Files
deepseek-harness/docs/rfc/rejected/simplification/2026-06-20-drop-bash-output-spill-files.md
Tianyi Cui e6fad266a6 docs(rfc): define and enforce a uniform RFC format; adopt it across the corpus
Define the in-file RFC contract in docs/rfc/README.md § The file format:
the header block (`# RFC: <title>` plus a dateless Status enum
cross-checked against the lifecycle folder), the per-lifecycle body
skeleton (a Problem opener everywhere; Proposal/Alternatives considered/
Acceptance criteria/Risks in proposed/; present-tense Decision/
Consequences with proposal-era headings banned in implemented/; the
frozen proposal shape in rejected/), and a mandatory Alternatives
considered section with a date-fenced grandfather comment for pre-format
RFCs whose alternatives are not reconstructible from the record.

Enforce it with a new doc-sync gate, scripts/verify-rfc-format.ts, and
normalize all 112 RFCs to it: ~15 Status-line spellings collapse to the
enum, 29 Context openers become Problem, the 39 legacy-format XXX debt
markers are resolved and banned from reappearing, proposal-era sections
in implemented RFCs are rewritten to shipped reality (including the
web/fs/subagent seam RFCs' migration plans and test checklists, closing
the doc-tiers deferred-work item on the web seam), every RFC gains an
Alternatives considered section or the grandfather comment, and the
bilingual pair is re-mirrored and re-recorded.

Move the generated index tables out of README.md into a fully generated
docs/rfc/INDEX.md — gen-rfc-index now writes the whole file, and
verify-rfc-classification checks its freshness and rejects index-shaped
rows in the curated README — which makes room for the format contract to
live in the README front door instead of a separate FORMAT.md.

The decision record, and the first RFC written in the new format, is
docs/rfc/implemented/process/2026-07-05-uniform-rfc-format.md.
2026-07-05 22:58:25 +08:00

2.4 KiB

RFC: Drop bash full-output spill files

Status: rejected — full-output recovery is a real bash behavior. A future artifact/blob service may generalize it, but dropping spill files before that replacement would lose useful command output.

Problem

dsh-bash-local keeps bounded in-memory output and spills large stdout/stderr streams into private temp files. That requires a private directory, random owner-only file creation, close-failure handling, byte-offset incremental reads, lossy read reporting, path rendering in model-facing text, and cleanup discipline. The tool then tells the model to read a local spill path when output was truncated.

This solves a real problem, but in a narrow and leaky way. A spill path is a process-local filesystem artifact exposed to model output, not a durable harness artifact with scoped access, retention, or UI affordances. It also complicates background-task reads because a lossy incremental read has to point at one or two spill files.

Proposal

Keep tail truncation, drop full-output spill files. A bash result contains the bounded tail plus a clear truncation marker; no path is emitted. If users need full-output recovery, add a generic artifact/blob service with explicit ownership, cleanup, and UI rendering, then let bash attach large outputs to that service.

This proposal can land independently of a generic long-running tool runtime. If background tasks stay, bash_output should still report that output was dropped, but without advertising a spill path.

Acceptance criteria

  • CollectedOutput no longer carries spill paths.
  • OutputCollector keeps bounded buffers only and deletes the temp-file machinery.
  • renderResult() reports truncation without a filesystem path.
  • Tests cover tail truncation and no longer assert full-output file contents.
  • Security guidance in docs/defensive-patterns.md stops treating private spill files as a model-visible interface.

What we give up

A model or user cannot recover the omitted prefix of a huge command output from a temp file. That is acceptable until there is a real artifact service. The current spill path is too much bespoke machinery for a feature whose lifecycle and permissions are not designed.