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+# 42 — the first member turn ran, and its cwd is a directory the member cannot enter
+
+**The privilege drop and the allowlist both held in production.** Captured from `/proc` during the first real
+member chat turn:
+
+```
+uid=1001                parent=sudo             secrets=0
+HOME              = …/jg@pertento.ai/home
+CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR = …/jg@pertento.ai/home/.claude
+env = CLAUDE_CODE_ENTRYPOINT CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR HOME LANG LOGNAME PATH SHELL TERM USER
+```
+
+Nine variables, exactly the allowlist plus what `setpriv --init-groups --reset-env` supplies. Zero
+`ANTHROPIC_*`, zero `POSTGRES_URL`, zero `JWT_SECRET`. That is the first live test of the whole design and it
+passed.
+
+## The defect
+
+```
+cwd = …/jg@pertento.ai/general_chat_sessions
+      drwx------ pastilhas:pastilhas
+```
+
+**The member cannot enter their own turn's working directory.** Verified: `sudo -u green … cd` →
+`can't cd to …/general_chat_sessions`. Every Bash tool call in that turn fails immediately, including
+`echo hello`, which is what the owner observed — the agent reported its shell as broken and could not read
+its own cwd.
+
+`websocket.ts:134`:
+
+```ts
+if (msg.context === 'chat') return msg.cwd?.trim() ? resolveCwd(home, msg.cwd) : ensureGeneralChatSessionsCwd(email);
+```
+
+The default chat cwd is email-derived, and `confineUserTree:307-312` deliberately makes every sibling of
+`home` the platform's at 0700 — *"Every sibling of `home` is the platform's. 700 means traversal alone does
+not open them."* Correct for `attachments` and `email_accounts`; fatal as a member's cwd.
+
+`29` reasoned about this and got half of it right:
+
+> *"`general_chat_sessions` lives under `DATA_PATH/<email>`, not under a home, so those paths stay
+> email-derived. Collapsing them would have been the same class of mistake as `undefined` meaning 'the owner'."*
+
+The path being email-derived is true. What did not follow is that it is therefore usable — it is
+platform-owned by design, so a member's turn can never run there. The email/home split was right; this is the
+one place where the answer is neither.
+
+## Fix
+
+A member's default chat cwd should be somewhere they own. Two options:
+
+- **their home** — one line, and it matches what an unqualified turn should mean for them
+- **`~/general_chat_sessions` inside their home** — keeps the "chat sessions have their own directory"
+  behaviour, member-owned, and leaves the platform's sibling untouched
+
+I would take the second: it preserves the existing shape for both parties, and the owner's path does not
+change at all. The first is smaller if the directory carries no meaning for a member.
+
+Do **not** loosen the sibling. It holds `attachments` and `email_accounts`, and the 0700 is doing real work.
+
+## Also observed
+
+The member's agent reported every claude.ai connector as needing authorization. Expected: those belong to the
+Anthropic account they signed in with, not to us, and members get no MCP config from the platform by design.
+Worth knowing it presents as a wall of "needs auth" rather than as an absence.
+
+Terminal path unaffected — green's `claude` in the web terminal runs fine as uid 1001 in their own home.