Two client behaviours read local tab rows as the verdict on what the execution
host is running. Before the host answers, "I hold no pane for this" is
`unverifiable`, not `exited` -- the collapse
`docs/reference/ssh-execution-boundary.md` forbids.
Symptom 1, seeding. `worktree-initial-terminal-seeding.ts:47,128` seeds a
terminal when `renderableTabCount === 0`. Its only bail-out (`:72-77`) covered
the paired-web-runtime flavor -- "while that session is live the host owns
terminal creation" -- with no equivalent for direct SSH. So a client that has
never held the workspace runs the predicate during the hydration gap and creates
a tab from nothing. The snapshot then arrives, the merge rightly keeps the tab it
was never told about, and the union uploads as the new host truth. Measured on a
fresh client against a host owning 3 tabs: **1 tab created from nothing, 0 of the
host's 3 adopted.** (A restart never reaches the predicate -- local state
restores the row first -- which is why restart-only repros came back flat.)
That guard was also the wrong question. It asked "am I a client of a live paired
session?", which a host desktop window answers "no" and a paired client answers
"yes", so both seeded -- #15556.
Symptom 2, sleeping-agent resume, and the data-corrupting half.
`Terminal.tsx:1554` calls `resumeSleepingAgentSessionsForWorktree` twenty lines
after the seeding call at `:1529-1534` -- same startup path, same pre-hydration
window, and not SSH-gated at all. Seeding produces a spare empty tab; the sweep
launches `claude --resume <id>` for a session still running on the remote and
still owned by a live pane. Two agent processes writing one transcript; STA-3498
observed five. STA-3500 files exactly this race. Failure is asymmetric: declining
to resume is user-recoverable, a duplicate resume corrupts a transcript
irreversibly.
`workspace-terminal-host-authority.ts` answers the one ownership question both
paths ask, in the three-verdict vocabulary the renderer already uses for host
terminal inventory (`HostLiveTerminalProbeVerdict`, aliased rather than restated
so the two cannot drift): `live` (a remote host owns creation here),
`unverifiable` (there is a remote host and it has not answered), `none` (local,
or the host answered and holds nothing). Seeding requires `none`; the sweep
declines on `unverifiable` without consuming its one-shot, so the agents are not
stranded for the session once the verdict lands.
Shape notes:
- An ownership question, not a client-liveness one -- that is what fixes#15556.
- Folder workspaces resolve to `none`: the snapshot replaces exactly
`DirectSshTargetScope.gitWorktreeIds`, so a folder's rows are never replaced by
the host and waiting for an answer that will never name them would leave it
terminal-less for good.
- A `conflict` sync phase is `unverifiable`, matching the pair
`use-app-session-persistence.ts` already gates uploads on.
- Explicit launch work (setup/issue commands) stays ungated -- that is a request
to create a terminal now.
- `Terminal.tsx` subscribes through a retained selector rather than reading in
the effect: the verdict flipping to `none` is what must re-run the passes, and
resolution walks the owner catalogs, so recomputing per store write would be
the STA-3363 render-path multiplier again.
The `unverifiable` verdict is BOUNDED, and must be. `remoteWorkspaceHydratedTargetIds` is add-only
in practice -- `markRemoteWorkspaceHydrated` has two production call sites, both on success paths,
and `clearRemoteWorkspaceHydrated` has NONE. Four paths return without marking: local-hydration
timeout (`remote-workspace-target-sync.ts:136-145`), a null `remoteWorkspace.get` (`:160-169`), a
falsy apply token (`:172-185`), and never connecting at all. Without a floor, any of them would
leave every git worktree on that target `unverifiable` for the rest of the app session: no initial
terminal, no sleeping-agent resume, escapable only by creating a tab by hand. That is strictly worse
than the behaviour it replaces -- on main the user got a terminal. So a sync that terminates in
`offline` or `error` without ever hydrating resolves `none`: declining to seed is meant to be a
wait, not a permanent refusal. `pulling` still declines, and a target that HAS hydrated stays `none`
even if a later sync errors.
Scope, stated because the doc comment previously overstated it: this gate is
first-hydration-per-target, not per-connection-generation. Since nothing clears the flag, a
disconnected target that hydrated once reads `none`. It does not cover mid-session reconnect or
sleep/resume.
The memo's input list is checked for COMPLETENESS, not just membership. `satisfies readonly
(keyof State)[]` only proves each listed key exists; a field added to the state and forgotten from
the list would type-check while making the memo return a stale verdict -- silent, and it looks like
"the gate did not fire". A conditional type now names the missing key at compile time. Deliberately
not `const x: Missing[] = []`, which passes regardless because an empty array literal is assignable
to every array type.
Known limitation, stated rather than hidden: the SEEDING half of this change has no measurable
end-to-end effect today, and the branch's own e2e spec says so.
`applyDirectSshRemoteWorkspaceSnapshot` calls `markRemoteWorkspaceHydrated` unconditionally AFTER
the hydrate calls -- including when they wrote nothing. So in the same tick adoption yields zero,
the verdict flips `unverifiable` -> `none`, `Terminal.tsx` re-runs the effect, and it seeds. The
gate cannot outlive the failure it guards against, because the same function that fails to adopt is
the one that lifts it.
`ssh-cold-hydration-gap-tab-seeding.spec.ts:218` is named for what it asserts -- one tab, adopted
none -- rather than for the behaviour we want. The fixme at `:293` pins the intended behaviour.
Making the seeding half effective needs hydration resolved PER WORKTREE (or a refusal to say `none`
when the completed apply's `replaceWorkspaceKeys` did not name this worktree) rather than a
per-target "some apply finished" flag. That is deliberately not in this commit.
The RESUME half is the valuable half and is unit-proven: it declines while the host is unanswered
and wakes the same session once the verdict lands, without consuming its one-shot. Preventing one
duplicate `claude --resume` on a live transcript is worth more than preventing one spare tab --
declining to resume is user-recoverable, a duplicate resume corrupts a transcript irreversibly.
Before: 7 failed | 3 passed. After: 10 passed; 103 across the seeding, resume,
authority and remote-workspace suites.
Neil
e06a8667a9