# RFC: The subprocess sandbox — confinement seam, native runners, escalation, and per-session modes

Status: implemented

## Problem

A coding agent needs this product path: bash subprocesses — and the hook commands that ride them — execute under a restricted file sandbox by default; if and only if the sandbox actually denies an operation, the model may request one user approval for that same operation and, once granted, retry it once with wider permissions. An every-tool boundary is deliberately NOT the claim: fs/web/todo execute in-process where an `execve` wrapper is meaningless (§ In-process tools), and the cross-family boundary is staged follow-up work (§ Deferred phases). Without a shared vocabulary, every tool reinvents approval fields, denial parsing, retry matching, and permission-state hints.

The harness is an SDK, so confinement must be a capability developers COMPOSE: whether to sandbox, and which backend per platform, belongs in the leaf `cordis.yml` as a first-class entry — not inside one executor's private machinery. And the first-choice runner, `bwrap`, is unusable on exactly the hosts a sandbox matters most (minimal containers, disabled unprivileged userns, LSMs that deny `mount`), so a fallback runner has to ship with the SDK rather than be assumed on the host.

Confinement alone leaves two gaps. A denial with no escalation path is terminal — the model can only give up, which pressure-cooks operators into configuring `workspace-write` or `danger-full-access` globally and defeats the sandbox. And the model-visible knobs (the sandbox mode, the approval policy) change over an agent's lifetime — an ACP user flips a per-session setting, an operator edits `cordis.yml` while the process is down — while the model must never act on a stale belief about them: what IS the state on every request, what changed while the agent lives, and what changed while nobody was watching all need answers.

## Decision

One seam, one per-platform chain of local backends, one consumer, and two levers on top: a per-call escalation path and per-session runtime modes. Everything below composes from the leaf `cordis.yml`; nothing touches `agent-loop`. The scope is deliberately bounded: the phases this RFC names but does not design — per-session workspace root, cross-family fs enforcement, the `subagent-acp` consumer, more environments, a Windows chain — are listed under § Deferred phases, each a follow-up design, not a config knob.

### How a deployment uses it

Three `cordis.yml` entries turn an unconfined coding agent into the sandboxed product path; [`examples/sandbox-acp-agent`](../../../../examples/sandbox-acp-agent/README.md) is this composition, live:

```yaml
- id: sandbox
  name: '@deepseek-ai/dsh-sandbox-local'   # the per-platform runner provider (ctx.sandbox)
- id: bash
  name: '@deepseek-ai/dsh-bash-sandbox'    # the confined executor, replacing dsh-bash-local behind ctx.bash
  config:
    mode: read-only                        # the deployment default every session starts from
    workspaceRoot: !!js process.cwd()      # the boundary workspace-write may write under
- id: approval
  name: '@deepseek-ai/dsh-user-approval'        # the escalation gate's channel (the approval RFC)
```

The swap is invisible to every consumer of `ctx.bash`: the bash tools, hook commands, and background tasks run exactly as before, spawned through the wrapped argv the provider returns. Deleting the `sandbox` and `bash` entries and loading `@deepseek-ai/dsh-bash-local` instead is the opt-out — execution is unconfined again and the escalation fields vanish from the tool schema, because they are capability-gated on the mounted executor, not on configuration. Omitting only `approval` keeps confinement but fails every escalation closed with its own error text.

Misconfiguration fails loud: `mode` outside the closed vocabulary is rejected at plugin load, and a host with no usable backend throws the structured `SANDBOX_UNAVAILABLE` — at `confine()` before the command ever spawns — rather than degrading to unconfined execution. `runnerCommand` on `dsh-sandbox-local` is the operator's explicit assertion of a bwrap-compatible runner (chain and probes skipped); it doubles as the deterministic fake-runner seam for keyless tests.

What the model then experiences: denied file effects come back as result facts with a `[sandbox: file access denied under <mode> mode]` marker plus standing instructions not to retry around them; under a confining executor the schema offers `sandbox_permissions` + `justification` for the one-approval escalated retry (validated strictly wider than the session's effective mode at execution); the system prompt deliberately does NOT state the sandbox mode — the model learns the boundary from the marker (which names the mode) when it hits it, instead of preemptively refusing work a standing declaration discourages. What an ACP editor experiences: a `sandbox-mode` and an `approval-policy` config-option select per session (each advertised only when its knob is composable), switchable at runtime; a sandbox switch simply changes what subsequent commands may do, while an approval-policy switch to `'never'` is stated in the prompt and narrated.

The product path, concretely (the escalation arc is verbatim from the recorded `escalation-approved` scenario; the denial leg is pinned on the real-kernel e2e tier):

```
tool/result   … [sandbox: file access denied under read-only mode]   ← the write RAN; the kernel refused it
tool/call     bash {"command": "printf 'escalated\n' > escalated.txt && cat escalated.txt",
                    "sandbox_permissions": "workspace-write",
                    "justification": "the user asked to write escalated.txt in the workspace"}
  → the editor is prompted on this very call (session/request_permission through the approval seam); Allow once
tool/result   "escalated" — THIS call ran under workspace-write and its result facts say so; the session stays read-only
```

Reject instead and nothing executes: the result is the verbatim `the user rejected escalating this command to "workspace-write"`, and the teaching makes that final — no re-ask.

### Design detail

#### Grounding — verified against the code

- Runtime OS subprocesses exist at exactly two sites: the `ctx.bash` seam's single spawn (`packages/bash/bash-local/src/run.ts`; hook commands flow through `ctx.bash`, so bash confinement covers them transitively) and `subagent-acp`'s child agents (`packages/subagent/subagent-acp/src/run.ts`) — the second consumer that makes a shared seam due rather than preemptive under the [capability seams RFC](../architecture/2026-06-13-capability-seams.md)'s "don't split preemptively" rule.
- Everything else executes inside the harness process (fs is in-process `node:fs`, web is in-process `fetch`, every `ToolDefinition.execute()` closes over `ctx`): an OS sandbox wraps `execve` and cannot wrap an in-process function call, so "sandbox any tool" is policy at each tool's seam, never a mechanical transport change.
- `tools/pre-execute` (`allow`/`deny`/`ask`) exists, with `ask` serviced by [the approval seam](2026-07-06-approval-seam.md); the fs intent gates are version guards with no mode input yet.
- `dsh-bash`'s request/spec split (`BashExecRequest` → `resolve()` → `BashExecSpec`) carries per-call fields the way escalation needs — `owner` is the template: request-optional, spec required-but-nullable, carried verbatim — and the result types already speak `SandboxMode`, so a per-call policy field adds no dependency edge.
- The pinned-header snapshot design means a schema/description change churns at most one pinning fixture per suite, and the escalation fields are advertised only under a sandboxing executor — so they live in exactly one pinned header, the sandbox example suite's `mode-switching` fixture.

#### The seam: `ctx.sandbox`

`dsh-sandbox` owns the vocabulary and the `SandboxProvider` contract: `confine(argv, policy)` returns the argv to spawn INSTEAD of the caller's own — wrapped so the process and everything it spawns run confined — plus the `enforcement` completeness the selected backend achieves, its denial dialect (`denialSignatures`, the stderr substrings that backend's kernel prints on a denied file effect), and its runner-failure dialect (`runnerFailureSignatures`, how the runner ITSELF failing — and therefore the command never running — identifies itself); with no usable backend it throws the fail-closed `SANDBOX_UNAVAILABLE` error, never a silent unconfined passthrough. The vocabulary: `SandboxMode` (`read-only` / `workspace-write` / `danger-full-access`, FILE effects only — network and process visibility are not claimed), `SandboxEnforcement` (`full` / `partial`), `SandboxPolicy` (mode + workspace root).

Policy rides each CALL, not the provider: two consumers may confine under different policies at the same instant (bash under `read-only` while a confined child agent keeps its state directory writable), and an approved escalated retry is a new call with a wider policy — inexpressible under a config-fixed provider mode.

The seam confines SAME-WORLD subprocesses only: a backend shares the host's filesystem and kernel. Containers, microVMs, and remote executors are NOT backends of this seam — they replace whole capability implementations (`ctx.bash`, `ctx.fs`) as environment-coherent groups, because an agent whose bash runs in a container while its fs tools write the host lives in two split worlds.

Left open, for the phase that needs them: whether network restriction arrives as a separate `network_mode` or merges into `sandbox_mode` once a runner enforces both, and whether `SandboxPolicy` grows extra writable-root grants now (the launcher already speaks `--rw <path>`) or only when escalation needs them.

#### Local backends and the shipped launcher

`dsh-sandbox-local` selects BY PLATFORM, once per lifetime, and caches the verdict: each platform names its runner chain, a chain of one is selected directly — probing arbitrates between candidates, and a sole candidate leaves nothing to arbitrate — and a chain of several is probed FUNCTIONALLY in preference order (build and enforce a real profile, never `--version` — a present-but-unusable `bwrap` must fail its probe). Linux: `bwrap` first (its mount profile is closest to the mode vocabulary: whole tree read-only, fresh `/dev`+`/proc`, `workspace-write` adds an ephemeral `/tmp` and rebinds the workspace root; deliberately no `--unshare-pid` and no network claim), else the npm-distributed `landlock-run` Landlock launcher. darwin: `sandbox-exec` speaking a Seatbelt (SBPL) profile — allow-default with `(deny file-write*)` plus write allow-lists, every granted root canonicalized because Seatbelt matches resolved paths (`/tmp` IS `/private/tmp`) — unprobed, the sole candidate. A platform with no chain fails closed at `confine()`; an unprobed runner that turns out unusable fails closed at EXECUTION instead — it refuses to run the command, and every wrap carries `runnerFailureSignatures` (the runner's own error prefix, which also matches the shell's runner-not-found message) so the consumer classifies that as a SANDBOX failure, never a task failure: on either path the command neither runs unconfined nor slips through as a plain failure. A non-empty `runnerCommand` config is the operator's assertion of a runner that fully enforces the bwrap-shaped profile — chain and probes skipped; it doubles as the deterministic fake-runner seam for keyless tests. It is not exempt from fail-closed execution: its wrap carries argv0-scoped outer-shell failure shapes (`exec: <argv0>: not found`, `<argv0>: No such file or directory`, `<argv0>: Permission denied`) as its runner-failure dialect, so a missing or unexecutable configured runner classifies as a sandbox failure like every other rung — never as a failing command, and never as a denial.

The launcher is a ~300-line C program (plain C11 over the raw Landlock UAPI — no libraries beyond a statically linked musl, so the audit surface is that one file plus the kernel's stable syscall contract): `--ro <path>` / `--rw <path>` grants, `--`, the wrapped argv; it installs the ruleset on itself and `exec`s (rulesets are inherited across `execve`, and it sets `no_new_privs` before restricting); `--probe` enforces a maximal ruleset in a short-lived child and exits 0 only when the kernel actually enforces; launcher failures exit 125 without exec'ing.

The launcher lives in its own repository and reaches the harness as the npm package family [`node-addon-landlock-run`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/node-addon-landlock-run) (the per-platform-package pattern of `node-addon-require-builtin` and esbuild): an entry package — `dsh-sandbox-local`'s one runtime dependency — plus per-platform binary packages selected at install time by npm's `os`/`cpu` fields. The entry package owns the launcher's CLI contract end to end (`launcherPath()` resolution with a never-existing fallback, the functional `probe()`, `grantArgs()` flag spelling), versioned together with the binary so probe-report parsing can never drift against it; the harness keeps only the policy side, `landlockProfileArgs()` mapping the mode vocabulary to grants. Native-only per-architecture builds, pack gates (binary presence, executability, ELF architecture), and the byte-pinned publish rehearsal are that repository's release pipeline; this repo's Landlock CI legs install the published family from the registry — the true consumer path — and prove real-kernel confinement through it.

FIXME: Revisit the separate-repository boundary and try to maintain the launcher source and its platform package family inside this monorepo, so the native release surface and harness contract evolve together.

Profile parity is honest rather than identical: under Landlock, `read-only` grants `--ro /` plus `--rw /dev/null` (the node, not `/dev` — the host's `/dev/shm` is a persistent shared tmpfs), and `workspace-write` grants the HOST `/tmp` where bwrap's is ephemeral; under Seatbelt, `read-only` likewise grants only the `/dev/null` literal, and `workspace-write` grants the host `/tmp` plus the per-user darwin temp dir (`os.tmpdir()` — the platform's real temp area for mkstemp-family tools; omitting it would deny what the mode promises). Every wrap carries the rung's denial dialect (`denialSignatures`: EROFS text under bwrap, EACCES under Landlock, EPERM under Seatbelt) so consumers match the active backend rather than a cross-runner union. Enforcement is honest per ABI level: an older kernel enforces the subset its ABI governs (path truncate is ungoverned before ABI v3), the probe's report line distinguishes the cases, and every confined result carries the structured `enforcement: 'full' | 'partial'` fact — refusing partial enforcement would deny the fallback to precisely the older-kernel hosts that need it. The bwrap and Seatbelt profiles govern every promised file effect by construction, so their passing probes always report `full`.

#### The bash consumer

`dsh-bash-sandbox` extends `LocalBashExecutor` (spawn mechanics, process-group kills, spill files, background tasks, credential scrub inherited verbatim) and hands `ctx.sandbox` the exact `['bash', '-c', command]` argv it is about to spawn. A sandbox denial is a RESULT FACT, not an error: the command RAN and the kernel refused a file operation, so `result.sandbox.denied` is orthogonal to `exitCode`/`signal`. Classification is conservative text inference over the collected stderr tail against the WRAP's own dialect, so a backend is never credited with a denial text its kernel does not speak (bare EPERM under a Linux runner names non-file boundaries the mode vocabulary does not govern); the known residual false positive is non-sandbox text in the active dialect (an ssh auth failure under Landlock, a refused `kill` under Seatbelt), and a structured runner signal wins once one exists. A RUNNER failure is the opposite of a denial and outranks it in classification (a runner's error text can itself contain denial words): the wrap's `runnerFailureSignatures` matching a failed run means the sandbox broke and the command NEVER RAN — the foreground path re-throws it as the structured `SANDBOX_UNAVAILABLE` error (the late twin of the confine-time throw, carrying the runner's first stderr line), a settled background task stamps `sandbox.runnerFailed` and `bash_output` renders its own marker — so a broken sandbox can never read as a failing command.

The model's view is result facts only: the static tool description explains the denial marker (`[sandbox: file access denied under <mode> mode]`), encourages attempting commands that may be denied, and forbids retrying around a denial; when the escalation fields are advertised, a denied result additionally carries the escalation hint itself, so the sanctioned same-turn retry is prompted at the decision point rather than depending on the model recalling the description (§ Escalation). No prompt section states the sandbox mode (§ Per-session modes).

#### Escalation: one approved wider retry after a denial

The seam level is mechanism only. `BashExecRequest` carries `sandboxMode?: SandboxMode`, an explicit per-call policy input; `BashExecSpec` carries it required-but-nullable (the `owner` pattern: a forgotten field is a visible `undefined`, and `resolve()` is the one explicit defaulting step); `BashExecutor` exposes the capability fact `get sandboxMode(): SandboxMode | undefined` — `undefined` in the base class, the configured mode in `SandboxBashExecutor` — so the tool layer can advertise only what the mounted executor honors: composition truth, not configuration. The seam honors ANY explicit mode, including a narrower one; the wider-only ladder is escalation policy and lives in the tool. A non-sandboxing executor (`dsh-bash-local`) carries the field verbatim and confines nothing — the field reaching it means the caller bypassed the tool's gate, and its honest behavior stays unconfined execution, not a guess at enforcement it does not have.

`SandboxBashExecutor.resolve()` stamps the effective mode — escalation grant > session override > configured default — so `run()`/`start()` read the spec, never the config. The `danger-full-access` branch, the confine call, and the result facts all key off the spec's mode, and the per-task facts map carries each task's mode alongside its wrap facts (`notifyTaskDone()` stamps from the map entry): one escalated call — foreground or background — reports the mode it ACTUALLY ran under while every neighbor keeps its own.

The tool gate advertises two extra parameters exactly when `ctx.bash.sandboxMode` reports a confining mode at registration: `sandbox_permissions`, an enum of the closed escalation-target vocabulary — `workspace-write`/`danger-full-access`, every mode a session could ever escalate TO — and `justification`, required together with it. The enum is deliberately NOT cut down to the modes wider than the executor's DEFAULT: schemas are registry-global while the effective mode is per-session and switchable, so a default-relative ladder strands a session overridden NARROWER than the default (with a `danger-full-access` default and a `read-only` override it would advertise nothing at all — confined, but with no lever). Strict widening is instead enforced at EXECUTION against the call's effective mode (session override ?? executor default): a request that is not strictly wider fails closed with its own text and prompts no one. An escalating call resolves approval BEFORE anything executes — no `ctx.approval` composed, or no agent on the execution, fails closed with its own text; otherwise `ctx.approval.request({ agent, toolName: 'bash', callId, reason, signal })` with the audit-self-contained reason `escalate sandbox to ${mode}: ${justification}`, while the UI attaches the prompt to the already-streamed call (the command is visible there; the approval RFC's no-arguments rule holds). The four outcomes map to distinct results: `allowed-once` stamps `sandboxMode` onto the bash request and proceeds; `rejected`, `cancelled`, and `unavailable` each produce their own error text, so the model can tell a human "no" from a dismissed prompt from a missing channel. The grant is consumed by the very call that asked; nothing is stored.

The tool description teaches — and a denied result itself prompts — the SAME-TURN flow when the fields exist: on a denial a wider mode would cure, escalate immediately in that turn by retrying the exact command once with `sandbox_permissions` (the narrowest mode that suffices) + `justification`, without detouring through chat to ask first — the approval prompt raised by the retry IS how the user consents. Never speculatively: an escalation is grounded in a real denial — normally the one the command just hit, up front only when the session already denied the same access — and a prompt stating approvals are disabled turns the exception off entirely; a rejected escalation is final for that command. Denial-grounding is deliberately model discipline plus human judgment, not harness bookkeeping — the human sees the exact command and justification on the prompt (see Alternatives for why hard-matching is rejected). No new session events anywhere: the attempt is an ordinary `tool/call` whose logged arguments carry the two fields, the decision is the approval seam's `approval/asked`/`approval/decided` pair, the outcome is an ordinary `tool/result` whose sandbox facts name the mode it ran under. The asker lives in `dsh-tool-bash`, NOT the executor: a transport seam has no `agent`, no `callId`, and no business asking humans questions.

Left open, recorded for the phase that picks them up: what a grant's scope identity is beyond the sandbox mode — the exact call, a path, a command prefix, the session, a time window — the question `allow_always` grant storage must answer before that option can be advertised; how cancellation behaves while an approval prompt is pending; and how escalation is defined for `run_in_background` denials that arrive via `bash_output`.

#### Per-session modes: the session log as the store

```
effective(session) = findLast(the session's own knob events)?.value ?? the composition-config default
```

The default is composition config (`cordis.yml`) — operator-owned, process-wide. A runtime switch is a SESSION-SCOPED override recorded as one log-only event in that session's own log. Restart immunity (resuming a session replays its log, so overrides come back with zero catch-up machinery) and multi-session isolation (one editor tab's `workspace-write` cannot disturb another's `read-only`) both fall out by construction, and no external config store exists anywhere.

**One event per knob, owned by its domain** — the merge-extensible `SessionEventMap` idiom every existing event family already follows (`approval/*` in `dsh-user-approval`, `hook/*` in the hooks packages):

```ts
interface SessionEventMap {
  'bash/sandbox-mode': { mode: 'read-only' | 'workspace-write' | 'danger-full-access' }
  'approval/policy': { policy: 'ask' | 'never' }
}
```

Each owner exports the same three-piece kit: the event declaration, a pure fold (`effectiveSandboxMode(events)` / `effectiveApprovalPolicy(events)` — a `findLast`, typed to the domain's closed union), and THE write path (`setSandboxMode(session, mode)` / `setApprovalPolicy(session, policy)` — a switch IS its event; nothing mutates state out of band). No shared owner service, no generic facts map, no registry: a third knob copies the ~40-line pattern into its own package. Execution follows the fold on both sides — the bash tool's per-call stamp reads it as the middle rung of the § Escalation precedence chain, and the approval seam's `'never'` gate is [the approval RFC](2026-07-06-approval-seam.md)'s side of the same pattern.

**Visibility is deliberately asymmetric between the knobs.** The SANDBOX mode is stated nowhere and its switches are not narrated: a standing "you are read-only" declaration teaches the model to refuse preemptively (observed live: sessions where the model would not even attempt a write it could have escalated), while the denial marker already names the mode the command ran under at exactly the moment the boundary matters — behavior, not belief, carries the state, and a switch simply changes what the next command does. The APPROVAL policy keeps both layers, because its failure mode is the opposite: an auto-rejected ask under `'never'` returns "the user rejected …" wording no behavior can disambiguate, so the prompt states `'never'` (and ONLY `'never'` — an `'ask'` promise is unknowable without asking, and absence under a logged header is how the narrator reads `'ask'` back), and an `agent/pre-step` narrator injects at most one coalesced notice per policy switch: idle flip-flops collapse to one notice at the next turn's first step, a net-zero round trip to none, and a mid-turn change is narrated no later than the next step. Its "last told" is in-memory with a log-derived fallback (the folded header's system text parsed against the closed candidate sentence; LAST occurrence wins, so a persona quoting it cannot shadow the real section), so restarts lose nothing; attribution is positional (a knob event after the log's last `request/header*` reads `changed by the user`, a drift with no such event reads `changed by the operator/config`).

**The editor surface** is protocol-native [Session Config Options](https://agentclientprotocol.com/protocol/session-config-options) — the spec's replacement for session modes (slated for removal in ACP v2), already SDK-typed. The bridge advertises one independent `select` per composable knob — `sandbox-mode` (category `mode`) iff the mounted executor confines, `approval-policy` iff the approval seam is composed — with `currentValue` folded from each session's own log, in `session/new` and `session/load` responses. `session/set_config_option` validates against the same closed lists, routes to the domain setter, and returns the complete refreshed state (the spec contract).

**Anchoring: turn-enclosure is the commit boundary.** The turn-enclosure contract makes a bare between-turns append invalid (the JSONL backend treats a post-`turn/end` tail as crash garbage; dev invariants throw). A switch while a turn is open appends immediately — openness read from the LOG (last boundary event is `turn/start`), not `agent.status`, which stays `running` between queued turns. An idle switch is held on the bridge's session record and anchored at the next turn's `agent/prompt-submit` — inside the turn, before anything in it assembles or executes, last write per knob, and OUTSIDE any `session/event` emit (appending from inside that feed reorders events for later-registered listeners — a bug the dev invariants caught live). Until anchored, the switch exists only in bridge memory: responses overlay it truthfully, and a crash before the next turn reverts it — `session/load` then reports the fold's truth, so the editor UI self-corrects rather than lies.

#### In-process tools

fs/web/todo execute in-process, so their sandbox semantics are policy at their seams: the fs intent gates deciding by the shared mode vocabulary (§ Deferred phases, cross-family) make `read-only` a real boundary instead of a bash-only approximation — until then the contract says so honestly. No generic per-tool sandbox runtime: a host-mediated tool leaves the process only by returning declarative effects the host validates, which is a rewrite, not a wrapper.

FIXME: Revisit this tool-local boundary. The follow-up design needs to determine whether sandboxing becomes a global harness capability that applies uniformly to every tool, instead of expressing in-process enforcement independently at each tool seam.

### Testing

- Unit tier (no real runner anywhere): profile dialects, per-platform chain selection (sole candidate unprobed, no chain fails closed, multi-candidate probe order), verdict caching, the fail-closed end, probe-report parsing, and the launcher/`sandbox-exec` CLI contracts via fake runner scripts in `dsh-sandbox-local`; wrapping, policy hand-off, fact stamping, and runner-failure-outranks-denial classification (foreground throw, background `runnerFailed` fact) against a fake provider in `dsh-bash-sandbox`; the error's structured identity in `dsh-sandbox`. The escalation matrix spans the three bash packages: verbatim carry-through in `dsh-bash-local`, stamp/branch/per-task-facts in `dsh-bash-sandbox`, and the capability gate, `justification` pairing, fail-closed texts (pinned verbatim), and grant stamping in `dsh-tool-bash`. The switching surface pins the folds, the stamping precedence, the `'never'` gate, per-session section rendering, the full narrator matrix (cold start, coalescing, net-zero, resume drift with operator wording, positional attribution, persona-shadow hardening), and the bridge's advertisement gating, validation rejections, idle-vs-mid-turn anchoring (dev invariants mounted), and `session/load` reporting over a real two-process JSONL round trip.
- Keyless real-runner e2e, split along the seam and per rung: CI's `sandbox-e2e` matrix runs bwrap and Landlock on Linux (the Landlock leg once per architecture, each confining through the registry-installed launcher) and Seatbelt on macOS against real kernels, failing on a silent all-skip. World-proofs live in `dsh-sandbox-local` (denied writes absent on disk, workspace writes landing, temp-area grants pinned, kernel denial text matching the advertised dialect) and `dsh-bash-sandbox` (the through-`ctx.bash` consumer proofs, including denied-then-overridden-write-lands). This package's own publish path is rehearsed without publishing (`packed-install.e2e.ts`): `pnpm pack`, tarballs installed into a throwaway consumer with the launcher family resolving from the registry, plain `node` confining through the INSTALLED launcher — asserted executable apart, so a mode-stripped binary can never masquerade as a non-enforcing kernel. The switching surface has its own keyless e2e (`examples/sandbox-acp-agent`): the real `cordis.yml` tree advertises both options, honors switches end to end, and rejects out-of-vocabulary values.
- With-key e2e (`examples/sandbox-acp-agent/tests/escalation.e2e.ts`): real model + real runner + the REAL bridge answerer, world-verified — denied under `read-only`, escalates with justification, the scripted editor grants and the retried write lands on disk, while a rejected escalation leaves no write. Self-skips without `DEEPSEEK_API_KEY` or a usable runner (e2e.yml installs bubblewrap so it actually executes in CI).
- Snapshot tier (`examples/sandbox-acp-agent/tests/acp.snapshot.ts`): the keyless config-option wire; the recorded mode-switching arc as the suite's pinned header — necessarily, since mid-session switches emit the `request/header-delta`s the uniformity guard licenses only in the pin — committing both switches, the prompt-section delta and one "changed by the user" notice per knob, and a confined write landing under the switched mode; and both recorded escalation branches over scripted `permissionAnswers` (grant runs confined under `workspace-write`; rejection executes nothing and pins the fail-closed text). Replay re-executes every fixture's bash calls under the host's real runner (ci.yml's snapshot lane installs bubblewrap). Deliberately absent: a fixture carrying a real DENIAL — denial stderr is the backend's dialect and would pin a fixture to its recording platform; the escalation prompts assert the prior denial instead, and the denial→marker path stays on the tiers above.

## Deferred phases

Each phase gets its full design when picked up, validated against the code at that time, and lands with unit, real-API e2e, and snapshot coverage at the tiers it touches.

- **Per-session workspace root** — the executor's write boundary stays config-fixed for its lifetime while each ACP session has its own cwd; a per-session root rides the same per-call policy carrier once designed.
- **Cross-family boundary** — the fs intent gates decide by the shared mode, making `read-only`/`workspace-write` real boundaries beyond bash.
- **Second consumer** — `subagent-acp` optionally confines child agents (per-call policy; unconfined default — a child agent must write its own persistence).
- **More environments** — an environment-coherent capability group example (e.g. bash+fs against one container).
- **Windows chain** — `PLATFORM_CHAINS.win32` is reserved and empty (fail-closed); filling it means a confinement runner from the AppContainer/restricted-token family, shipped from its own repository on the `node-addon-landlock-run` template, plus its profile dialect and denial/runner-failure signatures.

## Alternatives considered

- **Command-string heuristic preflight** — rejected: cannot understand expansion/subprocesses/symlinks; the strict attempt (run it, let the kernel decide) is the only trustworthy denial signal.
- **Functionally probe even a platform's sole backend** — rejected: probing arbitrates between candidates; with one there is nothing to decide, and probe cost taxes the first confined command of every session (prohibitive for heavy future backends). The runner's own exec-time fail-closed refusal plus `runnerFailureSignatures` classification carries the safety property instead.
- **Commit the built launcher binaries** — rejected: a binary in a diff is unreviewable and churns history; reviewed source + native CI builds + the launcher repo's byte-pinned publish rehearsal keep bytes out of every tree.
- **Compile the launcher on install** — rejected: pushes a C toolchain onto every consumer; a fallback that exists only where a compiler happens to be is not a fallback.
- **Cross-compile both architectures from one builder** — rejected: requires carrying a pinned cross toolchain (rustup targets, zig, or a container image) solely to rebuild two ~70 KB binaries; per-architecture native runners already exist and each builds its own platform package (the `node-addon-require-builtin` model, the launcher repo's own pipeline).
- **No fallback (bwrap or fail closed)** — rejected: concentrates failure on the hosts a sandbox matters most, degrading to `danger-full-access` by resignation.
- **Keep the mechanism inside `dsh-bash-sandbox`** — rejected: blocks the existing second consumer, makes future phases read mode out of a bash plugin's config, and cannot express escalation.
- **Config-fixed mode on the provider** — rejected: one mode per process; cannot serve concurrent consumers with different policies nor the one-shot widened retry.
- **One interface spanning containers/VMs too** — rejected: `confine(argv)` presupposes a shared filesystem; environment isolation is capability-sibling backends deployed as coherent groups.
- **Generic ToolRuntime wrapping any tool** — rejected: mechanically false for in-process tools (closures over `ctx`); the declarative-effects rewrite is unjustified for fs/web/todo.
- **Ask inside the executor (`dsh-bash-sandbox`)** — rejected: no `agent` to route through, no `callId` to attach the prompt to; adding them teaches a transport seam about sessions and UIs — the tool layer holds both and owns the model-facing vocabulary.
- **Auto-retry inside the same tool call** — rejected: a hidden re-entry the log cannot reconstruct: one `tool/call` would have produced two executions with different policies — the retry is a NEW logged call with its own arguments and result facts.
- **Advertise the escalation fields unconditionally** — rejected: under `dsh-bash-local` they are a dead lever — advertising an option the harness cannot honor manufactures doomed grants; capability-gating costs one registration-time read.
- **A default-relative escalation ladder (advertise only the modes wider than the executor's registration-time default)** — rejected: per-session overrides make the default the wrong baseline — a session switched narrower than the default loses exactly the lever it needs, and under a `danger-full-access` default the fields vanish entirely while a `read-only`-overridden session stays confined with no escalation path. The enum pins the closed target vocabulary; strict widening is a per-call execution check against the session's effective mode.
- **Per-session dynamic tool schemas** — rejected: schemas are registry-global by design (one assembly vocabulary, the pinned-header snapshot contract), and re-registering per session would buy only what the execution-time strict-wider check already guarantees, at the cost of a per-session schema surface and header churn on every switch.
- **Hard-match the retry to a prior denial** — rejected: command-string identity is fragile (quoting, `workdir`, env prefixes, a pipeline retried as its failing stage) — false-rejects honest retries or is trivially satisfied; the real boundary is the human seeing command + justification. Revisit only if `allow_always` grant storage ever needs machine-checkable scopes.
- **A generic `env/state` facts map with an owner service** — rejected: approval and sandbox compose independently, so neither's state may drag in a third package; single-key folds are one `findLast` each, dissolving the owner service; no invariant spans the knobs, so atomic multi-key patches bought nothing.
- **Narrate via `agent/user-message` + a bus event** — rejected: it presupposes a turn-entry seam that does not exist (the real seam is `agent/prompt-submit`), and pre-step's position serves both the coalesced turn-entry notice and the mid-turn immediacy bound with one listener.
- **A standing prompt statement of the sandbox mode (+ a switch narrator)** — shipped first, then removed on live evidence: with `Bash commands run under the "read-only" file sandbox.` in every request, the model refused to ATTEMPT denied-then-escalatable work (five of twelve turns in the first manual session ended with zero tool calls), turning the sandbox into a soft lockout. The denial marker names the mode at the moment it matters and the escalation fields carry the recovery; the approval knob keeps its statement because an auto-rejection is behaviorally indistinguishable from a human "no".
- **Track "last told" with its own bookkeeping events** — rejected: the `request/header*` fold already records the exact prompt the model saw; parsing the closed candidate sentences back replaces a second bookkeeping stream — events are needed only where they ARE the store.
- **ACP session modes instead of config options** — rejected: one mode list cannot carry two orthogonal knobs; config options are the spec's designed surface and modes are slated for removal in ACP v2.

## Consequences

What shipped pins — the tiers in Testing hold each:

- A denied command retried with `sandbox_permissions` + `justification` prompts the user through the composed answerer chain; a grant runs THAT call under the wider mode (result facts say so) while every other call keeps its own effective mode; every non-grant outcome produces its distinct error text and executes nothing.
- The escalation fields exist exactly when the mounted executor confines; a request that is not strictly wider than the call's effective mode fails closed with its own text and prompts no one; a deployment with no ApprovalService fails escalating calls closed and leaves plain calls untouched.
- The system prompt never states the sandbox mode (an approval `'never'` policy is the one stated knob), and the whole exchange — headers, knob events, notices, approvals, results — reconstructs from the session log alone, with no event types beyond the two knob events.
- N idle-time flips produce at most one anchored event per knob (a net-zero sequence anchors none — a no-op push from a client echoing current selections records nothing); an approval-policy switch is narrated in at most one coalesced notice; a mid-turn sandbox switch is honored by the next call's stamp.
- A resumed session's overrides apply and are reported to the editor with no special-casing; a default changed while the process was down is narrated before the session's first new request, attributed to the operator.
- Two concurrent sessions never see each other's state, notices, or config options.
- `agent-loop` is untouched — everything rides `systemPrompt.section`, `SessionEventMap` merging, `agent.inject()`, `agent/pre-step`, `agent/prompt-submit`, and the ACP handler surface.

Costs and accepted limits:

- **The one-wrapper illusion is given up knowingly.** A `tools/pre-execute` wrapper plus prompt conventions does not solve sandbox approval — the correct design costs structured denials, native runner probes, per-call policy carriage, and consistent cross-family enforcement, and this design pays it.
- **`read-only` is not yet a cross-family boundary.** Until the fs intent gates decide by the shared mode, the claim holds for bash only; the contract says so honestly (§ In-process tools).
- **Windows has no backend.** Its chain slot is reserved empty — fail-closed, never a fallthrough; filling it is a deferred phase.
- **The Seatbelt rung leans on Apple's deprecated-but-shipped `sandbox-exec` CLI.** As darwin's sole candidate it is selected without probing, so a future removal surfaces at execution as the runner-failure classification — re-thrown `SANDBOX_UNAVAILABLE`, the command never runs; fail closed, never open.
- **Landlock confinement is only as complete as the running kernel's ABI.** Reported as `enforcement: 'partial'` rather than refused — the deliberate trade that keeps the fallback available on older-kernel hosts.
- **The launcher arrives as a registry dependency.** Trusted through its own repository's release pipeline (reviewed C source, native CI builders, byte-pinned publish rehearsal) plus this repo's version pin — the real-kernel e2e legs are what vouch for behavior through the installed bytes.
- **The model may over-ask.** Escalating without denial grounding, or picking `danger-full-access` where `workspace-write` suffices: the description steers and the enum forces the ladder, but the human prompt is the actual gate; the `approval/asked` reasons make over-asking auditable, and a `prepend` policy answerer can auto-reject patterns a deployment never wants.
- **The advertised target set is static while the effective mode is per-session** (schemas are registry-global) — a session already at the widest mode is still offered the fields. Harmless by construction: the strict-wider check at execution, not the enum, is the safety boundary — a non-widening request fails with its own text and never prompts anyone.
- **A granted escalation is not a working sandbox.** An unavailable backend still fails closed even for a granted escalation to a confining mode — at `confine()` when the platform has no chain or every probe fails, at execution when an unprobed sole runner refuses (classified as a sandbox failure, not a command failure) — while a granted `danger-full-access` run never touches the provider at all: there the grant, not the probe, is the authority.
- **An idle switch lives in bridge memory until the next turn anchors it.** A crash in that window reverts it (reported honestly on `session/load`), and a session that never runs another turn never persists it — accepted, with the loop-owned idle commit turn named as future work if durability becomes a requirement.
- **The approval narrator's restart baseline parses prompt prose.** The closed candidate sentence is owned by the writing module itself, so a wording change is a coordinated writer+parser edit in one file; a session whose headers predate the section silently adopts the current policy without a notice.
- **The approval section is still a dynamic prompt surface** (a `'never'` switch breaks provider prompt-prefix caching for that session). Accepted: policy switches are rare, and a model acting on a stale `'never'` is worse. The sandbox knob no longer touches the prompt at all.
- **The model may hold a stale belief about the sandbox mode** (nothing announces a switch). Accepted deliberately: the next attempt's marker or success corrects it, and the observed failure mode of announcing — preemptive refusal — is worse than one wasted retry.

## FAQ

Behavioral and usage questions only — every "why not X?" design question lives in [Alternatives considered](#alternatives-considered), whose job is exactly that.

- **A command came back with `[sandbox: file access denied under read-only mode]` — did it fail?** It RAN, and the kernel refused a file effect: the denial is a result fact orthogonal to exit code. The teaching forbids retrying around it; the one sanctioned move is the same command retried once with an escalation request.
- **How is a BROKEN sandbox told apart from a failing command?** Runner failure outranks denial in classification: a failed run matching the wrap's `runnerFailureSignatures` means the command NEVER ran — foreground re-throws the structured `SANDBOX_UNAVAILABLE` with the runner's stderr line, a background task stamps `sandbox.runnerFailed` and renders its own marker. A broken sandbox can never read as a failing command, and the command never runs unconfined.
- **What happens on a platform with no backend — Windows today?** `confine()` throws the fail-closed `SANDBOX_UNAVAILABLE` and the command never spawns; `win32` is a reserved EMPTY chain, pinned by test to fail closed identically until a Windows runner fills it (§ Deferred phases).
- **`bwrap` is installed on my host but unusable (disabled unprivileged userns, an LSM denying `mount`) — what happens?** The chain probe is functional — it builds and enforces a real profile rather than checking `--version` — so a present-but-unusable `bwrap` fails its probe, selection falls to the registry-installed Landlock launcher, and the verdict is cached for the provider's lifetime.
- **Does the sandbox restrict network or process visibility?** No — `SandboxMode` claims FILE effects only; the bwrap profile deliberately does not unshare pid, and no backend claims network. Whether network restriction becomes its own knob is left open in § The seam.
- **Which tools actually run confined?** OS subprocesses through `ctx.bash` — the bash tools, and hook commands transitively. fs/web/todo execute in-process, where an `execve` wrapper is mechanically meaningless; their `read-only` semantics arrive with the cross-family deferred phase, and until then the contract says bash-only honestly.
- **Does a granted escalation persist, or cover background tasks?** Neither: the grant is consumed by the very call that asked (foreground or background), that one call reports the mode it actually ran under, and every neighbor keeps its own. How escalation should be DEFINED for a background denial that only surfaces later via `bash_output` is left open in § Escalation.
- **When does an editor's mode switch take effect?** Mid-turn: appended immediately, honored by the very next call's stamp. Idle: held on the bridge's session record, anchored at the next turn's `agent/prompt-submit`, with N flips coalescing to at most one event (none if net-zero); a crash before anchoring reverts it and `session/load` reports the truth. The model is not told — its next command simply behaves under the new mode.
- **What survives a restart — and what if the operator changed the config default while the process was down?** Overrides replay from the session log (`effective = fold ?? config`), so a resumed session keeps its modes with zero catch-up machinery; a default that drifted offline changes behavior the same way a switch does (the approval policy, being stated, is additionally narrated with operator/config attribution).
- **What does `enforcement: 'partial'` on a result mean?** The selected backend enforces the subset its kernel ABI governs — e.g. Landlock before ABI v3 does not govern path truncate — and says so structurally instead of refusing the host; the probe's report line distinguishes the cases. The bwrap and Seatbelt profiles govern every promised file effect by construction, so they always report `full`.

## Prior art

In-repo precedents this design copies or contrasts with:

- [The capability-seams RFC](../architecture/2026-06-13-capability-seams.md) — the interface/implementation/consumer split and the "don't split preemptively" timing rule the second consumer satisfied.
- The `dsh-bash` request/spec split and its `owner` field ([the bash vocabulary catalog](../../../core-data-structures/bash.md)) — the per-call carrier template `sandboxMode` rides, and the explicit-`resolve()` defaulting convention.
- [The approval seam RFC](2026-07-06-approval-seam.md) — the channel escalation asks through; its answerer waterfall, audit pair, and one-package rationale are recorded there.
- [Event-sourced sessions](../architecture/2026-06-11-event-sourced-sessions.md) and [the turn-enclosure invariant](../architecture/2026-06-15-turn-enclosure-invariant.md) — the log-as-store foundation the per-session modes fold over, and the commit boundary the anchoring design obeys.
- [The interception-seams RFC](2026-06-30-interception-seams.md) — the `tools/pre-execute` vocabulary the escalation gate deliberately does not reuse (an escalating call has no pre-execute moment of its own).
