@staix/agent-hub 0.12.22 → 0.12.24

package/docs/security.md

@@ -7,13 +7,13 @@ agent-hub connects agents that can each run commands. This page says what the hu
 - **Other agents' text is untrusted.** Every message that crosses from one peer to another is framed as untrusted input: a channel tag with `meta.source` for Claude started with `ahub claude`; otherwise a fixed header line (`frame()`, `[agent-hub message from ...]`) with an instruction that says it is untrusted, the plugin's server instructions for a tools-only Claude reading `hub_inbox` and a standing instruction for the others. A message body cannot forge the hub's own headers: such lines are quoted (`sanitize`). Replies inherit a hop count capped at 3, so agents cannot ping-pong forever; neither a digest nor a steer can reset it.
 - **The control link is loopback plus a secret.** The daemon and the Codex proxy bind 127.0.0.1 only. The control WebSocket requires a per-run token (`.agenthub/state/control-token`, mode 600), and both servers refuse any request that carries an `Origin` header: any web page can open a WebSocket to localhost, and browsers always send `Origin`. External clients cannot claim the console user's id or a hub-managed peer's id.
 - **Permission prompts stay on unless an operator selects a permission mode.** `ask` leaves native decisions unchanged. `ask-when-needed` grants scoped Claude file tools or Pi/local writes and edits; Kimi and Codex use their own native policies. `never-ask` requires explicit runtime confirmation or a person's console `y` for a config default at hub start. Until that config confirmation the peer runs in `ask`. Kimi's and `local`'s permission requests are relayed to the console and cancelled after `approvals.timeout_s` (default 120 s) of silence; the macOS notification for a waiting request carries the peer and the tool name only. The one exception is the hub's own tools (`hub_send` and the task tools, matched by exact name): Kimi's requests for them are approved once without a prompt and logged by name, the same trust Codex gets through `approval_mode` in the hub's config. They invoke hub-owned operations rather than arbitrary file or shell tools, and every call passes the hub's own checks. Identity comes from the exact permission title, or from the earlier tool-call title bound to the same call id and resolved against the configured MCP servers when the permission title contains argument JSON (Qwen). Payload text and unrelated display titles never establish identity. For ACP agents, a payload longer than the console shows is marked as cut and never offers a session-wide grant. Pi's write, edit, shell and git write requests are relayed the same way and can be answered `Always allow <tool> until Pi restarts`: later calls of that tool by the same Pi start skip the prompt but stay inside the path guard and sandbox. The grant covers every later call of that tool whatever its payload, is kept in memory only, cannot be given from the dashboard, and each call it allows is logged by tool name. A Pi or `local` request whose call was cancelled or whose turn ended is withdrawn at once: a later answer is refused and grants nothing, an `Always allow` included. One shell command runs without a hub approval: the `!command` a person types in the managed Pi TUI. It stays inside the same sandbox and denylist, and the hub takes it only from the verified owner process of a Pi in TUI mode, while Pi is idle, on a reservation that is used once; a model's own bash call never takes that path (issue #253). `--unattended` turns prompts off, says so loudly, and is never the default.
-- **A committed config cannot choose launch commands, credential files, data endpoints, permission modes or a wider sandbox.** The machine-local fields (`kimi_cmd`, `permission_modes`, `codex_bin`, `pi.cmd`, `checks`, `mlx.bin`, `mlx.runtimeDir`, `mlx.modelPath`, `omniroute.urls`, `omniroute.access_hosts`, the `omniroute` key files, `memory.worker_url`, `local.read_allow`, `local.bash_network`, `local.network_allow`) apply only from a config file git confirms nobody committed: `.agenthub/config.json` or `.agenthub/config.local.json`, matched by file identity so no other spelling the file system accepts slips past, and `.agenthub` itself not a committed symlink or submodule. Without a repository, or when git fails, they keep their defaults; an empty value always means the default. "Untracked" is answered by the repository that contains the project: a checkout copied or extracted into an unrelated repository, or into an ignored directory of one, is trusted like your own files. So a cloned repository cannot choose a launch command, a completion check, a gateway to send a key file to, a memory endpoint, a permission mode, or a wider sandbox. A command in `checks` runs as you, outside the local worker's sandbox, like a git hook. So do the `setup` and `verify` commands of a benchmark suite (issue #251): `ahub bench run <suite.json>` is a person's command, refused from an agent session, and it resets the work tree for each attempt, so it runs only with `bench.enabled`, at the root of a clean repository that tracks nothing under `.agenthub/`. Nothing in `routing.toml` or in task text is ever run. `routing.toml` and the other shared fields still come from the checkout, and they matter: `routing.toml` picks the models the local worker and the hub's inference use at your gateway and can turn the PII constraint off, and roles and budget shape who does what. Review them in a repository you do not trust.
+- **A committed config cannot choose launch commands, credential files, data endpoints, permission modes or a wider sandbox.** The machine-local fields (`kimi_cmd`, `permission_modes`, `codex_bin`, `pi.cmd`, `checks`, `mlx.bin`, `mlx.runtimeDir`, `mlx.modelPath`, `omniroute.urls`, `omniroute.access_hosts`, the `omniroute` key files, `memory.worker_url`, `local.read_allow`, `local.bash_network`, `local.network_allow`, `terminal.open`) apply only from a config file git confirms nobody committed: `.agenthub/config.json` or `.agenthub/config.local.json`, matched by file identity so no other spelling the file system accepts slips past, and `.agenthub` itself not a committed symlink or submodule. Without a repository, or when git fails, they keep their defaults; an empty value always means the default. "Untracked" is answered by the repository that contains the project: a checkout copied or extracted into an unrelated repository, or into an ignored directory of one, is trusted like your own files. So a cloned repository cannot choose a launch command, a completion check, a gateway to send a key file to, a memory endpoint, a permission mode, the command that opens a terminal, or a wider sandbox. A command in `checks` runs as you, outside the local worker's sandbox, like a git hook. So do the `setup` and `verify` commands of a benchmark suite (issue #251): `ahub bench run <suite.json>` is a person's command, refused from an agent session, and it resets the work tree for each attempt, so it runs only with `bench.enabled`, at the root of a clean repository that tracks nothing under `.agenthub/`. Nothing in `routing.toml` or in task text is ever run. `routing.toml` and the other shared fields still come from the checkout, and they matter: `routing.toml` picks the models the local worker and the hub's inference use at your gateway and can turn the PII constraint off, and roles and budget shape who does what. Review them in a repository you do not trust. The hub's own git calls outside the sandbox (snapshots, facts, config trust, project discovery, memory recall, the bench runner) all go through the one helper in `src/hub/git.ts`, which disables the programs a repository's configuration can name — the file-system monitor, hooks, external diff, the pager, and the credential and askpass helpers, with prompts failing closed — so a config that ever does get written cannot run code with the hub's rights. Of those, the monitor, hooks and external diff are reachable by commands the hub issues (the planted-program test exercises all three; a `diff --no-index` reads the repo's config, so that call also passes `--no-ext-diff` and `--no-textconv`); the pager and the credential and askpass helpers are not (every call pipes stdout, and no hub command authenticates), and their settings are belt and suspenders. The cost: `core.fsmonitor=false` also turns off a person's enabled built-in monitor for the hub's own calls, so the per-turn snapshot's `add -A` scans the whole tree (the snapshot has a 10 s cap). git has no global switch for filter drivers, and of the hub's commands only the snapshot's `add`/`restore` would run one (its driver command lives in the protected `.git/config`).
 - **Telemetry holds no bodies.** `.agenthub/state/events.jsonl` (issue #40) records envelope ids, routing and sizes, task ids and states, overlapping paths and token counts, and the task id (with a PII flag) that each usage and token record is attributed to. It never records a message body, a task title or detail, and marks private (PII) envelopes and tasks as such. It stays on the machine; `ahub export` only prints it. Two opt-in stores copy numbers from it into your home directory, shared by every project on the machine (directories mode 700, files 600): research records (issue #247, `research.enabled`) in `~/.agenthub/research/` hold per approved task the ids, states, counts, tokens, times and PII flag the events hold, a person's label from a closed list, and a hash in place of the project id; benchmark runs (issue #251) in `~/.agenthub/bench/` hold suite name and hash, arm label, the attached peers' ids, models and permission modes, task ids, outcomes, exit codes, counts, tokens and times, never suite text or a command's output.
 - **Snapshots stay in your repository.** Per-turn snapshots (issue #33) are git objects in the project's own object store, written through a temporary index; nothing is referenced, pushed or copied elsewhere, and `git gc` prunes them. They hold what the work tree held, including untracked files that are not ignored, so keep secrets in ignored files. They carry the repository's own permissions, and nothing caps their disk use but `git gc`. A turn of a peer holding an open PII task is not snapshotted; a PII file left in the project is snapshotted by later turns like any other file. `ahub undo` restores only files whose current content is exactly what the turn left.
 - **The edit hook reads, never decides.** `ahub check-path --hook` (issue #32) reads hub.db and returns context for Claude and a line for you; it sets no permission decision, so your permission rules stay in charge. It names other owners' task ids, titles and states, which then reach Claude's model; PII tasks are left out.
 - **The session record holds identities only.** `.agenthub/state/sessions.json` (issue #37, mode 600) keeps each attached peer's recovery metadata: launch options, session and thread ids, Pi's session file path. No message or task text; loss notices name deliveries by id, sender and public task title.
 - **Context checkpoints have a separate text record.** Native occupancy readings carry numeric metadata only. An optional context checkpoint persists its summary in `.agenthub/state/context-checkpoint-<peer>.json` with mode 0600 and attempts shared-memory storage when enabled. Completion requires the outstanding request id, current peer/native session and transport generation; new connection claims invalidate old requests. Private turns, every open PII task associated with the peer as owner or reviewer (including pending review), and PII-pattern summaries are refused before persistence or cloud memory. Its text is never broadcast, and context pressure does not pause, reassign or replace the session.
-- **The local worker is boxed in.** Paths are resolved through symlinks and must stay inside the project; a secrets denylist (`.env*`, keys, credential files, the hub's own state and the state archives `ahub reset --all` leaves) applies to its file tools, its git arguments and its memory capture alike; `.git` and `.agenthub` are not writable. Writes, edits, shell commands and mutating git wait for approval unless the operator's permission mode grants them (writes and edits inside the grant filter in `ask-when-needed`, all four in `never-ask`; see below), and the approver sees what will be written or run, with control characters escaped. Everything it executes runs under the macOS sandbox, attended or not. Since 0.10 the profile starts from deny default (issue #39): commands run and read only the system, toolchain and project directories (and the project's git dir and the selected developer dir; with network on, the public CA bundles); no writes outside the project, its git dir and a temp dir of its own (`TMPDIR`, made for each command and removed when it ends; issue #63); no `.git` name at any depth, closing the creation, rename, symlink and gitfile routes to a planted repository (others stay open; issue #281), no `config` or `hooks` under one (in an external git dir, only its own children and the hooks directory's contents, so refs named `config` or `hooks` still work), no `commondir` at any depth below one, with every such name matched folded against the code points HFS+ ignores, and no `.agenthub` anywhere in the project; the cost is that `git init`, `git clone` and `git worktree add` do not run inside the sandbox (add, commit, stash, checkout and gc still do), and neither do `git worktree remove`, `git worktree prune` of a stale record, `git clean -ffd` in a project with a nested repository, or `rm -rf` of a directory that holds a `.git` (refusing the unlink is what stops the rename-out route); no network, loopback included, unless `local.bash_network`; with it, only through the hub's egress proxy to the hosts in `local.network_allow` (issue #65), which refuses names that resolve to internal addresses (behind NAT64 with the well-known prefix, by the IPv4 address the answer carries; a network-specific prefix is not recognised), so claude-mem and the Codex app-server stay out of reach (`"direct"` opens everything, until 0.13.0). One channel stays open: `trustd`, which TLS clients need, can fetch a certificate's AIA or OCSP URL on a command's behalf, outside the proxy. The allow-default profile of 0.9 and earlier was removed in 0.12.0 (issue #83); a `local.sandbox` setting is ignored with a note. The shared temp dirs (the user's and `/private/tmp`) are closed. Without the sandbox there is no `bash` tool.
+- **The local worker is boxed in.** Paths are resolved through symlinks and must stay inside the project; a secrets denylist (`.env*`, keys, credential files, the hub's own state and the state archives `ahub reset --all` leaves) applies to its file tools, its git arguments and its memory capture alike; `.git` and `.agenthub` are not writable. Writes, edits, shell commands and mutating git wait for approval unless the operator's permission mode grants them (writes and edits inside the grant filter in `ask-when-needed`, all four in `never-ask`; see below), and the approver sees what will be written or run, with control characters escaped. Everything it executes runs under the macOS sandbox, attended or not. Since 0.10 the profile starts from deny default (issue #39): commands run and read only the system, toolchain and project directories (and the project's git dir and the selected developer dir; with network on, the public CA bundles); no writes outside the project, its git dir and a temp dir of its own (`TMPDIR`, made for each command and removed when it ends; issue #63); no `.git` name at any depth, closing the creation, rename, symlink and gitfile routes to a planted repository, no `config` or `hooks` directly under one nor below the discovered modules root of the project's own `.git` (a submodule's git directory, nested submodules included; every term is anchored below that root, so a directory named `refs`, `config` or `hooks` above the project neither disables the rule nor trips it; a `/refs/` or `/logs/` segment below it keeps refs named `config` or `hooks` writable, and leaves a submodule whose own path contains such a segment uncovered; a submodule whose path has `hooks` as a whole component (`tools/hooks` included) fares worse: the rule matches its whole git directory, so every write there is refused; the discovered git directories, the modules root and every component in between are also refused as targets, closing the rename, replace and symlink routes to the same files), no `commondir` at any depth below one, with every such name matched folded against the code points HFS+ ignores (the fold covers the security-relevant names; on a volume that folds names, folded spellings of the components between `.git` and a submodule's git directory are not matched — the 1024-byte SBPL literal cannot hold a folded path — the same residual the external git dir rules carry since #270), and no `.agenthub` anywhere in the project (in an external git dir the `config`/`hooks` rules cover only its own children and the hooks directory's contents, so refs named `config` or `hooks` still work); a nested repository in bare layout stays open — the directory is the git dir, with no `.git` name to anchor a rule on, and the hub never runs git there, whatever the project root is: its calls are all `-C <project root>` or `--no-index` on temp files, and none descends into a nested directory's git layout, so a planted hook fires only if a person or another tool runs git in that directory themselves; the rules are probed on HFS+, which folds the 16 code points the patterns tolerate, and on a case-sensitive APFS image, which folds nothing (a folded spelling is an inert new file there and the real names stay refused); the cost is that `git init`, `git clone` and `git worktree add` do not run inside the sandbox (add, commit, stash, checkout and gc still do), `git submodule update --init` does not either (its git directory's `config` write is refused), and neither do `git worktree remove`, `git worktree prune` of a stale record, `git clean -ffd` in a project with a nested repository, or `rm -rf` of a directory that holds a `.git` (refusing the unlink is what stops the rename-out route); no network, loopback included, unless `local.bash_network`; with it, only through the hub's egress proxy to the hosts in `local.network_allow` (issue #65), which refuses names that resolve to internal addresses (behind NAT64 with the well-known prefix, by the IPv4 address the answer carries; a network-specific prefix is not recognised), so claude-mem and the Codex app-server stay out of reach (`"direct"` opens everything, until 0.13.0). One channel stays open: `trustd`, which TLS clients need, can fetch a certificate's AIA or OCSP URL on a command's behalf, outside the proxy. The allow-default profile of 0.9 and earlier was removed in 0.12.0 (issue #83); a `local.sandbox` setting is ignored with a note. The shared temp dirs (the user's and `/private/tmp`) are closed. Without the sandbox there is no `bash` tool.
 - **Capabilities are enforced, not suggested.** `capabilities` (issue #39) is checked by the daemon where task operations and messages arrive, so a peer cannot get round it by phrasing. A peer can never answer a permission request: the control link takes `permit` from the console role only, and a message that quotes a permit command is just text. Both bind the hub's own tool paths: a vendor agent with its own shell in the project (Codex, Claude, Kimi) can read `.agenthub/state/control-token` and connect as the console, which only the local worker's and Pi's sandbox prevents.
 - **PII has an enforced path.** A task matching `signals.pii_patterns` goes to `local` or to nobody; its text is absent from other peers' envelopes, the console stream, the log and the board listing; the console user reviews it; `local` answers such a turn to the console only, keeps it out of its history, refuses it when the only gateway is off campus, and may not save notes or spin off tasks during it. Nothing about it is sent to claude-mem, whose observer is a cloud model.
 - **A model screen can add to the patterns (issue #198).** With `signals.pii_screen = "local"` in `routing.toml` (default `off`; it applies while `constraints.pii = "local_only"`), a newly proposed task is read by a model before the hub does anything else with it: until the verdict it is on no board, in no envelope, before no triage model, and the hub makes no brief or note call for it. The local worker's claude-mem capture leaves its hub tool calls out (issue #230), so a proposal it makes in an ordinary turn cannot reach claude-mem ahead of the verdict that way. The screen runs on the model on this machine (MLX or Ollama, loopback only) or, without one, on the gateway only while `onCampus()` holds, and the gateway call is refused once more right before transport if the gateway is behind Access; task text never goes off campus to be screened. When the on-device generation slot is taken (Pi generating, another screen), the screen goes to the campus gateway instead of waiting, and on campus a device that fails or is still loading after 60% of the deadline hands over to the gateway too; off campus it waits for the slot and the device within the deadline. With the legacy MLX provider the screen may start an `mlx_lm.server`, as Pi's relay does, and it stays running until `ahub models stop`. Its answer is `pii` or `clear` plus a category from a closed list (name, student id, phone, address, grade, health, other). Anything else, a timeout (8 s, one call and one generation slot per item), a missing or off-campus model, or text longer than 6000 UTF-8 bytes (about 2000 Hangul syllables) is `unknown`, and an unknown task is a PII task: this is the hub's one model call that fails closed, so with the screener down every new task waits for `local`. An unknown verdict has the costs of any PII task, even when a second look clears it later: opening it lifts every silent turn-free cohort for good and turns facts off while it is open, and off campus a proposal without a class is refused (triage is not asked for a PII task there), with an error that says so. Off campus with the on-device slot taken, a task stays `unknown` until it is screened again: while it is still proposed and no peer ever owned it, the hub's release timer (every 60 s, one task at a time, the least tried first, at most 10 times per task in a hub run; never text too long to read) asks again, and `clear` lifts its `pii` signal and routes it through the class peers (a named owner is not remembered; a reserved one is offered first, as always). A task `local` took keeps its PII path, also once it is declined back to nobody. A pattern match is PII without a call. The task's history records the source of its `pii` signal (`regex`, `screen` with the category, or `unknown` with the reason), an unknown verdict is a console line naming the task id only, and `events.jsonl` gets a `pii_screen` record with the item kind, label, source, category, reason and latency, never the text. A routing explanation of a draft does not call the screen and says so.
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ the console. Merged and generated Claude settings live in 0600 state files and
 are passed by path, keeping caller settings out of process argv.
 
 Claude ask-when-needed grants only resolving project file targets outside
-.agenthub, .git, .claude, .codex, .qwen, .kimi, .pi and .mcp.json. Symlink escapes, protected aliases, traversal and
+.agenthub, .git, .claude, .codex, .qwen, .kimi, .kimi-code, .pi, .mcp.json, .agents and .claude.json. Symlink escapes, protected aliases, traversal and
 unresolved wildcard targets receive no decision. Names are compared folded (letter case, compatibility forms and
 the code points HFS+ ignores; case-insensitive APFS folds case but ignored none in the probe; so a look-alike such
 as a long s or a name with a zero-width joiner is the same name), the path is judged inside the project, and
@@ -92,8 +92,9 @@ no role: a task's current owner and reviewer may read its public view with
 `hub_task_assign` while it is proposed, nobody ever accepted it and its latest
 move other than the hub's own was not made from the console (to another peer
 only with `assign` when its capabilities are listed).
-A conductor may inspect public state, assign or escalate work, start supported
-headless peers and place its own delivery holds. It cannot answer approvals,
+A conductor may inspect public state, assign or escalate work, start a peer in
+the start mode a person set (it cannot choose the mode) and place its own
+delivery holds. It cannot answer approvals,
 resolve durable deliveries, override budget pauses, release a human hold or stop
 a peer: `peer_stop` is taken from the console role only, and no hub tool sends it.
 Pending approval summaries exclude titles; PII tasks remain public stubs.
@@ -108,13 +109,21 @@ Please report vulnerabilities privately through GitHub's "Report a vulnerability
 
 - `ahub ui` uses the authenticated console control connection to start an ephemeral HTTP listener on `127.0.0.1`. No UI listener exists before that command. The control and Codex proxy ports continue to refuse every `Origin` header.
 - The daemon issues a cryptographically random, single-use bootstrap ticket valid for 60 seconds. The CLI opens the dashboard with that ticket in the URL fragment, never a query string or the control token. The static page removes the fragment immediately and exchanges it with a same-origin POST. Tickets are consumed once; expired tickets cannot create sessions.
-- The exchange creates a separate random session, valid for one hour without renewal, in an `HttpOnly; SameSite=Strict; Path=/` cookie named for this listener's port. Sessions and tickets live only in memory and die with the daemon. The page itself keeps one more cookie, `agent-hub-theme` (issue #246): script-set, `SameSite=Strict`, kept for a year for the whole `127.0.0.1` host, and read back only as one of `system`, `light` or `dark`. HTTP is loopback-only; the cookie is not a substitute for the origin checks.
+- The exchange creates a separate random session, valid for one hour without renewal, in an `HttpOnly; SameSite=Strict; Path=/` cookie named for this listener's port. Sessions and tickets live only in memory and die with the daemon. The page itself keeps one more cookie, `agent-hub-theme` (issue #246): script-set, `SameSite=Strict`, kept for a year for the whole `127.0.0.1` host, and read back only as one of `system`, `light` or `dark`. A second script-set cookie, `agent-hub-office` (issue #264), keeps the Office view choice under the same attributes and is read back only as `off`, `flat` or `isometric`. HTTP is loopback-only; the cookie is not a substitute for the origin checks.
 - Every request must have the exact listener Host. Every data or action request, including the ticket exchange and snapshot polling, must be POST with the exact listener Origin and JSON content type. Foreign and missing origins, missing or expired sessions, oversized bodies and unknown actions are rejected. There is no CORS support. The only unauthenticated GET is the fixed, data-free HTML shell. No files or paths are served dynamically.
 - Responses are non-cacheable, cannot be framed, suppress referrers, and use a content security policy restricting scripts/styles to the shipped inline content and connections to this origin. Browser text is rendered with textContent, never interpreted as HTML.
-- The browser receives a bounded redacted event stream, peer states and queue counts, public task views, budget windows, pending approvals and benchmark run summaries (issue #251): the newest runs in `~/.agenthub/bench/`, whichever project on this machine ran them, by suite name, arm label, state, the task id in progress, counts, tokens and times, never suite text. Private envelope bodies and PII task text never cross this endpoint. Local-worker and Pi approval titles can contain PII, so their details remain terminal-only; the dashboard identifies the request and directs the operator to `ahub tail` before allowing it. Budget checkpoint summaries are also omitted.
-- The closed action list is permission response, peer pause/resume, console message, task proposal and task assignment. These use the existing daemon/task paths and budget pause rules. There is no generic control proxy, task-detail read, shell, file access, configuration edit, budget override, peer launch or daemon shutdown API.
+- The browser receives a bounded redacted event stream, peer states and queue counts, public task views, budget windows, pending approvals, the settings rows (closed values and ids, the file each comes from) and each startable peer's start plan (issue #269), benchmark run summaries (issue #251): the newest runs in `~/.agenthub/bench/`, whichever project on this machine ran them, by suite name, arm label, state, the task id in progress, counts, tokens and times, never suite text, and the office view's optional fields (issue #264): each peer's open turn (start time, attributed task id, attribution kind), a `checking` flag on tasks whose check is running, and warning `links` of overlapping, conflicting or cohort tasks (task and peer ids only, never paths, symbols or reasons; a PII task never joins a link, and a private or PII-attributed turn exposes no task id). Private envelope bodies and PII task text never cross this endpoint. Local-worker and Pi approval titles can contain PII, so their details remain terminal-only; the dashboard identifies the request and directs the operator to `ahub tail` before allowing it. Budget checkpoint summaries are also omitted.
+- The closed action list includes permission response, peer pause/resume, console message, task proposal/assignment and the settings actions below (set, undo, preview). Project-board actions add revision-fenced planning, Backlog pull/return/split/undo and release planning/state changes through Tasks; they do not tag, publish or write GitHub state. These use the existing daemon/task paths and budget pause rules. `start_peer` (issue #269) starts a peer from a closed list in the mode a person set, with a command the hub assembles: the request carries a peer id and nothing else. There is no generic control proxy, task-detail read, shell, file access, free-form configuration edit, budget override, launch of a caller-chosen command or daemon shutdown API.
 - The listener stops with the daemon. Expired sessions must be reopened with `ahub ui`; the page does not silently obtain new credentials.
 
+## Dashboard settings and the settings session (issue #269)
+
+- Settings are a closed registry (`src/hub/settings.ts`). The dashboard and `ahub settings` can write only its keys, each checked against its own closed values, and only to `.agenthub/config.local.json` and `.agenthub/routing.local.toml`. A file git tracks is never written, so the shared `config.json` and `routing.toml` stay byte-identical; in a repository where git cannot answer, nothing is written either. Commands and binaries (`kimi_cmd`, `codex_bin`, `pi.cmd`, `checks`, `mlx`), credential files and gateway URLs (`omniroute`, `memory.worker_url`), the local worker's reach (`local.read_allow`, `local.bash_network`, `local.network_allow`), `bench.enabled` and `terminal` are refused by name from every surface: they choose what the hub runs or where secrets and task text go.
+- `routing.local.toml` holds `stay_switch` and, per class, `peers`, `escalate_to`, `route` (an id `routing.toml` defines) and `pi_backend`, and nothing else: targets, routes, signals and the PII constraint cannot be set through it. A write is read by the hub's own loader before it replaces the file (temp file and rename), and one previous version is kept for undo.
+- An ordinary dashboard session (`ahub ui`) reads settings, lowers a mode to `ask`, turns `pi.auto_start` off and changes the safe switches (`research.enabled`, `approvals.notify`, `snapshots.enabled`, `coordination`). Whatever can widen what agents do without asking needs a settings session: a non-ask mode now or at hub start, routing, starting Pi with the hub, removing a machine-local value, and undo. `ahub ui --settings` opens one: its ticket marks the session for 15 minutes, after which it is an ordinary session. `never-ask` also needs the peer's id typed as the confirmation, and a stored never-ask default still waits for the console's `y` at each hub start. An undo never puts never-ask back, and removing a machine-local value that uncovers a never-ask in the shared file needs the same confirmation. "Lowering to `ask`" means handing the decision back to the agent's own rules: for Codex that is the approval policy the person configured natively, which the hub does not judge.
+- A settings session is as strong as the console for these settings and no stronger elsewhere. A mode change is the console's own request with the same refusals; tool approvals stay deny-only for Pi and local; there is still no shell, file, task-detail or launch-command API. `ahub ui --settings` and `ahub settings` pass the same identity gate as `ahub permission`, which is an operating policy, not authentication. The hostile-agent boundary above applies unchanged: an agent with an unrestricted shell as the same user can impersonate the console, and so can open a settings session.
+- Every change writes a `settings` event (the key, the value before and after, the source `dashboard` or `terminal`) and a line in `hub.log` and open consoles; opening a settings session is logged too. The unified dashboard (`ahub ui --all`) forwards settings actions as an ordinary session and opens no settings session.
+- Start modes. A start the hub makes itself (the dashboard's Start control, `peer_start` from a console child, the conductor's `hub_peer_start`, `pi.auto_start`) takes the peer's start mode. Through settings only a settings session or the terminal can set it to headless; a config file can also set `peers.<id>.start_mode`, the shared one included (it is not a machine-local field: headless was the only form for Pi, Kimi and the local worker before this change, a hub-made headless Codex start is the app-server the hub already ran for it, and a start mode grants nothing a permission mode or a capability controls). For a TUI the hub opens a terminal running `<runtime> <its own entry point> --project <this project> <peer>` (and `--mode tui` for Pi): every word is the hub's own, the command line is those words each quoted for a POSIX shell, and no request field, tool argument or agent message is part of it. In a `terminal.open` template `{command}` is that quoted line and `{title}` and `{cwd}` are raw text for argv elements of their own; each placeholder is substituted once, so a project path that itself contains a placeholder, a quote or `$` stays one word. A provider's own error text goes to `hub.log`, not to the caller. The terminal comes from `terminal.open`, a machine-local command template that config trust refuses from a committed file and that no settings surface can write, or from Orca. The opened terminal's environment carries no agent marker, so `ahub` there has the console's identity. Without a provider the start is refused with the command to run by hand; it is never downgraded to headless. A conductor can start a peer but cannot choose its mode.
 
 ## Multi-project manager (protocol 7)
 
@@ -135,3 +144,110 @@ The manager can start registered hubs in attended mode. Its project launches do
 not inherit state, unattended or gateway URL/key overrides from the session that
 opened the manager. Native memory is deliberately not a project-isolation boundary:
 its existing basename/worktree aliases and provider accounts can remain shared.
+
+## Peer roster authority
+
+The running peer roster changes only through console-only settings requests.
+`ahub roster` is a person's CLI command, including its read form; no hub tool
+exposes the catalog or edits membership. An ordinary dashboard can remove a peer,
+but adding requires the existing settings-session authority. Removing the
+conductor holder is refused. Local and Pi scoped tools cannot write `.agenthub`.
+Claude, Codex and Kimi still follow their own file permissions and can edit a
+config file; such an edit changes participation only at the next hub start. A
+live settings write or undo applies its own roster key and does not adopt other
+file edits. External ids outside the known native catalog keep their prior
+admission rules.
+
+Kimi's pull-only TUI owns its tool approvals and session. The person's launcher
+merges/removes only the hub MCP entry; the daemon never edits that file and
+refuses headless starts while a stale entry exists. An attached Kimi TUI blocks
+controlled recovery instead of being treated as a hub-owned headless process.
+Scoped Pi and local-worker write/edit grants check both the original project-relative
+path and its resolved target for protected agent configuration names. A protected
+directory symlinked to an ordinary project directory still asks a person; an alias
+into a protected directory also asks. Effects use the guarded real path and recheck
+it after approval. Explicit approval and never-ask retain their existing meaning
+(#322). ACP permissions arriving offline are cancelled before any auto-approval or
+console request; pending permissions are withdrawn on watchdog, offline or stop,
+and a late person answer cannot grant them (#311).
+
+The shared scoped-grant exclusion also covers `.agents` skills and `.claude.json`.
+The latter is conservatively protected by name; its default documented location
+is in the home directory, not a project loader. The source inventory and limits
+are in [the configuration inventory](verification/2026-10-11-agent-config-inventory.md).
+Instruction files `AGENTS.md`, `CLAUDE.md` and `QWEN.md` remain grantable by default.
+A person can set `scoped_grants.protect_instructions` to true to require approval
+for scoped writes and edits through original or resolved spellings. It applies
+live after a settings write or undo, never changes reads or never-ask, and cannot
+be set through an agent, tools or conductor surface. Claude's daemon response
+withholds the scoped mode on these writes so an older hook grants nothing too.
+
+Qwen Code's optional production ACP peer requires qwen-code 0.25.0 native identity
+and advertised mode ids before setting a policy or starting work. Its own tools
+have no hub sandbox; auto-edit approves file edits, yolo every tool. Configured
+never-ask still requires the person's confirmation. qwen_cmd is machine-local and
+never editable through settings. Legacy benchmark adapters remain unmanaged by
+this production table. Startup diagnostics withhold native host/payload details.
+
+Jcode is optional, source/version-fenced and runs native tools without a hub sandbox or hub permission-mode mapping. .jcode joins the scoped-grant exclusion, including lexical/resolved aliases. Only a person writes its unique project MCP entry; foreign/override/symlink entries refuse. The hub owns a private daemon/socket and ACP group, never the global daemon, and copies no credentials. Native diagnostics withhold payloads/hosts. Unproved conversation loads refuse; no fresh replacement is called a restore.
+
+# Transient ACP activity (#286)
+
+- Watch activity can contain file contents, thoughts and command output. It is console-role only, kept in a bounded in-memory ring and exposed only through the `watch` control request. Agent shells, conductor tools, dashboard snapshots, hub tools and memory observers cannot read it. Terminal bodies pass through the console's sanitization and wrapping helpers. Slow sockets close instead of accumulating unbounded output.
+- Private/PII turns show a single stub; the adapter latches privacy for that turn. The existing final-answer bus and native approval paths (console and dashboard) remain independent, with their existing privacy rules. Watch never adds activity to either path or any disk log.
+- There is no Qwen dual-output input file or TUI transport in this slice; Q2-Q6 are unverified and TUI mode stays refused.
+
+## Global attention metadata (#280, phase 3)
+
+The optional status `needs` projection contains act/watch counts, a known state
+and the first item (kind, level, peer/id and numeric times only). Status JSON has
+no console-local unread-message count and no full item list. The console-role
+reply to the existing status request additionally supplies `attentionItems`,
+using the same body-free allowlist so stream navigation needs no board-text read.
+Peer/tools status callers do not receive that full list. The summary and item
+projection never reads task title/detail, approval title/options, pause reason,
+error text or paths, and is never forwarded to memory. PROTOCOL remains 16 and
+EVENTS_SCHEMA remains 1; clients that ignore optional fields remain compatible.
+
+The file-reading pet command verifies the recorded process identity through the
+shared liveness contract and treats missing/unconfirmed evidence as unavailable.
+Recovery uses the existing lock/runner read path; unknown is never absent and
+navigation grants no permission or mutation authority. Built-in characters and the dashboard projection use the same structural
+privacy boundary described below.
+
+Built-in text-frame characters are literal data, not user files or runtime image
+loads. Presentation config admits only known ids/sizes/glyph modes, never paths
+or arbitrary glyph bodies. Character cycling emits no workflow effects. Larger
+frames carry only structural need ids/counts and exclude source/notice prose;
+private task and approval details remain in their existing operator views.
+
+The optional dashboard attention input contains only structural task ids, states,
+owner/reviewer ids, approval ids and numeric times, peer delivery states and
+budget pause times. It is assembled from the same allowlisted input as status;
+task text, plans, approval prose, error text and paths are excluded. This input
+is supplied only inside console-authorized dashboard snapshots, never ordinary
+status replies or status.json. The pet creates trusted inline SVG pixel nodes
+from built-in literal frames with existing theme colours, without HTML insertion,
+inline handlers, style attributes or external assets. Existing CSP hashing,
+headers, origin and session authorization remain in force. Clicking scrolls and
+focuses only; it cannot grant permissions or invoke a mutation.
+
+
+## Hub-owned structured memory (#258)
+
+With a project config, native hub memory is enabled unless `memory.native` is
+false. Append-only segments and their derived index stay in the private hub-home
+memory directory, created with 0700 directory permissions. New note segments request mode 0600, and `index.db` receives a best-effort
+0600 chmod. Existing file modes and SQLite-created WAL/shared-memory sidecar
+modes are not a per-file guarantee; the store protects access through its
+explicitly chmodded 0700 parent directory.
+PII-task notes, PII-pattern notes and secret-looking text are refused before
+persistence; promotions are
+screened again. The index can be rebuilt from segments and does not replace the
+separate claude-mem worker database.
+
+Sync starts only after a person configures a remote. Public GitHub remotes are
+refused; unknown visibility proceeds with a warning for the configured remote.
+Short-term segments, machine identity and the derived index are excluded from
+sync. Suggested graph edges are off by default and are not evidence until a
+person confirms them. Operational details and limits: [hub memory](memory.md).