orca/docs/reference/agent-status-store.md

Agent status store

Status

Proposed on 2026-09-09 as the follow-up to #19217. It lands in four steps, in this order, each independently shippable:

1. main-only: every producer writes into one store and worktree ps reads it, split into 1a (structured sessions join the store) and 1b (the runtime's duplicate retained store is deleted);
2. renderer: the sidebar becomes a subscriber and stops re-deriving rows;
3. shared: one worktree-status rollup and one freshness rule for every reader.

The PR that carries this document is PR 1a. Sections below are grouped under the step that delivers them; PR 1a and PR 1b have landed.

The problem this solves

Orca shows "what is this agent doing" in four places: the desktop sidebar, the orca worktree ps command, the mobile app, and the agent dashboard. Before #19217 those readers did not even share their inputs. After #19217 they share the structured-session mapping and nothing else.

An audit on 2026-09-09 found six producers and three consumers, and three separate copies of the same row inside the main process alone:

Main-process copy	Keyed by	Owned by	Persisted	Evicted
hook server lastStatusByPaneKey	paneKey	src/main/agent-hooks/server.ts	last-status.json	tab close, pty exit, hydrate
runtime RuntimeAgentRowStore	paneKey	runtime-agent-row-store.ts (deleted in PR 1b)	no	pty exit only
structured feed published	sessionId	src/main/native-chat/agent-session-wire/structured-agent-session-status-feed.ts	no	never (a broadcast cache)

The second copy is a duplicate write: the OSC status parsed in main is forwarded to the hook server and retained in the runtime store from the same call (orca-runtime-create-terminal-side-effect-command-code-detector.ts). The third copy is keyed differently and never reaches the hook server at all, which is why worktree ps grew its own adapter for it in #19217.

Each reader then applies its own precedence and freshness rules, so the same pane can legitimately read differently on the desktop, on the phone, and in the CLI.

The rule

The execution host owns agent status, in one store, and every reader subscribes to it. This follows the boundary in ssh-execution-boundary.md: the host that runs the process is the only party that can observe it, and the client is never authoritative for execution state.

Three consequences:

• One store per execution host. A remote host keeps its own store and the client mirrors it down, as the web-session mirror already does. Mirroring is not merging: a client never writes its observations back to a host.
• Precedence is decided once, at write time, with provenance recorded on the row. Readers never re-adjudicate hook versus terminal versus structured.
• Readers keep only presentation policy and user facts: the 30-minute display decay, acknowledgements, dismissals, unread. Those stay reader-side but become one shared implementation (PR 3).

The store already exists

The hook server's state is that store today for every PTY-based agent. The audit established:

• hook HTTP posts, the WSL and SSH relay receivers, and main's own OSC parse all converge on the same applyNormalizedStatus path, stamped with the authority id main-agent-hooks;
• it alone holds pane authority: launch tokens and their hashed commitments, retired-pane fences, pane-key aliases, per-connection ordering watermarks, and the evidence-age map that must outlive a transport clear;
• it alone persists, with a seven-day hydrate window and the restoredUnconfirmed stamp that keeps a hydrated row from ever reading as live truth;
• it already fans out to both renderer windows over agentStatus:set and agentStatus:clear, and serves agentStatus:getSnapshot.

Nothing else in main carries those guarantees, and building a second store with them would be the wrong direction. So the design is not "add a store". It is: route the two producers that bypass the hook server through it, then delete the copies.

PR 1a: structured sessions publish into the store

No renderer behavior changes. The sidebar keeps receiving the same IPC events it receives today, plus structured-session rows it currently derives itself.

Structured sessions publish into the hook server

The structured feed keeps its job of projecting a session's journal into a summary and streaming it to subscribers. On every publish it additionally ingests the summary into the hook server as a status row:

Row field	From
paneKey	structuredAgentSessionPaneKey(tabId, sessionId), the key the renderer already uses; its leaf is UUID-shaped so pane-key validation accepts it
tabId	structuredAgentSessionTabId(sessionId)
worktreeId	summary.workspaceId (a folder workspace id is a valid value)
state	structuredAgentSessionStatusState(summary.status), the mapping #19217 shared
structuredHost	'owned' while summary.hostExecutionOwned is set, otherwise 'held'; worktree ps derives its row's structuredHostOwned from it
prompt, tool, last message, model, provider session	the summary's fields

Sessions with no persisted turn (status === null) produce no row, matching what the chat shows. When the host revokes live ownership the row is re-set without the flag; when the host closes or evicts the session the row is dropped. Both already exist as feed events (revokeLive and the roster filter in liveSessionSummaries); PR 1 turns them into store writes.

Dropping the session from the host's map and dropping its row are one operation, forgetStructuredAgentSession. The store keeps a row until told, and a host-owned row bypasses the staleness check, so a deletion path that forgot the row would strand a permanently working-looking agent.

Two rules the ingest must keep:

• Never persist a structured row. The journal is the durable truth for a structured session and the host republishes on restore. A structured row in last-status.json would hydrate as restoredUnconfirmed and then fight the live republish. The serializer skips rows carrying structuredHost, and hydrate drops any such row found on disk. Applying one therefore also skips the persist schedule: the walk and stringify could only reproduce the file that is already on disk, once per debounce window for every streaming chat.
• Never let it fight a hook row. A structured session has no PTY, so no hook or OSC event carries its pane key. The ingest still goes through the disposition gate so a retired pane key is refused like any other.

Applying one does still run both status fan-outs, and that is intended rather than incidental. notifyStatusChangeListeners is what feeds agentAwakeService's power-save blocker, and subscribeEnrichedStatus is what feeds AgentSessionTransitionRecorder's stats, so joining the store enrolls native chats in both. A working native chat is real work and should hold the machine awake exactly like a PTY agent does.

The drop side routes through dropStatusEntry, not clearPaneState: a pane-status-clear reaches the renderer, and until PR 2 the renderer's own feed bridge is that pane key's writer. It also passes preserveResumeIdentity: false — the providerSessionOnly remnant a dismissed pane keeps exists so the agent can be resumed in that pane, and a structured session has no pane and keeps its resume identity in the record store. Like every other dropStatusEntry caller, it emits no pane clear, so a session dropped mid-working leaves AgentSessionTransitionRecorder holding an open stats session until its LRU evicts it; that gap is shared with the user-dismissal path and is not specific to structured rows.

The ingest lives in the feed, not in structured-agent-session-host.ts, which sits at the file-length cap.

worktree ps becomes a reader

The structured adapter added in #19217 is deleted, and structured rows reach worktree ps through the same snapshot as every other row. The retained-versus-hook reconciliation in collectRuntimeWorktreePtyAgentSources stayed until PR 1b removed the store that fed it. What this step settles is the admission gate that decides which rows a worktree listing may show:

• a hook or OSC row needs its tab mirrored or a connected pty, as today, and SSH rows stay exempt because their tabs may exist only remotely;
• a row carrying structuredHost is admitted while the host holds the session, and the host's drop on close is what removes it. No tab-mirror requirement: a structured session's tab lives in the renderer's own tab state, and a headless host has no renderer to mirror it from. That argument only holds if the headless host is itself wired to the store, which is a separate obligation per entry point: the Electron hosts (desktop and orca serve) share main-process-runtime-service.ts, and orcad constructs its own runtime in src/main/orcad/orcad-entry.ts. A host missing that wiring lists no agents at all, not just no structured ones, because worktree ps reads the same snapshot for every row.

The freshness bypass for host-owned structured rows already exists in isFreshNonDoneAgentStatus; with the flag now on the row it becomes the only path, and the hand-rolled check in runtime-worktree-agent-rows.ts goes.

Wire compatibility

AgentStatusIpcPayload gains one optional field, structuredHost, and the worktree ps row gains structuredHostOwned. Under rule 1 of remote-wire-compatibility.md both are safe: an old client ignores them. worktree ps rows keep their shape and vocabulary, so the mobile app sees no change.

Until PR 2 the main process does not forward structured rows to the renderer over agentStatus:set or agentStatus:getSnapshot. The renderer's feed bridge still writes those rows itself, and forwarding them too would give one pane key two writers. Removing that filter is the first step of PR 2.

PR 1b: the runtime's retained row store is deleted

Landed. RuntimeAgentRowStore is gone, and with it the retained-versus-hook reconciliation in collectRuntimeWorktreePtyAgentSources. The hook server's store is now the only main-process copy of a PTY agent's row.

The five call sites

Call site	Before	After
orca-runtime-create-terminal-side-effect-command-code-detector.ts retain()	second write of the OSC payload already sent to the hook server	deleted; the event now carries the pane's terminalHandle and the hook ingest keeps the only copy
...command-code-detector.ts clearPty()	drops rows on pty exit	deleted; pane teardown already clears the hook row
orca-runtime-get-worktree-ps.ts values()	fed retainedSnapshots	deleted; the reader keeps only hookSnapshots
orca-runtime-serialize-agent-prompt-submission.ts getFreshExplicit()	retained row first, hook rows second	selectFreshExplicitAgentStatus, hook rows only
orca-runtime-prune-mobile-session-tab-group-layout.ts getFreshForMobile()	pane key, then pty id	selectFreshAgentRowForMobileTab: pane key, then terminalHandle

Both readers moved into runtime-hook-agent-row-selection.ts, which also owns RuntimeAgentRowSnapshot now that nothing retains one.

terminalHandle is the row's join back to its terminal

The retained store's only real extra was the pty id, and two readers used it. The plan said to stamp the event's ptyId into terminalHandle; that was wrong. A terminal handle (term_<uuid>) and a pty id are different identifiers, and getFreshExplicit was already comparing hook rows against a real handle. What landed instead:

• AgentHookEventPayload and the runtime's terminal-status event gained an optional terminalHandle. The detector resolves it once per chunk through getAgentStatusTerminalHandleForPaneKey — the same lookup the renderer-facing IPC boundary already runs for every row, so the two surfaces cannot disagree about which terminal a pane is.
• applyNormalizedStatus carries the handle forward when an incoming event resolves none. Only main's OSC parse can resolve one, so an HTTP hook post for the same pane would otherwise erase it.
• It is never persisted. A handle belongs to the runtime that issued it, and a hydrated one could only rejoin a row to somebody else's terminal.
• toAgentStatusIpcPayload publishes it, which also makes getFreshExplicit's long-dead handle comparison live: the runtime reads raw snapshot rows, and before this nothing ever stamped the field on them.

worktree ps uses it too. ConnectedPtyEvidence traded its flat ptyIds set for ptyIdByTerminalHandle, so a row still resolves the connected PTY behind it — which is both the working-terminal rollup's match key and the last rescue for a row whose pane binding was nulled by a controller incarnation change.

The change detector had to move with the store

retain() was not only a store: its boolean return was the signal that republished session.tabs for a status-only transition, which no title change covers (#7970). hook-status-session-tabs-invalidation.ts already mirrors that projection change set, including restore provenance and terminal-handle joins, so the replacement was to route the signal off the store rather than build a second comparator. installHookStatusSessionTabsRepublish now owns all three arms — enriched status, pane clear, and the status-drop tap a dismissal emits — and both hosts install it.

Both hosts, not just the desktop one

orcad constructed its runtime with no onTerminalAgentStatus, so main's OSC parse never reached the store there and the retained copy was the only carrier. Deleting it without wiring orcad would have made a headless host list no PTY agents at all. orcad-entry.ts now binds the producer and installs the republish signal, alongside the snapshot and structured sink it already had.

The intended behavior change

A row the user dismisses on the desktop leaves worktree ps and the phone at once, instead of lingering until the pty exits. One store means one dismissal.

Legacy numeric pane keys remain a bounded compatibility case. Persisted layouts register aliases to their stable leaf owners; an in-process OSC observation may also retain a numeric key only when the runtime supplies the matching tab, PTY, and terminal handle. HTTP and relay ingress still require a stable key or a registered alias, and numeric rows are never persisted.

PR 2: the renderer subscribes

With structured rows arriving over agentStatus:set, the renderer's StructuredAgentSessionStatusBridge no longer needs to write status; its unmount cleanup becomes a tab-close signal to the host. The IPC applicator is the single writer for observed status. The 2026-09-09 audit sorted the other writers:

Writer	Disposition
Command Code output seeds, parked-pane seeds, pty-exit removal	delete; main already emits the same facts
structured bridge status writes	delete; main now publishes the row
launch placeholder seeds (a user launched an agent with a prompt)	keep for now; main holds the launch config and can seed later
dismissal, acknowledgement, unmount	keep; user facts and component lifecycle
remote-runtime OSC parse (bytes never transit local main)	keep, fenced behind the host's published row once the host is new enough; rule 3 of the wire doc applies
web-session mirror receipt clock	keep; the decay rule needs both clocks from one machine

The Command Code done-settle window is renderer policy with no main equivalent. PR 2 either moves it into main's detector or leaves it, and says which.

PR 3: one rollup, one clock

The worktree card status is derived three times: lib/worktree-status.ts in the renderer, runtime-worktree-status-projection.ts in main, and agent-row-display.ts in mobile, which hand-copies the 30-minute constant. PR 3 moves the rollup and the decay into src/shared and makes all three call it.

What does not change

• The hook scripts, the OSC 9999 wire format, and the relay protocol.
• The status vocabulary. working / blocked / done for rows, working / attention / idle for structured summaries, mapped once.
• The live / unverifiable / exited verdicts for remote work. Loss of contact clears nothing; the SSH exemptions in the admission gate stay.
• Hydration honesty: a restored non-done row is restoredUnconfirmed and is never fresh.

PR 1b reliability contract

• Invariant (agent-session.status-host-ownership): each execution host has one agent-status store; OSC, hooks, and structured sessions write it, while desktop, worktree ps, and mobile only project it. Dismissal, certified PTY exit, and provider-generation replacement remove the same row everywhere; transport loss alone removes nothing.
• Failure source: the deleted runtime row store duplicated OSC observations, keyed them by a different terminal identity, and outlived a dismissal from the hook store. Relay replay could also make old evidence look fresh when readers used its new delivery timestamp.
• Oracle: one OSC observation appears through the hook snapshot in worktree ps and mobile, and one store dismissal removes it from both without stopping the PTY. Focused tests also require leaf/incarnation-handle rejoin, legacy numeric-pane compatibility, certified-exit and provider-generation cleanup, evidence-age freshness, and exactly-once startup/stop teardown.
• Gate: terminal-performance.osc-status-scan-budget covers the unchanged bounded OSC parser and the runtime projection. There is not yet a dedicated blocking multi-surface status-store gate; the focused suites below are the accepted gap until they accumulate reliability-gate soak evidence.
• Provider/platform coverage: local and daemon-backed PTYs are covered by runtime tests, and SSH relay loss/replay semantics by relay integration tests. The projection is shared by git worktrees and folder workspaces. WSL uses the same store and admission code but has no live run here; Linux and Windows runtime execution, native mobile clients, and mixed-version paired clients remain validation gaps.
• Performance budget: publication stays event-driven with no new polling or subprocesses. One mobile projection clones the status snapshot once, builds pane/handle indexes once, and has a deterministic call-count test; lifecycle cleanup is bounded by the existing status and handle inventories, and orcad tests prove listeners clean up once on failed startup and repeated stop.
• Diagnostics: existing hook-listener errors name the pane and PTY, while status-store tests pin delivery versus evidence clocks. No new telemetry or raw terminal data is emitted.
• Residual gaps: rendered Electron/mobile behavior, live SSH reconnect, and Linux/Windows/WSL execution require the platform QA pass. The current cross-version gate does not cover session.tabs content.

Verification

• Unit: ingest a structured summary and read it back through getStatusSnapshot, worktree ps, and the mobile projection; assert the serializer never writes a row carrying structuredHost; assert a hydrated file that somehow contains one is dropped.
• Unit: the worktree ps suites written against the retained store are rewired to a real AgentHookServer (agent-status-store-wiring.test-fixture.ts) rather than deleted, so each still asserts the listing behavior it named. The dismissal change is pinned end to end in orca-runtime-tests/worktree-ps-agent-row-dismissal.spec.ts, which fails with the retained store restored.
• Live: the parity check from #19217 (working, done, close, reload) repeated against the merged store, with both surfaces read from the one row.