## Thinking Path
> - Paperclip is the open source app people use to manage AI agents for
work.
> - Managed worktree services run isolated Paperclip instances with
cloned databases.
> - A reachable service was reported as ready even when its database,
runtime identity, or login path was not usable.
> - The first candidate added verified database seeding and managed
repair in #11665.
> - This pull request consolidates that candidate with signed login
handoff and a complete readiness contract.
> - Post-QA fixes close five defects in repair identity, repair
responses, UI retry, seed journal handling, and seed-source trust.
> - The benefit is a workspace that either opens safely or reports one
accurate recovery action.
## Linked Issues or Issue Description
No public GitHub issue exists for this work, so the problem is described
here.
**What happened**
Managed workspace URLs could return HTTP 200 and report ready while
login failed. QA also found cases where repair used the wrong instance
identity, returned a generic error, left the UI stuck, rejected a safe
journal lag, or trusted a mutable workspace manifest.
**Expected behavior**
Opening a ready workspace signs the board user in to the correct
isolated instance. Provisioning and repair use a registered source and
report a structured recovery state.
**Actual behavior**
Entry depended on a password copied into the clone. Several failure
paths could publish stale readiness, hide the repair precondition, or
trust state that the workspace could modify.
**Additional context**
This pull request includes the commits first published in #11665. That
pull request keeps the original base head for review history. This
consolidated pull request is the merge candidate. Related open readiness
work includes #11575 and #11621.
## What Changed
- Adds a short-lived, signed, single-use login ticket. It binds the
user, workspace, instance, and runtime origin.
- Exchanges the ticket through Better Auth. It creates the session and
cookie through the supported adapter path.
- Adds protected workspace readiness fields for the database, clone
data, login handoff, seed phase, and runtime identity.
- Fails readiness closed when the guest has no company or
execution-workspace binding.
- Binds ticket issuance to the exact cloned user and active company
membership selected for the handoff.
- Verifies every current active board identity through the exact-user
handoff before publication or reuse.
- Gates managed runtime publication on the readiness contract and the
recorded worktree instance identity.
- Refreshes runtime work products from the live runtime row after a port
change.
- Adds one workspace access card with ready, degraded, repairing, and
failed states.
- Uses the runtime response identity for repair. It returns structured
repair precondition errors.
- Lets a valid source journal lag converge during provisioning.
- Binds seed and repair manifests to a source registered outside the
agent-writable worktree.
- Clears recovered UI errors so a successful retry can open the
workspace.
- Makes runtime tests register canonical sources and avoid ports owned
by live host listeners.
- Keeps Vitest on source suites when compiled `dist` trees exist.
- Isolates CLI and adapter tests from ambient AWS and runtime API
environment variables.
- Preserves a 404 response for cross-company workspace ID lookups before
runtime authorization.
- Makes concurrent single-flight coverage independent of
path-canonicalization scheduling order.
## Verification
The following checks passed on the integrated head:
```sh
pnpm -r typecheck
pnpm build
pnpm check:token-gates
pnpm --filter @paperclipai/db check:migrations
```
- The server source lane passed 420 files and 4,953 tests. Five tests
were skipped.
- The CLI lane passed 57 files and 385 tests.
- The database lane passed 26 files and 97 tests.
- The shared package passed 58 files and 506 tests.
- The adapter utility lane passed 640 tests. Four tests were skipped.
- The Claude adapter passed 220 tests. One test was skipped.
- The Codex adapter passed 323 tests.
- The OpenClaw adapter passed 13 tests.
- The OpenCode adapter passed 42 tests.
- The plugin SDK passed 45 tests.
- The workspace runtime suite passed 124 tests.
- The caller-scoped readiness and handoff suite passed 52 tests.
- The workspace provisioning shell suite passed 7 tests.
- The runtime exposure suite passed 17 tests while live host mappings
occupied fixed test ports.
- `git diff --check` passed and the worktree is clean.
The serialized route lane will run in GitHub CI with its normal shards.
No deployment or active-workspace migration was performed.
## Risks
- This is a medium-risk authentication and runtime-readiness change.
- The login ticket uses exact origin, workspace, instance, and user
binding. It has a short expiry and a one-time nonce.
- Runtime publication is stricter. A real readiness, identity, per-user
handoff, or control-plane database disagreement now blocks publication.
- This pull request supersedes #11665 as the merge candidate. Close
#11665 after this pull request merges.
- No new database migration is included. The lockfile and workflow files
are unchanged.
- Deployment and active-workspace migration are intentionally outside
this pull request.
> For core feature work, check [`ROADMAP.md`](ROADMAP.md) first and
discuss it in `#dev` before opening the PR. Feature PRs that overlap
with planned core work may need to be redirected — check the roadmap
first. See `CONTRIBUTING.md`.
## Model Used
Claude Opus 5 (`claude-opus-5[1m]`), 1M context, extended thinking, tool
use, and code execution produced the main candidate. OpenAI GPT-5
(`gpt-5`) through Codex, with agentic reasoning, tool use, and code
execution, integrated the post-QA fixes and hardened the test gates. The
Codex context-window size was not exposed.
## Checklist
- [x] I have included a thinking path that traces from project context
to this change
- [x] I have specified the model used (with version and capability
details)
- [x] I have checked ROADMAP.md and confirmed this PR does not duplicate
planned core work
- [x] I have searched GitHub for duplicate or related PRs and linked
them above
- [x] I have either (a) linked existing issues with `Fixes: #` / `Closes
#` / `Refs #` OR (b) described the issue in-PR following the relevant
issue template
- [x] I have not referenced internal/instance-local Paperclip issues or
links (only public GitHub `#NNN` / `github.com/paperclipai/paperclip`
URLs)
- [x] My branch name describes the change (e.g. `docs/...`, `fix/...`)
and contains no internal Paperclip ticket id or instance-derived details
- [x] I have run tests locally and they pass
- [x] I have added or updated tests where applicable
- [x] I have updated relevant documentation to reflect my changes
- [x] I have considered and documented any risks above
- [x] All Paperclip CI gates are green
- [x] Greptile is 5/5 with no open P2s, recommendations, or follow-ups
- [x] I will address all Greptile and reviewer comments before
requesting merge
---------
Co-authored-by: Paperclip <noreply@paperclip.ing>
## Thinking Path
> - Paperclip is the open source app people use to manage AI agents for
work.
> - Isolated workspaces give each task a safe and reproducible checkout.
> - The existing setup cloned the development database before an agent
needed to run the app.
> - This made worktree creation slower and heavier for tasks that never
start a service.
> - Runtime services already use one server start path for heartbeat,
operator, and startup recovery flows.
> - This pull request moves heavy setup to that start path and keeps
worktree creation lean.
> - The benefit is faster isolated workspace creation with the same
reliable runtime setup when a service starts.
## Linked Issues or Issue Description
Related pull request: #10652 covers the initial deferred
database-seeding slice. This pull request supersedes it with end-to-end
runtime provisioning and safe cleanup.
**What existing behavior does this improve?**
This improves isolated worktree creation, runtime service startup, and
isolated instance cleanup.
**Subsystem affected**
Cross-cutting: CLI worktree setup, server runtime orchestration, shared
workspace contracts, and development scripts.
**Current behavior**
Paperclip seeds an isolated development database during worktree
creation. It can also leave an isolated instance directory after
workspace teardown. This work happens even when no runtime service
starts.
**Proposed behavior**
Paperclip creates the worktree with a lean eager setup. It runs an
idempotent runtime provision command before the first managed service
spawn. Concurrent starts share one provision attempt. Teardown removes
the isolated instance safely.
**Reason and benefit**
Many agent tasks only edit and test code. They do not need a running
Paperclip instance. Deferring the database seed reduces workspace
startup cost while preserving automatic setup for tasks that start the
app.
**Breaking changes**
None. The new runtime provision command is optional. Existing workspace
behavior is unchanged when it is absent.
## What Changed
- Split Paperclip worktree setup into a lean eager script and an
idempotent runtime provision script.
- Added `runtimeProvisionCommand` to project, issue, realized workspace,
and persisted workspace contracts.
- Added a per-workspace provision mutex before local service spawn for
heartbeat, operator, and startup recovery flows.
- Added a persisted `provisioning` service state and the
`workspace_runtime_provision` operation phase.
- Kept provision time outside the service readiness timeout and made
failed attempts visible and retryable.
- Reclaimed isolated instance data during safe workspace teardown.
- Serialized deferred database seeding across processes and bound
teardown to the instance root captured in persisted workspace metadata.
- Added tests for config flow, concurrency, retry, no-op behavior,
readiness timing, scripts, CLI commands, and cleanup.
- Documented the eager and runtime provisioning contracts.
## Verification
- `pnpm -r typecheck`
- `pnpm build`
- `pnpm test:run` (server: 3,201 passed; UI: 3,345 passed; the CLI phase
exposed one environment-sensitive AWS doctor assertion because the agent
runtime injects static AWS credentials)
- `env -u AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID -u AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY pnpm exec vitest
run cli/src/__tests__/secrets.test.ts -t 'passes AWS doctor checks when
non-secret provider config is present'`
- Focused runtime tests cover serialized provisioning, retry after
stderr failure, absent-command no-op behavior, operation logging,
persisted state order, and readiness timeout exclusion.
- Focused CLI and cleanup tests cover concurrent seed serialization,
stale-lock fail-closed behavior, persisted instance ownership, and
rewritten sibling pointers.
## Risks
- A faulty runtime provision script blocks service startup. Paperclip
records stderr, marks the service failed, and retries on the next start.
- Concurrent service requests share an in-process provision attempt,
while the seed command uses an atomic filesystem lock across processes.
A stale lock fails closed and requires an operator to verify no seed is
running before removing it.
- Isolated instance cleanup is destructive. The cleanup service
validates ownership and path containment before removal.
> For core feature work, check [`ROADMAP.md`](ROADMAP.md) first and
discuss it in `#dev` before opening the PR. Feature PRs that overlap
with planned core work may need to be redirected — check the roadmap
first. See `CONTRIBUTING.md`.
## Model Used
- OpenAI Codex, `gpt-5.6-sol`, with agentic reasoning, tool use, and
code execution. The service does not expose the context-window size.
## Checklist
- [x] I have included a thinking path that traces from project context
to this change
- [x] I have specified the model used (with version and capability
details)
- [x] I have checked ROADMAP.md and confirmed this PR does not duplicate
planned core work
- [x] I have searched GitHub for duplicate or related PRs and linked
them above
- [x] I have either (a) linked existing issues with `Fixes: #` / `Closes
#` / `Refs #` OR (b) described the issue in-PR following the relevant
issue template
- [x] I have not referenced internal/instance-local Paperclip issues or
links (only public GitHub `#NNN` / `github.com/paperclipai/paperclip`
URLs)
- [x] My branch name describes the change (e.g. `docs/...`, `fix/...`)
and contains no internal Paperclip ticket id or instance-derived details
- [x] I have run tests locally and they pass
- [x] I have added or updated tests where applicable
- [x] I have updated relevant documentation to reflect my changes
- [x] I have considered and documented any risks above
- [x] All Paperclip CI gates are green
- [x] Greptile is 5/5 with no open P2s, recommendations, or follow-ups
- [x] I will address all Greptile and reviewer comments before
requesting merge
---------
Co-authored-by: Paperclip <noreply@paperclip.ing>
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Dotta