# RFC: stdin + extra env on the bash seam

Status: implemented

## Problem

The hooks subsystem runs external hook commands the way Claude Code and Codex do: a hook is a shell command that receives its event payload as **JSON on stdin** and reads context from a handful of **environment variables** (`CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR`, `CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT`, `PLUGIN_ROOT`, …). The harness already has a perfectly good command runner behind the `ctx.bash` capability seam ([dsh-bash](../../../../packages/bash/bash) → [dsh-bash-local](../../../../packages/bash/bash-local)), with process-group kills, output truncation/spill, and a credential scrub. Reusing it for hook execution means a hook bridge does not re-implement subprocess plumbing — but the seam had no way to write stdin or set extra env. This RFC adds those two inputs.

**These fields are NOT a new security boundary.** It is tempting to frame arbitrary-stdin / arbitrary-env as "dangerous, so gate who may use them" — but that framing is wrong, because a model driving the `bash` tool **already** has equivalent power through ordinary shell syntax: `FOO=bar cmd` sets an env var, a heredoc or `printf … | cmd` feeds arbitrary stdin. Adding `env`/`stdin` as seam fields grants the model no capability it lacks. In particular they cannot exfiltrate the harness's ambient credentials: the real control for that is the **credential scrub** in [dsh-bash-local](../../../../packages/bash/bash-local)'s `childEnv()`, which strips `*KEY*`/`*SECRET*`/`*TOKEN*` from `process.env` before the child sees it (see [docs/defensive-patterns.md](../../../defensive-patterns.md) § "Never hand untrusted output the ambient environment or predictable paths"). The scrub works regardless of these fields — a model cannot read a value that is not in the environment, and tool-call arguments are static JSON, never shell-evaluated, so a model cannot write `env: {LEAK: $DEEPSEEK_API_KEY}` and have it expand. So the security question is already answered by the scrub; this RFC is only about giving trusted in-process callers a clean way to pass a JSON payload + `CLAUDE_*` vars without routing them through model-visible shell text.

## Decision

Add `stdin?: string` and `env?: Record<string, string>` to **both** `BashExecRequest` (the model-/plugin-facing request) and `BashExecSpec` (the resolved spec `run`/`start` act on), and thread them through `dsh-bash-local`: `resolve()` carries them verbatim, `run()`/`start()` pass them to `runBash`, which writes the bytes to the child's stdin and merges the extra env.

Three deliberate choices:

1. **The model-facing `bash` tool simply does NOT expose `stdin`/`env` as parameters** — not as a security wall, but because bash syntax already covers the model's needs, so duplicating them as tool params would be redundant surface. [dsh-tool-bash](../../../../packages/bash/tool-bash)'s `bash` tool builds its `BashExecRequest` from `command`/`workdir`/`timeoutMs`/`signal`/`owner` only; a model that includes `env`/`stdin` keys in its tool-call arguments simply has them ignored. A regression guard (`tool-bash` "does not forward env/stdin" tests) drives the real tool with those extra args and asserts the recorded request carries neither field — its purpose is to catch a future refactor that blindly spreads `...args` into the request and silently starts forwarding model input into the post-scrub `env` merge, NOT to defend a trust boundary. In-process plugins (the hooks bridges, native plugins) that construct a `BashExecRequest` directly set the fields; the seam imposes no access policy (consistent with how `owner` works — the executor stores but never interprets it).

2. **`env` merges AFTER the credential scrub, so an explicit caller entry always wins** — even a credential-shaped name. This is correct because the scrub's job is narrow: stop the harness's *ambient* `process.env` credentials from leaking into a spawned command. A caller that explicitly sets a var has named a value it already holds (not the ambient secret), so the scrub is not a constraint on it. `childEnv(extra?)` layers `scrub(process.env)` → `ENV_OVERRIDES` (the model-friendly `TERM=dumb` etc.) → `extra`, last-wins.

3. **`stdin`/`env` are required-absent-OK (plain optional) on the resolved spec, NOT required-but-nullable like `owner`.** `owner` is required-but-nullable because a *silently* missing owner yields an unowned, cross-session-readable task — a security footgun that a visible `undefined` guards against. `stdin`/`env` have no such hazard: a missing one means "no stdin / no extra env", which is the safe, ordinary case (every model-driven call). So they stay plain optionals, matching `signal`.

`dsh-bash-local` spawns stdin as a `'pipe'` (writing the supplied bytes, then closing) ONLY when a caller set `stdin`; with none supplied it uses `'ignore'` — fd 0 → `/dev/null` — the exact pre-seam default. This distinction is observable and deliberate: a closed empty pipe and `/dev/null` are NOT the same file type (node's spawn pipe is an `AF_UNIX` socket, so `test -c /dev/stdin` holds for `/dev/null` but not for an empty pipe), so the no-stdin path — every model-driven call — must keep `/dev/null` rather than regress to an always-open pipe. Each branch's `stdio` tuple is a literal, which preserves the typed `spawn` overload that guarantees non-null `stdout`/`stderr`. When stdin IS written, a child that exits without reading makes the write fail EPIPE; that error is swallowed (the command's outcome rides on its exit code/output, not the write) so it never crashes the host or rejects `done`.

## Alternatives considered

An earlier sketch of this work also proposed making `SENSITIVE_ENV_PATTERN` configurable. Validating against the code, that is **speculative and already subsumed**: `run.ts` documents a configurable whitelist as future work, and the new explicit `env` field — merged after the scrub — already gives a caller full control, including over credential-shaped vars. There is no current caller that needs to *broaden* the ambient scrub (the hazard runs the other way). Adding a config knob now would be a speculative surface with no consumer. If a real workflow ever needs to forward a specific ambient credential, the explicit `env` field is the supported path; a configurable scrub can be reconsidered then.

## Consequences

A hook bridge builds a `BashExecRequest` with the hook's JSON payload as `stdin` and its `CLAUDE_*`/`PLUGIN_ROOT` vars as `env`, and runs it through the same `ctx.bash` everything else uses — no bespoke subprocess code, and the full process-group-kill / truncation / spill machinery for free. The model-facing attack surface is unchanged (the credential scrub, not these fields, is what bounds it), and the `bash` tool's request-building stays the single place that decides which fields a model call carries — guarded by a test that fails if a refactor starts forwarding model input. The vocabulary addition is documented in [docs/core-data-structures/bash.md](../../../core-data-structures/bash.md) (the `type-equiv` request/spec blocks) and the three bash-package READMEs.
