release: audited bumps (pi 0.85.1, mempalace 3.9.0, atelier v0.10.1) + two guards
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Version audit for the next release. pi 0.84.4 -> 0.85.1, deliberately skipping
0.85.0 (it published internal experimental code and broke SDK imports,
upstream #9132). mempalace 3.8.0 -> 3.9.0. pi-atelier v0.10.0 -> v0.10.1.
PI_STUDIO_VERSION relabelled none -> v0.9.60-rc.0 so the floating main ref's
RC status is visible at docker-inspect time instead of discovered later.
PI_FORK_REF stays floating and adopts e69725c.

The pi bump was verified by running it under a pty in five combinations rather
than by reading the changelog, because this repo has already shipped a version
pair no changelog flagged (atelier < 0.7.1 hangs pi >= 0.84). CPU delta
0.00-0.01s over 5s against a ~5s sustained-CPU hang signature, two-sided via
the atelier sidebar painting identically to the 0.84.4 control.

NODE_VERSION stays 22 on purpose: node 24 is technically safe (pi's five
prebuilt addons are all NAPI, nothing declares a ceiling, agent-browser's
engines.node >=24 is vestigial for the shipped aarch64 ELF), but this release
already moves two minors and bakes an RC, and a node major would leave four
suspects if the image misbehaves. Own release, smoke suite as the gate.

Also corrects a stale claim at the mempalace ARG: synlig serves 3.8.0
server-side, not 3.7.1 (measured over ssh 2026-09-06).

agent-browser volume shadowing: the image has shipped 0.35.2, but every
session on mbp-m1-2020 ran 0.27.0 from a 2026-07-17 hand-install in
~/.pi/npm-global (a VOLUME, at PATH position 2 vs /usr/bin at 8). Third
package hit by this hazard after pi and pi-atelier, so the guard is now
generalised: entrypoint-user.sh retires the copy by moving it aside
(reversible, only when the image ships its own), recreate-sanity-check.sh
asserts resolution under /usr where the volume is real, smoke-test.sh carries
the build-time half and says in the source why it is weak. The real damage was
the stale BUNDLED SKILL (3 skillsets/17.6 KB vs 8/31.5 KB, ten subcommands
undocumented to the agent) - a stale tool errors, a stale skill quietly
teaches wrong commands.

pi-fork capability floor (extensions: []): forks were measured across four
dispatches ignoring their brief, answering in the user's voice, fabricating
self-referential measurements, and once filing a diary entry as agent_name=pi.
Cause is upstream by design - the child gets getHeader()+getBranch(), the
whole active session branch, with the brief as the final user message. Not a
model-capability problem: the same model as the fast profile obeyed the
identical brief perfectly with a fresh session and no inherited context.
extensions: [] runs children with --no-extensions, so the mempalace bridge is
absent and palace writes are impossible by construction (verified by asking a
child to enumerate its tools: read, bash, edit, write). Removes palace writes,
not filesystem writes.
This commit is contained in:
2026-09-06 20:40:02 +02:00
parent c8622ece9d
commit adcf56f829
6 changed files with 253 additions and 11 deletions
+108
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@@ -13,6 +13,114 @@ Pre-v1.0.0 tags followed the pi npm version (`v{pi_version}[letter]`).
## Unreleased
**Version audit + three pins moved, one deliberately not moved.** `pi`
0.84.4 -> 0.85.1, `mempalace` 3.8.0 -> 3.9.0, `pi-atelier` v0.10.0 -> v0.10.1,
and `PI_STUDIO_VERSION` relabelled `none` -> `v0.9.60-rc.0` to record what the
floating `main` ref actually resolves to. `PI_FORK_REF=master` stays floating
and therefore adopts e69725c. Each rationale is written at the ARG itself
rather than only here, because that is where the next person doing the audit
will be standing.
0.85.0 is SKIPPED on purpose: it shipped internal experimental code and extra
subpaths that broke SDK imports (upstream #9132), and 0.85.1 exists to undo
exactly that. Neither release has a Breaking/Removed changelog heading, the
engine floor is unchanged (>=22.19.0 against the container's 22.23.2), and
runtime deps drop 20 -> 19.
The pi bump was verified by RUNNING it, not by reading about it, because this
repo has already been burned by a version pair that no changelog flagged
(pi-atelier < 0.7.1 hangs pi >= 0.84 at startup with no error). 0.85.1 was
side-installed and driven under a pty in five combinations — each companion
extension plus atelier v0.10.0 AND v0.10.1 — with a CPU delta of 0.00-0.01s
over a 5s window where the known hang signature is ~5s of sustained CPU. The
check was two-sided: the atelier sidebar painted ACTIVITY+WORKSPACE markers
identically to the 0.84.4 control, so "alive" could be distinguished from
"silently absent".
**NODE_VERSION stays 22 — audited, not overlooked.** node 24 is technically
safe: all five prebuilt native addons in pi use NAPI (ABI-stable, no
NODE_MODULE_VERSION lock, no binding.gyp), nothing in the image declares a node
CEILING, and the install is one token (`setup_${NODE_VERSION}.x`). agent-browser
0.36.0 declares `engines.node >=24`, but that field is vestigial for the
artifact actually shipped: the image's own 0.35.2 declares the same floor and
runs fine on 22.23.2 as a prebuilt aarch64 ELF. The reason to wait is
attribution, not compatibility — this release already moves pi a minor,
mempalace a minor and bakes a Studio RC, so adding a node major would leave four
suspects if the image misbehaves. Worth doing as its own release with the smoke
suite as the gate. (v22 is in maintenance until 2027-04-30; v24 is Active LTS
to 2026-10-20 and maintained to 2028-04-30, so there is real headroom.)
mempalace's client bump carries a sequencing note that is now also CORRECT: the
comment at the ARG claimed synlig serves 3.7.1 server-side, which was stale.
Measured 2026-09-06 over ssh, synlig's uv tool entry last changed 2026-08-25
and serves 3.8.0. Client 3.9.0 against server 3.8.0 is accepted skew until
synlig's compose stack is redeployed; 3.9.0's headline additions (release
awareness, `task create`/`task launch`) are SERVER-side and stay dark until
then — a client bump alone cannot light them up.
**agent-browser was running 7 weeks stale, and the interesting part is why
nothing noticed.** The image has shipped 0.35.2 since the last base rebuild,
but every session on mbp-m1-2020 was executing 0.27.0 from a 2026-07-17
hand-install: `npm i -g` writes into `~/.pi/npm-global`, which is the
devbox-pi-config VOLUME, and PATH puts that at position 2 against /usr/bin at
position 8. This is the third package hit by that exact hazard (pi itself and
pi-atelier already have guards), so the guard is now generalised instead of
re-invented a fourth time.
The damage was not the binary. It was the BUNDLED SKILL, which is the part an
agent reads: 3 skillsets / 17.6 KB core in 0.27.0 versus 8 skillsets / 31.5 KB
core in 0.35.2, with ten subcommands present in the image and entirely
undocumented to the agent (a11y, browser, data, mcp, page, plugin, read,
selectors, to, webmcp). A stale tool announces itself with an error; a stale
skill just quietly teaches the wrong commands and everything looks fine.
Three changes, at the three places this can be caught:
- `entrypoint-user.sh` retires a volume copy by MOVING it aside (reversible,
same instinct as the settings backups) and only when the image ships its own
copy, so a machine that deliberately hand-installs on an image without one
keeps it. The `bin/` shim is removed too — a dangling symlink would be a
worse failure than a stale version.
- `scripts/recreate-sanity-check.sh` asserts `agent-browser` resolves under
/usr. This is the check that matters, because it runs where the volume is
real.
- `scripts/smoke-test.sh` gets the build-time half, labelled WEAK in the source
for an honest reason: a `docker run` container has an empty config volume, so
it can never see the shadowing it is nominally testing for.
**pi-fork gets a capability floor: `extensions: []`.** Forks were measured
twice (2026-09-01, 2026-09-06, four dispatches) ignoring their brief, answering
in the USER's voice, fabricating self-referential measurements, and once filing
a diary entry as `agent_name=pi` — which landed in `wing_pi`, where a
wing-scoped `diary_read` never sees it.
The cause is upstream and by design, so there is nothing to wait for: the child
is handed `getHeader()+getBranch()`, i.e. the WHOLE active session branch, with
the brief appended as the final user message and the system prompt untouched
(pi-fork `src/index.ts`). In a long session the parent narrative simply
outweighs the task, and the child does the statistically obvious thing — it
continues the story it finds itself inside. Config offers no context knob
(extensions, environment, offline, costFooter, effort profiles only).
Falsified the tempting explanation before acting on it: the failures are NOT a
too-small model. The same model as the `fast` profile (haiku, thinking off)
obeyed the identical brief perfectly when run as
`pi -p --mode json --session-id <fresh> --no-extensions` — correct values,
exact format, no session recap, 3 seconds, $0.012. Model held constant, context
inheritance removed, failure gone.
`extensions: []` is therefore a mechanical guarantee rather than an
instruction: the mempalace bridge is a pi EXTENSION, so a fork child now runs
with `--no-extensions` and cannot write to the shared palace under the parent's
identity. Verified by asking a child to enumerate its own tools: `read, bash,
edit, write` — no `mempalace_*`, no `recall`, no nested `fork`. Two honest
limits, stated so nobody over-trusts this: it removes PALACE writes, not
FILESYSTEM writes (`edit`/`write` remain), and it costs forks their palace
search and recall. Set the key to `null` to restore normal loading.
Smoke asserts the floor is `[]` specifically, not merely falsy — `null` is the
unguarded state, so a "truthy or not" test would pass on exactly the
configuration being guarded against.
**`credential-incident-response` §5/§6 corrected — a stated mechanism was wrong,
and this is the second time in three days this section named a wrong reason
for a zero.** Docs only.
+20 -7
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@@ -450,13 +450,26 @@ ARG INSTALL_MEMPALACE=true
# the part that should stay manual.
#
# Deployment sequencing note for whoever ships this bump: synlig (the shared
# central palace host) currently serves mempalace 3.7.1 SERVER-SIDE via
# docker-compose.mempalace.yml, which reuses this same devbox image. Bumping
# this ARG changes only the CLIENT version baked into pi-devbox images: it
# introduces client/server skew until synlig's compose stack is separately
# rebuilt/redeployed with the new pin. Not something to code around here —
# just sequence the redeploy.
ARG MEMPALACE_VERSION=3.8.0
# central palace host) serves mempalace 3.8.0 SERVER-SIDE via
# docker-compose.mempalace.yml, which reuses this same devbox image. (Measured
# 2026-09-06 over ssh: synlig's UV_TOOL_DIR mempalace entry last changed
# 2026-08-25 15:33 — this comment previously said 3.7.1, which was stale.)
# Bumping this ARG changes only the CLIENT version baked into pi-devbox
# images: it introduces client/server skew until synlig's compose stack is
# separately rebuilt/redeployed with the new pin. Not something to code around
# here — just sequence the redeploy.
#
# v1.8.13: 3.8.0 -> 3.9.0. Audited: no Breaking/Removed changelog headings.
# Adopted mainly for #2281 (`mempalace_mine` accepts a single conversation
# file again) — though note that does NOT unblock this image's own feeder,
# which was measured to mine DIRECTORIES, not files, so it was never hitting
# that bug. Four behaviour changes ride along and are skew-relevant while
# synlig stays on 3.8.0: hub-forward escaping, an HTTP lock split, similarity
# score semantics, and parsed-output compatibility. 3.9.0-only features
# (release awareness, `task create`/`task launch` MCP tools) are SERVER-side,
# so they stay dark until synlig is redeployed — a client bump alone cannot
# light them up.
ARG MEMPALACE_VERSION=3.9.0
ENV UV_TOOL_DIR=/opt/uv-tools
ENV UV_TOOL_BIN_DIR=/usr/local/bin
RUN if [ "${INSTALL_MEMPALACE}" = "true" ]; then \
+37 -4
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@@ -95,7 +95,25 @@ ARG USER_NAME=developer
# `.agents/skills/<group>/` directories were not discovered, and root Markdown
# files such as README.md / AGENTS.md inside a skill dir were reported as
# broken skills unless they declared valid skill frontmatter.
ARG PI_VERSION=0.84.4
#
# v1.8.13: 0.84.4 -> 0.85.1. SKIP 0.85.0 deliberately — it accidentally
# published internal experimental code and extra subpaths, breaking SDK
# imports (upstream #9132); 0.85.1 exists specifically to undo that, with the
# supported SDK and stdio RPC API unchanged. Audited: no Breaking/Removed
# changelog headings in either release, engine floor unchanged (>=22.19.0,
# container runs 22.23.2), runtime deps 20 -> 19. User-visible changes are the
# streaming indicator moving into the editor border and faster fullscreen
# transcript search; no deprecation language anywhere.
#
# Verified EMPIRICALLY rather than from the changelog, because a pi bump has
# hung the TUI before (pi-atelier < 0.7.1 + pi >= 0.84): 0.85.1 was
# side-installed and driven under a pty against all four companion extensions,
# with atelier v0.10.0 AND v0.10.1 — five combinations, each rendering alive
# with a CPU delta of 0.00-0.01s over a 5s window, where the known hang
# signature is ~5s of sustained CPU. Two-sided check: the atelier sidebar
# painted ACTIVITY+WORKSPACE identically to the 0.84.4 control, so the test
# could distinguish "loaded" from "silently absent".
ARG PI_VERSION=0.85.1
ARG PI_TOOLKIT_REF=main
ARG PI_EXTENSIONS_REF=main
# Repo URLs default to the canonical gitea origin but are overridable so a
@@ -147,9 +165,14 @@ ARG PI_OBSMEM_REF=master
# the /opt checkout. Adding an install here would be a no-op that only costs
# build time.
ARG PI_ATELIER_REPO=https://github.com/michaelmjhhhh/pi-atelier.git
ARG PI_ATELIER_REF=v0.10.0
# v1.8.13: v0.10.0 -> v0.10.1. Refactor-only upstream (formatters, tests,
# panel identity); peerDependencies declare pi >=0.84.0, so it spans both the
# old and new pin. Included because it was already exercised: the pty matrix
# for PI_VERSION above ran atelier v0.10.1 against pi 0.85.1 and painted the
# sidebar identically to v0.10.0.
ARG PI_ATELIER_REF=v0.10.1
# Human-readable tag PI_ATELIER_REF was resolved from; recorded as a label.
ARG PI_ATELIER_VERSION=v0.10.0
ARG PI_ATELIER_VERSION=v0.10.1
RUN set -e && \
# git_fetch_ref: clone-equivalent helper that accepts EITHER a branch name
@@ -259,7 +282,17 @@ ARG PI_STUDIO_REF=main
# PI_STUDIO_VERSION is the human-readable tag (e.g. v0.9.36) that PI_STUDIO_REF
# was resolved from; recorded as a label below for at-a-glance identification.
# Only meaningful for the studio variant (default `none` otherwise).
ARG PI_STUDIO_VERSION=none
#
# v1.8.13: PI_STUDIO_REF stays floating on `main`, which resolves to
# v0.9.60-rc.0 — a RELEASE CANDIDATE, not the latest stable (v0.9.59).
# Adopted deliberately (JOA, 2026-09-06); recording the label is what makes
# that choice visible via `docker inspect` instead of someone discovering an
# RC in production later. Of the 15 commits since 0.9.55, one adds an OPT-IN
# network binding for the Studio server: that is network-facing and deserves
# its own audit before anyone enables it. The container default is unchanged —
# pi-studio still hard-binds 127.0.0.1 (see the STUDIO_EXPOSE bridge below),
# so adopting the RC does not by itself expose Studio to the LAN.
ARG PI_STUDIO_VERSION=v0.9.60-rc.0
RUN if [ "${INSTALL_STUDIO}" = "true" ]; then \
set -e; \
rm -rf /opt/pi-studio && mkdir -p /opt/pi-studio && \
+32
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@@ -471,6 +471,38 @@ if command -v pi &>/dev/null; then
done
fi
# ── agent-browser: retire a stale volume copy that shadows the image ───
# Same hazard class as the pi-atelier retirement above, different delivery
# path — and this block exists because that guard did not generalise.
# ~/.pi/npm-global lives on the devbox-pi-config VOLUME, so anything ever
# installed there with `npm i -g` survives every image upgrade, and PATH puts
# it AHEAD of /usr/bin (position 2 vs 8).
#
# Measured on mbp-m1-2020, 2026-09-06: a 2026-07-17 hand-install pinned
# agent-browser 0.27.0 in the volume while the image shipped 0.35.2, so every
# session for ~7 weeks ran a stale CLI. The damaging part was not the binary
# but its BUNDLED SKILL, which is what the agent actually reads: 3 skillsets /
# 17.6 KB core in 0.27.0 vs 8 skillsets / 31.5 KB core in 0.35.2, with ten
# subcommands present in the image and undocumented to the agent (a11y,
# browser, data, mcp, page, plugin, read, selectors, to, webmcp). A stale tool
# announces itself; a stale skill quietly teaches the wrong commands.
#
# MOVE rather than delete (reversible, same instinct as the settings backups
# above), and only when the image ships its own copy — a machine that
# deliberately hand-installs agent-browser on an image WITHOUT one keeps it.
_ab_vol="$HOME/.pi/npm-global/lib/node_modules/agent-browser"
if [ -d "$_ab_vol" ] && [ -d /usr/lib/node_modules/agent-browser ]; then
_ab_park="$HOME/.pi/npm-global/.retired-agent-browser-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S)"
if mkdir -p "$_ab_park" 2>/dev/null && mv "$_ab_vol" "$_ab_park/" 2>/dev/null; then
# The bin shim is what PATH actually hits; leaving it behind would give a
# dangling symlink, which is a worse failure than a stale version.
rm -f "$HOME/.pi/npm-global/bin/agent-browser" 2>/dev/null || true
echo "agent-browser: retired stale volume copy -> ${_ab_park} (image copy now wins; delete the parked dir when satisfied)"
else
echo "WARN: agent-browser: stale volume copy at $_ab_vol shadows the image copy and could not be moved; retire it by hand"
fi
fi
# ── pi-studio: optional loopback bridge (opt-in) ──────────────────────
# pi-studio binds its server to 127.0.0.1 inside the container, which a
# published Docker port cannot reach. When STUDIO_EXPOSE is truthy (set in
+28
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@@ -374,6 +374,34 @@ if [ -f "$HOME/.pi/agent/settings.json" ]; then
fi
fi
# ── agent-browser must resolve to the image, not the config volume ────
# The same volume-shadowing hazard already asserted for pi (above) and
# pi-atelier (just now), for the third package it has bitten. This check
# belongs HERE rather than only in smoke-test.sh: a build-time container has an
# empty ~/.pi/npm-global, so smoke-test can never see the stale copy that a
# real recreate inherits. Measured instance: 0.27.0 from 2026-07-17 shadowed
# the image's 0.35.2 for ~7 weeks on mbp-m1-2020, silently supplying an older
# BUNDLED SKILL (3 skillsets vs 8) — the agent read the stale instructions
# without any version mismatch ever being surfaced.
AB_PATH=$(command -v agent-browser 2>/dev/null || true)
if [ -z "$AB_PATH" ]; then
warn "agent-browser not on PATH (expected in v1.6.0+ images; skipping shadow check)"
else
AB_REAL=$(readlink -f "$AB_PATH" 2>/dev/null || echo "$AB_PATH")
AB_VER=$(agent-browser --version 2>/dev/null | head -n1)
case "$AB_REAL" in
/usr/*)
pass "agent-browser resolves to the image copy (${AB_VER:-version unknown})"
;;
*)
fail "agent-browser resolves to $AB_REAL (${AB_VER:-version unknown}) — a ~/.pi/npm-global VOLUME copy is shadowing the image; the entrypoint retirement guard did not run or could not move it"
;;
esac
if [ -d "$HOME/.pi/npm-global/lib/node_modules/agent-browser" ]; then
fail "stale agent-browser still present in the ~/.pi/npm-global volume (entrypoint guard did not retire it)"
fi
fi
# ── pi <-> pi-atelier compatibility floor ─────────────────────────────
# atelier < 0.7.1 wraps pi's private TUI renderer in a way that recurses under
# pi >= 0.84: pi hangs at startup burning CPU, with no error message. atelier's
+28
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@@ -718,6 +718,34 @@ exec_test "pi-atelier registered in packages[] (TUI sidebar)" \
exec_test "pi-atelier registered from /opt, not npm: (volume-shadowing guard)" \
'jq -e "((.packages // []) | any((type == \"string\") and endswith(\"/pi-atelier\"))) and (((.packages // []) | any(. == \"npm:pi-atelier\")) | not)" $HOME/.pi/agent/settings.json'
# agent-browser: the third package hit by ~/.pi/npm-global volume shadowing
# (after pi itself and pi-atelier). This build-time check is deliberately WEAK
# and says so: a `docker run` container has an EMPTY config volume, so it can
# only prove the image ships a sane copy and nothing in the image itself
# shadows it. The check that actually bites lives in
# recreate-sanity-check.sh, which runs where the volume is real — that is
# where a 7-week-old 0.27.0 was caught shadowing 0.35.2 on 2026-09-06.
exec_test "agent-browser resolves under /usr (volume-shadowing guard, build-time half)" '
p=$(command -v agent-browser) || { echo "agent-browser not on PATH" >&2; exit 1; }
r=$(readlink -f "$p")
echo "resolved=[$r] version=[$(agent-browser --version 2>/dev/null | head -n1)]" >&2
case "$r" in /usr/*) ;; *) exit 1 ;; esac
test ! -d "$HOME/.pi/npm-global/lib/node_modules/agent-browser" || exit 1
echo ok
'
# pi-fork capability floor. `extensions: []` makes a fork child run with
# --no-extensions, which is the only MECHANICAL guarantee that a fork cannot
# file drawers or diary entries under the parent's identity — the mempalace
# bridge is an extension, so removing extensions removes the write path.
# Asserted because it is a security-shaped default that a settings merge or a
# hand-edit could silently drop, and its absence is invisible until a fork
# writes to the shared palace as you (measured twice: 2026-09-01, 2026-09-06).
# Deliberately compares to [] and not "is falsy": null means "load normal
# extensions", i.e. exactly the unguarded state this asserts against.
exec_test "pi-fork extensions floor is [] (forks cannot write to the palace)" \
'jq -e ".[\"pi-fork\"].extensions == []" $HOME/.pi/agent/settings.json'
# ── /tmp/sshcm directory created by entrypoint ────────────────────────
exec_test "/tmp/sshcm dir mode 700 (ssh ControlMaster)" \
'test -d /tmp/sshcm && [ "$(stat -c %a /tmp/sshcm)" = "700" ] && echo ok'