[BUG] [v0.0.7] `cortex acp --agent` ignores CORTEX_HOME — always scans ~/.cortex for agents

[tireless75-cmyk]

Summary

cortex acp --agent <name> hardcodes the agent registry path to ~/.cortex instead of using the CORTEX_HOME environment variable. Agents stored in the custom home directory are never found.

Steps to Reproduce

# Create an agent in the custom CORTEX_HOME
mkdir -p /tmp/custom_cortex_home/agents/testacpagent
cat > /tmp/custom_cortex_home/agents/testacpagent/AGENT.md << 'EOF'
---
name: testacpagent
description: Test agent
---
EOF

# Run with CORTEX_HOME pointing to the custom directory
CORTEX_HOME=/tmp/custom_cortex_home CORTEX_API_KEY=ctx-fake cortex acp --agent testacpagent

Expected Behavior

cortex acp --agent testacpagent should find the agent in $CORTEX_HOME/agents/testacpagent/.

Actual Behavior

Error: Agent not found: 'testacpagent'. Use 'cortex agent list' to see available agents.

The command fails because it looks in ~/.cortex/agents/ instead of /tmp/custom_cortex_home/agents/.

Screenshot

Root Cause

File: src/cortex-cli/src/acp_cmd.rs, lines 61–63

// BUGGY — hardcodes ~/.cortex, ignores CORTEX_HOME
let cortex_home = dirs::home_dir()
    .map(|h| h.join(".cortex"))
    .ok_or_else(|| anyhow::anyhow!("Could not determine home directory"))?;

The correct pattern used by other commands is:

// CORRECT — respects CORTEX_HOME
let cortex_home = crate::utils::paths::get_cortex_home();

The get_cortex_home() function in utils/paths.rs properly checks the CORTEX_HOME environment variable. The acp_cmd.rs bypasses this and always uses ~/.cortex.

Version

cortex v0.0.7

[GreyforgeLabs]

Opened upstream PR: CortexLM/cortex-code#385

Patch summary:

• ACP agent lookup now uses Cortex home resolution instead of hardcoded ~/.cortex.
• CORTEX_HOME=/custom/path cortex acp --agent <name> now validates agents under /custom/path/agents.
• Added a binary integration regression that creates an agent under a temporary CORTEX_HOME and verifies lookup does not fail with Agent not found.

Validation:

• cargo test -p cortex-cli --test acp_cortex_home --no-default-features --features cortex-tui -- --nocapture
• cargo check -p cortex-cli --no-default-features --features cortex-tui
• cargo fmt --package cortex-cli --check
• git diff --check

Note: default-feature test execution in this environment is blocked by missing system alsa.pc, so validation used the existing no-default feature set.

[atlas-cortex]

🔁 Validation Summary — Issue #51939

Issue is a duplicate of #51577 (similarity: 0.74)

Duplicate of #51577 — the original issue takes precedence.

Confidence Score: 5/5

• High confidence — this issue substantially overlaps with cortex agent list/show ignore CORTEX_HOME — always scan ~/.cortex/agents #51577.

Validation Checks

Check	Status	Detail
Media Evidence	✅ Pass	Evidence found and accessible
Spam Detection	✅ Pass	Score: 0% — no spam signals
Duplicate Detection	❌ Duplicate	Matches existing issue #51577
Code Verification	✅ Pass	Bug confirmed in source code (confidence: 100%) — The code in src/cortex-cli/src/acp_cmd.rs explicitly hardcodes the `cortex_hom
Edit History	✅ Pass	No suspicious edits
LLM Evaluation	❌ Fail	Issue is a duplicate of #51577 (similarity: 0.74)

Validation Pipeline

%%{init: {'theme': 'neutral'}}%%
flowchart TD
    A["Issue #51939"] --> B{"Media Check"}
    B -->|"✅ Found"| C{"Spam Check"}
    C -->|"✅ Clean"| D{"Duplicate Check"}
    D -->|"Matches #51577"| Z["🔁 Duplicate"]
    style Z fill:#ffa94d,color:#fff

Loading

Raw Evidence

{
  "media": {
    "hasMedia": true,
    "accessible": true,
    "urls": [
      "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tireless75-cmyk/bug-screenshots/main/acp_cortex_home.png"
    ],
    "evidence": [
      "Found 1 media URL(s) via GitHub rendered HTML",
      "1 URL(s) accessible"
    ]
  },
  "spam": {
    "overallScore": 0,
    "details": "template=0.00 (0 recent issues compared); burst=0.00 (1 issues in 2h window); parity=0.00; overall=0.00 (threshold=0.7)"
  },
  "duplicate": {
    "isDuplicate": true,
    "originalIssue": 51577,
    "similarity": 0.7382336713781488,
    "topSimilar": [
      {
        "issueNumber": 51577,
        "title": "cortex agent list/show ignore CORTEX_HOME — always scan ~/.cortex/agents",
        "similarity": 0.7382336713781488
      },
      {
        "issueNumber": 51601,
        "title": "cortex config get/set/unset ignore CORTEX_HOME — always use ~/.cortex/config.toml",
        "similarity": 0.6198847186389108
      },
      {
        "issueNumber": 51564,
        "title": "cortex plugin commands ignore CORTEX_HOME — always use ~/.cortex/plugins",
        "similarity": 0.6075373797189233
      },
      {
        "issueNumber": 51515,
        "title": "[BUG] [v0.0.7] `cortex export` ignores CORTEX_HOME and always reads sessions from ~/.cortex",
        "similarity": 0.5996245820268855
      },
      {
        "issueNumber": 51537,
        "title": "[BUG] [v0.0.7] `cortex feedback` ignores CORTEX_HOME and always writes to ~/.cortex/feedback/",
        "similarity": 0.5952737728718103
      }
    ]
  },
  "editHistory": {
    "fraudScore": 0,
    "editCount": 0,
    "details": "No edits detected"
  },
  "codeVerification": {
    "plausible": true,
    "confidence": 1,
    "reasoning": "The code in `src/cortex-cli/src/acp_cmd.rs` explicitly hardcodes the `cortex_home` directory to `~/.cortex` when validating the agent name for the `acp` command. It does not use the `CORTEX_HOME` environment variable, which matches the bug report description.",
    "codeEvidence": "if let Some(ref agent_name) = self.agent {\n    let cortex_home = dirs::home_dir()\n        .map(|h| h.join(\".cortex\"))\n        .ok_or_else(|| anyhow::anyhow!(\"Could not determine home directory\"))?;",
    "screenshotValid": true,
    "screenshotReasoning": "The screenshot analysis returned valid, indicating it shows the actual CLI execution and error."
  }
}

_{Validated by Atlas • 2026-05-20}