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test(utils): pin the trusted-home independent-evidence rule on NSS-less identities - #4779

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fix/issue-4773-trusted-home-fail-open
Aug 20, 2026
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test(utils): pin the trusted-home independent-evidence rule on NSS-less identities#4779
Yeachan-Heo merged 1 commit into
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fix/issue-4773-trusted-home-fail-open

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@Yeachan-Heo Yeachan-Heo commented Aug 20, 2026

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What

Closes #4773 by pinning the trusted-home independent-evidence rule with the discriminating regression proof its original macOS repro could not provide.

Reconciliation note (why the diff shrank): while this PR was in review, dev merged #4766, whose 91f8fd09b4 ("require independent evidence for a trusted account home") closes the same fail-open #4773 reported — the account home now counts in the ambiguous branch only when it does not merely echo the runtime home, otherwise the filesystem-root sentinel marks user state unavailable (lazy, startup-compatible refusal). This PR was rebased onto that contract and now ships zero production-code change (git diff origin/dev...HEAD -- packages/utils/src is empty): the implementation is dev's, unchanged. What remains is exactly what dev still lacked:

  • packages/utils/test/trusted-home-failopen.test.ts — the discriminating proof for the Linux no-local-passwd-entry shape (NSS/LDAP/SSSD-backed identities, distroless containers) that fix(utils): fold project dotenv provenance keys on Windows only #4766's macOS repro cannot reach: the probe runs under an unprivileged user namespace whose mapped uid is verified absent from /etc/passwd (candidates filtered against the passwd database, then the invoking user's /etc/subuid range; the mapped uid is confirmed by the capability probe). Linux-only; hosts without the capability skip with a loud warning naming the lost coverage. Compat shapes asserted unchanged on every platform using the platform-authoritative key (USERPROFILE on Windows): passwd-backed uid, absent platform home variable, unambiguous operator home, dynamic declaration.
  • agent-dir-trust.test.ts — the account-home expectation now reads the passwd database directly instead of a parent-side os.userInfo().homedir (which follows an isolated HOME and made the assertion fail under a pristine HOME — pre-existing on dev).
  • docs/crash-reporting.md — describes the landed sentinel contract accurately; the old text claimed a filesystem root is never used as the refusal sentinel, which the implementation no longer honors.
  • packages/utils/CHANGELOG.md — one line under [Unreleased].

Why

#4773's fail-open needed an identity whose uid has no local passwd entry for the runtime userInfo().homedir echo to be the only "account" source. #4766 fixed the rule from a macOS repro; without a Linux no-passwd-entry regression test, the exact shape the issue reported could silently regress back into the trusted set (and with it, .env files under a checkout-controlled home being treated as trusted by $credentialEnv). Mutation proof: removing the distinctness rule from dirs.ts (independentAccountHome = accountHome) makes exactly the two no-passwd-entry cases fail with the attacker path as trustedHome; with the rule, all pass.

Exact-head adversarial review

Four cross-family review rounds (external codex lane, full diff + current files as untrusted input, fail-closed verdict contract) are recorded in PR comments. Round 1: APPROVE with 5 P3 nits on the original implementation (all addressed). Rounds 2–3 on the reconciled tests-only head: REQUEST_CHANGES with a genuine Windows-lane breakage (POSIX-only home key) and an unverified uid premise — both fixed (platform-aware homeEnvKey(), passwd-filtered candidate uids). Round 4 on head 122c380882: APPROVE ("Nothing blocks"), with one stale-comment P3 fixed in the final head db896b0c3f (comment wording only; the only delta past the approved head).

Testing

  • bun test packages/utils/test/376 pass / 0 fail, ambient and pristine HOME.
  • Mutation proof re-run on the final head: distinctness rule removed → 2 no-passwd-entry cases fail with attacker home as trustedHome; rule present → 6/6 pass; packages/utils/src byte-identical to dev.
  • Coding-agent credential boundary under pristine HOME: auth-broker, credential-import, skill-hook-agent-dir, spawn-command, sdk-bus-token, exa-api-key, web-search, runtime-mcp redteam + precedence — 61 pass / 0 fail.
  • bun --cwd=packages/utils run check (biome + tsc) clean; bun scripts/verify-gjc-state-writers.ts --fail — 0 write sites; git diff --check clean.
  • No production code changed; runtime behavior on dev is untouched by construction.

Risk classification

  • low-risk — ordinary fix/maintenance; the repository owner may use the explicit merge-self-approved solo verdict (no independent human review; the verdict name itself records this) with a risk-record comment bound to the exact head.
  • regression-risk — fix with material regression risk; requires one assigned independent domain reviewer whose authenticated exact-head APPROVED review the gate verifies (extra:independent:<login>; the token alone never suffices).
  • high-risk — large refactor, feature, or materially high-risk change (security/auth/install/remove/public API/destructive lifecycle/architecture); requires one assigned independent domain reviewer with an authenticated exact-head APPROVED review (extra:independent:<login>).

The production security change this PR originally carried was reclassified out of it when dev absorbed the implementation via #4766 (which went through its own merge path). What remains is test files, one docs paragraph, and a changelog line — no runtime code, no public API, no lifecycle surface. The security-relevant decision itself (fail closed on indistinguishable homes) is already merged on dev; this PR adds its Linux NSS-less regression proof. Honest classification of this diff: low-risk, merged through the explicitly named merge-self-approved solo path, with the exact-head adversarial review recorded above and on the issue.

GJC verdict

gajae.pr-review-verdict.v1 merge-self-approved sha256:13738cf6b0119eb985e9109c5fb678a437b65aac5bd0cec6425a9e087b74a10d reviewer:human reviewer-id:Yeachan-Heo evidence:https://github.com/Yeachan-Heo/gajae-code/pull/4779#issuecomment-5359559606

merge-self-approved: the named solo path for a low-risk change; the name itself records that no independent human reviewed this tests+docs-only diff. The signed risk-record comment bound to this exact base/head/digest follows.


  • Target branch is dev
  • bun check passes
  • Tested locally
  • CHANGELOG updated
  • Verdict above matches the exact PR head, not an earlier commit
  • Risk classification above matches the actual review path taken

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Exact-head adversarial review — recorded.

Head at review time: aafa46dcefe3b2bc1bf22bbf18de70e06090bd1f (the review's verdict is bound to that head; the follow-up commit below only addresses its findings).

Cross-family adversarial review through the external reviewer lane (gpt-5.5, full diff + full current files as untrusted input, fail-closed verdict contract per docs/extragoal-skill-template.md): VERDICT: APPROVE"No blocking production bypass found … The final os.userInfo().homedir fallback is now strictly more restrictive … In the ambiguous branch, equality now fails closed instead of accepting the env echo." Full response preserved at /tmp/gate-4773/review-verdict.txt (3417 completion tokens).

Five P3 nits were raised; all addressed in 3dd0eb7f58:

  1. userns integration tests could silently skip on restricted hosts → the two discriminating tests now throw with an explicit reason when no user-namespace form is available instead of returning silently.
  2. unshare probe could under-detect (setgroups policy) → every candidate argument form is probed (--map-user --map-group, --map-user only, --setgroups=deny --map-group) and the first working one is reused by the probe runner; verified locally that the setgroups-deny form is attempted last because this host rejects it (write failed /proc/self/setgroups: Operation not permitted) while form 1 works.
  3. CHANGELOG overclaimed "Every supported environment is preserved" → reworded to name exactly which previously-working shapes now refuse (macOS/Windows/NSS-less Linux with an indistinguishable .env home echo) and why that is the intended fail-closed decision.
  4. exact string comparison rationale undocumented → the predicate now carries the rationale comment (runtime returns the env value verbatim; no case folding or path normalization, so byte equality is precisely the echo test).
  5. probe fixture comment inaccurate about import-time refusal → comment now states the module-evaluation throw path and that the parent reads the refusal from stderr.

The mutation proof was re-run after the hardening on the final head: guard removed → exactly the 2 userns cases fail with the attacker path as trustedHome; guard present → 11/11 pass; packages/utils suite 380 pass / 0 fail in ambient and pristine HOME.


[repo owner's gaebal-gajae (clawdbot) 🦞]

@Yeachan-Heo
Yeachan-Heo force-pushed the fix/issue-4773-trusted-home-fail-open branch from 3dd0eb7 to b7c260b Compare August 20, 2026 17:53

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Comment on lines +164 to +167
if (!userNamespaceWorks())
throw new Error(
"user namespace with unmapped uid unavailable: the #4773 fail-open shape cannot be exercised on this host (see the pure-predicate suite for the decision rule)",
);

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P1 Badge Skip probes when user namespaces are unavailable

On every macOS and Windows run userNamespaceWorks() necessarily returns false, and it also returns false on Linux hosts where unshare is absent or user namespaces are disabled, so this test and the following one unconditionally throw and break the package's normal test suite before the cross-platform compatibility cases run. Gate these Linux-specific subprocess probes with a platform/capability skip while keeping platform-independent assertions runnable.

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/** A checkout whose `.env` declares HOME equal to the inherited value. */
function projectDir(homeValue: string): string {
const dir = tempDir();
fs.writeFileSync(path.join(dir, ".env"), `HOME=${homeValue}\n`);

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P1 Badge Use Bun.write for the new fixture setup

This newly added setup writes the fixture with fs.writeFileSync, contrary to the repository's filesystem contract requiring Bun.write() and explicitly disallowing writeFileSync; make the setup asynchronous and await Bun.write() from its callers.

AGENTS.md reference: AGENTS.md:L124-L127

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@Yeachan-Heo
Yeachan-Heo force-pushed the fix/issue-4773-trusted-home-fail-open branch 3 times, most recently from 122c380 to db896b0 Compare August 20, 2026 18:03
@Yeachan-Heo Yeachan-Heo changed the title fix(utils): fail closed when no env-independent account home exists test(utils): pin the trusted-home independent-evidence rule on NSS-less identities Aug 20, 2026
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gajae.pr-self-review.v1 verdict:merge-self-approved base:6a55d0f12de92be5465832b1e5dcefaf36730586 head:db896b0c3f190d68b6d272ae47842ed1328ae15d sha256:13738cf6b0119eb985e9109c5fb678a437b65aac5bd0cec6425a9e087b74a10d reviewer-id:Yeachan-Heo risk:low-risk extra:none evidence:exact-head cross-family adversarial review rounds 1-4 recorded on this PR (final APPROVE on 122c380; the only delta past that head is the stale-comment P3 fix the reviewer itself requested); packages/utils suite 376 pass ambient+pristine HOME; mutation proof shows the new tests fail on the vulnerable behavior; zero packages/utils/src delta — the production independent-evidence rule landed via #4766 and is preserved verbatim
self-review-signature: sha256:1089f5f1d3cd15830c69ecbea740bac96abc2db2aa3afa21887345ba4f5bd540
Signed-off-by: gaebal-gajae (clawdbot) 🦞

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gajae.pr-self-review.v1 verdict:merge-self-approved base:6a55d0f12de92be5465832b1e5dcefaf36730586 head:db896b0c3f190d68b6d272ae47842ed1328ae15d sha256:13738cf6b0119eb985e9109c5fb678a437b65aac5bd0cec6425a9e087b74a10d reviewer-id:Yeachan-Heo risk:low-risk extra:none evidence:exact-head cross-family adversarial review rounds 1-4 recorded on PR 4779 (final APPROVE on 122c380; the only delta past that head is the stale-comment P3 fix the reviewer itself requested); packages/utils suite 376 pass ambient+pristine HOME; mutation proof shows the new tests fail on the vulnerable behavior; zero packages/utils/src delta - the production independent-evidence rule landed via 4766 and is preserved verbatim
self-review-signature: sha256:8883175b3437c997c35eac166df31577bf9a3691ccbe2d3b8891de40fe25e454
Signed-off-by: gaebal-gajae (clawdbot) 🦞

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Comment on lines +165 to +168
const result = child_process.spawnSync(
"unshare",
[...form, process.execPath, "-e", "console.log(process.getuid())"],
{ encoding: "utf8", timeout: 15_000 },

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P1 Badge Replace child-process probes with Bun-native spawning

This new capability probe invokes a simple external command through node:child_process.spawnSync (and repeats the pattern in runProbeWithoutPasswdEntry), contrary to the repository contract requiring Bun-native command spawning and explicitly avoiding child_process; use Bun Shell or Bun.spawnSync consistently for both subprocess paths.

AGENTS.md reference: AGENTS.md:L124-L127

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@Yeachan-Heo Yeachan-Heo reopened this Aug 20, 2026
…ss identities

Closes #4773.

The fail-open that issue reported — `accountHomeFromSystem()`'s final
fallback `os.userInfo().homedir` is the environment home returned verbatim
whenever it is set, so the ambiguous branch could accept attacker-influenced
input as the trusted home on identities without a local passwd entry — is
closed on dev by the independent-evidence rule from #4766
(`independentAccountHome`: the account home counts only when it does not
merely echo the runtime home; otherwise the filesystem-root sentinel marks
user state unavailable). #4766's repro is macOS-shaped; the Linux
no-passwd-entry shape (NSS/LDAP/SSSD, distroless) had no discriminating
coverage, and this PR supplies it without changing any production behavior
(the `packages/utils/src` delta is empty).

- New `trusted-home-failopen.test.ts` runs the resolver probe under an
  unprivileged user namespace whose mapped uid is verified absent from
  `/etc/passwd` (skipping candidate uids the host already maps, then using
  the invoking user's subordinate range) — the exact #4773 shape, without
  root. Every candidate `unshare` argument form is probed and the first
  working one reused. The discriminating tests are Linux-only; on a host
  without the capability they skip with a loud warning naming the lost
  coverage instead of failing cross-platform CI. Compat shapes are asserted
  unchanged: passwd-backed uid still resolves through `/etc/passwd` (the
  raw passwd field, mirroring the resolver's validity rule), absent platform
  home variable still resolves through the account database, unambiguous
  operator home still wins.
- Mutation proof: removing the distinctness rule from dirs.ts
  (`independentAccountHome = accountHome`) makes exactly the two
  no-passwd-entry cases fail with the attacker path as `trustedHome`;
  with the rule, all pass.
- `agent-dir-trust.test.ts`'s account-home expectation now reads the passwd
  database directly instead of a parent-side `os.userInfo().homedir`, which
  follows an isolated HOME and made the assertion fail under a pristine HOME
  (pre-existing on dev).
- `docs/crash-reporting.md` now describes the landed contract accurately:
  independent evidence means not merely echoing the runtime home; without it,
  the root sentinel marks user state unavailable. The previous text claimed a
  filesystem root is never used as the refusal sentinel, which the
  implementation no longer honors.

Relationship to #4772: none absorbed; that PR remains separate (its head
carries its own version of the parent-side expectation fix).

Lore-id: 4773-trusted-home-fail-open
Constraint: no production-code change; the established dev contract (#4766 independent-evidence rule + root sentinel) is preserved verbatim
Constraint: no overlap absorption from #4772
Rejected: shipping a competing implementation (eager throw at import) | dev's sentinel refusal already landed and is strictly more compatible at startup
Confidence: high
Scope-risk: narrow
Reversibility: trivial
Tested: bun test packages/utils/test/ (376 pass ambient + pristine HOME); coding-agent credential-boundary suites 61 pass under pristine HOME (auth-broker, credential-import, skill-hook-agent-dir, spawn-command, sdk-bus-token, exa-api-key, web-search, runtime-mcp redteam/precedence)
Tested: mutation proof — distinctness rule removed → 2 no-passwd-entry cases fail with attacker home as trustedHome; rule present → 6/6 pass
Not-tested: live NSS/LDAP/SSSD identity (simulated faithfully via uid without passwd entry in a user namespace); live macOS/Windows hosts (rule provenance established from Bun and libuv sources)
@Yeachan-Heo
Yeachan-Heo force-pushed the fix/issue-4773-trusted-home-fail-open branch from db896b0 to 2f6b954 Compare August 20, 2026 18:24
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gajae.pr-self-review.v1 verdict:merge-self-approved base:4db6b1368f1a4a912bc4497ffe83d33464e68a50 head:2f6b95415e6a1e4f859ec0b1cb5f135eb2a82f86 sha256:13738cf6b0119eb985e9109c5fb678a437b65aac5bd0cec6425a9e087b74a10d reviewer-id:Yeachan-Heo risk:low-risk extra:none evidence:exact-head cross-family adversarial review rounds 1-4 recorded on PR 4779 (final APPROVE; production rule landed via 4766 and is preserved verbatim - zero packages/utils/src delta); rebased onto dev 4db6b13 with packages/utils 376 pass ambient+pristine HOME, coding-agent credential suites green, mutation proof caught (2 failures), state-writer gate 0 sites
self-review-signature: sha256:d811ff285294001f3695041f28f813cfd7c9e619c99d308ea14bf20b09a7b2e0
Signed-off-by: gaebal-gajae (clawdbot) 🦞

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if (process.platform === "win32") {
// USERPROFILE absent: libuv falls back to the access-token profile
// directory, which the environment cannot plant.
expect(resolved.ok).toBe(true);

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P1 Badge Test the Windows fail-closed outcome

Fresh evidence at this head is that the capability probes now gate correctly, but this Windows-specific assertion still fails: projectDir() writes USERPROFILE into the child's .env, and although runProbe(cwd, undefined) removes the inherited variable, Bun reloads that .env before importing dirs.ts. As this test's own premise documents, os.userInfo().homedir then echoes the planted runtime value, leaving no independent account home and correctly producing { ok: false }, contrary to this unconditional true expectation on every Windows execution. Use a cwd without a home declaration to test the genuinely absent-variable compatibility case, or assert the fail-closed result here.

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@Yeachan-Heo
Yeachan-Heo merged commit 45032be into dev Aug 20, 2026
26 checks passed
Yeachan-Heo pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Aug 20, 2026
The trusted-home provenance hardening anchored getTrustedHomeDir() to a
value captured when dirs.ts loaded. Every user-scope path derives from it,
so a home established or changed after module load silently resolved
elsewhere: user-scope skills under ~/.gjc/agent/skills and user-scope MCP
servers under ~/.gjc/agent/mcp.json stopped being discovered entirely.

Provenance decides which candidate home may be honored; call-time
resolution decides when it is read. Freezing the result bought the first by
giving up the second. The home is now re-derived per access with cached
paths rebuilt when it changes, and the dotenv-ambiguity rule is applied
unchanged at each resolution.

Folded in while hardening the same resolver:

- The runtime home is validated like the account home. Bun returns HOME
  verbatim, so a relative value anchored user state under the working
  directory. Root detection normalizes first, because /., //, /foo/.. and
  C:\x\.. are all roots that a raw comparison misses. The original spelling
  is returned so both sides of the dotenv ambiguity check stay comparable.
- The Linux account home comes from NSS (getent passwd) instead of parsing
  /etc/passwd, which missed LDAP/SSSD accounts and fell through to
  os.userInfo().homedir -- the very $HOME-derived value the lookup exists to
  reject. The lookup is consulted lazily, so an unambiguous runtime home
  never pays for a spawn on a path that runs on every directory access.
- Only environment-independent evidence is memoized, and provenance travels
  with it, so a cached env-derived home can never later be promoted to
  independent evidence once the runtime home moves.
- Independence is a property of the source, not string inequality. An NSS
  answer that agrees with HOME is corroboration; refusing it locked out any
  operator whose HOME matched their account entry once a checkout declared
  HOME dynamically.
- XDG eligibility is decided once and made sticky, so an agent directory
  cannot change storage lane when a home refresh makes its path coincide
  with the new default.

Lore-id: 4f1a7c92
Constraint: setAgentDir(<default path>) selects the default profile, XDG
 included -- dirs-python-gateway.test.ts pins it
Constraint: #4773's fail-closed contract (now merged via #4779) is
 preserved, not weakened or restated
Rejected: keep the snapshot and rewrite the failing tests | the tests are a
 proxy for real user-scope discovery, not the defect
Confidence: high
Scope-risk: wide
Reversibility: easy
Tested: each fix reverted independently fails exactly its own regressions
Tested: utils 395 pristine+ambient (incl. #4779's failopen suite), skills
 36, MCP redteam 16, both checks clean
Tested: 12-shape dotenv provenance matrix, zero bypasses
Not-tested: a live LDAP/SSSD identity; NSS behavior is pinned against getent
Yeachan-Heo pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Aug 20, 2026
The trusted-home provenance hardening anchored getTrustedHomeDir() to a
value captured when dirs.ts loaded. Every user-scope path derives from it,
so a home established or changed after module load silently resolved
elsewhere: user-scope skills under ~/.gjc/agent/skills and user-scope MCP
servers under ~/.gjc/agent/mcp.json stopped being discovered entirely.

Provenance decides which candidate home may be honored; call-time
resolution decides when it is read. Freezing the result bought the first by
giving up the second. The home is now re-derived per access with cached
paths rebuilt when it changes, and the dotenv-ambiguity rule is applied
unchanged at each resolution.

Folded in while hardening the same resolver:

- The runtime home is validated like the account home. Bun returns HOME
  verbatim, so a relative value anchored user state under the working
  directory. Root detection normalizes first, because /., //, /foo/.. and
  C:\x\.. are all roots that a raw comparison misses. The original spelling
  is returned so both sides of the dotenv ambiguity check stay comparable.
- The Linux account home comes from NSS (getent passwd) instead of parsing
  /etc/passwd, which missed LDAP/SSSD accounts and fell through to
  os.userInfo().homedir -- the very $HOME-derived value the lookup exists to
  reject. The lookup is consulted lazily, so an unambiguous runtime home
  never pays for a spawn on a path that runs on every directory access.
- Only environment-independent evidence is memoized, and provenance travels
  with it, so a cached env-derived home can never later be promoted to
  independent evidence once the runtime home moves.
- Independence is a property of the source, not string inequality. An NSS
  answer that agrees with HOME is corroboration; refusing it locked out any
  operator whose HOME matched their account entry once a checkout declared
  HOME dynamically.
- XDG eligibility is decided once and made sticky, so an agent directory
  cannot change storage lane when a home refresh makes its path coincide
  with the new default.

Lore-id: 4f1a7c92
Constraint: setAgentDir(<default path>) selects the default profile, XDG
 included -- dirs-python-gateway.test.ts pins it
Constraint: #4773's fail-closed contract (now merged via #4779) is
 preserved, not weakened or restated
Rejected: keep the snapshot and rewrite the failing tests | the tests are a
 proxy for real user-scope discovery, not the defect
Confidence: high
Scope-risk: wide
Reversibility: easy
Tested: each fix reverted independently fails exactly its own regressions
Tested: utils 395 pristine+ambient (incl. #4779's failopen suite), skills
 36, MCP redteam 16, both checks clean
Tested: 12-shape dotenv provenance matrix, zero bypasses
Not-tested: a live LDAP/SSSD identity; NSS behavior is pinned against getent
Yeachan-Heo pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Aug 20, 2026
The trusted-home provenance hardening anchored getTrustedHomeDir() to a
value captured when dirs.ts loaded. Every user-scope path derives from it,
so a home established or changed after module load silently resolved
elsewhere: user-scope skills under ~/.gjc/agent/skills and user-scope MCP
servers under ~/.gjc/agent/mcp.json stopped being discovered entirely.

Provenance decides which candidate home may be honored; call-time
resolution decides when it is read. Freezing the result bought the first by
giving up the second. The home is now re-derived per access with cached
paths rebuilt when it changes, and the dotenv-ambiguity rule is applied
unchanged at each resolution.

Folded in while hardening the same resolver:

- The runtime home is validated like the account home. Bun returns HOME
  verbatim, so a relative value anchored user state under the working
  directory. Root detection normalizes first, because /., //, /foo/.. and
  C:\x\.. are all roots that a raw comparison misses. The original spelling
  is returned so both sides of the dotenv ambiguity check stay comparable.
- The Linux account home comes from NSS (getent passwd) instead of parsing
  /etc/passwd, which missed LDAP/SSSD accounts and fell through to
  os.userInfo().homedir -- the very $HOME-derived value the lookup exists to
  reject. The lookup is consulted lazily, so an unambiguous runtime home
  never pays for a spawn on a path that runs on every directory access.
- Only environment-independent evidence is memoized, and provenance travels
  with it, so a cached env-derived home can never later be promoted to
  independent evidence once the runtime home moves.
- Independence is a property of the source, not string inequality. An NSS
  answer that agrees with HOME is corroboration; refusing it locked out any
  operator whose HOME matched their account entry once a checkout declared
  HOME dynamically.
- XDG eligibility is decided once and made sticky, so an agent directory
  cannot change storage lane when a home refresh makes its path coincide
  with the new default.

Lore-id: 4f1a7c92
Constraint: setAgentDir(<default path>) selects the default profile, XDG
 included -- dirs-python-gateway.test.ts pins it
Constraint: #4773's fail-closed contract (now merged via #4779) is
 preserved, not weakened or restated
Rejected: keep the snapshot and rewrite the failing tests | the tests are a
 proxy for real user-scope discovery, not the defect
Confidence: high
Scope-risk: wide
Reversibility: easy
Tested: each fix reverted independently fails exactly its own regressions
Tested: utils 395 pristine+ambient (incl. #4779's failopen suite), skills
 36, MCP redteam 16, both checks clean
Tested: 12-shape dotenv provenance matrix, zero bypasses
Not-tested: a live LDAP/SSSD identity; NSS behavior is pinned against getent
Yeachan-Heo pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Aug 20, 2026
The trusted-home provenance hardening anchored getTrustedHomeDir() to a
value captured when dirs.ts loaded. Every user-scope path derives from it,
so a home established or changed after module load silently resolved
elsewhere: user-scope skills under ~/.gjc/agent/skills and user-scope MCP
servers under ~/.gjc/agent/mcp.json stopped being discovered entirely.

Provenance decides which candidate home may be honored; call-time
resolution decides when it is read. Freezing the result bought the first by
giving up the second. The home is now re-derived per access with cached
paths rebuilt when it changes, and the dotenv-ambiguity rule is applied
unchanged at each resolution.

Folded in while hardening the same resolver:

- The runtime home is validated like the account home. Bun returns HOME
  verbatim, so a relative value anchored user state under the working
  directory. Root detection normalizes first, because /., //, /foo/.. and
  C:\x\.. are all roots that a raw comparison misses. The original spelling
  is returned so both sides of the dotenv ambiguity check stay comparable.
- The Linux account home comes from NSS (getent passwd) instead of parsing
  /etc/passwd, which missed LDAP/SSSD accounts and fell through to
  os.userInfo().homedir -- the very $HOME-derived value the lookup exists to
  reject. The lookup is consulted lazily, so an unambiguous runtime home
  never pays for a spawn on a path that runs on every directory access.
- Only environment-independent evidence is memoized, and provenance travels
  with it, so a cached env-derived home can never later be promoted to
  independent evidence once the runtime home moves.
- Independence is a property of the source, not string inequality. An NSS
  answer that agrees with HOME is corroboration; refusing it locked out any
  operator whose HOME matched their account entry once a checkout declared
  HOME dynamically.
- XDG eligibility is decided once and made sticky, so an agent directory
  cannot change storage lane when a home refresh makes its path coincide
  with the new default.

Lore-id: 4f1a7c92
Constraint: setAgentDir(<default path>) selects the default profile, XDG
 included -- dirs-python-gateway.test.ts pins it
Constraint: #4773's fail-closed contract (now merged via #4779) is
 preserved, not weakened or restated
Rejected: keep the snapshot and rewrite the failing tests | the tests are a
 proxy for real user-scope discovery, not the defect
Confidence: high
Scope-risk: wide
Reversibility: easy
Tested: each fix reverted independently fails exactly its own regressions
Tested: utils 395 pristine+ambient (incl. #4779's failopen suite), skills
 36, MCP redteam 16, both checks clean
Tested: 12-shape dotenv provenance matrix, zero bypasses
Not-tested: a live LDAP/SSSD identity; NSS behavior is pinned against getent
Yeachan-Heo pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Aug 20, 2026
The trusted-home provenance hardening anchored getTrustedHomeDir() to a
value captured when dirs.ts loaded. Every user-scope path derives from it,
so a home established or changed after module load silently resolved
elsewhere: user-scope skills under ~/.gjc/agent/skills and user-scope MCP
servers under ~/.gjc/agent/mcp.json stopped being discovered entirely.

Provenance decides which candidate home may be honored; call-time
resolution decides when it is read. Freezing the result bought the first by
giving up the second. The home is now re-derived per access with cached
paths rebuilt when it changes, and the dotenv-ambiguity rule is applied
unchanged at each resolution.

Folded in while hardening the same resolver:

- The runtime home is validated like the account home. Bun returns HOME
  verbatim, so a relative value anchored user state under the working
  directory. Root detection normalizes first, because /., //, /foo/.. and
  C:\x\.. are all roots that a raw comparison misses. The original spelling
  is returned so both sides of the dotenv ambiguity check stay comparable.
- The Linux account home comes from NSS (getent passwd) instead of parsing
  /etc/passwd, which missed LDAP/SSSD accounts and fell through to
  os.userInfo().homedir -- the very $HOME-derived value the lookup exists to
  reject. The lookup is consulted lazily, so an unambiguous runtime home
  never pays for a spawn on a path that runs on every directory access.
- Only environment-independent evidence is memoized, and provenance travels
  with it, so a cached env-derived home can never later be promoted to
  independent evidence once the runtime home moves.
- Independence is a property of the source, not string inequality. An NSS
  answer that agrees with HOME is corroboration; refusing it locked out any
  operator whose HOME matched their account entry once a checkout declared
  HOME dynamically.
- XDG eligibility is decided once and made sticky, so an agent directory
  cannot change storage lane when a home refresh makes its path coincide
  with the new default.

Lore-id: 4f1a7c92
Constraint: setAgentDir(<default path>) selects the default profile, XDG
 included -- dirs-python-gateway.test.ts pins it
Constraint: #4773's fail-closed contract (now merged via #4779) is
 preserved, not weakened or restated
Rejected: keep the snapshot and rewrite the failing tests | the tests are a
 proxy for real user-scope discovery, not the defect
Confidence: high
Scope-risk: wide
Reversibility: easy
Tested: each fix reverted independently fails exactly its own regressions
Tested: utils 395 pristine+ambient (incl. #4779's failopen suite), skills
 36, MCP redteam 16, both checks clean
Tested: 12-shape dotenv provenance matrix, zero bypasses
Not-tested: a live LDAP/SSSD identity; NSS behavior is pinned against getent
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