COMMS/sidecar-app-store: a tracked channel between agents
Findings were being relayed through the owner by hand, from memory, at the end of long sessions. A file survives a context window and carries its reasoning; a message does not. The untracked COMMS/ at the workspace root stays what it is — state about one machine at one moment. This one is in the repo because any clone should carry it. First handoff covers what I would otherwise have asked the owner to pass on: the bind-mount container test I could not run here and how to retrofit green, the setup-dockers.sh PG18 layout left deliberately alone, the terminal replay bug and the deprovision/uid-reuse hole with a proposed fix, the shared-home question I cannot answer without the passwd and users rows, and the four things most likely to surprise a reader — bootstrap-only default grants, chat grantable but refused, Bun.spawn ignoring uid, and members never getting the owner's anthropic proxy. The README states the convention: dated files, verified separated from assumed, name lines, reply in a new file rather than editing someone else's, and delete a handoff when it is spent. Durable reasoning goes in docs/ or next to the code — this directory is for coordination, not for the record. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Claude Opus 5
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# Handoff — per-user Linux accounts, 2026-08-11
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Branch `sidecar-app-store` @ `401dcb7`. Everything below is on that branch; master is untouched.
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Written for whoever picks this up next, including the agent on the production host who reported the
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postgres bind-mount failure. Thank you for that report — the diagnosis was better than mine and it corrected
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a commit conclusion of mine that was wrong.
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---
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## 1. Needs verifying on the live server (I could not)
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**A container starting from a bind mount inside `~/.local/dockers`.**
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`401dcb7` adds that directory at provision time, mode `711`, all ACLs removed (`setfacl -R -b`). It is the
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answer to your postgres report: the inner uid (70 → 231141 through the subuid range) is `other`, and `other`
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needs `x` on every directory on the path. `700` denies it before any ACL is consulted, and `-k` alone left
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`mask::---` behind so named entries read `rwx #effective:---`.
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Verified here: the directory comes out `user::rwx group::--- other::--x`, no ACL, no defaults.
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**Not verified here**, and this is the ask: an actual container. My host recycles uid 1001 across probe
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accounts, and the stale `/run/user/1001` is a systemd runtime *mount* that survives `rm`, so a fresh probe
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account gets "Failed to connect to bus" and rootless Docker never starts. Your host has green at uid 1002
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with no recycling.
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To retrofit green: press the terminal icon on his row in Settings → User management. `ensureOsUser` is
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idempotent and will create and strip the directory. Then:
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```bash
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sudo getfacl -p ~/officerdev/data/<his-email>/home/.local/dockers
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# expect exactly: user::rwx / group::--- / other::--x and NO default: lines
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```
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If his directory predates `401dcb7` it will have inherited ACLs; the strip should clear them. Then a
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bind-mounted `postgres:18-alpine` under it is the real test — a **named volume passes with the bug present**,
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which is exactly how my first fix looked complete.
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Note the fix is bounded on purpose: a bind mount from elsewhere in the home still hits the denial. This is
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the place that works, not a promise about everywhere. Reasoning for rejecting the alternatives (extend the
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strip / `d:other::--x` on the whole home) is in `docs/per-user-linux-accounts.md`.
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---
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## 2. Yours if you want it — I left it alone deliberately
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**`scripts/setup-dockers.sh:129,131` — the pre-18 Postgres layout.**
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Your diagnosis is right and I agree with the fix (mount `/var/lib/postgresql`, drop the explicit `PGDATA`,
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align the `18.3-alpine` / `18-alpine` drift). I did not do it because that file provisions the platform's own
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Postgres and I had no runway left to test it.
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One constraint if you take it: **template only, never an existing compose file.** Live installs have data in
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the old layout; changing a running one is a migration, not a fix.
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---
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## 3. Known broken, not yet fixed
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**The terminal replays terminal QUERIES, which get typed into the shell.**
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Symptom, seen on green: `$y2026;…$y2048;…1;2c…rgb:1a1a/1a1a/2e2e` accumulating on the prompt line while
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idle, with the cursor at the end of it. Those are DECRPM mode reports, a DA1 reply and an OSC colour reply —
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*answers*, arriving as keystrokes.
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Mechanism: `src/servers/sidecar/pty/sessions.mjs` sends the whole scrollback as `{type:'replay'}` on attach.
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If the buffer contains query sequences, replaying them **re-asks the questions**; xterm.js answers; the
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answers arrive as input, get echoed into the buffer, and the next attach replays a longer version.
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Fix: strip query sequences in `appendBuffer` so what we store and replay is output only. A replay must
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reproduce output, never re-issue requests. Ctrl-C clears the line meanwhile.
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**Deleting a member leaves their entire Linux side, and a recycled uid inherits it.**
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`deleteUserHandler` removes the row and cascades the database. `userdel` never runs. So the account, home,
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keys and rootless Docker daemon all survive, and then:
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1. Delete a member. Their home stays (correct — we never delete data), owned by uid 1001.
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2. Create another. `useradd` hands out 1001 again.
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3. The new member owns the previous member's home, keys and Docker storage. By uid, not by any decision.
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Proposed `deprovisionOsAccount`, called from the delete handler:
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- `loginctl terminate-user` then `disable-linger` — stops their Docker and clears the stale user manager
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(this is what broke my test rig above, so it is not hypothetical)
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- `userdel`, never `-r`, so the data stays
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- **`chown -R` their tree to the service user** — the part that actually closes it. Data preserved, uid link
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severed, so a recycled uid inherits nothing.
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Better than a monotonic uid allocator: simpler, and it fixes the orphaned-files half too.
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---
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## 4. Open question I cannot answer
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**The stale `officer_jg` / `green` shared-home report.** That predates anything I have seen. If two platform
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accounts point at one home, it is more serious than either bug above — it would mean `ensureOsUser`'s
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adoption rule was bypassed, and that rule is what makes an un-prefixed username safe (it refuses to adopt an
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account whose passwd home is not the one we are about to confine, and refuses any uid below 1000).
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What would settle it: the `getent passwd` lines for both, and their `users` rows (`id, email, username,
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os_user`). I would rather not guess at a mechanism from a symptom here.
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---
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## 5. Things that will surprise you
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- **Default grants seed at bootstrap only.** Terminal, Chat and Files at `write` for every role, inserted
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when the owner account is created. An install past bootstrap — yours — needs them set once by hand. This is
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deliberate: seeding repeatedly would resurrect a revocation.
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- **Chat is grantable and deliberately refused.** `api/chat/chat.ts` refuses non-owners wholesale and the
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socket is refused in `server.tsx`. The permission and route exist; the agent still runs as the owner. Both
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guards say so, and `registry.test.ts` names them so an edit cannot move one without the other.
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- **`Bun.spawn` silently ignores `uid`/`gid`.** Verified on 1.3.10. Every privilege drop goes through
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`sudo -n setpriv`; `os-user.test.ts` pins Bun's behaviour so we find out if it ever changes.
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- **Members must never get `ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL`.** The owner's proxy holds the owner's credential. Per-user
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Claude means their own login in their own home — I suggested the proxy earlier in the session and it was
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wrong.
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---
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## 6. Next, in the order I would do it
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1. Confirm the bind mount on your host (§1) — cheapest, and it closes the loop on your report.
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2. The terminal replay bug (§3) — visible to a member every day.
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3. `deprovisionOsAccount` (§3) — quietly the most dangerous item here.
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4. Per-user Claude: install the CLIs into the member's home, detect login by reading `~/.claude` as root,
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render a terminal with instructions when absent, then move the history layer
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(`claude-sessions.ts`, the pwd picker, the session list) onto per-caller resolution the way the file
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browser was moved. opencode is installer-only for now — master moved it to a single shared serve, which is
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at odds with per-user and needs its own think.
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@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
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# COMMS/sidecar-app-store
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A tracked channel between the agents working on the sidecar app store and per-user Linux accounts.
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## Why it is in the repo
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Because the alternative was the owner relaying findings between us by hand, from memory, at the end of long
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sessions. A file survives a context window; a message in a chat does not, and neither does the reasoning
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behind it. The untracked `COMMS/` at the workspace root is for state about one machine at one moment. This
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one is for things any clone should carry.
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## How to use it
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- **One file per handoff**, named `YYYY-MM-DD-<subject>.md`. Dated, because "which of these is current" is the
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first question a reader has.
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- **Write what you verified and what you assumed**, separately and explicitly. A handoff that reads as
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confident about something untested is worse than no handoff — the reader will build on it.
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- **Name files and lines.** `os-user.ts:362` costs nothing to write and saves the reader a search.
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- **Reply in a new file rather than editing someone else's.** An edited handoff loses the record of what was
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believed when a decision was made, which is usually the thing that explains the decision.
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- **Delete a handoff when it is spent**, the way `platform/CLAUDE.md` says to delete finished checklists.
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Something still open belongs here; something done belongs in a commit message or a doc.
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## Where the durable reasoning lives instead
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Handoffs are for coordination — what is broken, what is unproven, what needs deciding. Anything that will
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still be true in a month belongs in `docs/per-user-linux-accounts.md` or next to the code, not here.
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