## Thinking Path
> - Paperclip is the open source app people use to manage AI agents for
work.
> - Native sessions keep a provider process and its work alive across
control-plane operations.
> - A hidden 15-minute turn deadline stopped work even when the agent
timeout was zero.
> - A one-hour runner lifetime and fixed connection lease added two more
limits.
> - Recovery also rejected goal commands because it reconstructed their
startup summary with the wrong protocol version.
> - This pull request removes implicit duration limits and renews
authenticated leases in the harness.
> - Healthy sessions can continue without model action or a user
interface change.
## Linked Issues or Issue Description
Refs #13092 and #12845. Related: #13163 covers sandbox recovery after
app restarts; this change covers session duration and lease renewal.
**What happened?**
A native Codex session stopped after 15 minutes while a tool was still
running. The agent had `timeoutSec: 0`. Recovery then rejected a
`session.goal.get` startup command with `invalid provider startup
ownership fence`.
**Expected behavior**
An unlimited session keeps working while its provider and authenticated
controller remain healthy. Lease maintenance is transparent. Explicit
timeouts, cancellation and revoked authority still take effect.
**Steps to reproduce**
Start a native session with `timeoutSec: 0` and run a tool beyond 15
minutes. Before this fix, the runtime cancels the turn. A recovery
startup that uses a goal command also exposes the protocol-version
mismatch.
## What Changed
- Honor the agent turn timeout. Zero disables the timer. Long explicit
durations use timer chunks to avoid Node timer overflow.
- Default native runner lifetime to unlimited. Keep bounded startup,
reconnect and control-operation deadlines.
- Renew leases over the authenticated connection. Persist renewal before
the reply. Validate identity, epoch and expiry. Handle duplicate
requests and a lost reply on reconnect.
- Freeze renewal during warm ownership transitions and terminal
handling.
- Validate persisted goal startup commands with protocol v2.
- Add duration, renewal, ownership, recovery and real-process regression
tests. Update runner protocol and recovery docs.
- Add no UI components or controls. Renewal requires no model output or
user action.
## Verification
Current head: `348e369c35c5da8bb8be378f4b35dcf6f40882e7`. [CI
run](https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip/actions/runs/34649767113).
- All 32 checks pass on this head. The two Storybook checks are skipped
as expected. CI includes full build, typecheck, runner verification,
browser suites, server tests and the canary package dry run.
- Greptile reports 5/5 on this head. All review threads are resolved,
and the security scan passes.
- Passed `pnpm -r typecheck` and `pnpm build` locally.
- Passed 219 native-runtime and controller tests, including fake-clock
tests for three weeks of renewal and 30-day explicit timeouts. Six
denial tests confirm that renewal cannot extend expired, revoked or
mismatched authority.
- Passed 337 executor, cancellation and restart-recovery tests, plus 278
Rust runner-core library tests.
- Passed a real runner with a silent fake Codex provider across its
original lease expiry. Runner PID, provider PID, thread and active turn
stayed unchanged. Warm-attach recovery tests also pass.
- Passed all 83 plugin-worker tests and 159 of 161 workspace-runtime
tests locally. The two remaining assertions passed with a canonical
macOS temporary directory, as did the changed runtime fixture. The full
affected server shard passes in CI.
- An unchanged GitHub callback-ordering test failed once in CI, passed
locally in isolation, and passed its one test-shard retry. The final CI
summary is successful.
- The full local `pnpm test:run` sweep was interrupted after dependency
setup failures and load-related timeouts. Identified failing suites
passed in isolated reruns after the dependency repair. The complete test
matrix passed remotely in CI.
## Risks
- Deploy the controller and runner together to enable renewal. Older
peers keep their existing bounded lease behavior.
- Unlimited runtime permits long resource use until completion, explicit
cancellation, configured timeout or loss of valid authority.
- Lease renewal changes authenticated protocol handling. Regression
tests cover stale, revoked and mismatched authority, lost replies and
warm handoff behavior.
- Simulated multi-week tests and a real lease-boundary test do not
constitute a weeks-long production soak.
## Model Used
OpenAI GPT-6 through Codex, with repository inspection, code execution
and TypeScript/Rust test tools. The exact backend revision and
context-window size are not exposed in this session.
## 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 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>
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