# OpenShell Agents

`scripts/agents/` contains repository-owned agent launchers. An agent is a
manifest plus prompt assets that the shared launcher turns into an OpenShell
sandbox run. Agents do not own harness implementations. Harness-specific setup
and execution live in `runtime/harnesses/<name>/`.

## Directory Layout

```text
scripts/agents/
  run.sh                    # Generic manifest-driven launcher
  runtime/                  # Shared in-sandbox runtime
    entrypoint.sh           # Starts the in-sandbox supervisor
    supervisor.sh           # Runs bounded harness cycles in once/watch mode
    subagent.sh             # Generic subagent dispatcher
    harnesses/
      codex/                # Codex install and execution adapter
  <agent>/
    agent.yaml              # Agent manifest
    prompts/                # Prompt templates rendered at launch
    providers/              # Provider profile YAML files for this agent
    policy.yaml             # Optional image policy source
```

Agent directories should contain agent-specific intent and payloads: manifests,
prompt templates, provider profiles, policies, and references to skills or
subagents. They should not contain `harnesses/codex`, `harnesses/opencode`, or
similar runtime code.

## Agent Manifest

Each agent has an `agent.yaml` manifest. The launcher currently reads these
sections:

- `id`, `display_name`, `description`: human and runtime identity.
- `sandbox`: default sandbox name prefix, gateway, and source image or Dockerfile.
- `harness`: default harness and per-harness settings such as model and
  reasoning effort.
- `runtime`: in-sandbox run mode (`once` or `watch`), watch poll interval, and
  transient failure logging threshold.
- `profile_paths`: ordered directories to scan for provider profile YAML files.
- `settings`: gateway settings to apply before launch.
- `providers`: provider instances to create or update, credential sources, and
  optional refresh configuration.
- `skills`: files to inject into the sandbox payload.
- `subagents`: subagent definitions to inject into the sandbox payload.
- `prompt_template`: prompt template rendered into the immutable agent payload as
  `agent-prompt.md`.

Manifest paths support these prefixes:

- `repo://path`: resolve from the repository root.
- `agent://path`: resolve from the agent directory.
- Relative paths without a prefix: resolve from the agent directory.
- Absolute paths: use as-is.

## Launch Order

`scripts/agents/run.sh` performs the launch in this order:

1. Parse CLI flags and select the agent directory from `--agent`.
2. Load `agent.yaml`, select the requested harness, and reject unsupported
   harness names.
3. Resolve sandbox defaults from the manifest and CLI/environment overrides.
4. Build a temporary payload directory.
5. Copy `runtime/` into the payload so every agent uses the same in-sandbox
   entrypoint and harness adapters.
6. Optionally copy a host Codex binary into the shared Codex runtime path when
   `--codex-bin` is supplied.
7. Copy manifest-declared skills and subagents into the payload.
8. Render the prompt template with runtime values such as `{{HARNESS}}`,
   `{{RUN_MODE}}`, `{{POLL_INTERVAL_SECONDS}}`, `{{USER_PROMPT}}`, and
   manifest-declared subagent variables such as `{{REVIEWER_COMMAND}}`.
9. Query the gateway's compute driver, then build a temporary image context
   with its Docker or Podman image store. The image bakes the rendered payload
   into `/etc/openshell/agent-payload`.
10. Apply manifest-declared gateway settings.
11. Resolve provider profile IDs by scanning `profile_paths` in order.
12. Import each provider profile into the gateway. If an active profile already
     exists, the launcher keeps going and uses it.
13. Resolve provider credentials from host commands, JSON files, or literal
     manifest values.
14. Create or update each provider instance and attach every selected provider
     to the sandbox.
15. Configure and rotate refresh-backed provider credentials when declared by
     the manifest.
16. Run `openshell sandbox create` from the resulting image reference, with the
    runtime entrypoint persisted as the detached canonical main process.
17. Mark the sandbox ephemeral unless `--keep` was supplied, allowing the
    gateway to delete it after the canonical process exits.
18. Inside the sandbox, run `/etc/openshell/agent-payload/runtime/entrypoint.sh`.
19. The runtime entrypoint starts
    `/etc/openshell/agent-payload/runtime/supervisor.sh`.
20. The supervisor invokes
    `/etc/openshell/agent-payload/runtime/harnesses/<harness>/exec.sh` as a
    bounded child execution.
21. Harness adapters prepare harness-local auth/config and execute the agent
    prompt headlessly.

The payload directory is baked into the image under `/etc/openshell`, which the
gator filesystem policy mounts read-only for agent processes. Prompts, skills,
subagent definitions, and runtime scripts are agent guts, not workspace state.
Agents should write session artifacts, checkouts, temporary files, and future
memory records under `/sandbox` or `/tmp` instead.

## Runtime Modes

Agents can run in `once` or `watch` mode. In `once` mode the supervisor runs one
harness cycle and exits with the harness result unless the agent emits an
`OPENSHELL_AGENT_RESULT` sentinel.

In `watch` mode the sandbox stays alive while the supervisor repeatedly runs
bounded harness cycles. The harness must not sleep or poll indefinitely. Instead,
it performs one reconciliation cycle, then prints a final-line sentinel:

```text
OPENSHELL_AGENT_RESULT {"status":"waiting","next_poll_seconds":900,"reason":"checks_pending","notes":"Required checks are still running. The agent will inspect them next cycle."}
```

Supported statuses are `complete`, `waiting`, `blocked`, `transient_failure`, and
`terminal_failure`. The supervisor sleeps between `waiting` or `blocked` cycles
without keeping the harness connected, then launches a fresh harness cycle inside
the same sandbox. During active harness cycles and long sleeps, it prints a
heartbeat every 60 seconds by default so operators can distinguish deliberate
work or waiting from a stuck launch. Set `OPENSHELL_AGENT_HEARTBEAT_SECONDS=0`
to disable heartbeats or another integer to change the interval. In `watch`
mode, missing or malformed result sentinels and harness transport failures are
retried indefinitely with bounded backoff; only `complete` and
`terminal_failure` stop the supervisor. This keeps long-lived agents resilient
to upstream model errors while leaving durable state ownership to the agent
domain.

The supervisor writes an atomic current snapshot to
`/sandbox/.openshell-agent/status.json` and keeps the latest 100 supervisor
transitions in `/sandbox/.openshell-agent/history.jsonl`. Each record identifies
the cycle, supervisor state, harness exit code, and structured agent result.
Agents should include a concise `notes` field in every result to capture their
human-readable current diagnosis, notable issues or questions, and next useful
action. The supervisor caps notes at 2,048 characters and records a diagnostic
placeholder when an agent omits them. Override the state directory, history
limit, or notes limit with `OPENSHELL_AGENT_STATE_DIR`,
`OPENSHELL_AGENT_STATE_HISTORY_LIMIT`, or `OPENSHELL_AGENT_MAX_NOTES_LENGTH`.

The shared runtime does not prescribe the durable state store. Gator uses GitHub
labels, comments, reviews, and checks. Other agents can use a repository branch,
issue tracker, object store, database, or another domain-specific store as long
as each cycle can reconcile from that state.

Use `--once` or `--watch` to override the manifest default. Use
`--poll-interval <seconds>` to override the watch sleep interval.

Refresh-backed providers are bootstrapped from manifest credential sources when
no gateway refresh state exists. Later launches preserve gateway-owned refresh
material and request a credential rotation first. If that rotation fails, the
launcher treats the host credential source as a repair source, replaces the
gateway refresh material, and retries rotation once. Use `--reset-refresh` to
skip the preserve-first path and intentionally replace gateway refresh material
from the host credential source before rotating.

Long-lived harnesses must not persist revision-scoped provider placeholders such
as `openshell:resolve:env:v123_TOKEN` into files they reuse across refreshes.
Persist the current-name alias, for example `openshell:resolve:env:TOKEN`, so the
sandbox proxy resolves the latest gateway-refreshed credential on each request.

## Subagents

The launcher injects subagent definitions under
`/etc/openshell/agent-payload/subagents/`.
Prompt templates should refer to the generic command instead of a harness-specific
script:

```shell
bash /etc/openshell/agent-payload/runtime/subagent.sh <subagent-id> < task.md
```

The shared subagent dispatcher forwards the task to the active harness adapter.
For Codex, this runs a separate bounded `codex exec` invocation using the same
model and reasoning defaults as the parent harness.

## Providers

Listing a provider in `agent.yaml` means the provider is attached to the sandbox.
Provider profiles describe credential shape, endpoint policy, discovery metadata,
and refresh metadata. The launcher only creates provider instances and supplies
runtime credential values.

`profile_paths` are ordered. The first profile file with the requested `id` wins.
If the same directory contains duplicate profile IDs, the launcher fails. If a
later profile path contains a profile ID that was already found, the launcher
warns that the later file is shadowed.

## Gator Example

`gator/` is the first manifest-driven agent. It uses:

- `gator/agent.yaml` for the launch contract.
- `gator/prompts/gator.md` for the rendered operator prompt.
- `gator/providers/` for scoped GitHub and Codex provider profiles.
- `gator/Dockerfile` for the local sandbox image.
- `runtime/harnesses/codex/` for Codex installation and execution.

Run it through the generic launcher:

```shell
./scripts/agents/run.sh \
  --agent gator \
  --gateway docker-dev \
  "Run gator on PR 1536 and keep watching until it closes or merges."
```