seisin 0.4.2 → 0.5.0

package/src/requests.js

@@ -1,39 +1,41 @@
 /**
- * The queue of permissions an agent asked for and cannot have yet.
+ * The queue of requests: what an agent asked for and cannot have yet.
  *
  * ── Two words, kept apart on purpose ──
- * **Refused** is what the boundary does. **Declined** is what a person does to
+ * **Denied** is what the boundary does. **Declined** is what a person does to
  * a request. They used to be one word in one command: an entry read `first
  * refused on src/api/x.ts` and `seisin deny` answered `refused frontend ✕
  * src/api/**`. One means the kernel said no, the other means you did, and a
  * reader had nothing to tell them apart by.
  *
  * The entry says **asked** now, because refused was not always true. Asking for
- * a permission before reaching for it is reasonable, and nothing required a
+ * a path before reaching for it is reasonable, and nothing required a
  * denial to have happened first — so the queue could print a sentence about an
- * event that never occurred, in front of a person about to approve something.
- * `seisin run` drops any request the policy does not actually refuse; what is
+ * event that never occurred, in front of a person about to grant something.
+ * `seisin run` drops any request the policy does not actually deny; what is
  * left is "you cannot have this, and you asked", which holds whether the agent
  * tried or simply asked.
  *
  * A denial already contains everything a request needs — the hook knows the
- * role, the path and the owner — so the refusal leaves something behind that a
+ * role, the path and the owner — so the denial leaves something behind that a
  * person can act on in one command instead of in an editor. See
- * `docs/permission-requests.md` for why approving is deliberately not something
+ * `docs/permission-requests.md` for why granting is deliberately not something
  * an agent can do.
  *
  * Append-only, beside the log, for the same reason: a decision that can be
- * rewritten is not evidence. A request that is granted or refused is not
+ * rewritten is not evidence. A request that is granted or declined is not
  * deleted — it is followed by a line saying what happened to it.
  */
-import { neverWrites, isGitMetadata, covers } from "./owners.js";
-import { appendFileSync, existsSync, mkdirSync, readFileSync, writeFileSync, renameSync } from "node:fs";
+import { neverWrites, isGitMetadata, covers, keyHolders, inKeyDir } from "./owners.js";
+import { protectedBy } from "./surface.js";
+import { appendFileSync, mkdirSync, readFileSync, statSync, writeFileSync, renameSync, unlinkSync } from "node:fs";
+import { randomBytes } from "node:crypto";
 import { dirname, join } from "node:path";
 import { STATE_DIR, tomlString } from "./layout.js";
 import { send } from "./spool.js";
-import { withLock } from "./log.js";
+import { withLock, readEntries } from "./log.js";
 
-export const REQUESTS_NAME = "requests.jsonl";
+const REQUESTS_NAME = "requests.jsonl";
 
 export function requestsPath(root) {
   return join(root, STATE_DIR, REQUESTS_NAME);
@@ -57,7 +59,6 @@ export function keyOf({ role, action, target }) {
   return `${role}:${action}:${dir}`;
 }
 
-/** The glob a grant would add, derived from what was asked. */
 /**
  * A request's id as one shell word, for the commands seisin suggests.
  *
@@ -69,13 +70,23 @@ export function shellId(key) {
   return `'${String(key).replace(/'/g, `'\\''`)}'`;
 }
 
-export function grantFor({ action, target }) {
+/** The glob a grant would add, derived from what was asked. */
+export function grantFor({ action, target }, keyDir = null) {
   const t = typeof target === "string" ? target : "";
   // A key keeps its directory when it has one. Stripping it turned a request
   // for `shared/api.txt` into a grant of `api.txt`, which settingsFor then
-  // resolves against the FIRST key directory — so the person approves one file
+  // resolves against the FIRST key directory — so the person grants one file
   // and another one of the same name is what gets read.
-  if (action === "read") return t.includes("/") ? t : t.replace(/^.*\//, "");
+  //
+  // Except the first key directory itself, which is exactly the one a bare
+  // name resolves against: `.secrets/stripe.txt` is written `stripe.txt`, the
+  // way every hand-written key is. Granting the long form put two spellings of
+  // one key in the same file.
+  if (action === "read") {
+    const first = keyDir ? String(keyDir).replace(/^\.\/+/, "").replace(/\/+$/, "") : null;
+    if (first && t.startsWith(first + "/") && !t.slice(first.length + 1).includes("/")) return t.slice(first.length + 1);
+    return t.includes("/") ? t : t.replace(/^.*\//, "");
+  }
   const dir = t.split("/").slice(0, -1).join("/");
   return dir ? `${dir}/**` : t;
 }
@@ -84,7 +95,9 @@ function write(file, entry) {
   if (send("requests", entry)) return true;
   try {
     mkdirSync(dirname(file), { recursive: true });
-    appendFileSync(file, JSON.stringify({ at: new Date().toISOString(), ...entry }) + "\n");
+    // The time is this process's, named after the spread so no entry sets it.
+    const now = new Date().toISOString();
+    appendFileSync(file, JSON.stringify({ at: now, ...entry, at: now }) + "\n");
     return true;
   } catch {
     // Same rule as the log: never take the agent down over bookkeeping.
@@ -92,8 +105,27 @@ function write(file, entry) {
   }
 }
 
+/**
+ * Who a read request's key belongs to, from the policy as it is now.
+ *
+ * A key is declared, not owned: nobody writes `.secrets/`, so the owners a
+ * write-territory lookup finds for one are always none, and the queue said
+ * "(unowned)" about a key another role declares — right before a grant that
+ * would share it. Recomputed rather than read from the line, like every other
+ * field that decides what a person is shown.
+ */
+export function withDeclarers(config, queue) {
+  for (const r of queue) {
+    if (r.action !== "read" || typeof r.target !== "string") continue;
+    if (!inKeyDir(config, r.target) && r.target.includes("/")) continue;
+    r.owners = keyHolders(config, r.target);
+    r.declared = true;
+  }
+  return queue;
+}
+
 /** Records that a role asked for something the policy denies it. Safe to call
- *  on every denial; `seisin run` drops anything the policy does not refuse. */
+ *  on every denial; `seisin run` drops anything the policy does not deny. */
 export function record(file, { role, action, target, owners }) {
   return write(file, { kind: "asked", key: keyOf({ role, action, target }), role, action, target, owners: owners ?? [] });
 }
@@ -115,6 +147,9 @@ export function settle(file, key, decision, reason = "") {
  *
  * It exists so that a refusal to run cannot be invisible. Admission may
  * postpone work; it may not make work disappear from the queue a person reads.
+ *
+ * Nothing in src/ calls it today — handoff.js decides but nothing records the
+ * outcome; the tests do, and pending() keeps reading what it writes.
  */
 export function recordHandoff(file, key, decision = {}) {
   const { type, role, limit, max, reason, depth, chainId, revision } = decision;
@@ -135,20 +170,35 @@ export function recordHandoff(file, key, decision = {}) {
  * it was asked and what was decided.
  *
  * Reduced from the whole file rather than kept as state, so the file stays the
- * only thing that has to be correct.
+ * only thing that has to be correct. The reduction is remembered for as long as
+ * the file is unchanged (same inode, size and mtime): the console asks every
+ * two seconds, and re-parsing a 2 MB queue each time to find it had not moved
+ * was most of the cost of asking. Each call gets its own copies, so a caller
+ * marking entries (markStale) cannot mark the next caller's.
  */
-export function pending(file, { includeSettled = false } = {}) {
-  if (!existsSync(file)) return [];
+let reduced = null;   // { file, ino, size, mtimeMs, all }
+
+export function pending(file, { includeSettled = false, keyDirs = null } = {}) {
+  let st;
+  try { st = statSync(file); } catch { return []; }
+  let all;
+  if (reduced && reduced.file === file && reduced.ino === st.ino && reduced.size === st.size && reduced.mtimeMs === st.mtimeMs) {
+    all = reduced.all;
+  } else {
+    all = reduce(file);
+    reduced = { file, ino: st.ino, size: st.size, mtimeMs: st.mtimeMs, all };
+  }
+  // The grant is re-derived with the policy's first key directory when the
+  // caller has one, so a key is proposed in the form hand-written keys use.
+  const first = keyDirs?.[0] ?? null;
+  const copies = all.map((r) => (first && r.action === "read" ? { ...r, grant: grantFor(r, first) } : { ...r }));
+  return includeSettled ? copies : copies.filter((r) => r.state === "pending");
+}
+
+function reduce(file) {
   const byKey = new Map();
 
-  for (const line of readFileSync(file, "utf8").split("\n")) {
-    if (!line.trim()) continue;
-    let e;
-    try {
-      e = JSON.parse(line);
-    } catch {
-      continue; // a half-written line from a killed process is not an error
-    }
+  for (const e of readEntries(file)) {
     if (!e.key) continue;
 
     if (e.kind === "asked") {
@@ -169,7 +219,8 @@ export function pending(file, { includeSettled = false } = {}) {
      *
      * Without this branch the catch-all below would set state = "handoff" and a
      * throttled attempt would drop out of the pending queue — the exact silent
-     * disappearance the attempt is recorded to prevent.
+     * disappearance the attempt is recorded to prevent. (Only the tests write
+     * handoff lines today — see recordHandoff.)
      */
     if (e.kind === "handoff") {
       seen.handoff = {
@@ -182,14 +233,13 @@ export function pending(file, { includeSettled = false } = {}) {
     seen.state = e.kind; seen.reason = e.reason ?? ""; seen.decided = e.at;
   }
 
-  const all = [...byKey.values()];
-  return includeSettled ? all : all.filter((r) => r.state === "pending");
+  return [...byKey.values()];
 }
 
 /**
  * How many runs of the role, after the last time it asked, make a request old.
  *
- * A request is recorded again on every refusal, so one the role still needs
+ * A request is recorded again on every denial, so one the role still needs
  * keeps a fresh `last`. One whose need went away — the work moved somewhere the
  * role may write, or the task ended — stops being asked while the role keeps
  * running. Three runs is enough to say "not since" and few enough that a queue
@@ -233,7 +283,7 @@ export function runsAfter(entries, since, gapMs = RUN_GAP_MS) {
  * reordering would shift the numbers `grant <n>` is typed against while
  * nobody decided anything. The mark says what is true — the role ran N times
  * since and did not ask again — and leaves the rest to whoever reads it.
- * `entries` are log lines (`read(logPath(root))`); `now` is for the tests.
+ * `entries` are log lines (`read(logPath(root))`).
  */
 export function markStale(queue, entries, { runs = STALE_RUNS, gapMs = RUN_GAP_MS } = {}) {
   const byRole = new Map();             // role -> its log lines
@@ -248,35 +298,13 @@ export function markStale(queue, entries, { runs = STALE_RUNS, gapMs = RUN_GAP_M
   return queue;
 }
 
-/**
- * Adds a granted glob to a role in the config text, with its provenance.
- *
- * Edits the text rather than re-emitting the file, because a config someone
- * wrote has comments and an order that mean something, and a tool that
- * reformats it on every grant is a tool people stop letting near it.
- */
-/**
- * Adds a granted glob to a role in the config text, with its provenance.
- *
- * Edits the text rather than re-emitting the file, because a config someone
- * wrote has comments and an order that mean something, and a tool that
- * reformats it on every grant is a tool people stop letting near it.
- *
- * The edit is bounded to the role's own section, and that is not tidiness. The
- * first version searched from the role header to the next `writes =` anywhere
- * in the file, so approving for a role that had no `writes` line wrote the
- * grant into the NEXT role — with a comment saying who it was for. A human
- * approved one thing and the file recorded another. In a permission tool that
- * is the worst possible bug, and it is not exotic: a role with only `keys`
- * declared is an ordinary config.
- */
 /**
  * Refuses a grant that `never_writes` would cancel, before anything is written.
  *
  * A request filed before the subtraction existed can still be in the queue.
- * Approving it would add the path to `writes` and change nothing — denyWrite
+ * Granting it would add the path to `writes` and change nothing — denyWrite
  * wins — so the person would believe they granted something the kernel still
- * refuses. The two keys contradict each other, and which one should win is the
+ * denies. The two settings contradict each other, and which one should win is the
  * decision; seisin will not make it by writing one of them silently.
  */
 export function refuseIfBarred(config, request) {
@@ -288,6 +316,18 @@ export function refuseIfBarred(config, request) {
       `${request.target} is under never_writes of ${request.role} ("${hit}"), which wins over ` +
       `writes. Granting it would change nothing. If the subtraction is wrong, remove that ` +
       `entry from [roles.${request.role}]; otherwise decline this request.`);
+  // A protected file stays denied whatever `writes` says: the kernel is given
+  // it as a deny, and explain answers the same. Granting `web/.vscode/**`
+  // used to add the line and change nothing — a grant that reads as done.
+  const guard = protectedBy(config, request.target, { role: request.role });
+  if (guard)
+    throw new Error(guard.family
+      ? `${request.target} is protected (${guard.why}). A grant cannot open it: ${request.role} ` +
+        `writes it only if the policy hands it the family, control_files = ["${guard.family}"] ` +
+        `under [roles.${request.role}], inside its own territory. Edit the policy if that is ` +
+        `what you mean; otherwise decline this request.`
+      : `${request.target} is protected (${guard.why}) and no role can ever be granted it. ` +
+        `Decline this request.`);
   // Only a repository the role does not write: its own `.git` is its own business.
   if (isGitMetadata(request.target) && !(role?.writes ?? []).some((g) => covers(g, request.target)))
     throw new Error(
@@ -307,20 +347,81 @@ export function refuseIfBarred(config, request) {
  * so a crash mid-write cannot leave a half-written, partly-privileged policy.
  *
  * `mutate(toml)` returns `{ toml, changed }`. Nothing is written when unchanged.
+ * `after(result)` runs once the file is written, still under the lock — for
+ * the queue line that records the decision, so a decision and its edit are
+ * one step to anyone else taking this lock.
  */
-export function editPolicy(config, mutate, { waitMs = 10000 } = {}) {
-  return withLock(config.path, () => {
+export function editPolicy(config, mutate, { waitMs = 10000, after = null } = {}) {
+  return withLock(policyLockBase(config), () => {
     const before = readFileSync(config.path, "utf8");
     const result = mutate(before);
-    if (result.changed) {
-      const tmp = `${config.path}.tmp-${process.pid}`;
-      writeFileSync(tmp, result.toml);
-      renameSync(tmp, config.path);
-    }
+    if (result.changed) writePolicy(config, result.toml);
+    after?.(result);
     return result;
   }, { waitMs });
 }
 
+/**
+ * Where the policy's lock lives: inside `.seisin/`, never beside the policy.
+ *
+ * It was `seisin.toml.lock`, next to the file. Any role that writes the repo
+ * root — every `--observe` run, any `writes = ["**"]` — could create that name
+ * holding a live pid and hold up every grant and every decline for as long as
+ * it liked. `.seisin/` is denied to every role (surface.js, parentInputs), so
+ * nothing confined can hold this one. withLock adds the `.lock`.
+ */
+export function policyLockBase(config) {
+  const dir = join(config.root, STATE_DIR);
+  mkdirSync(dir, { recursive: true });
+  return join(dir, "policy");
+}
+
+/**
+ * Write the policy through a temp file that nobody could have prepared.
+ *
+ * The temp was `seisin.toml.tmp-<pid>` beside the policy: a predictable name,
+ * in a directory roles can write, opened by writeFileSync — which follows a
+ * symlink. A role could plant that name as a link into its own territory, and
+ * the next grant made the policy itself a symlink the role could rewrite.
+ * Now the temp sits in `.seisin/`, has a random name, and is opened with `wx`
+ * (O_CREAT|O_EXCL), which refuses anything already there, a link included.
+ *
+ * A `.seisin/` on another filesystem (a symlink a person made) cannot be
+ * renamed across; then the temp goes beside the policy, still random and still
+ * exclusive, which is what defeats a planted name.
+ */
+function writePolicy(config, text) {
+  const name = `seisin.toml.tmp-${randomBytes(12).toString("hex")}`;
+  const stateTmp = join(config.root, STATE_DIR, name);
+  writeFileSync(stateTmp, text, { flag: "wx" });
+  try {
+    renameSync(stateTmp, config.path);
+    return;
+  } catch (e) {
+    try { unlinkSync(stateTmp); } catch {}
+    if (e.code !== "EXDEV") throw e;
+  }
+  const near = join(dirname(config.path), `.${name}`);
+  writeFileSync(near, text, { flag: "wx" });
+  try { renameSync(near, config.path); }
+  catch (e) { try { unlinkSync(near); } catch {} throw e; }
+}
+
+/**
+ * Adds a granted glob to a role in the config text, with its provenance.
+ *
+ * Edits the text rather than re-emitting the file, because a config someone
+ * wrote has comments and an order that mean something, and a tool that
+ * reformats it on every grant is a tool people stop letting near it.
+ *
+ * The edit is bounded to the role's own section, and that is not tidiness. The
+ * first version searched from the role header to the next `writes =` anywhere
+ * in the file, so granting for a role that had no `writes` line wrote the
+ * grant into the NEXT role — with a comment saying who it was for. A person
+ * granted one thing and the file recorded another. In a permission layer that
+ * is the worst possible bug, and it is not exotic: a role with only `keys`
+ * declared is an ordinary config.
+ */
 export function applyGrant(toml, request, note = "") {
   const field = request.action === "read" ? "keys" : "writes";
   const header = new RegExp(`^\\[roles\\.${escapeRe(request.role)}\\]\\s*$`, "m");
@@ -337,13 +438,13 @@ export function applyGrant(toml, request, note = "") {
   if (!open)
     throw new Error(
       `[roles.${request.role}] has no ${field} list to grant into. ` +
-      `Add \`${field} = []\` to that section first — seisin will not write it into another role's block.`
+      `Add \`${field} = []\` to that section first — seisin will not write it into another role's table.`
     );
 
   // The subset has no escapes, so a value carrying a quote or a newline cannot
   // be written down at all. The strict parser would reject the result rather
   // than widen anything — but leaving someone with a config that no longer
-  // loads, after they approved something, is its own kind of broken.
+  // loads, after they granted something, is its own kind of broken.
   tomlString(request.grant);   // refuses what the format cannot hold
 
   const start = open.index + open[0].length;
@@ -355,9 +456,9 @@ export function applyGrant(toml, request, note = "") {
    *
    * The list used to be re-written from every quoted string between its
    * brackets — comments included. `"src/web/**",  # was "src/**"` came back as
-   * two grants, so approving anything also granted what a comment mentioned,
-   * and the reason an approver typed (quoted in the provenance comment) became
-   * a path on the next approval. Every earlier provenance comment was lost on
+   * two grants, so granting anything also granted what a comment mentioned,
+   * and the reason a person typed (quoted in the provenance comment) became
+   * a path on the next grant. Every earlier provenance comment was lost on
    * the way. Now the items are the strings outside comments, what is there is
    * left as it is, and the new entry goes last. The reason is set off with
    * «», never a double quote, so no older reader can take it for a value.
@@ -401,14 +502,14 @@ function scanList(text, start) {
 }
 
 /**
- * The approver's own words, made safe to put in a config file.
+ * The reason a person typed, made safe to put in a config file.
  *
  * A reason is free text typed by a person, and a person can be talked into
  * typing something — "paste this as the reason" is a plausible thing for an
  * agent to suggest. Newlines in a comment would end the comment, and what
  * follows is parsed as TOML. The strict parser rejects the result rather than
  * widening anything, so the worst case is a config that no longer loads, but a
- * permission file that can be broken by a sentence is still broken.
+ * policy that can be broken by a sentence is still broken.
  */
 export function cleanReason(s) {
   return String(s ?? "")

package/src/review.js

@@ -9,13 +9,13 @@
  *
  * Three questions, and the second is the one nothing else can answer.
  *
- *   1. What is a role being stopped by, over and over?
+ *   1. What is a role being denied, over and over?
  *      Forty denials on one directory is not an agent misbehaving. It is a
  *      policy that is wrong, and today it reads as forty tidy amber lines
  *      nobody adds up.
  *
  *   2. What was granted and never used?
- *      Every permission file only ever grows, everywhere, and the reason is
+ *      Every allowlist only ever grows, everywhere, and the reason is
  *      always the same: nobody can prove a line is dead, so the safe move is to
  *      leave it. Here the log can prove it. This is the only direction that
  *      makes a policy smaller.
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@
  */
 import { read, logPath } from "./log.js";
 import { covers, standingOf } from "./owners.js";
+import { kindsOf } from "./kinds.js";
 
 /**
  * One reading of the log against the policy.
@@ -103,11 +104,11 @@ function findings(config, entries, minDenials) {
    * that refusal is the whole of the second finding.
    *
    * "Never used" is read off `allowed` lines, and **only the hook writes those**.
-   * The kernel reports what it refused; it has nothing to say about what went
+   * The kernel reports what it denied; it has nothing to say about what went
    * through. So a log with no hook behind it holds denials and nothing else,
    * every grant falls through as unused, and this section reports that the whole
    * policy is dead — under a heading calling itself the only evidence anyone
-   * will ever have for making a permission file smaller.
+   * will ever have for making a policy smaller.
    *
    * Measured on a real repository with the hook not installed: every write
    * permission of every role listed as never used, while those roles were
@@ -128,15 +129,21 @@ function findings(config, entries, minDenials) {
   const knowable = entries.some((e) => e.verdict === "allowed" && !e.disputed);
 
   // Only writes. A key that is declared and not read is ordinary — most roles
-  // hold a credential for the one turn a month that needs it — but a folder a
+  // hold a credential for the one run a month that needs it — but a folder a
   // role owns and has never written to in the whole log is a line nobody would
   // miss, and the only evidence anyone will ever have for removing it.
+  // Straight to the line's own role, and each (role, target) once: walking
+  // every role's globs for every line to keep only one role's was the cost.
   const used = new Set();
+  const seen = new Set();
   for (const e of entries) {
     if (e.verdict !== "allowed" || e.disputed || e.action !== "write" || !e.target) continue;
-    for (const role of Object.values(config.roles))
-      for (const glob of role.writes)
-        if (role.name === e.role && covers(glob, e.target)) used.add(`${role.name} ${glob}`);
+    if (!Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(config.roles, e.role)) continue;
+    const k = `${e.role}\u0000${e.target}`;
+    if (seen.has(k)) continue;
+    seen.add(k);
+    for (const glob of config.roles[e.role].writes)
+      if (covers(glob, e.target)) used.add(`${e.role} ${glob}`);
   }
 
   const unused = [];
@@ -153,13 +160,21 @@ function findings(config, entries, minDenials) {
   // the repository is outside every territory: none of them is a hole in the
   // map. This used to skip keys and ports and count the rest, protected ones
   // included, while the console counted all four — one word, two numbers.
-  const unowned = new Map();
+  //
+  // Each row also says what kind of thing it is (kinds.js), by directory and
+  // kind together: `.git` holding a lock and a folder holding a source file
+  // are different answers, and only `territory` is a hole somebody has to fill.
   const standOf = standingOf(config);
-  for (const e of entries) {
-    if (!e.target) continue;
-    if (standOf(e).kind !== "unowned") continue;
-    const dir = dirOf(e.target);
-    unowned.set(dir, (unowned.get(dir) ?? 0) + 1);
+  const loose = entries.filter((e) => e.target && standOf(e).kind === "unowned");
+  const natures = kindsOf(loose.map((e) => e.target), { keyDirs: config.keyDirs ?? [] });
+  const unowned = new Map();
+  for (const e of loose) {
+    const { kind, hint } = natures.get(e.target);
+    const where = dirOf(e.target);
+    const k = `${kind}\u0000${where}`;
+    const row = unowned.get(k) ?? { where, times: 0, kind, hint };
+    row.times++;
+    unowned.set(k, row);
   }
 
   return {
@@ -168,9 +183,7 @@ function findings(config, entries, minDenials) {
     connects,
     unused,
     unusedKnowable: knowable,
-    unowned: [...unowned.entries()]
-      .map(([where, times]) => ({ where, times }))
-      .sort((a, b) => b.times - a.times),
+    unowned: [...unowned.values()].sort((a, b) => b.times - a.times),
   };
 }
 

package/src/rundir.js

@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ import { tmpdir } from "node:os";
 import { randomUUID } from "node:crypto";
 import { realOrSelf } from "./grants.js";
 import { channelName } from "./spool.js";
+import { alive } from "./log.js";
 
 export const RUNS_NAME = "snr";
 
@@ -48,11 +49,6 @@ export function runsRoot(base = tmpdir()) {
   return root;
 }
 
-/** Is the process that owns a run directory still alive? */
-function alive(pid) {
-  try { process.kill(pid, 0); return true; } catch (e) { return e.code === "EPERM"; }
-}
-
 /**
  * Removes the directories of runs whose process is gone.
  *
@@ -66,6 +62,8 @@ function sweep(root) {
     const dir = join(root, name);
     let pid;
     try { pid = Number(readFileSync(join(dir, "pid"), "utf8")); } catch { continue; }
+    // Only a process the kernel says is gone: a directory kept one sweep too
+    // long costs disk, one removed early takes a live run's socket and keys.
     if (pid && !alive(pid)) rmSync(dir, { recursive: true, force: true });
   }
 }
@@ -87,7 +85,7 @@ export function openRun({ base = tmpdir(), id = randomUUID() } = {}) {
     dir,
     root,
     // A socket on macOS, a FIFO on Linux, where the runtime blocks every unix
-    // socket inside the box (spool.js).
+    // socket inside the sandbox (spool.js).
     sock: join(dir, channelName()),
     keys: join(dir, "keys"),
     /**