), while the outcome rides the durably logged `command/run`/`command/done` lifecycle pair broadcast on the mux stream; the carrier's request signal cancels the running handler. `host/commands-changed` is the catalog invalidation frame: clients refetch `command.list` instead of diffing.

The `settings.*`, `credentials.*`, and `llm.*` domains are the configuration-page wire. The settings domain serves exactly the namespaces a registered configurable provider addresses (`ctx.llm.listConfigurableProviders()`): the seam is general, but this plane is the model-provider surface, so a namespace nothing in the directory names is neither described nor writable here and answers `settings-not-exposed` — the same answer an unregistered namespace gets, so no caller can enumerate the registry by probing. `settings.describe` returns each exposed namespace's serialized schemastery schema, redacted layered values (resolved/`base`/`user` — a field's presence in `user` marks it user-overridden), the `secrets` slot list, and the section's `revision`. `settings.update`/`settings.replace` write the user layer; `settings.mutate` applies path ops (`set`/`unset`) against the section as stored, which is the removal path for a client holding the redacted view — rebuilding a section from it and replacing wholesale would delete the secrets the wire never returned. Any write may carry `expectedRevision`; a stale one answers `settings-conflict` with both revisions rather than overwriting the writer that landed first, and every other seam refusal folds into `settings-rejected`. Secret-role values never ride any response in any layer; a secret crosses the wire in exactly one direction — inside an `update`/`mutate` payload or `credentials.set`. `credentials.describe` returns value-free views (`configured`/`source`/`writable`), and `credentials.set`/`credentials.unset` map a shadowed-reference refusal onto `credential-rejected`. `llm.providers` merges the configurable-provider directory with live routes (dormant entries carry `active: false`; undeclared live routes append with no settings address) and `llm.models` is the session-independent catalog. Three invalidation frames keep every surface converged without polling: `host/settings-changed {ns}` (`settings/document-updated` passthrough, so a raw change whose resolved value is unchanged still reaches clients), `host/credentials-changed {ref}` (reference names only, never values), and `host/models-changed` — fired both by `llm/adapters-updated` and by a change to an exposed provider namespace, whose settings carry that provider's catalog and endpoint. The browser carrier restricts the whole configuration plane, reads included (`settings.describe`/`update`/`replace`/`mutate`, `credentials.describe`/`set`/`unset`), to loopback same-origin requests — the `host.pickDirectory` privileged set. A composition without a settings or credential provider answers those domains with an actionable `internal` error naming the missing plugin.

## Carrier layer (`/client` + root)

`AbstractApiClient` holds every protocol invariant — rpcId minting, envelope wrap/unwrap, zod parsing, SSE frame decoding, unary timeout, microtask-batched envelope observation (`subscribeEnvelopes`) — while platform subclasses supply only the `doFetch` transport aspect. `InProcessApiClient` over `toFetchHandler(api)` is the isomorphic point: the full wire serialization/validation path with no network, used by `dsh -p` headless.

## Model Experience

None, as the package defines the client↔host wire contract and carriers; nothing here reaches a model request.

#### KV Cache effect

None; this package neither assembles nor sends a provider request.

## Known Limitations and Deferred Work

- **`respond` routing is shipped, but pending-interaction state is host-side work** — the wire shape (POST `/api/respond`, `RpcReceipt`) is final; the pending table that makes late/duplicate answers meaningful lives in `src/api-proxy.ts` and is still minimal (questions only, no approvals).
- **Reserved seams stay out of `RpcMethodMap`** — `prompt.mode: 'inject'`, `task.list`, and a describe `hostInstanceId` are documented reservations (the former `host.listModels` reservation shipped as `llm.models`); an unknown method fails loud at envelope parse rather than getting a not-implemented code.
- **No protocol version field** — client and host ship together; `host.describe` gains a version negotiation field only when an independently released client exists.
- **Linux native picker requires desktop tooling** — under the `native` capability, `host.pickDirectory` reports an actionable error when neither Zenity nor KDialog is installed; the browse backend is the composition-level fallback (see the [native backend README](../directory-picker-native/README.md)).
- **A cold session's `updatedAt` counts a mere pickup as a write (per-file backends only)** — the attached projection excludes the `session/end-seed` boundary, because picking a session up is not activity, but a cold session's `updatedAt` is its log file's mtime and every durable write refreshes that, the boundary included. `agentFor()` resumes a cold session on first touch, so merely opening one in a client writes it. This applies only where `locate()` resolves a per-session artifact, i.e. JSONL; SQLite returns `undefined`, so its cold sessions fall back to `createdAt` and are skewed the other way — too old rather than too new — independently of this boundary. A session touched without being worked in therefore sorts newer than its last real activity until it attaches. Separating the two needs a log read, which is exactly what the mtime path exists to avoid; a stored last-activity field in the index would fix it at the source, scoped in the [last-activity-index Agent Note](../../../.agents/notes/proposed/architecture/2026-07-29-durable-last-activity-index.md).