~/.agents/skills/ lives in the ephemeral container layer and is rebuilt by
entrypoint-user.sh on every start from two sources, so an edit made through the
symlink may vanish on the next recreate. Adds to §1 (persistence tiers):
- `readlink -f ~/.agents/skills/<name>` as the first move, with a tier table:
resolves under /workspace/skillset → edit in place; resolves under
/usr/local/share/pi-devbox/skills → image layer, edit the canonical repo and
`sudo cp` to activate for the running session.
- Canonical owner per baked skill (pi-devbox-environment → this repo;
pi-extensions → the package repo's skill/, plus this repo's floor snapshot;
mempalace → the private skillset repo), pointing at VENDORED.md as
authoritative.
- The shadowing gotcha: image-baked links are created first and only when
absent, and deploy-skills.sh --prune-stale leaves foreign links alone, so for
a name present in BOTH sources the image copy wins and a skillset edit has no
effect in the container. Documented with the live example found while writing
this: the baked mempalace snapshot carries a Temporal grounding section
(904fe85) that skillset at its snapshot point (8e8db64) lacks.
- Checklist gets a matching line.
Found while adding session findings to the pi-extensions skill (e73cb9f), where
the same resolve-first step was what kept the edit out of the image layer.
Sync the image-baked "floor" copy at
rootfs/usr/local/share/pi-devbox/skills/pi-extensions/SKILL.md with
pi-extensions e73cb9f, which documents package-registration forensics
(packages[] vs whole-file grep), that /reload suffices for a newly installed
package, and a fork-output caveat — the findings from the fork-guard bug fixed
in 8248688.
Dockerfile.variant copies the pinned package's skill/ over this snapshot at
build time, so the vendored copy is only the fallback floor; it was byte-
identical to the package copy before this change, and keeping it in sync
prevents a silent divergence for builds whose PI_EXTENSIONS_REF predates the
skill.
Discoverability follow-up to baking agent-browser into the base: agents won't
reach for a browser they don't know they have (the exact gap that made this
capability easy to miss). Add a short pointer section to the pi-devbox managed
block — capability, the preset AGENT_BROWSER_EXECUTABLE_PATH, and
`agent-browser skills get core --full` for the command set. Pointer only; depth
stays in the skill. rootfs change → folds into the same base-<hash> rebuild.
CHANGELOG note updated.
Accented filenames on a macOS host are stored decomposed (NFD), so a precomposed
(NFC) remote path in scp/dscp silently fails with 'No such file or directory'.
Document the wildcard / list-first workaround in the pi-devbox-environment skill,
next to the dssh/dscp alias table. (Hit while copying a screenshot named
'Skärmavbild ….png' from the host.)
Wraps /etc/pi-devbox/build-manifest.json (already written at docker-build
time in Dockerfile.variant) into a human-readable summary instead of
requiring users to know the manifest path and pipe it through jq
themselves.
- rootfs/usr/local/bin/pi-devbox-version: human (default) / --json /
--quiet output modes. Also flags live drift — compares the baked
pi_version against the actually-running `pi --version` and warns
on mismatch rather than trusting the manifest blindly (same
ground-truth philosophy as the manifest generation itself). Exits 1
with a short stderr notice on images built before the manifest
existed, instead of failing silently.
- entrypoint-user.sh: calls it as the very first line. CMD is
`bash -l` with tty:true in compose, so this banner lands directly
above the first prompt on container start — no separate motd/bashrc
hook needed (deliberately not wired into .bash_aliases, which would
reprint on every docker exec -it).
- Dockerfile.base: COPY + chmod, same pattern as dot-watch/studio-expose.
- scripts/smoke-test.sh: 4 new checks (binary present+executable, human
output has release tag, --json round-trips the manifest, --quiet is
a single line).
- README.md / AGENTS.md / CHANGELOG.md updated.
The base only shipped ncurses-base (xterm-256color, tmux), so SSHing in from
WezTerm/Alacritty/foot/Ghostty degraded to a dumb TERM fallback. Following the
maintainer's ansible common role:
- Dockerfile.base: install ncurses-term (terminfo for wezterm, alacritty,
foot, st, base ghostty entry, and many more).
- rootfs/.../terminfo-src/ghostty.terminfo: thin xterm-ghostty alias
(use=ghostty) — Ghostty connects as TERM=xterm-ghostty, which no distro
packages. Compiled into the system db with 'tic -x'; build asserts it
resolved via infocmp.
- kitty (xterm-kitty) already covered by kitty-terminfo; iTerm2 uses
xterm-256color (ncurses-base).
- smoke-test: assert ncurses-term emulators + xterm-ghostty alias resolve.
Validated end-to-end in a throwaway container: ncurses-term brings the
entries, the alias compiles and equals the ghostty capability set. hadolint
clean, bash -n OK. Base-affecting, rebuilds base-<hash>. No tag.
Vanilla Neovim fell back to a 256-colour palette over ssh/kitty and rendered
strings/comments in a muddy, low-contrast colour. Fix, all base-affecting:
- rootfs/etc/xdg/nvim/sysinit.vim: system vimrc enabling termguicolors. Loads
for every user before any personal ~/.config/nvim; overridable per-user.
- Dockerfile.base: install kitty-terminfo (TERM=xterm-kitty understood; lets
Neovim auto-detect true colour) and set ENV COLORTERM=truecolor.
- smoke-test.sh: assert xterm-kitty terminfo present and nvim tgc default on.
- CHANGELOG (Unreleased/Added) + README editor note.
No tag — lands on the next base-<hash> rebuild.
Claude Code's per-machine local settings can carry credentials and should never
be committed. Add the pattern to the seeded ~/.gitignore_global so fresh
containers match a host global that already ignores it. Existing containers are
unaffected (seed copied only when absent). Base-affecting; rebuilds base-<hash>.
Adds a _devbox_check_host_ssh() check to ~/.bash_aliases (baked into
the image). On first bash session of each container it tries a quick
SSH probe to the Mac host; if it fails it prints a clear one-time
warning with the exact two steps needed to fix it:
1. Enable Remote Login in macOS System Settings
2. echo '<public key>' >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
The check is guarded:
- only runs inside a container (/.dockerenv)
- only when the jump key exists (~/.ssh-local/devbox_jump_ed25519.pub)
- only once per container lifetime (/tmp flag, cleared on recreate)
After --force-recreate the key changes, the flag is gone, and the
check runs again on the first bash window. Subsequent windows are
silent.
Seed ~/.gitignore_global from /etc/skel-devbox (seed-if-absent, like
.bash_aliases/.inputrc, so user edits survive recreate) and wire it via
git config --global core.excludesFile, guarded so a user-set excludesFile
is never overridden. Ignores *.bak, *.bak.*, *~, *.orig, *.swp, *.tmp
across all repos without per-repo .gitignore entries.
Baked mempalace SKILL.md now instructs agents to establish current date/time
and compute the delta against the actual diary/drawer timestamp before using
relative terms (yesterday/last week), and explicitly that a container recreate
or fresh session is NOT a day boundary (pi-devbox restarts several times a day).
Phase 1 wake-up section + anti-pattern bullet. CHANGELOG Unreleased.
Baking the mempalace fallback skill fixed *availability*, but mempalace had
no proactive-load directive anywhere (pi-toolkit's global AGENTS.md only
points to pi-extensions), so a new container would still surface it only via
description-matching — the same under-utilisation the pi-extensions directive
was created to fix.
Add a session-start pointer to the pi-devbox managed AGENTS.md block
(pi-global-AGENTS.append.md): gated to pi-devbox containers and conditional on
the MemPalace MCP tools being present. Memory continuity matters most in a
frequently-recreated container — the palace is its only cross-recreate memory.
- pi-global-AGENTS.append.md: '## Session start: load the mempalace skill'.
- smoke-test: assert the pointer merges into the global AGENTS.md at build.
- docs: VENDORED.md, README, CHANGELOG [Unreleased].
Now both skills are complete in pi-devbox: directive + skill file.
pi-extensions = directive (pi-toolkit) + baked skill; mempalace = directive
(this block) + baked skill.
The pi-toolkit global AGENTS.md tells every pi session to read
~/.agents/skills/pi-extensions/SKILL.md at start (the fork/recall
under-utilisation fix), but that skill lived only in the private skillset
repo — so the pointer dangled in any container started without skillset
mounted. Bake fallbacks so the pointer always resolves.
- pi-extensions (Option 1 + Option 2, layered):
* Canonical skill promoted to the public pi-extensions package repo under
skill/ (separate commit there); co-located with the code it documents.
* rootfs/ carries a committed snapshot (the floor).
* Dockerfile.variant copies /opt/pi-extensions/skill/ over the snapshot
after the pinned clone, so a normal build ships the fresh package copy
(recorded via PI_EXTENSIONS_REF) and an old-ref/mirror build still ships
the snapshot. Helper evaluate-extension-usage.py travels with it.
- mempalace (Option 2 only): snapshot in rootfs/. Its consumer skill has no
public package home (mempalace-toolkit ships a different skill,
opencode-mempalace-bridge), so no build-time refresh.
- entrypoint links both (only-when-absent; mounted skillset still wins).
- smoke-test: build-time presence + package-match check + runtime symlink
assertions; readiness gate now waits on the last-linked skill.
- docs: skills/VENDORED.md (provenance + refresh), README, AGENTS.md,
CHANGELOG [Unreleased].
Note: shipped in the NEXT release; v1.2.0 (run 409) predates this.
Ship skills inside the image (independent of any mounted skillset repo):
- rootfs/usr/local/share/pi-devbox/skills/<name>/ symlinked into
~/.agents/skills/ by entrypoint-user.sh (foreign-link, survives volume
recreate, never clobbers a skillset/user skill of the same name).
- New pi-devbox-environment skill: persistence model, host/LAN SSH
reachability, split-DNS mechanisms, interactive-vs-tool-shell alias
gotcha, tmux 0-index, uv-first Python, pi-studio reachability. Agnostic
to host OS / hostnames / domains / nameservers (discovered at runtime).
- Dockerfile.variant appends pi-global-AGENTS.append.md onto pi-toolkit's
pi-global-AGENTS.md (single global slot) so the skill is loaded
proactively; gated on /usr/local/lib/pi-devbox/. Idempotent.
- smoke-test: baked-skill + append-snippet + merged-marker presence and a
runtime symlink assertion.
- docs: README 'Agent skills' section, AGENTS.md layout, DOCKER_HUB.md;
moved studio-tex roadmap to v1.3.0.
pi 0.79.7 -> 0.79.10 (auto-resolved from npm latest at build).
The host-owned, bind-mounted ~/.config/devbox-shell/ssh-lan.conf is the
intended place to add `ProxyJump host` overrides for named LAN peers (so
`pi --ssh <peer>` / `dssh <peer>` route through the host), but it was only
documented in .env.example and the setup-lan-access.sh header — never in the
README, where someone hitting "can't reach LAN peers" actually looks.
- README: add a "Naming LAN peers" subsection under the macOS LAN-peers
troubleshooting block, with a ProxyJump example and the read-only ~/.ssh
caveat; add a pointer to it from the SSH and ControlMaster section.
- setup-lan-access.sh: correct the INCLUDE_BLOCK comment that suggested adding
ProxyJump to the read-only ~/.ssh/config; point at ssh-lan.conf instead.
- CHANGELOG: note under Unreleased.
Docs/comment only — no behavior change.
Coordinated with the pi-extensions ssh-controlmaster fix (picked up at build via
PI_EXTENSIONS_REF=main), this makes `pi --ssh <host>` and `dssh`/`dscp` robust
to a user ~/.ssh/config whose per-host ControlPath points under the read-only
~/.ssh bind-mount (e.g. `ControlPath ~/.ssh/cm/%r@%h:%p`). A system default can
never override a user's per-host value, so the fix lives in two layers.
- setup-lan-access.sh: always render the writable ~/.ssh-local/config sidecar
(Host * ControlPath redirect into ~/.ssh-local/cm + Include ~/.ssh/config) on
EVERY host OS. Previously the script exited early (no-op) on native Linux,
leaving dssh/dscp broken when ~/.ssh was read-only there too. The host-jump
block, its key generation, and the authorize hints stay gated on VM-backed
detection / DEVBOX_LAN_ACCESS=jump (new NEED_JUMP flag).
- Dockerfile.base: document that the /etc/ssh drop-in default cannot override a
user per-host ControlPath; cross-ref the two handling layers.
- entrypoint-user.sh: correct the now-stale "no-op on native Linux" comment.
- README.md / DOCKER_HUB.md: document read-only-~/.ssh ControlPath handling.
CHANGELOG: v1.1.5 (Fixed + Changed + pi 0.79.6 -> 0.79.7 auto-resolved bump).
The history-flush guard was exported, so it leaked into child processes.
Any nested shell -- crucially each tmux pane (which inherits the tmux
server's env) -- then saw the guard already set and skipped installing
'history -a' in PROMPT_COMMAND. Those shells only persisted history on a
clean exit, so abrupt termination (docker stop, tmux kill-server, SIGKILL)
silently lost their in-memory history. zoxide was less affected (its hook
is installed unguarded and writes immediately).
Make the guard shell-local (drop 'export') so every new interactive shell
re-installs its own per-prompt flush. Add a recreate-sanity-check assertion
that a nested login shell still wires up 'history -a'.
Storage was never the issue: ~/.cache/bash (devbox-shell-history) and
~/.local/share/zoxide (devbox-zoxide) are both persistent named volumes.
pi-studio renders Mermaid natively but has no DOT renderer. Its markdown
preview displays local PNG/JPG/GIF/WEBP images, so dot-watch closes the
loop for Graphviz: edit .dot -> auto-render <name>.png -> Studio
refresh-from-disk shows the update. Uses mtime polling (no inotify dep).
- rootfs/usr/local/bin/dot-watch: the helper (executable)
- Dockerfile.base: COPY + chmod, following the studio-expose pattern
- README.md: 'Graphviz diagrams in Studio' subsection
- CHANGELOG.md: Unreleased entry
graphviz was already in the base image; no new package.
pi-studio binds the container's 127.0.0.1, which a published Docker port
can't reach. Add a robust, portable bridge rather than a doc-only one-liner:
- Dockerfile.base: add socat (~1 MB, generally useful TCP relay).
- rootfs/usr/local/bin/studio-expose: socat TCP relay listening on the
container's egress IPv4 (not 0.0.0.0 — that would EADDRINUSE against
Studio's loopback listener) forwarding to 127.0.0.1:PORT on the SAME
port, so Studio's printed token URL works verbatim. Robust egress-IP
detection (hostname -I, loopback-filtered; ip route get fallback),
--help, port validation, foreground.
- entrypoint-user.sh: opt-in STUDIO_EXPOSE=1 auto-starts the bridge in the
background (studio variant only). Default OFF — Studio stays loopback-only
(its secure default) unless explicitly opted in.
- README: 'Using pi-studio' now documents host-networking (A) and the
studio-expose/STUDIO_EXPOSE bridge (B) with a security note; ssh -L for
remote, mosh caveat retained.
- smoke-test: assert socat + studio-expose present (base-level).
- CHANGELOG/AGENTS updated.
No tag — stopping for review.
Self-contained build chain — own Dockerfile.base + Dockerfile.variant
+ entrypoint scripts + rootfs + CI pipeline. Previously v0.79.0 and
earlier were thin re-brands of opencode-devbox's pi-only variant
(joakimp/pi-devbox:base-pi-only built by opencode-devbox CI).
Architectural changes:
- Replace 5-line Dockerfile shim with full base+variant pair.
- Adapt CI workflow from opencode-devbox/docker-publish-split.yml,
simplified to a single variant. Includes content-addressed base hash,
PI_VERSION concrete-resolution to defeat registry-buildcache footgun,
crane-based base-latest promotion, and the c6f9d11 smoke-test gate.
- pi-devbox releases no longer require rebuilding opencode-devbox first.
Base image additions:
- pandoc, graphviz, imagemagick, yq — broadly useful, ~260 MB total.
- tldr (tealdeer) — Rust port replaces Node tldr global, saves 135 MB.
- /etc/tmux.conf with base-index 0 + pane-base-index 0 — required for
the planned :latest-studio variant; pi-studio hard-codes :0.0 target.
Smoke test:
- New checks for pandoc, graphviz, imagemagick, yq, tldr, tmux config,
/tmp/sshcm directory.
- Image-size measurement now sums docker history layers (the prior
inspect --format='{{.Size}}' returned only the variant-unique layer
with the new base/variant split, understating by 2+ GB).
- Threshold 2850 → 3500 MB to absorb base additions + arch margin.
Image size:
- Local arm64 build: 3.20 GB. ~390 MB up from prior pi-only equivalent.
- Will tighten threshold once amd64 actuals settle in CI.
Pre-1.0 history preserved at tag pre-v1.0.0-decouple-backup.
Future work:
- v1.1.0: :latest-studio variant (adds pi-studio).
- v1.2.0: :latest-studio-tex variant (adds texlive-xetex for PDF).
- opencode-devbox v2.0.0 will retire INSTALL_PI / pi-only paths.
joakimp
pi
Joakim Persson
pi